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Go Up to Jerusalem

  • | Chris McCann
  • Audio: Length: 1:07:19 Size: 11.6 MB

Please turn to Ezra 1. Ezra is the book that comes after 1st and 2nd Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles 36 ends with a lead-in to the book of Ezra. The first several verses that we read in Ezra are very similar to the ending of 2 Chronicles 36. We read in Ezra 1:1-6:

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of JEHOVAH by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, JEHOVAH stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, JEHOVAH God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of JEHOVAH God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of JEHOVAH which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.

I will stop reading there.

This chapter, especially, is dealing with the end of the 70-year period of Israel’s time of bondage, their time of tribulation, as God raised up the Babylonians, headed by King Nebuchadnezzar, to destroy Judah, to destroy Jerusalem, and to bring the Jews into captivity into Babylon. This is what happened.

Cyrus was a king of the Medes and the Persians and he is the one who then conquered Babylon. We read about this in the book of Daniel. In Daniel 5, we read of a king who saw the handwriting on the wall. Daniel was called to interpret it. When he did interpret it, it was statements that God had given pronouncing the judgment and condemnation of Babylon and stating that they would be destroyed. Actually, this very night, after Daniel did, by God’s grace and God’s wisdom, interpret the writing on the wall, the king of Babylon was slain and the Medes and the Persians took this kingdom.

It is interesting that this took place in this king’s first year, as we read in Daniel 9:1:

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus…

This reference to Darius is really referring to Cyrus. They are one and the same. There are not two different kings of Persia that are in view here. Later on, there will be additional kings whom the Bible speaks about; but it says in Daniel 5:30-31:

In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

So this is the Darius that Daniel is referring to in Daniel 9:1. Daniel goes on to say in Daniel 9:2 that he then understood the 70 years that Jeremiah the prophet had written about.

Why did Daniel understand this? He understood because it was the end of the Babylonian captivity and Jeremiah had written that they would be in this predicament for 70 years.

So now, Cyrus, or Darius as he is also known, comes along. In his first year, he gives a decree. He makes a proclamation that Israel is to be set free. They can leave their bondage. They can actually leave Babylon and return to the land of Judah. Not only this, not only did he set them free, but he commands them to build the house of God, to raise up the house that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Even more than this, he gives them treasures of gold and silver and goods in order that they can accomplish this and build the house of God.

At the end of Daniel 6, which is the chapter where this same Cyrus or Darius cast Daniel into the lion’s den, we read in Daniel 6:28:

So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Instead of the word “and,” this should have been translated “even.” This makes a difference:

So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, [even] in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

That is, they were one and the same. They were not two kings by two different names. This was referring to one king. It could be that Darius was a title, like Pharaoh or Caesar. However the Lord willed, He could call him Cyrus or He could call him Darius, but He was still speaking about the same person.

So we can see that Cyrus was very favorable to the Jews. For example, just look at what happened with the prophet Daniel. The king knew that Daniel was a good man. The king knew that Daniel was a faithful man because he had already set him over 120 princes. Of the three presidents, Daniel was one. Daniel was actually the chief president over all of the leaders of Babylon and over all of the provinces of the Medes and the Persians. Daniel was very much appreciated by the king of the Medes and the Persians. Daniel was even more so after being thrown into the lion’s pit and not being devoured by the lions when God had shut their mouths for that whole night. If you read the last few verses of Daniel 6, you will see the impression that this made upon this king.

Even more than all of this, I think that Cyrus was favorable to the Jews because of what we read in the last verse of Isaiah 44. Isaiah 44:28 says:

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

So God called Cyrus His shepherd. Whom else does God call His shepherd in the Bible? Who else is a shepherd? The Lord Jesus is called “the good shepherd” in the Gospel of John. Here God is speaking of Cyrus, a heathen king, and He is saying, “Cyrus is my shepherd.”

Look at the very next verse at the beginning of the next chapter. We read in Isaiah 45:1:

Thus saith JEHOVAH to his anointed, to Cyrus…

This word “anointed” is translated “Messiah” twice in the book of Daniel where we read about the 70 weeks of Daniel 9.

