Post-Exile Bible History Overview

We are in hour 10 of Learn the Bible in 24 hours, and we're going to talk now about what's called the post-exile history. We had the historical books up to the monarchy, then we had the monarchy, then we had the exile, the captivity, and all of that. Now we're going to have the period of history from the exile, that is the return from Babylon, up until the end of the Old Testament period. And that primarily will involve three books. Ezra and Nehemiah, and also the charming book of Esther. And so we're going to touch on the decree of Cyrus. I made mention of it last time, but we'll focus on it for some special reasons here because it shows up in the book of Ezra. And we'll talk about the book of Ezra, which has to do with the rebuilding of the temple. The book of Nehemiah, which follows it, which is the rebuilding of Jerusalem. I want you to be sensitive to the distinction. In Ezra, we're trying to rebuild the temple without the permission of being able to build the city wall. Nehemiah comes along and gets that permission, and so he solves a lot of the problems, the leadership problems, by doing that. And the book of Esther actually occurs during the final years of the book of Ezra. But it's a separate book, and it happens to be in your Bible after Nehemiah. But it's a drama that is incredibly colorful. The more you know about it, the more colorful it is. But also, the text itself... harbors some surprises that I think you'll enjoy. And we have a few remarks at the very end about the inter-testament period, the period between the two testaments. Well, the book of Ezra, the building of the temple. Now, we talked about this Babylonian captivity, the first siege, the second siege, and the third siege that made up the... took Judah captive. And the first siege starting the servitude of the nation, which ends with the decree of Cyrus that we're going to explain here in a minute. And so... The book of Chronicles also ends with the servitude of the nation. The book of Ezra picks up where Chronicles left off. In fact, the verses overlap. Many people believe that Chronicles, both 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemiah were collected by the same scribe. The desolations of Jerusalem, as I indicated, started from the third siege and it ends where the book of Nehemiah really introduces the degree of artaxerxes longimanus. That of course triggers the 70 weeks of Daniel that we've just reviewed. But it actually happens, the decree takes place in the book of Nehemiah. So Esther, as I say, occurs chronologically near the end of the book of Ezra, but we have it at the end of our Bible to avoid confusion. Daniel, of course, is speaking all through the Babylonian period and following. Ezekiel is transported in the second siege. Haggai is the prophet that is contemporaneous with the historical book of Ezra. Nehemiah is contemporaneous with Zechariah and Malachi in his years. That's a quick feeling of that. Cyrus is another one of these incredible leaders. He established the Medo-Persian Empire. His father was Cambyses I, who was the king of Anshan, or East Elam. Elam being the ancient biblical name for the forebears of the Persians. And Cyrus'mother was Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, the king of Media. So Cyrus is an interesting position because he's half Mede and half Persian, which he trades on to weld an empire. But in 550 BC he attacks his father-in-law, the wicked and corrupt Astyagos. And he captures his father-in-law's capital, Ecpetana, without a battle. That's going to characterize his... he's a very shrewd guy. He captures most of his things without actually having military might, but not actually having a battle. And very, he's a very modeled leader. Many people throughout the world. He's been fabled through, in some respects even greater than Alexander the Great for his his diplomacy, his leadership, and so forth. He welded the Medes and the Persians into a unified empire that continued for over 200 years. Interesting guy, indeed Cyrus the Great. Want to focus on the conquest of Babylon on October 12, 539 BC. His general captured Babylon without a battle. The Persians diverted the river Euphrates into a canal upriver. By then they'd conquered several of the towns, the outlying towns, and were able to divert the water so that the water level fell to the middle of a man's thigh at Babylon, which rendered the flood defenses useless and allowed the invaders to slip in under the gates and take over the city. There were residents that didn't know they'd been taken over for three days. No battle. Very important point. And Herodotus is the... He wrote in the 5th century BC. He's considered the father of history and he details a lot of this. But what's interesting, a few days later after his general conquers Babylon, Cyrus makes his grand entrance. And when he makes his grand entrance, he's greeted by, guess who? Daniel, the elderly Daniel. And he shows him a scroll that had been written 150 years before Cyrus was born. And there's a letter addressed to Cyrus in this scroll. I want you to imagine yourself Cyrus the Conqueror. This guy comes up to you and shows you this aged scroll that says, To the deep be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers, that saith of Cyrus. Oh, hey, there's my name, Cyrus. He is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus. Here it is again. What a strange thing to find in the Hebrew text. To his anointed? Strange word. Of a Gentile king? Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut and sunder the bars of iron. He goes on. There's a very humorous sidelight here, because Belshazzar, when the handwriting of the wall, He's writing in Daniel 5, it says his loins were loosed. And we didn't make a big thing of that, because it's hard to talk about that in mixed company, but you get the picture. What's interesting, that was a public awareness, embarrassment. Because Cyrus recognizes that here. God says, I will loose the loins of kings. He probably chuckled, he knew exactly what he's talking about, what happened 12 days ago. God continues, says, I will give thee the treasures of darkness, the hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. God is writing this 150 years before Cyrus was born with the deliberate intent of getting Cyrus'attention. Notice the next verse. God says, For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. Can you imagine Cyrus as he's reading this thing? God can say, I am the Lord and there is none else. There is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. Now, it's tragic to have to cut this off. If you read this in Isaiah 44 and 45, God goes on with this incredible declaration of God's own greatness. It's one of those rare places in the Bible where God argues for himself. It's outstanding. But we'll go on here. Cyrus, of course, was impressed. Wouldn't you be? So he frees the captives. He discovers that among his things he's captured here are Hebrew slaves. And he turns them, he not only turns them loose, he gives them financial incentives to go home. He makes donations to make the temple, to help the temple getting built. And he returns to them the vessels that had been plundered 70 years earlier by Nebuchadnezzar that were used as party tools in this party 12 days ago. He gives them to them for their temple and his incentives. Now, less than 50,000 take advantage of it. Many of the Hebrew captives have found a home in Babylon. They're happy to be there. But just a little under 50,000 pick up and go back to rebuild a new life in their old city. Now, if you go to the British Museum in London, Go there and look up the cylinder of Cyrus. It's there on display. It's about 12, 15 inches if my memory serves me correctly. And it has the translation where he brags that he conquered Babylon without a battle. I mention that because we're going to later on talk about Babylon in one of the subsequent sessions. How Babylon is being rebuilt today and that because of Jeremiah 15 and 51 and Isaiah 13 and 14. Babylon has a destiny to once again emerge as a major capital to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah was. It's never... that's never been done. Many of your Bible helps are wrong. They say, well that happened in 539. No it didn't. That Babylon was conquered by the Persians but without harm. It forms a... it's a capital, a secondary capital for Persian Empire for 200 years until Alexander conquers the Persians. And Alexander makes it his capital until his four generals... when he dies the four generals divide up the empire and by then another cities become more relevant. Babylon... Gradually decays. It atrophies. But as late as the 1800s of, you know, in the 19th century, the archaeologists were able to hire locals to help build. To help excavate. In other words, it hadn't been destroyed, there's no inhabitants and all the conditions that are described in the prophecy. So, anyway. Without a battle, he entered the town, sparing any calamity. I returned to sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which had been ruins for a long time. established for them permanent sanctuaries. Also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitation. So it's an allusion that is consistent with what the Bible says. And you find this decree also recounted in the opening verses of the book of Ezra, which is why we're getting into it. it. Thus saith Sireth, the king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdom of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. Notice the focus of this is the temple, not the city. That's the difference between Ezra and Nehemiah. We'll talk about the city when we get to Nehemiah. In Ezra they got permission and money to go back and build the temple. And they struggle, they don't get very far because they're harassed by all kinds of adversaries. They don't really get... it's a very discouraging time. Haggai, the prophet, keeps talking about for them to get their act together and keep at it. But it's an uphill battle. So Ezra is probably the author of 1st and 2nd Chronicles also. Not only Ezra and Nehemiah. All of this was regarded as one book earlier. Ezra is sometimes assumed to be the... credited with establishing what we call the canon. The basic foundation. foundational documents of the Old Testament. And about 49,697 returned in 536 BC. About 80 years later under Ezra we had another couple of