Opposition to Rebuilding

Well, thank you, Bible. Turn with me to Ezra. I know that you've already turned there, probably because of our earlier scripture reading. Of course, you know by now that we are going to be in chapter four. We're not going to cover all of the chapter. We covered all of chapter three last week, but we will cover just the first five verses, the first five verses of chapter four. Now, if you've really paid attention to where we have been and where we are, where we're going in the book of Ezra, you'll know that the stage is really set to see the work that God is doing here in the lives of these Jews that have come back from captivity.

Now, I want us to really, really pay attention. I want us to learn. This is not just a history lesson. And what we see is, is they progress in this journey and their journey of obedience. We're going to learn truths, principles that we can apply as we go. So I really want us to learn as we go and not just notice the history lesson with God's people. Now, let's just reach back and I want to make a few comments. In chapter one, chapter two, we saw the Jews come back from captivity to Judah, there to Jerusalem to do what? To rebuild.

One thing that I've not covered much, if you know your Bible history, you know that I've not covered much about the Northern Kingdom, which was Israel. That would have been the 10 tribes to the north of Judah. Now, the nation of Israel had split. The nation originally was consolidated. They were unified, but they had split and it was over a dispute between Solomon's son, Rhea Bohem, and the 10 tribes to the north. They were several contributing factors. They were political reasons. They were geographical reasons, but there was a spiritual reason that they split spiritually. This was a result of Solomon's apostasy.

I don't know if you know the story in the life of Solomon. He was very wise man, but he was a very foolish man. Solomon married foreign wives and he began to worship their strange gods. Did he not? And eventually the Northern 10 tribes broke off. They split. Why? This was as a result of Solomon's sin. But eventually the Northern 10 tribes were conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC. And this was over a hundred years before the Southern Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. We focused more on Judah in the situation with the Babylonians, but previously the others had been conquered.

Now, although the Jews from Babylonian captivity, they made up the nucleus of those returning to rebuild. There were certain ones from the other tribes that did return. So I reached back and I grabbed that because I want you to have a fuller picture of the history of the background. Now, last week in chapter two or chapter three, excuse me, we saw the people getting to work in renewal and rebuilding. They renewed their worship practices. We could relate to that very, very well. And they rebuilt the altar. Remember, they built a new altar on the old foundations and then they laid the foundation for the temple.

Now, I want to make some comments here in application from what we looked at in chapter three. I want you to think about this. Remember, they rebuilt the altar, a new altar on old foundations, and then they rebuilt, started rebuilding the temple on the foundation. Remember, it was not a new worship that they brought back from captivity. It was the old worship from the word of God. And I want to make some application here that's really been on my heart since last week. We must be faithful to the altar. Now think about that. That was an all-consuming altar.

And just like they were faithful to rebuild the altar, renewing their worship practices, we must do the same. This really relates in three ways. First, it relates in our own personal lives. If we're not careful, we can come to church. We can sing the songs, even do the Bible studies, but neglect our own personal worship. Personal time with the Lord, prayer, and study of the Word for no other reason just to know God and let the Word of God speak to us and worship. We must be faithful to the altar in our own family. We as men must be leading our families in prayer and Bible study, leading our wives.

That's something I believe that is overlooked in the life of most churches, but it's very, very fundamental to the Christian home. We must be faithful to the corporate altar. Now I'm thankful that we don't have to all assemble together and bring an animal and sacrifice that animal on the altar. No, we don't have to do that. But we are faithful to the altar in corporate worship when we assemble together unified to make that all-consuming sacrifice of our lives. So we must be faithful to the altar. We must be faithful to worship. That's what they were doing there at the altar.

Personal worship, worship within our homes on a consistent daily basis. And then we must be faithful to corporate worship. You know, we live in a day when so many people are so busy doing so many things. There are so many churches canceling so many things on the church calendar. To be honest with you, much of the social events on the church calendar need to be canceled, but yet worship needs to be rekindled in a corporate manner. You study the greats of church history and they never cut out corporate worship. We must be faithful to rebuild this work called the church.

