The Rise of Caesar & The Blessing of Christian Princes sermon contrasts Joshua's conquest with Ezra's post-exile rebuilding, arguing America apostatized after 490 years of Sabbath neglect. Rejecting religious pluralism as polytheism, the speaker critiques egalitarianism as the root of feminism and communism, citing Jesus' crucifixion by popular vote. While condemning modern racism, he highlights King Cyrus of Persia, who supernaturally funded Jerusalem's rebuilding despite lacking personal faith, paralleling Donald Trump's potential utility to Christians. Ultimately, the message urges believers to wield political and economic power for God's glory rather than seeking spiritual suicide through defeatism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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From Joshua to Ezra00:07:30
A new series through the book of Ezra, much anticipated.
We've been talking about it for a few months.
We took a break for multiple months after completing a preaching series through the book of Joshua.
In a nutshell, God used Joshua as commander in chief of Israel at the time, the successor of Moses, to enter into the promised land for the very first time and to lead Israel and actually conquering the land and establishing Israel in that land to conquer and drive out all of their enemies.
And so we preach through the book of Joshua, and that's one of the major themes that we saw.
We know that Joshua also serves as a type of Christ, that is a symbol pointing towards the higher and greater and ultimate Joshua, Yeshua, deliverer, who is Jesus.
And that what Joshua did in a literal sense, driving out people that were enemies of God, and many of them in a very literal sense were not actually people but demonic hybrids, Joshua being used by God to drive out.
Descendants of the Nephilim and different demonic peoples and pagan peoples out of the promised land so that Israel, the people of God, could be established there and build a holy city to the Lord.
That's what Joshua did in a very physical sense, and that's what Christ has done in the ultimate and spiritual sense by virtue of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Ezra, however, the book of Ezra is similar to the book of Joshua except instead of the initial conquering of the land, Ezra depicts for us a picture of rebuilding the ruins after the people of God have gone in and conquered the land, but then, due to their disobedience, rebellion against God and his statutes, they were allowed in God's sovereignty by way of discipline for their sin.
God allowed them to be conquered once again.
And so, Joshua is going into the land for the first time, Israel going into the land, conquering the land, and building a city for God.
Ezra is Is after 70 years of exile in Babylon because Israel had gone into the land, taken over the land, but been unfaithful to the Lord and disobeyed the Lord.
And so God allowed them to be taken captive as discipline for their disobedience.
And now they're going, after 70 years of being disciplined in captivity, they're now being liberated in the sovereignty of God, going back into the land and rebuilding.
At a national and political application, when I think of For us in our day, in our context, I think that Ezra is actually more relevant than the book of Joshua.
All scripture is God breathed, it's useful for training, rebuking, and equipping the man of God so that he is able to perform every good work.
All scripture, every book of the Bible.
But I believe that Ezra is especially relevant, even more than the book of Joshua, in the sense that for us in the year of our Lord 2024, here in these United States of America, we're not initially conquering the land to build a city on a hill as the Puritans.
The covenanters and many of the pilgrims thought in the founding of our republic, they thought of building a city on a hill that would be a light to the nations.
And no one meant by that, just for the record, that the city on a hill would be the new Jerusalem in the sense of a one to one ratio replacing Israel.
They knew that Israel under the old covenant and the old testament was unique and that America would not be the equivalent of Israel, but that America could, in fact, be a Christian nation that would be a shining light, an example to other nations of the blessing of God that comes.
When a people chooses to obey him, right?
That's not just a promise for Israel once upon a time, 2,000 years ago, under the old covenant, but that's a promise for any nation at any time.
The scripture says, Blessed is the nation who has Yahweh as their God.
The nation that fears Yahweh will be blessed by God.
And so that's not just a promise unique to Israel under the old covenant, but all nations in all places and all times.
And that's how the founders of our nation, our republic, that's how they thought.
And so I think Ezra is, again, especially relevant for us because.
It's not the 1600s or even the 1700s.
We're not the pilgrims.
We're not the Puritans.
We're not the initial covenanters and the 13 colonies, 10 out of those 13 of which actually had sanctioned official churches, the equivalent of state churches.
Remember, the First Amendment is that Congress, the first word is Congress, cannot decide, make a law saying that there's a federal church, that at the federal level, for the nation as a whole, that it's going to be.
The OPC, Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
That's going to be the official national church.
Congress cannot do that.
There's nothing in our Constitution, just for the record, everybody is always like, First Amendment, First Amendment, of which they probably have read.
I was going to say they've never read.
They probably have read.
The problem is not that they haven't read it, the problem is they don't know how to read.
That's usually the problem in our generation today.
There were the equivalent of state churches in the very formation of our nation.
What you can't have is Congress deciding on a federal national.
Church.
But the idea of Americans saying that, in a general, a creedal, a pan Protestant sense, that our nation is a Christian nation and that we're going to fear the Lord and we're going to do so exclusively, that we're going to kick to the curb, principle pluralism, this idea that, yeah, you can worship Jesus and you can also, in Ohio, in a state capitol building, set up a shrine to Satan and there's freedom for that too.
No, there's not.
There's not freedom for that.
This principle pluralism is just a euphemism for.
Polytheism.
And polytheism is just a euphemism ultimately for atheism.
And so, as Americans, I think, and more so as Christian Americans, we should reject that notion.
And so, all that being said, our founding as a republic was very much so Christian.
And for anybody who's read revisionist history and been indoctrinated by a bunch of progressives and liberals, no, it wasn't a bunch of deists and Unitarians who founded the nation.
Thomas Jefferson, maybe not our best example, but he was of a minority.
Most of the founders, George Washington, I would include as one of them, would have measured up to the equivalent of a modern day evangelical born again Christian by today's standards.
They would have.
George Washington was a Christian, not a mere deist and certainly not a Unitarian.
There were some of those, that's certainly true, but that was not the majority report.
We were a Christian nation founded by Christians.
And then we have apostatized in our sin and rebellion.
