he drank your wine

The Word for today:
Nehemiah 1

I love the book of Nehemiah. I'll never forget the first time I encountered the last line of chapter 1:
"Now I was cupbearer to the king."

Intriguing. But what did it mean? So I looked it up. The cupbearer tasted the wine first, to make sure it wasn't poisoned. He was the king's most trusted attendant, constantly in his presence.

Then I read how the king sent his cupbearer to a city, far away. His mission was to rebuild what had been broken.

Certainly the book of Nehemiah is about Nehemiah, who worked with Ezra the priest and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to rebuild Jerusalem. But the gathering sense that Nehemiah stands as a preview of Jesus becomes irresistible, even undeniable when we reach, in the New Testament, the night that Jesus was arrested:
So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?" (John 18:11)

The cup he drank that night, from his Father's hand, was a well-known Old Testament picture of judgment:
For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. (Psalms 75:8)

He was sent to a distant land. There he worked as a carpenter, building with wood and stone. Finally, because he knew what was in the cup, he drank your wine.

You'll forgive me if I sometimes forget that Nehemiah is about Nehemiah.

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bad marriages

The Word for today:
Ezra 9, 10

The Jews had just returned from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. They were sent there as judgment against all of their sins. But far and away the most damaging of their sins was idolatry.

Idolatry is when you confuse God for a nothing:
We know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one.  (1 Corinthians 8:4)

God doesn't want us counting on and relying on a nothing, so he reserves special places in his Bible for emphatic warnings against idolatry. Here is the First Commandment of the Old Testament:
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.  (Exodus 20:2-3)

Here is the First Commandment of the New Testament:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  (John 14:6)

You see, God can't save us if we choose to rely on somebody or something else. The reason God can't save people who don't follow him is because he will not disregard their choices. When he says he's one, and that there is no other way, he isn't being angry and mean, or narrow and exclusive. He is trying to show us the way home. He knows that if we try to take any other way home, we won't get there:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  (Matthew 7:13-14)

That's what's behind the prohibition against marrying foreigners, which we read about in the final chapters of Ezra.

The prohibition is not ethnic.  God doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that we should not marry persons because they are from another country.

The prohibition is not racial.  God doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that we should not marry persons because they are of another race.

The prohibition is spiritual. God is warning them that foreign marriages, which caused their idolatry and exile in the first place, will cause them to slide into idolatry again.

He wants them to walk out on bad marriages so that they don't walk out on him.

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whenever I am afraid...

The Word for today:
Ezra 8

mark these--
Ezra 8:31:  The hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way.

Ezra 8:18:  By the good hand of our God upon us...

Ezra 8:22:  The hand of our God is for good upon all that seek him.

I don't know when I last held one of our kids' hands as we crossed the street.

All parents do it, instinctively. Then there comes a day when we don't do it anymore.

My four kids are between 21 and 29, so the next hand they hold as they cross the street will be the hand of a child of their own.

But I have a notion that we're always little to God. I think there never comes a day when he decides we're too big for all of that.

Ezra keeps on saying that "the hand of our God was upon us." He even makes it better sometimes by saying "the good hand of our God was upon us."

But my favorite is when he says "the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him." That's my favorite because it's not just about Ezra--it includes you and me, too!

Don't you ever say a word about this, but there's times when I'm afraid and I actually hold my hand out to my side like little kids do, waiting for Dad or Mom to clasp it.

Don't you dare tell anyone, but I do that all the time.

If ever you're afraid like I sometimes am, I want you to remember that God has two hands. So even if he's got ahold of my hand, he can hold yours, too.

Sometimes the Good News isn't all about big things like sin and atonement and things hard to explain.  Sometimes the Good News is just about holding hands.

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you are--because he is

The Word for today:
Ezra 7

mark this: Ezra 7:10 --
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.

As I noted (enviously) a couple days ago, Ezra is the Bible teachers' Bible teacher. First of all, we know that he studied like a madman to learn the Book:
Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses, which the LORD, the God of Israel, had given. (Ezra 7:6)

Ezra knew his stuff. That's the first step a teacher has to accomplish. It's not the most important step, but it's the first.

But what separates Ezra from the rest is found in Ezra 7:10:
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.

***

On my keyboard, I have taped a little note I wrote to myself. Here's what it says:

"Live biblically."