I think that if you've paid attention, you've been noticing some language that's reflective of some things that have been on my heart. And we're not just doing this work for today. We're doing this work for the next generation and we must be faithful to rebuild the church just like these Jews were faithful as well. Now tonight's message is a progression from chapter three. In chapter three, they started rebuilding the temple by laying the foundation. And in chapter four, we will see them continue in this work, but we're going to see hindrances. They're going to run into some obstacles. They've just gotten started.

No doubt they're very excited, but all of a sudden, hindrances and obstacles and opposition come their way. Now that's the title of the message. We're looking at opposition to rebuilding. Like I said, that is from verses one through five. If you have your passages open, I'm going to read them. Let's read them together. Verse one. Now, when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approach Zerubbabel. Remember, he was the governor. He was one of the leaders and also the fathers of the households. What did they say?

Let us build with you for we are like you seeking your God. And we have been sacrificing to him since the days of the king of Assyria who brought us here, but Zerubbabel and Yeshua and the rest of the heads of the father's households of Israel said to them, you have nothing in common with us in building the house or a house to our God with us. But we ourselves will together build to the Lord, the God of Israel as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, and even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia. Now you see the truths that we're going to explore. We'll see number one, the exiles and their work, the enemies of the work and the exiles reaction to this opposition. So let's dive into the message and I want us to examine truth number one, the exiles and their work, the exiles and their work. Go back to verse one.

Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel. Now we learned earlier in chapter three that the exiles laid the foundation of the temple. Remember the young and the old were celebrating. The young were celebrating and then the old were weeping. Why? Because they remembered the original temple and they did this according to the law of Moses. That's important because they did it according to the word of God and they were beginning the rebuilding stage of their return and we see this natural progression. Chapter one and two, they return.

Then they begin to renew worship and then they begin to rebuild all in chapter three and then we see in chapter four, we see the exiles at work. Now I want us to make some observations about these exiles. Some of them are obvious, some of them are kind of small and we can overlook them, but there are five observations real quickly. First, remember that they were small in number. Remember the original group that came in that first wave of exiles was about 50,000 people. Ezra in the second wave did not return yet. This was a very small number of Jews compared to how many Jews lived in Israel before the exile.

Some of the sources that I consider say that there would have been several million who would have lived in Israel. So this was a very, very small number of people. Second, I want you to see they were just out of captivity. Chapter three verse eight tells us that this took place in the second year after their return, meaning they were not long out of captivity. No doubt they were still adjusting to their new situation because so many of them were born not in Israel, not in Judah, but in captivity. Then also third, they were mostly born in captivity.

We learn in chapter three that there were two groups celebrated the laying of the temple foundations. The old men who knew of Solomon's temple and the young men who had not seen the original temple, but remember they had been in captivity for 70 years according to Jeremiah 2910 and that meant that the majority would have been born in captivity or at least taken into captivity at a very early age. The fourth observation I want you to see is they were under the control of Babylon. Remember that it was King Cyrus who allowed them to return home to build.

We saw that in chapter one verse one, but even after their return, they lived under successive kings who had control over them. There was Cyrus. Sometimes he's called Cyrus the Great. We know who he is because of chapter one. Then he had a son that ruled for a very short time in between Cyrus and Darius. We saw that Darius is mentioned there in chapter four verse five. So we had Cyrus, Cyrus the Great, his son. Then we have Darius. Now under Darius, the second temple was finished. Then we have Erxes and then we have Artax Erxes.

Now the events in the book of Esther and the walls of Jerusalem being rebuilt under Nehemiah happened under the reign of Artax Erxes. Now what am I showing you? They were under the control of Babylon for a long time. And then fifth, they were suffering the consequences of their sin. They lost their nation, their temple, their freedom because of their sin. Now the two primary sins that caused this judgment were spiritual and political. They had forsaken the Lord and abandoned the abandoned. They had forsaken the Lord and they had adopted the pagan practices of their neighbors. They had fallen into the worship of Baal.