And I believe currently, because of that apostasy, walking away from the Lord, rejecting Him, we are currently a nation that is under God's judgment.
And I believe it's a severe judgment because He has so blessed us in the beginnings of our republic.
And despite His blessings, we have so rebelled and disobeyed Him that our judgment is even more severe.
Without Further Rambling00:02:58
And so it was, all that being said, and so it was, that's what was going on with Israel at the time of the book of Ezra.
That Israel had been so blessed by God, and yet, despite God's blessing, despite his covenant keeping faithfulness, his steadfast love, Israel rebelled against God and then was disciplined, punished by God, led off into captivity for 70 years in Babylon.
And now, under a new king, namely Cyrus, which we'll see here in just a moment, they're being led back into Israel to rebuild the ruins.
And so, again, Joshua is kind of the initiating, going into the land for the very first time and building a city on a hill, a light to the nation.
Right?
That's Joshua.
And that would be really relevant if you, you know, again, if it was, you know, 300 years ago.
But for today, and where we're at with a nation that's already been established, and I believe, again, a nation that has Christ in its founding, but has rebelled against Christ and been under his judgment for several decades now, Ezra is almost too on the nose for American Christians.
I think Ezra is incredibly relevant and incredibly applicable for.
Us as the people of God in this place at this time.
And so that's part of the purpose in selecting this as the next book of the Bible that by God's grace we will preach through from beginning to end.
All right.
So without further ado, which I'm just going to continue to say that, even though technically for the record, I just want everybody to know I am aware, further ado, that word ado means without further goodbye.
And I'm not saying goodbye, but that's actually what it means.
All right.
No further goodbye.
I'm actually leaving now, right?
I'm actually, or I'm on a call and we've been saying goodbye, you know, for the last five minutes.
I'm finally hanging up.
That's the proper use of the phrase without further ado, but we don't use it that way.
We just use it to mean ado means without further rambling or whatever.
And so I'm going to continue to use it because nobody knows the actual meaning.
It's like eat your cake and have it too, which is actually the proper rendering because if you eat it, then you can't also have it, possess it to eat at a later time.
But we always say have your cake and eat it too.
And there are certain things that are so backwards at this point that if you say them the right way, people will think you're dumb.
Right?
Augustine, right?
What do you say?
If you want to sound sophisticated, you have to say Augustine.
But turns out that if you are uneducated, you say Augustine.
If you're educated, you say Augustine.
And then the most educated people go back and say Augustine, right?
Because they're like, well, actually, that is technically the right way.
That's what I've noticed.
It's the same with health, right?
So, health is like, okay, I'm going to eat eggs because I'm ignorant.
And I'm going to eat the white and the yellow.
I'm eating the whole thing.
I'm sophisticated.
I'm not going to eat eggs.
I'm really intelligent.
Full circle back to eggs.
Turns out they're good.
So, that's the way it works.
So, anyways, without further ado, Improperly used.
The Land's Sabbath Rest00:15:29
Let's stand for the reading of God's word.
This is Ezra chapter 1.
I'll read our text in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is the book of Ezra, chapter 1.
The word of the Lord says this 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, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom.
And also put it in writing.
Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him.
And let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.
He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
And let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
Then rose up the heads of the fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.
And all who were about them.
Aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered.
Cyrus, the king, also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
Cyrus, king of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Mithradath, the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazar, the prince of Judah.
And this was the number of them 30 basins of gold.
A thousand basins of silver, twenty nine, nope, silver, twenty nine censures, thirty bowls of gold, four hundred and ten bowls of silver, and a thousand other vessels.
All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand four hundred.
And all these did Shesh Bazar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive right in.
First thing that I want to do, because we're starting.
This is our first week starting a new book of the Bible.
I want to provide some historical context so that we can properly place this narrative, this account, historical account of Israel and what God did with them at this time.
I want us to place it correctly, chronologically, within the larger story of the Old Testament.
So, historical context I've written the following According to biblical accounts, the 70 year captivity had prophetic significance.
The prophet Jeremiah had predicted a period of 70 years during which the land of Judah would lie.
Desolate, and the people would serve the king of Babylon.
And this is all said in Jeremiah chapter 25, verses 11 through 12, and chapter 29, verse 10.
In part, this 70 years of exile for Israel being led out of the land of Jerusalem, of Israel, and held in captivity in Babylon, in part, this was because Israel had been in the promised land at this point for roughly 800 years, and for 490 of those 800 years, they had disobeyed God's Sabbath rest.
Now, the Sabbath rest was, in their case, the last day of the week, Saturday, so it was a weekly Sabbath.
We see that in Exodus chapter 20 and the Ten Commandments issued by God through Moses to the people of Israel.
But in addition to the weekly Sabbath, there were also Sabbaths once every seven years, and so a yearly type of Sabbath.
And so, once every seven years, the seventh year, at the end of six years, they were supposed to give a Sabbath rest even to the land.
So, in the same way, there was a weekly rest for the people themselves and even for their livestock and beasts, you had to rest your ox, you had to rest your donkey on the seventh day in a weekly sense.
Well, in a seven year cycle, you were supposed to give that last year, the seventh year, a rest not only to the beasts, not only to the people, not only to your servants or to the sojourners in your midst, but also to even the land itself.
And Israel had neglected and rebelled against God in obeying this particular commandment for 490 years.
So, the majority of the time, over half of the time of the 800 years that they had actually been in the promised land.
So, 800 years have gone by at this point from Israel entering in initially to the promised land and now them at the end of 800 years being taken out of the land under the judgment of God, his discipline by Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon at the time.
They're taken out of the land as a punishment, as a discipline for 70 years of captivity.
And the last few years, 490 years, the latter 490 years of that 800 year period, they had not been giving this Sabbath rest, the seventh year, a rest to the land.
And if you take 490 and you think, okay, well, how many years does that add up to the seventh year?
One year out of every seven.
So take 490, divide it by seven, and you come up with 70.