So God is using this very same word that He uses of the Lord Jesus—the Messiah, the Saviour—to describe Cyrus. Cyrus is His anointed. Here God is just using the name of Cyrus, but He has in view Christ.

This is like other times when the Lord speaks of David and the language can only fit the Lord Jesus Christ. God even calls David His shepherd, “my servant David…he shall be their shepherd,” and yet David was long gone when this comment was made in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel had been a contemporary of Daniel’s. David had lived hundreds of years earlier, but God referred to David because He was actually pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. So God calls Christ “David” and He calls Him “Cyrus.”

We can be sure that Daniel or Ezekiel, who were in Babylon, or some other believer, would have gone to Cyrus at some point; but Daniel had the most access. Daniel was already looked upon favorably, and so he could have pointed out some verses in the book of Isaiah that were written at least 147 years earlier than when Cyrus had actually taken the kingdom. The last king whom Isaiah prophesied under had been Hezekiah. Isaiah prophesied “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Hezekiah died in 686 B.C. When Cyrus took the kingdom, it was 539 B.C.

This means that over 147 years earlier, God had written down the name of Cyrus. By the way, this is something that we just take for granted. We think, “Well, of course. God is God and He can do this.” Yes, but He had made a very specific prophecy in Isaiah concerning a king named Cyrus who would make a proclamation that His temple be built, and He fulfilled it.

We always need to relate these studies to May 21, 2011, because time is so short. This, therefore, constantly has to be our focus. But a lot of people say, “There have been a lot of date setters in the past and not one of them has ever been right.” But this is false. This is false. There have been dates set that were correct when God set them and then fulfilled them.

God set a date for the flood, did He not? He set a date. Then He told Noah that it would be “an hundred and twenty years,” and it was. Then He more specifically told Noah, “For yet seven days,” which was a very precise date for the year, month, and day, just like we know about May 21, 2011. God sets dates and then He fulfills them. So if anyone ever says to you, “No one has ever been right before,” you can say, “Yes, they have.”

God also spoke through Moses and Aaron when He told the Pharaoh directly, “Tomorrow at this time, shall this thing be.” He then brought one of the plagues on Egypt. The next day at that time was that thing; that plague did take place. God has always, always fulfilled His Word.

Daniel 9 is another example of a time path. People say that time paths are not Biblical. They are not? Then what are the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 that have a start date and are projected into the future by God to the coming Messiah? Was this not a time path? Was this not a Biblical time path? Yes, it was and God fulfilled it precisely. It can be shown from Daniel 9 that the Lord gave these weeks.

I am sure that you have read or heard of Mr. Camping’s book, 70 Weeks of Daniel Nine. This book shows how precise God was to the very year that Christ would be baptized and to the very year that He would be crucified. It was an exact date and an exact time path that came right from the Bible and it was correct.

People like to bring up all of the other date setters who were not correct, but the vast majority of these people were not even true believers. So what does this have to do with them? If the Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not have the right Gospel set a date, how does this somehow affect the true believers who are following God’s methodology and who worship Christ as Savior? How does this relate to the true believers?

It is true that of all of the many dates that people like to refer to, there have probably been a handful that were made by true believers who were very serious about this and who tried to indicate a date but were incorrect. We know why this was. It was because God sealed up the Word till the time of the end. He is now unsealing it and He is revealing to us His plan.

All though Biblical history, it has been a Biblical pattern and a Biblical principle that prior to judgment, God will warn His servants: He will warn His people. If He did this with Sodom and Gomorrah, which was a city of tens of thousands or maybe a couple hundred thousand including the cities of the plain, and if He did this with the world prior to the flood of Noah’s day, which was a handful of a million people, and Jesus refers to these two judgments as a type and an example of His own return, would God not take care to warn a world of nearly seven billion? If He was so concerned and considerate of the Ninevites, which were one hundred and twenty thousand, would He not be far more concerned to warn a world of seven billion people?

It makes no sense to see this Biblical pattern in the Bible where God repeatedly forewarns His people and then to think that at the great judgment of all judgments, the end of the world, He would not follow suit and mercifully warn His people. Actually, He has. He has done this.