Baal was a local fertility god. They had also fallen into the practice of worshiping Molech. That was a Canaanite god. And as they worship Molech, they literally sacrificed children. Now get that. God's people, the people of Israel making child sacrifices to a pagan god. How horrific is that? Politically, Israel had stooped to paying tribute to the Babylonians, which is a practice that was adopted by the Egyptians. Jeremiah the prophet denounced this practice and they were judged for their sin, which resulted in the temple being destroyed, the nation overrun, and then those in Judah taken to Babylonian captivity. Many went and fled to Egypt.

They dispersed. And of course, we know that the other tribes had been judged over 100 years earlier. So they were suffering major consequences from major sins. So what do we see here with these exiles? They were not a powerful nation. They were not a strong and autonomous group. They were a ragtag group of newly returned exiles. All they had was the grace of God. They were truly acting by faith, a faith in what God had called them to do according to the word of God and according to what God had done in them and even through King Cyrus. So they were very vulnerable, very vulnerable.

So we see their work and maybe some of these truths have really shed light on the situation for you. Now I couldn't help but think about the similarities between what we see in the book of Acts with the New Testament church. This really should remind us of the early church fathers in Acts chapter four, verse 13, when they stood before those Jewish leaders. What does the scripture say? They recognized that they were uneducated, unchurched, untrained men. They were without favor. They did not have the favor of the Roman political machine nor the favor of the Jewish religious system. They were unschooled, untrained men and they had no favor.

They were very few in number, mostly outcasts in society. Yet we see that they impacted the world. So the exiles and their work. If I can use that language again, a ragtag group holding on to the grace of God and the word of God to fulfill God's sovereign plan. Number two, notice the enemies of the work. The enemies of the work. This is in verses one and two and then on verses down, verses four and five. Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord of God of Israel, they approached. And what did they say? Let us build with you because why?

For we, like you, seek your God and we've been sacrificing to him since the days of the king of Assyria who brought us here. Then verse four, then the people of the land, they discourage the people of Judah. They frighten them and then they hired counselors. So what do we see? We see the enemies of the work, the enemies of the exiles and this work. Now I need to give you a little bit of a history lesson here for you to grasp this fully. Now who were these enemies? Who were these people? The English Standard Version, the King James, it reads adversaries. The New American reads enemies. Who were these people?

These were the people that were considered Samaritans. Simplistically, they were people of a Syrian and Jewish descent with a mixture of other peoples who were in the region previously. After the Northern 10 tribes were conquered by the Assyrians, that was over 100 years before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, there were three events that brought about these Samaritans. First, the Assyrians deported the Jews into various parts of the Assyrian Empire. This is familiar to us because that's what happened with the Babylonians. So they were deported, exported away from their home.

This was their practice to remove a conquered population into their conquered lands. And although a majority of them would have been deported, they were the poor that remained and some did trickle back to their homeland. Second, the Assyrians imported Assyrian peoples to inhabit the conquered land. They imported those foreign peoples. It appears that there were three different colonizations of people from Assyria into the Samaritan region. 2 Kings 17 tells us of this practice as well as the writings of the King of Assyria. As a matter of fact, some of the writings of the King of Assyria exist today in the British Museum there in London.

Now the third event after the Assyrians arrived and they began to try to tame the land. The land had been taken over by wild animals. It was desolate and they sit back to Assyria for their own priests to come instruct them in their worship. Now what was the result? By the time of the return to rebuild, there was an amalgamation of different religious practices, different cultures, and different thoughts within this mixture of people in the land. This one verse really nails this. 2 Kings 17 verse 33.