There's 70 years that Israel neglected to give the land a rest in obedience to God's command.
And it's not a coincidence, they're now in captivity in Babylon.
For precisely 70 years.
And the land, we're told in the opening to the book of Ezra, the land is now left desolate.
So God is going to rest the land whether Israel obeys him or not, namely by taking Israel out of the land and putting them for 70 years in captivity in Babylon.
Now, in terms of chronological order of the prophets, you have Isaiah, and then later, not long later, but a few decades later, you have Jeremiah.
Isaiah prophesied in multiple instances that Israel would be taken into captivity.
Jeremiah specifically prophesied the length of time that Israel would be held in captivity and when they would be liberated, when they would return.
So Isaiah spoke, Israel knew this.
Isaiah said, You're going to be under the judgment of God for your disobedience, Israel's disobedience and rebellion and sin in many, many different ways.
But one of those ways being neglecting the seventh year, the last year of every seven year cycle of resting the land, the Sabbath.
Rest.
But there were many other sins as well.
And so Isaiah initially said, You're going to be under God's judgment for your disobedience and be taken into captivity.
Jeremiah further clarified, specified the prophecies of Isaiah, who was a few decades earlier, preceding Jeremiah, saying, This is where you're going to be taken into captivity, and this is how long you'll be in captivity, and this is when the Lord will liberate you and you will return to the land.
And here we have it at the opening of the book of Ezra.
It has now been, according to the word of God spoken through Jeremiah, It's been precisely 70 years at this point.
And so many in Israel are aware of Jeremiah's prophecies and they know that the timing is now that they're going to be liberated by the Lord and they're going to be allowed, permitted to go back into the promised land, led out of captivity, back into the land, and that there's going to be a lot of work to do because they're going into a land that was utterly conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, by Babylon, 70 years ago when they were initially taken into captivity.
They weren't just taken as prisoners.
But Nebuchadnezzar, he destroyed everything, including the temple.
So they know now's the time of our freedom.
But notice this, all right, don't miss this.
Now is the time of our freedom.
Yay, that's good.
But also, it's the time of a lot of work.
Because freedom is hard work.
Did you know that?
Freedom is really, really hard.
Because freedom means you got to do a lot of stuff for yourself.
It means that you don't just necessarily have, you know, the state providing every single thing that you need, but you actually.
Have to get to work.
There's a sense in which Israel was in captivity, and again, that is God's discipline, His judgment over Israel for that time period.
And it was hard in one sense, right?
You don't have freedom, you don't have liberty.
So, there's a difficulty in being captive, and that was God's rod of discipline for Israel for 70 years.
But there's another difficulty, in a different sense, in freedom.
There's a difficulty that comes with captivity, namely less freedom.
But there's a difficulty that comes with freedom, namely hard work.
Hard work that's the difficulty that comes with freedom.
And so, there were some in Israel, as far as we can tell, by way of implication from the text, that weren't necessarily on board for this project.
Because it's not just returning to the land of freedom.
It's returning to the land of freedom that has been desolated to rubble, where there's going to be a building project, which is going to require blood, sweat, and tears.
You're going to have to work.
You're going to have to rebuild the ruins of this land, this great land where you once lived, but you've been decimated because of your disobedience to God.
God, in his sovereignty, as a judgment for your rebellion against him, allowed you to be conquered.
And now you're going to go back.
God is giving you liberation and freedom, but it means you're going to have to go back.
And from the bottom up, starting at square one, you have to rebuild the ruins.
And it's not Nebuchadnezzar's fault, not in the ultimate sense, it's your fault, it's your father's fault for their disobedience and rejection of God's command.
So that's the context, that's where we are.
Reading a little bit further with historical context, just to give you an idea now of the last 70 years.
So that gives you the big picture of Joshua coming into the land as a successor of Moses, 800 years total that they're in the land, the last 490 years, neglecting to give that seventh year Sabbath rest.
490 divided by seven is exactly 70 years.
And so that's the significance and the reasoning.
It's not arbitrary, but the reasoning behind God's decision in his providence to give them 70 years of captivity in Babylon.
But now, giving you a little bit more history of the 70 years of captivity, I've written the following.
At the opening of the book of Ezra, the condition of the government in Babylon, where Israel was being held captive, was this Nebuchadnezzar, right?
So when they're first taken captive, It's Nebuchadnezzar.
He's the king of Babylon at the time.
Nebuchadnezzar took many of the people of Israel captive in the first year of his reign.
Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 45 years, right?
So he's got a long tenure there.
Followed by his son, evil Merodach.
All right?
When you're wondering who's the bad guy, you know, sometimes, you know, God just makes it really simple, right?
When part of your name is evil.
Now, I, you know, this is, you know, coming from an ignorant guy who, you know, doesn't speak Hebrew.
And I, you know, My only language is English.
So maybe it means something totally different, but I'm just looking at E V I L. I'm like, that guy can't be a good king.
His name is evil.
And God just does this sometimes.
God, in his mercy, you know, he just, you know, he just right on the nose, he'll just name, you know, just like I was talking with Justin before the service, you know, like John Bunyan.
He'd be like, okay, this guy is Lord Hate Good.
It's like, is he a good guy or a bad guy?
Like, it's real obvious.
Bunyan, you know, he wasn't super subtle, he was very obvious.
And it seems like God and his sovereignty, you know, being a little bit obvious, at least for the English readers.
So, Nebuchadnezzar, 45 years of the 70 years, because he took Israel captive in his first year of his reign.
So, he reigned for 45 years, in the first year, he took Israel captive, and then he's followed after 45 years by his son, Evil Merodach, for 23 years, right?
So, we're almost at 70 at this point.
45 plus 23, we're at, what is that?
67.
No?
About.
Okay, and then.
His grandson, Belshazzar, for three years, totaling seven years, right?
So it's Nebuchadnezzar, then evil Merodach, then his grandson Belshazzar for three years, totaling the 70 years.
Now, Nebuchadnezzar was judged by God for many sins.
