Ezra's Mission - Ezra 7

0:57They started building again. And how come? What spurred them on to build again? They got the word back from Darius. They did, yeah. They got the word back from Darius, and they had those prophets, right? You guys remember Haggai and Zechariah, whose books we have, they came and started prophesying and saying, look, you're building your houses. Now you're making them fancy. Why don't you stop and actually build the temple instead of being scared? All right. Turn this on now. Okay. So remember where we are in the world history. We have Jesus on earth around the year one.

1:42And a thousand years before that, we have Saul and David and Solomon. This is like halfway in between. So the kingdom has been split up. Not only has the kingdom been split up, but now the northern kingdom has been taken captive. The southern kingdom was then later taken captive, and they're getting to come back under Persia. That's what's happening. Quick review. The first wave that in 538, that's what we've been reading about so far in Ezra. That's everything we've studied, is that first wave, the first six chapters of Ezra about that group that came back. The second wave starts today. We finally get to it in chapter 7. That's when Ezra comes back. This is how many years is that? 80. This is 80 years later, in between. So everything we've been reading about is 80 years before Ezra came to the land and then events after that. And then now, finally, Ezra is going to come. So the last thing that we heard was in 520, the prophets came, they started preaching, they started building the temple, and the temple was finished in the year 515. 515. That's the last thing we heard in Ezra. Chapter 6.

3:08And then Ezra chapter 7, Ezra returned. So let's pray before we get started. Father, we thank you for a chance to study this historical part of Scripture. I pray, Lord, that you would bless our time, that this wouldn't be a boring time, that this wouldn't be a useless time. But that as we study your word, we would be able to pay attention and learn and understand things that you would have us know. I pray, Lord, that any cloudiness would be gone from this passage, that we'd see that these are real people with real desires who actually prayed to you and made a journey and came back to your land. And I pray, Lord, that you'd help us understand who you are and what you expect from us. In Jesus' name, amen.

3:59So, in Ezra chapter 7, look at verse 1. Now, after this, this is after they kept the feast. This is actually like 50 years later, 50 or 60 years later. Now, after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shalom, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub, son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Merioth, son of Zarahiah, son of Uzi, son of Buki, son of Abishuah, son of. Of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the chief priest. What are some highlights you see in that already? Maybe the biggest highlight?

4:40Aaron, the chief priest. What does that tell you about Ezra? Yeah, he's from the priestly line. And we'll see that throughout this chapter. There also are some other notable names. A lot of those priests that he mentions are good priests. A lot of people in the list, he jumps over and maybe gives a grandson or something like that. But he's just listing off and tracing his lineage back to Aaron to show that he's got these credentials. He's a priest. This is who Ezra is. So at the beginning, now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia. So this is down on that last king that we have listed on the screen. So if you remember, they came back to the land. The first wave came back under Cyrus the Great.

5:29The temple was built under Darius the Great, or the temple was finished under Darius the Great. Then we stop hearing anything. That's the end of chapter 6. Well, now in chapter 7, we pick up in Artaxerxes. This is the king that sends Ezra back. This is the king that's going to send Nehemiah back. This is later in their history. But look at verse 6. This Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe. Skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. And the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. So, what else do we learn about Ezra in that verse? Verse 6.

6:18He knows the law well. God was with him, right? He had God's favor. What else? The king's favor. He had the king's favor. What else? He's coming from Babylon, right? So he is under the king of Persia. He's going to interact with the king of Persia, but he's living in Babylon. He's going to leave from Babylon, which is underneath the Persian Empire now, because Persia conquered Babylon. What else? The king of Persia let him study. Yeah, the king of Persia let him study. Is that what you said? Yeah.

6:59What else? He's a scribe. So he's not only a priest, he's also a scribe. Anything else? Maybe that's everything. It says in verse 6: this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses. That word skilled, some of your translations might say he was a ready scribe. The word skilled is from the word for quick. And so that makes sense to us. If someone Is quick with the Word of God, it means they're skilled in it. I remember in seminary, you could ask your professors a question, and they could just quote to you scriptures, or they could turn to you different parts, and they knew the Bible forwards and backwards. They were quick with it, they were skilled with it. And that's who Ezra is. He loves the Word of God, specifically the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. And the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. That phrase, the hand of the Lord was on him, is going to be repeated over and over and over. And we'll see a little bit more what he means by that in a little. Any questions so far or thoughts?

