Sermons by Monday Club Ezra 1:1-11 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 captivity is clearly represented as God's judgment upon His people for their sins, but it was a judgment so tempered with mercy that it brought them much of blessing in the way of spiritual development. Their trials became a means, in various ways, of spiritual discipline. Losing the temple with its solemn ritual they found that God was a spirit and could be worshipped anywhere; at Jerusalem they had been able to hear His voice in the holy ordinances, but now they were dependent upon the revealed Word; hence diligent attention was paid to the preservation and transcription of the sacred writings, a service which prepared the way for the arrangement, not long after, by Ezra of the Old Testament canon. All such good impulses helped to work out a gradual but sure deliverance from their old sin of idolatry. In Judea the service of idols had become strangely confused with the service of Jehovah. It was thought by many not so very wrong to worship images if at the same time they worshipped God. The evils which assail us now are different in form, but are working along the same line; we have other idols, but the same snare. Natural history has an interesting chapter called "Mimicries of Nature," the description of certain creatures which have, in a wonderful degree, the appearance of vegetable life and are able thereby to seize more surely upon their unsuspecting prey. It illustrates the peril that surrounds us on many sides in the moral world; evil takes the shape of good; pleasures that seem harmless hide the sting of death, etc. Through such subtle temptations among the Jews idolatry became almost universal. But when they came to Chaldea they saw idolatry in all its naked deformity; it was not confused with true worship, it stood alone. They saw how it denied and despised Jehovah, and it filled them with horror. If idolatry bore such fruit their course was clear; they would have nothing to do with it. Not likely there were some whose religion in Judea had not been very pronounced who in Chaldea were among the foremost champions of Jehovah. In any Christian community there are good citizens who take no sides in the conflict between Christianity and unbelief. But imagine one of them suddenly removed to a community where infidelity prevails, where Christian worship is prohibited, where the Bible is dishonoured, where the prevailing sentiment is that of defiant atheism — how long would it be before he would be found standing out resolutely among the friends of Christ? In a recent revival multitudes signed this simple covenant: "I am trying to live a Christian life, and am willing to be counted on that side." An impulse like this must have come to many of the Jews in Babylon. The contempt heaped upon their religion strengthened their constancy, and they refused to "sing the Lord's song in a strange land." It is not meant that their harps were kept silent through all those years; but they would never sing the songs of Zion for anybody's sport; they would die first. Their spirit recalls the drummer-boy in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 who, being ordered by some rebels who had captured him to play for their entertainment, laid his instrument on the ground and leaped into it, tearing the parchment to shreds, and exclaiming," God forbid that the king's drum should be beaten for rebels!" whereupon they spiked him to death. (Sermons by Monday Club.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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, |
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