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How do you respond when things go well in your life? When you're held in high esteem, have great success in your work, and are given authority that will affect the lives of many people. In today's message, based on Ezra chapter 7, verses 11 to 28, we hear Ezra declare, The hand of the Lord my God was on me. Join Pastor Wei E as we learn from Ezra's understanding of his God-given mission.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ. This morning's scripture reading is taken from the book of Ezra, chapter 7, verse 11 to verse 28. This is a copy of the letter that King Atastasis gave to Ezra the priest. The scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statues for Israel. Peace. And now I make a decree that any one of the people of Israel, or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counsellors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the free will offerings of the people and the priest, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. With this money then, you shall, with all diligence, buy bulls, rams, lambs, and with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do according to the will of your God. The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king's treasury. And I, Atathasis, the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province beyond the river. Whatever Ashra, the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence. Up to one hundred talons of silver, one hundred cores of wheat, one hundred baths of wine, one hundred baths of oil and salt without prescribing how much. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on any one of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. And you, Estra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God, and those who do not know them, you shall teach. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of your king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment, or for confiscation of his goods, or for imprisonment. Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counsellors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Right, church, we are continuing the series on Ezra and Himiah, and previously we looked at the introduction of Ezra in uh in verses 1 to 10 of chapter 7. Right? We learned that Ezra was of a priestly lineage, he was a scribe, and he teaches the law. Uh, and he was touted by many Jews as the second Moses to Israel. And so we learn that he set his heart to do three things. Part of our it is our memory verse as well for this month, right? He set his heart to study, to do, and to teach the Bible. Right? So that's what we know about Ezra in his introduction. And this morning we'll look at his mission and work, what he was being commissioned to go back to Jerusalem to do. Right? Um, and in verse 11, uh, the first part of it, we read about how this is a copy of uh a letter from King Arthur Zixis, right? Um we find out about Ezra's mission firstly through a letter written by Arthur Zexis and written by a pagan king, an unbeliever. This was someone who was outside of the Jewish faith, right? And it was interestingly written in Aramaic, right, which was the official language for official correspondences, uh, and and and really not a common language in the Old Testament, uh, in that most of our Old Testament is written in Hebrew, right? There are only a few uh passages in the Old Testament that is written in Aramaic. Um and so had to have this letter from a pagan king written in Aramaic preserved for us in scripture is uh is is noteworthy for us this morning, right? And it would have jumped out to any reader back then uh because it would it because it is um you know from from a pagan and foreign king to an Israelite. You'll be like if our PM, our prime minister or our president writing an official letter about the church in Singapore, right? What will the secular political leader say about us or say to us? Right? Will you will it be a commendation or a condemnation? The truth is how people outside of the church view us is important because it speaks to our mission and to our ministry in the world, and it affects our involvement in the world as well, both personally in the lives of the people around us as well as on a national level. So this letter is of huge interest to all of us because it tells us something about Ezra, the scribe, through uh point of view of a non-believer. So, what does Artasis have to say about Ezra? Uh, he goes on to say that uh Ezra is a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel. And the king commended Ezra for being an expert in the law of God, the word of God that Ezra set his heart to study, to do, and to teach. The same word of God that informed Ezra and shaped the way he lived his life. The word of God that formed him to become what he was when Artazazis uh knew him, right? And Atazazis knew him to be trustworthy and to be wise, right? And we can tell Athazazis held the law of God in high regard. Through the the the life of Ezra, he held the law in very high regard, and we find that uh especially in verses 14 and then in 25 where there is a parallel of expressions, right? Artazes tells Ezra to do his work according to the law of God and according to the wisdom of God, which is in your hand, right? To do everything according to the law and the wisdom of God which is in Ezra's hand. These two statements are significant because they indicate that uh when Ezra has the Torah in his hand, he has the God, he has God's wisdom in his hand. Right? God's law is synonymous with wisdom, as clearly exhibited in Ezra's life. And so we we we hear a word about Ezra, right? About this man who is really like uh expert in the law and really allowed the law to kind of shape his life and all. So what now what is Artus asking this man to do? Right? He entrusts uh Ezra with many, many things, right? Um his first task, the first thing in from verse 14 is to inquire and to find out how the Israelites in Judah and Jerusalem were doing, whether they were living according to God's law, right? And he was to take all the financial provision from Persia, from Babylon, right, and even from the free will offering of the Israelites and the priests were still saying Babylon. Right? And as if that's not enough, when they cross over to the province of beyond the river, right? That's the that's the province where Jerusalem is. When they cross over, he has the official letter to go to the treasurers and say, No, the king has has allowed me to ask you for provision for my temple. Right? So he can buy anything that he will need for the temple of Yahweh.