8:15Jeff, I was just going to point out your dates up there. Just for everybody's information, Esther, or just between areas of part of the question. I meant to point that out. I was going to do it in the form of a question and I forgot. Yeah, so I have a question for you guys. Do you know who shows up in the reign of Xerxes? The answer is Esther. So the in between, what has happened? In between Ezra 6 and Ezra 7, what's happening back in Persia during that 50 years is the story of Esther with King Xerxes. So remember, in Ezra 6, we read about Darius the Great. In Ezra 7, now we're reading about something that's happening with Artaxerxes. In between those is Esther, for your information. So if you want homework, you can go home and read Esther. I'll give you more homework later as well. But if you want some homework, read Esther right in the middle. Dr. Bookman used to say that Esther is kind of like a meanwhile back at the ranch story. Because all this stuff is happening in Israel, they're sending back. Well, meanwhile, while this is happening back in Persia, Esther is interacting with Xerxes. Okay, verse 7. And there went up also to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers and temple servants. And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For on the first day of the first month, he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month, he came to Jerusalem. Why? For the good hand of his God was on him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. So this is a summary, kind of of the next couple chapters. The next couple chapters are going to be about what it was like for Ezra to get the permission to come back and how he gathered all the people to come back. So this is. Kind of a summary in advance saying all of this is going to take about four months from the time he left Babylon to the time he made it to Jerusalem, this long journey, and he's going to make it back. And the reason why he makes it back is the same reason why he could have the king's favor and why he could get all that he asked. It's because the hand of the Lord was on him. And so you see the Lord working already in this very introduction of in this introduction of Ezra, that the Lord is someone who's with him, or he's someone who the Lord is with. That's why he's prospering. That's why he has the king's favor. That's why he's able to travel back safely and come back to Jerusalem. And so the question is, if at the end of verse 9 we read, for the good hand of his God was on him. The question is, why was the good hand of the Lord on him? And look at verse 10. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. That's pretty clear, right? That's pretty basic. Those are things we can do as well. You might not be someone who preaches from a pulpit or something like that, but you still can study God's Word. You can set your heart to where what you're studying, you actually do. And all of us can be teachers, right? Moms can teach their children.

12:00And wives can teach each other. We can help each other understand the scriptures. And so we kind of have a little bit of a hero in Ezra. We have a guy that we can copy, a guy who loves God's Word. He's skilled with it. He's ready with it. And he studies it. He does it. He teaches it. His life is dictated by the Word of God. Just to give you an idea of what it means for him to be ready, turn to Psalm 45. This is kind of just for fun, a little bit of a tangent. Psalm 45 is not a psalm we read that often. It's kind of unique. There's no other psalm like it.

12:40It seems to be from a woman or from the perspective of a woman who is maybe about to get married to a king, maybe Solomon. We don't really know. But it's about her love. So to the choir master, according to the lilies, maybe that was a tune or something like that. A masculine of the sons of Korah, a love song. Verse 1: My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the king. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. That's the other place that this word is used: a quick scribe, a skilled scribe. You are the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. So, whenever we think of love songs or love poetry, we usually just think of the Song of Solomon. Well, it's also in this Psalm, Psalm 45. And the picture that they use is of a scribe, someone who she's saying that she loves her future husband or whoever she's singing about. She loves him so much that the words are just overflowing. She's like a ready scribe. She's just ready to write it down. She doesn't have to brainstorm and think, well, what's something nice I can say about this man? Right? No, she's skillful. She's like a skillful scribe. She can just pour out these words. Okay, back to Ezra 7.

