Joy and Grief | Worship in the Rubble | Ezra 3:1-13

Show Notes

Episode 685:
In this episode, we dive into Ezra chapter 3, a pivotal moment in the biblical narrative where the Israelites begin their comeback by rebuilding the altar in Jerusalem. We explore the profound implications of the Israelites prioritizing the rebuilding of the altar over the city's walls. Despite the ruins surrounding them, they focus on worship and sacrifice, demonstrating their commitment to God. We discuss how this act of worship is a powerful statement of faith, especially given their previous failures to honor God, which led to their exile.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to another exciting episode of The Bible guys Man. Today we're going to be in Ezra chapter three, and this is where the comeback begins. Yes, the altar is going to be be rebuilt. That's right. Well, I think this is amazing because the whole city is standing in ruins. But they don't build the walls first, they build the altar first. Oh that's pretty good, pretty great. Yeah, that's really good. We're gonna start with that, but before we do, we have a segment because today's Friday. Oh yeah, I was just sitting here going, I don't even know where you're going with this. I do know where you're going. It's time for everybody's favorite segment. Yeah, well, I mean for everybody that listens to the Bible Guys more than just a week or two. Yes, this is their favorite segment. What made Chris mad this week? This week? Well, I have one, Jeff, And you know what makes. Me moan shock shock? This is my shock face. Yeah, yeah, that's what I always do. Okay, you know what makes me mad? And actually it really truly gets me mad. Is top golf? Really? Yes, you don't like top golf. I love top golf, okay, but top golf makes you mad. Very much, so okay? And you know why no, Because they impose upon everybody short rubber teas, and they don't give you an option to go tall. Right, even though that much of the golf community, and the reason why I know it's much is because it may be mad so much. We took how many people there are fifty, yeah, fifty our staff. I walked around and asked everybody about if they golf regularly and whether or not they hate the rubber teas. And I would say at least half of just our group said they can't stand these short rubber tees because there's different swings in golf, and so some do tee it up very very low, and to be honest, they have the better swings, right, so they get down low and they lift it everything else. And and you know some people can go to top golf and crank it over the net even right. Well, that's what they lowered him, you know that, right. They used to be taller and then they lowered. Him okay, well, then I even hate it more than ye because people are putting them over the build a taller net. How tall dude. All I'm saying. Is, anyways, I this is your rage. Now this is my rage because I can, to be honest, I can't hit My swing just won't allow it. And so you know, the net is only what two hundred. And fifty yards away. Can't adjust, No, cannot adjust. You cannot adjust. And so Chad, Chad says to the whole staff. Oh, when Chris hits a ball, he swings out of his shoes and he tells everybody, right, because I can hit it. I can hit a drive three hundred yards if I you know, if I hit on a good, good swing, and uh. So you have hit a ball three hundred yards. Sure of right, So so I could do that, but you know, the top golf, the net is only like two hundred and something yards away, and I can't hit it on a fly because my swing won't all out because. I I just I just I can't do it. And so I'm just thinking to myself, ge, whiz, can't you just can't you just have it? It's not gonna be hard. But according to you, they lowered it on purpose. Do you think some people hit that that back netting? Oh I saw Connor Meed do it. Yeah yeah, Connor me literally put on there. See anybody do it fourteen times? Uh no, but I'm sure Connor could do it. Oh you did it because you swing alone, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, you have a little swing. Yeah, okay. I'm not a good golfer. I'm not, but I can crush that ball. Yeah yeah, yeah. So uh we played, I forgot like eight six games. Yeah, and I hit the back net in the air on the fly, on the fly. Oh wow, fourteen. Times I hit it. I hit the back net twenty something times. That's the only way I was getting any points because I can't. I can't. I don't have any accuracy. I can't actually hit any of those circles out there. So I just got to crush it. You try to get it that way. And so I hit the back net twenty something times, but I hopped it towards the enda, starting to run out of gas. But that at the beginning my first three rounds, I hit the net like every other swing. That's fun. Yeah, well my swing will not allow it because I I just it it up so high, so I can't use any other golf teas besides the extra long ones. So if what if? What if you moved your grip further back on the list, what if us the longer try that game all day long. But that's a whole different ballgame, right, that's a whole different game to say, change your swing, right, change your swing is is definitely an option. But currently, I so it makes you mad, dude, It outrages me furious, because are you ever going to go back? I love golf. Oh yeah, I'll go back all the time because it's amazing. But I wish, I wish that I somehow was able to lift it up by probably double. So have you ever seen the guy