Let us go back to Ezra 1. The 70-year period of the Babylonian captivity is in view. Actually, it is the end of the 70 years, and this 70-year period typified what? It typified the Great Tribulation.

There are a few figures that typify the Great Tribulation. The 70 years from 609 to 539 B.C. is one. The 23-year period, inclusively, from 609 to 587 B.C. when God destroyed the temple is another. The seven years of Joseph’s famine is another type, because God said that this was great tribulation in Acts 7 when bringing up the famine in that chapter. The seven months that the Ark was in the hands of the Philistines is another figure. And the 70 years here is typifying the end of the Great Tribulation.

What comes at the end of the Great Tribulation? When is the end of the Great Tribulation? It began on May 21, 1988. It goes 23 years to May 21, 2011, which is an even and full 23-year period that is also 8400 days. And the number 84 is related to the Great Tribulation. If you look at the seven-year famine in Jacob and Joseph’s day, 7 x 12 is 84 months. If you look at 70 years x 12 months per year, it is 840 months. The three and a half days that the two witnesses are lying dead in the street is equal to 84 hours.

We see the number 84 over and over again, 84, 84, 84, and it relates to the Great Tribulation. God has perfectly worked out this timeline so that the 23rd year, which concludes next May 21, is also the exact 8400th day. This is just more infallible proof that can go along with the many other things that we have learned about in relation to how God has locked this in and confirmed this.

So Ezra 1 is an historical chapter where Cyrus is the king of Persia who says that the Lord has blessed him and given him a tremendous kingdom, and this is true of Christ. Then Cyrus issues the proclamation, “Go up. Go up to Jerusalem.”

Cyrus does not say, “Be raptured.” He does not say this, but then the Bible does not say this either. God does not even say in 1 Thessalonians 4 that when the Lord comes, He will “rapture” His people; so what kind of language does God use concerning the rapture? What is the Biblical language concerning the rapture?

1 Thessalonians 4:17 says:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air…

God uses the term “caught up.” This is a very simple term. This is not a theological term. This is just what God intends to do very literally. He plans to take His people up.

Where are they going? Where are we going? Are we going to Heaven? What is another way that God speaks of this? He refers to it as Heaven, but what else does He call it?

God really refers to it in some cases as Jerusalem, as the Promised Land. The Promised Land has to do with God’s promise to Abraham that He would give him the land for an “everlasting possession.”

Was God referring to the land in the Middle East? Does anyone want to dwell there everlastingly? Does anyone even want to go there at this time for a weekend vacation?

No, no one wants to go there because there is so much trouble there; and God is not going to give any piece of this earth as an “everlasting possession” because the earth is going to burn and melt with a “fervent heat.” It is not going to be just 99% of the earth, leaving this strip of land over in the Middle East for people to dwell on forevermore. This is going to burn, too. This is also going to be destroyed.

The promise to Abraham was not for a physical land, but what the land represented, what the land typified, which is Heaven itself. Heaven is our “everlasting possession,” the new earth, which Canaan represented, where God’s people will dwell forevermore and live forevermore.

So Cyrus, who is clearly a figure of Christ, at the end of the 70 years issues a proclamation, “Now you Jews, go up. Go up to Jerusalem and build the temple.”

Look also at Revelation 11:12:

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

Again, this is very simple language, “Come up.” This is all God has to say. He does not even have to say this out loud; but for our sakes, He does, “You, you, you, and you, come up, My elect people. It is time for Me, the husbandman, to gather the precious fruit of the earth,” and so He grabs us under His wings and we go up, all of His people who are alive at the time of the rapture.

By the way, the only difference between the word “rapture” and the word “resurrection” depends on whether you are living or dead. This is because the dead also go up. Once God gives them a new resurrected body, they also go up. If you happen to be alive at this time, the theological term that was coined is “rapture,” but you go up, too. All of God’s people go up and their enemies behold them.

The only way that the enemies of God can behold those being raptured is if they are left behind, and so they do not go up. They are not gathered, which is similar to what we read about several times in the book of Jeremiah. They are not gathered as “precious fruit.” They are the bad figs. They are the “evil fruit.” They give forth a stench, and so they are not collected. They are not gathered by God. He simply leaves them. The unsaved dead are left on the face of the ground, littering the earth. Those who are still alive but spiritually dead are also left behind for the five-month period.

