Ezra Chapter 2
Today’s chapter gives us details of those Israelites who put up their hands to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of the One True God.
As I was reading the names, it reminded me of the sermon Pr Simon Chin gave last week in TK about the mystery of God’s will.
Pr Chin mentioned that there were 1 billion Christians in the world of which half are Roman Catholics (fact-checked according to Google: there are 2.2 billion Chirstians in the world of which slightly more than half are Roman Catholics). But out of this large number of Christians, only a tiny percentage are chosen by God to be in His one true church.
Why is this so? This is a great mystery of God’s will.
“Now these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city.” (verse 1)
Ezra then painstakingly records the names of people, the priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers … All in all, “forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, besides their male and female servants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred men and women singers.” (verses 64-65) returned to Jerusalem.
Isn’t it wonderful to have your names to be listed amongst them? I am sure those who did not return during this occasion would have regretted their reluctance to go back as their names are not recorded down in history.
But even more important for us is that our names should be recorded in the Book of Life on that last day so that there would be no regrets or gnashing of teeth.
Revelations 21:22-27 says this:
But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
There is work to be done to build the temple of God. In our life of faith, we must not stand aside and not put our hands on the plow to do God’s work.
names were not recorded.
Take encouragement from the word of God to Zerubbabel (who led the people back):
Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the Lord; ‘and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work; for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts.
~ Haggai 2:4 ~
Work! For I am with you.
This was the promise of God to Zerubbabel. And also to us today if we are willing to do His work.
May all our names be written in the Book of Life.