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August 3 Daily Reading- Read the Bible in 1 Year
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In today's reading we will read in the Book of Ezra, Chapters 7 and 8:15-36. Today we will read about the King of Babylon sending a letter to Ezra telling him that he and all who want to return to Jerusalem may do so, as well as charging Ezra with teaching everyone in the land the laws of God, which were to be obeyed by the people in addition to the king's laws. We will read about God's provision to provide for the beautification of His temple by putting this on the heart of the king to provide for it. In today's reading Ezra gives testimony about God strengthening him to be bold and gather people to go with him as wells as testimony about God's faithfulness to answer their prayers for protection as the people with their families, animals and a great quantity of riches traveled to Jerusalem in safety.
In our discussion for daily application we will talk about walking the walk and living out faith in God every day, through situations that God brings our way to teach us to rely on Him and be strong in our faithfulness to Him as well as the importance of being God's witnesses to His provision in our lives so that we may strengthen our brothers and sisters around us, whom God will place in our path, which are part of the good works He has prepared for us to do "for such a time as this." May we have understanding as we build upon the lessons that we are learning this year to walk with God every day and be who He created us to be and have a positive impact in the world around us. Amen.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Day's Reading
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. Today is August 3rd. You are with Robin and I'm with In the Family Way Coaching. I hope you're having a fantastic day today, wherever you are. Thank you for joining me as we go through the Day by Day Kids Bible, written by Karen Henley.
Understanding Biblical Timelines
00:00:22
Speaker
Guess what time it is? It's calendar time. If you are following along on that calendar, your commitment calendar, as I call it, take it that out and your sticker or however you're marking it off because you're about to hear a lot of the Bible today.
00:00:41
Speaker
i hope you're having a fantastic day. As I mentioned, whether you're watching or whether you're listening, I am so excited today. ah Today, i have been reading and trying to figure out and understand the timelines of of what's going on. It might seem like it's self-explanatory to some degree, but I just, I love when God opens my eyes and shows me things because he has made me so curious.
00:01:11
Speaker
about things. So today was looking at and trying to understand the different names that are given for the kings. And i'm trying I was trying to understand which king we were on because it seems like you know they reuse the names of the kings.
00:01:29
Speaker
And so it can be difficult to see to understand. Because so we we know that we are at past the time, we call it post-exilic, which is the time of after the exile.
00:01:42
Speaker
We have what has been considered the first return to babylon or to Jerusalem.
The Significance of King Titles
00:01:48
Speaker
And today when we read niam and Ezra chapter 7 and 8, this is where it starts with the second return to Jerusalem.
00:01:59
Speaker
Now, and we mentioned a little bit, I think yesterday, is that Ezra and Nehemiah are combined into one book ah in in Jewish writing. We have it separated into two different books, but they're considered one book.
00:02:15
Speaker
And they they take place over ah a stretch of time. As we know, they're not all written in one day. So these are events that are being recorded. That's a history.
00:02:26
Speaker
And we know that we read Esther smack in the middle of all that. So I wanted to give us a little bit of understanding because I was confused as to which king we're on because they use different names.
00:02:40
Speaker
If you are familiar with reading your big Bible, you may notice the different names. They have the names of Artaxerxes, they have Darius, they have Xerxes, ah we have Cyrus, and there's another variation of the name. I i can't remember, but it's it's similar to Artaxerxes.
00:03:02
Speaker
And it turns out that these are not names, these are titles. Much the same the way Egypt uses the title of Pharaoh. So when we are reading with the name like Xerxes and Artaxerxes and like that, they actually are titles.
00:03:23
Speaker
It's not necessarily a ah reference to the person's name. And we may be familiar with that concept already because you know we've we've read a little bit about things like that.
00:03:35
Speaker
So the name Darius means the doer of good. And so it's and when we say the name, we're so accustomed to saying the name, but really it's referring to the titles.
00:03:47
Speaker
And when we read Xerxes, they're using the title hero among kings.
Historical Accuracy in Biblical Accounts
00:03:53
Speaker
And then Artaxerxes, king of justice and Ahasuerus.
00:03:58
Speaker
There we go, that's the other name I couldn't remember. Ahasuerus, I'm not even sure about how to pronounce that. That actually is a title meaning chief of rulers.
00:04:09
Speaker
So as we read these different names throughout our old covenant, when we're referring to these kings, it's that's why they they list the the ah the year of the reign, and that can be easier to discern which king was in power.
00:04:26
Speaker
So why does that matter? Well, it's almost like we're on a constant quest for archaeology, you know, to understand what happened when, to understand history, and we're trying to pinpoint where in time this actually occurred.