But here in Ezra 1, we have God using a true historical happening to describe in chapter one of this book the ascension of those exiled, the going up of the people of God into Heaven immediately following the Great Tribulation. This will happen on May 21 of next year.

Yes, but why does it say in Ezra 1:3:

Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of JEHOVAH God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.

If this is truly picturing the rapture, why are they going up to build a house? Why would people go into Heaven to build? Does this make sense? What is God saying with this? I hope that some of you looked into this. I encouraged everyone last week to look up the word “build” in the Bible to see what you would find.

Let us go to Ezekiel 28:25:

Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered…

Where are God’s elect found? They are found everywhere in the world across the face of the earth.

It continues:

…and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen…

What did Revelation 11 say? It said that “their enemies beheld them.”

Ezekiel 28:25 continues:

…then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.

If you remember in Ezekiel 37, which is the chapter that deals with dry bones, we read in Ezekiel 37:11-13:

Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am JEHOVAH, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,

He will bring people up out of the graves and into the land of Israel, into the land that God speaks of as Israel or Jerusalem or Judah. He uses these as figures of going into Heaven.

At the time that God opens up the graves, is anyone going to then be translated into the Middle East? No, this is foolish. “The whole house of Israel” is a reference to the whole of God’s elect, which is probably 200 million who will be taken “into the land,” into the “everlasting possession” of the Kingdom of God.

But when God’s people are raptured next May 21, 2011, is God going to create a new Heaven and a new earth right then? No, He cannot because this world will still be here for five months.

This is why we read in Revelation 7 about a “great multitude” that suddenly appears in Heaven. God wants to emphasize this, and so He has the question asked, “Whence came they?” His response is, “These are they which came out of great tribulation.” Then it says that they “serve him day and night in his temple.”

But I thought that there was no time in Heaven. It is supposed to be an eternity without day and night. Well, for five months, there is still time. For five months on the earth after the “great multitude” are taken up out of the world on May 21, the sun in the sky will be shining. There will still be time for five months.

We will not turn there, but we can read of this in other places, like in the book of Job where people are entering into Heaven and time references, such as day and so forth, are given because there is still time on earth. Therefore, this is a legitimate thing that God can say. However, on October 21, God will destroy the world and the universe and all of the unsaved. Then there will be no more time. Then God’s people will dwell in eternity and we would never read of a time reference again because of this.

Back in Ezekiel 28:25, it concludes:

…then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.

This is referring to Heaven, the new Heaven and the new earth.

Then we read in Ezekiel 28:26:

And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am JEHOVAH their God.

This is referring to building houses in Heaven. Does this sound familiar? Can you think of another passage where houses are being built and it can be referring to nothing other than Heaven?

Look at Isaiah 65. There is no mistaking this. Isaiah 65:17-18 says:

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

This is what Cyrus said, “Go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.” God is saying, “I create new heavens and a new earth.” In other words, “I create Jerusalem.”

In the book of Revelation, what came down “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”? It was the “new Jerusalem” that was composed of living stones. This is what Peter says. We are “lively stones” or living people.

All throughout time and yet very slowly for thousands of years, God saved this one and added them to His city. Then God saved another one and did the same thing. Now at the end and in a glorious way, He is going to finish and save more in these last few years than He has all throughout history. This is the “great multitude.” Upon salvation, all of them are added as living stones in a beautiful house. These are those whom He refers to as His Bride, but He also identifies them as “new Jerusalem.”

In Hebrews 3, there is a statement made. Look at Hebrews 3:4:

For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.

Now look at verse 6, Hebrews 3:6:

But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we…

We are the house of God: “we,” not everyone, not every human being, but God’s people. We are His chosen.

What does He call His people? How does He even identify them in some places? He calls them “the Israel of God”; and Cyrus is making a proclamation to the Jews, “go up…and build the house.”

Spiritually, this is referring to the rapture, the ascension of the exiles, as all of God’s people are cast out. We are not in the churches. We are not in Babylon. We are set free from Babylon, and now God is going to gather His chosen ones and save them.

