Ezra 3:1-13

And when the seventh month was come.

Rebuilding the temple

I. They began by re-establishing the worship and service of the holy place. They set up an altar, and offered the daily sacrifice. A wise beginning. Their task was hard, and they did well to begin with God. They made the right use of fear. It stirred them up to religious duty.

II. Before setting themselves to their tasks they kept the feast of tabernacles. The full repression of our religious joy, even though it be prolonged, will not delay the performance of life’s severer tasks. It is a suitable preparation for them.

III. They used their treasures in securing the best materials and the most skilled labour.

IV. The foundations were laid amidst acclamations of joy. Many of the psalms which fill the Psalter with joyous strains were doubtless sung or composed on this occasion.

V. It was, however, a joy mingled with sorrow. (Willard G. Sperry.)

Rebuilding the temple

I. The first thing they did was to rebuild the altar. This was a right beginning. The altar of sacrifice was the centre of the Jewish religion; just as its antitype, the Cross, is the centre of Christianity. The Cross is our altar; it stands at the centre of our religion.

1. The altar of burnt-offering in this instance was intended as a safeguard. There is no security like that which a timid soul finds under the shadow of the altar (Psalms 84:3). A man is never so safe from adverse influences as when upon his knees.

2. This altar was “set upon its bases”--that is, it was restored upon its former foundations. There is virtue in observing old landmarks. Some things never grow obsolete. Air and water and sunlight are just what they always were, nor is human ingenuity likely to improve them in any way. There are some truths which bear to our spiritual constitution the same relation that light does to the eyes and water to the lungs. Nothing can amend or improve them. There may be new formulations, new modes of presentation; but the altar of the Christian religion will stand on its old bases as long as time endures.

3. The ceremonies of this restored altar were conducted after the prescribed form.

II. They next prepared for the rebuilding of their temple.

1. The altar meanwhile was kept in constant use. Its fires never went out. There was no lack of offerings upon it. The people had learned by sad experience their dependence upon God.

2. There was little difficulty in collecting the necessary funds.

3. The workmen were secured by generous outlay and paid promptly when the wages fell due.

4. The materials for the temple were collected from every quarter. Tyre and Sidon and the forests of Lebanon were put under contribution. Thus God ever utilises the nations. The Caesars built highways for the propagation of the gospel. Soulless corporations in our time are binding the far corners of the earth together with iron bands and cables, not knowing nor caring that God’s kingdom is thus being ushered in. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)

Rebuilding the temple

I. Religion is; or should be, a uniting force.

II. We need not, and should not, walt before we worship God.

III. There should be some regularity in our devotion.

IV. Our offering must come from the heart as well as from the hand.

V. The cause of christ must have the rest service we can secure.

VI. Some take a higher, some a humbler post in the service of god.

VII. We do well to rejoice when we lay the foundation of a useful work.

VIII. Joy is safe and wise when it passes into praise.

IX. Sorrow and joy blend strangely in the events of life. (W. Clarkson, B. A.)

The benefits of the captivity

Notice--

I. The people are again heartily united in action. They “gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.” These cheering words sound like a reminiscence of the best days of David, Hezekiah, and Josiah. A revival of union was sorely needed. The last three reigns before the captivity had been marked by unnatural discords. The providential cure of this evil was captivity. Two generations at least must pass away, and their feuds be buried with them; the worth of a temple and the blessing of a pure worship must be learned by their loss. This method of cementing nations was not new, and it has been exemplified since in almost countless instances. Every forward movement in society seems to be preceded by seasons of trial, whose hot fires are needed to fuse the heart and will of the people into one.

II. They made a right beginning of their work. They began with an altar. Can this be the same people whose closing record seventy years before had been that “they polluted the house of the Lord”? Reverence as well as union had been developed by captivity. They might have begun by clearing away the ruins, but that would have been a second step before the first; not even the rubbish of an unhallowed past may be touched without the blessing of God; they might have held a council to determine what they would do, but this would have been taking their own advice first and afterwards seeking the endorsement of Jehovah; they might have raised the walls around the spot before building the altar upon it, but that would have been asking God to own what He had been allowed no share in directing. On the contrary, with a reverence chastened by long exile they began with the altar itself. Where else would they have begun and not blundered? This order of building has always prospered. Ambitions, plans, hopes even, waited upon praise and supplication, and more than half the first year was devoted to continuous sacrifice and petition. What years of bitter deprival had taught them this dependence! But bitter sweetness let it be called, blessed bondage, to produce this wholesome fruit of reverence.

III. In the form of their worship they returned scrupulously to the pattern on the mount. They not only offered burnt-offerings, but they offered them “ as it is written.” They kept feasts by name not only, but in the way prescribed by the law of Moses. Their new moons and free-will offerings were those only that the Lord had consecrated in days past. This exact respect for the letter of the law shows how truly they appreciated the real cause of the national calamities. Every disaster since the days of Josiah had come from departing from the way of the Lord. A careless liberalism in worship had begotten a wicked license in the court and home life. It is one sign, therefore, that Judah’s captivity was not in vain, that the first inquiry of the people after setting up the new altar was this, “How is it written to worship?” and a better sign, that they conformed to the Divine pattern as scrupulously as if it had come but yesterday from the flaming Mount. Many are the evils suspected of a too rigid adherence to the Divine command. But where has a nation or an individual been ruined by a too scrupulous obedience? Not too much conscience, but too little; not strictness, but license is the national danger. Hence great reforms sweeping over the land always drive the people back to the simpler living, the holier thinking, and the minuter obedience of the fathers. The despised writing of the past is reopened, the neglected pattern of the Mount is clothed with a new authority, and so men returning unto God find God returned to them.