thousand that joined. In 515 we have the temple finally rebuilt, not quite finished. In 558 we have another couple thousand under Ezra. All this is in the Book of Ezra. The Book of Esther occurs approximately 483 BC we figure. So it's in that era that we... explore Esther. And without Esther, we'd never have the temple. We'd never have anything else. You'll see why when we get the book of Esther. It's far more important historically than most people realize. In 445 BC, that's 13 years later, of course, after the other one, that Nehemiah obtains the authority to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, build the wall and protect themselves against their enemies. And that's the big event. And that's the one that triggers, of course, the 70 weeks of Daniel. Okay. Now, as we're talking about the temple, and that's really what the book of Esther is all about, it's interesting to notice that in the New Testament, it says you are the temple of God, right? Did you realize it said that seven times? That caught my attention. My wife pointed that out to me. Seven times, you are the temple. Now that may just be a figure of speech because we're the temple of God in the sense the Holy Spirit dwells in us and of course that's true. But it turns out there may be far more significance in the archaic. architecture of the temple to enable us to understand our internal architecture. And so the great commandment defined by Jesus Christ quoting from Deuteronomy 6, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. By the way, the one Lord, the word there is Echad, not Yashid. It's one in the sense of like a bunch of grapes. It's unity. It doesn't mean there's one God. It means that God is in unity. You can find the Trinity in all of this, but I'll keep moving here. Oh, here is the Lord. God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And when Jesus quotes it, he adds thy mind, right? All thy strength and all thy mind. So here it's three things and Jesus mentions four. But the point is, what does that mean? That's the greatest commandment. What does that mean? To love God with all thy heart as opposed to all thy soul? Or with all thy... How are those different? Those are terms we throw around rather loosely. And these are actually... You see, the real you is not hardware, it's software, using modern vocabulary. And how do you determine the architecture of software? You can't do it... You can't determine the architecture by external behavior of software. You have to have the owner's manual. There are different words. The word heart, kardia in the Greek. The word soul, psuche in the Greek. Spirit, pneuma. And each one of these has a Hebrew equivalent also. Heart, soul, spirit, mind. there are places in the scripture. My wife spent 20 years tracking down every use of every Greek and Hebrew word that relates to any of these things, plus a few others. And made a number of discoveries that I lean on heavily. Just rather exciting. The word mind is the most leading of all probably because we think of the mind as brain. No, the mind is far more than the brain even neurologically. But it actually is the channel for, or willpower, it comes close to, that's where you exercise volition. But if you look at the... temple, the original tabernacle. We studied that when we were in Exodus. But when you get to Solomon, God appears to Solomon and gives him some additional details. Some things are in the temple that are not in the tabernacle, namely among other things the two pillars, Jochen and Boaz. which carry nothing, they're pillars with no weight on top. In His strength, in His counsel, in His might is what the words mean. And you have this strange porch there. Everything inside the temple is gold, everything outside is bronze. Everything outside is bronze because it can deal with sin and judgment and so forth. Inside is holy, is pure. That's the concept that underlies all this. And around the temple we also find there are these wooden chambers. And each one of these has some provocative possibilities. These per... these wooden chambers were the private storage places of the priests, where they could store their personal implements, including idols or whatever. Their secret private little chambers. And obviously there are cases in the scripture where they needed to be cleaned out. So do ours. See the Holy of Holies, of course, is the inner thing. The holy place is the... preceding to that. And then you have this porch. strange place called the porch. Then you have the inner court and the outer court. These are the elements of architecture of the temple. My wife was the one that really explored the possibilities that these represent our architecture. The outer court represents, say, the body. The inner court, the soul. The heart is the holy place in a sense. And the spirit is in the Holy of Holies. And the great mystery, of course, is we know God dwells within us, but why is it we can't tell? by your behavior? If God dwells in you, why is it that we are so ornery? So self-willed? Because that doesn't mean He's not dwelling in us. It means we're throttling His ability to work through us. And that's why this is all so relevant. And we are faced with our willpower. Are we