In the sermon titled 'The Journey Home,' Paul Carrington explores the biblical narrative of Ezra chapter 8, focusing on the journey of Ezra and his companions from Babylon to Jerusalem. This journey symbolizes a spiritual pilgrimage from a place of captivity to a place of worship and divine presence. Carrington emphasizes the importance of God's guiding hand throughout the journey and the significance of fasting and prayer in seeking divine direction and protection. The sermon contrasts the spiritual representations of Babylon and Jerusalem, highlighting the dangers of lukewarmness and the urgent call to genuine worship. Carrington challenges listeners to examine their own spiritual journeys, urging them to remain zealous for God and to avoid settling in complacency. The ultimate message is one of trust in God's presence and the assurance of reaching the heavenly Jerusalem, a journey marked by faith, worship, and divine guidance.

Would you join me and open to Ezra chapter 8? Be reading through the chapter. Ezra chapter 8. These are the heads of their father's houses, and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylon in the reign of the King Artaxerxes. Of the sons of Phineas, Gershon, of the sons of Itamar, Daniel, of the sons of David, Hattash, of the sons of Shekiniah, of the sons of Parosh, Zechariah, and registered with him were 150 males, of the sons of Pehat Moab, Eliyahu'nai, the son of Ziraya, and with him 200 males, of the sons of Shekiniah, Ben Jehaziel, and with him 300 males, of the sons of Aden, Abed, the son of Jonathan, and with him 50 males, of the sons of Elam, Jeshiah, the son of Athaliah, and with him 70 males, of the sons of Shephatiah, Zebediah the son of Michael, and with him 80 males, of the sons of Joab, Obadiah the son of Jehael, and with him 218 males, Of the sons of Shelamoth, Ben Jezepiah, and with him 160 males.

Of the sons of Bebai, Zechariah, the son of Bebai, and with him 28 males. Of the sons of Asgad, Jehanan, the son of Hakatan, and with him 110 males. Of the last sons of Adonaiakum, whose names are these? Eliphelet, Jael, and Shemaiah, and with them 60 males. Also of the sons of Bigvai, Uthai and Zavod and with them seventy males.

Now I gathered them by the river that flows to Ahva, and we camped there three days, and I looked among the people and the priests and found none of the sons of Levi there. Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, El-Nathan, Jerob, El-Nathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshalim, leaders, also for Joyrup and El-Nathan, men of understanding. And I gave them a command for Iddo, the chief man at the palace, sorry, at the place, Cassafia. And I told them what they should say to Ido and his brethren and the nethonym at the place, Cassafia, that they should bring up servants for the house of our God. Then by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought us a man of understanding of the sons of Machli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel, namely, Sherebayah, with his sons and brothers, eighteen men, and Hashabiah, and with him, Jeshaiah, of the sons of Mirari, his brothers and their sons twenty men.

Also of the Nephilim, whom David and the leaders had appointed for the service of Levites 220 Nephilim. All of them were designated by name. Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahva, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the King an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him, but his power and his wrath are against all those who forsake him. So we fasted and entreated our God for this and he answered our prayer.

And I separated twelve of the leaders of the priests, Cherubiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them, and weighed out to them the silver, the gold, and the articles, the offering for the house of our God, which the king and his counselors and his princes and all Israel who were present had offered. I weighed into their hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, silver articles weighing one hundred talents, one hundred talents of gold, twenty gold basins worth a thousand drachmas and two vessels of fine polished bronze, precious as gold. And I said to them, You are holy to the Lord, the articles are holy also, and the silver and the gold are a free will offering to the Lord God, your fathers. Watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leaders of the priests and the Levites and the heads of the fathers' houses of Israel in Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the Lord. So The priests and the Levites received the silver and the gold and the articles by weight to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.

Then we departed from the river of Ahva on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem And the hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road. So we came to Jerusalem and stayed there three days. Now on the fourth day, the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meramoth, the son of Uriah, the priest, and with him was Eliezer, the son of Phineas, with them were the Levites, Jezebad, the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Benui, with the number and weight of everything. All the weight was written down at that time. The children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and 12 male goats as a sin offering.

All this was a burnt offering to the Lord, and they delivered the King's orders to the King's satraps and the governors in the region beyond the river. So they gave support to the people and the house of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would prepare our hearts. Lord, even as we see Ezra and the people humbling themselves, I pray, Lord, that each one of us would humble ourselves and be open to the instruction of Your Word, be open to correction and reproof.

O Lord, help us to be pliable before you that our hearts would be soft and tender, Lord that our necks would not be stiff. Oh God, I pray that you would indeed help us to receive your word. I pray for our brother Paul, Lord that you would empower him with your Holy Spirit. Lord, that you would give him your words. And Father, I pray that we would be a people as we see, as we witness in this passage.

Lord, zealous for the worship of our living God. In His name we pray, Amen. Well, it's a great privilege this morning to find ourselves in Ezra the eighth chapter. It's been a blessing just studying it and going through it in detail and seeing the hand of God as he works further upon Ezra and this group of men and women that accompanied him on his way to Jerusalem. You know as I was going through this, it's a huge mouthful, right?