unknown 10:48

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SPEAKER_02 10:49

Arthasis trusted Ezra so much that he says, you can decide on what to do if there's leftover silver and gold. And we see that in verse 18. But not just to inquire the religious life of the people, right? He was given judicial authority to govern the civil life of the Israelites as well. Um, and so he he is he said to appoint magistrates and judges who will judge the people in the province and to teach the law to the people, right? Ezra is authorized to even charge, punish, and uh even execute any Israelite who is violating the law of God under Persian rule. And we find that in verses 25 and 26 to be vested with so much authority from the state that he can go and say, Why are you not following the law of God? Right? I can punish you, I can throw you in the prison, and can yeah do many different things with you. Yeah. Um, so it is very interesting because here we are seeing Artasis giving Ezra almost like a blank check, right? To do whatever needs to be done for worship to be restored, and to give him power to do whatever needs to be done for civil life to be restored. And I mean, I think we all would love it if we get a blank check for the church as well, right? Um it will be nice if we we can you know have all the money to spend whatever we want to spend on uh that we think is needful for the church, right? If if we we had one, I think our petition to have a cafe set up in in church um for hospitality, for outreach purposes, and and definitely not for my own benefit, right? Um but we know that that's never gonna happen, right? We know that we will never receive a blank check from the state in such a way, and so this is a really bizarre situation that we're reading in Ezra chapter 7. Why is Artaxerxis signing off on such a huge expense for Israel to get his her religious life back? And why is he giving Ezra so much power to get their civil life in order? So, first, why help them restore their worship? Right? Um, I think we should be clear that Artaxerxes was not exactly a sympathizer of the Jewish faith, and he was definitely not a believer. Um, it helps to know a little bit of the context. Um, pagan kings saw the world in terms of regional gods, the god of this land, the god of that land, right? Or the gods of this nation or that nation. Which is why if you read the letter of Arthasis again, you see that he was in great pains to repeat the location of God's dwelling place. Right? In verse 15, is it the God of Israel whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, right? Uh 16 and 17, the house of their God that is in Jerusalem, or in verse 19, the God of Jerusalem. But what he was doing is uh is a big contrast with the previous uh uh conqueror, the previous king, right? Babylon, when they came in, when they uh sacked Jerusalem and Judah, right, they didn't just claim victory over the Jews, they claimed victory over their God. So they went into the temple and destroyed everything, took everything up. Right? And Persia thought of themselves as a bit more enlightened or a bit more benevolent, right? The way they ruled the other nations was to give them a much longer lease. And um and here we see Artasis actually having some kind of anxiety, right? He's doing all these things so that he will not anger these other regional gods, which is very interesting. He's trying to appease uh as he would have done for like say Egypt or for other nations, right? We have done all these things to make sure that the other regional gods is not angry with him and uh and that that and that he will have their gods' favor, right? Um and so here we see him just throwing money at the problem, right? To restore Israel's worship so that God will be appeased. Um later on we will see that that interestingly then God can use all things, even the weird religiosity and anxiety of pagan kings like Artasis to bring about his plan, right? But for now we we know that you know he was throwing money to to restore their worship. And second thing, then um it was asking Ezra to go and inquire, to go and find out how are your people living, right? And to teach them so that so that they will follow the law of God. Right? It is one thing to fund their worship, it is another to decree that they learn and obey the word of God. So interesting, uh, uh an outsider comes in and says, Hey, you must study the Bible more, you must go to church more. Um to make even make it legal to punish any errant Israelite, right? Scripture tells us this you can do it by death, you can banish them, you can confiscate their property, you can imprison them, you can do all these things, right? If they fail to obey. Um, the next slide. And I think it will be unthinkable if the minister of the law comes and say, You haven't been going to church, or you never listen to your pastor, right? Straight to jail you go. Right? That will be I think unthinkable. At least it's very strange, right? Um but I think it betrays, uh, if I can have the next slide please, if it betrays uh the psyche of, or what, or rather it betrays what Arthur Zesis was thinking at that time.

