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In Ezra chapter 6, verses 13 to 18, we find the completion and dedication of the temple. Join Reverend Daniel as he leads us to see how the dedication of the temple parallels the manner of our lives as Christians today.

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Once again, church, we are continuing the sermon series on Ashra and Nahimah. I hope we are all on track. Right, it's a lot of uh the books of Ashra and Nahimaya. There's quite a bit of history, a bit of background. So whatever uh we share, uh the preacher shares, it's actually built up on what happened um the previous week. Right. So if you have missed uh the previous uh sermon, I encourage you to just catch it, catch up on it through our podcast uh channel or through our YouTube uh recording. So according to Ashras chapter 6, verse 13, by the word sent by Darius the king, Tatani, the governor of the province beyond the river, Shita, Bozanai, and their associates did with all diligence what Darius the king had ordered. So the expression with all diligence is quite a key word in Eshra chapter 5, verse 6, almost like a kind of turning point. You know, Ashrah 4 was all about uh the opposition uh that we face, but Eshra 5 to 6, there's a turn in the narrative telling us, as I shared last week, that God's favor is finally on the people. So uh the word that, or rather the phrase uh that summarizes this is with all diligence. So in Eshra chapter 5, verse 8, it says, Be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, is being built with huge stones and timber is laid in the walls. This word, this work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands. Right? So the word diligently appears. So as appeal is made to the king, uh there is a kind of uh is being put forward that the work is carried on diligently. And we we saw uh the last week, the last time, that the urgency of the king's decree in Ashra 6 verse 12, towards the end of it, it says, I Darius, make a decree, let it be done with all diligence, and finally, through cooperation of the civil power in Ashra 6 verse 13. We read this morning that according to the word sent by Darius, uh, the work was carried out with all diligence, what Darius had ordered. So we are in the context of just celebration, celebrating God's favor upon the people. And Ezra 6, 14 to 15 continues. It says, And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo. They finished their building by the decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Attazeus, king of Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the month of Ada, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. It's noteworthy that it was first the decree by God, then the decree by the Persian crown. Right? What we read in the verse doesn't uh bring out the significance, but those who translated uh the standardized Hebrew Bible, the Jewish scribes and scholars, what we call the Mesorites, when they were translating the text, the Hebrew text, they actually had assigned different vowels to each word. So it's a bit technical uh into semantics, but actually the way the vowels are being assigned seemed to imply that the decree of Cyrus does not carry the same weight as and force as the decree of God, the decree that God made. So there is a kind of a logical uh preeminence of the decree of God, of the God of Israel before the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and other Zexas or other kings of Persia. So as we saw last week, it was God who was behind everything. He was the one who called and chose Cyrus to be his divine instrument to fulfill his purpose. As I shared last week, towards the end of the sermon from Isaiah 45 verse 1 to 7. It was God Himself who called Cyrus in Isaiah 45 verse 1 to 7, telling him that I will give you treasures in darkness, treasures in darkness, riches stored in secret places, that you may know that I am the Lord. So it was God who ordained and called Cyrus even before he was born to be his servant to set Israel free. Again, we see God was behind this in the framing of the decrees. God takes a logical priority over whatever decree that may come from the Persian crown. So it was God who stir up Cyrus and the exiles to return to rebuild the house of God. Ashra chapter 1 verse 5 tells us. And it was God again who raised up prophets for encouragement. Ashra 5 verse 1, just an opposite of the numbers. It was God who kept a watchful eye on the elders. As I shared last week, God's eye was on the work to make sure that it will continue. Ashra 5 verse 5. And it was God who changed the king, King Darius' attitude in Eshra 6 verse 22. And finally, it was God Himself that brought the temple project to completion. So as a result of God's timely intervention, Eshra 6, verse 16 to 17 reads, and the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the written exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. It was a joyous and a joyful celebration. It is a dedication, a giving over, a turning over of this house to God with joy. And they offered at the dedication of this house of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats or he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. So I'd like us to take note of two keywords here. One is joy. It was the dedication of the house of God was a joyous occasion. And secondly, they it was a time of offering, right? There can be no dedication when there's no offering up to God, right? Those of us who uh have house blessing in your home or remember the time where you first bought your new home, you know, uh you have a house blessing. What's the purpose of the house blessing or dedication? You are saying that you want this house to be given over to God. A new house that you have