We're looking at a whole chapter, 36 verses, recounting all that God had done to take them from Babylon to the place of Jerusalem. And so, What we're going to do today is we're really going to follow Ezra as he goes on his pilgrimage. As we look back in the book of Ezra, one thing that we noticed when we were in chapter 5 is that we saw that the eye of the Lord, or the eye of their God, was upon them. And that was the motivating factor that allowed them to actually build the temple after taking 16 years off. Well, the theme of chapter 7 and 8 is that the good hand of our God is upon us.

It shows up about three times, that exact phrase in chapter 7. And we're going to see it a couple times today as we go through chapter 8. So be thinking about that, the good hand of our God upon us. And what this shows is this, is that in the last chapter, In chapter 7, we saw this amazing deliverance where God took a king who was previously opposed to the Jews returning. He was the one responsible for stopping the work.

God took his heart and actually turned his heart to become not just someone who says, okay, you can go, but to load up the children of Israel with all sorts of treasures but but this God what I think God wants us to see in both chapter 7 and 8 is he's not only a God of deliverance but he's the God that's with you every step of the way. He's not a God who kind of just says well, you know, you're on your own now I did my part now you've got to do yours But what we'll see today is that God is a constant presence as we go through he does according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth no one can restrain his hand or say to him what have you done that's what we see in this entire book of Ezra and so that that miracle that we saw in chapter 7 it really was a miracle to turn the king's heart towards the Jews, towards Ezra and given that generous letter. But what we're gonna see here today again through many dangers, toils and snares, what we're gonna see is God actually carrying his people.

It's really a miracle that we're going to be observing today. And I want to start off by asking us a question. If you put yourself back there, you know, 2500 years ago, and there you are, you're far away in a place called Babylon, here's a question for you. What would possess you to voluntarily uproot your family, leave all that you know, your business, and everything else that you've enjoyed for maybe approximately family, generation by generation, about 140 years since the time that they arrived in Babylon. And you're gonna leave a place of relative security, a place that you know, a place that you have roots.

And what you're gonna do is travel 900 miles through some of the most perilous terrain imaginable. You're going to go through Iraq, you're going to go through Syria, you're going to go through Jordan walking and you're going to be exposed unarmed. You're going to be with your wives and your children and in addition to that you're carting about 24 tons of precious metals silver and gold you know to even help us quantify this to understand the distance that these people were actually traveling it would be like today you know we just basically head out of here and begin walking and to travel that distance is like going up to Bangor, Maine if you want to go north for those of you who are kind of from the northeast if you think of it like that or if you want to go south it's like from walking from Wake Forest to beyond the tip of Florida or like walking from Wake Forest all the way to New Orleans that's the distance that these people were traveling but totally totally unarmed and exposed on every side so we've got to ask ourselves what is the reason that these people would actually embark on such a journey like this.

Why take such a risk? And you could say, well, in those days, the good old days, it wasn't so bad, but that's not the case at all. What they were traveling through was banded infested roads pretty much every step of the way. But what we're going to argue today is that what was compelling these people beyond anything else was the worship of God. The end of all men, not only in this life, but in the life to come, is worship.

If you think about that, what do the angels do and spend all their time doing? Holy, holy, holy. And we may do it now, and we do it through a glass, darkly, but the end of all men is to worship God and that was what was propelling these men and these women to make this journey And I want to kind of put this all in the context of this journey from Babylon to Jerusalem To be thinking about our own journey as people, right? We've been saved from if you want to look at all the various analogies in scripture from the house of bondage And we're being taken to the promised lander. We've been saved as being a slave to this world to become a citizen of heaven.

And all the way through the Bible what we see constantly pitted against themselves are two primary cities. We see Babylon on the one side, right? When you go to the New Testament, you look and you see in Revelation, and you go through all the way through the Bible. Babylon kind of is a city that represents pretty much the world. It sums up all that is in the world.

Its ways, its allurements, right? The rebellion to God. And of course in Revelation what we see is that it is finally and totally destroyed. So this Babylon is not only a physical place that existed, but spiritually it's a place that represents all that's in rebellion to God. But on the other hand, we see another city.

Babylon on the one side, but on the other side we see Jerusalem. And no other city sums up the anticipated fellowship of God than New Jerusalem. I remember years ago reading Revelation 21 for the first time and I could hardly believe it when it when it spoke of the fact that God himself will be their God and he will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There'll be no more suffering, no more pain, neither sorrow, because the first world, the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And so we see these two cities constantly pitted against themselves, this warfare that's going on.

And you're either a citizen of one or you're a citizen of another and Hebrews 11 really captures as well The writer of Hebrews when he was recounting the various men like Abel and Enoch and Noah He was going down the line Abraham, you know the the patriarchs this is what he says here in Hebrews 11. It says, strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them I love that because it it explains this whole idea of this life encapsulated in a pilgrimage from one place all the way to another. And you and I, we need to understand that we're not simply just people passing through life without purpose, but we're heading from one place to another. And one of the things that struck me I couldn't help but think about it as I was preparing for for this for this time Is the the analogy or the allegory of the pilgrims progress, you know? It's another allegory where you see a man traveling from the city of destruction to the celestial city and Nothing is more important as you would make your way home to the celestial city than that you have the good hand of God upon you. He's not a God who's a far-off a God who's distant He's a God who's ever-present and just like Ezra were called to be pilgrims as well spiritually we're journeying from one location to another spiritually dwelling Intense or at least that should be the intention that should be the heart motivation for each one of us But even though Ezra received this amazing letter this miraculous letter It's not enough The journey now had to be undertaken.