00:04:43
Speaker
And we're looking for validation. We're looking for to make sure that what we're reading is historically accurate. And so what we are reading is historically accurate.
00:04:54
Speaker
What we may not always understand is which king was in power, but they've done a good pretty good job of of listing the the year of the reign.
Mordecai's Role and Connections
00:05:04
Speaker
So what God opened my eyes up to today is that we we're familiar with Mordecai in Esther.
00:05:14
Speaker
What I did not realize until today is that Mordecai was very old. I'll put it simply. He had a long lifespan. So he was mentioned in the book of Ezra, chapter 2, verse 2.
00:05:32
Speaker
And that's the same Mordecai. So I've been spending a lot of time this morning researching to understand because we've talked about names in the past and being confusing ah because names are reused.
00:05:45
Speaker
Even today, how many Daniels do you know? How many Jims? Maybe not a lot of Jims now, but... you know You know what I mean. There's a lot of names that are very common. And so it can be difficult to tell who is being referred to.
00:05:59
Speaker
But that's one of the reasons why I love reading this chronological Bible. and and And so in doing that, I'm trying to understand the chronology. So this is really interesting to me because as we will see today,
00:06:14
Speaker
God puts things on our hearts. So for
Ezra's Mission and Leadership
00:06:17
Speaker
some reason, he has really in embedded in me this desire to understand the timeline of when these things occurred, to understand the big picture more fully, more accurately.
00:06:32
Speaker
And it's just it's just really full and rich. So in the book of Ezra chapter 2, we're going to be reading Ezra chapter 7 and 8 today. And apparently the book of Ezra takes place over about, I think it said a 57 year timeline.
00:06:48
Speaker
And so it says, now these are the people, I'll start in verse 1. These are the people of the province who went up from the captives of the exile, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken captive to Babylon.
00:07:03
Speaker
They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town, and they came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Sariah, Realiah, Mordecai,
00:07:17
Speaker
And they spell his name a little bit differently as well. In this instance, they have a CH. So I didn't, we don't even read a lot of the intimate details in our big, ah in our in our chronology version, our big picture versions.
00:07:34
Speaker
And so it's it's talking about, so I was like, ah that's the same one. So this timeframe is really, that's why Esther was red in the the time that we did. it was smack at the middle.
00:07:48
Speaker
It's because that's the time it happened. And I was a little bit confused by Esther being kind of stuck right there. I didn't realize that. And it turns out that ah Mordecai was was very involved in things.
00:08:01
Speaker
And so as we look at the titles of these kings, it looks like the kings are just rapidly changing names. But really what they're doing is they're referring to their characteristics. So when we read the title given Artaxerxes, he's talking about his position, his title as being the king of justice.
00:08:19
Speaker
So, for instance, when we read in the book of Esther, and they start the book of Esther, it says, this is what happened in the days of Ahasuerus.
00:08:34
Speaker
I'm going to interject, chief of rulers. So it's centering on the fact that he's a chief of rulers who reigned over 127 provinces from india to ethiopia And in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet.
00:08:54
Speaker
So when they're when we're looking at those, we're referring to their characteristics. And so today, when we read in Ezra chapter seven, we are going to be reading about, it says Artaxerxes, king of Persia.
00:09:13
Speaker
And so now it's referring to his characteristic of the king of justice. And so the characteristic that we're going to be reading about in today's reading deals with justice.
00:09:28
Speaker
And so we think, well, how does justice fill factor into all this? And it's because he's going to be giving a decree, law, about how not only his rules should be obeyed, but how God's rules should be obeyed.
00:09:44
Speaker
And so Ezra, who was a teacher, is being given direction by the king to go out and teach the people God's laws and to obey not only God's laws, but also the King's laws.
00:10:01
Speaker
So it's it's very interesting to see in context what we are reading.
Faith in Action: Lessons from Ezra
00:10:08
Speaker
It's not just reading straight through in the chronology line of what happened when, but since I'm really ah dedicated to us understanding what we're reading, I wanted to give us that explanation so we could have a deeper more full sense of understanding and what we're reading. And isn't that awesome?
00:10:30
Speaker
God wants us to not just read his word, but to understand his word. Oh, I just love it. This is so exciting.
00:10:42
Speaker
So today are going to be reading Ezra chapter seven and eight. And I, I don't know about you, but I just every day, i am just loving this history, this the story theory of of what God has done. And he's always continuing to do things.
