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Right, so, in case anyone is still wondering, the Book of Ezra is our new Sunday evening series. That's what we're going to be looking at for the next, well, ten weeks at least here. And if anyone's kind of wondering, those of you, you know, some of you might have a good knowledge of, like, what's, you know, what the Book of Ezra is, when it is in the Bible, etc. Some might not. So, just a kind of brief introduction to it. The period covered by the book itself is 80 years, and it's from the first year of Cyrus, which is BC 536, to the beginning of the eighth year of the King Artaxerxes, which is BC 456. Okay, so that's kind of the period we'll look at. In the book itself, it's split into two parts. So, you've got the first part, chapters one to six. Now, this is kind of the history of the first return of the exiles. It's in the first year of Cyrus, which, like I said, is BC 536, till the completion and dedication of the New Temple, which is the sixth year of Darius, which is BC 515. Okay, 515 before Christ. And from the close of the sixth to the opening of the seventh chapter, there is basically a blank in history of about 60 years. So, we have this pause in the book, and then part two is the history of the second return under Ezra. Okay, hence the name Ezra, and Ezra who wrote it as well. It's in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, and of the events basically that took place at Jerusalem after Ezra's arrival there, and that's what we see there in chapter seven to ten. So, basically, in case you're going, well, what's all that got to do with anything? It's one of the last periods covered in the Jews' history, okay, before we get to the New Testament, with the events in Esther probably falling around the middle of it, and then Nehemiah takes place shortly after. Haggai and Malachi preached during this period up to the end of Nehemiah and onwards with Malachi, and then soon after, it's basically silence for 400 years, okay, and then we get Jesus returning, or, you know, you get obviously John the Baptist preaching is kind of the first event then that we get after that, kind of in God's kind of calendar of prophets and everything else. So, the book itself, it's on the back of the carrying away to Babylon, after the numerous kings that we read about in 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles, and then there's the 70 years in captivity, and basically, in case, you know, you're thinking, well, why are we studying this? Is it, have you just shut your eyes and kind of just opened the Bible and gone, let's go with this? Well, I chose this as a book to study because I believe that there's plenty we can learn from this book as a relatively new church trying to rebuild in this nation. That's ultimately what we're trying to do. We're trying to rebuild proper biblical, well, firstly, this church is a proper biblical church in this nation, and going onwards, hopefully, to multiple biblical churches in this nation and others as well, okay, and we are really trying to rebuild here for me because it had got, and again, you know, we talk about this a bit, and look, it got that bad here, okay? Before this church, it was so bad that some people would refuse to go, and understandably, they had good reason to what was remaining of sort of Bible-believing, so-called church in this nation, and others were making do at what were pretty bad, so-called Bible-believing church in this nation. That's how bad it had got until this church was planted here. Now, we're going to look at that in a minute, but this book, it's written mostly, you know, I would say mostly at least, but I believe it's all written by Ezra, who likely wrote Nehemiah and probably 1st and 2nd Chronicles too, which, funnily enough, ends with an almost identical passage to these opening verses in Ezra. So, if you're there in Ezra, and you looked back at 2nd Chronicles in chapter 36, you're going to see the last couple of verses there, what we see in the beginning of Ezra 1 and 2, so from 22 and 23, it's borderline identical, okay, by a couple of different words used, but we're going to look at Ezra chapter 1, and we're going to look from verse 1, and we're going to start looking at this now, where it says here. Now, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, have given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. And I'd like to pray before we continue looking at this chapter. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this book of the Bible, this book of Ezra. Thank you for everything that we can learn from it. Help me to just teach it and preach it clearly and accurately. Help me to kind of expand what your church here in the UK needs expanding on. Help me to just preach this whole series just boldly and accurately and full of your spirit, Lord. Fill me with your spirit now, please. Help everyone here to have attentive ears. Help everyone to have attentive hearts and to really pay attention to what your word's got to say. Jesus, thank you for all of this. Amen. OK, so the Babylonian Empire has been conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 25, because Jeremiah had prophesied of all of this 70 years earlier. So this was all prophesied about 70 years before it happened. Jeremiah chapter 25, we've just read in verse two, I think it was. Where are we? Verse one, sorry. It said, Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. OK, and what does it say in Jeremiah? In chapter 25 of verse one, Jeremiah 25 one says, The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, the which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking, but ye have not hearkened. And the Lord has sent unto you all his servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Turn ye again now, everyone, from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever, and go not after other gods to serve them and to worship them and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that ye might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt. So God's long suffering, isn't he? But eventually the chastisement does come on his people. God's long suffering sometimes, you know, and we see that today where people think, well, you know, that person seems to be getting away with this, that Christian seems to be getting away with that. Look, he is long suffering, but the chastisement does come, especially when you don't hearken to him. Verse four says, And the Lord has sent unto you all his servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. So he sent his prophets, but they refused to hear. OK, and look, God, when I'm preaching behind this pulpit, when anyone else is preaching behind this pulpit, when you're hearing the word of God preached, OK, if you're not hearkening to it, you're not hearing. OK, you're listening to it, calling out your sin. You're getting convicted by something you refuse to hear. That's a slippery slope downhill. OK, and eventually you're going to get