choosing His ways? Are we making faith choices or self-choices? If we make faith choices, God will align our desires to our choices. But we choose first and feel afterwards if we're walking by faith. I'm oversimplifying My wife has done a trilogy, The Way of Agape, Be You Transformed, and Faith in the Night Season that deal, that expand this in practical, personal walk terms. So that the Holy Spirit can shine out of us if we let Him. We constantly throttle Him by our self-will. It also leads to this interesting thing of the chambers, which look like they are correlative to the subconscious. And the subconscious is the one that is the most powerful. subconscious is not a Freudian concept. He was very much absorbed with that. It actually goes way back to Augustine and earlier. It's in the scripture in a dozen places. I won't get into that debate here. I would simply say that you need to let the Holy Spirit help you clean out our closets. All of us. Because if not, they will invisibly affect our behavior. Well let's get, let's move to some more fun stuff. The book of Esther. The name Esther means something hidden. I do understand some of you are wondering, well, what does that Hollywood stars have adopted that name. I wonder if they know what it really means. But anyway, in the Kings of Persia, we're going to move down and pick up a guy by name of Xerxes. He was the Ahasuerus of Esther. And he's quite a character, very colorful character. The Greek translation of a very complicated name to pronounce is the Greek translation of Xerxes. The English adaptation of the Hebrew is Ahasuerus, but the same guy, we believe. And so, but he was a... Quite an impulsive guy. He had a very, very passionate extremes. He had gigantic ideas and very imperious temper. He actually built a bridge over the Hellespont, the Dardanelles. When a storm took it down, he ordered 300 strokes of scourge on the sea for doing that. And threw a pair of fetters in the sea. And then he had the builders of the bridge beheaded as if it was their fault. And then... There was a guy by the name of Pythias who was a Lydian. He was offered a sum of five and a half million, whatever, towards the expenses of the military expedition. Xerxes was so impressed that he sent the money back and gave him a handsome present. And yet, when Pythias wanted his eldest son excused from an expedition, Xerxes was so upset by that that he cut him into pieces and had his army march among the pieces. So the picture you get of Xerxes, he's very Chimerical. Up one time, down another, very hard to predict. And we see that temperament in the book of Esther. And he is, this is the wild man that is the ruler of the world during the days of Esther. Now the drama that occurs is second to few in all of history. The king throws a lavish royal banquet and during that banquet he asks his queen Vashti to immodestly reveal herself in this drunken revelry that's going on and she refuses to do that to her credit. But because she refuses to do that, she forfeits the crown. The other nobles are so incensed and they feel that by her not obeying the king, that's going to cause all the wives to stop obeying their husbands. Got to make an example. So the king, he actually loses her place as his queen. But that sets the opportunity for Esther. And she's an orphan Jewish girl raised by her cousin Mordecai. And she ultimately gets selected as a replacement for Vashti. So she becomes the queen of Persia. Mordecai who has raised her is smart enough to warn her, don't let him know you're Jewish. So that he doesn't know that and she doesn't call attention to that. So that's... but in her situation that's going to be a time where it's going to be life-threatening. And so... now there's a little incident that occurs... early in the book that seems incidental, but turns out to be very important. Mordecai somehow finds out about a plot against the king. And Mordecai tells Esther, and from that this plot is thwarted, the guys are apprehended and killed or whatever. And it's just an incident, unrelated to everything else, and it turns out to be very pivotal. Mordecai never gets acknowledged for that, but God... it's one of those things... God's timing is phenomenal. We watch what happens here. here. Mordecai, to really understand what's going on here, you really need to know the rest of your Old Testament. Way back in 2 Samuel 16, there's one of the descendants of Saul that's harassing David. Obviously, Saul's past is gone. David's now in charge. But this guy Shimei is along the hills cursing David and throwing rocks at David. And his men want this guy squelched. And David says, no. Let him, if he's cursing, let him curse. let him curse. He spares Shimei. Because he spares Shimei, one of his descendants is Mordecai, who's on the scene in Esther. Got the picture? It gets deeper than that. He was a... Mordecai was a descendant of Shimei, of the house of Kish, the father of King Saul. So he's... So Mordecai is a product of David's grace. Right? Get the picture? Yeah, Wow is right. As you understand how this all ties together, it really blows you away. Now he's going to ultimately confront the villain of the whole story, Haman. Haman is a result of Saul's failure