March 3, 2024: Message: Delayed but Not Defeated | Scripture: Ezra 4:6-23 | Speaker: Pastor Stephen Choy
Worship Songs: Here Is Love; Turn Your Eyes; Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Full Manuscript
Introduction
If able, please stand as I read to you from Ezra 4:6-23. TWoL: 6 And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. 7 In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated. 8 Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows: 9 Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates, the judges, the governors, the officials, the Persians, the men of Erech, the Babylonians, the men of Susa, that is, the Elamites, 10 and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River. 11 (This is a copy of the letter that they sent.) “To Artaxerxes the king: Your servants, the men of the province Beyond the River, send greeting. And now 12 be it known to the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. 13 Now be it known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired. 14 Now because we eat the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the king’s dishonor, therefore we send and inform the king, 15 in order that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers. You will find in the book of the records and learn that this city is a rebellious city, hurtful to kings and provinces, and that sedition was stirred up in it from of old. That was why this city was laid waste. 16 We make known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls finished, you will then have no possession in the province Beyond the River.” 17 The king sent an answer: “To Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe and the rest of their associates who live in Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River, greeting. And now 18 the letter that you sent to us has been plainly read before me. 19 And I made a decree, and search has been made, and it has been found that this city from of old has risen against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made in it. 20 And mighty kings have been over Jerusalem, who ruled over the whole province Beyond the River, to whom tribute, custom, and toll were paid. 21 Therefore make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not rebuilt, until a decree is made by me. 22 And take care not to be slack in this matter. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?” 23 Then, when the copy of King Artaxerxes’ letter was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their associates, they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease.
One of my great loves in academic writing is footnoting. I love doing my footnotes almost more than I love writing the paper itself. In fact, I will usually pause in the middle of a sentence, paragraph, or thought, in order to make sure I have my footnote rightly placed, rightly formatted according to my preferred citation style, that is, Turabian, which I find superior to Chicago, and rightly detailed with any additional information that doesn’t belong in the main body of my paper—a parenthetical footnote, if you will.
It’s these parenthetical footnotes that I love especially—the ones with the extra, golden flecks of information. Some of the best things I’ve gleaned from other peoples’ works has come from parenthetical footnotes. And yet, I hope all of us know—the thing I have to constantly remind myself when it comes to footnoting—is that if I care more about the footnotes than the actual main portion of my or anyone else’s paper, then one of two things is happening: either the author is writing/has written his paper wrongly, or, more likely, I’m doing or focusing on the wrong thing.
See, a footnote or a parenthesis can give us some really good, interesting information, but footnotes and parenthesis are never meant to be the most important bits. No, they’re concessions or side points that are meant to aid our understanding of the main point. To put it another way, a good parenthesis or footnote helps us better anticipate the main point.
And our passage today is much like this. It’s a parenthetical footnote. It’s not the main point, but it’s meant to turn our eyes to the main point and to do so with greater anticipation. It’s to help us long for what the people of God are meant to experience, namely, deliverance, hope, love, joy. They’re meant to experience glory. But before that glory comes, as we live out the Christian life in this world, God means to provide us with a footnote—a parenthesis. He means to test our resolve and faith in him sometimes through suffering so that we might not miss the greatest prize when he presents himself to us.
We’re to suffer the parenthesis now so that our hope—our joy—our anticipation might be in the glory that is to come, and we’re to do it in a particular way. We’re not meant to suffer in self-pity, but with eyes and hearts that are hopeful, striving not to waste the opportunity to know our God more deeply and walk with him more closely than we did before. Our text helps us unpack how we’re to suffer in this way by telling us, firstly, to …
1) Weigh the Insecurity of the Parenthesis
Last week, we uncovered the main ways that the people of God suffered and are still suffering to this day, namely, that persecution is typically not physical. On most days, we aren’t going to be waging war or having to deal with bodily attacks for our faith. Sure, we may be attacked and come under physical threat from time to time—some of us may lose our lives for it. However, the main way the world will seek to oppose us is by discouraging us, terrifying us, and using every means they can to frustrate and break us—to discredit our testimony and prove to themselves that, because we faulter, God himself is untrustworthy—that he can’t really change us, thus he shouldn’t be believed.
