The Good Hand of God Part 1 - Ezra 8
Jeff Depue
Summary
God, through His meticulous providence, orchestrates every detail of life, answering prayers and providing protection and resources for His people, even in the most ordinary circumstances. Believers are called to respond with meticulous faithfulness, gratitude, and worship, recognizing that all blessings flow from His good hand. This divine care compels us to trust Him fully and give Him praise for His constant grace and protection.
Supporting Passages
Transcript
0:00The priests, and he's going to put in their hands these vessels, these expensive vessels, to carry back all the way there. And it says, verse 26, I weighed out into their hand 650 talents of silver. That's about 25 tons of silver. That's a lot. 25 tons of silver and silver vessels worth 200 talents. And 100 talents of gold, 20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 derricks. That's almost four tons of gold. And two vessels of fine, bright bronze, as precious as gold. So this is a gigantic amount of wealth that they're going back with. Someone I read said that this is the average annual income of at least 100,000 people. So that's a lot of money. So if there are 50 of us in this room, it would take us, I can't do it, but it would take us a long time to earn that much money, okay? A really long time, more money than we'll ever own. And so the king, remember, we've seen this theme over and over. The kings aren't content just to send them back. They are going to give them the wealth of the empire. That's how good the hand of the Lord is on them. He's changing the hearts of these kings to send them with above and beyond. These weren't even the vessels that we saw. In chapter 2, these weren't those vessels that were sent back that had been taken from the temple. These are just on top of it. These are just a gift.
1:38He says, verse 28, and I said to them, these are the priests who he gave them to, you are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and gold are a free will offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers. So this is a gift, a free will offering to God. So you better take care of it. This is supposed to go to God. You can't let any of it get lost. Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers' houses in Israel at Jerusalem within the chambers of the house of the Lord. So the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of God. So Ezra is meticulous. First about the families. He wants to know exactly who's going and how many from each family to make sure they get back and to make sure it's recorded, I think. And then he's also going to be meticulous about all the vessels, all the gifts. He's going to assign men to take care of them and he's going to weigh it out to them and oversee this. All this gold, all this treasure. And he's telling them, look, when you get there, you're going to have to give it to the priests, and they're going to write down what you delivered. And it better be all of it, because this is a free will offering to the Lord.
2:50So I think there's at least a precedent. I know this is a little bit of a stretch, but I do think that there's a precedent for meticulous faithfulness. And a gratitude that we can have as a church, you know, when we sit in a business meeting and we have the budget in front of us and we see how careful everyone is being with the money, the elders and finance people. All of that is above my head. And I think we can just be over my head. Is that the phrase? Over my head. I think that we can pause to be grateful that the sign of a good leader, I think what Ezra is doing here, he's being faithful to the Lord. He's committed to leading the people. He's being extremely meticulous, maybe for the king of Persia. Maybe he has to, or maybe just out of faithfulness. He's being meticulous and making sure nothing gets lost, making sure everything's taken care of. I think we need to have that own wisdom in our own lives and be thankful for being under men in this church who do have that. Verse 31, Then we departed from the river Ahava on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days, maybe for rest or something. They just finished a long journey. Verse 33, on the fourth day within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed into the hands of Merimoth the priest, the son of Uriah. And with him was Eleazar the son of Phineas, and with them were the Levites. Josabad, the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Benui. The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded. So they get there safely by the good hand of the Lord. He uses that phrase again. So he's used it for the whole trip, but now he's also used it for changing the heart of the king to send them back.
4:51He's used it for finding them the Levites that they needed. And now he's used that same phrase, the good hand of the Lord, for getting them there safely. But they prayed for protection, and sure enough, the good hand of the Lord got them there safely without any ambushes or enemies. So they get there, they stop for a few days. Maybe they're seeing family. Maybe they're catching up with cousins that remember their super old grandpa or something like that. And then after those three days, that's when they deposit all of those treasures that they had. And everything was counted and recorded. Verse 35: At that time, those who had come from the captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel: 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and as a sin offering, 12 male goats. All of this was a burnt offering to the Lord. They also delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps and the governors of the province beyond the river, and they aided the people in the house of God. So, verse 36, verse 36, they.