to follow God's instructions. See, and see Mordecai, Haman hates Mordecai because Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman. So Haman is... Haman has a vendetta against Mordecai. That's the plot of the whole story. But what you got to understand, see this whole story is the flesh versus the spirit. This goes way back to Jacob and Esau. Remember when they're struggling in the womb? And Amalek. descended from Esau. And Amalek fought with Israel at Rephidim. And the doom of the Amalekites and Edom are foretold by Balaam in Numbers 24, by Moses in Deuteronomy 25, and the whole book of Obadiah deals with this. Edom represents the flesh versus the spirit. Now we get to Saul in 1 Samuel 15. He's instructed by God to destroy the Amalekites. which includes the king, Agag the king. Saul spares the king Agag, the king of the Malachites. And when Samuel finds that out, he's really upset. What's all this, what are all these sheep being? Saul has taken the spoil rather than wipe it up. Because Saul didn't do what God told him to do, the kingdom is taken away from Saul. What you need to understand is that who is a descendant of Agag, King Agag? A guy by the name of Haman, who chose him in Esther. So in Esther, you've got the result of Saul's failure to do what God said on the one hand. and you got Mordecai, that's Haman, and you got Mordecai, the result of David's grace. Now, Haman is out to wipe out all the Jews. He's particularly after Mordecai, but he wants to wipe out all Jews in the kingdom. If he had succeeded, there'd be no temple. If he had succeeded, there'd be no Redeemer. So God's not going to let that happen. He's very invisibly behind the scenes, obviously. But Haman does succeed in getting the king to order the extermination of all Jews in the Persian Empire. Think about it. And once that's signed, the king himself can't change it. Now Mordecai realizes that the fate of the Jewish people hangs on Esther. Because she's the queen, she has access to the king to somehow do something about this. And for her to approach the king uninvited subjects her to the possible death. So she's taking a huge risk in the court procedures of the Persian Empire. But Mordecai says to her, thou art come for such a time as this. He's convinced that she is where she is because God wants her, has her there for a destiny. And she finally, after being very concerned about this, she finally says, if I perish, I perish. She gets to the point where she's going to do this. She knows that she may not survive the ordeal. So she asked for three days of fasting and prayer, understandably. Then we get to the critical moment. Esther enters the inner court of the king. At that moment, the king, seeing her, extends his scepter, which is inviting her to come. So she's gotten over the first hurdle. He didn't kill her for violating the procedures. And all she does, she's a very shrewd gal, or the Spirit's leading her, maybe both. She invites the king and Haman to a banquet. She's going to throw a banquet. That's what she wants. Invite you and Haman to a banquet. The king says, okay, great, super. He's obviously a party animal, you know. And Haman, of course, because he's invited too, thinks this is great stuff. He is on an ego trip. And she invites them to a subsequent banquet. And what a day brings. Haman is so gloating because he's on the inside with the king and the queen. So the scripture says he prepares a gallows for Mordecai. That's an erroneous translation. We think of a gallows as a place that you hang somebody. The translators, the King James, that's the way they visualize the Hebrew word. The words actually imply impaling on a tree. The Persians invented crucifixion. The Romans really ran with it later, but the Persians invented it. And what's really talking about here is impaling. He's going to impale Mordecai on a tree like a crucifixion. But while he's building this so-called gallows or whatever, It happens that night, the king can't sleep. And when he can't sleep, he does a smart thing. I don't know about you, I do the same thing. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I find if I roll over, I don't go to sleep right. So I get up and I read for a little while, half an hour, whatever. Then I go at it and I fall right away. You follow me? So in the middle of the night, get up, you can't sleep? Okay, read. Pick up something and read. Well, that's apparently what this king did. He picked up the Chronicles, the journal, what's going on. And as he's reading, he discovers something that really bothers him. He discovers that he is reminded of this plot where he was going to be killed. and Mordecai apparently thwarted this on his behalf. And he realizes Mordecai's never been rewarded for that incredible gesture for the king. So he's, that's on his mind. So the next morning Haman's in the court and the king comes out. He asked him, he asked him, Haman what would you do for someone, what should I do for somebody I really want to honor? Haman of course jumps to the conclusion, he's talking about me. So he said, well if you really want to honor him, you put him on your robe, give him your signet, put on your crown and parade him through the town for a day. Let him be