Sun.’s Devo The Exiled Rebuild the Altar

Read: Ezra 3:1-4:23; 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4; Psalm 28:1-9; Provers 20:24-25 The first thing the Israelites did when they returned to Jerusalem was to rebuild the altar and begin sacrificing on it. They celebrated their first Jewish feast which was Feast of Tabernacles meaning that God was now dwelling with them on earth. They began the other sacrifices in the morning and evening even though they were afraid of the local residents. They trusted in God and he kept them safe. *** When they got ready to lay the foundation for the Temple, they hired masons and carpenters from Tyre just as Solomon had. They had logs floated from Lebanon all sanctioned by Cyrus. They began construction in the seventh month which was the month of Passover. The priests and their families worked to rebuild the temple. When they had completed the foundation they blew the trumpets and shouted for joy. The priests who had seen the old Temple cried because the foundation was so much smaller than Solomon’s Temple, but the new generation shouted for joy. *** The enemies of Judah and Benjamin got news that the exiles had returned to build the Temple and they came to Zerubbabel and the other leaders and asked if they could help them. Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the other leaders told them they could not help knowing what was in their heart. They were evil and only had evil intent. These men hired people to work against the builders and frustrate their plans. *** When Cyrus died, Xerxes came to the throne. Israel’s enemies wrote a letter to him accusing the people of Israel of treason. When nothing came of it, they sent another letter. In it they described the Jews as rebellious people who were building an evil city. They had already laid the foundation and were working on the walls. If they completed it, they would not pay taxes to him any longer. Since they didn’t want to see the king dishonored, they recommended that he search into their past records about Jerusalem. It had been destroyed because it had revolted against them in the past. If he allowed this city to be rebuilt, he would lose the land west of the Euphrates River. *** King Xerxes did do a research into the past records and found that Jerusalem had been a hot bed of insurrection and trouble so he ordered that the work on the Temple be stopped immediately. *** The enemies of God took their reply from Xerxes immediately to the workers in Jerusalem and forced them to stop their work. *** Paul went to great lengths to show how God’s plan had been hidden from the world until then. His plan could not be understood with logic or man’s wisdom. It had to take the Spirit of God to reveal it to their hearts and mind. Paul rebuked them for still being babies in Christ. They were still babies because they were still controlled by their sinful nature. They were jealous of one another and still argued and quarreled among themselves. Because they refused to mature, he couldn’t feed them the meat of God’s Word. *** Lord, I pray that your body would mature that we might be abl