The book of Ezra records the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem during the restoration period after the exile. This is an exact parallel of the present-day spiritual restoration that is taking place now—with one exception: We probably would go about this rebuilding project quite differently. We would rebuild the walls first, and then lay the foundation for the altar and the Temple; and finally we would rebuild the Temple. We probably would be more concerned about our protection than about our worship. This was not the case in the days of the early restoration. Then the Temple was rebuilt first. The people were seeking after the face of God and worshiping Him with all their hearts. Later they rebuilt the walls. This is very significant.
The restoration was completed in two periods: the first was twenty years long and the second was twenty-five years long, with almost sixty years in between these two periods. The first period, from 536 B.C. to 516 B.C., is covered in Ezra, chapters 3 to 6. During the first year the people of God built the altar and kept the Feast of Tabernacles. Many years later, after the Temple was completed, they kept the Feast of Passover.
During this first period, Zerubbabel, the grandson of Jehoiachin, the last king of Judah, was the governor, and Jeshua was the high priest. Through the conspiracy of the enemy, the foreign king gave the order that the Temple was not to be built. So the work was stopped for about fifteen years, and was not resumed until Haggai and Zechariah prophesied the Word of the Lord that released it. These two prophets encouraged the people to go on and complete the work. When we are engaged in a project for the Lord, we need to do the same thing: prophesy strength to one another, prophesy the anointing of the Lord upon the work. Good intentions are not enough. Our energies are not enough. The Haggai and Zechariah ministries are needed today also to break every impasse and allow the worship to come forth for the glory of God. We will never break through by ourselves to the level of worship that God has for us. Impasses must be broken by the prophets’ proclamation.
About sixty years after the Temple had been completed, the walls were rebuilt. This was the second period of restoration, comprising twenty-five years, approximately from 457 B.C. to 432 B.C. Nehemiah, Ezra, and Malachi were the prophets of the Lord during this period. Malachi stirred up the hearts of the people to see that there was a pure worship as the work of the restoration continued.
This present phase of the restoration involves a great deal of spiritual warfare. Therefore we have had to learn how to build our spiritual defenses. However, the thing that brought forth this move of God in the first place was a flow of worship. Almost everyone who came into it did so because their hearts were stirred to seek after a pure worship of the Lord. They set about it with all of their heart and soul, and God blessed them in it. At the beginning, we did not have much music, but even without much music there was a focus on worship which we may be missing now because we have such a great variety of songs.
We need to realize that more and more it will be the joy of the Lord which will be our strength. Our worship and love for the Lord will sustain us. If we do not break through to worship first, and then sustain ourselves in the worship, any work that we do for the Lord will bog down. This is especially true when we are building walls or defenses in spiritual warfare. The Jews in Ezra’s day had to rebuild the walls during troubled times, which was the way God ordered it. Even though there were delays and inroads of warfare that slowed them down, yet because their hearts were set to worship God, they succeeded in breaking through to the prophets’ word which loosed them to go ahead and finish the work.
Now when the seventh month came, and the sons of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem. Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brothers arose and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. So they set up the altar on its foundation, for they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. And they celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the fixed number of burnt offerings daily, according to the ordinance, as each day required; and afterward there was a continual burnt offering … Ezra 3:1–5.
The first project was the rebuilding of the altar of the Lord. They did this out of fear, and not so much because it was in their heart to do so. However, after the altar had been built, they never stopped making offerings and sacrifices to the Lord.
There is a lesson to be learned from this. No matter what we do, we must not fail to give the priority to our worship of the Lord. We must never neglect the scheduled periods of worship. In the climate of worship, all the attacks of the enemy that would hit us inwardly are dispelled. For instance, depression is overcome largely by worship, because worship shifts the focus away from yourself and your situation and turns it to the Lord. Worship is a great focus adjuster. Nothing will readjust your focus better than going into a real period of worship. When you reach the place where problems, situations, circumstances, or discouragement with yourself could cause you to draw back, continue to worship the Lord. Then your situation will be reduced down to its proper size and you will see yourself with a better perspective than you would otherwise. True worship brings you to the place where you do not take yourself and your situation so seriously that you magnify that above the Lord. Once the Lord is great in your sight and in your worship of Him, then your focus on yourself becomes correspondingly less and less. This is important. Keep the perpetual worship of the Lord in your spirit.