chastised. OK, and that's what happens here. They have not hearkened nor inclined their ear to hear. They don't, basically, they don't want to hear it. They're shutting off their ears. They're not listening. They're not listening to what God's saying, what his prophets are saying through them. And it's the word of God that they're preaching. Verse six, it says here, And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands I would do you no hurt. So he's told them to stop worshipping their other gods, their idols. And again, how many God's people are worshipping other gods? Worshipping idols, worshipping whether it's money, stuff, wealth, popularity, whatever it is, they're worshipping that stuff, they're going after other gods. It says here the works of your hands. Now, the works of your hands, often we see it used at the same time parallel with these gods, the works of men's hands, et cetera. But it's basically that these graven images, it's a picture of work salvation. It's the works of their hands, it's the idols of false gods of work salvation as well, because that's what all false religion is. It's work salvation, it's the works of men's hands to get them into heaven. And he's telling them to stop going after, stop doing this, stop going after these false gods. Verse eight says, Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, because ye have not heard my words. And bear in mind, if you're sitting there going, wait a second, are these believers going? A lot of it is, remember at this point, we're talking about a physical nation. And of that physical nation, many of the people of the physical nation weren't saved. And they were worshipping gods where it was a work of men's hands. They were chasing after work salvation. But now it's turned to a spiritual nation and you have to be saved to be part of that spiritual nation. Yet people still, they'll save people in funny churches, aren't they? You think just because you've got someone saved that they suddenly left that work salvation church, still in some way or another worshipping that God that's the work of men's hands. OK, it does happen. It happens often. Verse eight says, Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, because ye have not heard my words. Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land and against the inhabitants thereof and against all these nations round about and will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment and an hissing and perpetual desolations. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle, and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years, and it shall come to pass when seventy years are accomplished that I will punish the king of Babylon. And that nation saith the Lord for their iniquity and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolation. So just because God used a nation or an empire to exact punishment doesn't mean that their holy people are not open to the same happening to them. God can use wicked people to punish other wicked people. God can use wicked people to punish his own people. And that's what we see here. He then punishes the king of Babylon after that. Here, Jeremiah prophesied their punishment after seventy years. Pretty precise, isn't it? Okay, Jeremiah prophesied this. He said after seventy years, when seventy years were accomplished, I will punish the king of Babylon. Now jump forward to chapter twenty-nine, where he also prophesied the return of those who were exiled, the children of Israel, at least, you know, what's remaining, Judah, Benjamin, the Levites, the priests, after seventy years. It says in verse ten, chapter twenty-nine of Jeremiah and verse ten, For thus saith the Lord, this is Jeremiah twenty-nine, ten, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. So he's prophesied of the punishment of the king of Babylon. He's prophesied that they're going to return. It all goes hand in hand. The Medo-Persian Empire basically takes over from the Babylonian Empire and the children, at least, what's remaining of the children of Israel now have God's nature. And now, given this chance to return back to Jerusalem, okay? Right, go back to Ezra one, with that in mind. That's why it's talking about what was prophesied by the mouth of Jeremiah. Ezra one, which said in verse one, Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him in a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. So God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to fulfill his word and his will. Okay, now, you don't have to turn it, Proverbs 21 one says, The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water he turneth it, whithersoever he will. Okay, so God can. God can do that, and he does do that sometimes. Now, the Calvinists will run with this, won't they? They'll run with a verse like this and run with what we've just seen here with Cyrus and say something along the lines of that God controls absolutely everything according to his will, and basically everything happens because it's God's will. And then they'll use like words, unbiblical words like, Well, God is sovereign after all. And you're going, well, yeah, God is sovereign. I mean, he's a king, isn't he? So does that mean that he automatically just controls absolutely everything that goes on? But the truth is this, is the truth is that, yes, God can turn the king's heart. God can. Here he stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus. But is that 100% of the time? Does that mean that God's just like got these strings on everyone and just turned the king's heart and doing that as he wills? Because if you believe that, you'd have to believe that God wants all the filthy wickedness, all the sodomy, the vile affection, all that stuff, that God just just ordains all of that. God is sovereign over every single disgusting, filthy, vile thing that goes on in this world and that he's somehow controlling that and that's part of his will. No, it's nonsense. OK, it's nonsense. But sadly, we have a lot of people that claim to be Bible believing Christians that claim that that's true. No, God can. He stirred it up here and here it was to fulfil his word, wasn't it? So he stirred up King Cyrus to fulfil God's word that had already been prophesied through Jeremiah to fulfil a purpose it had already planned. And it could be, though, to fulfil maybe his promise of answering prayer. God can turn a heart. God can change a course of events or something to answer prayer because he does promise to answer prayer. According to his will, of course, if it's according to his will. He could use a king to punish his people that have not hearkened nor inclined their ear to hear, like we've just seen. So God, yeah, can turn the heart of someone to maybe punish his people, to give out the chastisement that he promises, right? However, although he can, that doesn't mean that he does it all the time. We all have free will and you can't take free will out of life because of verses like this. And look, often the stirring up of the spirit, by