In the sermon 'He Gathered Them to the Altar' by Scott Brown, the narrative from Ezra is used to illustrate the restoration of worship as the foundational step in rebuilding one's life after ruin. The Israelites, returning from a 70-year captivity, first erected an altar to God despite their fear of surrounding peoples. This act marked the beginning of their renewal, emphasizing the importance of dealing with sin and prioritizing worship. The sermon outlines seven divine actions that God used to awaken the Israelites: gathering for feasting, fostering unity, instilling obedience, reversing generational trends, prioritizing the altar, using fear to motivate worship, and granting perseverance. The sermon connects these Old Covenant shadows to New Covenant realities, interpreting the altar as a representation of Christ's sacrifice. The importance of unity and collective worship, alongside individual repentance and renewal, is stressed, pointing to the overarching theme of grace. The sermon also highlights the role of fear in driving worship and the necessity of adhering to God-prescribed patterns of worship.

And when the seventh month had come and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem. Then Jeshua, the son of Josadak and his brethren, the priests and the rubble bell, the son of Sheotio and his brethren rose and built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. Though fear had come upon them because of the people of those countries, they set the altar on its basis and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening burnt offerings. They also kept the Feast of Tabernacles as it is written and offered the daily burnt offerings in the number required by the ordinances for each day. Afterwards they offered the regular burnt offerings and those for the new moons and for all the appointed feasts to the Lord that were consecrated and those of everyone who willingly offered a freewill offering to the Lord.

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, although the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not yet, had not been laid. They also gave money to the masons and the carpenters and food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to the sea to Jopa, according to the permission which they had from Cyrus, King of Persia. Lord, we thank you for your word, for it is truth. Sanctify us with your truth, Lord. Please, Lord, you are our only hope.

Speak through Scott Brown, Lord. May it not be his words, but your words. Lord, enlarge our hearts, Lord. Please help us to behold your love. It's so massive, Lord, and so great that we cannot fathom Lord how much you love us so please Lord help us to see you as great and holy and you Scott Brown please use them to preach your word that we may be changed by it in Jesus name amen Ezra such a dramatic and beautiful story about how people make their way back from ruin and how God takes them out of a 70-year captivity and He rebuilds their lives.

He starts with an altar and then and then they Rebuild the temple and then they rebuild the walls around the city And so all of what we're going to be doing, you know in the coming months has to do with rebuilding your life back from ruin. And Ezra is so helpful to help us to consider how we do that. And so when we read the words in verse one, and when the seventh month had come and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man in Jerusalem. When we read those words, we're reading a story about how the Lord worked in people's lives So that they would engage in this rebuilding, but the very first matter for the rebuilding is the restoration of worship. And God was doing something in these people's lives.

He was stirring them up, and the very first thing he stirs them up to do is to go back to rebuild the worship of God in their lives. And what we find is that the very first thing that they do among those first things is that they rebuild an altar and that's really significant because that really is the beginning of rebuilding your life and that is to rebuild the altar of God in your life. Now I want to draw out seven things that the Lord did to do such a thing. You know, when we were singing a few minutes ago, I was just thinking back, you know, really all my life, you know, preaching in churches, my heart really has been the same thing. Oh, Lord, revive your people, You know, cause a great and mighty awakening.

And these seven things really have to do with awakening. They have to do with what God does, how God pours out His grace upon people, and what they do, and what's the result of it. So these seven things here that you can see listed, you know, in your outline. First of all, he gathered them together for feasting. Second, he gave them unity.

Third, he gave them a heart to obey. Fourth, he caused one Generation to reverse the bad trends of the previous generation Number five he led them to prioritize the altar in their building number six he used fear to drive them to worship and Then number seven he gave them perseverance. So that's the scope of what we're dealing with. I also wanna remind us that these are old covenant shadows of good things to come. They are figurative of Christ and his church.