14:18So I think that this can be a goal for all of us, just to pause again. I think that if you remember, the very first thing we said whenever we started studying Ezra a very long time ago was that it's a special thing to be able to study the historical books like this in this era as we get into the 500s because it's the part of the Old Testament that's really similar to us. Really similar to us. There still are a lot of differences. We don't have the temple. We're not told to go and build the Holy of Holies. We're not going to have an altar with sacrifices, things like that. We're not under the Old Testament law. But in terms of how God is interacting with his people and how his people are to be faithful with him, you really get a more normal sense than what you see in other parts of the Old Testament. God is not working in a way that's miraculous and spectacular and outwardly showy. He's working in a way that's behind the scenes. His good hand is on Ezra.

15:26Just like it can be on us. And he's working more behind the scenes, just like he does with us. He's changing the hearts of kings. He's providing protection. And God's people are expected to live in a certain way, too, that's similar to us. Just like Ezra, what made him a special man was that he studied the law of the Lord, and he did it, and he taught it. Those are things that we can do. So I think verse 10 is encouraging. Any thoughts? Yeah, I totally agree.

16:01Ezra is certainly set up with this pedigree. He's not just a priest. He's a priest from Aaron's line. He's a priest from these descendants. You remember some of Aaron's descendants went in a bad direction. Well, Ezra is through the good parts. He's got this pedigree. He's got the authority to come and lead the people. And we find out he actually has the skill to do so. He doesn't just have the name, but he actually loves the Word of God, knows. It inside and out and does it. Any other thoughts? Yeah, it's certainly a determination. And I think it was hard in his culture as well. You know, he's living in this foreign land, and yet he has made this determination. He has set his heart that he is going to know it, even though he's in a foreign land, and he's going to do it as hard as that is, and he's going to teach it, which we'll see later he does in a really powerful way when he gets back to Israel.

17:03So I completely agree that, you know, we can fantasize about the type of man or woman we want to be and think, you know, I want to be someone who knows the Bible inside and out, and then we can never study it. You know, we have this picture of how down the road we want to be really wise, we really want to know God's word, but then each day, every single day, we keep neglecting to actually study it. And I think there's a lot to be said for the determination there: that if we want to be like this, if we want to be like Ezra, we do need to set our hearts to do it. We need to actually make the determination now to study it.

17:44Okay, verse 11. So Ezra is in favor with the king, and Artaxerxes is going to send him back. He sends him back with a letter. Verse 11. This is a copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord. Lord and his statutes for Israel. So he again says the same thing. He's a scribe. He knows all about the commandments. He knows the ins and outs. Verse 12, Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, peace.

18:20He calls himself the king of kings. Artaxerxes does. We know who the real king of kings is. But this is a title that the Persian kings gave to themselves. And you'll notice that throughout this letter, Artaxerxes seems to be like an expert in the Bible. Maybe he didn't know the Bible really well, or maybe Ezra said, you know, I want to go back. And the king said, okay, draft me a letter and I'll sign it. You know, we do that kind of thing sometimes. Maybe we want permission to do it. And then our boss says, okay, write up a memo and I'll send it out to the company or something like that. And maybe this is what's going on. So he says, peace, verse 12. And now, verse 13, I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand. That means like accessible to Ezra, in his hand. He's got this skill. Verse 15, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his. Counselors are freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the free will offerings of the people and the priests vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. With this money, then you shall, with all diligence, buy bulls, rams, and lambs with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. So we see a theme that's repeated again in Ezra: that not only do the kings grant the request of the Jews to go back, but because the good Lord's hand is on them, they go above and beyond. They give them money. They tell everyone in the whole land to give them money to help them to send them back to be able to make these offerings, to make their way easily. So the Artaxerxes says, anyone of the Jews who wants to go back can.

20:23And everyone else, we should help them, we should give them money so that they can buy all the things they need to make sacrifices. In verse 14, for you are sent by the king and his seven counselors. If you want to write something down for that, you can write down Esther 1:14. We hear about that same thing, the king and his seven counselors. So since you're already reading through it for your homework, look for that verse. It's kind of neat. The way the books tie together. So, verse 18: Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do according to the will of your God. The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king's treasury. So, now he's being really generous.

