Transcript

Good morning, church.

We're excited to be back here again this morning. And it's our two week countdown now to Easter, just two weeks to Easter. And you might say, well, why do you have an Easter countdown? It's because Easter Sunday is one of those Sundays that people are more likely to visit church when they're not more likely during the rest of the year. And so it's an opportunity for us to take advantage of that as, as believers to invite our friends and family and people that are far from God to come and hear the gospel.

And so people who won't normally come to church might attend on Easter. And so we're not preparing for a crowd, but we are preparing for changed lives. And so we care about that. And we're praying for 20 first time guests in our Rocky Mount campus and 30 first time guests at our Wilson campus. And you might say, well Gary, why are you praying for specific numbers?

And well, we pray specifically because God answers specifically and it grows our faith when he answers. And we also pray we're not ashamed to say how many we're praying for because people matter to God. And so we count people because people count. And so we're praying for that and continue to pray for us. And we've given you some tools in your seats, you've got some invite cards in your seats, hopefully business side card, it'll fit in your purse, it'll fit in your wallet.

So you've got a tool there when you're talking to someone, maybe it's at a restaurant, you're talking to the wait staff, or maybe you're at the checkout at the Walmart, or maybe you're talking to your brother in law, you've got a card that you can say, hey, why don't you come to church with me on Easter Sunday? And we continue to invite people to write the names down of people on our it's time cards down front because we believe it's time to be strong, do the work and be fearless and reaching people with the gospel. And so if you've already written names in our receptacle down front, we invite you at the end of the service to come down and pray again for people to come to the Lord. But if you have someone that you're praying for, come down and write their name down, drop them into the receptacle down front. We're praying for these people to come to Jesus every week.

And so we invite you to do that. Now we meet in two venues every Sunday morning here at our Wilson campus. There's another venue next door. And you can see we're pretty full in the second service today. There's still a few empty seats.

But the thing we know is on Easter Sunday we're going to be packed. And so if you've never tried out the gathering place, Easter Sunday would be a great opportunity to try it out. But any Sunday would be a great opportunity. And it's a great venue and a great opportunity to meet with people. It's on a level floor, for instance.

And that way, if you are tired of being slanted, you know, we got tables, we got coffee service. There's a lot of perks for being in the other room. But the main thing is we want to make room for more people. And that's why we built the extra venue. And so we encourage you to help us with that.

We are in the middle of our Easter food drive, the one we do every year leading up to Easter. We collect money for the food pantry, or not money, but food for the food pantry at the Hope Station here in Wilson and also at the ministry in Rocky Mount that also has a. A food pantry. And so yesterday was the hanging of the bags. And so we went out and knocked on doors.

How many of you were out with us yesterday hanging bags? Yeah, I can see you got a little sun on your face. You were out working together with us. And so we hung these bags and saying, help us help the hungry. And so fill it up.

And next Saturday, which is this coming Saturday, we'll be back around at 10am to pick up your bag and we'll deliver it to Hope Station for you. And so Hope Station leadership tells us that we're one of the number one givers to the food pantry. And so every year we want to continue our ministry to make sure that we help feed the hungry. So what we'll do also next Saturday is we're going to hang door hangers on all the doors when we pick up the bags, inviting them to Easter Sunday. So why are we doing the countdown for Easter Sunday is because we're praying for people to come to Jesus.

We're talking to people about coming to Jesus. And we believe that if we pray specifically this time, that we'll see people come to Jesus. The other thing that's going to be happening on Easter Sunday is we have a baptism service on Easter Sunday. So it's going to be a great day. Okay, well, let's get into this series that we're in part eight of.

It's entitled the Story. It's a 12 part series we've been looking at the metanarrative of Scripture because we believe that although the Bible is made up of 66 books written by over 40 human authors over a period of nearly 1600 years, it's really just one book. It's telling one story. It's the grand story of a good God who created a good universe. But sin separated us from God.

And man's rebellion put God in a position to where he sent us a savior, Jesus. And we're looking for Jesus on every page. We believe as we study scripture, we can look for and find Jesus on every page. So far in the story, we've traced God's rescue plan from his creation to the crowning of King dav. That's where we finished up last week.

We saw how God created everything good and made humanity in his own image. But sin separated us from God. God sent judgment through the flood, but by grace he saved a remnant. Through Noah, he made a covenant with Abraham promising a people and a future. But God's people were carried into slavery in Egypt.