He was not a great guy.
And he was judged multiple times.
There's a lot that you can read throughout the Old Testament scripture about Nebuchadnezzar.
He had some shining moments, it wasn't all bad.
Every now and then he did something good.
But on the whole, not a great king, not a great guy.
And he was judged for many sins.
But one of the sins that he was judged for, Not least of which was his indifference towards the people of Israel, which was demonstrated by his failure to release his prisoners, his captives, as mentioned in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 17.
So, this is mentioned by Isaiah that Nebuchadnezzar would be judged by God for his many sins, not least of which, specifically, was his sin of indifference, his lack of sympathy towards the people of Israel in not releasing them from captivity.
The very people he took into captivity, he chose in his hardness of heart not to release them from captivity.
And I'll make a point on that in just one moment.
Daniel warned Nebuchadnezzar that showing mercy to the Jews would have prolonged his peace.
That's Daniel chapter 4, verse 27.
But the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, refused.
Therefore, Babylon's sins reached their limit eventually, and not arbitrarily, precisely at the 70 year mark.
Their sins had reached their limit in the sight of God, leading to To its own destruction by Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian.
They joined together.
The Medes and the Persians, Darius the king of the Medes, Cyrus the king of the Persians, as recorded in Daniel chapter 5.
And when Darius grew old, he passed the government on to Cyrus, who in turn played a key role in the Jews' liberation.
Now, one point I want to make real quick God judged Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon, and in his first year of his 45 year long reign, he took Israel captive.
And God judged Nebuchadnezzar for not showing mercy and compassion to the people of Israel and letting them go.
And yet, here's the thing God had prophesied through Jeremiah previously that Israel would not be let go, but that they would in fact be held captive for 70 years.
So it was the will of God that Nebuchadnezzar should not let Israel go.
And it was the will of God that Nebuchadnezzar do the right moral thing, which was to let Israel go.
And we think in those, we get confused.
God's Two Wills Revealed00:10:51
It's important.
I've said this before, but I want to say it again.
In theological terms, this is what we would refer to as the two, not one, but two wills of God.
And it's not two contradicting wills, it's not a contradiction.
It may be an apparent paradox, but it is not, in a legitimate sense, a paradox or a contradiction.
God has two wills.
And theologians, this is not, nobody, I didn't come up with this, right?
This is not my theology.
I don't have my theology.
All my theology is somebody else's.
Even the Christian nationalism thing, all that is is just the theology from Puritans and from the Protestant reformers and from these guys a few hundred years ago.
It's like, man, this guy, his theology is really radical.
All you have to do to have radical theology is just read a book that was written more than 60 years old.
That's all you have to do.
Just read a book, what the common person thought for thousands of years until 15 minutes ago.
Repeat that in your own words, and boom, you're radical.
So, all that being said, The point is this the two wills of God, which is a classic traditional reform doctrine that has been held for centuries, is that God has his hidden will and his revealed will.
And these go under other titles as well.
So, other labels would be hidden will would also be sovereign will.
And then over here, his revealed will would be referenced as his moral will, his moral imperatives.
And to further flesh that out, to give you a little bit of scripture for that, one reference would be when God says to Israel, or Israel says of God, they say that the hidden things belong to the Lord, but those things which he has revealed belong to us and our children.
Forever, that they recognize that there are things that are hidden and intentionally by design, hidden by God, and there are things which God has revealed.
So, when we speak of God's hidden will versus his revealed will, we're speaking of his sovereign will, that which he has sovereignly ordained to come about, and that which he has morally prescribed in the imperatives and commandments of Scripture.
So, there's things that he has said out loud, explicitly do this that you might live, do not do this.
For you will be judged.
But then God, at times in his sovereign will, might ordain the very things that he forbid.
The best example, the premier example, would be the murder of God's own son, Jesus Christ.
The book of Acts speaks of this, both in chapter 2 and in chapter 4.
It says, Did God not, in his sovereignty, gather here in this holy city, speaking of Jerusalem, all the Jews and Pilate, Pontius Pilate, and Herod, and all these Romans and this and that, all these people together?
To do to his son, namely what?
His crucifixion, his murder, to do to his son exactly what his hand and his plan predestined to take place.
So, on the one hand, God's will, we can say this with all sincerity, 100% true, God's will, as it pertains to his revealed will, what he has revealed to us on the pages of Scripture, his moral will, his commandments, God's will is thou shalt not murder.
Now, what do you call the crucifixion of Jesus?
Right?
That was where there was a mock trial in the middle of the night, held in the middle of the night, where they produced false witnesses giving false accounts and then killed Jesus based off of a trial that they knew was a sham.
What do you call the killing of an innocent man?
It's called murder, right?
So, thou shalt not murder.
Is it God's will that people not murder?
Yes, right?
It's not a trick question, it's real simple.
Yes, it is God's will that people not murder.
Well, is it God's will that people not murder his own son?
Well, that one is a little bit more complicated.
The answer is yes and also no.
It was God's will in his revealed will, his moral will, don't murder Jesus.
Meaning, everyone who conspired to murder Jesus is morally complicit, culpable, responsible, and judged by God for that disobedience, for that rebellion, that sin.
And yet, in God's hidden will, his sovereign will, God's hand, his very hand and his very plan ordained, other scripture would say, since before even the foundations of the earth were laid, it was the will of God that he would crush him.
So God's will was that his son would be murdered, he would be killed, his blood spilled out for the remission of sins as a sacrificial lamb, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
So God's sovereign hidden will from ages past before the foundations of the world were laid.
Jesus being murdered to ransom his people.
And God's moral revealed will, don't murder, and especially don't murder Jesus.
Both things simultaneously true at once.
As it pertains to our text, Nebuchadnezzar, on the one hand, Nebuchadnezzar, soften your hearts and let your captives go.
That's the moral will.
Well, God spoke to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel, explicitly through a prophet.
This is the revealed will of God through a prophet.
That's special revelation, explicitly spoken.