All of the things that have to do with deliverance from bondage that you see in the all testament, they all point to Jesus Christ. The ark points to Christ, the exodus points to Christ, the Babylonian captivity points to Christ, and the coming back to the land after those 70 years of captivity, and the worship they established, they all point to Jesus Christ. So these are old covenant shadows that the book of Hebrews says are shadows of good things to come. So the things that are spoken of in shadows here are part of New Covenant worship in their elemental form. And so in the terms of the New Covenant, if you fast forward from these days to the kind of worship that we experience now in our own day.

It's a story of people who are going back to establish the preaching of the gospel and the power of the cross of Jesus Christ in their towns. In the same way that the captives came back and they rebuilt worship beginning with the altar, so do New Testament Christians do the very same thing. They establish the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ when they gather together in the same way that the altar was prioritized in the worship that we see here in this passage of scripture. Now, in the Old Covenant, people would stream in from all the towns to come and celebrate these feasts. In the same way we do the same thing.

We call people to come and stream in and worship God. You know, there are two ways you can stream in today. You know, you can live stream like some people are today, but you can stream into the real building and Come from all the different houses and towns that surround us and God has given us that very same ministry to bring people out from among the nations to come in to see the glory of the cross of Jesus Christ in the same way that they did here when they were prioritizing the altar. Now what were they doing and what are we doing? Because we're really doing something very similar to what they were doing.

They set up a public display of how God reconciles sinners to himself. And that really is what we're doing here. This is a public display of how God reconciles sinners. And we do it every Sunday. And what we'll see here in the ceremonial law, how they're establishing a morning and evening offering and things like that.

We'll get into the details of that later. But one of the critical messages of Ezra chapter three, one through seven, and it's a message that I wanna try to focus on here today in the midst of all these other elements, is that when you're rebuilding your life, you've got to begin to deal with sin. And that's what the altar is. The altar is the place where you deal with sin. And This is the first thing that anyone must do to try to rebuild their life They deal with sin and they deal with Christ's sacrifice on the cross They deal with the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ they deal with the perfection of Jesus Christ and the futility of your works to save you.

And the supremacy, the superiority, and the singularity of the cross of Jesus Christ and His suffering that secures your salvation, because your good works could never secure it. Only Jesus Christ in his perfect sacrifice on the cross is what can save anyone. And so they begin there. So we're gonna be talking about the altar being restored in your life so that the Lord can alter your life. A lot of times people want to alter their life before they come before the altar.

They want to get their lives together. They want to get their marriages fixed. They want to be better dads. And it always turns out bad when that's the beginning. But when the beginning is the cross of Jesus Christ, then there's hope.

And so that's what we see here in this picture of these awakened people. You know, they're a broken people. They've lived in paganism for 70 years in Babylon. And they were the children of those who were sent to Babylon because they did not regard the authority of God in their lives and so these are people who've been abused by the devil they've been torn up and now they're returning and the first place they go is to the altar and that's exactly where they should have gone. It was the life-giving station for their lives.

And you know Hebrews chapter 13 verse 10 says we have an altar. In the New Covenant we have an altar. And what is that? It's Jesus. Jesus Christ is the altar.

And in chapter 13, verses 9 through 12, he speaks of the fact that Jesus is our altar. But in the context, he says this, and I want us to get this somehow out of this whole scene in Ezra. He says, for it is good that the heart be established by grace. It is good that the heart should be established by grace. And that really is what you find at the altar of Jesus Christ.

You find grace to help in time of need and so that's what's happening here. Now let's move into these seven things that God did to create this gospel preaching station in Jerusalem that is figurative of this gospel preaching station and the thousands of others that are operating today here on the Sabbath day, you know, in the United States of America, and really all over the world. There are places all over the world who are doing this very same thing. They're drawing people to the cross of Jesus Christ. What an exciting thing.

It's the place of all healing. So we get to do that today but we get to see seven things that God Almighty did in the in the among these people and I I Think we should look at every one of them and say yes for us Lord That these things would be ours that we would secure them that they would secure us they would be part of everything that we're doing here in our lives that he's given us here in this community. And so the first is he gathered them together for feasting quote unquote on the seventh month. If you notice in this outline, I'm making a point and then I'm extracting a phrase out of this section to tie this there. As you can see, it's a very diverse section of scripture.

