Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Pastor Bill Lubkeman shares this bit of advice for those who are wanting to get married.

Bill Luebkemann: If you're a young person and you're wanting to get married, you don't want to marry an unbeliever. And sometimes if you tell that to a young person, they don't understand that. Oh, I'm really in love. They're really a great person. There's nothing wrong with that. Hey, you're either going to pull them up or they're going to pull you down. And more than likely, they're going to pull you down. That's why God says he doesn't just say, hey, here's some good advice you should think about. The Bible says, be not unevenly yoked together with an unbeliever.

Guest (Male): Greetings in Christ. We thank the Lord that you're with us today for Hope from the Word. We'll meet up with Pastor Bill Lubkeman today in Ezra 8. Last time we were together, Ezra was leading the people of Israel back to Jerusalem. It was a long, dangerous journey. And you may recall they started off on the right foot. They began by fasting and praying. God answered their prayer and delivered them. We'll see what he led them to do and how all of this applies to our lives today. Starting off with verse 24, Bill reminds us that while God's message remains the same, his methods may vary.

Bill Luebkemann: As you read through all the battles in the Bible, it's almost like no two are the same. God says you're going to win the battle. Well, how's that going to work? Well, when you go in, they're going to all run away. You can chase after them and kill them all. Another time, you know, well, put half your people on one side, half on the other side, you'll have them uh surrounded. Another time, you know, draw them out of their village and then have your other your other crew burn the village down or burn the city down.

Another time, just stand there, they're going to kill each other. Another time, don't do anything until you hear the sound of marching in the trees. I I I like that. And it seems like God just wants to impress us with the fact that it's not in the methodology. And just to make sure that we get it, he just doesn't seem like he does the same thing twice. So they fasted and they prayed. And this is what God led them to do, and he answered their prayer. Verse 24. And I separated 12 of the leaders of the priests, Sherabiah, Hashabiah, and 10 of their brethren with them, and weighed out to them the silver, the gold, and the articles.

The offering for the house of our God, which the king and his counselors and his princes and all Israel who were present had offered. So they they had this giant offering, silver and gold and different kind of articles. It came from the king, but it also came from the whole house of Israel. So even people who weren't going, the people who were going, they probably gave them stuff. But even people who weren't going may have contributed to this effort. And there was a lot of it. I weighed into their hand 650 talents of silver. Look, a talent was about 75 lbs.

So 650 talents times 75 lbs, you're looking at around 50,000 lbs of silver there. 25 tons. You can understand why he was a little concerned about robbers along the way. I weighed into their hands 650 lbs of silver, silver articles weighing 100 lbs and 100 lbs of gold. So 100 lbs each of silver articles and gold, 75 lbs each. That's 7,500 lbs. Almost 4 tons, 3.75 tons on each of those. 20 gold basins worth 1,000 drachmas and two vessels of fine polished bronze, precious as gold. So another few pounds here. We're talking about a whole lot of cargo.

And if you thought that double entry bookkeeping was a recent invention, it's not. They did it back then. I guess they used an abacus. Maybe it wasn't really double entry. But look, he weighed it out to them and everyone was assigned a certain much. They weighed it and they gave it to him. Okay, Sherabiah, here's yours. Sign the manifest right here. This is how much you are going to carry. When we get to the other end, you're going to turn it back in. We're going to weigh it again and we're going to make sure that it all got there.

See, UPS comes to your door. If they're not in a hurry, sometimes they ask you to sign their fancy tablet there. Hey, not a new idea. They were doing that back then back in this day, all these thousands of years ago. You're going to sign for it at both ends. And I said to them verse 28, you are holy to the Lord. The articles are holy also. And the silver and the gold are a free will offering to the Lord of your fathers. Watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leaders of the priests and the Levites and the heads of their fathers' houses of Israel in Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the Lord.

So the priests and the Levites received the silver and the gold and the articles by weight to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. So he's telling them there, these are holy articles. You people are holy also. And this is a free will offering and it's your job to watch over what you've been assigned to. And I assume each one of these guys, these 12 leaders, each one of the 12 leaders didn't carry the two tons he was assigned by himself, you know. Here I am with my two tons. But he divided them up.