who bring is that little thing that sits inside of it? On YouTube? No, he has he has a little extender and they'll come and take it from him. But while he's got it and he's putting it over the fence. Wow, I didn't know they've seen it. Huh. Yeah, he's got he's got a little thing that sits inside the I would love that. Yeah. Well, the problem is if he accidentally hits it, he knocks it way out on the thing too, right, that's the problem. Yeah, well I could, I could probably, I don't know. That's a pretty good height. Could I hit it over the net with. The right teeth with an extension? It's pretty high? Maybe, So that's a matt You could just look the mat up, pull that out, stick your own in. What you mean, like an actual tea? No, no, just just get a rubber one like that. That's tall. Yeah, well, I don't. I don't have that much intentionality beyond you know, for for golf, you know. Anyways, talking about having intentionality, Oh yeah, Ezra had some intentionality. Was intentional about about writing about rubble bulls? Intentionality? Wow? Of taking the people back to Jerusalem? You know what? Actually that started off as a good transition and then ended up being really. Really, really horrible. Yeah that's really funny. So, uh well you are in Ezra chapter three. Oh that's so good, Ezra chapter three. And thank you for sharing your outrage on behalf of holl So because it's never just for you. I'm mad for all the other people who are mad about the fact. That wasn't It wasn't just me, it was the other thirty people in our staff. I was outraged. Four just be clear, I didn't care. I didn't. I didn't say I cared about you caring. Yeah, I cared about the other people. The other people are a bunch of whiners too. Wow, you just call it half our. Well yeah, anyways, Uh, here's what is that you're right now, I'm in trouble. I'm not gonna be able to show my face in the office for a week. There it is there, it is. There, he is there, he is Okay. So in Ezra chapter three, it said, in early autumn, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people ascended, ascended assembled there you go, assembled in Jerusalem with the unified purpose. I like that. Then Jesua son of Jehosah Jehosah daht Great joined his fellow priests, and Zerubeble son of shell Shiel t l with his family in rebuilding the altar of the God of Israel. Okay, So Zerobebel joined his family members in rebuilding the altar. Let's just because I stumbled through a lot of names there. Yeah, I've always pronounced it Zerubble. Okay, So, but I guess it's just yeah, long you are. Yeah, I like er you say zerubble I say zerubebl tomato tomato. Okay. Anyways, it says they wanted the sacrifice burnt offerings on it, as instructed in the Law of Moses, the Man of God. Even though the people are afraid of the local residence. They rebuilt the altar at its old Then they began to sacrifice burnt offerings on the altar to the Lord. Each morning and evening they celebrated the Festival of Shelters as prescribed in the law, sacrificing the number of burnt offerings specified for each day of the festival. They also offered the regular burnt offerings and the offerings required for the New Moon celebrations and the annual festivals as prescribed by the Lord. The people also gave voluntary offerings to the Lord. Fifteen days before the Festival Shelters began, the priests began to sacrifice burnt offerings to the Lord. This was even before they'd started to lay the foundational Lord's temple. Then the people hired masons and carpenters and bought cedar logs from the people of Tire and Sidon, paying them with food, wine, and olive oil. The logs were brought down from the Lebanon Mountains and floated along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to Joppa, for King Cyrus had given permission for this. The construction of the Temple of God began in mid spring during the second year after they arrived in Jerusalem. The workforce was made up of everyone who had returned from exile, including Zerubabyle son of shielt L, Jeshua son of Jehozadakh and his fellow priests, and all the Levites. The Levites who were twenty years old or older were put in charge of rebuilding Lord's Temple. The workers at the Temple of God were supervised by Jeshua with his sons and relatives, and Kadmiel and his sons that all descendants of Oodevaiah. They were how do you usually say that name? I don't I don't know. They were helped in this task by the levites of the family of Henna Dad. When the builders completed the foundation of the Lord's Temple, the priests put on their robes and took their places to blow their trumpets, and the Levites and descendants of Asaf clashed their symbols to praise the Lord. Just as King David had prescribed, with praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord. He is so good, his faithful love for Israel endures forever. Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because of the foundation of Lord's Temple had been laid. But many of the older priests, levites, and other leaders who had seen the first temple wept aloud when they saw their new temples foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance. Yeah, they were holding anything back, were they? No, they weren't. And first of all, let's let's go back to the beginning here, because I have I have some comments about the whole shouting. But when it says the altar was rebuilt, I love how you noticed that even before they laid the foundation, even before they started building, even before they started doing anything, the first thing that they did was rebuilt the altar right where the old one was right, and which means that there had to have been older people perhaps that were there right, because it does say at the end, it says, but the older priest Levites and the other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud right because they saw the new temples foundation, which means that there were people who remembered exactly how the old Temple used to be, right, right, And so anyway, all that to say, I just think it's amazing that that's the very first thing that they did. And can you imagine just the joy of being able to celebrate the festival of shelters as prescribed in the law, you know, on that space, just the absolute joy of being back there in Jerusalem would probably be something that you and I could look, a joy that we would probably never even be able to comprehend. Right. Well, you know, God doesn't promise to give favor to people who ignore him. So they had a lot of things they needed to do. But the last time they were in Jusalem, they were pretty strong. They had held off the Egyptians, they'd held off the Assyrians, right, they were pretty strong. But they weren't making God their priority. They weren't giving him his rightful attention. They weren't worshiping him, and they lost. Even though they were strong. Now they're few and they're weak. The walls of their city are torn down, and the only hope they have is that God give them favor and protect them. Right, And I'm going to say that's not a terrible place to be when you realize the only hope you have is God, that's a pretty good place when you think you also have other things to help God out. I think you're kind of in danger there. But in this situation, and then it's the power of worship, right, The power of worship transforms them, certainly puts their dependency on God. And God honors that. He respects that to the point that he names a whole bunch of people that aren't mentioned at any other time in the Bible. But Guy's like, hey, I'm going to give them special honorable mention. Where here we are now twenty five hundred years later, trying to sound out these guys' names. And while to us it feels a little weird, God gives honor to whom honor is due. Also in the situation, these men, they led the people to worship God first, right, Yeah, and then I think that gets God's attention. That's what I'm trying to say. God named them by name because they got God's attention. There's nothing else special about them. It doesn't. It doesn't say that they were particularly rich, It doesn't say that they were super powerful. It just says that they grabbed their trumpets, they led the people. They began laying the foundation to build this temple, to build the altar. They didn't build the temple just to build the altars so that the people could worship, and God goes. Those people got my attention. You want to get the attention to God. It's not going to be in all the other performative things you do. It's going to be in your posture of worship. Yeah. So the foundation that they laid, the New Temples foundation, was considerably smaller than. The other one. Yeah, And. So I wonder, I wonder if you know it doesn't say, but it says many of the older priestly vice and other leaders who've seen the first Temple wept allow when they saw the New Temples foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. So it indicates that the weeping was not joy. Does that makes sense? Yeah? I believe that's true, right, because because the uh because otherwise, because it says the others however, right, So it seems to be in contrast, So the weeping could have been because it was smaller. Well, they and they knew the glory. So Solomon's Temple was you know, both temples had cedar from Lebanon, but Solomon's was covered in gold and silver and was so grand. And it was in the middle of this great jewel of a city, the great walls, the prosperity of Jerusalem, all that kind of stuff. And so these old guys remembered how great that was, you know what. And now they're looking at this new foundation, it's not even built yet, the temple. They're looking at this a new place, sitting among ruins. Right, I was just going to say, points, so their sin is what brought him to that point. Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing. I almost recant what I said. It wasn't because it was smaller, although it could have been. Possibly, it's less. It's less than it's worse. It's less than it could have been. What you just said, it's just so sad. The story of the temple is so sad. The story of the people is so sad. The story of them having to learn the hard way is so sad. Right, all of the captivity, all of you know, the glory of what was versus what is no more. It's just it's just how did it come to this? That kind of thing. So yeah, yeah, so it's probably all of that. But you have to remember that these guys are in their mid to late eighties, right, right, that can remember that everybody else is thrilled, right, everybody else. Yeah, so we don't have to ruin everybody else's party, right. This is the best that they know at the time, and they're doing the best they can to put God first and honor God. So I'm not saying boo on these old men, but that was a previous time and now they're just going to take some work they do. Drewsom does get rebuilt and is pretty great eventually, but there's a lot of hard work because