purchased is brand new. Now you want to offer it to God for somehow his presence to be present and for sacred use. So there's a sense, when we think about dedication, there's always a sense of joy and a sense of offering up to God something. So uh the word dedication applied here in in this context refers to the house of God newly constructed and offered to God at his disposal. We see that in Deuteronomy 20 verse 5, where um there's a necessity there's a necessity of dedicating a new house. Not that it's very important, but at least Deuteronomy 20 verse 5 alludes to it. Uh speaking to the people, the officers spoke to the people saying, Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicated. So Deuteronomy 25 seems to allude to the fact that, yeah, there is a time and place to dedicate your home to God for his sacred purpose and use. We also see the necessity of the dedication of the city wall in the time of Nehemiah. We have not come to there, but in Nehemiah 12, verse 27, there is another dedication. And this time is the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem with celebration, with gladness, thanksgiving, with singing, and with songs. However, for in Eshra 6, verse 16 to 17, it was a dedication filled with great joy. As we recall the history of the returnees, we remember that the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 586 BC. It had a firm hold for the Jews at that time of their identity and their worship, such that faith in God would not be possible. It's unthinkable when the temple of Solomon was destroyed. Because when the temple in the time of Solomon was consecrated, there was an invoking of God's presence. If you read the history books in the Bible, the Chronicles, the Kings, uh, Book of Kings and Chronicles, you will see Solomon's prayer, that when anyone turned to this place and prayed to the God of heaven, God would you hear, relent, and uh hear the prayers of those who turn to you and pray. So the temple was the focal point of prayer, and it was the focal point of God's tangible presence. Every Jew that will know that as they enter the temple of Solomon, the divine presence is there. Divine worship is there. Sacrifices had to be brought for the worship of God. They could turn the temple to a house of prayer because that was what it is during the time of Solomon, a time, a place to encounter God's presence and to seek his face. So when the temple was destroyed in 586 BC, everything associated with God's presence was gone. So were their identity and their religion and their faith. So it's very, very different in order for us to get into the mood of their joy from what we experience in churches today. Because COVID-19, uh, for two years it was a hard reset because many of us couldn't be on site to worship God. But because of the blessing of technology, like we were able to follow services, and of course, churches were scrambling to be nimble, suddenly a new uh sector of need came to be highlighted. That is the uh recording and audio visual uh start to take on a greater prominence in terms of the life of the church. So so it we we still were able to assess uh worship, uh even though it wasn't the real thing, but nevertheless, it's better than nothing. Right? So we could worship God. But for the people of that time, it was as if God was gone. He's gone and he wasn't, there was no concept of God in their lives without the temple, without prayers, without worship, and without sacrifice. So 21 years later, it was exactly 21 years later, after the laying of the foundation, in Ezra 3 verse 10 tells us uh the temple of the foundation was being laid, but it's only 21 years later, after the time of opposition and and so on, and the the rebuilding works actually began through the encouragement of Haggai and Zechariah. 21 years later, the temple was finally completed in 516 BC. So, what great joy must have filled the returnees. Finally, the people have a place to worship God. Finally, they can start offering sacrifices for sin. So the dedication of the temple also involved offerings and sacrifices. For 70 years from 586 BC, that was when the Temple of Solomon was being destroyed to this point, 516 BC, it's about 70 years, uh, no sin offering could be made because there wasn't a visible temple to go to. So, how were the sins of the people dealt with in the past? We do not know. Because scripture is silent. For 70 years, how did the Jews offer sacrifices for sin? In other words, how did they worship God? We do not know. Uh but all we know that sin needs to be dealt with, and because sin needs to be dealt with, we need a sacrifice for the sin and for sin in our lives. So we do not know how sins were dealt with in the past, but one thing we know that with the temple up and coming, uh we know that the returns can now deal with sin in the present. Now there is a place to offer sacrifice for sin. On a practical note, something had to be done to eradicate the sins of the people. And for in the time of the Old Testament, you cannot talk about sin without a sacrifice. There must always be a sacrifice for sin. So can you imagine that the joy that the people had? After 70 years of no temple, no worship, no sacrifices. Finally, with the dedication of the house of God, there were sacrifices made for a sin offering, 12 male goats, according to the number of tribes of Israel, along with other offerings, 100 bulls, 200 rams, and 400 lambs. At the dedication, temple personnel were also set aside for the service of God at Jerusalem. In Eshrah 6.18 we read, and they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. So what can we learn today from Eshra chapter 6, verse 13 to 18? These short few verses that describes the completion and dedication of the temple. I believe that the dedication of the house of God or of the temple parallels the manner of our lives as Christians. Let me repeat again. I believe the dedication of the house of God parallels the manner, the way of life for us as Christians. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6 19 that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Spirit in which God dwells. God dwells in us by his spirit. So 1 Corinthians 6.19 tells us, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. So Paul, in the context of 1 Corinthians 6, is talking about the sin of uh fornication or sexual immorality, saying that your body is uh God lives in it. How can you take your physical body and unite with a prostitute? It doesn't make sense for that to happen, right? Because you are holy, God is within you, right? Of course, we will not go to that today, but the idea is that God lives within us. We are the temple in which God says, I will live and walk among them, I will be their God, and they will be my people. For the returnees, the dedication of the house of God came, as I said earlier, after a standstill for 21 years. During that period, the returnees were engaged in their own affairs such that they received a word of indictment from Haggai. In Haggai chapter 1, verse 3 to 6, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. It says, Is it time for yourselves to dwell in your penal houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you are never, you have, you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourself, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag of holes. So there was encouragement by the prophet Haggai and also Zechariah. In Zechariah chapter 1, verse 3, it says, Return to God, and God may return to you. So through the prophesizing, sorry, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo and their encouragement, not only that, but through the decrease orchestrated by God, the returnees were finally able to complete the work of rebuilding the house of God. I believe God desires a fresh dedication of our lives today. Right? The I mean application today is very simple actually. God desires the manner of our life as Christians is a life of continual dedication to our life, to God. So do we make a conscience, conscience, sorry, do we make a conscious effort to dedicate our lives afresh to God and offer ourselves at His disposal? So the key word is afresh or anew. That's what we dedicate. Something we offer to God every day is a new day. Every day is a new opportunity to dedicate and offer ourselves to God afresh. Because his mercies are new every morning. Each day, as we see the sunrise, it's a new day. And it's a time to dedicate ourselves and our day to God. And to offer ourselves at his disposal. So this is the significance of any dedication, even a dedication applied to our lives. The act of offering something or someone anew, afresh, for God's use and for his disposal. I believe that God is speaking to you today, this time not through Haggai or Zechariah, but in the modern days today, through me, the the preacher, that God has made it possible for all of us to come before Him. He has paved the way through Jesus, just as how He decreed in Ezra 6.14, how the people of old were uh given the decree of God to return. For us today, we may not have a formal decree from God, but God has made everything possible for us to come to the point of dedicating ourselves to God. As we dedicate ourselves anew or afresh to God, our lives will be characterized by two things joy and sacrifice. Joy and sacrifice. As the returnees were filled with great joy. The Holy Spirit also brings us supernatural joy when we dedicate ourselves fully to Him. As the returnees offered sacrifice for their sins, we too need a sacrifice for our sins. Not all of us, we may know well in our heads that Jesus died for our sins, but how often do we appropriate his sacrifice for us each day? Some of us may be thinking in our hearts, I have committed too many sins. How would I ever be hopeful that I can be joyful, that I'm able to dedicate myself fully to God? And because we live in a culture, a context of meritocracy that rules the day, we know that we are here today in a worldly sense, at our workplace, at whatever we do, because of merit, right? Because of what we have done to achieve a certain status in society. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just the way the world works. And particularly poignant in the context of Singapore, because the whole idea is that we need to be a people that is always willing to work hard. So we work hard, we give our best, we do our part, and of course we trust and we know the government will also do their part. But we have to do our part, right? I'm not making a speech, a political speech, but uh but that's the culture that we live in, right? You do your part, we do our part. But as we come to God today, it's it's on different terms. He does not always see that we need to do our part before we are able to come before God. It's actually the reverse. But I don't know whether you are guilty of that. Sometimes I'm guilty of that, that sometimes uh I take too lightly the sacrifice of Christ. No, it's I take it too lightly when I don't consider it sacred or precious. The fact that Jesus died and paid it all for us. So there's nothing we can do to earn or gain merit. The only thing, the only sacrifice we need to bring before God is ourselves, to dedicate ourselves afresh for Him and for His use. So actually, everything in us, in the culture we live today, uh kind of pushes us away from the Christian idea and concept of grace, of the fact that God loves us, we create everything. All that we need to do is to just come before Him. And in very common in church history and I mean, well, well, it's