(They) began the work and appointed the Levites from twenty years and older to oversee the work of the house of the Lord. Ezra 3:8b. Notice the significance of this age restriction. When God brought judgment on the Israelites in the wilderness because of their unbelief, He said that everyone who was twenty years old and older when they left Egypt would perish in the wilderness (except Joshua and Caleb). However, in the work of rebuilding the Temple, the opposite was true in God’s scheme of things. It was the people who were twenty years old and older who were to be involved.
Now when the builders had laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord according to the directions of King David of Israel. Ezra 3:10. Was this Asaph associated with Korah, the man who perished in the wilderness because of rebellion? Possibly their descendants did not walk in rebellion but continued on to the restoration, maintaining their ministry of worship. If so, they came through difficult circumstances successfully. You can be in surroundings of rebellion and contention, but that does not mean that you have to walk in them. It is not necessary to conform to what everyone else says or does.
After the foundation of the house of the Lord had been completed, the people praised the Lord. And they sang, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy; so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of Joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away. Ezra 3:11–13. Notice the mingled reaction. Many rejoiced, but the old men who had seen the first Temple wept.
In Luke 5:39 Jesus said, “No man, having tasted old wine, straightway desires new. ‘The old,’ he says, ‘is better.’ ” He likes the old better because it is seasoned; it has reached its full state of perfection. The new wine is still “green.” Something more needs to be done with it before it can be appreciated properly; however, it holds the promise of perfection. This was what the young people saw in relationship to the Temple; they saw a promise of something better to come. On the other hand, the old men, who had seen the glorious Temple of Solomon which was filled with the glory of the Lord, cried aloud when they saw how insignificant this Temple was by comparison. In this move of restoration today, we too could look back and say, “What we have today in some ways is not as good as what we have known. But we know that it has the promise of being better.”
Haggai and Zechariah were the prophets who prophesied during this period when the Temple was being rebuilt under Zerubbabel. It is significant that it was during this time that Haggai prophesied: “ ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and in this place I shall give peace,’ declares the Lord of hosts.” Haggai 2:9.
Solomon’s Temple was “the former temple.” It far exceeded the glory of Zerubbabel’s Temple, which was eventually desecrated and replaced by Herod’s Temple in Christ’s time. That too was destroyed, in 70 A.D. None of these temples saw the greater glory. No doubt the prophet was talking about the temple that God is building today, out of living stones for a habitation of God by the Spirit. Are we not entering into that period now? According to the Scriptures, we can anticipate that the glory of God could be greater in our midst than it was in Solomon’s Temple. The prophet spoke that in the latter house of God’s presence there would be a greater glory than had existed at any other time.
There were little preludes of this glory in Solomon’s Temple. When it was dedicated, 120 priests ministered and offered countless sacrifices. Thousands of animals were slaughtered in sacrifice to the Lord (II Chronicles 5:6). As the priests ministered, the glory of God came like a cloud and filled the building, and the priests could not stand to minister. That was the former glory. The Temple that was rebuilt in the days of Ezra was never known to have the glory on it. Ezekiel prophesied about the glory. In vision he saw the Shekinah glory hovering over the sanctuary. It moved several times and finally hovered over Mount Zion for about a year, before disappearing completely (Ezekiel 10, 11). At a later time Ezekiel prophesied about the glory that will return (Ezekiel 43). However, the temple that he saw was symbolic; it was never built by the actual physical dimensions given.
There is for us the promise of a greater glory. Are you thinking, “I am not at all satisfied with the measure of the glory of God that rests on me. This troubles me more than anything else.” Still, we set about to worship the Lord with all of our heart. In these days the spiritual temple of worship is being rebuilt. The one thing that is never to be destroyed or even diminished is our dedication to be a people of worship. The worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, the exaltation of His name, the magnifying of Him above all else—this is to be our first and prime concern.