the way, is done through his people. So here, OK, it said he stirred up the spirit, but how was Cyrus' spirit? Did God just suddenly go, right, you're going to now say all this stuff? I don't think so, because I think often the stirring up, the changing of a king's heart and other things is done through people like bold prophets that will go forward and preach the word of God to King Cyrus. And I believe that's what we're seeing here, his prophets preaching the word. It said in verse two, thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, have given me all the kings of the earth and he have charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Now, did God come and talk to Cyrus? He could have done. More likely sent a bold man of God to let the king know what's what. OK, that's probably what happened here. Cyrus knows his place, by the way, doesn't he? Unlike Nebuchadnezzar pre beast humbling. If you remember, this is kind of like the opposite to Nebuchadnezzar before he ended up being reduced to like a beast on all fours for being so private. Here he's saying the Lord God of heaven had given me all the kings of the earth rather than look at everything I've done, like Nebuchadnezzar said. But God wanted his house rebuilt in Jerusalem. It was time for his people to return. And like I said just a minute ago, that's what we're trying to do here. OK, we're trying to build God's house in the UK. OK, we're trying to build God's house. We're trying to rebuild basically God's house in the UK because I believe that God's house was previously in the UK. OK, I pretty much have no doubt that there have been proper houses of God in the UK. Right. And we're trying to rebuild God's house in the UK. That's that's the goal of this church. We're trying to have a proper house of God and hopefully multiple houses of God in the UK again. Right. And believe me, you go, oh, well, just because, you know, what, you're trying to say there were NIFB churches? You know, I'm trying to say that there were Bible believing churches in the UK previously. I'm sure there were. OK, I'm sure there were. And I'm sure there were Bible believing churches. People were convicted of God and soul win. People were standing on the word of God. People were listening to what the word of God said. Yeah, they might have been wrong on the odd thing. Yeah, look, churches will always be wrong on the odd thing. OK. However, on the majority, on the key doctors of the Bible, there were, I am sure, churches in this country which were. And we want to rebuild that in this church. We want to come back from the captivity of false churches, of liberal little wishy washy churches, where they can't just stand up and preach what the Bible says. We want to come back from that and have a proper church in this nation and multiple with that. Because the thing is, yeah, there are there are a few churches around with a few soul winning types here and there. OK, there are a few stuck out here and there where they might have someone that does a bit. So maybe a couple of people, maybe a few people down somewhere, you know, in a corner of the nation here, down in the southwest here or somewhere there, they might have a few. They got a couple of soul winners with maybe a heart for getting out and preaching the gospel. But is that dispensationalist, Jew worshipping, anti-soul winning church really the pillar and ground of the truth? Is it? Is that church where you turn up there and you have to say, OK, well, at least we got soul winning after the service. At least you got soul winning in a week. But the rest of the time I'm listening to Jew worship, Jew worship, Jew worship. The whole time it's Zionism, nonsense, dispensationalist nonsense. Is that really the pillar and ground of the truth? When you're so far wrong on stuff that, like, is the Holy Spirit there with that preacher? When he's preaching that stuff week in, week out? No. And yeah, like I said, there are some make do places around. But when their top ministries, when they kind of go to the cross that they will die on, the hill they die on, their go to ministries, prayer and donations to Israel, the false nation out there, is that really the pillar and ground of the truth or is something massively up there? Something's up there. Right. OK. And we need we need a real house. We need multiple houses of God in this nation, don't we? And we're trying to start that with one at least. OK, so with those, because that's the thing, with those sorts of, where's the call for soul winning at those churches? Because the truth is, are any of those are any of those pastors just going soul winning? Come on, let's get out, let's preach the gospel. No, there might be a couple of guys there that listen to some other pastor tell you to do that and have been convinced to do that. But where is the call for soul winning? Where's the get out there, preach the gospel? Where's the standing? It's not there. It's not there. And for me, look, we need to rebuild. OK, we need to rebuild. We're trying to rebuild an authentic house here and many more to come. And verse three says, who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house, the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. He said, where are God's people? Where are God's people? Go and build God's house. Yeah. Where are they? He said, who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, build the house, the Lord God of Israel. And that's what we're saying here, aren't we? Where are God's people? Where are God's people? Because there are people that claim to be God's people out there. You'd be surprised probably how many people out in this nation claim to be God's people, claim to be believers, probably even listening to good preaching from over the pond, probably even now and again go soul winning, have been on the odd marathon. But if they're not in the house of God, where are they? Where are they? They need to come here and build the house of God. We're trying to do a work here, aren't we? We need some builders. Yeah, we need some labourers to get stuck in and build the house of God, right? And that's what we're doing here. Where are they? Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, build the house, the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. Oh, well, it's a bit far to go, brother. And so can't you even visit? Where are they? Where are these so-called men and women of God out there? These ones that some of us have crossed paths with in the past, gone on the odd soul winning thing. Oh, well, you know, great pastor's going to preach in Ireland. Let's get out there and make the trip out to one. They can't even come to a church. Can't even get their lazy backsides into a church and start getting involved with the work of God. So outrageous, really, isn't it? If they call themselves men and women of God. Oh, they're still languishing in some just two bobbed church somewhere. Some church where they're listening to Zionism every week. Some church where when you go to them, I've just been out someone who got someone saved. What's the answer? Let's hope they really got saved. Did they really get saved? Well, if they turn up to church. Funny. I don't remember that. I don't remember that in the gospel. What do you really believe? What do you really believe, pastor repent of your sins? What do you really believe, pastor lordship salvation? Because they don't seem to be able to disconnect the two, do they? Now, we're trying to rebuild an authentic house here. Verse three says, who is among you of all his people? He's got to be with him. Look, when you're getting involved in your building God's house, you're turning up and getting involved. God's with you. God's with you here. OK, he's with us in this church. Yeah, we're going to go through some struggles. Yeah, we're going to get built up through some through some hard times. But God's with us here. He's with us because we're trying to rebuild God's house. And just just in case you're wondering in the New Testament, we are God's house, by the way. OK, we are God's house. It ain't this building. OK, it's not this this industrial building. It doesn't matter if we find a very quaint, pretty, more churchy like building that ain't God's house. We're God's house. Turn to First Peter chapter two and verse five. First Peter chapter two and verse five. Well, I read First Corinthians three nine, which says, for we are labourers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's building. Talking to the Corinthian church, ye are God's building. Now, was he just talking to the leadership? Is it just some more mature Christians which are God's building? Nope. First Peter two and verse. In fact, before we go to verse five, let's look from verse one. In fact, first Peter two. Let's start from verse one where it says here. Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as newborn babes. Talking to newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious to whom coming is unto a lively stone. Disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house. And a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We're the stones. We are the stones. This is a spiritual house. And whether you're what you consider a very mature Christian or you're a new baby Christian, you are part of God's house. You're a spiritual stone. You're a stone in God's house. We hear the people of God's house. OK. And we're trying to build that, which means we're trying to build more people in a God's house. I want a big temple here. I want a big temple with real stones. I don't want a big temple of liberal stone. I don't want a big temple of little false, little easy to crumble stones. I want a big temple of strong, good quality, hard concrete stones. Yeah, that's what we want here. And God's going to build that, isn't he, if we do things God's way. If we do things our way, we could look if we wanted to do things man's way, we wouldn't do things like all the all those soppy megachurches do. Oh, we could build a massive house here, but it'd be full of basically paper stones. It'd be it would be full of fake stones. Go back to Ezra 1. We are God's house. We are trying to build God's temple. It says in verse three, Who is there among you of all his people? Is God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house, the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. Now notice he said that, like I said, his God is be with him. Yeah, OK, so he's with us. Don't forget that as we go forward. Verse four says, And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver and with gold and with goods and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. So he's telling them to basically help those that can't afford it. OK, and beside, by the way, is not not besides, besides, so alongside the freewill offering that they'll be bringing, saying, look, help these people out. And I think the people that remained where they sojourneth, if you remember when they were carried away, the poor were left in the land, the poor were left to do things. So I think he's talking about those people. Look, go and help them, help them get back. Those that are in the outer kind of areas and, you know, surrounding Jerusalem, help them to get into Jerusalem, help them get people involved, get them into this kind of building project here. Verse five says, Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised to go up to build the house of law, which is in Jerusalem. Raised through what? For me, the proclamation of the king then. Same as I believe that the king's spirit was probably raised through someone else preaching the word of God. The king here has now proclaimed this and these people's spirit God has raised or maybe through some other prophets, I'm not sure. Why only Judah and Benjamin? The priests and the Levites, it says here. It says, Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and Levites. Well, like I said, remember when the kingdom split under Solomon's son Rehoboam, he was left with Judah and Benjamin and then the priests and the Levites joined, didn't they? Okay, and the rest ultimately was pretty much done away with. Hence all this kind of line of this tribal, it's all a load of old nonsense. This was even before the New Testament, there was hardly anyone left of a tribe, was there? But here it was Judah and Benjamin that remained, wasn't it? Okay, and they were kind of what was God's people left. Verse 6 says, And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods and with beasts and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered. So they're getting blessed by those around them. Was it to go and live the high life? Was it, oh, right, you know, get this, get what you can? No, it was to be able to go and worship the Lord. That was the whole point, to put it towards the things of God, to be able to build the house of God. And I say that because, look, I think often people get things the wrong way round. Look, you don't have to give all your money to the church. But if you're blessed with money, you're blessed with the ability to make money, you want to be making sure that you're in church, right? Because what's the point in a fortune if you can't make church three times a week? What's the point in a fortune at home if you can't go soul winning regularly? What's the point? What's the point if you can't even read your Bible? If you're able to earn well in a job, then you want to make sure that you're in church, right? Otherwise you might as well cut down your hours and get another job. Because what's the point? What are you achieving in life? Absolutely nothing. The whole point here, these people, they've been strengthened with vessels of this, a vessel of that and everything else. But it's so that, so that they're able to get into building the house of God and get into God's work. Yeah? And it's a great blessing if you can, look, that's nothing wrong. We want to educate our kids, right? We want our kids to be able to have good jobs. But it's not, oh, so that they're going to be so