Nebuchadnezzar heard it and he refused.
He refused to obey God.
So, on the one hand, you have the revealed moral will of God, special revelation, spoken through the prophet Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar hardens his heart, and he is judged by God for his disobedience, his refusal to let Israel go.
Over here, also in God's will, in his sovereign will, it was the will of God that Israel should not be liberated, but rather that they should remain in captivity for precisely seven years, as spoken through the prophet Jeremiah.
Two things can be simultaneously true.
And to put all that a little bow, a little ribbon on it, the point is this when we speak of God's sovereignty, we are not saying that God is merely sovereign over the good things in life or even the big things in life, like the death of Jesus or a king like Nebuchadnezzar and the decisions he makes.
When we say that God is sovereign, we are saying, as a late, great R.C. Sproul once said, there is not one maverick molecule in all the universe.
We mean God is sovereign over everyone at every time and every time.
Thing and that every thing category, which is an all encompassing category, it includes, brothers and sisters, not merely our moments of obedience that God is sovereign over that, but it includes moments of our sin.
When we sin, we sin because God, in his sovereignty, ordained before the foundations of the earth in the councils of eternity that we would do precisely that sin at that time, at that in that way.
And yet, God is not the origin or source of our sin.
He is not morally responsible for our sin.
Human agency, we bear the moral culpability.
So, God is absolved.
He bears no agency or responsibility for that sin.
And yet, He is still sovereign in ordaining all things that are done, including not just our good moments, but our bad moments, our sin.
So, God is sovereign over Nebuchadnezzar in his sin, in his refusal to listen to Daniel and let the people of Israel go.
And yet, So, Nebuchadnezzar is responsible for refusing God.
And yet, God, in his will, two wills, on the one hand, Nebuchadnezzar, let him go.
On the other, you're not going to let him go, ultimately, because I've determined for them to be held captive there for 70 years.
So it is with us.
And here's how we know we know from multiple places in Scripture the death of Jesus being an example, Acts chapter 4, this being an example, Ezra chapter 1.
But one all encompassing example as it pertains to you and I as individual people would be Romans chapter 8.
And we know that God is working all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Again, the category, an all encompassing category, being all things.
God is working which things?
Some things.
Good things, obedient things, righteous things.
Nope, all things, which include suffering, sickness, and sin.
God is working, and that working is not in the text.
It's not working, meaning he is salvaging.
Or he is changing.
No, it means he is working, he is planning from the beginning.
He is working, ordaining, planning all things, orchestrating all things, good things and bad things, all things for our good.
The good of his people, the good of the church.
Ephesians chapter 1, verse 20 would be one more example.
It says that God has set him up, being his son Christ Jesus.
He has positioned him, installed him, set him up as head of the church.
Nope.
Ephesians 1 20 says, head of all things to the benefit of the church.
So, Jesus, is he head of the church?
Yes.
Yes and amen a thousand times.
Is he uniquely head of the church?
Is he head of the church in a way that he is head of no other thing?
Yes, that too.
He is head of the church and he is uniquely head of the church in the sense that the church is the only institution for which Christ died.
So he is uniquely head of the church.
But is he exclusively head of the church?
No.
Christ is not only head of the church, he is head of the church, uniquely head of the church, but he is also head, speaking of authority, control, head of all institutions and all peoples and all creatures and all planets and all things.
Jesus is head of the church.
Yes and amen.
He's also head of the state.
He's also head of your family.
He's head of the marketplace.
He's head of medicine.
He's head of this.
He's head of that.
He is sovereign, the head, the supreme authority over all institutions, all organizations, and all nations and all individual people.
Jesus is head over all things.
And so, in Ephesians 1 20, it says, He is head.
God has set him up, positioned him as head of all things, but to the benefit of the church.
And that's what we see time and time again, whether it's Romans chapter 8 or Ephesians chapter 1.
God is sovereign in authority, in control over everything, and He's working it all for two purposes.
One, for His eternal glory, and two, for the good of His people.
Jesus Head Over All Things00:08:41
For the good of His people.
You're sick.
If you're sick and you're in Christ, God is not just going to salvage, change that sickness, but He actually planned that sickness for your eternal good.
For your eternal good.
For your eternal joy and peace and satisfaction in Christ, eons and eons into the life to come.
You will never, in the life to come, there will never be a day where you'll say, I wish that God didn't give me this form of suffering.
Or I wish that.
No.
You will look back and say with confidence and certainty, everything He did was good.
He does all things well, as the scriptures say.
He does all things rightly.
And that includes not only suffering, but it also includes sin.
It includes sin where we can have genuine regret and remorse.
We call it in a godly sorrow that would be leading towards repentance.
We must have that as Christians.
We can repent over our sin, mourn over our sin, and in the same breath say, I own this.
It's my fault.
I'm the source.
I'm culpable, responsible for this sin.
I deeply grieve over my sin.
I'm repenting of my sin.
And yet God is still ultimately above it all, sovereign over all things, which includes my sin.
And I know He will use this sin.
Not in a way that absolves me of my moral responsibility.
I own it.
I'm responsible.
I repent.
And yet, in his mercy and sovereignty, he ordained it and he'll use it for his glory and my good.
Both things simultaneously true.
The sovereignty of God.
All right.
Here we go.
The rise of Caesar and the need for a Christian prince.
All right.
Americans do.
You will not like this.
I'll just say that right now.
America, we have like signs and stuff, you know, like in gift shops, you know.
Says we have no sovereign here, right?
You know, sticking it to England, stick it to the monarchy, the king.
And I get that.
I understand.
I'll start with this.
Every biblical example that I've been able to find of democracy is negative.
Every single one.
The people say, Give us a king.
God says, That was bad.
That was a bad idea.
Or Pilate turns to the people because he doesn't want to be morally responsible.
He's trying to wash his hands.
Even his wife has had visions and dreams and knows there's something about this Jesus guy.
I think he's a good man, an innocent man.