There's a lot to learn about the Old Covenant and the Old Testament sacrifices and and how they connect with Jesus Christ as our as our Passover as our feast of tabernacles as our feast of trumpets because he is the representation of all of these things. So first, he gathered them together for feasting on the seventh day, verse one. And when the seventh month had come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem. So they gathered together. Now remember 50, 000 of them went back.

I encountered some people who said they thought probably there when this event was taking place there were 100, 000 people there because there were people still living in the land. And they came back to the land, you know, a hundred and twenty-three go back to Bethlehem so that something can happen in Bethlehem in a few hundred years. And they go back into Bethlehem, they come into these cities. Imagine what that was like. Fifty thousand people coming in and filling these cities, and they're saying, come, let us go into the house of the Lord.

Let's go worship God the way that God prescribed. They were shaking up the whole region, really. And it's possible they were, who knows how many were there, but it's likely that 100, 000 were there as they brought their friends to come to worship God. It's very much reminiscent of Isaiah chapter two. Remember when we were there like three years ago, where four years ago, where people will come and they'll say come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord To the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his path That's the kind of scene that you have They're establishing this worship of God in their communities and thousands of them are there.

And people are traveling, you know, to Jerusalem to do this in the very same way that many, we all traveled here from somewhere. It's, this is figurative of what we're doing here today But the critical matter here is that when you're rebuilding your life you must prioritize the dealing with Sin and the cross which is prefigured here by this altar Because it's always good. It's always good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. We're here really to be strengthened by grace. I don't think you ever outgrow that.

You know, you encounter, you're weak, and you see the ways that you fell short, and you know, your heart needs to be strengthened by grace and We're here really to strengthen one other's hearts by grace we're coming really to the altar of God who is Jesus Christ a Faithful and compassionate high priest who says come to me come eat take eat. This is my body Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I'll give you rest. This is the kind of picture that we have here. And so you have this, you have this scene where people are streaming, the ambassadors have gone out into the cities and they're drawing people into the worship of God in the same way We are ambassadors for Christ. We're here not just to be here.

We're here because we're ambassadors We're ambassadors of the cross of Jesus Christ and we proclaim him and we gather people together. We want more and more people to worship him. And the church is the place where the ambassadors of the kingdom, they are saved and they're equipped to proclaim the greatness of God and they go out as ambassadors. Do we see ourselves like that? You know, it's easy for us just to see ourselves as who we are in terms of how we just gather here together.

But we're far more than that. Because we go out to fulfill the Great Commission, to go out into all the nations and make disciples among all the nations. God, this is our usefulness in the world. It isn't just what we do here that's significant. This is significant.

But it's only significant because we're part of this other great and mighty work to spread the gospel throughout the whole world. And so we're here to be strengthened by grace and then to go out as ambassadors, worshipers. And then notice it's a time of feasting. Now you see the words the seventh month, this is critical. This is a significant month.

In the seventh month in the Jewish calendar there were three feasts. Now you can see them listed here in their context. The three feasts that we're dealing with in this text are the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles. But if you turn to Leviticus chapter 23, don't do that now, but Leviticus chapter 23 explains all of the seven feasts of the people of Israel. Twenty-three percent of the days of the calendar in Israel were given to feasting, celebration, coming before God in rejoicing, streaming up into Jerusalem to do such a thing.

Now they were all marked by the phases of the moon. They weren't according to the Gregorian calendar that we live with today. They were based on the new moon. So each month begins with a new moon, and the feast days were based on the appearance of these new moons. So it was a lunar calendar that marked this feasting that is spoken of here in Ezra chapter 3 this the Sabbath feasts of these Sabbath these seven Sabbaths they don't always fall on the Sabbath day which was ordained before creation that's different that's a different kind of Sabbath These are the Sabbaths of the theists that were part of the ceremonial law and the worship of God in Israel that passed away because Jesus Christ fulfilled them.

