Title: The Heart God Moves
Text: Ezra 1:1-11
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Introduction
1.
2. We’ve certainly enjoyed the presence of the Lord in our services…
We see how the Holy Spirit moves and blesses people by their obedience to His voice…
I trust that, as we continue to be obedient to Him…
He will continue to speak to people’s hearts…
Change their lives…
And the church will grow…
3. As I was reading in the book of Ezra the other day…
I had started out just reading for my own personal devotional life…
But, as I began to study, I began to sense that the Lord had a message for His Church in this book.
4. Some of you might remember when I preached a series of sermons in the book of Jeremiah…
Back in the fall of last year…
Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet”…
He was called to prophesy a difficult message during a difficult time, to the children of Israel…
And by and large…they never responded…
And, just as Jeremiah prophesied…
God’s judgment came…
And many people lost their lives…
And the ones that lived…
Just a small remnant…
were carried off into exile…
away from their homes…
many times families were broken up…
and they were separated from their place of worship…
the Temple…
and, the Temple was seen as the place where God dwelled….
So, in that sense, they even felt separated from their God…
5. But, here in Ezra, we see that the judgment has been carried out…
70 years of exile have passed…
And the book of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of the people being able to return to their homeland…
And they can begin the work of rebuilding the city….
And even more importantly, rebuilding the Temple.
Read Text: Ezra 1:1-11
Body
1. God Moved Cyrus’ Heart
A. verse 1 on of our text tells us that Cyrus made a proclamation throughout his land…
Something that was prophesied in Jeremiah 29:10-14…
“This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Isaiah also prophesied about it…
And he mentions Cyrus by name!!
Isaiah 44:28 says, “who says of Cyrus, ’He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"
and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."
And again in Isaiah 45:13, “I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the LORD Almighty."
These prophesies were written probably 100 years earlier…
And then, here in the book of Ezra…
We read about the fulfillment of those prophesies.
B. So, Scripture tells us that God moved Cyrus’ heart…
And Cyrus issues this proclamation so that Jerusalem can begin to be restored…
It is fascinating that God is able to use a man who is not following God…
But he seemed willing to be used by God.
Some commentators think that one of the Jews showed this prophesy to Cyrus…
And he was willing to see it fulfilled.
Some commentators think it might have been Ezra…
But others point to Daniel.
In Daniel 6:28, it says,
Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
However it happened…
Cyrus could have had the exact opposite attitude…
“well, so what if God says that…
I won’t do it”…
But, instead, he was willing to be used of God…
Or, I could even say, he was obedient to the moving of the Holy Spirit…
And he set into motion the events so that Jerusalem could be rebuilt.
C. Cyrus not only issued the proclamation…
But he also supported the work financially…
And opened the way for others to support the work financially.
In verse 3, as a part of the proclamation…
Cyrus says, “ANYONE may go”.
So the Lord opened up the way for the entire Jewish people to return to Jerusalem…
Their homeland…
2. Everyone Whose Heart God had moved v. 5
A. You’d think that everyone would start packing…
And be chomping at the bit to get back home.
But then comes the response to the proclamation in verse 5,
“Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites--everyone whose heart God had moved--prepared to go up and build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem”
What a minute…
What about the tribe of Gad?
What about the tribe of Reuben?
What about the tribes of Zebulun, Dan, Joseph…
Naphtali, Asher, Simeon and Issachar?
There are 12 tribes of Israel…
And only a portion of 3 of the tribes decided to go…
Judah, Benjamin, and the priests descended from Levi…
In Ezra, chapter 2, we see that about 50,000 people decided to go…
So quite a group decided to return…
But there are many, many more who decide not to go…
They decide to stay in the land of their exile.
B. Why is that?
Well, Scripture doesn’t tell us for sure…
But we have some pretty good ideas…
For one thing, the trip was 4 months long…
And it wasn’t an easy journey…
It was largely “uphill”…
When Cyrus says in verse 3, to go “up” to Jerusalem…
He wasn’t kidding…
Jerusalem was at a much higher altitude than Babylon…
So there would be climbing involved…
There would be the possibility of danger…
The book of Ezra actually tells the details of 2 trips of people returning to Jerusalem…
The first one, led by Zerubbabel, detailed in Ezra 1-6…
And the second one, led by Ezra, detailed in Ezra 7-10.
In Ezra chapter 8, when Ezra himself is preparing to make this same journey…
He prays for safe travel…
This is a 900 mile journey, mostly on foot…
Across difficult terrain…
With the possibilities of attack by bandits…
And we see from some of the details in Ezra chapter one…
They were carrying some wealth…
Which was intended for the Temple.