6:00They delivered that letter that the king had given them to all the leaders in the region, all the governors, and sure enough, the letter made it so that everyone gave them help. They didn't hinder the Jews. Which we'll see in Nehemiah, sometimes in at least that next return when they share the letter, it makes the people of the land not too happy. They still obey, but they're not excited about it. Wow. And not even the silver. Yeah, that's not having a golden money.
6:41Can't even think about that much money. Oh, so they have the letter, they give it to the people, all the governors of the land, they help all the people in charge, but also verse 35, right when they get back, they offer these offerings. For the burnt offerings, if you want some more homework, you can look at Leviticus 1. And for the sin offering, you can look at Leviticus 4. But notice all the numbers, they're mostly all multiples of 12, 12 bulls for all of Israel, 96 rams, down for the sin offering, 12 male goats. So they think maybe this was just saying for all of Israel, all the tribes, we're going to be doing these things. The burnt offering would have been an act of love and devotion for the Lord. The sin offering would have been what it sounds like, asking for forgiveness of sin for the people. But you just get this picture that right when this new wave gets there, these 5,000 people are grateful for the Lord. They know that it was the Lord that got them there. From the letter to providing the people to keeping them safe the whole four months along the way, they gave thanks to the Lord and they worshiped Him. They were excited. You know, this is probably the first time, this is the first time they would have seen the temple. The temple's already been done. And so these 5,000, instead of having to come back and do the hard work of building the temple, they get to come back from Babylon and actually just walk up to the temple and see, you know, see what their ancestors had so sorely missed and see what they've been reading about in the scriptures. They got to just see this temple. And so right away, out of devotion, they're offering these burnt offerings and these sin offerings, which I think is a pretty neat picture. Any other thoughts or questions before we finish about the whole chapter?
8:50Well, what are some things we learn? What are some applications that come to mind? Anything? Maybe the things I've already mentioned. Oh, Rosemary? Right. All of them given to you. Right. Yeah, and I think we can adopt their whole mindset of, or at least Ezra's mindset of he knows that this whole thing is from the hand of the Lord. And I think that it's only appropriate that we have that same mindset. When we're thinking about our own life, when we're thinking about possessions we have individually or the possessions of our church, we just can think of them as from the hand of the Lord, as it's his hand of protection over us. And so that gives us this extra urgency to be careful and to be wise.
9:59You know, a lot of us would point at Ezra and say, you know, maybe you're being a little too meticulous. You've got these people that are ready to go back to the land. You've got permission. Why don't you just get out of there and go? Right? But he pauses and he takes the time. It would have been a long time. He takes the time to count everybody there, to wait until they could get some Levites, to wait again until they could measure out all of the possessions to them. It's just a very careful, before they leave, you get this picture of utmost. Care from this godly, faithful man. And I think that we can show that same kind of care.
10:39I think the biggest application is to realize the providence of God in our own life, is to realize the good hand of the Lord, to see that he answers prayer, that when the people humbled themselves and they prayed to the Lord for protection, that he answered that prayer and he did protect them. And like we've said all along, I think that the book of Ezra is so special because out of all the places in the Old Testament, this is one of the spots that's most like us. This is the way that God works in our life through providence, that he answers our prayer. This isn't something he's not bringing them out of Babylon with plagues or with parting seas or things like that. He's just bringing them out by his good hand with protection and guidance that they're praying for and that they're thanking him for. And I think it's a blessing to be able to think of God in that way, to know the truth about God, that he does hear our prayers, that he does have his good hand on us.
11:45Any other thoughts before we close, Marilyn? All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this passage when this passage is being built. Built up to, we just get this picture of how faithful you are, and we get excited about how you're going to take care of your people. And then when we read it, it almost just seems so ordinary. These are just everyday actions, counting people, counting things, going on a long journey, getting back home.
12:25But it's still the text is clear. It still is all orchestrated by you. It's still all amazing acts of providence. And so we thank you, Lord, for the reminder that in every aspect of life, even the mundane, that you are in control and that we can pray to you, and you do hear us. And if we humble ourselves before us, if we humble ourselves before you, you hear our prayer. And so I pray, Lord, that you'd help us as we keep reading about Ezra, that you'd help us keep wanting to be like him, this studier of the law, this doer of the law, teacher of the law. I pray that you would help us trust you like he trusted you and constantly keep giving you praise for your protection and your grace in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.