Please, you do not want to be responsible.
For his crucifixion, for his killing.
And so Pilate's washing his hands.
Well, I'll just hand it to the people, right?
It'll be the people.
And he calls the Jews and he says, You know, what do you want to do?
Right?
Democracy is in session, you know.
And he says, You want to release Jesus or do you want to release Barabbas, who was a known criminal?
And the people in our sacred democracy, our sacred democracy, the people rise up and say, Give us release to us Barabbas, the known criminal.
And we all know he's guilty.
And keep as your prisoner Jesus.
And, you know, Pius said, okay.
And then he asked a second question, right?
A second moment for our sacred democracy to really shine.
And he says, you know, then what do I do with this Jesus?
And in a spirit of democracy.
And this is 100% agreement here, as far as we can tell.
Everybody, you know, I mean, this isn't just a 50% plus one.
This is like a 95% vote, right?
The Jews rise up and the sacred democracy for the win.
W's in the chat.
It comes through again.
Crucify him.
Democracy.
Democracy, death of Jesus.
Democracy, King Saul.
In biblical terms, democracy is never spoken of well.
And the founders of our republic, they didn't speak of it well either.
Not as far as it goes as a raw democracy.
A raw democracy is foolish.
Do you know why?
Do you know why a raw democracy is foolish?
Because not all people were meant to rule.
Do you know why raw democracy is foolish?
Because God is sovereign, and in his design, even if it offends our post war modern sensibilities as Westerners, in God's design, regardless of our modern preference, God has baked into his image bearing creatures a system that he calls good, which is called hierarchy.
Not egalitarianism, but rather hierarchy.
And in the spirit of hierarchy, God's good design, we have a hierarchy of Authority, offices, but also there is a hierarchy of ability.
Not just office, but person and their ability.
For instance, not every single individual person has the same physical strength, has the same IQ.
Did you know that?
Did you know that some people are more intelligent than others?
Turns out.
Well, I would like to have a person who doesn't have dementia.
In a position of authority.
Is that crazy?
Right?
So, this idea of this just raw democracy or this ironclad egalitarianism, everything's equal, but it's not.
I have eyes and I'm looking and it's not equal.
Right?
It will be equal.
We'll make it equal.
Well, how do you make something equal when God, the original creator, made things not equal?
How do you, as man, make something equal that God made with variety and that He called good?
Well, what you have to do is you can only bring up the weak so far.
So eventually, what you have to do is hamstring the strong.
What you have to do is you have to say, Well, you're intelligent, so we're going to penalize you.
We're going to penalize you.
You're scoring really well on the SATs, and you've been doing that traditionally for decades.
And, you know, so you don't get to get in anymore.
And, you know, this other person, they're a plagiarist.
But Harvard needs a diverse president, right?
DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, that's what it is.
It's the root of all that feminism, wokeness, social justice, all that, the root of it is egalitarianism.
And egalitarianism, just for the record, you know what it's also the root of?
Not just feminism.
It's not just the root of feminism.
It's not just the root of social justice and this and that and the other and wokeness and DEI.
Egalitarianism is ultimately the root of communism and socialism.
Egalitarianism, when applied to gender, right?
Well, it gets feminism first, right?
Because, well, the patriarchy, it had a good run and they're light years ahead.
And so we've got to catch the women up.
And so it starts as feminism, but eventually it'll boil down to the same.
It's not equality.
It's ultimately, its ultimate goal is sameness.
So the goal is not 137 different genders.
It's one.
But it's easier to go from two to eight to 40 to 100 and then just say, well, it's so confusing now.
It just becomes a blob of one.
Going from two to one, that's easy.
Everybody's going to notice that.
Two to one, what?
That's crazy.
But two to three?
Then five, then ten, and then eventually it's like, okay, I can't keep up with it anymore.
It might as well just be one.
That's how you do it with gender.
With economics, how do you do it with economics?
Egalitarianism becomes socialism, which is just the four stench of communism.
So you go to socialism.
In all these different ways, you're just steamrolling everything into one.
And so the real goal is not even equality, it's androgyny.
Is androgyny.
Everything is the same.
No variety.
Western Vested Interests00:04:00
No distinctions.
No hierarchies.
Because all hierarchies are oppressive.
All hierarchies are evil, inherently so.
All hierarchies are bad.
But that's not the language of Scripture.
That is the language of modern Westerners.
And we have to really, I mean, I know this sounds so obvious, but it has to be said again and again.
The language of modern Westerners.
Westerners and the language of scripture are not synonymous.
We read the scripture, we literally read the scripture, and we think the scripture explicitly spells out classical liberalism.
What a wonderful coincidence, right?
The views that we currently hold right now are exactly the views of God.
That worked out so well.
Or, here's an alternative possibility, or you're brainwashed.
You've been indoctrinated.
You think that everything that Westerners believe right now is what the scripture says when it actually doesn't.
The scripture does not speak well of democracy.
Now, that being said, I am not against what we are supposed to have, which is a constitutional republic where someone is representing people and there is some form of democracy.
Now, I don't believe, and you guys have heard me say it, I'll say it again because everybody knows at this point.
I don't think everybody should get a vote because some people vote poorly, because they don't have a vested interest.
I think that with the founding of our country, there's something to be said for men as heads of households representing their wives and sons and daughters.
A household vote.
With a husband and wife, the household is not divorced and segregated, where wives are turned against husbands and husbands against wives, but a household vote.
And that household, for the record, I think needs to have a vested interest in the nation.
I would say, preferably, that they own property.
And that they have children, that they have a vested interest in the future of that republic.
I think that that makes sense.
It does not make sense to take someone who doesn't even pay taxes, who doesn't even pay taxes, but rather gets your tax money as a free check every single month, and who won't even bother to show up to a voting booth, but will go ahead and mail them a ballot, and they won't even bother to fill that out and mail it in.
But someone will show up at their apartment complex.
And go door to door to door and say, Excuse me, ma'am, excuse me, sir, could I come in for a moment?
