The Gritty Leader Who Brought Revival to Israel | Ezra 7:1-28

Show Notes

Episode 693: 
In this episode, Jeff and Wesley dive into Ezra Chapter 7, marking the arrival of Ezra, a pivotal figure in the revival of the Israelite community. Ezra is introduced as a prophet, priest, and a strong leader, and the hosts discuss how God is set to bring about a significant spiritual renewal among the people of Israel, emphasizing that this transformation begins from within.

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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. Welcome back to the Bible Guys. I'm Jeff and this is Wesley, and we are moving into Ezra chapter seven, and Ezra's finally on the scene. He's a prophet, he's a priest, he's a great leader, and God is going to do an incredible revival among the people of Israel. And it starts on the inside. So it's a pretty great, pretty great chapter today. But before we do that, Wesley, I have a really good segment. Well I don't. Dez has this really great segment. Jeff will ask Wesley a question. Okay, I'm gonna let you answer, and then I have to ask Chat GTP, Chat GPT the same question, and we're gonna compare the answer and we're gonna vote on who wins. Okay, okay, all right, So here's my question. Okay, who's a. Better host, Jeff or Chris. That's because I'm curious. I'm curious to see what you have to say about that. So my response would be, do you think carefully, Wesley? Due to the eloquence of both professionals. I feel that the skill set of hosting and doing a great job can be attributed to both individuals. Wow. Wow, that was a very way of not answering the question. I learned that from politicians you just give no response. So you're not leaning. Both do an awesome job with the. Guy in the room. Okay, I might have to host with Chris, that's okay, but neutral. I think you can beat. So so well, who's who's I should ask that question, who's tougher? Somebody from Detroit or somebody from Youngstown. Oh, that's a tough one. That would have been a good one. That's a really tough huh, because I mean they're both gritty in their own way, so that that's a tough one. Don't you think somebody from Detroit is tougher and somebody from Youngstown? Come on, Wesley, So I would. Lean and want to say, yes, I've seen some rough. Last that question too, but the first one. Who's a better host? Chris or Jeff? I wrote this great question? But let's be real. The magic of the Bible, guys is both of you together. Chris brings the humor, the energy, the punch lines. The guy who keeps it light and relatable. Jeff brings the grit, the depth, and the pastoral edge. The guy who keeps it grounded in bold. If you're flying solo right, you want it to hit hard with conviction and clarity. Jeff's your guy. You want to keep it fun and fast and disarming. Chris kills it. But together it's the perfect combo. You're the steak and the sizzle, the prophet and the punchline, the Bible and the guys. So the answer is neither is better. The duo is the brand. But if one of you gets a book deal first, I'll bets are off. So we were kind of the same one. Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good one. So then I said, well, who would you rather listen to? That's why I wanted to answer right. So then it came back and says, oof, you're trying to start a holy war. Here. He says, all right, here, here's the honest Bible guy's style answer. If you want to laugh all learning, I'm turning to turning tuning into Chris quick wit, lighthearted zingers and the ability to make Leviticus sound like stand up. And then it says, if I want to be challenged and walk away Sharper. It's Jeff. He brings the weight, the clarity, and the kind of insight that makes you rethink how you. Live on Monday. But if I want the best to both, give me both. Mike's hot because the back and forth is the show. So the final answer is I'd rather listen to the Bible guys, not the Bible guy. Isn't that awesome. It's staying neutral, it's not waiting, it just won't answer. So it's funny. Both of us have so much on the internet, you know, from our messages and stuff like that. I can take a message like if you gave me an outline, yeah, I can drop it in and say write this or preach this to me like in the voice of Chris Sarbo, and it'll say, Hey. Everybody, it's good to see you here today. Have you ever noticed this problem? Me too? Let me tell you it'll start going right now, just like Chris preaches. And then if I say, if I drop the exact same message in and say write this like Jeff Forster, because there's so much of our stuff online, it'll come out and it'll write it out just like mine. Usually really grounded in the Bible, and you know, true and honest. It's really good stuff. So oh man, okay, let's ask it as week we have another minute. Let's go, who's tougher someone from I mean, who's tougher question mark? Someone from Detroit or Youngstown. This is definitive right here. But see this is gonna get tricky because