21:27He says, Whatever you need, you can have. Whatever seems good to you, you can just take it. You can go back. He mentions, verse 19, the vessels that have been given to you. So, it seems like they had a special commission to make some more vessels. If you remember, the vessels were a big deal in chapter one, that all the vessels that left made it back to Israel so that they could worship the Lord. So, these must be different vessels that were made, gifts of gold and silver. Whatever else you need, at the end of verse 20, you may provide it out of the king's treasury. This is how generous the king is being. You can even take it from my own money and go back to your land. Verse 21, and I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province beyond the river: whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence. So, he's putting this authority in Ezra and saying, Now everyone has. To listen to this man. This is how much favor Ezra has. He has clearly impressed this king with the knowledge, with his knowledge of the law, maybe with his friendship. Verse 22: Let it be done with all diligence, up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cores of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. So, as this letter is going out, Artaxerxes says they can take anything they need up to this crazy amount, a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cores of wheat. That's wheat and wheat and wine and wine, anything they need. They can have salt as much as they want. They can take it.

23:37That hundred talents of silver is like a ton of money. This is that whole region, the region beyond the river that would include Israel and everything past the Euphrates, kind of the big region, Tyre, Sidon, all those areas, that whole region would pay an annual tax for the entire region of. 300 talents of silver. And so he's giving them 100. So that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. He is lavishing this stuff on them and telling them to go back. And we get a little bit of the motive. Verse 23, whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven. So whatever God requires, you do anything he requires, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. So it seems like he knows a little bit about the God of Israel. And even though Israel was a tiny nation, a very small part of the map, and Persia is this huge empire by this point, the king still sees fit to send that nation back and give them anything they want, treated as the people of peoples in that region. Everyone in that region having to listen to Ezra, he's sending them back because he doesn't want the God of Israel to be angry at him. So either he does this for all the countries that he sends back just in hopes that one of them has the right God, right? That might be what he's doing. We don't know. Or he truly fears the God of Israel. We're not sure.

25:18But it seems like that he at least is scared of the wrath of the God of Israel. And so he's letting the people go back and giving them anything they need for the temple so that they can offer the sacrifice. Sacrifices and be pleased with the king of Persia. Yeah. It's so wonderful to see the way God moved his heart because, I mean, I stand to be corrected, but I think he had killed two of his brothers in order to solidify his power. Yeah. He was not a really good guy. Not a great guy.

25:47Yeah. And he's going to, we're going to see the same thing again in Nehemiah. That you remember Nehemiah was sad, and Artaxerxes, this powerful, a little bit crazy king, notices and says, why are you downcast? And sends Nehemiah back. So it is special. And the point of Ezra in this, remember from the very beginning, what has he said? The good hand of the Lord is on Ezra. And the good hand of the Lord has influenced this king. And so that's why this king is doing these things.

26:26Verse 25, let's finish the letter. And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment. So it's like the king now all of a sudden goes. Above and beyond, and basically sets up Ezra as like a little governor of this region beyond the river. Everyone has to listen to him.

27:11He can appoint a whole government with magistrates and judges that will judge all the people in the province beyond the river. So he is now, Ezra is now the one who, under the authority of the Persian Empire, has the authority to appoint judges that are going to influence this entire region. It would be like if Texas got permission from the president to select all of the judges for the whole country. Yeah. It's pretty special. The judges in the middle of verse 25: judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God. So the criteria for these judges is that they know the law of God. That's why it has to be Ezra, because he's the one who knows it forwards and backwards. He's studied it and done it and taught it. And so he's going to pick judges that also know the law, and those who do not know them, you shall teach. So Ezra also has this responsibility from the Persian king of all people to go back, and if anyone doesn't know the law, he is supposed to teach them, which he does.

28:26Verse 26, he gets the power to. To punish people, anyone who's not going to follow this law, Ezra has the power to kill, or at least have killed, to banish them from the land, to take away his goods, or to put him in prison. And so it's like this king has given Ezra the permission to make God's law the law of the land again. It's pretty special, pretty unique. Any questions about the letter? We finished the letter. Yeah. Is there any of the you think we've given that?