Look, that sounds like a lot, 50,000 lbs. But remember what we said, they had around 1,500 men. So you divide 50,000 lbs by 1,500 men. It's only about 30 or 40 lbs per person. See soldiers marching into battle with backpacks weighing much more than that. It sounds like a lot here, but they had enough people to get the job done. And he tells them, watch and keep them until you weigh them. So in other words, guys, you signed for it now, you're going to sign for it then. Don't think about pocketing any of the profits here.

Don't think about keeping any of them. Don't think about stealing them, sending them to your friends or anything like that. Watch and keep them until you weigh them at the other end when we get there. So the priests and the Levites received the silver and gold by weight. They knew how much they had, their purpose being to bring them to Jerusalem. Verse 31. Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us. And he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road.

So we came to Jerusalem and stayed there three days. So now the whole entire trip from like we said around April 19th on our calendar till the around August 9th on our calendar is all covered in two verses here. We don't find out much about what happened on the road. They departed on their way and God was with them and he delivered them from the hand of the enemy and from ambush. Now it doesn't really say what that means. Were they Did somebody try to ambush them and they survived or did God's hand upon them prevent them from ever getting ambushed?

Did somebody attack them, try to steal their stuff or did God prevent that from ever happening? He doesn't elaborate on if God rescued them from bad guys or if they just never encountered any bad guys. It was a dangerous journey to travel this distance. And they knew what they were getting into. It was dangerous journey to to travel around in the wild wild west of America. One of my wife's ancestors was scalped by the Indians in the 1860s or something. Her father found out by doing genealogy. It was dangerous at this time also. I don't know exactly what the dangers were, but I just like the fact and I think because Ezra comes back to it so much, we have to just be sure we don't miss it.

He keeps giving credit to God. It was the hand of our God that was upon us. And the same hand of the same God is upon us today if we're in his will, if we're walking with him, regardless of what it looks like on the externals. Regardless of what you imagine when you look at what's going on around you, the hand of God is upon you if you're walking with him. You can trust him to lead and guide you in whatever it is that you're doing. So we came to Jerusalem and stayed there three days.

Now verse 33, on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth, the son of Uriah the priest. And with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas. And with them were the Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua and Noadiah the son of Binnui. With a number and weight of everything. So he has all those names in there, but if you cut out the names and just put this together here, it says on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of our God with a number and weight of everything.

All the weight was written down at that time. So in other words, they took an inventory here. They counted it all out. What came out, what came in? Let's look at the documents. Let's look at the transfer out document from when you left. Let's compare it to the transfer in document. And they should be the same. We should be bringing in the same amount. There was accountability here. And there's nothing wrong with accountability. There's another place in the Scriptures earlier where they were fixing up the house of God and it says they gave the money to the workmen and they didn't bother making them accountable for what they were doing because they were all to be trusted.

I assume in that case they were just being given their wages and a small amount of money to work with. Here they were carrying 50,000 lbs of precious metal. So there was accountability and nothing wrong with being accountable to God. These people were accountable to each other. They were accountable to God. You know, if they had stolen the stuff, somebody was going to pay the price for it. And holding one another accountable to each other also holds you accountable to God. If you know that someone's going to check it up, the temptation to steal something's going to be less.

If you know, hey, someone's going to be checking this up at the other end. And the human condition is such that uh theft is rampant today. And I can tell you that just among the clients in my computer consulting business, I have consulted with them many many times on on actual cases of theft where people were trying to find ways around the controls that were in place to steal things at all different kinds of companies. Not everybody, not even the majority of people, but there is it seems like almost every place there's somebody there who's who's trying to get something that's not theirs.

Accountability, it's a good thing. And that's what they were doing here. They were simply being accountable to each other. They were being accountable to God. They were handing themselves in the highest possible way. The children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and 12 male goats as a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. So these people when they got back made a generous offering here to God. I think if you look back at the beginning of Ezra, you see the offering they made back there was much greater.