00:11:04
Speaker
And he is so intimately involved in every detail. And he he changes and puts things on our hearts. He doesn't he doesn't change. He changes us and puts things on our hearts to transform us by a renewing of our minds.
00:11:22
Speaker
And I love how he works in and anybody's mind. He has influenced the world positively by affecting the the the heart of these kings.
00:11:36
Speaker
And he he sent prophets to the people in Israel and Jerusalem ah and Judah for for years. He says he sent them often and early, but they did not want to change their hearts. They were stubborn.
00:11:56
Speaker
And here he is effecting change for them by removing them from their situation. putting them in a different situation and having great influence in a a foreign ruler who was not Jewish.
00:12:13
Speaker
And I just, I love that. God is always working to to do good.
Ezra's Journey and God's Provision
00:12:20
Speaker
God is good. His loving kindness never ends.
00:12:25
Speaker
I just want to praise him today. All right, let's get on with our reading today. um Today is August 3rd and we are reading chapter 7 starting and this is entitled, The King Writes to the Teacher.
00:12:44
Speaker
Now Artaxerxes had been king of Persia for seven years and that's when Ezra left Babylon to go to Judah. Ezra was a teacher and he knew God's laws very well.
00:12:57
Speaker
These were the laws God gave to Moses. The king gave Ezra whatever he wanted, and that's because God was with Ezra. Other people went with Ezra.
00:13:10
Speaker
Some were priests and singers. Some were men who guarded the gates. Some were servants for the worship house. And they all went to Jerusalem in Judah.
00:13:22
Speaker
So this is the beginning of the second return to Jerusalem. This now begins that section in time. The king gave Ezra a letter from Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra, the priest and teacher of God's laws.
00:13:43
Speaker
So remember, I'm interjecting here. The title, not name, the title Artaxerxes means king of justice. And so he is referring to Ezra, the priest and teacher of God's laws.
00:13:59
Speaker
Make sense? Are we seeing it?
00:14:02
Speaker
Hello!
00:14:05
Speaker
Jews in my kingdom may go with you. They may go if they want to. am sending you to ask about Jerusalem and Judah.
00:14:16
Speaker
Take silver and gold with you. Take it as a gift from me to your God. Take gifts from the people and priests.
00:14:28
Speaker
Buy bulls, rams, and lambs to offer to God. Offer grain and drinks, too, and give them on the altar at God's worship house.
00:14:39
Speaker
Then you can take the rest of the silver and gold and use it in the way you think is best. Do what you think God wants you to do with it. Now I, King Artaxerxes,
00:14:55
Speaker
the king of justice, remember,
00:14:59
Speaker
Give orders. These are for the men who take care of my money. Give Ezra whatever he asks you for. He can have silver, wheat, wine, olive oil, and salt.
00:15:21
Speaker
Whatever gifts God wants, get them for Ezra to take to him. And do it fast. Why make God angry? You may not tax this group of people.
00:15:35
Speaker
You may not tax any workers at God's worship house.
00:15:41
Speaker
Ezra chose leaders. Oh, Ezra, choose leaders and judges. Teach people who don't know God's laws. People who don't obey God's laws will be killed or put in jail.
00:15:55
Speaker
Or they might be sent out of the land. Everything they own might be taken away. The same will happen to people who don't obey me.
00:16:07
Speaker
Praise God! made the king's heart care about God's worship house. And God has been kind to me in front of the king. He has been kind in front of the leaders of the land.
00:16:21
Speaker
So I got brave. I called leaders of God's people to go with me.
00:16:30
Speaker
A safe trip. i Ezra, got many people together at the river and we camped there for three days. I looked over all the people and I didn't find any people from Levi's family group.
00:16:45
Speaker
So I sent for some of them and I asked them to come and work at God's worship house. and God was good to us. Many people from Levi's family came.
00:16:57
Speaker
Then I said we should not eat for a while, and that way we could show that God was most important. We could ask God for a safe trip.
00:17:09
Speaker
I felt we couldn't ask the king to send guards along because we had told the king, God is kind and he takes care of everyone who obeys him, but he gets angry at people who leave him.
00:17:22
Speaker
So we did not eat while we prayed to God about this. and He answered our prayer. Then I chose 12 priests. I gave them the silver and gold offering.
00:17:35
Speaker
I said, you are special to God and so are these gifts. So guard them carefully. They will go to God's worship house in Jerusalem. And then we left from the river.
00:17:48
Speaker
We headed toward Jerusalem. And God was with us. He kept us safe from enemies and robbers. And so we got to Jerusalem and we rested there for three days.