He actually had to make a move based on what he understood and because he had confidence in God, because he knew that the good hand of his God is upon him. He was able to make this journey. So we're going to be going through not all of the verses just because of time. We can't possibly do that, but I did hand out an outline and it kind of encapsulates or breaks this chapter into five. The first 14 verses, 1 to 14, deal with the men and their families who returned with Ezra.

This entourage of men, about 1500 of them, that went with Ezra and their families. And then in verse 15 to 20, we see something is lacking, kind of the missing Levites and the nethanym which we'll talk about as well. And then 21 to 23 really where we're going to be spending the most of our time deals with this idea of fasting and humbling and preparing our hearts before God. And we can be thinking as we go through that of Hebrews 11 be thinking of Pilgrim's progress and then 24 to 30 deals with this idea this concept of stewardship and then finally we'll end off with 31 to 36 where it talks about their arrival home where they finally get to their destination and it's fascinating. So in verses 1 to 14 I'm not gonna I'm not gonna read it all but what we see here is is a genealogy of those in the second wave who made their way back to Jerusalem.

80 years previously, Zerubbabel and some of the other men had traveled back to Jerusalem. Well, now some of their family members, generations later, are now going to be making this trip along with them in this second wave. And when you look at this, what immediately struck me when I was looking at this is is that in the first wave do you remember how many people ended up making that journey it was about 50, 000 when you include the servants that accompanied the Jews back to to Jerusalem but in this in this group we've got 1, 500 males and if you maybe do the math and say, you know, that they've got family members, they've got their wives, they've got their children, and so on, maybe it's 6, 000, maybe it's 7, 000 men, women, and children making this trip back. It's about a tenth of Who made their way back in the first wave and it just causes a question with such a door open so widely With this letter from King Artaxerxes. Why were there so few?

People that actually made the trip back? And you can begin to use your imagination and to envision that the news from the first pioneers who had made their way out 80 years previously, the hardships that they encountered in Jerusalem, the many kind of stops and starts the fact that you know things weren't actually easy that they faced antagonism they faced difficulty all of that might have factored into why so few Actually made the second pilgrimage and and like anything if you think about it right after something happens the initial euphoria of of all that God was doing in that first wave had kind of settled down, and you know what, maybe it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. But nevertheless, thanks be to God that we have about six or seven thousand people that made their way. And you notice how it's broken out by heads of households. The men got their families together and they began to decide, yes, we're gonna make the way, our way with Ezra.

And we come to chapter or verse 15 here and it says, now I gathered them by the river that flows to Ahava and we encamped there for three days. And I love this this picture because what you see is a man Ezra and there they are you can envision this this camp right on the canal. Now, Ahava was kind of, you know, the River Ahava, no one knows where it is. It could have just been simply a canal that was used, kind of a breach off of the Euphrates to irrigate the land. It's not really a well-known place, but what it was well-known for, it was kind of the jumping off point for those that would be making a journey west towards any part of the empire.

It was kind of this natural rendezvous point. And it was not that far outside the precincts of Babylon so you could still enjoy the security of Babylon and Gather everyone together if they're coming from the north south east west everyone could gather there, and you could go together but here we see a man as Reality dawns we are actually doing this And he's looking out across a sea of tents. You can imagine as he's taking stock of his flock like a good shepherd, he's looking out and He sees all of these people in their tents, perhaps going about their daily duties, but he notices something is missing. He says, when he looked at the people and the priests, he found none of the sons of Levi there. And so, what happens in this section in verses 15 to 20, is Ezra, he gets a group of about 11 men, men of understanding some of them, and what he does is he he gathers them together with very specific instructions and he tells them to go to a place called Cassafia which is, we don't, again, we don't even know exactly where that exists, but he goes to a place called Cassafia.

And as he's there, he speaks to a man named Ito, or he directs these 11 men to speak to a man named Ito. We don't again know much about this place at all, but what we do know is that he had a goal which was to persuade the Levites to join him, to go on pilgrimage with him. And the reason we got to ask this is why? Why was it so important that Levites would accompany Ezra? And I think what this reveals to us is that Ezra wasn't a patriot.

He wasn't a Zionist, you know. In 1948 Israel became a nation again And it was basically a nation that came together because people wanted to repatriate their homeland. But Ezra wasn't like that. He was a man who was first and foremost a worshiper of the living God. And we see in 17b, it says the reason why he wanted these Levites to join him on this pilgrimage it says that they should bring us servants for the house of our God that was his chief and and you've got to ask yourself this question we ask the question why so few joined Ezra initially those six to seven thousand men well why no Levites why would there be no Levites Especially when you flip over in the previous chapter and you see that the Levites are expressly singled out as invited to return.

In verse 724 it says, also we inform you that it shall not be lawful to impose tax tribute or custom on any of the priests leviates singers gatekeepers nethahm or servants of this house of God You would think we're going to Jerusalem, here's one of the great benefits, we could have tax-free living, not just for a year, but for our entire life, pass this thing down generation after generation, But that wasn't the case. And if you think of the letter that was prepared, if a way was made for the Jews to return, it was doubly made for the Levites to return to get back. And yes, there was physical danger, but you would think that the Levites would be more zealous than anyone else to get back to the temple. Yes, there's dangerous things like robbers and brigands along the way. But there's something more dangerous to your soul than physical danger.