"So they feared the Lord," this is the description of the people, "they feared the Lord but also served their own gods." See the pluralistic worship? "After the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away." That one verse describes this great amalgamation of so much. This verse tells us the Jewish influence on the people, but the worship of the foreign gods on the people. This was a true cultural and religious melting pot and these were the enemies, the adversaries of this work. See? Now three activities of these people. First, they offered to help the work. They offered to help in the work. We saw that in verse 2.

"They came and they said, 'Let us build with you.'" With that explanation that I've given us, with that explanation of who these people are, look back at the verse and notice what they say. "Let us build with you." If we're not careful, we'll stop there. But notice, "For we, like you, seek your God." And we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of the King of Assyria, who brought us here. Well, according to the history that we've learned, that's not true. That's not true. What we have here is a mixed-race people.

One Bible commentator that I read called it a "mongrel people" because they were a mixture of religions, they were a mixture of peoples, and look, on the very front end, this offer to help seems very good. Go back to the beginning of the verse. "Let us help you." Remember the condition of the exiles? They were a ragtag group. So they offered to help. One Bible commentator that I read said that they offered to become allies. That's what they did. The second activity, I want you to notice, they discouraged the people.

Look at verse 4, "Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building." The New American Standard says "discouraged," and it footnotes that word "discouraged," and it gives an alternate translation saying that they "weaken the hands of the people." Also, the verse reads, "frightened." They frightened them. They made them afraid. This speaks of the discouragement, the threats. They caused the people to be distracted from the work. So, since they could not become friendly enemies, they came out.

They came out with their true intentions, and they discouraged the people so much so that their hands were frightened in the work. Then third, notice another activity. They hired counselors to work against them. Look at verse 5, "And they hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all of the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of king Darius." This speaks of another step in this progression. Although they could not change the king's edict, that would have been king Cyrus' edict, they could hire a bribe by Babylonian officials to hinder the word. Now, if you look at history, we see something.

History tells us that Cyrus, king Cyrus, Cyrus the Great, was frequently out fighting wars, thus leaving the government in the hands of his son. Now, his son was a wicked prince, and history tells us that he was hostile to the Jews and their religious practices, so there would have been ample room to bribe palace officials to do what? Hinder this work. So, what do we see here? "The enemies of the work try to hinder the work in three ways. First, they offer to help with the intention to hinder. They were never friends. Second, they hinder the work by discouragement, fear tactics, intimidation.

And third, they hinder through bribing the corrupt government officials. These so-called friends soon turned out to be great enemies." Now, go back and look at the verse. "Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God, and we've been sacrificing to your God since the days of the king of Assyria, who brought us up here." See? The enemies of the work. And let's look at the third observation out of these verses, the exile's reaction to this opposition. So, we've seen the exiles, we've seen the enemies, and now let's look at the exile's reaction. Look at verse 3.

"But Zerubbabel," remember, that's right after verse 2, "But Zerubbabel and Yeshua, Zerubbabel was the governor, Yeshua was the head of the priests, and the rest of the heads of the fathers of the house souls of Israel, said to them, 'You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God, but we ourselves will together build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as the king, Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.'" Now, if we read verses 1 and 2 real quickly, we could think that the exiles had a great opportunity, especially if we don't understand the historical context. Right before them, what do they have? They've got help.

This ragtag group, this small group that is weak, they had help. Right in front of them was manpower, financial assistance, connections to the right people. And if we notice the word that Ezra uses in verse 1 to describe these people, he describes them as enemies or adversaries, we see the Jewish view of these people. By using this word, he gives us an indication of their reaction that was the follow of this so-called work. Now, four things about this reaction. First, they separated from the people. Verse 3, "But Zerubbabel and Yeshua," and what do they say? They're unified in their response.

"You have nothing in common with us." These leaders, Zerubbabel, the priestly leaders, the heads of the household, were unified, and they saw that these people were not true Jews. And therefore, they remained separate from them. And a mingling with the pagan peoples was a part of the great sin that they had committed before the judgment, remember? So they separated from the people. Second, they separated them from the work. "You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God." Now, notice what the verse says. "They knew that these non-Jews had no share or part in this work.

