“Ye have nothing to do with Us”...the Wayfarer 4/19/14

“Ye have nothing to do with Us”
 4/19/14

But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house to our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.”

(Ezra 4:3)

As the children of Israel attempted to rebuild their temple in honor and to respect the God Who had given them His covenant, protection and blessing that was promised for eternity, enemies from other nations, other moral values, other ideology that lived alongside and among them came to them in words of peace with false declarations in an attempt to subvert the very purpose of the temple being built.

The leadership of Israel was canny enough to recognize both the deception of this people and the abomination it represented and responded with the opening verse as given.

“Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel;

Then they came to Zerubabbel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.”

(Ezra 4: 1 &2)

Note that this scripture quoted begins with the opening statement that it was the very adversaries of all represented by the worship of God, and all that He stood for, all His commandments, all of His specific blessings given HIS people who were the ones that came as wolves in sheep’s clothing to ask to participate in the building of both temple and nation.

They came claiming that the “god” they worshipped was the same God who selected Israel from all nations because He knew that only Israel would in fact cling to, teach, pass on to their own children all the tenets and commandments given them.

These came not to be converted, but to pervert and subvert those tenets and commandments with the intention of supplanting and replacing them with their own concepts, laws and perversions of the truth of those given Israel.

When their attempt to conquer from within the very ranks of God’s own failed, they then went to great trouble to find and use the laws of the land against them, to delay and destroy all labor toward that temple and what it represented by all means possible, enlisting the help of all they could recruit.

“Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building.

And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia.”

(Ezra 4: 4 & 5)

This attempt did not end with the reign of a single king, a single generation, but, continued in full force until the eventual success of that temple having been built, and more importantly actually in use for its intended purpose.

This was not the only attempt to delay or destroy that temple and the people who built it, and most assuredly not the last attempt to use the tactics employed to do so.

Counsellors were hired to promote the case against, God, His people, and the temple being built. Materials needed were withheld or delayed; craftsmen and artisans were harassed and even killed for their efforts. Laws were used contrary to the intent of those laws to delay and destroy that building… and yet… it was completed. Lasting until the time a New Covenant was given that made that temple, its priests, and the sacrifices given obsolete and no longer to be considered necessary to reach that ONE TRUE GOD!

Now it is the children of that new covenant as well as those still remaining obstinate in their continuation of the Old Covenant that are under attack… by the same enemy, and allies of every stripe that join their ranks in the attempt to deny both God himself and that New Covenant  given though the sacrifice of his Son.

Again, counsellors are hired and employed to continually seek by means of man’s laws to thwart, subvert, pervert and destroy both God’s laws, tenets and commandments and His people chosen from among the nations of the world to receive the promised blessings and life eternal.

This same enemy comes to the courts, still claiming to worship the same God, still wanting to replace God’s laws and even the laws of those courts with their own.

They are assisted by those who claim no affinity nor even pretense of worshipping anything but mankind and mankind’s own laws that stand in contravention to those of God, His Son, and His intent for mankind when it was created.

These allies even deny the fact of that creation, and spout their evidence, forcing it to be taught in schools, while denying the teaching of God’s greatness, ability, mercy, compassion, and wrath despite the TRUTH given in all about them should they open eyes blinded by their continued lust to disobey God and to deny even the eternal soul that inhabits the body corrupted by that lust established by the true enemy of both God and man.

That enemy has only the strength to subvert given him by those choosing to believe his lies that would separate us from our purpose our blessing and the promised life. That strength is given him by those who do not realize or admit the existence of that enemy, whose hatred of man is the very reason that he deceives them into relinquishing the eternal for the temporal, the blessing for the condemnation to be faced when they finally come to the conclusion of a puny wasted life in the service only of that enemy.

Choices must be made today, as choices had to be made when this old scripture was written, whether to accept the lies, accept that enemy as supreme and above God and LIFE, or to stand fast and endure, just as the children of the captivity stood, resisted, endured to the completion of what was required of them.

We may choose to honor the lies of equality, tolerance, totality of the aberrations and abominations that are daily presented as something grand, and more worthy, or we may accept the TRUTH and honor that New Covenant given us, and endure until the completion of that Covenant that grants life eternal, and something far more grand and worthy that what is being offered in its place.

I pray that Christians awaken to the TRUTH of the war in which we are engaged. I pray they stand firm and fast. I pray they resist those enemies that still attack through all facets of life in all the age old ways, and all the “new” and progressive ways that promise blessing, but lead only to condemnation, death and separation from the LIFE. I pray that all would remember the WAY given to find both that TRUTH and that LIFE.

I remain, yet and still, only an humble servant and soldier of that same God honored, followed, and obeyed by the builders of that temple that now lies in ruins, a simple sinner saved by grace through faith in both the TRUE God, and the promise given through the sacrifice of His Son. I still proclaim the need for endurance and that message given that allows redemption from the temporal things that steal the eternal things promised.

Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” 

2 Timothy 1:12 King James Version (KJV)

¹² For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Amen and Amen.
the Wayfarer