you almost have to go by neighborhoods, which I don't know Youngstown like that. But yeah, okay, let's see. Here we go, who's tougher someone from Detroit or Youngstown. Now that's a street fight of a question. Yeah, let me see. Oh, here goes. It says Detroit is motor city built on grit, steel and survival home and muscle cars, motown and people who've learned to hustle through economic collapse. If you can make it Detroit, you've probably patched a muffler with duct tape and stared down all the sides. Of a crater. When it says Youngstown, steel Town, USA, it's smaller, but pound for pound, tough as they come. When the mills closed, the city bled but didn't quit. This is russ Belt Royalty. These folks don't flinch. They just get to work. So the verdict. If you want brute force and street smarts, Detroit's your guy. If you want blue collar grit and bar fight toughness, young Town's in the ring. So who's tougher. Let's just say, if they ever meet in an alley, don't bet against either one. But if they team up, call it the roust belt, rumboy diplomatic. Yeah, it's just neutral. Okay, So we're not getting an answer from anybody, then that's funny. That's funny stuff. Man. So you want to talk about a rumble, I don't know. That's not a good transition, but I guess that would work. If you. Want to talk about gritty, there you go. You want to talk about gritty and toughness. Uh. This is one of the things I love about Ezra is He's he's this diplomatic leader, but he's just got this grit about him to say, man, we're going to get this job done. We're going to go back to Jerusalem where we're going to rebuild the city and all these things. So let's jump into it. I think you're going to see because he's also going to not only get the people back to the city, he's bringing them back to God, bringing them back to God's laws. And so if you're following along, we're about four fifty eight BC somewhere in there and Ezra. In Ezra chapter seven, it says many years later, during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, there was a man named Ezra. He was the son of Sayah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shaloum, son of Zadok, son of a Haitub, son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Marioth, son of Zarahiah, son of Uzai, son of Bukai, son of Abba Shua, son of Phineas, son of Eliezer, son of Aaron, the high priest. Oh, thank goodness, because I almost misunderstood. I thought it was different. Yes, that one, that's the one we're talking about, okay, Clid. So basically that was his lineage all the way back to the first priest. Yea Aaron, That's what this was. And to toss the sin really quick, Jeff, this would be common of what you would see in the Eastern world of identifying who you are and where you come from, like when you do introductions. And yeah, that's right. So anyways, it's establishing the fact that he has the right to be a priest because his great great great great great great great great great great grandfather was aaron right. So that's it. This. Ezra was a scribe who was well versed in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given to the people of Israel. He came up to Jerusalem from Babylon, and the king gave him everything he asked for because the gracious hand of the Lord his God was on him. Some of the people of Israel, as well as some of the priests, leevites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants, traveled up to Jerusalem with him. In the seventh year of King artizerxi's reign. Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in August of that year. He had arrived arranged to leave Babylon on April eighth, the first day of the new year, and he arrived in Jerusalem in August fourth, for the gracious hand of His God was on him. This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel. King art e Xerxes had given a copy of the following letter to Ezra, the priests and scribes who studied and taught the commands and decrees of. The Lord of Israel. From our to Xerxes, the King of Kings, to Ezra, the priest, the teacher of the law of the God of Heaven, Greetings, I decree that any of the people in Israel in my kingdom, including the priests and Levites, may volunteer to return to Jerusalem with you. I am my Council of Seven hereby instruct you to conduct an inquiry into the situation in Judah and Jerusalem based on your God's laws, which is in your hand. We also commission you to take with you silver and gold which we are freely presenting as an offering to the God of Israel who lives in Jerusalem. Furthermore, you to take any silver and gold that you may obtain from the province of Babylon, as well as the luntary offerings of the people and the priests that are presented for the temple of their God in Jerusalem. These donations are to be used specifically for the purchase of bulls and rams and mail lambs, and the appropriate grain offerings and liquid offerings, all of which will be offered and the altar of the Temple of your God