But God rescued them and gave them his law to shape them. He faithfully brought them into the promised land. And though their faith wavered, God was true to them. Last week we saw David crowned and promised an eternal king and an eternal kingdom which points to its fulfillment in Jesus. But now, this week, we'll see a devastating turn of events.

They have a kingdom, they have a king, they have a land, a promised land. They have a temple, they have it all. But they rebel against God. And so what will happen in this sermon that we've entitled the Captivity? Will God turn his back on his people?

The kingdom falls, they lose their land, they're carried into exile. How will God respond to his rebellious people? How does this chapter even fit into this story, which is God's story? We all kind of know. I think maybe all of us know this.

What happens when we ignore God's word, when we say, God, wait, I'll get to it later, or God, I'm not ready to do this, or I'm just going to try this over here. Haven't we all experienced what life begins to look like when we rebel? We might say, I'm not rebelling. I'm just trying this out over here. I'll get to it later.

And we keep putting him off. And when we drift away from God, we come to a place where one day maybe we look up and we say, how did I get here? How did I get over here? Maybe that's you today. Maybe today you came in going I need help, Lord.

I don't know how I got in here, but I remember that you're the one who can get me out. The question is, when we rebel against God, how does God respond to us when we drift away? Does he write us off? Or does he continue to pursue us? Does he give up on us?

And as we look at seasons like this, how does God reveal more of Himself? Because I'm convinced that although this book tells us much about creation and much about mankind, it's really a book about God. And as we look at Second Chronicles today, and we'll be looking at that last chapter of the book, chapter 36, I believe that we'll see that God reveals much about his character here. Indeed, I think we'll zone in and we'll focus in on three character traits of God that God reveals as he responds to his people's rebellion from him. So let's look at the text.

Three truths about God's character we're going to be looking for. We'll start at verse 15 of chapter 36. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged.

He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes. All these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill.

70 years 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, 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 the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.

This is God's word we're looking for. Three truths revealed about God's character. Here's the first. His persistent compassion. His persistent compassion.

Look at verse 15. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently. Sent persistently to them by his messengers. God's patient and he's persistent in his pursuit. Remember Adam and Eve, the story in the garden that we began with?

How God is the one who went looking for them. They hid from God. He's sending his messengers, his prophets, to speak on his behalf to Israel that has been rebelling from him after all that he's done for them, this redeemed people that he calls his own. The verse begins with the covenantal name of God, the Lord in all caps. L O R D in all caps, showing that underneath this is the Hebrew word Yahweh or Yehovah, which is the name he revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

This is the covenantal name of God, the Lord, the God of their fathers. Sent persistently. He was persistent. Why was he so persistent? Because it says he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.

He had compassion. He's a compassionate God. Note this first, before we get into the exile part of the story. He was persistent over centuries, sending them prophets to warn them. A parent, a mother or a father that loves their child will warn their child.

Don't touch. It's hot. Take my hand. Don't step out into traffic without holding my hand. On and on.

Good parents warn their children of harm. This is what it means to be a mom or a dad. And our God is a good God. And he continually warned them, you're my people and this is the land that I've given you. This is my house that I've given you the ability to build.

And he persistently, with compassion, sent his prophets. And how did they reply? How did they respond? Verse 16. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets.

We see this today. Not in this house. Praise the Lord. Not in this house. But in the house outside these doors.

There's scoffing on our social media.

There are people despising and scoffing and making fun of God's word. And this was a people that were the people of God. He calls them His People, he calls it his dwelling place, but yet they are scoffing at his prophets and turning his prophets away.

God must respond. But let's put a marker right there and hold off for a second. And let's just talk before we dig in further. Just the way they respond. I want to focus first on the long suffering of God before we go.

Well, boy, God really was hard on them. Yeah, but you weren't there in all those years of the prophets coming and talking to them. It reminds me of what Peter says in his second Epistle. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness. But is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance?

He's long suffering. The New Testament's written in koine Greek. And I like that word long suffering. Some translations say patience, and that's accurate. But long suffering gets more at the Greek word macrothumia.

Macrothumia. Macro meaning long or big. Thumia means has to do with heat. So he. It takes a lot for God to get hot with wrath.

He's got a long. A macro fuse. He's got a long fuse. And it takes forever, really. I mean, his compassion and his mercy balance, his holiness.

And so when he responds here, it says that because he just kept sending them, he persistently sent them and sent them, and finally the wrath of the Lord rose against his people. You can almost see a thermometer with the heat going up. And it took for centuries of warnings, and they just kept mocking and turning aside. Who could believe that God's people would react this way? Can I give you one story?