You know, My view is that God ordained the Sabbath day, 1 and 7, this day as a creation ordinance. He did it before the law. He did it before the ceremonial law that was given. And so that's the the feasts are different from the Sabbath day and I think that's critical that you understand that if you understand our the doctrine of our church regarding the celebration of the Sabbath. So as you see in your outline here there were three there were three feast times.

The first was Passover and an unleavened bread and first fruits that took place in the spring in March through April. And then there was the summer harvest that was the feast of Pentecost. And then finally in September and October were the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles. So that's the context of these feasts that they began when they went back. They came back and they started right where they should have started in the Jewish calendar, starting there in the fall time to celebrate according to this month of feast, in the seventh month.

So it wasn't the seventh month after they got back. It wasn't that month. It wasn't the seventh month of the Gregorian calendar. It was the seventh month according to the ceremonial law that was established by Moses in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 and in other places like that. So the first day was marked by the new moon and this first it began with the feast of trumpets.

There was the sounding of a trumpet in preparation for the Day of Atonement, which was several days later. And these, the Day of Atonement was often called the Days of Awe or the Days of repentance. So this was a month of rejoicing with trumpets, days of awe and repentance in the whole day of Atonement, and then the Feast of Tabernacles. So there was a trumpet sound to, as an alarm to the people, to repent. That was the purpose of the trumpet sounding.

And that was on the very first day of the month. And it was reflective of the rescue that Abraham experienced when he was commanded to sacrifice his son and there there was a ram that was caught by his horn in the thicket and so they they take that imagery of the horn and they blow that trumpet as the beginning of repentance. God's kindness, God's mercy to come and rescue. And then On the tenth day, they celebrated the Day of Atonement. It's also called Yom Kippur.

This was the time when the priest would go in to the Holy of Holies. He was only allowed to do it one time of the year or he would die. He couldn't go whenever he wanted and he couldn't do whatever he wanted when he went in to the temple. And God was saying that man's sins are atoned for God's way, not man's way. The priest cannot do it any way he wants.

And so then Aaron would be completely, he would enter into the Holy of Holies completely clean after bathing and cleansing his garments. And he would offer a sacrifice for his own sins. And then he would take a scapegoat and he would lay his hands on the goat and he would symbolically transfer the sins of Israel onto the goat. And then he would send that goat off into the wilderness so that everyone would know that their sins had been atoned for through a sacrifice. It wasn't their own righteousness that caused their sins to be atoned for.

And that goat wandered off into the wilderness never to be found again to symbolize that your sins are put as far away from you as the east is from the west he puts them in the bottom of the ocean he wipes them out he nails them to the cross they know you are no longer accountable before God for your sins when you're atoned when your atonement is from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that's the new covenant application of it and so it's this whole matter of protection from God's wrath the propitiation of God's wrath through this through this blood sacrifice and You know Romans 5 9 speaks of the fact that since we've been justified by his blood How much more shall we be saved from God's wrath? Through Him or Hebrews 7 27 Christ is our sacrifice and there's no other that's needed and so he you know the the feast of or The Day of Atonement was about putting transgressions away forever, as symbolized by that goat just wandering off into nowhere, never to be seen, never to be found again. And then finally, the Feast of Tabernacles, which is really the central matter here.

You can read about this in Leviticus chapter 23 verse 24. And Moses gives instructions for the feast of Tabernacles. It began on the 15th day of the month. It was celebrating how God provided shelter for his people in the wilderness. In 40 years of wilderness wanderings, they camped.

They lived in tents. They were mobile. And the Feast of Tabernacles was to remind the people of how God took care of them when they lived in tents. And so on the first day, there was a holy convocation with no work, just like the Sabbath day, 1 and 7. And then it ends on the eighth day Where they set aside their work again But it's a time where where the children of Israel would come to Jerusalem and they would build Booths now if you lived in Jerusalem, you're instructed to build a booth build a build a shelter put a tent up on top of your house But whether you lived in Jerusalem or not, you were gonna live in tents that week You know, can you imagine how much the children love that?