00:18:03
Speaker
God's people had started the trip in the first month and they got to Jerusalem in the fifth month. God was kind to Ezra. He had worked hard to study and teach God's laws.
00:18:18
Speaker
And then they counted the silver and gold. Everything was there. And they offered bulls and rams, lambs and goats to God.
00:18:29
Speaker
They gave the king's letter to the leaders there. And then the leaders helped the people and they helped with the worship house.
00:18:41
Speaker
Isn't that an awesome reading today? That's the end of our reading for today. But it's definitely not the end of our learning, is it?
Acting on Faith: Encouragement and Motivation
00:18:52
Speaker
Today we are seeing and going to talk about God's faithfulness again and God's provision, God's great provision. And we're also going to talk about ah God helping Ezra put his money where his mouth was.
00:19:14
Speaker
God strengthened Ezra. He increased Ezra's faith. he He was very faithful. But I wanted to read this a little bit from the Big Bible Version.
00:19:27
Speaker
This is Ezra chapter 7. And
00:19:34
Speaker
and at the end of chapter 7 in verse it said... Blessed be Adonai, that's the Lord, our God, ah the God of our fathers, who has put it into the heart of the king to beautify the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way, and who has extended loving kindness to me before the king and his counselors and all the king's mighty princes.
00:20:00
Speaker
I gained strength as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. May we gain strength from our God.
00:20:14
Speaker
Our God strengthens not just our physical body, but our faith, our spirit, our resolve to do the good work that he has set for us to do, which we talked about yesterday as well. Okay, now we're going to go to chapter 8.
00:20:31
Speaker
And he says, when so he he's Ezra proclaimed a fast. He had all of this these riches with him. He had a great deal with him. And in chapter 8, they count out everything. He makes a very thorough accounting.
00:20:49
Speaker
And they accounted for it by weight. And then they waited again when they arrived in Jerusalem and saw that nothing was missing. It was all accounted for. And so they had a great deal that they were traveling with.
00:21:04
Speaker
And so he had said, he says here in, ah in shara starting in verse 21, that the reason he proclaimed a fast was so that we might humble ourselves before our God and seek from him a straight way for us, our little ones, and all our possessions.
00:21:26
Speaker
For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and cavalry to protect us from the enemy along the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The gracious hand of our God is upon everyone who seeks him, but his great anger is against everyone who forsakes him.
00:21:46
Speaker
So we fasted and sought our God about this, and he responded to our plea.
00:21:54
Speaker
May we all put our money where our mouth is. May we all walk the walk and not just talk the talk. So Ezra was talking the talk to the king, and then he realized he couldn't very well go back and ask the king for protection once he had claimed this about God.
00:22:12
Speaker
He needed to act out his faith. May we all be bold and strengthened by the story of Ezra to know that when we are so faithful to speak highly of God and talk about his what he's capable of doing.
00:22:34
Speaker
May we follow through with what we claim God is capable of doing. it's it's not ah It can be difficult to act out our faith at times.
00:22:47
Speaker
And ah ah that's one of the things that I try really hard to do is is to live my faith. And like when I lost my necklace.
00:22:58
Speaker
And i i knew that God was telling me he was going to return it to me. and And people told me that, you know, yes, I believe in God, but but people are are terrible and and they will keep it if they find it.
00:23:15
Speaker
And that was not the case. we need to be firm in our faith and stand by what we believe in. And especially in, in latter times, when we, as we come into the end times, um,
00:23:32
Speaker
It's very important that we maintain our faith in God.
Reflecting on God's Faithfulness
00:23:36
Speaker
as As Ezra said, that God gets angry when we forsake him. God never leaves us nor forsakes us.
00:23:46
Speaker
Jesus said, I will never leave you or forsake you either. And so God wants us to be faithful to him, as we talked about yesterday. and may And this is what e Ezra is living out his faith today.
00:24:02
Speaker
and And so may God strengthen you. May God strengthen me as we go through difficulties, as as God gives us opportunities to practice our faith and to put our money where our mouth is, to live out in real life that which we we read about. it's It's so much easier to just read about stuff and say, oh, yes, yes, I have faith in God. He can do anything.
00:24:28
Speaker
I can do everything through God who strengthens me. then if we can do everything through God who strengthens us, we need to live that. We need to act like it.
00:24:39
Speaker
and And not be discouraged and not be despairing when things happen that are difficult and look impossible. For as Jesus said, with man, this is impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible.