There's something more dangerous to my soul than robbers and brigands. And you know what that is? Luke warmness. This idea, yeah, God's made a way. Wow, that's wonderful.

Look at the letter. But to not be moved or stirred in your heart with what God has done for us is one of the greatest dangers to the soul of every believer to the soul of every man and Matthew Henry when he was commenting on this he gives These people no quarter Some other commentators were a little bit more generous. They speak of the disinclination of the Levites to join. But Matthew Henry, he basically goes up one side of them and down the other, and he ends with this, what a pity that Good men should omit a good work for want of being spoken to. So they have the letter, but that's not good enough.

And so an entourage of about 11 men have to go to them. And you could ask all sorts of questions. We don't want to read too much into it and say more than what the text says, but after 140 years, you could imagine contentment and ease, which is the scourge of the world, even for us today, probably factored into their desire to just stay back, their reticence to join in with the Jews going back and perhaps that coolness had crept into their souls. It's worth examining ourselves along that line when God has made such a way for us in Christ. Is there a coolness when we gather, when we worship, when you're at home, in all the various aspects of life that's settled in to your soul.

And we need to be very, very careful because again the great dangers are not physical per se. But one of the great dangers is a vague and indefinite religion. Something that's, you know, just it's there, but it's not all that strong in us. But the good news is this, is that some are compelled, thanks be to God, that Ezra actually sent these men. And what do we find?

We find that 38 Levites and then 220 Nethinim actually end up going with these men on their pilgrimage. And I love this idea of the nethanym, you know, here's these men that are back in the time of David, they were selected, they're descendants of the Gibeonites who performed that servile work, the humble tasks of the temple. They were kind of, if you think of them as the behind-the-scenes labors. They'd go and fetch water They'd be responsible for cleaning in the temple. They'd be responsible for taking out the refuse You know after the burnt sacrifices and keeping things in order.

The last thing you want in a church, the last thing you want in a temple is a nethanym strike where people just back away and stop working, right? These are the men that are carrying the load behind the scenes. And I couldn't help but looking at this, and as I was thinking about this, how thankful, how thankful I was, and I'm sure those of you who are served here, and some of you that do serve are thankful that we do have people like that here in this church, people who are laboring behind the scenes for the advancement of the kingdom of God. You don't always see them. It might be someone who visits someone or someone who always takes it upon themselves to do a specific task that's unglamorous.

The person who comes when no one knows or the person who there's so many ways to minister in the body of Christ and I just want to ask us a question are you are you anathenim in spirit in the sense that you were willing to do behind-the-scenes work. It's one thing to get up and preach, that's great, but to do something where no man sees. You think of Matthew 6, that God who sees in secret would reward you openly. It's a sign of great faith. And I'm thankful for some of the men the women the families that do that here Because it may be obscure But this is what the psalmist says when he wrote he says it is better to be a doorkeeper In the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Praise God that there are some people who have that disposition and attitude here. And so we look at these people, we've now got 1, 500 men in their families. We've added to that 38 Levites and 220 Nethinem and perhaps some of their families as well and so they've been uprooted they've been compelled to go and now we get really to the heart of the passage and and what we're going to be focusing on here in verses 21 to 23 is specifically God's glory and God's honor. These are the two most important things. And so I'm going to read this here.

It says in verse 21, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him the right way for us, and our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road because we had spoken to the king saying the hand of our God is Upon all those for good who seek him but his power and his wrath are against all those who forsake him So we fasted and entreated our God for this and he answered our prayer and here's something to think about you don't you don't typically begin a massive journey by depleting your physical resources right you don't say I'm gonna hike the Appalachian Trail but before I do I'm gonna fast for a couple of days. That's not typically what you do. And the reason you don't do that is because you need absolutely every resource available, every bit of strength to make this journey. But Ezra does something almost totally different and that's because he's recognizing that they're on a spiritual Pilgrimage and so what he does is he calls a fast for two primary reasons The first reason he says here is we proclaimed a fast that we would humble ourselves before God.

And here's a man who was determined to succeed, not by force of strength, you know, not by power, not by might, but by brokenness. It's a wonderful thing when Paul speaks of that, when he besought the Lord three times to be saved from this thorn in the flesh. And the Lord says, my grace is sufficient for you. And Paul says, therefore, I will more gladly rejoice in my afflictions, because when I'm weak, then am I strong. It's not the strength of a man's arm, but what he does is he puts off any pretense of strength.

And this past Monday, I had the chance to just hear a pastor speak just for about 10 minutes. And he was talking about the need for repentance. And one of the things he said as he was speaking, he was speaking on 1 John. And he said this, he says, God is drawn to contrition. But he is repulsed by arrogance.

So an amazing statement that God is drawn to contrition, a person who humbles themselves voluntarily, who acknowledges that they are just dust, that, Lord, without you I can do absolutely nothing. Anything good that has been done, It is only because of your hand It's no attempt to siphon off Glory that rightfully belongs to God for my for my own consumption and God hates arrogance I think that's very scriptural we see that all the way through And so they they humble themselves before God, number one. But the second reason is to seek from him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. And it wasn't so much that he was the right way should I go through the scorching desert or should I follow the path of the fertile crescent? That wasn't necessarily what he was speaking of.