This is like camping how many children how many children here hate camping don't raise your hands every child loves to go camping and You know the the families of Israel were charged to go and and live in live in a tent for a while How fantastic Wouldn't you love to do that? Oh my. You know, maybe some of you dads out here would be such cool dads and do such a thing even soon. You take your children camping. Well, they were camping during that week in order to proclaim that God took care of them even when they lived in tents while they were going through the howling wilderness and and So that was the whole imagery that was there and then the sacrifices for those eight days While they were living in tents were prescribed And there there were there was a morning and there was an evening offering.

And if you, we won't go there now, but if you go to Numbers 29 verses 12 through 28, you'll see how these, how every day was prescribed regarding the sacrifices that they made. And there was a prescription of bulls and rams and lambs, and there was a different mix each day. And that mix had meaning, and the families of Israel understood what that meant. You know, for example, on day one, on the 15th day of the seventh month, you shall have a holy convocation, you shall do no customary work, and you shall keep a feast to the Lord seven days you shall present a burnt offering an offering made by fire as a sweet aroma to the Lord 13 young bulls two rams 14 lambs in their first year they shall be without blemish and then he and then there's a grain offering their grain offering shall be of flour mixed with oil three tenths of an ephah for each now I read that just to say God prescribed what they were supposed to do in each day, all eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles. They're living in tents, they're coming, and the sacrifices change somewhat from day to day because God is prescribing How he wants them to worship.

Here's one thing I want us to remember They were twice a day morning and evening and This is this is this is reflected in in Psalm 1 Where David David speaks of morning and evening he he You know, they're they're famous books out there Charles purgeon has one called morning and evening You know why he named it morning and evening because of the morning and evening sacrifices the people of Israel. They are figurative for us That's why the Puritans Would argue that family should worship morning and evening In order to replicate not not as a not as a law that must be kept But just as The spirit of the law was that people would gather together to worship in the morning and the evening and they would do what God had prescribed. It's a good practice to worship both morning and evening in your family. I would just encourage you to do it and have that kind of a pattern. And so there are various places that you can see of this.

I'll just read Numbers 28 verse 4. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, the other lamb you shall offer in the evening. So they're the morning and evening offerings. Now why do all of this? Well, it was to celebrate God's protection of them in the howling wilderness.

It was to bring them to see the centrality of the sacrifice that was necessary for sin, that you needed a substitute. You couldn't be righteous on your own. You had to have a substitute. Something from outside of you has to come and take care of you. And that, in New Covenant terms, is Jesus Christ alone.

And you know, it's a picture of the gospel. It's a picture of the rejoicing that there is Because you know God's going to take care of you in the howling wilderness that you live in right now as you're kind of living in tents in this world where you're vulnerable to everything. And it's also, Matthew Henry said that it was for the purpose to to wean you from the world to to coax you from dependence on This world to move to move you away from your idolatrous Connection and love for this world, you know you you live you you live without a solid roof over your head, and you know that He is your protector. He's going to take care of you through the howling wilderness. And so that you should not trust too much in this world.

In your house, in your car, in your lifestyle, all the things of this world, all the sweet things, all of your family traditions, don't trust in those things. Trust in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice alone. He's really all you need. That's what the Feast of Tabernacles was proclaiming. So again, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1, interprets this for us as New Testament believers.

10.1, for the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they continually offer year by year, make those who approach perfect. So these sacrifices, these feasts, these seven feasts, they all point to Jesus Christ, and we don't do them anymore because Jesus Christ has fulfilled them all. Now before we leave the feasts in this context, I'd like to draw us to Colossians chapter 2 verses 15 through 17. Please move there. Please open your Bibles there.