Did you get this in the mail?
Can I help you fill this out and I'll take it to the post office for you?
And you want to vote for Biden, right?
Because if you don't vote for Biden, you ain't black.
That's what Biden said, which is incredibly racist, just for the record.
Incredibly racist.
But that's what happened.
This happened three years ago.
This isn't a foreign narrative, a story of Joan of Arc, you know, or something from long ago.
This is a story right here, very recently.
But a lot of it, what I want you to see is what a lot of that boils down to is the radical post war sentiment, the modern Western sentiments of the underlining guilty party here is egalitarianism.
Egalitarianism.
Radical equality.
Everything's equal.
Genders are equal.
There's different intelligence.
But if we do things based on merit, well, then some people will have things that others don't.
So it can't be merit, it has to be quotas.
It has to be affirmative action.
It has to be this.
It has to be that.
That's not God's design.
Power and Faith in Trump00:14:48
Let God be true, as the scripture says, though every man were a liar.
Meaning, I don't care where you live or when you live, the word of God is true, even if everybody else is saying something different.
That we should be like the little boy in the classic parable that everyone's saying, oh, wow, look at that wardrobe that the emperor is currently wearing, and it was made.
It's very simple.
Only those who are intelligent are even able to physically, visibly see the different fabrics and cloths, you know, in the emperor's new clothes.
And the little boy just stands up and says, He's naked.
He's naked.
And so should we, with childlike faith in our Lord, our sovereign Lord, who's in authority over everything, we should be like that little boy and stand up and say, He's naked.
The emperor has no clothes.
And you're all pretending to be smart.
And you're all, in our case, as Westerners, you're all pretending not only to be smart and sophisticated, But you're pretending to be compassionate.
It is pretended compassion.
It is pretended empathy, pretended love, but you don't actually love.
You don't actually have compassion.
No, God says that this is injustice, not justice.
God says that this is hatred, that this is unfair, that this is actually oppression, that you are showing partiality, that you are pitying the poor.
Oh, so you no longer pity the rich?
Great.
Well, we know you do behind closed doors, but on public newscasts, you pity the poor.
But showing pity one direction or the other is both an example of sinful partiality.
And God condemns it in either direction.
You can do neither.
So, all that being said, what we'll see and what we'll have to pick up next week, but what we'll see, and that's if you're joining us for the first time, we'll have to pick this up next week is a very common phrase that you will come to love.
It's a household favorite.
It's just like, oh, yeah, we'll come to, yeah, that's his catchphrase.
We'll see this next week.
We'll pick it back up.
But what we'll see next week is that God uses a Persian king named Cyrus.
And he uses him unilaterally.
He just sets this guy up, right?
You got Nebuchadnezzar, 45 years of the 70 years of captivity.
Then you've got his son, the evil guy, right?
That's literally his name.
And then you've got Belshazzar, who is the grandson for three years.
And then you've got Darius, right?
And Cyrus, the Medes and the Persians, Darius, he's getting old.
He hands over the reins fully to Cyrus.
And in the first year, just like Nebuchadnezzar, his first year, he takes Israel captive.
Well, in the case of Cyrus, the king of the Persians, in the first year of his reign, the Lord supernaturally, sovereignly reaches down and stirs up his heart to do good to the house of God, to the people of Israel.
And he does.
And it can't be explained.
He didn't grow up as a Christian, he wasn't educated in the Christian worldview.
He's not secretly behind the scenes an Israelite like Moses, you know, raised in the house of Pharaoh, but actually was an Israelite by birth.
None of that.
He's a Persian king.
These are just, he's got lots of prisoners.
He is the king of every kingdom in the world, the text says.
That means every single kingdom in the known world at that time, he was the king of.
He's not the king of a nation.
No, he is the emperor, is the more accurate language.
He is the emperor of an empire, an empire that spreads across.
Many nations, in his case, every single known nation in the world at that time.
He's got lots of prisoners, is my point.
He's taken tons of nations captive.
Why?
Why, in your first year, after 70 years, you got a good thing going, everything's organized, and in your first year, you're going to let these people go, and you're not just going to let them go.
You're going to financially resource them from the wealth of your own kingdom.
You're going to give them back all the artifacts that your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, took.
All the articles of gold and silver, and you're going to move a motion for Israel, their own people, to give free will offerings, but whatever they're lacking after those offerings that you would resource out of the treasury of your own kingdom.
And you're going to let them go.
Why?
Why?
Because God is sovereign.
And He takes the heart of a king and He directs it like waters.
And it's easy for Him in whatever direction it should go.
And God can work through.
A representative constitutional republic with not a raw democracy, but certain aspects of democracy, a democratic representative constitutional republic, he can do that.
And he can also work through Constantine and Charlemagne and King Richard the Lionhearted.
He can work through Josiah.
He can work through David.
And not just good kings who have known him from their youth, but even kings who have been foreign to Christ and who have never known him.
And the beauty of, and I think it is beauty, I think it's a good thing because it's remarkable.
The cool thing about the book of Ezra.
In the case of Cyrus, the Persian king, who not only allows Israel to go but resources Israel, as far as we know, he may not, Cyrus might be in hell.
I'm not saying definitively either way because it's not explicit in the text.
But in the text, there's nothing clear that says Cyrus is born again.
No, all that's said is he knows God in a sense.
He's read something in the prophets, he discovered some.
Artifact, some scroll, and the Lord supernaturally moved on his heart in such a way that he realizes if I bless God's people, God will bless me.
And he's willing to do it.
But there's nothing explicitly that says, and Cyrus was born again.
Or Cyrus had a genuine heartfelt relationship with Yahweh, the God of Israel.
As far as we know, Cyrus knew about God, but he may not have actually known God.
But he was known by God.
God knew him.
Whether Cyrus knew God, I don't know.
Whether he was a Christian, I don't know.
But God knew him.
And you know what?
I'm already close enough, so I might as well just drive it home on the nose.