You could go to Jerusalem through two ways. It was one of those things that you could cut through the desert, but what kind of path that would lead. But what he's asking for, primarily here, is he's asking, Lord would you be with us? Would you carry us? Lord, we're alone.

We're weak. But we need you to keep us safe all along this journey. And so it's an amazing thing to think of what God was doing here at this time, because when you look at it, Ezra really had two options. He could trust in an escort of horses and soldiers, or he could trust in the living God. And Ezra opts for the latter.

He chooses to trust in the living God. And the amazing thing I thought when I was going through this, is you know Articerxes, King Articerxes? You know what his surname is? His surname or his nickname, what he was known by was Artis Sirxis the long-handed. And what that meant was that at any point in any time of rebellion in his kingdom, he had the power, He had the perceived power to simply reach out and quench it.

If there was some sort of espionage going on within his own government, he was able to sniff it out and squelch it. He had this reputation of somehow being long-handed, right? He's got a massive territory. And We saw in the beginning of that letter that he wrote to Ezra How did he refer to himself? He called himself the King of Kings.

He had this very very high view of himself but on the other hand we see this constant reference to the hand of our God. A much longer hand, an infinitely longer hand, than the arm of flesh, than the long-handed. What we see is that God's hand has so far been the means of turning pagan hearts towards his interests. He's, what has he done? He's turned lukewarm Israelites to becoming pilgrims on a path that leads to life.

And in verse 22 we read, for I was ashamed to request of the king and escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road Why because we had spoken to the king saying the hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him but his power and his wrath are against those who forsake him and what it is in verse 22 this declaration it really is a declaration that if we are to get to Jerusalem this whole thing that we're seeing right here is if we are to arrive in Jerusalem, it will not be by the strength of men. If we're to arrive at our destination, it's not going to be because we stirred ourselves up or because I was strong or because I was witty or anything else but it's going to be solely because of the good hand of God and I thought it would be worthwhile just to think a little bit about fasting. Something that's kind of not all that fashionable today but And when I speak of that just generally speaking in the in the Christian environment, but but what is fasting?

Well, well primarily what fasting is it's it's an acknowledgement of weakness and and what it declares is that man Shall not live by bread alone. That's really what fasting says It's a declaration that horses chariots rifles Pistols they're a vain thing in the day of battle. They're insufficient in themselves. It's a declaration that says, except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it unless the Lord keeps the city the watchman wakes but in vain and so there is many ways that we can think of that you know When you think of yourself personally what you're saying when you fast is you're saying Lord, you know that I need food But I need you more. I need you more to help me in this particular situation And it can be something other than food, you know You can look at your life and you can say you know what I'm as a young person you could be enslaved to things like social media.

You could be enslaved to other habits and appetites, things that no one knows in the secret chambers of your own heart. And it's keeping you from God. Or maybe it's not even an evil thing. Food's not an evil thing at all. It's a good thing.

It's a necessary thing. But is there something in your life that would, if it was put away or somehow reduced for a time to express your your desire your dependence on God it might be something to really consider and here we see a man who not only fasts right he prays he beseeches God but he's a man of of action as well He's a man that actually is embarking on a journey and the question for us here is are you forever praying? But not doing I remember reading a statement years ago and it shocked me at first, but what the writer said is, he says, oftentimes prayer is a Christian's excuse to do nothing. Have you got rid of that problem in your life? Well, no, brother, I'm praying about it.

When Jesus says cut off your right hand or your left hand or pluck out your eye wall, you know, I'm thinking about it You know, I'm praying about it. Are you gonna be doing this to advance the kingdom? I'm still praying but you know very well That God wants you to do that But we we find an out sometimes with with prayer or saying that we're praying about something. And this acknowledgement that we are weak is really something that's so important you know for us to think about. And oftentimes we can say one thing.

I know in my own life it's one thing to acknowledge my own weakness. But if you acknowledge my weakness, I may not be too pleased. When my wife says something to me that's an acknowledgement of my weakness for my good, it doesn't always go down as well as when I tell myself that, when I humble myself. We don't often like that, but oftentimes it's the most necessary thing for us to be considering that. Because what are we at the end of the day?

Do you know that a human being, at his very best, a human being can go three days, or three, sorry, three weeks without food? A human being can go three days, or three, sorry, three weeks without food. A human being can go three days without water, three minutes without air. I mean, when you think of it, we're very, very frail. We're very frail creatures, and sometimes we're not quite as acquainted with our own frailty as we ought to be.

Pride is something that it doesn't matter if you're Archer Circe's or If you're a person in a slum somewhere in Africa pride is something that's native to human flesh We all struggle against it. We all fight against it and oftentimes it gets the best of us You know you think of a man like Peter when he declares, you know, they'll all men forsake you Lord. I never will When you see James and John they go up to Jesus and they they say, you know, can you grant us something? We want to sit at your right hand and your left hand when you come into your kingdom. It's this expression of pride that wells up with all of us and oftentimes we don't acknowledge our weakness as we ought to I know I don't as much as I ought to not in my words but in the way that I conduct my life and what we need to realize that the best of men is nothing more Than a nose full of air away from the grave and that's why Isaiah he says this he says sever Yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils for of what account is he?