in Jerusalem. Any silver and gold that has left over may be used in whatever way you and your colleagues feel as the will of your God. But as for the cups we are entrusting to you for the service of the Temple of your God, deliver them all to the King, to the God of Jerusalem. If you need anything else for your God's temple, or for any similar needs, you may take it from the Royal treasury. I are to Xerxes, the King, hereby send this decree to all the treasurers in the province west of the Euphrates River. You are to give Ezra, the priests and teacher of the Law of the God of Heaven, whatever request. You are to give him up to seventy five hundred pounds of silver, five hundred bushels of wheat, five hundred and fifty gallons of wine, five hundred and fifty gallons of olive oil, and an unlimited supply of salt. Be careful to provide whatever the God of Heaven demands for his temple, For why should we risk bringing God's anger against the realm of the King and his sons. I also to degree that no priestlyvite, singer, gate beeak keeper, temple servant, or other worker in this temple of God will be required to pay tribute, customs, or tolls of any kind. And you, Ezra, are. To use the wisdom your God has given you to appoint magistrates and judges who know your God's laws to govern all the people in the province west of Euphrates River. Teach the law to anyone who does not know it. Anyone who refuses to obey the law of your God and the law of the King will be punished immediately, either by death, banishment, confiscation of goods, or imprisonment. Wow am I reading through verse twenty eight, Ye, praise the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who made the King want to beautify the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Praise him for demonstrating such unfailing love to me by honoring me before the King his counsel in all his mighty nobles. I felt encouraged because the gracious hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered some of the leaders of Israel to return with me to Jerusalem. Wow, talking about the favor of God on Ezra. Yeah. I think Jeff, it might be helpful for some people listening. Can you give us a brief snapshot of the temple? So it made reference to the temple. Someone may hear that and like, do they mean just like. A church or what. Was the temple specifically? Here it's talking about the temple at Jerusalem blood. Yeah, yeah. So Jerusalem was the city that God had set up as the capital of Israel. It was the city of David, and David desired to build a temple for God. Prior to that, all of the worship was centered around the Tabernacle, which was like a temporary It was mostly a tent, but a temporary building that could travel, yeah, that could travel around Israel. And then David decided, I want to build a temple. I believe God wants me to do this. But God said, not you. You're a warrior, you have blood on your hands. But I'll let your son do it. So David collected all the stuff and Solomon stepped in and helped collect it. But then Solomon, his son, actually built the temple and it was glorious when you add up the costs of it. It was billions and billions of dollars in today's costs to build this magnificent temple, and it had outers that were designed for everybody, you know, the gentiles, the non Jews could come in and it just kind of was this place of gathering that was a worshipful thing, but it's also very social. Then you could come into the inner courts. This is where the Jews could be and this is a place of actual worship. They could bring their sacrifices and things, and then you'd move into the Holy Place. It's where the temple or where the priests would do their work. The priests and levites would do their work. There were all these symbolic elements to wash to be holy, the bread, the candlestick, the altar, all these things there, and then inside of that was the Holy of Holies and this represented the presence of God. The Ark of the Covenant was in there, and that represented both the law and the favor the blessing of God, both of those things. They had the Ten Commandments inside of it, and it had the budding rod of Aaron in there, representing the priesthood. And one time a year, the high priest could go through all the sanctification and the cleansing, so that he would be as holy as possible, and he would one time of year bring in the blood of a lamb that was sacrificed, this perfect lamb, and would pour it on the mercy seat as an offering to God for all of the people to cover their sins. For the nation. So it's pretty spectacular place, and it was very, very rich and unbelievable. It was the pride of the nation. If you want to know where that sat, it sat on what is the Temple Mount today in Jerusalem. Alaksa Mosque is there now, but the but I've been there. I've been on the Temple Mount and all that stuff. So if you ever see Jews at the Western Wall or what they used to call the Whaling Wall, they still will pray at that wall. That's