unknown 16:11

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SPEAKER_02 16:11

The Persian king insists that Ezra go teach the Israelites to obey the law of God because he saw the spillover effect from religious to civil life. He saw the spillover effect from worship to their daily living. We have seen that for others, it says the law of God is synonymous with the wisdom of God. Right? The wisdom that guided Israel, uh Ezra will also guide the Israelites to live virtuous lives that will provide the blueprint to a good and just society in Judah, and it will be a good thing for Arthur Zasis. Then he doesn't have to worry about uprising, he doesn't have to worry about different regions causing problems for the kingdom, right? So his plan is to go and teach the law of God because it is good, it is wise, and your people will live wisely and live righteously. And it is precisely what Moses was saying back uh in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 6 to 8. Allow me to read that in full for us. He Moses wrote this: keep them, keep the law, and do them. For that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him, and what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as are all this law that I set before you today. Amazingly, Attazacis, though, although pagan saw and understood that obeying God leads to wisdom for living, and it is beneficial for society. And it is on this note that the letter from Athazaxis ends, right? And Ezra is to make every Israelite that he meets follow the law and the wisdom of God. And so, just to kind of quickly summarize what's in the letter with these two points, right? Number one, it is a non-believer's perspective of a devout believer, right? And number two, the letter shows us that Arthas has recognized the wisdom of God through the law of God for a virtuous society. And it is in this vein, I think, that Arthasus' letter, even though it is to Ezra, right, it leads us to ask ourselves two, I think, very related questions. And my first question for us this morning is this What will the unbelieving world say about us today? What will be the unbelievable, what will the unbelieving world say about us today? About us who are believers, about us who are followers of Jesus. Can we be said to be people with the law and with the wisdom of God in our hands? I mean, I will admit that as I was preparing this this discernment, right? Um the the word of God, I think Hebrews 4 12 puts it like this, right? The word God pierced to the division of soul and of spirit, to join of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of of the heart. Right. And I I felt pierced by by the word here. Um because to be honest with you, I am not entirely sure what my unbelieving family members will say about me. Especially since I I don't really make the the effort to try to keep in contact with them or try to meet them regularly. Right? And and I'm I'm I'm realizing I have all the excuses in the world, right? I have a small kid, I have another one coming, I'm so busy, exhausted all the time. It's very difficult to schedule uh and arrange to meet, right? I need my me time, and on and on and on the excuses go. And and I realize that they are really just that um excuses. And so it weighs on my heart, right? What will my unbelieving family members say about me? And this is, I think, a key question we need to ask ourselves as well, right? What will the unbelieving world or what will our unbelieving family members or colleagues or friends say about us? To put it more plainly, what will the non-Christians say about us who call ourselves Christians?

unknown 20:47

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SPEAKER_02 20:47

Whether it's your boss, your colleague, your friends, maybe your partner, maybe your family member who are not Christian, all the people you interact with, right? Is the word and wisdom of God recognizably in our hands? Um there's a writer who wrote this. Um he is a controversial character, but uh, I think there's some good point that there is in this uh particular quote of his, uh, if I can, the next slide. He says the greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out of the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. This is what an unbelievable simply finds unbelievable. Um very strong language, and I'm not I don't know, I haven't given it as uh much thought. I don't know if we could really say that that is the greatest single cause of atheism, right? But I don't think he was far from the truth. Right? I don't think he is that far from the truth. If we are not recognizably following Jesus and living according to his wisdom, yeah, how would people care about the Christian faith.