And we finished in verse 5 seeing how this kind of persecution in Israel persisted throughout the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia, over the Jews, beginning in 539 B.C., until king Darius takes over around 522/521 B.C. In fact, as we will find out in Ezra 4:24, this persistent persecution was so bad that the Israelites had to stop building the temple. To put it into perspective, they started to build around early 537 B.C. (second month of the second year of Cyrus’ reign), and sometime in that same year they had to stop until the second year of king Darius’ reign in 521/520 B.C. That’s almost two decades of persecution, and even after all that, Israel wouldn’t complete the temple’s reconstruction until 518 B.C.
Perhaps, here, we would be tempted to think, “now the problems of Judah are over. Twenty years of suffering after just coming back from 70 years of captivity and exile was enough.” But I guess the phrase, “no rest for the weary” holds very true for the Jews because their temple troubles weren’t the end to their persecution. No, with more temple comes more problems because now you’ve got to establish the city, build the walls, do your upkeep, and what the author of Ezra wants us to know with particular emphasis is that even though these Jews were geographically back in Judah, out of exile, and though they completed the temple under Darius, being the people of God was never going to be easy again.
For those of us who aren’t as familiar with the book of Ezra, here in chapter 4, our author takes a break from the chronological events of Israel, and he jumps forward in time, before telling us how things transpire under king Darius. In fact, he jumps forward multiple times. The first jump is almost 40 years in the future from when they began laying the foundation of the temple, and we’re told there that in the reign of Ahasuerus, these persecutors—the same group of people who attempted to block the Jews from building the temple under Cyrus—they accuse the Jews of something.
Now, we don’t know exactly what the accusation was, but we can get a pretty good idea of what people in Persia thought of the Jews during that time. Why? Because Ahasuerus is the proper name for the king we know in the book of Esther as Xerxes. Hopefully, most of us know about the events in Esther, but it’s important to remind you of the antagonist in that book, Haman, who is described in Esther 3:10 as the enemy of the Jews.
And in Esther 3:8-9, Haman, who is motivated by his jealousy and anger towards Jews—and in particular, towards one Jew, Mordecai, the uncle of Esther—goes to Xerxes, where he says, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed.”
Does this not sound familiar to us? It’s almost exactly what the Samaritans—those who are persecuting the Jews—say in our passage under the next king Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, which is another 40 years in the future—80 years removed from their initial complaints under Cyrus and they’re still saying the same thing. What are they saying? They’re accusing the Jews of being unprofitable to the Persian throne: they won’t pay their taxes.
And we know this to be absurd. Why? Because by the time of Artaxerxes, the Jews have had the temple for 80 years. They’ve been making their sacrifices, giving their offerings there, but there is no evidence to suggest that they weren’t also model citizens within the Persian empire. It was more than likely that they were paying their taxes and carrying out their civic duties. What makes these people think that repairing the foundation or building the wall will change that?
Yet, secondly, the Samaritans argue that, even if the Jews pay the taxes, they will bring dishonour to the king. Now, we have to read their words carefully because when we do, we’ll see that these Samaritans have no concern for the king’s honour at all. They say, “We eat the salt of the palace,” which really means that they think they’re important to the king—that they have a close relationship with him, and because they have a close relationship, they say, “it’s not fitting for us to witness the king’s dishonour.”
In other words, they’re not so bothered about the king’s honour but about their own. They don’t like that these Israelites aren’t paying more attention to them, like they would the king—that the Jews aren’t more inclusive of them, submissive to them, or afraid of them because, in their eyes, these Samaritans deserve to be feared and revered.
And if neither of those accusations work, then, of course, there’s the issue that Israel will rebel. They have a history of rebellion against Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. Let’s ignore their current cooperativeness. Let’s ignore the fact that most of its population has been wiped out. Let’s ignore the fact that they’ve been stand-up citizens since returning to Judah. Can’t you, king Artaxerxes, see that they’re a dangerous people?
You know what this all stinks of? It stinks of lies. It stinks of exaggeration and conniving. It stinks of envy and self-importance. It stinks of political maneuvering and flattery. It stinks of a deep and abiding insecurity—an insecurity that these Jews will receive something better than what the Samaritans think they should get—that Israel’s position will be held in higher esteem than how the Samaritans ought to be regarded—that the king will forget how important they, the Samaritans, are to his kingdom.