Let us go back to Isaiah 65. We read in Isaiah 65:19-21:

And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.

This is referring to the new Heaven and the new earth, but we do not have to take this literally. We are not going up into Heaven and being given a hammer and nails as soon as we get there. This is not what God has in mind. He actually uses the reverse language to teach something very important about this world and about the curse of sin upon this world. He says in Deuteronomy, as well as in other places, “thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.”

This is because this is the nature of this world. Nothing that we do lasts. It is literally building castles in the sand. We laugh at children when they go to the beach and spend a long time building something when very shortly, maybe not that day, maybe the next day, a wave comes in and it is all gone.

This is a good analogy of your life and my life and the life of every single person. This is because no matter what you are working for or striving towards, you are going to lose it. This is guaranteed.

Yes, it is difficult realizing that we have less than a year left, but what is going to happen May 21 of next year is guaranteed to happen to you if the world were to continue indefinitely. This is guaranteed to happen to you and to me and to every single human being.

If you have a family, you are going to lose them. They are going to die. If you have property, eventually, maybe not you, but a child of yours will lose the property. If you have money, it can buy things but those things will not last.

We are all guaranteed a miserable end if we go after this world. This is why God tells us not to be taken in by the world with all of its beauty and glamour and what it appears to promise. It is all a big, fat lie. There is nothing in this world that is worth anything more than the bowl of porridge that Esau sold his birthright for. You are selling yours yourself if you think that you are going to continue in this world and if you are going after the things of this life and not paying any attention to May 21 of 2011.

People think, “I can just ignore this and it will just go away, because it is not true.” It is not? What do they base this on? Upon what do they base their statement that this is not going to happen, that this is not going to take place? What is this based upon? Is it based upon their own feelings or their own understanding? Who are they? Who is anyone who says, “No, I know better. I know better than God. I will see you on May 22nd.”

Okay, that is their prophecy. But God’s prophecy from the Bible, which comes from the infinite and eternal mind of God, is that they may indeed be here on May 22nd. If they are, they are going to see a world that will be very different than the world that they see today, very different than the world that has ever been. At that time, their jobs will be worthless. Their family relationships—their relationship with their husband or with their wife or with their children—all of this will be meaningless because they will know that there is an end. The earthquake will have happened and God will have taken His people. Maybe they will live for another five months, but that will be it. That will be it. That will be all there is.

Some people go along with their own thinking or with the thinking of their friends, with the opinion of the crowd, with those who smirk and lift their eyebrows, with those who do this kind of thing and ask, “You mean that you actually believe this?” But is this kind of statement alone enough to dissuade you from everlasting life? Are you really going to follow the opinion of a few friends who have no more intelligence than you?

Well, let us return to Ezra 1. We read again in Ezra 1:5-6:

Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of JEHOVAH which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.

This should remind us of something. This is very similar to the exodus. Do you remember the exodus after God had brought those plagues upon Egypt? We read in Exodus 12:35-36:

And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: And JEHOVAH gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

Here in Exodus when Israel was leaving, God gave the Israelites favor in the sight of the Egyptian people who then gave them their gold, silver, and other goods. Their attitude toward the Israelites was probably, “Get out of here. Leave us. Please, go quickly,” because God had basically destroyed the greatest empire upon the face of the earth over the course of these plagues.

The leaving of Egypt, in a sense, was a picture of salvation, yes; but since it was a mass of Israelites, hundreds of thousands of people, it could also typify God’s people leaving this world, and they were given gold and silver and precious things.

This was just like when the Jews found favor in their provinces once Cyrus came into power and they also gave the Jewish people gold and silver and beasts. This points to the victory that God’s people win at the end of time and that God gets Himself victory. He will prevail.

This is as we read in the book of Genesis. After Noah and his family went into the ark and God shut the door, which represents May 21, then “the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth…fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” This is referring to the Word of God, the Gospel, which is victorious. It will be shown to be victorious for the five months, as all of the people left behind will realize that the Word of God was true and that all that they heard about this was true.