And he's referred to here in this passage that Jeremiah was one of the prophets that prophesied concerning the seventy years. Now Jeremiah is the last prophet that God sent to them right before the exile. And he's writing to them during the exile. And when he's prophesying, he's saying it's time. God is now going to judge Israel.

And so he's going to send Nebuchadnezzar and he's going to send the Babylonians, and he's going to judge. And if you want to live, just listen to me. If you'll just surrender to this, surrender to this discipline of God, then you're going to be okay. But if you resist, you will die. And so this is how he's prophesying.

Well, that's not popular.

And so he's in the temple. This is Jeremiah. This is the calling. He's often called the weeping prophet. But I'm not sure that's the right way.

I think he's the warrior prophet, because in chapter one of Jeremiah, it describes him. And God says of him, I'm going to make you like a fortress. I'm going to make you like a pillar, I'm going to make you like a wall, that the kings and the nations will not be able to stand against you. And as I speak my word through you, kingdoms will rise and fall at your mouth. That's how I'm going to make you that, Jeremiah.

And so here he goes. He rolls up in the temple courts and starts preaching about, we just need to surrender because God has written this off right? Now, if we'll just surrender, God's going to redeem us and he's going to reconcile us after 70 years. But look, we should just surrender right now. And Pasteur, one of the priests that was there in the courtyard, heard him doing this, and he laid hands on him and he put him in stocks and beat him and left him in those stocks for a day and a night and then released him.

And when he let him loose, Jeremiah started prophesying again, right there, prophesied against Pashur and against his house. And what was going to happen then? God told him, to prove to the people that I'm going to reconcile them after this season of discipline. I want you to go buy a piece of land. Go buy real estate while the market's down, Jeremiah, go ahead.

And so Jeremiah goes to leave the city of Jerusalem. And as he goes to leave, one of the guards at the gate sees him. He goes, you're getting ready to go over to the Chaldeans, over to the Babylonians. He goes, no, I'm not. I'm getting ready to go buy land.

He doesn't believe him. He takes him to the officials and they beat him and they imprison him. King Zedekiah of Israel, or of Judah rather, hears that they've imprisoned Jeremiah and he wants to talk to Jeremiah in person. So he calls him over to the palace and he goes, tell me, what's God really saying? He tells him, lord, listen, if you'll just turn yourself in, he'll take you into exile, but you won't lose your life.

But if you keep going on the way you're going, you're going to lose your life, you're going to lose your family. And Zedekiah, I think he believed Jeremiah, but he was afraid. And he made sure that they kept feeding him bread because they were under the thumb right here. Where they were being held captive, really, in Jerusalem, so that people were getting hungry. And so he made sure he got bread.

Zedekiah seemed to have a soft heart towards him. But there he is in the prison, and he keeps preaching. And so then the officials come to Zedekiah and say. They say this. They go, we got to kill him.

He will not shut up. He will not quit prophesying. And so Zedekiah says, what can I do? And he turns Jeremiah over, and they take Jeremiah and they lower him into a dry cistern. A cistern is a place where they would collect water in this dry land so they would have drinking water, but it was dry because they were in a season of no rain.

And they lowered him down into it, and there was only about a foot of mud in the bottom. And he sunk down. He mired up in the clay. There was no place to sit, no place to lay his head, no food or water to eat or drink. And here's Jeremiah, the prophet of God.

This is how Israel was treating God's man. And then an Ethiopian eunuch by the name of Ebed Melech came to his king, Zedekiah, and spoke boldly. And he said, do you realize what they've done to Jeremiah? They have tortured him by lowering him into this cistern. He can't eat or drink.

He can't lay his head down. The only way he can sleep is to lay down in the mud and lean his head against the wall of that cistern. No man should be treated this. And so this bold black man of God named Ebed Melech goes boldly to the king. And the king says, you're right.

And he gives him 30 men to go rescue Jeremiah. And he goes and he takes cloth because Jeremiah is so beat up and weak now, he can't get himself out by a rope. And he says, put these under your armpits, Jeremiah, prophet of God, and we'll pull you out. And they rescue him. And when the city falls, Jeremiah stands.

This is how. This is what we're reading here as Ezra, who I believe is the human author that God spoke to the book of Second Chronicles. I believe Ezra was probably the author of first and Second Chronicles. This is what he's recording. This is how they treated the prophets.