It was God's work for God's people, and any involvement from these mixed-race, mongrel peoples would be a sin on their part." Third, they trusted in God's provision. What do they say? "But we ourselves will together build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the King of Persia, has commanded us." They knew that it was Cyrus that had granted them favor in this return home. But they also knew that this was God's great provision according to his sovereign plan. They were trusting in God, and they were trusting the means by which God had provided Cyrus. So they trusted in the provision of God.

Now, before we get into our fourth reaction, I want us to stop here. What do we see? What do we see here? Their reaction was total and absolute separation. If they would have allowed this intermingling, this assistance from these people, there would have been severe consequences. First, this could have led to intermarriage with these people, which was strictly forbidden. That was one of the sins they had committed previously prior to the judgment. Second, this would inevitably led to a mixture of worship of the one true God and their pagan idolatry. Again, that was another sin that they had committed previously.

And third, this would have polluted the purity of the Jewish population. So they could not, they would not in any way connect themselves with these people. Total separation, absolute separation. Now notice one more thing. Fourth, they delayed in the work. Verse five, after they hired the counselors, what does it say? And they frustrated them all of the days of the King, King Cyrus until the reign of Darius, King of Persia. What do we see? If you know your history and you do your math, they had a 16 year delay in the work. The work ceased. The discouragement, the fear tactics, the hindrances from the corrupt palace officials worked.

Somehow it worked and they stopped their work. And as a result of this delay, the people began to be devoted to their own personal wants and their own personal needs. And it is the prophet Hagia who comes and corrects them and rebukes them. So what do we see? It worked. Although they reacted properly, they separated, they separated from the people, they separated them from the work and they trusted in God's provision. But somehow there was a delay here and they were very successful in keeping pure. They kept these hindrances. Now notice from coming within, but there were external hindrances that were successful. Let me repeat that.

They were very successful in keeping these hindrances from coming within, but somehow they did succumb to external hindrances. Now what do we see here? We see this opposition to their building. We see the exiles and their work, very small, weak group of people. We see the enemies of the work. They claim to be friends, claim to be allies, but we saw very quickly that they turned out to be anything but allies. And we see the exiles reaction to this opposition. Now I want to transition from the text and I'm going to make three observations about what they did. And this is very, very relevant to today.

First of all, I want you to see the tremendous danger at hand. They might not have seen it fully, but there was a tremendous danger right here in the beginning of this verse. This horrific danger that lay right before them, this very small group, was letting these people get inside of the work of God. Now they were tempted. They were tempted to let them inside and to help them doing God's work, but they were successful in not succumbing to this temptation. So they're at a crisis time. They're at a crisis time in their lives. They are back. They've reinstituted worship. They are beginning to rebuild the temple.

They celebrated as the foundations were laid and now they are progressing in the work and all of a sudden a trial, a crisis come. Here they come. Let us help. Oh, a tremendous danger. You might not realize how relevant that is to today. I'm going to use an example to help you see that. You know that I will reference John MacArthur and his teaching material very often. He's a very good Bible commentator. Theologically, he's very sound.

I don't listen to John MacArthur that often, but several months ago, I'm not sure when the time, I got a hold of a series of messages that he preached and the title of the series was called Deliverance, the Neglective Doctrine. Now, the word deliverance that he's keying on is a term, a word that is used in the New Testament to teach on and explain conversion. So we're not used to that word deliverance, but that's what he's teaching on. Conversion, biblical conversion, the neglected doctrine. If you're interested in that series, it was preached in 2001. It was eight messages. It was very good, very relevant.

It really came out of his heart and he was speaking to the evangelical world as he saw it. And he was saying basically that the church has lost conversion. Now, I'm going to read you portion of this message. I want you to bear with me and I think you'll see what we need to see. Notice what he's saying. The big picture of the church is this. The church is in serious trouble. I'm not talking about our local church. I'm talking about the quote unquote evangelical church. It is a grave, grave blight that strikes the church in our day and it is a tremendous grief to me.