much happier because they've got money. No, because money doesn't buy you happiness. It's so that they're able to afford to worship God, to be able to raise a family, to be able to have their wives at home. That's the point, isn't it? Not so that we can just have more money to put in our bank account to stare at. More stuff, a better car, a better whatever. Yeah? The point is so that we can serve God. Verse 7 says, Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem and had put them in the house of his gods. Now, this is mentioned and while we're there, you can have a look in Second Chronicles 36 and verse 7. So it's just the chapter before here where it says Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon and put them in his temple at Babylon. So he took the tools for true worship, really, didn't he? That's what he took and put them into his false temple. And I was thinking about this when I was looking at this verse and thinking that's pretty similar to a lot of false religions out there today, isn't it? They take the tools for true worship and then try and merge them and put them into their temple of false gods. For example, they take the hymns. They take the hymns, some of them will take the traditional hymns. Some of them will take the old time hymns, but they'll then worship a false version of Jesus. They'll worship a false version of Jesus who had a limited atonement. Oh, look, you can go to some strict and particular Baptist churches and they'll have some classic old hymns. There won't be any rock music down there. There won't be any flashing lights, but they're worshipping a false Jesus. They're not worshipping the God of the Bible. They're worshipping a false God with their tulip five points of nonsense, five points of circus clowns. It's true. They take the Lord's Supper, don't they? They take the Lord's Supper, some of these churches out there will have the Lord's Supper, but their false God requires it for salvation. Also, they've taken the tools for true worship in the New Testament, but then their false God requires it for salvation. And there are people that say that, don't they? You've got to have partaken in the blood and body of Christ and everything else. They take the Holy Scriptures. Look, we had a guy come down the other week and I was just gently trying to point out to him, a nice fellow, that just because a church has the King James Bible, it doesn't mean that it's the right church. Yeah, the King James Bible, yeah, it needs a king. Without the King James Bible, it ain't a church. Let's just get that straight. Without the King James Bible, it is not a church. It is not the pillar and ground of the truth. However, just because it's got the King James Bible doesn't make it a church. Because they'll take the Holy Scriptures, they'll take the King James Bible and then try and teach a work of salvation out of context. And try and teach some sort of works. How many people do we run into out of soul, winning the, oh yeah, the King James, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then try and take it into a work of salvation. So they'll take the tools, but then they'll try and worship a false god with it. And they'll do the classic, often as you hear many times, oh yeah, yeah, it's not works. Oh, it's grace through faith. But you've got to work to keep it. That's works. Okay, verse eight then says, Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithradath the treasurer and numbered them unto Shesh-bazaar, the prince of Judah. Now, this is a Chaldean or Persian name, I believe, given to Zerababil, who we will see in the following chapters. So we're going to look at him as we go through the book of Ezra. He's basically the designated leader of the Jews. And he's actually in genealogy from David to Joseph in Matthew 1 as well. Okay, so, but we'll look at him later. We're going to carry on. Verse nine says, And this is a number of them, thirty charges of gold, a thousand charges of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty bases of gold, silver bases of a second salt, four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand. All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Shesh-bazaar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem. Why? Why did they bring all this stuff? Well, they're building the house of God with the purpose of being able to worship in it again. They're not just building it to look pretty. They're not just building it so, you know, the apostles in the New Testament can go, look at all these beautiful stones. Look how beautiful it is. They're building it for a purpose. And let's be honest, what would the Liberal, the Progressive would have said? They would have said something like, it's time to change things around now. We've done the seventy years captivity, let's do things differently. They would have blamed doing things the right way on why it had failed in the first place, wouldn't they? Well, where did that get us? Where did all that old time religion get us? Yeah, now let's take out the sacrifices, the offerings, all those things, let's do it a new way. But no, no, he said he made sure that they brought up the stuff with them because it was back to doing things God's way, right? And look, God didn't want them suddenly doing things differently, did he? They're back to offerings, they're back to sacrifices, et cetera. And of course, we're in the New Testament here, aren't we? OK, so we look back to that once and for all sacrifice and offering. OK, we're not called to the meats, drinks, the divers, washings and carnal ordinances. OK, we're not called to that. That stuff's done away. But here in the UK in the 21st century, God wants us going back to the old paths too. The old paths of a New Testament church. God wants us doing how God told us to do it. And whether he told us to do it 2,000 years ago or even if it was less or more, whatever, it wouldn't make any difference because it's how God told us to do it. And in the same way here, it doesn't matter that it's 70 years on from the exile, it doesn't matter that we're 1,000 years plus on from Moses, we need to get going, we need to get back to how we were doing things, right? So turn to Colossians chapter 3, because when we come out of captivity to build the house of God, we should bring the original tools with us, shouldn't we? We should bring the original tools with us when we come out of captivity and build the house of God. And we're building the house of God here. And Colossians chapter 3, Colossians 3 and verse 16 says this. It says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So we're bringing some original tools, aren't we? And we bring the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, because that's what we're told to do. We're told to teach and admonish one another, because you know you get taught and admonished by psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I talked about this the other week. Music will drill into your brain. Music will stay in your mind, the