29:03I think that it's entirely the Lord moving his heart. You know, one of the special things about the book of Ezra is that God keeps doing this, right? He moved the heart of Cyrus. Point. Oh, point. Oh, sorry. He moved the heart of Cyrus to send the people back originally. He moved the heart of Darius to allow them to build the temple. And now he's moving the heart of Artaxerxes to send back Ezra and anyone who wants to go with them.

29:48I was going to say also about the Esther, or you know, you know, that Artaxerxes threw Ezra Jewish people. Yeah. So Daniel and Hananiah, Azeria, yeah. With Nebuchadnezzar. And so, wait, sorry, what? I think that the Lord was really working in this faraway land, just because the people had been taken out of their land didn't mean that the Lord stopped working. In fact, he seems to have started to work in one of the most special ways in all of history. And I was going to say this for the end, but since we're talking about it, I think one of the big applications for this, especially on the week of July 4th, is to remember that we can pray for these kinds of things.

30:35In 2 Timothy, let's turn there. 1 Timothy 2. 1 Timothy 2. Verse 1. First of all, then, this is the first application that Paul wants to give. First of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Verse 2, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And so Paul tells us that one of the main things that we're to pray for is for leaders and Kings, people who are in high position, so that we can live a peaceful and quiet life.

31:37This is a pleasing thing for the Lord. And I think that the expectation there is that when we pray, the reason why we would pray such a thing is because God can work in this way, that He's working in Ezra. God can change the hearts of kings. God can influence the leaders, even if we look at them and say, you know, they're totally out of reach. Nobody can influence them, our president or our Congress or the judges or something like that. But the Lord can.

32:09Wasn't me. The Lord can influence those people. He can change their hearts. He can cause them to do his will. And so I think it's encouraging for us to remember that we should be praying for these things, that God still works in this way, that he can move the heart of a king like a stream of river, a stream of water. Any other thoughts or comments? Effie? I was interested in that he allowed that sense to execute judgment, including executive.

32:46Romans didn't allow that. Right. Do you have a thought about that? Yeah, I agree. Yeah, we got to see that in Sunday school this morning with Pontius Pilate, how the leaders had to come to Pontius Pilate and get. Permission to execute. Well, for the Persian kingdom, they were given a lot more authority. He basically told Ezra, you go back and you do anything you need and anything you want. You take any money out of my own treasury that you need, and you do any punishment that you need in order to get the people to know the law, in order to get sacrifices going, so that God is pleased with Persia.

33:25Look at verse 27 and 28. This seems to be an interjection after the letter. So Ezra has copied down this letter saying, This is the letter that the king gave me. And then it's like he pauses to just rejoice in the Lord. Verse 27: Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. It's pretty special into this chapter. These things that we've been commenting on, Ezra pauses to just say, Blessed be God. Let's praise God for the amazing way that he's done this, that he has put his hand on Ezra so that he's put this into the king's heart to send the people back. He's doing this so that the temple could be beautiful again.

34:30Instead of stripped down, he has extended his steadfast love to Ezra before the king and his counselors and before all the king's mighty officers. So God is working in this way, and Ezra just pauses to say, Let's praise God for this amazing thing that all of a sudden all these people are going to get to go back, not because we were so clever, not because I figured out a way to trick the king into sending me back, but because God put it in his heart. God changed the heart of the king. God wanted his temple to be beautiful again to the enjoyment of his people, for the enjoyment of his people.

35:12And so Ezra said, I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. So he took courage, maybe, for the journey, or maybe to be bold and get what he needed, to ask for it, to be a good ruler. He took courage because he knew that God's hand was on him. He could tell that something was happening and that he better comply.

35:41And he gathered leading men. That's what the next chapter is going to be about. He gathered leading men to go back with him and do what he was supposed to do. So, any final thoughts or applications? There's a bunch. There's all kinds of, you know, a lot of what we study in En Ezra so far has been mainly historical, and we did get almost all history this time too. But in this chapter, he starts to pause and kind of give comment, which I think is really special and provides us with a lot of application. Number one, we need to be determined. We need to set our hearts to study the Word of God. We need to know it inside and out. And it's not going to come just from taking a class or just from one day of study or something like that. That's a lifelong commitment. That's something that we need to set our hearts to do to study the Word of God.