Never get into a passive rut. Be diligent in the spiritual things God sets before you. Intercession will never be easy. It is a grim activity, because it is contrary to everything else in the realm of your existence. How difficult it is to enter into pure worship! On a superficial level you can break into it rather easily, but then there is the danger of doing it by rote or by habit. You may know the words of the songs, and you may sing them without a deep expression of worship in your heart.
With diligence we must fight the tendency within us to let worship become a religious habit instead of an expression of spirit. Let us not allow our worship or our relating to God to become a religious ritual, as other movements of the past have done. For a time they did cling to the reality of their experiences, but after a while the life disappeared because they were only going through religious motions. Receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues is a simple procedure, but the person who receives that experience feels greatly blessed by the Lord. When that experience becomes commonplace, then the gift of tongues does not mean anything anymore. Beware lest the experiences of God become commonplace to you. Always hold them in high esteem and keep them fresh and new.
We have a promise that the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former and in that house the Lord will give peace. This means that every satanic activity against us will eventually cease. All warfare will cease. In the days of the Old West, a certain type of revolver was sometimes called a “peacemaker.” If an argument arose between two men who owned peacemakers, before long one of them would be dead. Then there would be peace! The best way to have peace is to have no enemies. The defeat of Satan is embraced in these words: “and in this house will I give peace.”
Although we can battle demons all day long, it seems that there are always more to fight the next day. However, the satanic activity which has been so strong against us will end and the glory will come. We envision the place of immunity as far as spiritual assault is concerned. I do not think that warfare will always be a way of life for us. It must be that some of us break into the glory of God and find that because of the manifested glory of God, there will be an automatic judgment of any spirit, any devil, or any nephilim that is present. The more we pray against the nephilim spirit, the more I wonder (not out of unbelief, but with an awareness of the ways of God) whether God will allow us to hit Goliath from some lower level, or whether He will position us in His presence, so that we can attack him from His throne of authority.
When we become an expression of the glory of God in the earth, then we will find the dominion over the enemy manifested to the point that there will be no contest. In no way will the enemy touch us then. Wouldn’t you like to reach the place where the wicked one could not touch you? Wouldn’t you like to reach the place where there would be no more spiritual warfare coming against you? We know that this is possible, because John speaks about those who have entered into sonship, saying of them, “The wicked one touches them not” (I John 5:18).
When the adversaries came to hinder the work of rebuilding Zerubbabel’s Temple, the prophets encouraged the people to continue. When the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them, then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them supporting them. Ezra 5:1–2.
The prophets provided an undergirding strength. This is a picture of the phase which we are in now. No longer is our intercession dominated by prayers in which we are begging God. Instead, we are making prophetic proclamations, actually beginning to proclaim things into being. The day of the prophets and prophetesses has come and they are taking dominion over things in Christ Jesus. When we see that something has been commissioned and committed to us by God, we do not have to beg Him for it. Instead, we enter in to proclaim what is ours and to possess it. Instead of saying, “Lord, please do this,” we speak to the powers of darkness, “Come down in the name of the Lord.” We proclaim our victory, we proclaim our release, we proclaim His fullness that comes to us in every way.
Ezra 6 tells what happened when the Temple was completed. And the elders of the Jews were successful in building through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. And this temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar; it was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. Then they appointed priests to their divisions and the Levites in their orders for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. Ezra 6:14–15, 18.
During the time that the work was being done on the physical structure, a priesthood was being prepared to minister in the Temple. This is a picture of what God has been doing in Shiloh. The spiritual structure took form while the work of completing the building was going on. Scarcely had a portion of the facility been completed before there were elders, ministers, pastors, and prophets moving in. God has been building a Kingdom church and sustaining it miraculously.
We want to be ready for the level of glory that will be visited upon us. To that end we must prepare our spirits by deep repentance. We repent because we want to serve in His presence. This was what the people of God did when they observed the Passover after the Temple had been completed.