unknown 22:02

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What can they positively say about us as followers of Jesus? So what will the unbelieving world say about us? And that's the first question for us this morning. The second question is this Are we demonstrating the wisdom of God in the secular world today? We have seen just from Moses' writing in Deuteronomy 4, right? That God's wisdom is shown in the wise and righteous living in society. I think there is a there needs to be a greater understanding that living according to the wisdom and the word of God will always be a positive to the society we live in. And that I think is manifested in many, many different ways. You know of John Wesley, right, who later on became the founder of the Methodist Church. When he first started his holy club, you know, he will gather a group of brothers, they will come together, support one another, pray and try to keep each other accountable, right? When they started the holy club, they made it a point to say we cannot just be gathering every week to do this in the privacy of a room. We must go out and demonstrate our faith. And so what every single one did at that point, right? Well, I think while they were still students or just out of uh school, is that they will go to prisons and to minister to the prisoners. Right? It was not an institutionalized thing, right? It was not all the church say there, then the church is sending people over, you know, somehow there's a lot of hierarchy, a lot of structure. Um it was all done on a personal basis. Each of them were going on going on on their personal accord to visit prisoners in churches, uh to visit prisoners, right, and to minister to them. And this is the same John Wesley, who will later on push for prison reforms and also other social reforms, right? He he he was pushing for the abolition of slavery in America, he was uh uh pushing for aid to the poor, education for children, and so on and so forth, right? Um he's become quite kind of a poster child for for uh social reforms in that time. Um he demonstrated that following Jesus and living according to the word must mean positive actions in society, right? And there are there are of course uh many other ways where where the wisdom of God is kind of shown in the secular world, right? Um I've been told that that in in the recent years, right, there's a growing discourse of servant leadership in a secular leadership, right? Which is unheard of in the in in the past, right? Um but it seems like secular leadership is catching on to what Jesus has embodied in himself, right? When he said that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, right? Servant leadership being marked with humility, laying aside your ego and selfish behavior, you don't have to make everything about yourself to get all the credits and all the accolades, right? You empower and encourage your people to excel and not take credit, uh, and you pay attention to the needs of the people, right? Um it seems that the secular world is catching on to this servant leadership. And even if they don't have the theological insights that we have from our Christian faith, they are nonetheless catching on to the wisdom of Jesus. And all that to say is I think when we are living, when we have the law and the wisdom of God in our hands, we can demonstrate it. And we must demonstrate it through the way we live our lives, so that we can faithfully demonstrate God's wisdom that can have a positive impact on the lives of the people around us. Right, whether it is espousing biblical principles for marriage, for parenting, right, and creating a stable family unit, whether it is helping a family family member with uh an addition of alcohol or gambling, um, whether it's on a larger scale, pushing for things to happen, you know, on creation, care, sustainability to help the poor, needy, disadvantaged, uh, or fairer treatment to workers. No, all these things come from the wisdom of God, come from the word of God, God Himself who loves and shows concern for everyone who are suffering. And I should clarify that we we don't do all this because I think that the gospel of Christ can simply be reduced to addressing social concerns, right? What some people criticize as the social gospel. No, I don't think the gospel can be reduced to just social concerns, right? Because the gospel of Christ is primarily, first and foremost, uh a spiritual thing, right? It addresses a spiritual problem, which is the sin that we all have in our lives, right? But I also think that to act out, to live out the gospel of Christ, then to be able to love God and love the neighbor, it will mean also to act in the world for the neighbor, so that they may see the wisdom, see the love of God, and they may come to know God Himself. And so it is by these actions that we have, that we can do the word faithfully and live uh according to God's wisdom, and that people may come to know God's grace, God's will, God's wisdom. And so from Arthur Zus's letter, we can glean to these two related questions for ourselves this morning, right? What will the unbelieving world say about us? And how are we demonstrating the wisdom of God in our lives? But that's not quite the end of the passage for this morning. We have a final two verses in verses 27 and 28. Um, and in those two verses, we finally get to hear Ezra speak. Right, in 26 verses, we are just reading other people's uh writing about Ezra. And now we finally hear from him. In his opening words, Ezra praises God. Right, verses 27 and 28, I think I have it there. Yep. Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. And here we find a a justaposition between the perspectives of the Persian king and of Ezra the scribe.