And God was patient. Jeremiah wrote in his book Jeremiah 25, you've neither listened to nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants, the prophets.

Are you listening to God's word today? Are you one who hears God's word? People React strongly when God's word tells them something they don't want to hear. Jeremiah's words remind me of Jesus. Words to Jerusalem.

Remember when Jesus was being rejected? And as he goes up on the mount of Gethsemane and he's overlooking the city of Jerusalem, and I've been there, I've stood up on that mountain there, and you can see the eastern gate, and you can see into the city of Jerusalem. You can see the Temple Mount. He stood up there and he says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing?

This is the persistent, compassionate God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus speaking. What about you, my friend? Are you willing? Oh, he wants to gather you as a hen would gather her chicks. He wants to be compassionate, merciful to you.

Would you hear his warning? Today is the day to respond before your heart grows hard. This is the first character trait that we see in our text today. The second is this. And it's God's patient holiness, his passionate holiness, rather, his passionate holiness.

The tone shifts. Until the wrath of God, the wrath of the Lord rose against his people until there was no remedy, there was no cure. The cancer has gone too far. There must be a surgery, there must be an amputation. It's too far along.

There's no cure, there's no remedy. But God loves his people. He loves them enough, and he's passionate enough for his holiness and for their holiness that he's going to do this. Verse 17. Therefore.

Therefore he, speaking of God, brought up against him the king of the Chaldeans. He brought Nebuchadnezzar there. Nebuchadnezzar thought it was his idea, but it was God's idea for Nebuchadnezzar to come up in there. Was Nebuchadnezzar a good guy? No.

He was an evil pagan king. Why would God use that to discipline his people? Well, God's God, and I'm not. I don't know, but I know this. God judged him too, later.

And God used him to discipline his people. God's sovereign today. He knows what's going on in the world today. You don't, but he does. And he knows what's going on in Iran.

He knows what's going on around the world today. He knows he's sovereign. He hasn't left the throne.

He brought up against them. The king of the Chaldeans was Nebuchadnezzar a good guy. No, he's a bad guy who killed. Now, notice something here? You'll miss this.

I want you to notice back there in 15 and 16, it was his messengers, his people, his dwelling place. God claimed them all. But then when they kept turning him aside, turning him aside, turning him aside, he turns them over to the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their, not his, their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. Not his sanctuary, their sanctuary. You see it.

Something changed. He gave them over to Nebuchadnezzar. He gave them over to their lusts, to their paganism. He gave them over to it. You want it?

You reject me. I'm going to let you have what you've been seeking. He gave them over to it. In fact, we read in the prophet Ezekiel that in the prophet Ezekiel's writing, Ezekiel, chapter 10 and 11. Now Ezekiel's writing.

He was an exile in the people that are carried off. Ezekiel says he sees a vision. And he sees the Spirit of God leave the holy of holies. It pauses on the threshold of the of the eastern gate, and then it ascends and goes all the way up to the Mount of Olives, to the top of the Mount of Olives, and then goes. He saw the Spirit of God leave his temple.

So it's not his temple anymore. How's it his temple if he's not in it? How's it his church if he's not in it?

And so God declared Ichabod on his temple. Chabod means glory. That says no glory. The glory has left the temple. So Ezekiel saw it in a vision.

And so it's not his temple, it's their temple. It's their house. And God gave and all the vessels of the house of God and all the riches of the princes of Israel, everything, all the people, they were either killed or carried off. He gave them over. He gave it all over.

My goodness.

God is passionate for his holiness.

He's compassionate, he's 120% compassionate, but he's also holy. And he holds both true at the same time. And then we see a little hint here. After this exile, we see Ezra. He's writing after the exile.

He's part of the returned people who've come back post exilic people. And he says that they were carried away for 70 years. Do you see that in verse 21? And he said that was according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, who told them, you're going to get carried off, but you'll come back after 70 years they didn't believe Jeremiah. And then he makes an observation here.

He says the year 70 was not just pulled out of the sky, but it was God's decision to give a Sabbath to the land for the number of years they had failed to keep the Sabbath of the land. And you're like, what's that about? Well, I told you, this is one big story that you have to keep up with all the details. Leviticus 25. God told them through Moses that every seventh year they were not to farm the land.

They were let it lie fallow. In the sixth year, he was going to give them a triple harvest so that they would have enough to eat in the sixth year, enough to eat in the seventh year, and enough to eat and bear seed to plant again in the eighth year. Now that's just good farming. We've learned that through the years. It's good to let the land lie fallow so it recovers.