Remember also when Jehoshaphat led his army to “the watch tower in the wilderness” as the enemy was coming against them, this was a figure of the battle of Armageddon at the end of time. They ended up killing themselves. When Judah got there and saw all of the dead bodies, they did not have to fight in the battle. Instead, they went and they gathered the spoil, because this was what God was picturing for His people, the spoil of a new earth. We read that “the meek shall inherit the earth,” but not this earth, the new earth. This is the victory that God has in view and this is why they were given gold and silver and precious things.

Then Ezra 1:7-11 says:

Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of JEHOVAH, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives, Thirty basins of gold, silver basins of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand. All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jerusalem.

We know that gold and silver can typify believers if we look at Zechariah 13. We read in Zechariah 13:8-9:

And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith JEHOVAH, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, JEHOVAH is my God.

Here God likens gold and silver that goes through the fire as being His people.

So in Ezra 1, Cyrus makes a proclamation. He gathers the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had taken away. In a sense, he is freeing them also to return to where they belong, which is back to Jerusalem and, ultimately, back to the temple of God.

Look at 1 Corinthians 3, which kind of brings these two ideas of building and gold and silver together. We read in 1 Corinthians 3:9:

For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry…

Again, this points to God using this picture of us being like fruit.

ye are God’s building.

This is another picture that God uses, as we read earlier, “whose house are we.”

It continues in 1 Corinthians 3:10-13:

According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Gold, silver, and precious stones make it through the fire and are actually purified. Wood, hay, and stubble will not make it through the fire. These are going to be burned up.

So God is here referring to the day of fire that shall reveal the kind of work that you and I are. Are we “gold, silver, precious stones” or are we “wood, hay, stubble”? Are we “wheat” or are we “tares”? Are we “sheep” or are we “goats”?

What day is going to reveal this? May 21 of next year will ultimately and finally reveal this because the “gold, silver, precious stones” will be taken up and the “wood, hay, stubble” will be left behind.

God speaks of the “day of judgment” as a single day, but it is a five-month period concluding on October 21 with the “lake of fire.” It is in the “lake of fire” that everything that God created—the world, the universe, and all of the unsaved who are left behind—are cast into. But this fire actually begins, in a spiritual sense but also in a very real way, on May 21, which is the day that will determine that anyone left behind will be guaranteed to finally burn.

This is what is in view in Ezra 1. King Cyrus is a type of Christ and he has taken the vessels out of the temple of Babylon. It was like he was translating them out of the kingdom of darkness and “into the kingdom of his dear Son.”

Ezra is a book that gets into a lot of numbers. Did you know that critics and skeptics of the Bible—enemies, really, of God and of the Bible; because if you are enemy of the Bible, you are an enemy of God—like to go to the book of Ezra because there are numbers there that do not match up with another account in the book of Nehemiah?

Ezra 2 gets into this. We are not going to read this today, but it lists 42 people groups besides Zerubbabel and the men who came up with him. Forty-two groups of people are listed. But over in Nehemiah where it says that he “found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first,” he lays out the same list and there are only 40 groups mentioned there. There are numerous apparent contradictions or discrepancies from the list in Ezra compared to the list in Nehemiah.

I used to work as a counselor in an alcohol and drug rehab center. One of the counselors was a psychiatrist whom we all ultimately reported to. At this time, I was just getting into the Bible and I think that I had let it be known that I had wanted to go to seminary in order to become a Christian counselor. He knew that I read the Bible, and so one day he said to me, “You know that you cannot trust the Bible; it is full of errors.” At the time, I really did not know what to say. I knew that this was not true and that this was not correct, but he made this statement and he probably did so because he might have been familiar with the book of Ezra. Ezra is a book that skeptics often go to in order to try to show that the Bible is not correct.

We read something in Ezra 1:7-11 and I am wondering if anyone noticed any problem in what we read about the gold and silver? God numbered them, did He not? He said in Ezra 1:8:

Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar…

Then we read in Ezra 1:9:

And this is the number of them: thirty chargers of gold…

I will not read all of this again at this time, but if you add up verses 9 and 10, it comes to 2,499, as far as the count that God gives. But if you look at Ezra 1:11, it says:

All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred…

There is a difference here of 2,901. One reason that God did this was because the number 2,499 breaks down into 3 x 7 x 7 x 17. We have been seeing that this has to do with the rapture. Number 3 represents that this is God’s purpose. Then He doubles up the number 7. This means that it is His purpose that when we come to the end, He will make His people perfect, as the number 7 deals with perfection; and that they will go up to Heaven, represented by the number 17. For God’s own purposes, He counted out all of the vessels that were in the house of the Babylonian gods that Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem; and so there is also the number 5,400.