the base of this Temple Mount. But it got obliterated by Nebu Canezer that came through, and the first time invaded, he didn't wipe it out. The second time he just the blitter. It's it. And then there have been a number of people who wanted to go back, and we've talked about that, and they began rebuilding The very first thing they did was set up an altar, and then they began to rebuild a much scaled down version of the temple at that point, so it kind of centered around the worship of God, centered around that space. Yeah, and so this king gives Ezra, you know, I mean, yeah, it gives Ezra so much resources and favor to go back and say, hey, I want you to go back and rebuild it as good as you can, and basically gives. Them a blank check. If you measure this one, it's hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in US. Yeah, it goes all the items that he had, the seven five hundred pounds of silver, bushels of wheat, the five hundred and fifty gallons of wine, the olive oil. These were like very expensive things, right, you know in our were used to trading currency. Well at their time, this would have been like currency in that day. Yeah. Yeah. So then I think it's interesting in the Book of Ezra, we've kind of interweaved in and out. Of Ezra a couple of times, as we've told other stories. His name. Even though the book is named after him, his name doesn't get mentioned until chapter seven. Yeah, right, and so we believe he probably wrote it, but he doesn't mention himself until chapter seven and he establishes who he is. His whole lineage all went back to Aaron, which means he's a rightful priest. Yeah, but I think it's interesting it says in verse ten, which is super powerful. Verse ten says let me find it. Yeah, this was because Ezrah. Yeah, it said, this was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel. This is why God chose to blessing. Yeah, is he had given It wasn't just because of his lineage. His lineage just proved the other right have the job. Yes, But God chose to pour out this incredible blessing on Ezra because Ezra determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel. And I think this is the trifecta quite honestly, know it, love it, and teach it. Right. He didn't just handle the word, he literally he lived it out. My dad just went to having eight weeks ago, its two months ago, and my mom gave me a bunch of things. I have a few of his Bibles. And my dad was a note taker. So my dad worked for thirty four years at General Motors. He was a stock chase, he drove a fork drug. And a lot of times would mention you he didn't go to college or whatever, and he would talk about that so to kind of talk down about himself a little bit that he didn't go to cond not too much, but just like, hey, I never went to college. Write that kind of statement, and didn't feel like he was an expert in anything. And then he didn't become a Christian until he was forty. But my dad had this character and he determined in his heart to study God's Word, to know God's word. Not only that, but to teach it to his boys. And so every morning my dad would get up, usually around four o'clock in the morning, he'd spend time in the Word. He'd be reading the Word, and then he would leave us a note saying this is where I was reading today and ask us a couple questions. He wanted us to read the same thing and then yeah. That's cool. And then every evening before we went to bed, I would say four out of or five out of seven days a week, we would sit down in the living room before we go to bed, grab our bibles, and we'd at least. Read through a chapter of Proverbs. Or something else that he was paying attention to at the time, and spend fifteen or twenty minutes talking about things and wanting us to say, this is what we're learning from this passage. And he consistently did that. And then he wanted us to memorize scripture, so he would reward us all the time. He'd make all kinds of rewards for us to memorize scripture. So by the time i'd graduate from high school, I'd read through the Bible, I don't know, a dozen times cover to cover. I'd read, you know, hundreds of hours of time in the Word of God, and I'd memorized over fifteen hundred verses. And so my dad was committed to and determined to study God's law but also to pass it on. And my brothers can say the same thing. So all four of us are in the ministry now. And it was a fork truck driver who didn't become a Christian until he was forty, but he determined in his heart and so to know God's words and to teach God's words to his sons, and that changes so many things. I think about you, because he would say, I've never had a great ministry like you, And I would tell my dad listen, you know, it's tens of thousands of people that me and my brothers have been a part of leading to Jesus. And it wouldn't have happened if my dad hadn't determined in his heart. Right. So the people that are listening today, man, I think you can be an Ezra in the family that