I am not going to dwell today on how that is done. That's the subject of many lessons to come. I just want you to think about what that means.

I want you to visualize what your life would look like if you were to live biblically.

Ezra did it. The Bible says that we should too:
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1:22)

As you think about what living biblically will make your life look like, I want you to recall the very best example of a person who lived biblically. It was said of him that he made the Bible come to life!--The Word became flesh and lived among us.

That means that when he walked into a room, it was just the same as having a living, breathing enactment of the Bible walk into the room! That's what I call flaming fantabulous!

And don't make living biblically all about where you fall short. Because to make it about that would be the exact opposite of living biblically.

You see, living biblically isn't about you at all! The whole point of the Bible is that Jesus didn't fall short. And because he didn't, you don't have to either. You don't have to live the way you used to, because you were born again. That means you have a new nature, the nature of a child of God--the same nature Jesus has. It means that you are super-natured!

This new supernatural you wants--yes, wants--to live just like Jesus did! That's the overwhelming desire of your brand new heart:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

So don't listen anymore to the sound of the old you echoing in your ears. All it's going to say, over and over, is that you fall short.

But that was another you. You're not that person anymore:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

You are a new creation, so start thinking all the new thoughts and promises that the Bible is jam-packed with. Don't listen to those old echoes anymore. Just make up your mind to learn all about Jesus and make up your heart to trust in all the wild and radical things he has to say about the new you.

Do that and, by God, one day you will find that you are living biblically!

It all sort of sneaks up on you.  Then one day,  you are--because he is.

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making history

The Word for today:
Ezra 5, 6

The book of Ezra recounts the story of how God provided for his people as he led them out of captivity in Babylon and back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

The prophet Jeremiah had predicted that God's people would return (1) and when the time came God "moved the heart of Cyrus," king of Persia, to issue a proclamation:

Thus says Cyrus king of Persia:
Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel. (2)

It is disheartening when government leaders legislate or act in ways that appear to refute God's will. But God is always in control, no matter who seems to be in the driver's seat:
The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD;
he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. (3)

God often uses people who have no interest in him to accomplish his purposes. He uses those who oppose him (Babylon, Herod, Rome, the Pharisees, Pontius Pilate, Judas Iscariot, etc.) to fulfill his plans.

Judas lived with and learned from Jesus for three years, and yet his heart wasn't in it. He turned Jesus over to the authorities, who had him executed.

Pilate thought that he was in charge of Jesus' trial. But when Jesus would not reply to his questions, Pilate asked, "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." (4)

It had always been God's plan for the Messiah to die for the sins of humanity. Judas and Pilate, however, had no idea that they were instrumental in helping God to fulfill his plan of redemption.

Judases and Pilates and presidents and prime ministers like to think they are "making history."

They are making whatever God wants them to make.

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(1) Jeremiah 29:1-23 (2) Ezra 1:2-3; (3) Proverbs 21:1; (4) John 19:10-11

he got by with a little help from his friends

The Word for today:
Ezra 4

mark this: Ezra 5:1-2 --
Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.
Then Zerubbabel set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them.

The Bible student will find it helpful to create clusters. Like grapes on the vine, clusters are things that are meant to hang together.

The book of Ezra should always be thought of as part of a cluster which includes the books of Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah. Bible scholars call them post-captivity books.

God's people are taken away (Isaiah, Jeremiah).
We must remember that the great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah warned the people that they would undergo judgment for their unbelief and idolatry. Just as they predicted, judgment struck. Much of the nation was carried off to Babylon. Jeremiah said they would remain there for 70 years.

God's people in foreign captivity (Daniel, Ezekiel).
During their captivity in Babylon, the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel were among them.

God's people come back home (Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah).
The book of Ezra begins when, after seventy years of captivity, the Persian ruler Cyrus issues a decree permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple.

The first group to return is led by Zerubbabel, who was a political leader in the line of King David. Spurred on by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, what came to be known as Zerubbabel's temple was completed. It was very plain and simple, not at all the sumptuous spectacle which Solomon's temple had been. The old-timers, who remembered the elegance of Solomon's temple before it was destroyed, wept at the contrast. But the rest of the people were greatly encouraged that a temple stood again.