And what we learn in the verses that follow is that the Samaritans get their way, and you know what, church? That’s okay. Maybe that’s not what you want to hear because how dare God allow good things to happen to bad people, right? The lesson I see here, though, is this: over these past years, I’ve noticed that the great, current Christian struggle is with anger. We’ve become increasingly unwilling to deal kindly, graciously, and patiently with others, and the crazy thing is that I see Christians becoming more incensed not at other non-Christians but at other Christians—where brothers and sisters are at each others’ necks for the silliest things.
We’ve grown selfish. We’ve grown petty. We’ve grown insecure—insecure in that maybe we aren’t getting noticed the way we deserve to be noticed—that others are receiving the praise and glory that I should receive—that God has forgotten how important I am to his kingdom.
The problem is that the Christian life and the verses we have here are meant to reflect how we are different from the world. Yes, the truth of this text is that sometimes the people of God lose—sometimes there is unjust suffering without respite. But the abiding message underneath it all—the reason why I think Israel’s voice is absent from this entire passage of Ezra 4:6-23 is because they realize, as we’re meant to realize, that we never deserved to win—we never deserved to assert our rights—in the first place. Why? Because none of us are good. We’re supposed to know this better than anyone.
Yet, when the world does better than us—when other Christians do better than us, we’re often the first to complain. And you know what that means? It means we’ve forgotten our security—that despite all we don’t deserve, God ransoms us to himself—that no matter how much the world accuses us and slanders us—accusations and slandering that we probably deserve—the world can never harm us the way we ought to have been harmed. BUT more than that, nothing that they gain will ever be as good as what we’ve already received or what is still to come.
Suffering in this world, for those who belong to God, is but a mere parenthesis—a footnote in history, and we need to weigh where we find our security. Is it in the parenthesis—in our fleeting entitlements, positions, and treasures of the world—or do we find security in the glory that is here already with us, in part, and in the coming glory that is promised to those who abide in the goodness of Christ?
The way that you honour the grace given to you—the way that you remain a Christian in a world like ours—is by seeing and considering how fragile and thin the glories of the world are in comparison to that which is imperishable, immeasurable, and unfailing. Those latter things are found in God, alone, and God shall prevail, even when the world turns its back on us and treats us exactly as we deserve. Find your security in God when you suffer because his glory awaits those who seek him and his kingdom above the world’s approval.
2) Walk Through the Impermanence of the Parenthesis
One of the things that really struck me as I read through our passage this week was this phrase that the king used in his reply to the accusations of the Samaritans in verse 21, which reads: “Therefore [since I, the king, believe your accusations], make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not rebuilt, until a decree is made by me.” And as I read these words for maybe the fifth or sixth time, something dawned on me that gave me peace as I considered the injustice being suffered by these Israelites.
What I realized is, firstly, this king, for those of you who have read past our passage and into the rest of Ezra-Nehemiah, Artaxerxes will eventually change his mind and make a new decree. Yet, what is astounding about his statements here is the arrogance in his words: “[stop the work] until a decree is made by me.” It is a horridly arrogant statement—that this man thinks that he has the right to dictate how the people of God shall live out their identity in the world.
And still, his arrogance gave me peace, why? Because this whole week, I’ve been asking myself, why are these verses here? Why does the author of Ezra-Nehemiah stop the entire chronology to tell us about all the hindrances that Israel will face between now and the end of the book? And the answer is this: so that we might have confidence in the greater authority, dominion, and power of God and his kingdom right from the get-go.
Before Israel has even been able to take it all in—before this book gets into the big movements and contributions that it’s seeking to record in its history—our author gives us all this information about their suffering so that we might know that this is nothing in God’s sight and that God’s people aren’t to lose hope. Because kings will come, and kings will go. Samaritans will rise up, and Samaritans will be lost. Even we will not be remembered in a couple of generations. But our King, his plans, and his people shall not be forgotten, and where the world cannot last, our God shall reign forever.