IV. The worship of the people was accompanied with their gifts. “They gave money also unto the masons and to the carpenters,” and their meat and drink and oil they exchanged for the sacred cedars of Lebanon. Surely, if any people might have found excuse for building on credit, they were these poor colonists, who had their burned cities to revive. They were building, too, for the future. Why should not the future share the cost? But these modern apologies for debt were then unknown. They remembered the story of the first tabernacle, the free-will offerings of their fathers and mothers. Something richer than cedar and brick must compose every true temple of worship. If the heart of the people, their love and devotion, are not built into the rising walls, they go up in vain; captivities are not in vain which thus revive the grace of self-sacrifice.

V. The holy joy with which they finally lay the first stone. With that stone an undisciplined people would have gone months before, but not these children of the captivity. There are spiritual foundations lower than the cornerstone of any temple, and these we have seen the people had been seven months in laying and seventy years in learning to lay--unity, reverence, obedience, and self-sacrifice. With a just and well-earned joy, therefore, they might lay on these settled foundations their first visible stone. It was not the joy of pride, for to themselves they took no praise. It was a tuneful joy, for they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks to God. It was a hearty joy, for all the people shouted with a great shout. This holy jubilee marked the break of a new day in the history of Israel. Weeping had endured for a long night of seventy years. This was the joy of the morning, and the happy dawn was all the brighter for the shadows that lay behind it. The joy that follows discipline and is earned by repentance and obedience is perhaps the sweetest joy known to men in this world.

VI. The healthful sorrow and regrets that tempered these outbursts of joy. Undisciplined joy is sure to be giddy, but the joy of these returning exiles has in its sweet a dash of bitter, which saves it from hurtful excess. Many of the old men of the nation had seen the first house. They could not forget its glory. They remembered also, it may be, the impiety of their own days, and possibly of their own hearts, which hastened the nation’s shame. Something of self-reproach must mingle with that regret. The new house bids fair to stand, for it is founded for use. No foolish display taints the plan. A mighty hunger after Jehovah impels them to make Him a dwelling-place in their midst. A Church thus rooted in real spiritual want comes near indeed to the true ideal of a spiritual home. Every attitude of the builders also is a propitiation of Jehovah. He will certainly accept their work, for their union is perfect; their reverence is simple, sincere; their obedience unforced; their self-sacrifice ungrudging. Here are the materials of all acceptable sacrifice. An altar built in this spirit will never want fire. (Monday Club Sermons.)

A working Church

1. All at work: “The people gathered themselves together.”

2. All working in unison: “As one man.” A massed force is a winning force.

3. All working obediently: “As it is written in the law.” Christian activity not a sentiment but a duty. “To the law and the testimony.”

4. All working unceasingly: “As the duty of every day required. The daily performance of Christian duty leaves no arrears. (Willis S. Hinman.)

And they set the altar upon his bases.

The altar set up

I. In a new home the first thing they should do who fear God is to set up an altar there.

II. The service of those who are of one heart is what He takes pleasure in (Acts 2:1; Acts 4:32).

III. The best of defences is the favour of God, and so an altar may be a stronger bulwark than a fortress. (E. Day.)

The rebuilding of the altar: exemplary features of Divine worship

I. Unanimity and zeal in divine worship.

II. Sacrifice in divine worship. This suggests--

1. Man’s need of atonement with God.

2. Man’s duty of consecration to God.

III. Respect for precedent in divine worship. There are memories and associations clinging around certain ancient forms and places hallowed by holy uses which greatly stimulate and enrich the devout heart.

IV. Conformity to scripture in divine worship.

V. Fear of enemies in divine worship.

1. The fear of enemies should not intimidate us from the worship of God.

2. The fear of enemies should impel us to worship God.

VI. Regularity in divine worship. The offering of the daffy sacrifice suggests--

1. Our daily need of atonement with God.

2. Our daily need of renewed consecration.

3. Our daily need of renewed blessings. (William Jones.)

Sacred to Jehovah

When a British vessel comes to an uninhabited country, or one inhabited only by savages, the captain goes on shore with a boat’s crew, and, after landing, he unfurls the Union Jack and takes possession of the whole country in the name of Queen Victoria and his native land. He plants the flagstaff, and no foreign nation dare come and knock it down, or pull down the ensign of the power of Britain. So the priest built first the altar of sacrifice to show that the place was sacred to Jehovah, and that they and all the people were His servants. (Sunday School.)

They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written.--

Preparations for building

I. It is only ignorant, self-sufficient people who despise the experience of the past treasured up in history.

II. If we cannot have for God’s worship all the external proprieties we desire, we are not to wait till we can get them. Iii. The externals of worship are nothing to God, except so far as they influence us or are expressive of something in us. (E. Day.)

The celebration of the sacred festivals resumed

I. The commemoration in divine. Worship of national experiences and blessings.

1. It was a memorial of the emancipation of Israel from Egypt, teaching us that we should cherish the memory of former mercies (Leviticus 23:43).

2. It was a memorial of their life in the wilderness, reminding us that our present condition is that of strangers and pilgrims (Leviticus 23:40; Hebrews 13:14).

3. It was a thanksgiving for rest and a settled abode in the promised land, suggesting the certainty and blessedness of the rest which remains for the people of God (Leviticus 23:40; Revelation 7:9).

4. It was a thanksgiving for the completed harvest, teaching us to receive the precious fruits of the earth as the kind gifts of a bountiful Providence (Exodus 23:16; Leviticus 23:39; Deuteronomy 16:13).

II. The celebration in religious worship of the natural divisions of time. “And of the new moons.” What was the design of this religious celebration of “the beginning of their months”?

1. To impress them with the value of time.

2. To assist them to form a correct estimate of their life upon earth.

3. To arouse them to make a wise use of the time which remained to them.

III. The presentation in divine worship of personal voluntary offerings. (William Jones.)