And what struck me going through this also is this reference to our little ones As I was going through this I that that really stopped me and made me think about a lot of different things You know that here's a man Ezra. He didn't embark on this journey lightly He's praying he's fasting Lord. Would you please show us the way that we could get to our destination safely, but not only us Lord, we pray for our little ones, these weak ones, the ones who can't defend themselves if something bad were to happen. And the question I found myself asking is, what kind of family shepherd am I? And you might ask yourself, what kind of family shepherd are you privately?

I'm not talking about on a Sunday morning, but what kind of family shepherd are you? Am I making this journey a misery for those in my household? Those who are journeying with me that it's all a misery and it's just total total you know deprivation and just totally just a place that people can't wait to escape from because of my Disposition you know this trip could have been done in two months. Right, if you were driving cattle, or if you were driving a battalion of soldiers, you could make this trip in two months, but it actually took them four, and I think a lot of the reason why it took four is because you had gentle shepherds, men who were considerate that, hey, you know, I need to carry this one. Like Jesus, remember the Lord Jesus in Isaiah, how he carries the little ones.

And think of how the Lord Jesus as a man, think of how patient The Lord is with you. Think of how kind he is to you. And I found myself really just convicted about this because it really is a picture of the Lord Jesus' disposition towards the little ones among us. And that we not only, We don't just race across the desert because we can make time. I often have not had that experience I'm sure I may not be the only one but getting to church or going on a vacation Where you can turn it into just a miserable thing because you're so eager to get where you're going That you spoil the time that could be could have been spent so much better along the way but it doesn't seem like this was the case with these men but they the man Ezra he makes this amazing this bold witness before artist Sirxes and it says how he talks about the fact that the hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him but his power and wrath are against all those who forsake him.

And this man who was long-handed, right, this man who had a great reach and was able to do so many different things, Ezra says, you know what? I'm going to trust in a longer hand than yours. And we need to be thinking about this. About five years ago when I was thinking about going out into the mission field. I wrestled.

I would wake up at night. I would go in the middle of the night, go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and I would say, Paul, are you crazy? Why are you, why are you doing that? I would just talk to myself. I'd go on long walks, sometimes four hours.

I'd be listening to the Bible or some sermon as I'm going and I'm contemplating what in the world am I doing and what I was doing is it was I was constantly wrestling against two particular things when I boil it down it was a wrestling match between two things and I think you find these things in Jeremiah chapter 17 Verses 5 to 8 and this is what the prophet Jeremiah says he says curse it is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength and departs in his heart from the living God. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness in a salt land which is not inhabited but blessed is the man whose trust is the Lord and whose hope is the Lord for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which Spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes but its leaf will be green And will not be anxious in the year of drought Nor will cease from yielding fruit. You see there's two things that you can trust in the arm of flesh or the arm of God you're going to rely on one or the other in fact right now You're relying on one or the other or and sometimes it's an ad mixture right where you know lord I believe help my unbelief It can be all sorts of different things, but we're to trust more and more in God as we make our pilgrimage From Babylon to Jerusalem, and it wouldn't have been a sin It wouldn't have been a sin for Ezra to accept the royal escort that was offered to him It wouldn't have been that at all.

We see in the next book, Nehemiah, he receives an escort. Or the Apostle Paul when he found out about the plot against him in Jerusalem, when the men fasted, they said we're not going to eat until this man's dead. He made sure that that got to the governor and and they got him sent up to Caesarea I mean, it's not a sin to do so but but I think what we're seeing here is that Ezra was so zealous He had given such a testimony of God in the sight of the ungodly that he shrank from any perceived inconsistency between his creed and his practice and we should all have that kind of heart let not the things I say contradict what I say I believe But the more that they come together, the better. It's one thing to say, you know, proclaim from the mountaintop, Jesus is mighty to save, he can free you from your sins, and then to come down from the mountaintop and sit in front of a computer and get tied up in some sort of bondage that I shouldn't be. It's a disparity between what we declare and what we actually say we believe.

And that disparity needs to shrink more and more to the point where we're more radical. But when it comes, push comes to shove, we need to ask ourselves, what do we do? When we're in a pinch, Who do we trust in and lean on more? And we see in verse 23 it says he answered our prayer and this is something so important to consider that we have a prayer answering God. And here's the truth is that God is more eager to answer than than we are to ask It's just the reality Or when we ask we ask a miss or we ask something so insignificant and so small And we need to think about that if God had answered all your prayers this past week With anyone else's life outside of yours have been affected It's worth it's worth pondering who who's the chief focus of your prayers Oftentimes it can just be me, you know Lord help me do this for me But we can pray more broadly and Philippians 4 says does it says do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It was no small thing to take an unarmed group of men, women, and children loaded with tons of precious metals to cross a land filled with opportunistic brigands. It wasn't a small thing to do that. And I don't know if any of you have had this experience, this sense of being hunted. You know, in North America it's pretty calm, right? I mean, have you physically felt endangered?

When was the last time you felt danger? And so this idea of actually being hunted and being vulnerable might be foreign, maybe not so much to women, but very foreign to men. You know, I remember I was in Nairobi, and this was years ago, and a man and I were going, you know, pulled up in a little car to a market, and As we were getting out of the car just before he got out of the car He put his hand on my arm, and he he looked over at me. He says now Paul We're going into a place Where they can steal your socks without removing your shoes and I I'll never forget that because I started walking through this market and people are smiling but you know that you're being sized up you're being checked does he have a wallet does he have a phone on his hip and all that kind of thing and I'll never forget that statement because it it showed me the exposure that I was entering into. And these people, they had a target on their back for four months.