Perhaps, we don’t grasp this and celebrate it enough. Perhaps, you’re saying to yourself, Pastor Stephen, this point sounds a lot like your first point, and I’m telling you it’s not because the first point is meant to show you something about the recklessness and the feebleness of the world, but this point is meant to show you something unfathomable and inexpressibly awesome about our God and about his heaven, in that, because our God is not an insecure god, and because his kingdom is not an insecure kingdom, our posture and attitude towards the world should be drastically different—not just being less angry or less selfish, but being willingly more sacrificial and possessing a deeper joy.
See, kings on this earth will do everything to secure their reign. This king, Artaxerxes, is so scared about losing his kingdom that even at the whiff or whisper of sedition, he’s writing back and saying, “don’t be slack in putting this problem to bed! Don’t let it hurt the king!” And what this does to the people of his kingdom is to cause them to fear—fear that the king doesn’t truly care for them, fear that he will do things that seek to harm them instead of help them, and that fear will eventually get tiresome and tedious, and that tedium, will eventually give way to actual rebellion and bring an end to his rule.
But a King who knows the heart of his people, and a people who know their king—this is a kingdom that flourishes. It isn’t ruled by fear. It doesn’t grow tiresome or tedious. In fact, the exact opposite is true.
Have you ever wondered to yourself, “Will heaven ever become boring? Eternity is a long time, maybe we’ll run out of things to do.” And in his sermon, Heaven, A World of Love, Jonathan Edwards provides us with his thoughts on this question. This is what he says: Heaven will never become boring because it will be a place of perfect love—“love [that is] holy and divine. Love in this world is of an unhallowed, [carnal, selfish] nature. But the love that has place in heaven … is a pure flame, directed by holy motives, and aiming at no ends inconsistent with God’s glory and the happiness of the universe.
[The degree of that love exercised both by God and by his saints will also be perfect, for it will be a love that flows directly from the heart of God, which is perfect—without pride or selfishness.] The earthly soul had only a little spark of divine love in it, [but] in heaven, [it] shall be […] turned into a bright and ardent flame.” In other words, your capacity to love and enjoy God together with his people shall be increased and become greater than any capacity you had here in this life.
But not only will you have a greater capacity to love and enjoy God—a degree of love that is unmatched and unquenchable to anything you know in this world, but “in the full sunlight of the throne, [you shall be] enraptured with joys that are forever increasing, and yet forever full, [as] you live and reign with God and Christ forever and ever!”
Let me put it this way, heaven will never be boring because God is never bored in himself, and what heaven is is more than its loveliness, its perfection, and its joy. No, what heaven is is inexhaustible and unsearchable glory of God made tangible for us to see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. There we shall dwell with the King of kings without our imperfections to get in the way. There will not be an imperfect king who loves only himself, but a King whose love is so great and so pure that it affects us to seek the good and happiness in one another without end—in ways that will never become tiresome, frustrating, or boring.
Do you long for that heaven—to see a glory more magnificent and infinite than all the galaxies of the universe together? Do you long to be with your God? Be content, then, as Edwards says, to pass through all the difficulties—all the suffering and persecution—on the way to him. “[For although the path before you] is upward and [difficult], though [it be] full of trials, still it is worth your while to [walk through] them all for the sake of coming and dwelling in that glorious city at last.”
3) Watch for the Reinstatement of the Plot
What this means for us, brothers and sisters, is that the oppression of those living under King Cyrus’ reign, and the accusations levied by the Hamans and the enemies of Israel under Ahasuerus, and the exaggerations and lies of the leaders under Artaxerxes—they do not get the final say because Ezra 4:24-6 are coming. The story shall be rectified. The temple shall be built. The people of God shall have cause to worship. And the glory of God shall dwell with them again.
But even this is a shadow of greater things to come, for in all your suffering, and even in your victories now, let all your way be fixed upon Jesus, who says in John 2:21 that he and his body are the temple broken and bled upon a cross so that your sins might be forgiven, so that you might walk in obedience as one who is forever loved by God, so that you might see the fullness of his radiance in the face of his risen Son.
Jesus suffered the full effects of hell on your behalf so that your suffering now might be a mere parenthesis in the length of eternity with him. Look, then, to your Saviour and keep your eyes fixed on him as he intercedes for you and keeps you from falling. Trust in his promises through every trial and loss. Suffer the parenthesis now for the coming glory, which we have foretasted in the gospel, and which we shall know in full when Christ comes again.
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