But that's not why God did it. I think the reason God did it was to teach them that that land was his and that he wanted them to remember that everything they had was his and so that they would give it rest, recognizing that the provision he gave was his and they had failed to do it for 490 years. Do the math. Seven into 490, well, that's 70. And he said, you won't rest the land, I'll rest the land.

You won't give the land a Sabbath. Give the land the Sabbath.

Back in 1982, I'd been married going into my third year, and I really felt like God called me into ministry before I ever got married. In fact, when I started dating my wife, I told her, I said, I don't know what's going to happen exactly when we get out of college, but I kind of. I feel like God's calling me into the ministry. You sure you want to marry a guy that might go into the ministry? And she, well, she was too far gone by that point.

She already loved me too much by that point. If she'd known what she was getting into, I don't know. But then, guess what? Instead of going into the ministry, we got pregnant and I got a job in retail and got involved in the corporate world, started making good money. And all of a sudden I'm working 65, 70 hours a week, and I had to work every other weekend.

And, like, I started saying stuff like on Sunday mornings, I started, yeah, it's the only day I get to rest. It's the only day I get to rest. I Work every day. Every other Sunday, I get to just, honey, we'll watch it on tv. And she starts.

We start having marital problems. She's like, this is not the man I married. What happened to you? You were so on fire for God.

Guess what happened that year? 1982. It's a great year. It's a great year. My son Stephen was born.

My firstborn was born. It was a great year. But, boy, it was a hard year because that was the year God let me get injured at work. And I had a broken leg cast up to my hip for nine weeks. I shattered my left leg.

They had to rebuild my ankle.

If you want rest, Sabbath rest, which is devoted to God so that you're listening to him and depending on him for his provision if you won't rest. Gary, are you saying he broke your leg?

Looking back on it, and I read the Bible, he dislocated a dude's name that was named Jacob and changed his name to Israel. If he dislocated a guy's leg, he probably let a guy get his leg broke. And during those nine weeks, I went to church Sunday morning, I went to church Sunday night. I went to church on Wednesday night. Didn't have anything else to do.

And I got alone with God because I was alone in the house by myself. And my wife had to drive me everywhere because I couldn't even get in the front seat with that leg. And I had to sit in the back seat with her chauffeuring me around in a 1971 Toyota Corona. Honey, could you take me here? Could you take me there?

God had to humble me and rest me for a season of nine weeks. And it was a turning point in our marriage. It was a turning point in my life. I'm not saying that it always works out that way, but it seems like it worked that way for God's people in this story and worked that way in my life. You better listen to God.

He's compassionate and he loves you enough to warn you. And if you won't listen when he warns you, he loves you enough to give you rest, it might be a rest you didn't want to take. It might be some medical thing. It might be a relational thing, it might be a financial thing. But he's going to show forth his compassionate mercy.

But he's also going to show his holiness, that when he speaks, he warns, he wants you to listen. I hope you're listening today. Because in Nahum it says, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And he, by no means will clear the guilty. He's serious.

In Ezekiel, he speaks, he says, thus says the Lord. It's not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you've profaned among the nations. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name. And the nations will know that I'm the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes, God is passionate about his holiness.

This leads us to the third, the third character trait. We see his passionate, his passionate holiness. We see his persistent compassion. But finally, we see his promised restoration. I'm glad we've got these verses 22 and 23 here.

At the end of this chapter, just when it seems like the story is over, just when it looks like there'll be no sun coming up in the morning, just when it looks like there's going to be a sad ending to Israel, we have this. Verses 22 and 23, a restoration happens. God moves. He stirs up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, a pagan king, a foreign king that Jeremiah, excuse me, Isaiah talked about 150 years before Cyrus was born and named him by name. Which causes modern scholars, critical theory, scholars to say there's no way Isaiah knew that.

Well, I mean, he didn't. God did. And God told him. In Isaiah chapter 44, he writes, I am the Lord who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose, saying, of Jerusalem, she shall be built, and of the Temple your foundation shall be laid. And so, almost two centuries before Cyrus, Isaiah said, there's going to be a guy named Cyrus that's going to come along and rescue you in my name.

He's going to help rebuild the temple, which implies the temple was going to get torn down. So these prophets had been talking about this for some time. He stirred up his spirit. Cyrus probably thought it was his idea, just like Nebuchadnezzar thought it was his idea. God stirred up his spirit like a barista stirs up a cup of coffee.