But again, it was like 10 times as many people. So you wouldn't be surprised if they made more of an offering. And they delivered the king's orders to the king satrap and the governors in the region beyond the river. So they gave support to the people and the house of God. So remember Artaxerxes had written a letter and giving it to Ezra to take with him. We saw that back in seven chapter seven saying that hey, these people are going to rebuild the house and and uh you know, let them do it. And by the way, you're not just going to let them do it, but you're actually going to help them out and give them what they need to do it.

So it's amazing that God actually had the heathens, the pagans, the unbelievers by by order of the king helping out and contributing to the rebuilding of the house of God. And when the king said to do something, they did it. Ain't going to mess around with no king. They may not have liked the Jews or they didn't like what the Jews were doing, but the king said do this and we're we're doing it. We're not taking no chances here. When these things were done, the leaders came to me saying the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands.

With respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. I was thinking everything ends with ites there except Egyptians. It should have been the Egyptianites or something. Then everything would have rhymed. Look, when these things were done, the leaders came to him. Uh you know, this guy had good leaders, whoever these leaders were. And it's not it doesn't really make clear. They may have been people who were in Jerusalem for the last 80 years. And I think it's interesting when these people got back to Jerusalem, they met the people who had returned 80 years earlier, which weren't the same people because they probably had all died and these were now their descendants.

But they may have had an amazing time saying, hey, I'm your second cousin three times removed because you're descended from Old Harry. And uh figuring out how they were related was kind of like a reunion here. And since these people had just returned and really hadn't had time to intermarry with others, it seems like it might be talking about those who were descended from the first return 80 years before and or talking about the people who had never left the land in the first place, who had always stayed there. But his leaders were good. They were God-honoring people.

They had wisdom and they had discernment. And they knew that the law of the Lord was that they would not marry outside of Judaism, outside of Israel, the nation of Israel, outside of the descendants of Israel. They wouldn't marry outside of that. This wasn't a racial thing by the way. They were all the same race over there. This was a religious thing. Well, you know, we're descended from Israel. We are God's people set aside for him. The Jews are still are today. And they were called to separate themselves from the ways of the world, from the unbelievers, not because they were better than the unbelievers, but because the unbelievers God knew would would drag them down.

Look at what happened to Solomon. So on fire for the Lord, spectacularly on fire with the Lord, marrying all those wives, 700 wives, 300 concubines, many of them foreigners. The next thing you know, he's building temples for their gods. And the next thing you know, he's worshiping their gods and their temples. And the next thing you know, he's really not walking with the Lord in a big way anymore. This was a whole thing of keeping the race pure. And the same thing when I say the race, the descendants of Israel, keeping their religious institution, their nation pure by not marrying.

And people could convert to Judaism and then they could marry them. The problem was against the abominations of the people who were in the land before they came in. It's the same reason that the Bible tells us as Christians we shouldn't be marrying an unbeliever. Be not unevenly yoked together with unbeliever.

Guest (Male): If you're a young person and you're wanting to get married, you don't want to marry an unbeliever. And sometimes if you tell that to a young person, they don't understand that. Oh, I'm really in love. They're really a great person. There's nothing wrong with that. Hey, you either going to pull them up or they going to pull you down. And more than likely, they going to pull you down. That 's why God says he doesn't just say, hey, here's some good advice you should think about. The Bible says, be not unevenly yoked together with an unbeliever.

And these leaders here, they had some discernment. When these things were done, the leaders came to me saying, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands. It goes right on up to the top. It's not just the people, it's the leaders. They have not separated themselves with respect to the abominations of these people. See, if a Hittite came in, became a Jew, converted to the Judaism, then that was okay. That wasn't a problem. David was If you read the Book of Ruth, David was descended from Ruth the Moabitess.

Wasn't a problem if they came in and became part of Israel. The problem was the abominations of these people. The problem wasn't these people. It was their abominations, their worship of other gods. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass. So not only have they mixed it up here by taking these foreigners as wives and and giving our daughters to them as wives, not only have we mixed it up, but the abominations of the foreigners are pulling them down.

