Every period of significant growth, maturity, and useful for the church, seems to be preceded by opposition. Even when the growth and usefulness transpires, opposition most often accompanies it. If we would be used of the Lord, if we would go on into spiritual maturity, and if we would see more people brought into God’s kingdom, then we should not be surprised by opposition accompanying it.
What are the periods when the church had its greatest surges? Consider what happened in the first two centuries. Opposition began with the Jewish religious zealots and then followed with persecution by the Roman Empire, often, severe persecution. Nero blamed Christians on the fire that he set in Rome in order to get his way on a new redevelopment project. This caused a backlash on believers. Domitian banished John to Patmos and systematically persecuted believers. In spite of this, the church spread throughout Europe, into Asia and Africa.
The Middle Ages witnessed slaughter of Waldenses, Lollards, and Huguenots, often with such brutality that it would sicken our stomachs to hear of it. Christians were thrown from mountain holds to their death; others were trapped in small caves and burned to death; still others faced fire and beheading. Missionaries sent from Geneva into France were sought out and killed. Christians lived with prices on their heads. Yet the church exploded in growth and maturity in this time of the Great Reformation. The next generation faced no less threat, imprisonment, and execution at the hand of Roman Catholicism, and yet it produced the greatest generation of believers since the first century in the Puritans and Covenanters. Those spiritual forefathers lived with opposition, learning how to thrive in it to the glory of God. Jeremiah Burroughs, writing in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, explained that affliction and opposition is the normal lot of Christians, so we need not be surprised when it comes. He wrote, “It is your weakness and folly that you did not look for it and expect it.” He added, “There is no affliction should come unexpectedly to a Christian” [pp. 191-192].
Opposition will come so be prepared to remain faithful to Christ in all things. That’s the lesson that shouts from our text. The writer leaves the tight chronology evident in the first three chapters and takes on a thematic angle in chapter four. He returns to his chronological re-telling of the returning exiles and the rebuilding of the temple, and ultimately, the wall of Jerusalem (4:24ff.). But here he gives us a quick look ahead. Why does he do this? To put it in more modern terms, he wants us to see that following the Lord’s will does not mean a walk in the park! Life is difficult for God’s people. We are not to become so trapped in mind and affections for this world that we lose sight of eternity ahead with Him. Yet that is what happened to Israel in earlier generations; and it still happens today. That’s why Christians seem to whine and complain and murmur when opposition or affliction comes. We think that this life is to be easy. Yet how can it be while sin reigns about us? How can it be when men love darkness rather than the light? How can it be when men hate the Creator and seek to throw off His sovereign rule (Psa. 1)? How can it be when truth exposes the darkness of the human heart and need for redemption through Christ alone?
Let me outline the historical framework of the chapter so that we have in mind what is happening in Ezra 4.
Why, then, does the writer jump 70 or 80 years ahead? Have you noticed in reading through a lot of more recent history books that they will have sidebars to give additional material or relate future incidents to the current history? In a sense, this is a thematic sidebar that helps us to understand that the opposition never left. God’s people live in opposition so that they will be weaned from the love of the world to love things eternal.
With this background in mind, let’s work through the text.
We suffer with disillusionment in modern America. The thought that we might suffer for the Christian faith or encounter great difficulties and trials as believers seems foreign to our thought. Yet that is the pattern evident throughout Scripture. Ezra and Nehemiah make this clear. From this chapter through the end of Nehemiah, a stretch of 80 years, opposition, adversity, and trials accompany the people of God. Did this mean that God was not working among them? On the contrary, it indicates one of the means that the Lord uses to strengthen His people and demonstrate His grace in our lives. As Paul told the young churches in Asia Minor at the end of his first missionary journey, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:23). Has that changed? Though we may have been spared many things in our cultural setting, we dare not get comfortable and presumptuous. Our afflictions still come, testing the veracity of our faith and building our confidence in the faithfulness of our God through Christ in the gospel. We are constantly reminded that this world is not our home!
Who were “the enemies of Judah and Benjamin”? The returning exiles, the remnant, are identified as Judah and Benjamin. That was due to this being the Southern Kingdom of Judah that was exiled, first into Babylon and then taken over by the Persians.
The enemies were those who had been settled in the land of Palestine by the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. The typical pattern of conquering kings was to remove the people of the conquered land to another part of the kingdom in order to cut ties with their inheritance, change their culture so that they assimilated into the new culture, reorient their loyalties toward the new kingdom, and destabilize any possibility of mounting opposition to the new kingdom. This particular group would have originally settled in Samaria or in that region. They could have come from any number of places so would have been from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds.
They brought their idolatry with them and the practices associated with their religion. When Zerubbabel and Jeshua rejected their overtures for assistance on rebuilding the temple, it had nothing to do with racism or anti-foreign sentiments. They knew, instead, that these men were enemies to them because they were enemies of the Lord God.
2 Kings 17:24-41 gives the description of how these people groups were dispersed to the northern kingdom of Israel and began to carry on their lives. They added a syncretistic practice of Yahwism or the worship of the Lord God. So, should the returning exiles have welcomed their volunteering to help rebuild the temple? Consider, what got Israel into trouble in the first place. They embraced other gods and tried to syncretize the worship of Yahweh with other religions. It cost them everything. What were the issues at hand?
Do we not need to learn something from this, especially in a day when it is politically and socially incorrect to be single-minded in devotion to Christ?
“You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.”
Were they being racist by this remark? Were they unkind and uncharitable at such an offer as made to them?
The reality is that they knew what got them into exile in the first place; and they did not want to repeat it by watering down their worship and devotion to the Lord by allying with syncretists.