lyrics will stay in, because they're with a rhythm, they're with a musical tone. It helps you remember it easier and quicker. And that's why we need to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Knock, knock Christian rock, Christian rap, crock, crap and the rest of the contemporary jokes out there. We bring the old time stuff with us, don't we? We bring the old time hymns, the old time psalms, the old time spiritual songs, because he said sing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. He said sing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And when you're there going Jesus, Jesus, and that's about as far as those lyrics go, you're not singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. You're just singing to some wishy washy, just kind of generic God. No, we sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord. That's why it's important, the doctrine in hymns. That's why we choose sound doctrine hymns. That's why we choose sound doctrine spiritual songs, which are singing to the Lord. Not to a God, not God is love, and something else, or I don't know, that's my version. I mean, there's many versions, aren't there? Wow, I mean, some of it's like, yeah, yeah. They got it all going on in some of these places, right? But none of it is to the Lord. It's to their own version of God, isn't it? But we bring that back, and the doctrine is important. Otherwise, we might as well be singing to Nebuchadnezzar's gods, yeah? And that's why in a church like this, you're not going to come in and suddenly find the rock band out. You're not going to come in and one morning and go, well, you know, brother Ian's got a drum kit up on the stage now. Wow, these are beats, man, yeah. No, because that's not what we're told to do. We're told to come out from among them and be separate, yeah? And we're not told to conform to this world, are we? But to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, okay? We all know that good and acceptable will of God, don't we? And that's why when you come in here, you're going to see, you're going to sing psalms and hymns, spiritual songs. We're going to bring the original tools for worship, aren't we? Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2. There's another old path that hasn't changed. There's another old path that hasn't changed. 1 Timothy chapter 2, and we're going to look from verse 11. 1 Timothy 2, 11 says this, Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. And do you know what? Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. And he wants us doing things the same way, and it's Mother's Day, so I thought I might as well preach this point as well, yeah? You know, the women got too much of a G up this morning, so time to smash them back down, yeah? We don't want any cocky women in here, yeah? But nothing has changed, has it? Yeah, we were told clearly through this letter to Timothy that women aren't to teach in the church. They're not to teach in the church. How clear is that? How clear is that? Let the woman learn, not teach, learn, in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Now, you might go, yeah, yeah, well, OK, I get it, there's a few of those weird false churches out there, but plenty of churches agree with this, don't they? Oh, aren't there plenty of Baptist churches out there claiming to be Baptist? I tell you what, a lot of those Baptist union churches don't. They ain't Baptists, they're false Baptists, but all those wicked churches, they call it churches together, Baptist together, don't they? They're logo Baptists together. These Baptist unions sell out little just awful churches, aren't they? I mean, false churches all day long, you know, false churches, and they openly encourage women to teach and preach, but yet they claim to be Bible-believing churches. What a joke they are. What a disgrace to the name Baptists they are, aren't they? But those churches will, no, they will happily bring in the women, they'll go, come on in, we need you to teach, we need you preaching. That is wicked, isn't it? However, there are plenty of churches that seem to agree with that, aren't they? There are those independent-type Baptist churches, which is what a Baptist church should be, if it's not independent, it ain't a Baptist church, but there are those more independent types. There are some Evangelical-type churches, there are some that claim to agree with this, other than in their Sunday school programmes. Other than the Sunday school programmes, you go, oh, wait a second, brother Ian, wait a second, that's not authority over the man, it's kids. Okay, so are those women learning in silence, then? Are they? So are those women in their Sunday school programmes, where they're all puffed up and teaching all these people's kids, who knows what, because most adults won't be in there with them, are they really in church learning in silence? It's a church setting, isn't it? It's a church setting, with church people. With the church people's kids. So when your kids are getting sent away to be taught by someone, that woman isn't learning in the church. So where's she learning? Oh, it's alright, they do a rotation, so she just misses half the church services, to then teach her children. That ain't right, is it? It's not right at all. It's bizarre, and it's not biblical. Yet that seems to be the status quo amongst most churches in this nation, doesn't it? And by the way, just on that, and we don't have that problem here anymore, it doesn't suddenly change when it's a church WhatsApp group. It doesn't suddenly change, does it? Oh, well, we don't want women teaching in the church, we want them to learn in silence, to be in subjection, until you're outside the church walls, and then they can get the whole church together on WhatsApp, then they can teach them what they want. Then they can start telling them all their new theories on this, and start telling them what sermons to listen to, and tell them to listen to that. We had that, didn't we? And that, I mean, that UK soul-winning WhatsApp chat, I mean, that was something else, wasn't it? That was like, that was really, wasn't it? That was like womenbaptistpreaching.com. I mean, they were all over it. I mean, what part of this could they not understand? They seemed to be so knowledgeable in the Bible. Oh, funny enough, half of those women got kicked out of our church later on. They seemed to be so knowledgeable in the Bible, yet they didn't quite seem to get this bit, and were just constantly trying to teach people before we had a church here on our previous WhatsApp group. It doesn't suddenly change, does it? 1 Corinthians 14.35 says, And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Okay, and again, you don't have to sit here and be in silence when you're having your teas and coffees afterwards, okay? We're talking about in the church, when it's the teaching and preaching of the church, okay? The Bible's clear about that. Nothing's changed. And we don't care how much our wicked world changes around us. Nothing's changed. Turn to 2 Timothy 4. Here's another one. 2 Timothy 4 and verse 1 says this. 2 Timothy 4.1. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and his appearing and his kingdom. Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap for themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. Preach the commander to preach, aren't they? Not to smooth-talk you, not to give you a perfect speech, perfect speech just perfectly delivered, but to preach. That's what we're told to do, to preach. Preach the word. And that involves things that are popular and things that aren't. Sometimes you'll preach a sermon and you'll go, hey, this is great, he's ripping on the sodomites. None of us are sodomites, brilliant. And other times it'll be something not so pleasant to your ears, yeah? But we're told to do that. And in fact the Bible tells us to do that. And look, we're going to carry on doing that in a church like this, aren't we? And there are some of the tools that we're going to be bringing with us. One of those is preaching the word. Being instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. Because preaching includes reproving and rebuking and exhortation. So it's not just one. It's not just the reprove and the rebuke. You do get some exhortation from the preacher as well, but sometimes you get exhortation from the reprove and the rebuke. But that's how God wants it done. God wants it done that way. That's how he tells us to do it in the New Testament. Nothing's changed. And you say, well, yeah, come on. Look, believe me, yeah, believe me, before this church started, I don't think I'd heard proper preaching in this nation. Okay, and I'm not just saying myself, look, the other men get behind his pulpit and they preach. Okay, and they preach because we're told to preach. Yeah, I was going to churches and they were literally, I mean, you couldn't even hear sometimes. What's that guy actually saying? Smile and nod. Hope it's biblical. And other times it's smooth, you know. It's so smooth and just, you know, and he's up there. You can see, like, this is smooth. I've really planned this speech well. That's not preaching. We're told to preach, aren't we? Preach the word. And it hasn't changed because people are more easily offended either. Okay, nothing's changed because nowadays everyone's just so much more easily offended. Nowadays you preach the word and they get offended. Doesn't matter. Still preach the word. And even if they want feel-good messages every week, we ain't going to give them in. Now and again, maybe once a year I'll give you a feel-good message. I don't even know when that is. It could be a feel-good message. Maybe Christmas time. A feel-good Christmas message, yeah. And the rest of the time you get approved and rebuked. And if you don't like it, well, tough. Because that's how God tells us to do it, doesn't he? He says preach the word, yeah. He said, he said, quite loud, spare not. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sin. Yeah, we're told to do it. We're commanded. And nothing's actually changed from the Old Testament and the New Testament with that. Preach the word, told to preach. But here we're told to preach from behind this pulpit. And that's how we do it. Now, did Paul say here, until they will not endure a sound doctrine? He said preach the word, be it sin in, in season, out of season, approved, rebuked, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. So he said preach it. He said, because they won't endure, so preach it. He said they won't endure sound doctrine, so preach it. They'll turn away their ears, so preach it. He said, basically, he's almost saying, and so much the more, isn't he? So much the more, like church attendance, as you see the day approaching, people need it more and more than ever nowadays, don't they? They need to learn to get thicker skin. They need to learn to take it to be able to take from the pulpit, yeah. Turn to Acts 5. Because there's another old tool that we bring with us to serve our God. There's another old tool that God wants us taking, bringing with us out of captivity, out of the captivity of wicked false churches, liberal churches, soft churches, joke churches, crown churches. There's another tool that he wants us to bring with us, an old tool from the old times to serve our God. Acts 5 and verse 42 says this, And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. You know what that old tool is? It's good old-fashioned door-to-door soul winning. Good old-fashioned door-to-door soul winning. You know how you know that you're preaching to every creature and then you knock on every door? You knock on every door around your church, you know you preach to every creature around your church, or at least attempted to preach to every creature around your church, right? Because that's what we're told to do, aren't we? We're told to go out, knock the doors and so on. Knock rock concert outreach. We're not told to try and bring them in by finding any which way to appeal to the teens, appeal to the people, get them into the church, any which way. Then we could start talking about making Jesus Lord of your life or something else like that. We're not told to do that, are we? We're not told to go out and leaflet distribute. And sometimes on Mother's Day, especially, it might feel like leaflet distributing, but we're not told to go out and do that. That's not our goal. Our goal is to preach the gospel, isn't it? Our goal is not just to leave them an invite and go look at that video, is it? Okay, we've got to be careful, look. Yeah, we want to offer them to preach the gospel. Some people, at least we can leave them and go, well, let's hope they look at the video, point them to the video. But our goal is to go out and preach to them, yeah? In every house, daily, not, you know, give them the thing and tell those people to go look for it online, okay? Not posting Bibles. I went to some clown church where they suddenly got 10,000 Bibles for free from some just silly people somewhere out, I think it was in Texas, some sort of ministry which would just give away free Bibles to anyone that was willing to post them through doors and posted 10,000 Bibles through letterboxes. And everyone in that church didn't knock on one door until I managed to be a bit of a kind of thorn in the side there and say, maybe if you wouldn't mind, I might knock on some doors while we try and do this Bible posting ministry and managed to get someone saved. And the rest of them were just posting Bibles through doors. And when I pulled someone up who had come from another church to get involved with the Bible posting ministry, I said to him, you know, maybe if you're going up the path, you know, I wasn't obnoxious with it, I was trying to be nice, maybe if you're going up the pathway, maybe you could just knock on the door. I'm not cool to that ministry. He said, I don't think I'm ordained to preach the Gospel. What? Yeah, yeah, and that's what we got. That's why we're trying to build the