And it was the leaders and the rulers who started doing this. Now because of the extent of it here, it seems like they must be talking about the people who were already there in the land. I don't see how they could have returned to the land and had this problem so fast. We're going to see some of them even had children in these unholy unions. So when I heard this, I tore my garment and my robe and plucked out some of the hair of my head and beard. Ooh, that sounds painful. And sat down astonished.

This was what they did when they were uh grieving in effect before God. Tearing their garment, their robe, just showing to God that this this remorse and this sadness and that the Lord, we can't believe that they did this. And we know that this is not right. And showing God what their real feelings are, how unhappy they are that the God of the universe who created them has been so dishonored by this. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel assembled to me because of the transgression of those who had been carried away captive.

And I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice. You know, I think more people should be astonished at sin instead of making it out like it's okay. You know, it's okay if we sleep around a little, only do it with people that we love. It's okay if we marry an unbeliever. I'm still going to go to church. It's not going to affect me. And this guy here was astonished. He was flabbergasted. He couldn't believe that people would do this. And we look around the church today and we should be more astonished and more flabbergasted at the things that people do.

And the ones who were with him on this issue, they were those who trembled at the words of the God of Israel. These were the people who had the fear of the Lord, who who knew what the words of God were, who trembled, who wanted to follow the words of God, who wanted to do things his way. Those people who believed in the God and who held his or in God and who held his word in high esteem. These were the people who sat there and trembled. And they trembled at the word of God and they joined together and were astonished together, flabbergasted, not even knowing what to say to each other until the evening sacrifice.

I I cannot think of any situation where I sat around not knowing what to say for that long. Actually, I probably can. I I probably didn't know what to say, but I said something anyway. You know, when you read in Job how his three friends came to him, they weren't really very good friends, but when they saw his condition, they sat there and didn't say anything for seven days. I don't know. Just just can't imagine that. Like did they go to a holiday inn at night or did they just sit there? Did they eat or anything?

Did they go out for lunch? Hey, Job, we'll be back. You know, we think we can imagine what Job is going through, but if if it caused three grown men to not know what to say for seven days, it must be worse than what we thought it was. And here these people took this seriously. Today we hear about some Christian who's living with his girlfriend or she's living with her boyfriend or they're into this sin or that sin and you know, he just pass it off. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. It's not that important. You know, God will forgive him.

God doesn't care that much. We should be astonished when people who should know better go so far as to worship other gods. And those that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, those who paid heed to God, they were the ones that were astonished with him. And they sat there until the evening sacrifice not even knowing what to do about it. Now we're going to break it off there because that's about halfway to the end of the book. And uh the the rest of chapter nine is a prayer of Ezra praying to God.

And then we're going to see in chapter 10 that they put it out there for the people to confess and to repent. And there's a great deal of confession and a great deal of repentance. And the Lord works through it all. And just like he says over and over again, by the good hand of our God upon us and the good hand of God here and there and the hand of our God was upon us. We keep seeing that over and over again. And here we're going to see the hand of God was upon him in such a way as these people actually repented.

And as a pastor, I know when I when I talk to somebody and and they ask me my advice about something or if I see something that I think that I might want to point out to them that perhaps they might want to consider if they're doing the right thing. I'm just normally used to them not paying any attention at all. Every once in a while when you give somebody advice, they actually take it, it kind of like blows your mind. Like wow, God really worked there. And that's what happened here. We're going to see that next week.

God really works that that it was a big revival. Everybody was on board except there's a couple sorry losers in there who don't like it, but the overwhelming majority of the people are on board with God as he works through that. And it's just an amazing thing to see God working and to see it continuing here.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a study of Ezra. You can hear this message or more Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Lubkeman by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope from the Word wherever you find your podcasts. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10 a.m. And there's a Wednesday evening service at 7.

To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. Or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives. And we want to pray for you, too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in Ezra next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Lubkeman, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.