But this is what is claimed by those who go to the Bible superficially and who just read the surface meaning or the plain and literal meaning of the Bible. Actually, some of them can be more thorough, but these are people who are really looking for errors in the Bible. However, God’s people realize that there are no errors. There are no mistakes. There are no real contradictions. There are apparent contradictions, but there are no actual contradictions. If these people are in the church and they are skeptics, they say that there was a scribal error. If they are in the world, they just say that we cannot trust the Bible.

The answer is that there were 2,499 pieces of gold and silver that came out of the house of the Babylonian gods that Nebuchadnezzar had removed from Jerusalem. But we read earlier about the people of the provinces, the people who were in other places, when God, through Cyrus, issued a proclamation, “Go up and let the men of your place help you with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts.” This is where the other pieces of gold and silver came from. It was not counted out, but it was there. These men also returned with Zerubbabel and Jeshua and with the exiles who were leaving Babylon. These all went back to Jerusalem, and so the total number of silver and gold was 5,400.

It is really very simple and, normally, a lot of contradictions are. Let us just look at one that you may be familiar with. 2 Samuel 24 is a chapter that deals with David numbering Israel. Normally when we understand how God wrote the Bible and that it is perfect without error and without mistake, then we are led to check deeper and further to try to come up with answers. But if someone just does not want to believe the Bible, then they are satisfied with these kinds of statements.

We read in 2 Samuel 24:8:

So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

This is speaking of Joab who David had ordered to number the people. Then we read in 2 Samuel 24:9:

And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

Compare this to 1 Chronicles 21:5:

And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men…

This would be 1,100,000 men. It continues:

…that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.

Do you see any difference? If you would read earlier in this chapter, you would see that this is the same exact historical situation. This is the result of Joab going to number the people.

What was the difference between the number of Israel and Judah? In 2 Samuel 24, God numbers Israel at 800,000 men and Judah at 500,000 men. Here in 1 Chronicles 21, He is numbering Israel at 1,100,000 men or 300,000 more, and He is numbering Judah at 470,000 men or 30,000 less. Actually, this is interesting because it was 300,000 more of Israel and 30,000 less of Judah, and both indicate the numbers 3 and 10 or God’s purpose (3) regarding completeness (10) of whatever is in view. I do not fully know what is in view here, but we do see this number.

So is there a mistake? Is there an error? What do you think? No, there is no mistake. Actually, when we learn and understand what God did here, we stand impressed. We actually begin to respect the Bible as it ought to be, which is as the perfect document that it is and that it is without error.

Look at 1 Chronicles 27:23-24:

But David took not the number of them from twenty years old and under: because JEHOVAH had said he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens. Joab the son of Zeruiah began to number, but he finished not, because there fell wrath for it against Israel; neither was the number put in the account of the chronicles of king David.

And this had the lesser number of Judah. There were 470,000 in the account of 1 Chronicles. There were 500,000 in the account of 2 Samuel 24. What happened? What went wrong?

Yes, this pointed to David’s pride because he wanted to number Israel. But a further mistake that David made was giving the task to Joab, that evil man. We read a lot about him in the Bible. He was a very wicked man. Even though he sounded holy as he was talking to David when he had asked him why he wanted to number Israel and then he brought up God, he was a wicked man who did not hesitate to stab someone beneath the fifth rib. We can read a lot about Joab in the Bible and his deceitfulness.

So as Joab was numbering, he did something very wrong. He included in his number young men who were beneath the age of twenty. In the military draft system in our country, one has to be eighteen. An individual who is under this age cannot be drafted into the military.

God also had a law, if you remember. In the wilderness, they counted the men “twenty years old and above.” Beneath twenty, they were not counted. I guess that the Lord still looks at them as young people or even children; I am not sure why.