God's given you. Yeah. What I love about what you mentioned is that your dad was forty. Yeah. So what that. Says to me is it's not too It's never too late. There's somebody listening, Jeff, who thinks, well, at my. Age, there's you know, there's no point to come to Christ now, there's no point to study. You know, I've messed up. I've got too much baggage. And it's never too late. God is always ready to welcome you back. Yeah. So I have a couple of photos in my desk in my home office of my dad sitting there with the Bible on his lap and his glasses on his nose, and his coffee next to him, a little light next to him, and he's just reading. Somebody to take a snapshot of my dad reading his Bible. Yeah, I've got three or four of those photos, and that that's a common memory in my mind, that my dad want to spend time with God and wanted me to spend time with God. And so man, people, now. What would you say, Jeff to the person listening who would say, I just don't have time now the kids have soccer, I've got you know, I'm at work ten hours a day, got to put dinner on the table. I don't have time to I want to, but I just don't have the time to study. I think you have time to do what's important to you. Yeah, you do right, You have time. Now that might mean you have to stop doing something else it's important to you in order to be doing this thing that's important to you. But you've already made those choices. When you chose to take your kids to soccer, or when you chose to add a couple hours on at work, or when you chose to do whatever you're doing, You've made a choice to do one thing. And not do another. Thing. So you just have to decide that this is the most important thing, and you're going to spend twenty thirty minutes with God every morning or every evening or both. And that just means there's another thing you can't do, but you do what's important to you. We all do well, do what's important to us. Week we can make the time and thank God. I thank God for it. So my dad would always say he didn't have a mystery. His greatest ministry was he raised us to walk with God. I'm not saying that from a pridefal stamp when I'm saying the impact he made has far exceeded his own life. Right, And I would say, we have people listening. Now, You've got children or grandchildren that you can be the Ezra in their life. And the greatest ministry you could ever have, perhaps is to turn out a man or a woman of God that goes on and goes further than you did. Yeah. Right, And so that's a big part of it. And then you know, when you walk with God's favor, God just opens doors. That those are the two big lessons. I think he determined his heart. And then you're spending time with God and God just continues to open doors. Yeah. I look at my life. I don't know about us that was in my life, and I think, how did I get here from there? Yeah? Right where I came from, what I was born into, this is what I'm living now. I think. The only thing is I also determined in my heart I was going to follow God. God just opens doors. Yeah, and same with me. I grew up on the east side of Detroit. Statistically, when you look at young men growing up in that area, I should not be where I am. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I got all kind of crazy stories. I mean, house being shot into, Like, I mean, I can tell you some crazy stories. That's why you're such a tough guy. Yes, you grew up on the street. Yeah, but again, God's favor at how he took me from there to where I am now and the impact I get to have now is just amazing. You know. I think God's God's family is so amazing because you and I couldn't have started off any different. Right man, I'm this hazied country bumpkin kid, you know, splitting firewood to heat the house at night and growing food, and you're down in Detroit and it's just totally opposite, but now here we are sitting side by side, different lived experiences, but serving the same God, on the same mission and part of the same family, and just delighting and being able to spend time together and our friendship that can It's really amazing what God does. On that orchestrates things. And neither one of us should be where we're at. Yeah, I know I shouldn't, except for. You had those moments in your life when you determined, hey, I'm going to lean into this this thing of faith and I want to know God's words, and so did I. That's what brings us together today. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, hey, I want to encourage you, man, those are that are listening. Some people talk the talk, right, but Ezra walk the walk, and that's what produced all of the other things that positive things that happened in his life and the life of the people that were with him. So I want to encourage you to determine in your heart to make God's words the focus of your life and teach the people around you these same things and it's going to change everything. So that's it for today on the Bible. Guys, We'll see you tomorrow.