36:42And when we study it, we can't just be like the Pharisees who studied it and then didn't do it or did the minor parts so fastidiously that they forgot the major parts to have love for their neighbor, to love the Lord. Ezra became the hero, not only of the people of God today, but also of the Pharisees. Ezra was their hero. We have that recorded in Jewish history, that Ezra becomes this transition figure of how, now that we're back in the land, what does God want us to look like? Well, we need to be a people of the book, because Ezra knew the book, and so the Pharisees knew the book. And they fastidiously kept it, but selected.

37:31They weren't humble. They weren't loving. They weren't merciful. So we need to study the law. We need to study God's Word. We also need to do it. That's a commitment as well. It's hard to do. Like Pat used the gruesome example in Sunday school this morning of when a teenager is looking in the mirror and he sees, my wife calls them blemishes. It's a sweeter word than the one Pat used. But when you see blemishes, you do something about it, right? And it's the same with the Word of God. When we study it and we see the blemishes in our own heart, we do something about it. We don't just let it go. Not only that, we need to be people who want to teach the word. And maybe that doesn't look like a pulpit ministry for you, but that can be to your children. That can be in a Bible study for your friends as you teach each other and study together. So those are three things. Other things are: we can pray for our leaders. We need to pray for our leaders. And this week is a great week to do it. We don't have a prayer meeting on Wednesday, but I think it's a special opportunity that we could stay home and pray for our leaders on July 4th.

38:52Because God does have this immense power, this amazing behind-the-scenes power that we can't even see. But He answers those prayers and He. He changes hearts. We can remember to be like Ezra and give praise to the Lord. He saw the hand of the Lord working in a way that's bringing about the Lord's glory, and he just pauses to give him glory, to thank him for the way he works with his people, to thank him for changing hearts and changing circumstances. Any others that you can think of? Any other applications? Thank the Lord. Study His Word. Do it. Teach it.

39:34I already forgot the other one. Pray for leaders. Yeah, Arab? Yeah, that's a good point. That's a really good point. Do you guys hear that? Ezra recognized what the Lord is doing and he took courage. And Arab was just saying, so much has changed about us, and the Lord has given us so many resources and has changed us so much that we also have this responsibility to take courage, to realize all the promises he's given us and take courage. Yeah. Yeah, and Artaxerxes already knew that Ezra was a man who knew the law. So how did he know that? You know, there had to be some interaction where Ezra is offering advice or something like that to the king.

40:29And then when the king asked, Asked, what do you need? Ezra knew the word. He knew how to respond. He knew how to answer. He was ready, a ready scribe. And he said, this is what I need. And he was bold and he took courage in the Lord and said, I'm going to need a lot of money. I'm going to need anyone who wants to come back with me. I'm going to need them. And I don't want anybody to charge us a toll on the way home, which resonates with me. I'm not a big fan of tolls.

41:01Yeah, I think that's certainly another application. We can be grateful for those people who are like Ezra in our life that have taught us and thankful that the Lord has worked in their life. And we can be amazed at the God who does work like this in the hearts of kings, and we can pray to him that he will keep doing that. And we can just be in awe as he does it right in front of our eyes all the time.

41:31Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for this chapter of Scripture, a part of scripture that a lot of us haven't read in a very long time, or maybe ever. And a part that is easy to get caught up in historical details or things like that. But it's such a blessing to be able to step into that history, realizing that you have inner torture. Throughout history, so much of who you are and how you act and your character and your attributes. And so I pray, Lord, that you'd help us understand those things, understand how stunning it is that you work in these ways, how dependent we are on you in prayer and to know your word.

42:23I pray, Lord, that even tonight with the study of this chapter of Old Testament history, that our hearts would be changed, that we would have a stronger commitment to study your word and to do it and to teach it, that we would have these determinations to be godly and to be people of the book. Help us, Lord, in all of these things. In Jesus' name, amen.