This brings up the question: how far do we go in separating from others? This is touchy! Some have taken this too far and have become isolationists, trying to totally separate from everyone in the world. Paul rebukes that mindset in 1 Corinthians 5, pointing out that we would have to go out of the world to really do that. Rather the point is that Christians need to make sure that they do not ally themselves for any labor with those that would be in direct conflict with the gospel.
The issue before the exiles was clear. It was not nationality, ethnic background, or cultural distinctions that caused separation. It was belief and practice. Here is where “cooperation” in spiritual endeavors is limited to those who agree on the central tenets of the Christian faith, particularly on the gospel.
There is some discussion going on among a number of Baptists about whether or not Baptists can “cooperate” with other evangelical groups in gospel endeavors. By all means we should! Our missionaries realize that unless we embrace a “Great Commission Christian” worldview, we will severely limit fellowship, accountability, and effectiveness in gospel work. The same is true in our own community. Does that mean that we will treat areas of disagreement as unimportant, such as baptism or church polity? Not at all—we maintain our distinctive principles as Baptists but realize that the overriding cause of the gospel is greater than any denomination or sectarian position.
There is a price to pay when exercising separation from those groups that would try to water down the gospel and destroy the foundation upon which our faith rests. We see this in the reaction in verses 4-5. The enemies “hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king do Persia. That’s fifty-years of opposition by the same people.
Should the exiles have just gone along with the proposal in verse 2? It would have destroyed them in the end. What were the goals of the “enemies”? Were they going to build up the worship of the Lord alone? Were they going to look to Him for redemption from their sins? Would they be for worshiping the Lord according to the prescription in the Law? Would they have lived in dependence on Him? Would they faithfully practice the moral tenets of the Law? The answer is obvious just as it is in our day with those that would cozy up to Christians while rejecting the solitary truths of the gospel. We need the same courage as shown by the returning exiles.
The effect that the enemies had on the exiles is threefold:
That’s the point that is made by adding the “sidebar” in verses 6-23. It came in the form of letters of opposition. By this time, the temple had been completed at the urging of prophets Haggai and Zechariah. After the rough start and then the stoppage of the work, they resumed after a 20-year hiatus. Many of their priorities had caved to the discouragement and fears so that they had to repent of self-centered ways and greed before returning to the work.
The letters began in the reign of Ahaseurus or Xerxes (486-465). Evidently, after the temple was built there was some movement to begin rebuilding the wall around the city. That would have been natural, not for any kind of rebellion against Persia but for normal protection. The second letter came during Artaxerxes’ reign (464-424), which was nearly 100 years after the exiles returned to Jerusalem. There is some debate as to whether verse 8 introduces a third letter or whether it is amplification on the second letter. Whether it was one or two or many is not of great importance. But the fact that the opposition seemed unending is what is driven home. The thing that made the letter or letters during Artaxerxes’ time so critical was that there was a rebellion concurrent with the early part of his reign (460) in Egypt supported by the Greeks. It lasted for 12 years and ended with the Peace of Callias. So Artaxerxes would have listened closely to any news that Jerusalem might be rebelling against him [Mervin Breneman, NAC: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 101].
Interestingly, from 4:8 until 6:18, the book of Ezra is written in Aramaic, which was the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire and then was passed on to the Babylonian Empire so that the Persian Empire used it too. That’s why it had to be translated into Persian for the king [Breneman, 102].
Did the letter tell the truth? We must realize that enemies of the Lord God (and enemies of the gospel) are not interested in truth. They only want to stop forward movement for the faith. So they will justify lies in order to accomplish their end game. Notice what they did.
That’s not exactly the right picture of old Jerusalem!
That is the nature of the world. Truth means nothing; getting their way means everything. This is at the very core of depravity because the world will ultimately stop at nothing to achieve its lusts.
The Jews were insignificant in number, weak in political strength, poor in resources, and yet, the charge was made that they would not be loyal to the king (v. 13).
Those making the charge puffed up their own resumes as in the “service of the palace,” or literally, they considered themselves to be those who “eat the salt.” That was an exaggeration as well. They schmoozed the king because they were out for selfish desires. The king’s honor meant nothing to them but crushing and defeating the rise of the Jews and their worship of Yahweh meant everything.
What would they show? Hezekiah defied Assyria by trusting the Lord—no fight ensued, yet the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 in their own camp. Beyond that, the stance against Babylon by Jehoikim only resulted in the destruction and capture of Jerusalem.
Ultimately, if the records were accurate, they would show that Jerusalem fell because they rejected the Lord their God (e.g. 2 Kings 22:14-20; 23:26-27; 24:1-5).
“You will have no possession in the province beyond the river” (which was the Euphrates). What a stretch! The tiny area of Jerusalem could not deny the king the larger region of Syria and Palestine. But due to it being a time of threat, the king acquiesced. Possibly, some of this took place “c. 448 when Megabyzus, satrap of Abar-nahara, was in rebellion, and it therefore was bound to be acted on by a nervous Persian administration” [Cline, 77]. This is where the story in Nehemiah 1:2ff enters the scene.
But how do God’s people respond to such times?
Here’s where Judah needed to learn from their history. Numbers 13:25-14:10 gives us the perspective of those caving to fear and those who relied on the Lord in times of opposition. The latter decided that opposition was bread or food for God’s people—a source of growth and maturing in the Lord. We can summarize it as follows:
“If the Lord is pleased with us…”
Here is the call for prayer and dependence on the Lord.
“Do not rebel…”
So, don’t let opposition surprise you. See it as an opportunity to grow in grace, faithfulness, and dependence on the Lord.
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