00:24:52
Speaker
We say it, but do we believe it? Do we act out our faith in this? Do we have the strength of Ezra to be firm and humble ourselves before our Lord? And say, okay, Lord, I know this is so about you.
00:25:07
Speaker
Give me the strength to live my faith out in you. to to put my faith in you and not in the countries around me. Not in my money. Not in anything. Our strength is to be in our Lord.
00:25:21
Speaker
Not in people. Not in anything else. But in God. And we see God's faithfulness as he not only provided for the rebuilding of his temple and and for the offerings and to beautify the temple in this way, as Ezra said, but he was strengthening his people.
00:25:42
Speaker
Remember that the exile was meant to purify, that they would come back stronger. And we see that they're not perfect. God knows his people are not perfect.
00:25:53
Speaker
And he so he sends us teachers. And there were several hundred years in between this time until Jesus came. But God did not delay. God did not leave the people with nothing.
00:26:08
Speaker
They had teachings and then... He didn't go for thousands of years before s sending Jesus again and at all. He didn't send thousands of years before sending this promise that we have been reading about.
00:26:22
Speaker
As we read yesterday in Malachi, God would send someone who would prepare the way. We read about John the Baptist. And he came and and so God has told us told us everything he would do and he was faithful. We just need to believe that and act it.
00:26:42
Speaker
We need to act like we believe it, not just preach it. We need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. So I just, I wanted to encourage us in that.
00:26:53
Speaker
And may we all be strengthened as Ezra was strengthened to have faith in in God. And we see God's faithfulness when we have faith in God and we act out our faith.
00:27:08
Speaker
God is faithful in return. Ezra noted that God provided and he answered their prayers. God will answer our prayers as too. He will do so for his name's sake.
00:27:21
Speaker
So I hope that you feel that God has lit your light today. i know i know he has definitely lit my light. I am super excited. But you know what that also means too? It means that we're going to have situations that arise that give us cause to practice this faith. it's It's great to be excited and to have our light lit.
00:27:42
Speaker
But we don't gain faith by reading. We gain faith by doing, by walking every day. So I want us to be aware that that means that if you are praying and asking God to give you that strength, God does that by sending circumstances, allowing us to live it.
00:28:04
Speaker
so that we can live out our faith. And why do we do this? So that we can bring testimony to God, because we are God's witnesses. Ezra was witnessing.
00:28:16
Speaker
He wrote it down and he shows us his his faith but in God and how God was faithful. So we too are called to be God's witnesses, to strengthen our brothers and sisters so that when we go through these things, remember Ezra and be strong and know that God will be with you.
00:28:35
Speaker
Live your faith and and then testify. Give your testimony to others. Share it. Talk about it. Tell of God's great faithfulness.
00:28:46
Speaker
Because when we do that, we see in real time that if God did it for so-and-so, he will also do this for me. God did this for Ezra hundreds of thousands of years ago now.
00:29:01
Speaker
Over 2,000, probably 2,500 years ago, thereabouts. And if God was just as faithful then, we know from what God he told us yesterday, he does not change.
00:29:11
Speaker
God is as faithful today in our lives as he was then for Ezra, as he was for David, as he was for Moses, as he was for Abraham, as he was to Adam and Eve.
00:29:24
Speaker
God is faithful.
Conclusion and Call to Share Faith
00:29:26
Speaker
He is the beginning and the end. He is always with us. He has never left us and he never will. So give testimony to God's faithfulness in your own life to strengthen your brothers and your sisters around you whom God places in your path so that like Mordecai, we can be ah strong where God places us for such a time as that in every day in our everyday lives.
00:29:57
Speaker
So thank you for joining me today. I told you that there would be a lot to go through today and it was so wonderful, so exciting. Although I can't say I'm looking forward to the situations that are going to cause me to have to live my faith.
00:30:15
Speaker
I am, but I'm not. I know that they must be coming then because God strengthens us in the same way that he strengthened Ezra. He will strengthen us for the task.
00:30:26
Speaker
He doesn't give us more than we can bear. He knows, like with Job, that we can be strong in him. Remember Job's strength and now Ezra's strength.
00:30:37
Speaker
And know that we too can be just as strong as they. and we can call upon Jesus to be our strength in our times of weakness. So I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day, August 3rd or whatever day you're getting ready that you're having the opportunity to listen or to watch.
00:30:57
Speaker
Please click that light button so that we can spread this word about God's word so that we can encourage other brothers and sisters to see God's light and to live their faith, to walk the walk, put their money where their mouth is and to be strong in God.
00:31:15
Speaker
And that's it. I will be here for everyone again tomorrow.