of our own choices. Now we have a ton of hard work, and it's not as glorious as it used to be, but we can rebuild this thing and then eventually, you know, Harritt's Temple's pretty pretty phenomenal. But between here and there, it's several hundred years and so we've got a lot of work to do. So in two thousand and I don't know what it was two thousand and two something like that. I was. I was pretty connected to a guy that you may. Know, Louis Iglio. You know him. So Louis had this thing called One Day and it was in Bells, Texas. And what he did was he decided to build a quite literally a million dollar stage in the middle of the field somewhere on this guy's property in Bells, Texas. And his goal was one hundred thousand college students to drive down to Bell's, Texas to have one big day of worship. Any called it one Day. He didn't quite hit the hundred thousand, but there were tens of thousands of people right and did every time he invited us on stage to prank and so and so it's like I'm on. Stage and I'm seeing this ocean. Of of of of of college students. It was really cool. So anyway, here's here's what he did. He read from Ezra chapter one. He read this passage and it sticks out in my mind. And so he says, he says, excuse me as Rich chapter three, excuse me. But he says, all the people gave a great shot praising the Lord because the foundation of the temple's Lord has been made, and he said, others wept, others were joyful. However, the shot, the joyful shot of weeping, mingled together with a loud noise I could be heard great in the distance. So he said, wherever you're at in your life, he said, cry oud to God, and we're going to make a big crowd to God. Ready to go. Now, you have never heard a shot like this. I'm telling you, It'll stick out my mind probably until the day I day, unless I lose my marbles. Okay, I remember this moment. Everybody shouts just forever, and there's so extreme and you know, there's over the top. It just didn't end right. It's like it's almost like. A when you take a breath and you sort of overlap on the choir and you're you're, you know, you're you're having to like stagger just because we want we want it to be one big loud thing. It went on for like I bet you it. Was a five minute shout. Five minutes. Can you even imagine tens of thousands of people. So anyway, at the end of this great story, he brought it to a conclusion and said that there are people in the audience. There are people in the crowd. Who they're absolutely in the worst place of their lives, and then there's people who are in the best place of their lives. And there's everybody in between. And all of our emotions toward God, all of our yearnings, all of our desires, he say, God knows every single one. And he said, the shouts of joy are mixed with the shouts of weeping. And he said in the shout could be heard a great distance away. That was his big thing, he said, let us let him in the next field. You know, that kind of thing, he said. He says, but he says, but God looks down and sees every single story. And I'm telling you what an impression it made on me. Yeah. It's a great picture, isn't it. Yes, you know, I think about it. The young men are cheering and celebrating. Yeah, the old men are grieving. Yeah. The old men are aware that it was their generation and their parents' generation that brought all this on them. Consequence. Consequence. Yeah, the young men they didn't experience that. All they knew was captivity. And now they're free to worship their God and rebuild. And so they see opportunity. And you can look back at what I don't see as the young men blaming the old. Men at all, certainty. That's that's the thing that happens in our nation. We blame the previous generations, look at all the mistakes that were made, as opposed to say, hey, we're here, now, what do we do from here on out? And they grabbed hold of Abraham Lincoln said, I think it was Abraham Lincoln. I just read this quote. I was reading through a bunch of famous quotes from famous Americans. Was it for score in seven years ago? No? No, No, not that one. It was. I think it was Lincoln who said, we can complain that rose bushes have thorns, or we can rejoice that thorn bushes have roses. Right, that's great. And so these old men are grieving over their mistakes and the generation before them their mistakes, and they're seeing it and there's a repentance. I think this is gonna be a tear in their eye like Daniel's prayer, tear in his eye. Right, God, what we did is wrong. Only your mercy brings us back. That weeping can also be a mix of my own grief and my joy that the Lord extended mercy right, it can be that. But the young men are not blaming the old man. The young men are celebrating, saying, look at we're back and they're together on this, and so we're gonna build It was twenty years old and older are put in charge, right, And so these guys see opportunity and they're gonna jump in. They're gonna put their backs to the work. They're gonna do the heavy lifting. They're gonna and they're gonna put God first before they build their homes, before they build their city, before they do all those other things. And I just think it's and their song was he is so good and his faithful love for Israel endures forever. And it's those lyrics that cause both the young men to cheer and the old men to cry. Right, same words, and they're good words. Yeah, And so it's appropriate when we look at the rubble of our life, if that's where