I'm certain that I'm grieved in my own heart because I understand enough about the Bible to know what the Lord wants the church to be and it is not this. Now, what's the problem that he's talking about? He's going to show us. I'm always asked this question, talking about his travels. What do you think is the main problem facing the church? What do you think the main issue facing the church is today? And he gives us response. The main issue facing the church is a lack of discernment. The church doesn't distinguish between truth and falsehood. It has a defective immune system. It has a case of spiritual aids.

It does not have the ability to fight off error because it doesn't know the truth. Weak theology, shallow, superficial knowledge of scripture, all kinds of uncalled, unqualified people standing in pulpits who are not sent by God like the prophets Jeremiah talks about and don't have the word of God and don't understand it or inventing all kinds of things that the church is buying into. A superficial knowledge of scripture, a weak theology, all kinds of error flooding into the church cripples discernment. It goes on to say, now let me go a little deeper into this issue. All of the issues of discernment and there are many.

There's a lot of confusion in the church. There's a lot of error in the church about a lot of things. There are all kinds of views of the work of the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, all kinds of views about various passages in the scripture, great paradigms for sanctification, forms of baptism, spiritual gifts, views about salvation, about the purpose and the work of God, about the sovereignty of God, about human volition, all kinds of views about all kinds of things. And the church not only lacks discernment but lacks the willingness to be discerning. Now here's where it's going.

But all of the issues that are important, there is one that is off the top of my list. If we're going to be discerning about anything, there is one thing we have to be discerning about and it's this, who is a true Christian? That's the most crucial one of all. That is the most crucial issue of all. At the top of my list in this matter of being discerning is, we need to know who the true Christians are because if we don't, we are inviting the enemy into the camp.

It goes on to say right now on this day, and it's been this way for a long time through this 20th century, the biggest problem in the church is its inability and unwillingness to distinguish true Christians from false. And it's literally killing the church. I'm not going to continue because of time, but I think you get the point. What is John MacArthur saying? The church has let in the enemy. He's saying as he looks across the evangelical landscape, the church has let their guard down and let them in. And that is exactly what is happened today. The church has let so many people in.

And listen, when you lower the standard with conversion, you let any kind of person come in and then you are susceptible to all types of people who will come in and they will assist in the work of God only to pollute the work of God. And immediately the message is altered. The methods of the church are tainted and the people of God and the church of God is polluted. See what happened? Hey, you exiles, we'll help. No, no, no. That's exactly what has happened today. I'm grieved in a story that I'm going to tell you because it involves a friend, but it helps illustrate what we're dealing with. Keith and I have a friend.

He's in the process of sifting through leaving a church, broken, hurt, wanting to make this choice, this decision right, prayerful, studying scripture. He asked me for any messages that I might have that might assist. I gave him the messages that we went through on calling us back to the biblical church and the 10 pillars of the church. And what I see is a friend as he is grieved over the condition of his church. And what he is seeing every Sunday when he goes is he comes and he sits in the pews and he looks up and it is nothing but Samaritans leading the church. The message polluted. The message of the church polluted.

Looks good at a distance, great crowds, but heartbreaking because what does it do? It cripples the church. Now for us, for you, for me, if we're not careful, we will say this, oh, but we are not like that. But what about in 20 years? What about when some of you grow older and your own children in the back are the leaders of the church today? Listen, what about then? What about when you and I are older and those in the back that we've reached in this community become leaders in this church? What about a generation from now? Listen, you mark it down. You mark it down.

One day there will be people, they will come along, and they are nothing but Samaritans. They are not true Christians. They are half-breeds and they might say the right words and the church, Enola, will be at a crossroads will we let them in the work. And if we are discerning and if we know the scriptures and if we teach the scriptures systematically to our young people and we teach them how to manage this work called the church, they will not let them in. It's a tremendous danger. Second, they're very dogmatic approach. What did they say? They said, you have no share in any of this. Listen, it was a unified voice.