king for a day and parade him through the town. All the people will know that you're honoring this person. Mordecai, I mean Haman obviously... visualizing himself in that role. Let everybody see me and bow down. I'm the king for today, can I? And the king says, good idea. Do so for Mordecai. Ah. So this backfires, of course. And that, of course, humiliates. That makes Haman even more upset, but he also makes him nervous. He's getting advice from his friends. Hey, buddy, you may not realize it, but you are in deep yogurt, you know. So the second banquet... When Esther has the king and Haman present, the king says, okay, what's on your heart? She says, I'd like my life to be spared. And the king is shocked. What do you mean your life being spared? She explains she's Jewish and he signed his decree of all Jews killed. And he of course is so shook up by that. He is so shook by this. that he can't even respond. In fact he says, wait a minute, he goes out on the balcony to compose himself as he thinks through the implications of this. He begins to realize not only his beloved queen is Jewish, but he realizes that Haman engineered this. He's a victim. So he's really, he's out on the balcony for a bit. While he's out, Haman realizes his life's at risk and he falls on his knees in front of the couch that Esther's on pleading for his life. Haman realizes he's in jeopardy. As he does so, when the king walks back in, he misconstrues. He thinks he's attacking the queen, and he's really upset now. The king misconstrues the move and orders Haman hanged, or more precisely impaled. And he gets impaled on the very gallows that he built for, guess who? Mordecai. It gets worse. Haman's entire estate is this cheat to the crown, and it is set under Mordecai's supervision. Do you see a little irony here? Isn't God great? Now the king can't undo the decree that's gone throughout the realm. It's already a done deal. But he's regretted it. So all he can do, the next best thing, he issues a second decree which authorizes the Jews to defend themselves in 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. He also instructs all the magistrates of the king to assist them. So the Jews, obviously, and they celebrate this holy event every year at the Feast of Purim. And it's a... and the perm is the Hebrew word for lot because they cast lots to determine the date earlier in the story. An incidental thing, I won't go through the details because I'm sure the text is probably hard to read on the screen, but the 10 sons of Haman are also crucified or impaled. And as you read the Persian names and try to decipher them, you discover the 10 names mean curious self or busybody, weeping self, self-pity, assembled self, self-mobilized, self-sufficient. Generous self, spendthriftiness or self-indulgence. Weak self, self-consciousness. Strong self, assertiveness, insisting on one's own way. Preeminent self, ambition and so on. Bold self, imprudence. Dignified self, prude, haughtiness, what have you. And pure self, worst of all, self-righteousness. But it's interesting that the names of his ten sons exemplify self-traits that stand in the way of a relationship with God. And so all of us need to hang our sons of Haman. in our lives. But let's move on. The book of Esther is often disparaged by some. Even Luther said it shouldn't be in the Bible because the name of God does not appear in the book. Well, that's kind of interesting. But see, the word Esther means something hidden. So let me share with you some surprises. There are hidden codes in the book of Esther. There are five acrostics that are well known among Talmudic scholars. And I published those in our news journal many years ago, and one of our subscribers is a rabbi by the name of Yaakov Ramsel who sent me a note, says, by the way Chuck, there's three others you don't know about, let me share them with you. And so, in Esther verse 1 verse 20, there's an acrostic that spells Yad-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is the unpronounceable name of God. It's the initial letters of these four words because the event that's being alluded to there is initial, but it spells God's name backwards because he's turning back the counsels of man. Okay, cute little thing. Esther 5, again we have initial letters because God's initiating the action, but this time it's spelled forward because God is ruling and causing Esther to act. Kind of curious. Esther chapter 5, again we have Yahweh... The final letters of the words, because Haman's end is approaching, they're written backwards because God is overruling Haman's gladness and turning back Haman's counsel. And in Esther 7-7 you've got again Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. That is final because Haman's end had come and forward because God is ruling and bringing about the end that He had determined. Now these interpretations are the rabbinic interpretations why they're forward or backward. First whether they're a forward acrostic or a backward acrostic and whether they're spelled forward or backward. You see there's four different things here. And so the pairing, you see the first two, the initial letters are used because the facts are initial and the last two are final