unknown 29:12

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SPEAKER_02 29:12

If you read through the letter again, Artazes seems to think that everything that he is writing and saying all originates from him, right? Artazes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, right, in verse 12. I make a decree, he says, and you are sent by the king and his seven counselors, and I, Artazazis the king, make a decree to all the treasurers, and so on and so forth. He he sees himself as the one in authority, in power, and so all these plans are originating from him. And yet, from Ezra's perspective, all this was God's doing. Right? He worked through a king anxious about his kingdom to provide Ezra all that he needed for the temple. And just these two verses uh betrays the posture of Ezra. Right? Ezra will be completely reliant on God. You know, he's vested with so much authority, he has been given so much wealth, so much power to do so many things. But here he is precisely saying, I am not going to rely on the Persian rule. I will rely only on God alone, who is sovereign and whose hand is on me. Which is why later in the chapters we'll see Ezra trying to uh address a specific issue in the lives of the Israelites. And again, with the Persian backing, right? He could actually just say, yeah, okay, you don't want to listen to me, go to jail. You don't want to listen to me, I'm gonna split you all up, I'm gonna I'm gonna um like even execute you, right? But he does not rely on his Persian authority and rule, he relies on the word of God and he appeals to his people on the basis of the word of God, which was more problematic for him, was harder for him, right, to get the people to come to the Lord. But he did it anyway, right? And that's for uh uh a few sermons down the road. Uh hope you will look forward to that. Um but the important and in the important phrase here that I kind of want to highlight for us um is this, right? It's been mentioned twice before in in uh chapter 7, and it's this phrase, the hand of the Lord my God was on me. Repeated three times in this chapter, right? The man who has the law and wisdom of God in his hand is the one whom God has his hand on. Right? The one who has the law and wisdom of God in his hand is the one whom God has his hand on. And so here's my third and final question for us. Do you feel the hand of God on you today? Have you treasured the word of God in your heart to the point that it moves you and it reveals to you God's plan for your life? Uh I remember when I at the point when I was uh when I answered the call of God to full-time ministry, um, and before I went for my theological studies, this was a period where like um up to that point I have never really studied. Uh I have never been, what's the word for it? Um I have never applied myself. Right? Um I I really couldn't uh motivate myself. I I really have no no, I guess the young people say no feels, okay, well not young anymore. But no feels for studies. I just couldn't be bothered with it actually. Um but when I eventually started theological education, right, I could I could see God's hand on me and kind of moving me around, right? For for for various reasons, right? Um number one, this was the first time I actually enjoyed studying something. This was the first time that education was life-giving, right? Before that, everything was a dread. I really hated studying, but like this was the first time that I enjoyed it. And secondly, I think, and I think more importantly, right, I think when I look back, had I not entered seminary, I would probably have lost my faith. It was only during my seminary years that that I could have the resources uh and and and the the the and I was equipped to go and search for answers for the reasons for our faith. And and I come out of seminary convinced of what we proclaimed during Holy Communion, right? Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Right? And this is why I am still a believer standing before you today. Um and so beyond my education, then I continue to see God's hand on me as I try my best to faithfully teach His Word. And I know I don't do it perfectly. I know there are so many other people who can do it much better than I can, but as I faithfully uh give myself unto the Lord, I really can see God, God's grace move moving and working through me, um, even with all my limitations and my imperfections. And so, my last question for you, for all of us, is this do you sense the Lord leading and moving you with his hand on you, helping you to get you to where he wants you to be?

unknown 34:21

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SPEAKER_02 34:22

Do you sense his grace and power in you that enables you to accomplish the tasks that he has given you? People around us will try to conform us to their agenda, or I think if we are careless with the word of God uh when we don't have it in our hand, if to use Ezra's language, then we'll simply follow the agenda of our own wisdom, our own flesh, right? Which means we will miss out on God's calling for us, and we miss out on the spirit's work in our lives. So will we come to God and ask him to work in and through us? And I will end up with this very last uh detail from this morning's passage. Um, we were reading that Ezra was commissioned to gather Israelites to go back to Jerusalem, right? Uh these were Israelites who were still in Babylon. Which means that after the first uh return, right, with Zarubabel, there was still a good number of Israelites who stayed on in Babylon. And it seems that they they probably were enjoying is not the right word, but their life wasn't all that bad in Babylon. If you read 2 Kings 24, verse 14, I will just quickly say that Babylon uh took all the educated people, all the learned people, all the skilled people to Babylon. Right? And we read uh in 2 Kings 24, verse 14, uh none remained except the poorest people of the land. Only the poorest Israelites remained in uh Judah and in Jerusalem. So not that their living conditions were ideal, but I think they were living a better life in Babylon than they did in Jerusalem. Right? And so a lot of these Israelites stayed on after the first return. Right? But with Ezra comes another big batch of people who will go back to Jerusalem. And I don't think they were compelled by Persian rule, right? The the king himself said you can gather anyone who is willing to go back.

unknown 36:39

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SPEAKER_02 36:39

He never forced people to go back, and yet a large group of people went back with Ezra. And I think they were probably moved by the Spirit to go back to continue the work of God in his land. And so may I implore all of us to ask the Spirit to come and awaken our spirit, right? To come back to the Word of God who is Jesus Christ, that we may know the ways of the Father who is surely calling all of us today for his purpose and his will. And as we all do so, may the hand of God be on us as well, giving all the provision we need to live faithfully for him. And so as we close in in prayer, uh I just want to flesh out the three questions again for us. What do believers say about us? Are we displaying God's wisdom? And do we feel God's hand on us? How would you answer these questions this morning? Right? Where are you at now with your journey, with your walk with God? What do you think God wants you to do about this? I'll give a short moment, all of us can maybe just close our eyes and bow our heads now and just spend a few moments with the Lord. And ask God, what is it are you saying to me at this moment? What do unbelievers say about us? Are we demonstrating God's wisdom in our lives? Do I feel God's hand on me?

SPEAKER_00 38:42

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