They would be going through with a big target on their back. Don't think that news of their pilgrimage hadn't spread or hadn't preceded them as they were coming and going down the line. But they were totally exposed, at least from a physical standpoint. It would be like spending a night in the Amazon with no tent, no covering, and not getting a mosquito bite. That's kind of the likelihood or the chances of going four months through difficult, dangerous territory with not one person being robbed, no one dying or being killed, or some sort of armed guards coming up and trying to steal from you but on the one hand physically you may never have experienced this but spiritually do you know that you're no different from a spiritual perspective you are hunted do you know that that we as the Lord Jesus told us we're like sheep in the midst of wolves.

We don't have a lot of defense. There's nothing that we can actually defend ourselves with except for one thing. And in Psalm 23, that's what we see, that you are with me. That's our defense, the good hand of our God upon us. And so instead of being defensive and cowering, we can be proactive and bold because God is with us.

And as we make this pilgrim's progress, our warfare, it's a dangerous warfare because The stakes are higher than if I just lose my life. Jesus himself said, don't fear him who can take your life, but after that, he can do nothing, but rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. The soul is the most important thing that we possess. And so let us commit our way to him and and and our little ones also and let's be aware or beware as we make this pilgrim is beware of the allurements of Vanity Fair and let's keep our faces fixed Towards the celestial city the city whose builder and maker is God. You know, we need to consider just one last thing on this section, how it redounded to God's glory, that every single day when these pilgrims would wake up, right, for four months, they would wake up and, you know, they would all be intact.

No one would be killed Their goods would not be plundered. They were still there and they would do that day after day something that should and could by the arm of flesh never been done and every morning new mercies they would see, a daily supply of grace. And then you imagine, not only for the pilgrims, but when they finally arrived at their destination in Jerusalem, you could imagine people saying, wait, let me get this straight. You walked 900 miles through Marauder territory and you arrived safely. You had all that treasure in tow with your wives and your children and you're here.

How did this happen? There was no cloud by day and there was no pillar of fire by night but the good hand of our God was upon us." That's what these people would have been able to say. They would have been able to say, the one who never slumbers or sleeps, he kept us all through the journey. But we want to make sure that we just don't say if someone gets sick, someone dies, or something like that happens, that somehow God was being disfavorable to them. We remember that many times you can go through difficulties.

Ezra didn't go through a lot of difficulties on this journey. But we also see men like the Apostle Paul, right? A day and a night floating in the midst of the Mediterranean or let down through a wall into baskets through a fish basket. Sometimes a saint can be bedridden with cancer or a Christian can be tortured for his faith, but That doesn't mean God is any less with him. We need to resist that temptation to, you know, equate quote-unquote bad things with God's displeasure and quote-unquote good things with God's pleasure.

Let's not ever become practical adherents of the prosperity gospel where we we we think only good things happen When we're doing good and so on but God can bring a calamity for our good at the end of it all And so in verses 24 to 30 as we go down here you know what we see is that the treasure is divided up among 12 of the leaders of the priests and And this is a huge amount of money as I said earlier about 24 tons, but he says something in verse 28 he says you are holy to the Lord And as priests, of course, they were were consecrated to the Lord They were they had a special place and they were men of understanding But I want us to think about this here is just as the treasures were committed into the hands of these men these priests Likewise as you make this pilgrimage treasure has been committed to you. Remember that in the New Covenant you are holy to the Lord, you're priests. That's what Peter says, you're a royal priesthood. And the articles that you have been invested with, right? That's what Paul talks about when he says, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who is shone in our hearts To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ And he says this this this this view of Jesus Christ He says is like a treasure But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us and so as these priests received a treasure as they went on their pilgrimage to guard and to keep it to watch and to keep so too we have a treasure in us are you guarding it are you are you keeping it Do you have that understanding that the treasure that you've been given isn't for you to consume, but you've been made a steward?

You've been made a steward of the grace of God? And this is so often a problem especially in our context right now in North America Where you can be living your life as though you will never give an account Today is just another Sunday tomorrow will be the beginning of a new workweek Do you spend your time your most precious item as you like, consuming it on vanities? Or do you squander your resources on on baubles that are only gonna rust away in the course of time? We really need to ask ourselves are we living as stewards entrusted with things that we don't own and and that we are to care for and multiply and one day give an account for it. We should remember the parable of the talents where the Lord Jesus says, well done.

Don't you long to hear those words? Well done. Good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in a little. 24 tons of gold and silver.

Oh, that's nothing in the eternal scale. That's absolutely nothing. And that's what he says. And so we're to watch and keep. It means literally that we are to be sleepless.

That we are to be sleepless, that we are to be sleepless, thoughtful, always watching out, being vigilant and careful, you know, looking for vulnerabilities both from within and without. I remember reading Hudson Taylor has a part in his biography where one time when he first got to China, he was going inland, where no other European had ever gone. And when he was there, he came to a place, a temple, and he couldn't get anyone to keep him or put him up for the night. So what he did, he ended up sleeping on the steps of the temple. And as he was there, dozing off to sleep, two men came and sat down.

