1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue
our Lenten sermon series, “Coming Home
From Exile: The Exoduses of the
Scriptures,” is taken from Ezra 1:1-4 and is entitled, “Exile and Return from Our Babylons,” dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2. God isn’t a cantankerous hothead
who’s ready to blow up at the drop of a hat. He’s long-tempered, slow to anger,
quick to forgive. In the days of Noah, he gave the world’s population 120 years
to repent before drowning them in the worldwide flood. He put up with Nineveh’s
murderous ways for many a day before sending Jonah—and even then he gave them
40 more days to repent before He would bring His judgment upon them. And He put
up with Jonah’s bellyaching at the same time! He was patient with Jacob’s
deceptions, Solomon’s womanizing, and—most amazing of all, the example of
divine self-control—he’s patient even with the likes of you and me.
3. But be warned. There’s a limit. There
does come a point when the Heavenly Father puts every kid’s least favorite
proverb into practice, namely, “Spare the
rod and spoil the child.” Just ask His rebellious son Israel; He’ll tell
you all about how that rod of fatherly discipline feels across one’s backside.
For over 200 years God bombarded his people with prophet after prophet, all
preaching variations of the same sermon: Turn back to the true God, or He will
turn His face away from you. From Amos to Isaiah, Hosea to Jeremiah, they all
read Israel’s upcoming obituary, but the hearers by and large either laughed or
shrugged the message away. Or they killed the messenger. After all, they’d
heard this stuff before. “Yeah, the last
prophet preached the same thing and, lo and behold, Rev. Chicken Little, the
sky hasn’t fallen yet.”
4. Oh, but fall it did, with the whole
weight of Babylon pressing it down. This superpower, under King Nebuchadnezzar,
bulldozed Jerusalem, ground her temple to dust, and reduced even her most
powerful, rich, and wealthy citizens to a ragtag band of prisoners of war. Like
Lot’s wife, no doubt many of them looked back to see their leveled city, salty
tears drenching their once happy faces. To Babylon they were marched, their
backs reddened by the rod of discipline, their ears full of the divine words
that had gone unheard. Homeless and hopeless into exile they went.
5. Well, actually, homeless, yes, but
hopeless, no. For as the Lord had informed Abraham how many years Israel would
be stuck in Egypt, so he had told Jeremiah how long his nation would call
Babylon “home-sour-home.” It would be 70 years, plenty of time to take
stock of how much they had invested in idolatry. For the wages of rebellion is
exile, but the gift of God is homecoming, in God’s time and in God’s way, but
all according to grace.
6. And so, according to grace,
Babylon’s bubble burst as Persia moved up to the number one world power. According
to grace, Cyrus, king of Persia, issued an edict that all exiled Israelites
were free to head home. And according to grace, men such as Ezra stepped into
Moses’ shoes to lead the children of Abraham out of the sewer reeking of
idolatry and falsehood back into the land flowing with milk and honey.
7. That’s the kind of God the
Israelites had. And that’s the kind of God you have too. He’s the same
yesterday, today, tomorrow, next year, and forever. He provides Noah with an
ark for the salvation of his household. He brings Abraham out of exile. He
takes Jacob by the hand and brings him back to his fatherland. He escorts
Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. He pulls his people out of the
quicksand of Babylon and sets them on the solid ground of Canaan. And he has
done the same for you, no matter what or where your own Babylon may have been.
8. Is your Babylon the land of
addiction, where your whole life revolves around the next drink, the next fix,
the next porn site, the next whatever that provides that high you don’t think
you can live without? From the Babylonian land of addiction, Jesus has
delivered you. He’s the God who welcomes all, from the needle-scarred prostitute
to the white-collared CEO. He’s no respecter of persons. He tears down your
prisons, keeps the enemy at bay, and carries you out of Babylon. He will do it,
and he has done it. For he wants you to be His, and His alone. And He has done
and will do what it takes to make that happen.
9. Or is your Babylon the land of
pleasure, where every dime you earn, every free hour you have, is spent in
doing whatever makes your skin tingle, feeds your sexual appetite, or just puts
a self-satisfied smile on your face? From the Babylonian land of pleasure,
Jesus has delivered you. He has come to show you that true and lasting pleasure
is found solely in Him and His love. The joy with which He fills you outlasts
every passing pleasure that this world holds before your eyes. There’s no
greater joy than being able to lay your head down on the pillow every night
with a clean conscience—a conscience clean not because you’ve passed the day
without sinning, but because you know and believe that your sins are forgiven
in Christ. However big they are, the love of Jesus is always bigger.
10. Or is your Babylon simply the
going-through-the-motions life, a sad existence covered by a smile and
well-practiced laugh? You have your career, your family, your friends—all of
which give the appearance that life is fine and dandy. But under this outward
disguise is sheer emptiness, a black hole of despair that sucks into it every
single aspect of your life. From this Babylon too, Christ is your deliverer.
He’s not content merely to take away your sins and death; He also fills your
life with Himself, with His own life. And where He is, there is contentment, no
matter what your circumstances, rich or poor, healthy or sick. It is the
contentment of knowing that you really do matter to God, that your life, your
job, your marriage, your children, your all, really and truly matter to Him. It’s
the contentment of knowing that in your actions as spouse, parent, or worker,
Christ is active, using what you do, to do good to and for your neighbor.
11. Whatever your Babylon, whatever
that place of captivity and exile, it can’t keep captive you for whom Jesus
died. His crucifixion tree is the sledgehammer that pounds away at every wall
that bars you in. As Samson once tore the gates of a city from the earth and
carried them high on a hill, so has the greater Samson, Jesus, wrecked the
gates of every Babylon of addiction, every Babylon of pleasure, every Babylon
of a lifeless life to bring you home to himself. He didn’t rest until it was
done. As He brought forth His own resurrected body from the tomb, so has He
raised you to life in His name and brought you forth alive again into the
kingdom of God.
12. No, God isn’t a cantankerous
hothead who’s ready to blow up at the drop of a hat. He’s long-tempered with
you, slow to be angry with you, quick to forgive you. And that’s the way He is
because, well, that’s just the way He is with you and for you in Christ Jesus.
And He won’t change. Not ever. He’s the God who is on your side. And because of
that, you need fear no Babylon. The Lord Jesus has conquered them all for
you. According
to His Grace, God Delivered Us Home from Babylon. Amen.
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