letters because the facts are final. The first one's backward, the second one's forward. The third one is backward, the fourth one is forward. The ones that are backward deal with the Gentiles, the ones that are forward deal with the Israelites. Because the Israelites read that direction, the Gentiles that direction. There's also a case of introversion. The words spoken concerning a queen versus words spoken by a queen, or the words spoken by Haman, or the words concerning Haman. There's a structure every place you look here. There's even one where King Ahasuerus answered and said to the queen, who is he and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do so? This is when the king finds out that she's a woman. she's under threat here. It's interesting that in the Hebrew of that phrase, If you find the word, I am. Yeah, okay. In Esther 1, verse 3, there's an equidistant letter sequence of the interval of 8. Interval of 8. If you look at those letters, you find the word Mashiach. And it's 8. Just as 666 is the number of Satan, 888 is the number of the Messiah. And there's also another one in Esther 4, verse 7, in which it spells Yeshua, Jesus. And then there's another one in Esther 4 verse 2 that is El Shaddai, the Almighty. But Ramsel mentioned another one. He said, Chuck, this one you'll get a kick out of. This is an interval of six. Okay, you ready for this? Interval of six, in the Hebrew it says Haman and Satan stink. Something hidden. Now you certainly don't use those to build doctrine, but there, in cryptology, we call it authentication codes. The little hints there that it's by design. Those things don't happen by accident. You can quickly convince yourself that there's no way it could happen randomly. The book of Nehemiah, Rebuilding of the City. In this case, we're going to move up to Artaxerxes I. Artaxerxes is called Langemanus, that we've already talked about a little bit. And as you mentioned, you know, Ezra's the end of Ezra. Then we have the book of Nehemiah, during which we find the decree of Artaxerxes, which, of course, triggers the study of Ezekiel. And so we have the various prophets also supplementing that. Something as you get through Ezra and Nehemiah that I like to point out for your own understanding, there are people that try to build... On the one hand, people make mistakes by not being precise. precise enough in the scripture, but there's also a corollary type of error where you make precision where there isn't precision intended. Where you're splitting hairs, so to speak. There are people that tried to build huge cases about the term Jews versus Israelite. The Jew represents Judah and not Israel. There are some places where that's true, there's some places where it's not. I want to alert you to something. After the Babylonian captivity, the terms Jew and Israelite are used interchangeably. I'm asserting that. I want you to check it out for yourself. Ezra calls the returning remnant Jews eight times. He calls them Israel 40 times. They're used interchangeably. All Israel, and these are in Ezra 2, 3, 8, 10, and so forth. Lots of places. Nehemiah also uses Jews 11 times, Israel 22 times. See the point I'm trying to make? They're used interchangeably. All Israel, being back in the land. Nehemiah 12, verse 47. and so on. Malachi speaks the remnant as the nation. Malachi 1.1 and so forth. In the New Testament too, well, in the New Testament, Anna, you may recall in Luke 2, knew her tribal identity as a tribe of Asher. Not 10 lost tribes. The 10 lost tribes is a myth of literature. It accrues from a misunderstanding of 2 Chronicles 11 and a lot of other passages. It's a myth. I'm accepting the tribe of Dan. It did spin out in some strange ways, but the idea of the north, you know, the lost tribes. They had faithful of all 12 go south before the captivity. The idol worshipers went north and got wiped out. Paul knew he was of the tribe of Benjamin. He calls himself a Jew and an Israelite in Romans 11 verse 1. The New Testament uses the word Israel 75 times, the word Jew 174 times. At the Feast of Pentecost, Peter cries, ye men of Judea, Acts 2. Ye men of Israel, Acts 2, same chapter, eight verses later. All the house of Israel in Acts 2. All three terms Peter is using to the people he's talking to. Anyway, let's move on. We have the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire. In the Greek Empire, of course, we have the Septuagint. I've alerted you to that so far. There's another guy that shows up that's important by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes. He's not an important guy in secular history. Antiochus III is called Antiochus the Great. Antiochus IV is a guy that shows up who's very important biblically. And Antiochus IV, he came to power in about 175 BC. In about 170 BC, Ptolemy of Egypt sought to recover territory ruled over by Antiochus. And so he invaded Egypt and defeated Ptolemy VI and proclaimed himself King of Egypt. And so he, upon return from his conquest, trouble broke out in Jerusalem. So he decided to subdue Jerusalem. And people were subjugated. The temple desecrated. The temple treasury plundered. And from his conquest, Antiochus returned to Egypt, but was forced by Rome then to evacuate