And anytime he would doze to sleep, they would try to reach into his pocket to steal his stuff. And he would be woken. I mean, he had walked like 15 miles or so through these rugged hills and he's dead tired and he would doze and literally it was like a standoff the whole night where he was just trying to keep himself awake trying to do whatever he could so that these guys didn't rob the little that he had to keep him it was a sleepless night but He was so intent on keeping the thing that he had that he didn't he didn't let it go And so within we have a lot of temptations, right? There would have been a temptation for these priests to simply just fade into the night and And it's such a dangerous thing to be entrusted with riches, but we can use them for God's glory and in this case the riches that we have are none other than the gospel of Jesus Christ and we get to verses 31 to 36 finally in this section here the return home And it's only now after 12 days of being encamped at the River Ahava that they actually cross over into this no-man's land.

They're ready to depart. They've got the families together. They've got the Levites, the nethineh. They've called the fast. And now the treasure has been distributed and It says this and the hand of our God was upon us and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush Along the road so we came to Jerusalem and that's to me one of the most spectacular parts about this whole chapter.

In five words, he sums up their entire pilgrim's progress, if you will, their journey. So we came to Jerusalem. That's it. And I think what I got from this here is that when we finally arrive at our final destination, when we enter into eternity, when we behold the Lamb of God, we're gonna see our lives as a vapor. We're going to see it just like in your in your Bible here You've got I don't know how many words there are but in comparison to those five words that that's what it will be like It's absolutely nothing when you've been in eternity For two million years what will 70 years or a hundred years?

Even mean at that point Because you've made it to the place of your soul's rest. It's so important and this is what Octavius Winslow said, he says this, beloved, soon, how soon, all that now loads the heart with care and rings it with sorrow, all that dims the eye with tears and renders the day anxious and the night sleepless will be as though it had never been. Emerging from the entanglement, the dreariness, the solitude, the loneliness, and the temptations of the wilderness, you shall enter upon your everlasting rest, your unfading inheritance, where there is no sorrow, no sin, no sunset, no midnight darkness, but all is one perfect cloudless eternal day. For Jesus is the joy, the light, and the glory thereof." And I read that and I say how badly I lack that perspective. I need to see that in such a greater way.

Well, these men give a reckoning. After three days of rest, they go up to the temple and they deposit all of their goods. And these men had been faithful to their charge. There had been no discrepancy at all. And so they were able to give a good account after four months travel of exactly, here is what we weighed and here's what I'm delivering to you.

I was a faithful steward in the thing that you'd given me. And in verse 35, we see a sin offering being made. You know, here are the people they acknowledge the reason for their bondage in the first place. The reason why we were in bondage, we have been away from Jerusalem for 141 years, is because of one thing, sin. And They made an offering for sin.

I couldn't help but thinking about the gospel of Jesus Christ They came with bulls goats and lambs, but but I come with nothing in my hands. I bring Simply to the cross I claim it's the superiority of the new covenant that Jesus Christ Has atoned from my sin the new covenant and entirely pardon sin it takes Captivity captive and puts death to death That's That's what we have in the new covenant and and I I say all of that to say this with all that christ has done For us far surpassing what these men experience should not our zeal for true worship exceed even theirs when you think of what Christ has done versus you know what they are still having to do as a sign of paying for sins. So here we are we've we made our safe arrival and what we found is that God is with us and he was with them every step of the way And this is how Paul the Apostle, he encapsulates it. He says, being confident of this very thing, that he who begun a good work in you will complete it even to the day of Christ.

So there's three things I'd like to end with here in terms of our application. And put yourself there for a moment. What would have Ezra's disposition have been when he turned that final corner and he caught a glimpse of that glistening roof top of the temple as he drew near to Jerusalem. What song might he have sung or maybe what tears might he have shed after four months and longer than that in terms of all the anticipation leading up to it. What prayers did he offer up?

And I say that to say, what will it finally be like to see our Lord Jesus Christ on that day, to hear well done, and to have every tear wiped away? And I have to ask myself this question do I long for the new Jerusalem which is a measure immeasurably better as As much as Ezra longed for the physical Jerusalem Do I value worship as highly as Ezra did and so that's the first set of questions perhaps to consider but but for those who have Actually embarked on the pilgrims progress who who are on their way Cause for examination have you have you settled somewhere along the way Maybe a nice little oasis or in Vanity Fair. You know, you've lost that head of steam that you had when you first began. Has a lukewarmness or coldness settled over your soul? Does it seem foreign or perhaps a little radical when the Apostle Paul says, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

And ask yourself, is the treasure that you once so valued somehow lost some of its luster? It's worth really pondering. But the last question or set of questions is for those who do not know the Lord, who have not even begun pilgrimage, our little ones, and some of you perhaps that are older that might be under the covering of the church but have not yet become partakers of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. I have a question for you. How long, how long will you linger on the banks of the Ahava, looking backward to Babylon, looking forward to Jerusalem, backward to Babylon, forward to Jerusalem.

Do you know this, that the once great wonder of the ancient world, Babylon, do you know where it is today? I don't even think they can find its foundations It's almost totally decimated and that is what the world will one day be in a in a spiritual case The foundations were Totally laid waste and my question for you is how long are you going to maintain your citizenship there? When Christ has made a way of escape flee to Christ You know flee from the city of destruction. There's so much in Jesus Christ. So we need to ponder all of these things.

Praise God for his faithfulness and carrying his saints from one destination to another.