About fifty years later, Ezra led a second contingent back to Jerusalem. As we will see in subsequent chapters, Ezra worked to rebuild the spiritual lives of the people.

After we finish the book of Ezra, we will enter the book of Nehemiah. He directed and inspired the people to rebuild the broken walls of Jerusalem.

So always cluster these books and characters. Together they form a picture of how God uses contrasting personalities with their various gifts to perform his purposes:
Zerubbabel, the political leader, rebuilt the temple.
Nehemiah, the layman, rebuilt the walls.
Ezra, the priest, restored hope and faith among the people.
The prophets Haggai (the practical, nuts-and-bolts builder) and Zechariah (a poet-dreamer) cultivated the revived spiritual lives of the people.

Ezra got by with a little help a lot of help from his friends.

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they also sing

The Word for today:
Ezra 3

Bear down today. Concentrate. If you do, the Bible will start to sing to you. You might even become part of the song.

***

Songs have repeated words, called the chorus.

A stanza, on the other hand, will introduce some new element of action or character development. Then the song heads back to the chorus.

Then another stanza with more new information. Then back to the chorus once again. And so the song is sung.

The Bible is constructed in just the same way, making it one big song.

First Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden.

Then Cain is banished from the presence of the LORD to the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Then Cain's descendants were banished from Babel and dispersed throughout the nations.

A thousand years pass until Israel, having become a nation, is enslaved in Egypt. Then a deliverer, Moses, comes along, and they return to their Land in Canaan.

There the nation grows in size and influence, but eventually they turn to idols. And so they are taken captive to Babylon. Enslaved there for 70 years, deliverers (first Zerubbabel, then Ezra and Nehemiah) bring them back (in two stages) to the Land, now called Judah.

More time passes until the ultimate deliverer, Jesus, is sent to free them from their ultimate oppressor, sin.

But Israel did not follow this Deliverer to freedom, so once again, in 70 A.D. (just as Jesus had predicted) the land was overrun by foreign forces (this time Rome) and the people were dispersed among the nations.

Two thousand years pass by before we begin to see yet another return of Israel to the Land. They reassemble, again, in stages--first the flesh, then the spirit of the nation is to be restored, as predicted by the parable of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Many biblical commentators say this gradual return is happening (since 1948) before our very eyes. Having returned to the land physically (flesh restored to the bones) there is yet one stage to complete. That stage will be Israel's spiritual return to the LORD Jesus Christ, whom they have up till now rejected.

Note the structured progression of this long song--
Subjected to their own sin in Eden, Adam and Eve are delivered from an eternity in that cursed state;

Mastered by sin outside of Eden's gates, Cain is delivered from the vengeance due a murderer;

Totally in thrall now to sin, the Babel-onians, lest they sink inextricably into sin, are delivered to dispersion;

Enslaved in Egypt, Israel is delivered to the Land;

Captives in Babylon, Israel is delivered, again, to the Land;

Consigned to Holocaust, Israel is delivered once more to the Land.

Finally, when the nation is spiritually born again, the blood-stained and sin-cursed Land will be renewed, giving way to new heavens and a new earth. (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1, 2 Peter 3:13)

***

The song is sung yet again in the New Testament, when the prodigal son, banished by and to his own carnal desire, came to himself at the prompting of the Spirit and heads back home. (Luke 15)

And the song is sung anew today, re-enacted in the lives of all those who are following the ultimate Deliverer all the way from the enslavement of sin to New Jerusalem, by way of his cross. (Isaiah 52:1, Hebrews 12:22, Revelation 3:12 & 21:2)

My life became another stanza in that song, and yours can too--but only if you'll attach it to the life of the Chorus.

We stanzas are many and varied, each from our particular Babylon. But all of us put together aren't a song without the Chorus.

Because the Chorus holds it all together:
In him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17)
He upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3)

He holds the cosmos, the Bible, the church, time, space, history, my life, my sanity, and hopefully yours as well; he holds it all--everything--together.

The song makes no sense without him. With him, the whole thing will be brought back to harmony, until all of us and everything join in:

Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it;
shout, O depths of the earth;
break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
and will be glorified in Israel. (Isaiah 44:23)

Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together. (Psalms 98:8)

The pastures are clothed with flocks;
The valleys also are covered over with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing. (Psalms 65:13)

They also sing. I also sing. So can you.

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