The government officials, the priests, the heads of the families, they were unified. We saw that in chapter three and they said you have nothing in common with us or in the building of the house of our God. And see, to be this clear cut and to be this dogmatic always comes across negative to many people. But I want you to see that this is nothing new with the people of God. Jot this verse down, Acts chapter eight, starting in verse four all the way down to verse 24. Acts chapter eight. Now I want you to notice something.

Oh, this is so good because what do we have in Acts chapter eight after the great persecution that broke out against the church, there is Philip, a man of God. And where does he go? He goes to Samaria. Isn't that good? He goes to Samaria to this mongrel race of people. And what happens? Philip is preaching and there's this very, very well known celebrity. It is Simon the sorcerer and he says that he believes and he's following Philip. And then what do we see as we continue in the story? We see that Peter and John came and they lay hands on the people who had believed and they received the spirit and lo and behold, what happens?

Simon the sorcerer says this, give me this authority, give this to me as well, so that I may lay hands on others and they may receive the spirit. But how did he ask? He offered them money. He offered him money and see what you see is this. He tried to do a good thing, but the world's way. The end does not justify the means by which you get there. But notice what Peter says. Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with your money. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right. But for God, a very dogmatic approach.

And I want you to notice previously before this great trial, Simon the sorcerer was following them around. And then if you progress over past this, this situation, they left and Simon didn't go with them. He didn't tag along. What am I showing you? They had a very dogmatic approach. Listen, we must be very clear cut, very dogmatic in these issues. We cannot lower the standard of conversion. We cannot lower the standards of who operates and works in the life of the church because what happens? We take one step to this tremendous danger. Now you have to be careful because if you begin to take this approach in many churches, it will cost you.

It costs me. As I began to stand up, I didn't ask to stand up. I was burdened. As a matter of fact, one of the passages that God used in my life at my last church where I was so burdened, so burdened about how people were coming into the life of the church, all kinds of people in leadership was this very text in Acts chapter eight. As I began to open up and broken this in tears and say, we cannot do these things. Now I wasn't the pastor. I know that, but as God opened up opportunities for me to share, taking a very straight line approach, it cost. And it cost the Jews, didn't it? It cost those exiles, didn't it?

They experienced great opposition. And then third, this downright attack. See, they had a downright upfront attack. Now, if you know your history, you know that Satan is always been attacking God's work. But let me show you with the church and with the nation of Israel, there was two modes of attack. First from within and then from without, if he can get within, he will work in. If he can't get in, he will work from without. That is exactly what we see on over into the New Testament church. Remember that great persecution with Saul that scattered the Christians. Philip goes down to some area.

Look, it was a great attack from without, but look what looked like something bad from the enemy was good from God because as they scattered, what did they do? They preached. So Satan has always been attacking. And look, if he can't get in, he will attack from without. Now, what do I want to leave us with as we close? Listen, these Jews, they have gotten started. Last week was glorious. It was wonderful. A great celebration. The foundation of the temple is laid. The altar and the worship has been reinstituted. They are making those sacrifices that are symbolic of their entire lives on the altar. But all of a sudden opposition comes.

And let me tell you, church, as we progress, as we grow, as we reach other peoples, as we begin new ministries based on prayer, based on the scriptures, is God grant success. There will be the temptation to let certain ones in and then maybe they will be an attack from without. Now, what is the worst? I want you to see the worst is always lowering the standards because when we lower the standards, when we lower the standards, the corruption that comes in destroys. Just look at the nation of Israel. When Solomon started doing what Solomon started doing, look at the destruction.

When the New Testament churches lower the standards, what do we see in those seven letters to the seven churches? See? The opposition to the rebuilding. And I think that this could cause us to really take seriously the open door of ministry that we have and pray for not only the next year or two to come, but for the next generation. Lord, I thank you for this wonderful but difficult story.