well real, especially in the 17th century. After the 16th century Reformation, the 17th century, there were many teachers. Uh we call them antinomians, meaning uh those who are against the law, that spoke of God's free justification. And they were reacting against a culture where Christianity was becoming, in their words, legalistic, where we need to uh do certain things in order to be right before God, before God will accept us. And because of that, they preach free justification. But they carried it to the extreme in the 17th century because they begin to say that because Christ has taken away all our sins, so we no longer have sin in us. So that is taking it to the extreme. That's why they are called antinomians, uh, because they believe that not only are we free from sin, but we are free from the moral law of God in our lives. Because God has set us free from the law, right? But that's another point. My point of bringing this up is in the culture and context we live in today, we can uh approach Christianity in the probably very legalistic way, in a way that thinking that we need to do certain things to be right before God before God will accept us. And a lot of times this is something that's very subtle within us, right? We think that we are not good enough for God, we think that we are uh less worthy of God because we have not perhaps been reading our Bible, we have not been keeping up with our walk with God. But the wonderful thing about the gospel, it is it is offered free. And it's true that uh partially true, right, that justification is totally free. It's something that sometimes we take for granted in our lives. And I I recall uh an old hymn that kind of uh summarizes this very well. Uh you you all may know it. It says Jesus paid it all. Jesus paid it all.

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And the reframe uh the the reframe or rather the chorus goes something like this Jesus paid it all to him I owe. He was it white as snow.

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I won't sing the the whole song, obviously I can't sing, but this song kind of reminds us that Jesus paid it all, and all he requires us is to come to him in a posture of dedication. So we do not need to bring bull, bulls, calves, goats for sacrifice. So whenever we come before God, we want to dedicate ourselves to God. We always bring ourselves as the sacrifice. And we always come, that's why we always have a time where we are able to confess our sins. Not that we want to do it in a legalistic way that if we don't do that, God will not accept us. We do that as a way of life because we are still sinners, we still sin, we still need God's law to guide us in our lives. So we come before God. We confess our sin. We dedicate ourselves to God. So this is the pattern of our life, the manner of our life as Christians. We come before Him, we allow Him to search our hearts, we confess our sin. We dedicate ourselves to God. So the the words of this old hymn is quite uh is poignant. It says, I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me thy all in all. The next stanza says, Lord, now indeed I find thy power and dying alone can change the leper spot and melt the heart of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he wash it white as snow. For nothing good have I whereby thy grace to claim. I wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's land. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he wash it white as snow. So if we believe today that this is all that is required, there must be a sacrifice for sin. Jesus has become the sacrifice for our sin. So he has paid it all, Jesus has paid it all, he has done everything needed to bring us to God. He has made a way for us all. And I believe no book of the Bible demonstrates this as clearly as the letter to the Hebrews. The central theological argument in Hebrews is this the appointment of the Son, which is Jesus, as a superior high priest to all that has gone before, to Moses, to David, to angels, to anything or anyone that has gone before. He is the climax of God's revelation to us. And in the letter of Hebrews, we reach a climax of New Testament theology of our understanding of who Jesus is. He is a superior high priest to all that has gone before, and to all that will ever come. So crucially, Hebrews chapter 7, verse 23 to 25, when speaking of the superior priesthood of Christ, says this. As long as a priest dies, someone needs to come to take his place. So because of physical death, they cannot continue forever. But Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he lives forever, he continues forever. And Hebrews 7, verse 25 is a key verse, and if you can just go and memorize it, it says, consequently, because he lives forever, he's able to save to the outermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Jesus is able to save to the outermost, those who draw near to God. To the outermost means uh in other translations to the most completeness, to the greatest completeness, if ever there's such a word, those who draw near. He's able to save completely those who draw near to God through him. Because he always lives to make intercession for them. So one of the key roles as Jesus as a high priest, he's there interceding for us. So even when we are not praying to him, even when we are not seeking him, uh, he's there praying for us, interceding for us. And so let us then draw near to God and fully dedicate ourselves anew, afresh to him, to be at his disposal and for his use. In our act of dedication to God, he will fill us with his joy, and we we can depend on Jesus, who is able to save us to the outermost, and he's a more than sufficient sacrifice for our sins.

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