C. But the difficult journey isn’t the only reason…
We also understand from ancient Persian writings…
That many of the Jews in captivity had acclimated to the society of their captures…
And they made a place for themselves…
Many of them had accumulated a measure of wealth…
They had new homes…
Their children had grown up there and married into that society as well…
Returning to Jerusalem would have meant giving up everything they had and starting over…
And most of the people just couldn’t bring themselves to do that…1 (Life Application Study Bible, note on Ezra 1:5,6.)
And, of course, once they actually get to Jerusalem…
It’s not like they have a house already built…
They would have a lot of hard work ahead of themselves…
Rebuilding their lives…
Rebuilding the city…
Rebuilding the Temple.
So, a great majority of them decided to stay behind.
D. But, thank the Lord…
There were some whose hearts the Lord was able to move to action…
There were some who heard the voice of the Holy Spirit…
And they responded.
2. Application
A. So, what does this mean to us today at Belleview Church of the Nazarene, in 2005?
First of all, we need to believe upon the words of prophesy…
The Bible still speaks to God’s people today…
There are many prophesies that have already been fulfilled…
Like the ones we looked at today…
But there are others…
Like prophesies about the 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ…
Prophesies about the end times…
Many prophesies that have yet to occur.
B. Secondly, God still moves….
He is trying to move the hearts of men and women…
Boys and girls…
And teenagers…
And, just like in Ezra’s day…
Sure, some will respond to the moving of the Holy Spirit…
But many more will not.
God is trying to move in the hearts of people…
And my fear that, by percentage…
It will only be a small group of people that responds.
Conclusion
1. Last week, we saw the movement of the Holy Spirit…
Several people responded to the Holy Spirit’s leading…
I’m sure there were others that enjoyed the Spirit’s closeness…
But the Holy Spirit wasn’t speaking to them to do anything else but to enjoy His blessing in their life…
And that’s good too…
I’m certainly not looking to manipulate the Spirit…
I don’t want people trying to do things that the Spirit isn’t leading us to do.
But, I fear that there is also another group of people…
A group of people who refuse to move…
They have hardened their hearts to the voice of God…
They have committed the sin of “quenching the Holy Spirit”…
I see these people out in the world…
I see people whose hearts are hardened…
I see people who know right from wrong…
But they glory in doing wrong…
I see people who know the direction that God would have them to go…
And they will intentionally and purposefully walk the other way.
And my great fear is, not only are those people OUTSIDE the walls of the church…
But my great fear is…that that attitude is making its way INSIDE the walls of the church.
2. God wants to build His church…
Just as much today….
As He did in Ezra’s day…
And God is trying to move the hearts of His people….
He is trying to get people to respond to His call….
And obey the Spirit’s leading and guiding in their lives….
He is speaking to His church…
And I know that some people will respond…
They have already…
But I fear that we are at a dangerous crossroads…
Because I fear that we have people…
And I don’t know that you realize how much it pains me to admit this…
But we have people even inside Belleview Church of the Nazarene who will refuse to respond to the Holy Spirit’s moving in their lives…
And when the altar call is given…
They will turn their backs…
And walk out of the church…
KNOWING that the Lord is speaking to their hearts…
KNOWING that they need to respond…
And yet they will refuse…
3. I’m sure that the reasons will be very much the same today as they were in Ezra’s day…
They are afraid that the journey will be difficult…
They are afraid knowing that walking with Jesus is an uphill climb…
They are afraid that they will have to leave some things behind…
They are afraid of the work that will be asked of them in building the church…
People have accumulated a little wealth…
A nice home…
They have grown to enjoy living in this foreign land…
They have become acclimated to the world of sin…
And not only acclimated…
But have joined right in…
4. This morning, I want you to realize that the Lord is here…
He is trying to move the hearts of men and women…
Teenagers…
Boy and girls…
And my question for you is…do you have a heart that God can move?...
Or have you hardened your heart?
Do you plan to travel along the journey to the New Jerusalem…
Or do you plan to stay in Babylon…
Do you desire to join in the building of God’s Church…
Or do you just want to focus on your own comfort…
Your own accumulation…
Becoming acclimated to the great sin of society?
5. In Ezra chapter 1, we see that God moves the heart of a pagan king…
And he issues a proclamation allowing the rebuilding of the Temple…
We see that God moves the hearts of the people in the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, and Levi…
And they follow God to see that the Temple is rebuilt…
But, we also see that there was a great number of people whom God could not move…
People who were probably good people…
Successful people…
But they refused to respond to the Holy Spirit’s leading…
Do you have a heart that God can move?...
Or will you refuse to respond to the Holy Spirit’s voice?
#297 “Spirit of the Living God, Fall Fresh on Me”
Or #326 “The Savior is Waiting”
Or #333 “Don’t Turn Him Away”