And the exiles observed the Passover on the fourteenth of the first month. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were pure. Then they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, both for their brothers the priests and for themselves. And the sons of Israel who returned from exile and all those who had separated themselves from the impurity of the nations of the land to join them, to seek the Lord God of Israel, ate the Passover. And they observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had caused them to rejoice, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to encourage them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. Ezra 6:19–22.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was observed in commemoration of the time when Israel left Egypt. They left in such haste that there was not enough time to let the dough rise, and so they carried the dough in bowls on their shoulders and cooked it in flat cakes as they traveled along. The unleavened bread became a symbol of the purifying of spirit. Technically, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Passover are two different Feasts; however, the Feast of Unleavened Bread must accompany the Passover. The blood of the Passover Lamb provides a cleansing for us, and through the unleavened bread we give diligence to see the perfection of that which the Passover blood has begun. The Passover blood will bring you out of the land of Egypt, and eating the unleavened bread for seven days will purge Egypt out of you. As you progress, you will find that an even deeper cleansing is needed. The roots of Egypt must be taken out.
The Israelites were concerned about being loosed from the impurity of the nations, which was a contaminating force. This should be our concern too. We do not realize how much we are conditioned by our environment. We do not realize how defiling this present generation is or how effective its brainwashing tactics have become. Subliminal advertising, used on television and in movies, plants suggestions in our minds that we are not even aware of. With this technique, subtle messages are flashed on the screen so fast that we do not see them consciously, yet we absorb them through the subconscious. Are we aware of how much we need to be cleansed of the attitudes that are in our thinking and the ideas of the world that we have accepted?
There is a growing acceptance of socialism and the government control that has been upon this nation since the early Thirties. People think differently today than they did then. They have accepted government domination and the ever-increasing erosion of liberty that in former days would have resulted in a revolution. Now we are conditioned to accept this loss. In studying the American Revolution, we realize that the causes which the Americans fought for then were not as significant in any way as the situations that we tolerate and accept today. Ridiculous controls have been placed upon our freedom in every field of knowledge and in every area of our lives, and it is unbelievable how we accept them. This includes controls by government agencies that dictate the kind of health care that we are permitted to use. It is interesting to note that most of these controls are designed to put money in the pockets of the elite.
The day will have to come when we are cleansed and we move into purity. God grant that we do like the people in Ezra’s day: separate ourselves from the nations’ impurity and seek the Lord.
It is significant that a generation later, Malachi prophesied that the day would come when a pure offering in righteousness would be offered to the Lord again. All of the sons of Levi will be refined as silver is refined in the fire, that they may offer again a pure sacrifice to the Lord as in the days of old (Malachi 3:3). Once again God will have a priesthood that will minister in the latter house. They will be purified. That is why the first thing you experience, when you come into a walk with God, is the refining fire to remove the impurities. The fire is applied. You cannot escape it. We rejoice in the prophecies and the wonderful teaching, but at the same time we also accept the refining fire, the chastening and dealings of the Lord!
Malachi wrote that the Lord is a purifier and He will come suddenly to His temple. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment …” Malachi 3:2–5.
This passage, like many others, was written for our example, to encourage us to press in and complete the work the Lord sets before us. Our labor is not in vain in the Lord. We are pressing toward a goal, but that goal is not the completion of a building or of a project; the goal is the coming of the glory of God that will fill the latter house. The blood of Passover comes to cleanse and purify us from all the defilement of the nations round about us. That defilement will be removed so that we can break through to the will of God.
We are still too much a part of our environment. The whole world system keeps demanding adjustment and conformity. We do not want to be conformed to this age. The great cry of our heart is that we be rid of the defilement that stands as a cloud to hide His face from us. We want to be rid of the thinking which will cause God to bring judgment on this generation. We want to be renewed in our mind. We want to continually present to the Lord a pure sacrifice, a living sacrifice.
Let this Word be a steady, consistent witness in your heart to pursue after the Lord, to worship Him, to be purified before Him. We prophesy that the glory of God may fall upon all the churches. We prophesy that this day of preparation will be completed in His grace. We loose ourselves from the impurities and the thinking of the nations round about us.