He just stirred him up and said, I'm going to make you say this and write this and declare this. And he declares what he says, 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 the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up. This is Cyrus, King of Persia, modern day Iran.

Back when the Persians rescued The Israeli exiles from Nebuchadnezzar's captivity.

Don't tell me that modern days are disconnected from ancient days. They're not. God's still God. He always keeps his promises. Numbers 20:3.

God is not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it? He's God, he keeps his word. He said, I'm going to rescue you after 70 years.

He told that through Jeremiah, the guy who's going to rescue his name. Cyrus, come on, what does it take for you to believe?

In 1879, some British archaeologists were digging in the ruins of Babylon and they found what they called the Cyrus cylinder. It's a barrel shaped clay written, written in cuneiform and it described Cyrus overthrow of Babylon and his rescue of the Israelites.

And so we have extra biblical evidence. This was dated to nearly 600 B.C. by archaeologists. Cyrus existed. The reason that we name places and people in the Bible is because they are real people and these are real places and this is really the word of God.

And he rescued them as God said he would because God stirred his heart to do it. Now maybe you're feeling like you're in a kind of exile today. You feel, man, I appreciate the Bible story, Pastor. What's that got to do with me today? Well, where are you at today with God?

Where are you at in the journey of God speaking to you and is he ready to give you a rest?

How far have you gone from where he called you? How far have you drifted and he still loves you and he's patient and he's persistent. But there comes a point where he disciplines. But even when he disciplines, he does it in love and promises restoration to those who would repent and turn back to him. Maybe you're feeling like you're in exile, but return to him.

Now today as we finish up this chapter, I want you to recognize where you are. You might not recognize it because we're all holding English translations of the Bible and in our English Bibles, our English translation, the Old Testament finishes with the prophet Malachi. That's the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, but it's not the last book in the Hebrew Bible. Did you know that? Do you know what the last book in the Hebrew Bible is?

The Hebrews call their Bible the Tanakh. It's from an acronym tnk. They just sounded out Tanakh Torah, Nebarim v' ketabim Torah. The Law, Nebarim, the prophets, vktabim and the writings. They call it the Tanakh.

Do you know what the last book, the last chapter, the last verse in the Hebrew Bible is? I just read it to you. It's second Chronicles, chapter 36. And the last verse is verse 23. And the last words are Let him go up.

And then 400 silent years take place before he comes down.

Let him go up and what? Build the temple. And they did. But when they built the temple, the glory didn't fall on that temple like it fell on Solomon's temple. Zerubbabel was a good guy.

He would have been king. But after exile he was made governor and he rebuilt the temple. And then old evil Herod the Great supersized it like it was going through a McDonald's drive through or something. And God's spirit. And we have no evidence that the Ark was ever there again, by the way, in God's spirit.

We have no evidence that it returned to the temple. But one day his spirit did return. Let him go up. And he came down. The true temple of God came down.

His name is Jesus and he's the Word made flesh. We read in John chapter one. And the word became flesh and dwelt. That word dwelt could be translated tabernacled. He pitched his tent of meeting among us.

And we've seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Ezekiel saw the kabod, the glory of God leave. And John saw the glory of God return. Let him go up. And he came down.

And someday he's coming again. This is the word of God. These are the character traits of God. How will you reply today? The debt is paid.

The way is open. Will you go up? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you most of all for Jesus.

Thank you for adoption.

And I pray for the one that's here today. And you've never been adopted into God's family. You've never given your life to Jesus. In fact, some of you are here. And you could say I've been running from him and he keeps pursuing me.

Today, let it be the day of salvation for you, my friend. Would you pray with me? Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. Pray like that. I'm a sinner.

But I believe you died on the cross for me and paid for my sins. And that you were raised from the grave and that you live today. Come and live in me. By your spirit. Forgive me of my sins.

Adopt me into your family. I want to be a child of God. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing he'll save you, adopt you into his family, others are here today, and you're a believer.

But you've been running from a calling in your life.

Today, would you say, God, I'll do it. I surrender. You want me to go on the mission field? I go on the mission field. You want me to start a ministry or join the ministry?

You want me to be involved in church in some way? You want me to be on the worship team? You want me to serve? What do you want me to do? Lord?

The answer is yes. My yes is on the table. Lord, forgive me.

I want to follow you all in all things. We pray it in Jesus name, Amen.