Because people use this text to argue that the church no longer needs to keep the Sabbath on, you know, on one day a week. So verse 15 speaks of Jesus Christ having disarmed the principalities and powers. Then verse 16, so let no one judge you in food or in drink he's talking about the ceremonial food laws you're no longer bound to the ceremonial food laws and then he says or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths. Sabbaths, he's talking about the ceremonial Sabbaths, the seven Sabbaths that were connected with these feasts. New moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come but the substance is christ this is not a verse that you go to to say that the sabbath is abolished today he's talking about the new moon's sabbaths which is not connected to seven days a week It's not connected to a Gregorian calendar, it's different.

So just a note there about Sabbath. So these feasts and new moons were ceremonial law connected to the Old Testament Sacrificial system which were established by God in order to to bring the shadows of the gospel to his people So and Christ has replaced them now what do we say about this first point? He gathered them for feasting on the seventh month. When you're rebuilding your life, start with sin. Start with a sacrifice for sin.

And because it's good, It's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. You know, we don't want anybody to leave out of here today burdened, unduly burdened for their sins. You should be burdened for your sin because sin is tearing you apart. At the same time, God has given a sacrifice for sin. And it's a substitutionary atonement.

You didn't earn it. It was a substitute that was given for you and when your sins were transferred onto the body of Jesus Christ you're not held you're not held to them anymore You may suffer some of the consequences of them, but you're set free from the eternal consequences of them. Okay, number two, he gave them unity, verse one, as one man. He gathered together as one man. When God is reviving, He gives unity to His people.

And that's what's happening here. You know, when you pray for revival, you're also praying for the unity of God's people. And they gathered as one man. And we see this in the New Testament in Acts chapter 2 verse 1 they were they were all gathered in one accord in one place And in Acts chapter 2 there's a really interesting word that Luke uses to describe this one accord. It's really two words.

It's to rush along and in unison. It's like running together, you know. Have you ever run together with people? You know, it's such a blessing to run kind of in unison. And that's the picture that we have here.

In Philippians 2.2, we have the same expression. And it means one heart and one soul. And these hearts were moving unified in their desire to reestablish the altar of God, to come before Jesus, to come before Him as their sacrificial lamb, as their substitute. With one accord, they wanted that. They knew they needed that.

And who knows how many were there. But he was foreshadowing here the unity of the body of Christ, As Jesus Christ in his high priestly prayer prayed for him, that they may be one. And part of our unity is that we come together before the cross of Jesus Christ. We're going to do it in the Lord's Supper soon. We're going to come as one.

What binds us together? The cross of Jesus Christ. We might have some different opinions here, that doesn't make us disunified necessarily. But what makes us one is our trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That is what's going to make us one here in a few minutes when we celebrate the Lord's Supper.

So there's this fellowship of joy that's there. God revives the hearts of his people and he unites them. And then He gave them a heart to obey in verse two. Then Jeshua, the son of Josadak and his brother and the priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and his brother, arose and built the altar to the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses. That's the key phrase.

As it is written. In other words, you know, they built it according to specifications. Who was it? It was Yeshua and Zerubbabel, these two prominent leaders. What did they build?

They built an altar. They built an altar first. And how did they do it? They did it obediently. They did it according to the pattern that God had established.

And you know, this obedience, as it is written, is mentioned twice in this chapter and you know when when when you're in a church one of the Manifestations of Jesus being the center of that church is that you don't do your own thing You do things the way God has prescribed. That's what you care about. It's not your church It's his church and they built it according to the law of Moses and so they're gathering their families around what God wants It's they don't want to design a religion anymore. They had that by the way before the captivity. They had their design a religion and they didn't want that anymore and You know the Baptist confession Speaks of this I'll just read paragraph one because it really explains what was happening here.

Both the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men nor the suggestions of Satan under the any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the scriptures. And so, you know, our understanding of what they were doing here is what we need to do today, and that is to establish worship that is ordained by God, that is prescribed by God. And That's why we read the scriptures in this church. That's why we preach. That's why That's why we admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs Teaching and making melody with our hearts before the Lord.