The key reference is found when you read these numbers and it mentions “men that drew the sword.” “Drew the sword” is a reference that means that they are old enough to pull a sword and to fight in a war.

In the other account in 1 Chronicles 21:5, we read:

…and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.

This is saying that there were 470,000 men who were twenty years old or above. But 2 Samuel 24:9 says:

…and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

This does not men that they “drew the sword.” They did not draw the sword because Joab included 30,000 young people. Joab included 30,000 under the age of twenty, and wrath fell because of it.

There was a lot wrapped up in this sin, including David’s pride; however, he did take nine months and twenty days to do this. All along, Joab was numbering the people. If God had wanted to make a point about David’s pride, He could have done this at an earlier date. But Joab began to do wickedly and to do something unbiblical, something that God did not like. He was counting the teenagers of Judah and this was wrong, and so this number was not put into the account.

And now we see the accuracy, the exactness, the precision of the Word of God, even with a term like “drew the sword” in relation to how many did and how many did not. In 1 Chronicles 27, God perfectly explains this.

Was there a contradiction or was there a failure on our part to know enough about the Bible? It was a failure on our part. We did not fully understand what God was doing.

Lord willing, next week, we will look a little bit more at David’s command to number, because there are seemingly other contradictions there. Then we will go back to Ezra and Nehemiah in comparing them. Please read Ezra and Nehemiah.

If we go back to Ezra, I will just show you one thing and then we will close. In Ezra 2, from really the first verse until about verse 60, numbers are given. In Ezra when you add up all of the people who are mentioned, it comes to 29,818. In Nehemiah when you add them all up, it comes to 31,000+, and so there is an apparent discrepancy there.

But more than this, look at Ezra 2:64:

The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore,

So this is 42,360. Where did this number come from? God gave us all of the numbers; but when we add them up, it seems to be about 12,000 short from the total.

This one is easy, and so we will just finish with this. If we look at Ezra 2:2, it says in the last part of the verse:

…The number of the men of the people of Israel:

Then in Ezra 2:64, it says:

The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore,

Was there any difference? What did God do? God does this in order to let people go their own way. If anyone wants to turn their back on the Bible, they can read these verses and then they can turn away from God and turn towards the world. At least to themselves, they believe that they can be confident that they do not have to worry about May 21 or about anything that a booklet says, because there are errors in the Bible.

Well, God is the One who wrote the Bible this way in order to allow this and to even foster this. Of course, not one of His elect would ever dare do this because we understand how God wrote the Bible. The Bible is one big test throughout. All the way through the Bible, it is a severe test for man. Do we believe it? God tells us, “Trust in JEHOVAH with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Trust Him. Trust His Word.

Do you know the answer in relation to these two verses that we just looked at? The last part of Ezra 2:2 says:

…The number of the men of the people of Israel:

And Ezra 2:64 says:

The whole congregation together…

The answer is pretty obvious. In Ezra 2:2, He only counted the men. There were 29,818 men, but there were also the women, the wives and the children, or “the whole congregation.”

The thing that we really have to try to solve, by God’s grace, is how can there be different numbers in Nehemiah from Ezra when he came up with over 31,000 men and it says there that Nehemiah counted the men also. So this is the real question, but the number of the whole congregation is the same identical number in both books. It is 42,000+, and so this is exact and correct; it is just that this number includes the women and children.

Some people have commented, “You have so many men but very few women.” Yes, this is true, but remember that this was a perilous journey. This journey took Ezra several months to leave Babylon. He left on the “first day of the first month” and he got there on “first day of the fifth month.”

This was a perilous time. Jerusalem had no walls about them, and so they had no protection, no safety. I can see many men saying to their wives, “I am going to go up and work hard and it is no place for a woman.”

Of course, today, this statement might be problematic. But for most of history, this was the thinking of the world. This was no place for a woman. It was a dangerous time for a woman to go without any security, and yet some women did. This might also possibly explain why later in the book of Ezra that the men get into trouble because they married foreign wives. They were looking at the women of the land because there were probably not enough women who had gone to Jerusalem.

We will stop here.