I think the subtlety's already there.
Some of you already picked up on it.
Right?
Donald Trump.
Boom.
Sometimes you just shout.
Just shout it.
You know, like I'm not going to nuance it.
Donald Trump, I don't know what God's going to do in the future.
But in terms of what God did in the past, Donald Trump reminds me of Osiris type.
His fourth year, not my faith.
You know, his first three years, fantastic.
Now, does Donald Trump know Christ?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe.
There's a lot of signs that say no, though.
The recent video that is like, every Christian's cringing.
The one that says God made Trump.
It's like, oh, it feels like a little bit blasphemous, like idolatrous.
There's Jesus, and then very close second, if not on Trump.
And it doesn't say that.
But that's the feeling.
There's this cringe kind of feeling.
So does Donald Trump know Christ?
Is he born again?
I don't know.
Maybe.
I'm not going to say he's not.
But I'm also not going to say he is.
But does God, here's the thing not does Trump know Christ, but does Christ know Trump?
And has he been used in the past?
I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but in the past, this is not an endorsement of who to vote for or anything like that, but in the past, has God used Trump and guided and directed his heart like rivers of water to do exactly what he wanted?
Uh huh.
And has Trump.
Served the church, Christians in this nation, at least for a season, I would argue those first three years of his administration, like a Cyrus type?
I think so.
So here's my point.
I only say that not to make some endorsement about Trump, not to knock on Trump or to elevate Trump.
I say that just to make this point.
As we read the book of Ezra, don't read this as just a way in which God used to work long, long ago.
No, God still is sovereign.
He still guides the hearts of kings like waters.
He still uses instruments that are native to the Christian faith, like Israel.
We'll see that in a moment.
Zerubbabel.
We'll see Zerubbabel.
Zerubbabel rebuilt the rubbable.
The rubble of Israel.
Zerubbabel was rebuilt by Zerubbabel.
We'll see that next week.
But Zerubbabel, from his youth, loved the Lord.
Genuinely born again.
We're going to meet Zerubbabel in heaven.
He was a native, right?
A Jew, grew up underneath the doctrine of Yahweh.
Cyrus, a foreigner who, as far as we can tell, he may not even be in heaven.
He may be in hell.
He may have never been born again.
And yet, God just like water.
This way?
Nope.
Now this way?
Okay, you're going to let him go up and you're going to give him a ton of cash up and you're going to do this and you're going to do that.
And God did that then.
He can do it now.
All it takes, my point is this I've been preaching every week for a while, at least at some point in the sermon, this has been one of the applications.
Do not despair.
God takes forever, sometimes, to do something suddenly.
Did you know that?
Sometimes God seems to take forever to do something suddenly.
And part of the problem within 2,000 years of church history with the Christians is often overnight they're put in power and they weren't ready for it because they have been black pilling and despairing, thinking there's no possible way God could ever do this.
And part of the reason why, within church history, when we look at Christendom, when we look at Constantine, when we look at the Crusades, the faults that you can find first, they've all been exaggerated, but secondly, the real legitimate faults there when Christians had power,
when they had authority part of the reason those faults existed at that time is because Christians did ignorant things, foolish things, sinful things in moments of power because they weren't prepared for those moments of power because they didn't think God could ever give them power.
But he can and he has, and not just Israel in the Old Testament, but the New Testament church in these last 2,000 years since the coming of Christ.
He's done it before, he can do it again.
Power, Westerners, I know it's shocking, but power is not inherently evil.
Power is a tool, just like money, it can be used in evil ways or in righteous ways.
Josiah wielded power and it was good.
You can use power wisely.
The goal for Christians is.
The goal for Christians is not to just neglect power and to be powerless all the time.
The goal for Christians should be to accumulate and wisely steward as much wealth, as much power, as much fill in the blank with whatever resource as we possibly can for the glory of God and the good, the love of our neighbors.
That's our imperative.
Our imperative is not spiritual, financial, political suicide.
I think that that doctrine, one of the reasons it has gotten so much momentum is because Christians have been losing again and again and again.
So, what did we do?
Instead of actually allowing all those losses to serve as an indictment and for us to run to the Lord in humility and say, Help us, instead of that, what did we do?
That makes way too much sense.
Instead, no, no, here's the alternative.
We'll come up with a theology with the twisting of scripture that says losing is the goal.
So, it's not that we've been failing.
We've actually been nailing it.
Did you see how much we lost the other day?
Do you see how weak I was?
Do you see at every level, even physical health?
You got pastors bragging about how little time they spend with exercise.
Look at that pastor.
He is so fat.
He must be super godly.
I can literally show you tweets.
So.
This is another regular application of my preaching, but one of the applications of almost every sermon is by the grace of God, just don't be stupid.
So, once again, that could be the title of every sermon.
Let's pray.
Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and your grace.
Help us to be obedient, not just hearers of the word, but doers.
You're sovereign, and you do ordain at times that your people would suffer.
But a theology of the cross, a theology of suffering, is absolutely a major part of the Christian faith.
But it is not the only part.
By your grace, Paul the Apostle says in Scripture, who would suffer with him?
If not also to share in his glory.
And that glory is guaranteed to be shared with Christians, your people, in the life to come.
But in your sovereignty, sometimes you ordain for Christians to share in that glory, to reign with Christ, not only guaranteed in the life to come, but sometimes due to your mercy in this life as well.
And Lord, we pray that if it be your will for Christ's glory, for Christ's sake, And for the good of our children and our grandchildren and love for our neighbor, if it be your will, you do all things right, you're in charge.
But we make our petitions in humility known to you, if it be your will.
We pray that Christians would reign once again, not only in the life to come, but in this life.
And that we would reign in this generation and in this nation, this place, this time, that you would once again empower Christians.
Real power, political power.
Economic power that you would give us real position, real opportunity, and Lord, we pray by your grace, don't let us blow it.
Let us wield power with humility, with submission to scripture as the final authority, all for your glory and for the good of your people.