This is why we baptized This is why we take Lord's Supper why Because God said this is what we should do. I hope if you come back here a hundred years from now and everybody around here is dead, that what you find are people are singing, they're reading, they're preaching, they're taking the Lord's Supper, And they're doing that because God prescribed it. So that's what was happening here. You know what it's all about? It's seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

It's pretty rough for us and for any church today. We live in a society where creativity is king and churches want to get so creative with everything rather than to draw people to prayer and singing and the reading of the Word of God. That's our that's the that's our attractional function And it doesn't seem all that attractive because you can get a lot cooler and hipper than that in this world, but the church should never do that. So they were, they wanted to recover right doctrine and right practice. And you know, churches should do the things that God has prescribed because it teaches them to love the things that he has prescribed.

It gives them affection for the things that he has ordained. And we shouldn't grow our affections on other things but on those things. You know, so when you're rebuilding your life, not only must you deal with sin and the centrality of the cross? You need to deal with obedience. Do you want the things that God has ordained?

And then number four, he caused one generation to reverse the trends of the previous generation. You see this in this phrase, Jeshua, the son of Josadak, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel. Now Zerubbabel's grandfather was an unfaithful man it was his name was johiachin and And Jeshua's grandfather was the high priest in the temple who was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar because of God did that God brought Nebuchadnezzar to to kill him because he was He was violating the worship of God. And what you find here is that unfaithfulness in one generation can give way to faithfulness. What a blessing.

God can break the pattern. You know what? Here's what I know about many of you. God has broken the pattern of your family. He really has.

He has broken the pattern. The grace of God has come. And life is really different for you than it was when you were growing up. You know, your dad, your mom, maybe like Zerubbabel and Jeshua's grandfathers, maybe you grew up in a home with all kinds of abuse and trouble and sin and people yelling and screaming at each other, abandoning one another. Maybe that's how you grew up.

Well guess what? There's always hope. And that's the hope that we see here. One generation reversed the trends of the previous. Praise God.

I know many of you are in that place. Thank the Lord, he's done that. But that's what we see here. And they wanted to obey the Lord. It was a new generation that wanted to obey the Lord.

They wanted to be precise in their worship. Hey, guess what? They didn't want a little bit of God. They wanted God. And they wanted everything that he desired.

And so They were drawn into the morning and the evening offerings. They wanted their whole lives to be bookended by the worship of God. And so that's what they did. Number five, he led them to prioritize the altar in their building. They arose and built the altar.

Now an altar always has to be built first before you can celebrate. And you know you can go back in the Bible and see there are lots of places, lots of people who built altars, and this is one of them, but they all they're all kind of connected. Adam and Cain and Abel and Noah and Joshua and Abraham and Jacob, they all built altars, And they all built altars for the same reason. They built altars for the same reason that God was establishing this altar here. Now this altar here was a brazen altar or a bronze altar where animals were sacrificed.

And so this altar was all about the sacrifice or sin. It was about substitutionary atonement. In other words, a substitute must die or you die, and die because of your sinfulness. And the people are acknowledging their sinfulness and their need for a substitute. This is one of the most important elements of church life, and I think that's why it comes in the first element of the sequence of rebuilding and that is that if the cross of Jesus Christ and repentance from sin is not central in a church, here's what you get.

You get two things. You get a prideful church of people who think they are just so spiritual. Because of the way they think, because of their doctrine, because of their family, because of whatever. If they don't understand that something needs to die in order that they might live. They'll be proud.

They'll always be so proud of themselves and their doctrine and their ways. But also it makes a fake church. Not just a proud church, but it makes a fake church because there's salvation only in Jesus Christ. And there's only one way to atone for sins, you know, because the Lord says If you've broken one law, you've broken them all. And the wrath of God is toward all ungodliness and unrighteousness of sin.

And God is going to destroy sin one way or another. He will either punish sin on the body of his son, or he'll punish sin for all eternity in hell. Those are the only two ways. And you have no righteousness of yourself. And you know, that's why the writer of Hebrews says it's good for that the heart be established by grace, not with foods, not with other things, but with Christ and with Christ alone.