we're sitting right now, and go, I did this, But God is so good right right, and his faithful love indoors there's some work to do. I'm going to do the work that if you're sitting where you know, for me and for you, we came from rough places sure. You know our origins are pretty rough. Yeah, and we could have blamed them and stayed right there. You could have stayed in Danstown and been that guy just blame your situation on the fact that you had a rough upbringing, or you know, me with abuse. I could have decided to go down that same path and blame it. Or I bet you I could throw a football over that mountain. Yeah, I'm telling you, if I can go back, we were one state coach, just. Put me in yeah and streaming. We could have been as opposed to rising up and saying, okay, we're standing in some brobo, We've got some work to do. That's right. So the narcissist says, everybody did this to me, and the opportunists goes, okay, look what, look what we have to work with. Let's grab some of these rocks and start building an altar. Yeah for sure. So look around your life right now and grab some of those rocks and start building an alter That's where the change begins. Yeah, that's great. And by the way, that was Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, as it was for those of for those of you who are wondering what the heck was that. Very theologically significant movie. Hey, you know the gospel is clear in a lot of. The Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I loved it. That's one of my favorites. You know, it's ridiculous. By the way. So John Arperg writes a book and he says that the pattern of every great movie, every best selling movie. You heard about that epic in the book Epic. We did a whole message on that book is. He says, every epic movie, every the top one hundred he goes, has the same pattern, which is it starts off by everything's right in the world, and then something tragic happens, something goes wrong, and then there either has to be a fight to be fought or a journey to be taken, and then somebody rescues the day right and then everything's right again and or justice has been served or something like this. And he says he is okay, so out of the top one hundred, now not saying there aren't great movies that don't follow that pattern, he says, but out of the top one hundred best grossing movies, guess how many follow that pattern? All one hundred. So off the top of your head, I'm gonna do something ready on the top of your head, pick one of the best. Movies that you know, uh, Gladiator, Gladiator. Everything's right in the world. He just wins the war at the beginning. All of a sudden, what happens is the Emperor is killed. He gets sold into slavery. That's the tragic thing. He has to fight his way back, and then he defeats the emperor at the end, literally exactly exactly the pattern. Elf Right, everything's right in the world. He finds out that he's not an elf, journey has to be taken to the Lincoln Tunnel, a battle has to be fought, and in the end. He saves Christmas. It's the same thing. It's the same pattern. And by the way, there's the reason why I'm saying that is because Eldrich would say, that's the story of the Gospel, right. And we long for it. That's why we keep telling that same story. That's right because in Genesis chapter one, everything's right in the world, and then something happens, tragically, Sin enters into the world. Then a battle has to be fought, a journey has to be taken, that's Jesus, and then eventually everything is restored and it's right again. Right, So Jesus makes our sin right, he makes our relationship right with our heavenly Father, and eventually the whole world will be made right again. And so if the story of the Gospel is buried deep down inside, even those people who are not Christians, even the people who are, you know, they would they would call themselves atheists of the Hollywood elite. And yet they even know that, deep down inside, this is the story that. People long for. Right. So it's amazing to me how the Gospel. Well Homer wrote it is fine in the Iliad, in the right. That's it's you go back, even to the ancient writings. We've been telling those stories almost every one of Shakespeare's Great Place, same with the same thing. So if you go it's the story of humanity, we keep telling that same story. The other big story we tell is the beloved is captured away by the dragon. The hero comes and sacrifices his life to get his beloved back. That's the other side of the gospel, right, that's the other story we tell. Those are the two stories. Yes, yeah, and so and so it's uh, it's the gospel God places you know, his is longing down in the depths of what's in the in the depths of every man or I'm just taking a quote by C. S. Lewis the God shaped hole. Yeah, yeah, that's It's from Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in the heart. That's it. That's what I was thinking about. Yep. And and God is a place attorney in the heart of every man. So anyway, that book that you reference for the movie type people that love this kind of stuff, John Eldridge wrote it. It's called Epic. It's a little tiny book. You can probably buy an Amazon Amazon for parably ten bucks. Yes, well, I sort of feel justified in my movie knowledge. Now there you go a little bit. It's great, right because it's the God. I find the Gospel in a lot of those. Okay, that's it. That's our time. So hopefully we'll see you on Monday on the Bible Gush