house of God here, because these other places don't count. That doesn't count. Posting by, what a waste of money. I think it was New Testaments and they weren't just those little mini ones, they were quite big sizeable New Testaments. They posted 10,000 of them. How many people do you think got saved from reading those New Testaments? I'll give you a clue. It starts with an N and ends with an E. None. Nada. Zero. Because you don't get saved reading the Bible. You get saved from someone preaching you the Gospel. A big fat zero. No, we go out and preach. Do you know what we don't do as well? Do you know what we weren't told? Do you know what one of the old tools wasn't? Was to go out and convince someone of the reality and the existence of God. Yeah, that's not what we're told to do either, is it? We're not told our ministry isn't going out and getting someone filming us having debates with someone about the existence of God. That's not the old way. Yeah, that might be fun to watch, but it's a load of old. It's not getting anyone saved. It's not getting anyone saved. It's teaching and preaching Jesus Christ. What's that? The Gospel. Mark 16, 15, he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every preacher. Now, the thing with door knocking is that seems to be becoming a bit unpopular nowadays, doesn't it? Yeah, and that can be a bit rough sometimes preaching the Gospel. Going out and knocking doors and in some neighbourhoods they just seem to have some devils in those neighbourhoods, don't they? Yeah, unfortunately my wife and sister Nicky had a devil today where they're going out to knock doors and they've literally got some flaming sodomite shouting at them, shouting at them that they're not allowed to knock on doors, shouting at them to leave that door alone, shouting at them to go away, shouting at them, didn't I tell you not to knock that door? You know, these real brave sodomites that pick on mums with their young children, pick on mums with two-year-olds, four-year-olds in tow, you know, those types. None of those real brave God haters. Yeah, well, it can be a bit unpopular, can't it? You can deal with those sorts of filthy, filthy dogs sometimes who are happy to pick on mums, they're happy to pick on ladies on their own, but they won't pick on the men, will they? They won't pick on the men. When the men then talk to them, they start getting out the cameras and, quick, I'm videoing you. But you weren't scared of the women, were you, you filthy dogs? But that's what we're dealing with, isn't it? And funnily enough, we keep getting stories of mums and ladies coming back having been harassed by filthy sodomites, because they really hate women, really, don't they? You know why they hate them? Because they're not one. Because they wish they were, because they're sick and twisted and weird, that they just hate all the women out there. It's like, oh, yeah, I just want to be best friends. No, you don't, you liar. They're women haters, aren't they? And that's what we deal with, and that's sadly what you deal with when you go out preaching the gospel, you're going to come across that. But God does protect you, doesn't he? Yeah, and none of our women have come back having, you know, had any sort of physical attack yet, praise God. But, look, God does protect you, yeah, God does protect you, but, look, that's what we're up against. Preaching the gospel isn't popular, but it's the old way, isn't it? It's the old path, it's the way that God wants us to do it. He wants us, he tells us, he commands us to bring those old vessels with us, to bring those old tools of worship and go out and keep doing it 2,000 years later. Nothing's changed, is it? Okay? And that's how the only way we'll build the temple of God in this nation is by doing it God's way. Go back to verse 11 of Ezra chapter 1. Ezra 1, sorry, in verse 11 says this, So, last point here, last point about this is they were in captivity, weren't they? Okay? These guys were not just, there were a lot of people in captivity, okay? And there was a way out, though, wasn't there? They were in captivity for 70 years. It required a bit of patience, but eventually they did return, didn't they? Because, look, there were people out there that were in some form of captivity, whether it's to sin, whether it's to some other issue, some other problem that's keeping them out of the house of God. Like I said, look, for every person out there that is just refusing to get involved with the house of God, it's nicer to be a big fish in a false church pond, or maybe it's nicer to just kind of pat yourself on the back and say, well, at least I understand some good doctrine, but I'm never going to actually serve the Lord. For every one of those, there are people that genuinely cannot make it here. There are people out there that can't get here for one reason or other. There are people that maybe can't come as often as they would like for one reason or another. But if they're patient, if they're patient, and they keep wanting to serve the Lord, and like we saw with King Cyrus, you know, those that wanted to build the house of the Lord, they want to build the house of the Lord, God's going to provide a way for them to do that. If you put that as your goal, that's your prayer, that's something that you work and strive towards, God will help you to do that. And here, they came out of the captivity, they brought the old tools with them, and we're going to see in the following chapters how they start to build the house of the Lord. And hopefully we're going to learn some more about how to do that. On that, we're going to pray. Father, thank you for this house of God, Lord. Thank you that you've been helping us build this here. We're going to have some hiccups along the way, we're going to have some hard times, we're going to have some good times, but we know that you're with us, Lord, you're with us helping us build your house, we know that there's a great and effectual door that's been opened here, and that there are many adversaries, we know that. But we don't have to fear that, Lord, we don't have to be scared, we just do things your way. We bring those old vessels, we bring that old-time religion with us, and we just keep doing it your way, keep going out there preaching the gospel, keep preaching on sin, keep standing on the word of God, keep singing those old-time hymns, Lord, just keep doing things like you'd want us to do it here, keep just sticking to your word, whether that's popular or not, in what is just a sinful and adulterous nation, Lord. We pray that you just help us to just keep building here, help us to keep plugging away, to keep strengthening, keep building our church, Lord, and we pray that you help us, help us now with the rest of our week, having started the week well being in your house, help us to go on and really keep you at the centre of our week, help us to return on Wednesday, and for those that can't on Sunday, for another day in your house, and in Jesus' name, for all of this. Amen.