Paul said in Ephesians 1 verse 7, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. That's what this altar was all about. It was all about redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so the burnt offerings were offered for that purpose because they had to deal with sin. Because when you're rebuilding your life, there's no real rebuilding unless you deal with sin first and to make a sacrifice is to make a confession a burnt sacrifice doesn't reflect very well on the person sacrificing it because it speaks of how terrible sin is that something must die and and so that this matter of burnt sacrifice is really critical you know I was reading I was reading John Owen last week about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And here's how he spoke of it. He said, that which is taken out of the way by Christ, sin, and nailed to his cross, made fast there, yes, publicly and legally cancelled sin, that it can never be admitted again as evidence. Never again admitted as evidence. What a miracle. That's why it's hard to accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

It's hard to realize that your past sins, even your present sins and your future sins, will not be admitted as evidence because of Jesus Christ. It's a mighty sacrifice. Paul said, he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us to the kingdom of the son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." And that's what this altar was all about. It was all about forgiveness of sins because of God's great sacrifice. Owen said this, the habitual righteousness of Christ as mediator in his human nature was the absolute complete exact conformity of the soul of Christ to the will, mind and law of God, of His perfect habitually inherent righteousness.

His habitual righteousness becomes yours. It's astonishing. But what we see from here is that when you're rebuilding your life, you must deal with sin. You must come to a cross. It's so good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.

And then number six, he used fear to drive them to worship verses 3 through 5. Through fear they had they had come though though fear had come upon them because of the people of these countries they set the altar on its basis and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord. Now even though fear came upon them they worshiped but the language in the King James version and the ESV is a little bit different and it really brings out the meaning a lot clearer than the New King James does. The ESV says, they set the altar in its place for fear was upon them. In other words, they did the sacrifices because of their fear.

Their fear drove them to sacrifice. Their fear drove them to the Lord. And I think that's so significant. They were afraid, and that's why they turned to God. I think that's why David said, when I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

And you know, worship is the only rational response to fear It's the way that God deals with your fears as you turn to him and worship a lot of times when we when we fear We obsess about what we fear and we itemize all the different ways we're in danger and and our fear just rises. We analyze we analyze the the trouble. We look into every corner of it instead of worshiping God And so we become fearful because we haven't allowed our fears to drive us to worship. David said, I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears." Well, this is a really critical thing. You know, Solomon said, the fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.

But you know, We have enemies around us, but we do have a friend in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. But what I love about this is that their fear drove them to worship. It drove them to make sacrifice. Now, they weren't paralyzed by fear, But here's something that always happens, and that is this. When you change worship, you're in danger.

When you start doing things that are a departure from your common culture. Now remember, they were departing from the culture. They were going back to what was biblical. Anybody who has ever been involved in working for the return of biblical patterns to the church knows this kind of fear because there are people who despise worship that's directly regulated by God and they want to do their own thing they want flexibility they do not want standards imposed upon them They want to incorporate whatever things of the world that they think might be blessings into their worship and into their lives. And they're way more comfortable with a comfortable Christianity.

They don't want to come, they don't want to un-come under God's authority in worship. And when you do that, you always have problems. And they did have problems. And fear came upon them. The devil hates people who want to obey God.

And by the way, the devil hates the cross. He hates repentance. He hates forgiveness. He hates the freedom that Jesus Christ brings. He hates the joy of the Lord that comes from obedience.

And so the devil's going to rise up whenever anybody wants to start to regulate worship according to the word of God. And they're going to call you legalistic. But here, these people experience that fear. Now where did the opposition come from? Wait until chapter 6.

We'll see it. And by the way, it came from the people who had rejected the biblical patterns. It came from the Samaritans. It came from people who were inventing their own worship in Samaria and who had mixed the ways of the Gentiles into their worship. That's where it came from.

We'll get a way more detailed explanation of that when we get to chapter six. But what they did is what you should always do when you fear that kind of fear, always abound in the work of the Lord. That's what the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 15.