Egypt because Rome is getting powerful by now. So he's really upset about all of this. And so he's taking it all out on Jerusalem, which is a buffer state. between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Empire. So he plunders and desecrates the temple and he calls himself Epiphanes, the illustrious one. The kids on the street called him a Pimines, which means the madman. But he makes, he's bad news. He made Torah reading, reading the Torah, the five books of Moses, punishable by death. He forced the Jews to eat desecrated foods, unclean foods. He slaughtered a sow on the altar. You know how the Jews feel about pork and how they feel about their brazen, you know, the holy altar in Jerusalem? You can imagine how that went over. But he didn't stop there. His big event was to erect an idol to Zeus in the Holy of Holies. See, an abomination in the Bible is idol worship. Any idol is an abomination to God. He says, Lord, that God is a jealous God, and so forth. The most abominable of them all is an idol that is erected in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred spot. If you really want to insult God, you don't want to get an idol. You put it in the most sacred spot on the planet Earth, in Jerusalem, in the temple. In fact, in the holy place. No, in the Holy of Holies. And that's exactly what he did. And that precipitated the Beccabean Revolt. And so... Mattathias, a patriotic priest, had five sons and they, and one of the sons, Judas Maccabeus, was an incredible military genius. They actually threw off the yoke of the Seleucid Empire. Took them three years. They re-... they took the temple vessels that had been desecrated, destroyed them, made new ones, and rededicated the temple. All this was on Antiochus Epiphany's birthday. He erected that idol on his birthday, 25th of Kislev on the Jewish calendar. The third anniversary of all this, when they finally were strong enough to do that, they rededicate the temple, and that is celebrated to this day by Hanukkah. Now Hanukkah, like all holidays, they have some colorful legends around it, but the real point of Hanukkah is the rededication of the temple. And it is authorized in the New Testament, in John 10 verse 22. So Hanukkah has a biblical relevance. Why? Because Jesus makes reference to this. Jesus has... four disciples come to Jesus about His return. Peter, James, and John, and also Andrew, Peter's brother. And they have a private briefing on His second coming. It's recorded in three of the gospels. We'll take the Matthew 24, 25. Mark 13, Luke 21. And we'll take a quick look at Matthew 24. These all point to Daniel as the key to end time prophecy. Let's take the Matthew account. Set up on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the age? Good question. We're very interested. He gives them a two chapter answer. Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you. He opens and closes his presentation by telling them not to let themselves get deceived. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. Ye shall hear wars and rumors of wars. See that ye not be troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. They're not signs. Some people list these as signs. No, they're not signs. The end is not yet. For a nation shall rise against a nation, and a kingdom against a kingdom. And there shall be famines, pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places. All these are but the beginning of sorrows. But they're really not signs. He's going to tell us what signs are. The end is not yet. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Let's pause right there. How can somebody see something that's standing in the holy place? The holy place, the Holy of Holies is... Only the high priest can go in there and only once a year after a great ceremony of preparation. But he's going to tell them, let them which be in Judea flee the mountains when you see this. How can they see this? On CNN. This is a politically, I'm not being flippant, this is a political event. And when they are conscious of it happening, Jesus says, you split and you split right now. Don't even go grab your coat. You get out of there. Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. Notice he says, Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. We covered that before. And he points to Daniel 9 in this passage. Who's so real? Let him understand. Do your homework, he's saying. Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him which is in the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child. to them that give suck in those days. And pray that your flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day. What has the Sabbath day got to do with anything? They'll be celebrating the Sabbath at this time. He's talking to Jews. See, the Jew has a problem. How do you flee on a Sabbath day? Pray that it's not on a Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulations, such as not since the beginning of the world to this time known or ever shall be. In other words, it's going to be worse than the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. The entire world is at risk. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. Well, of course, we have the Roman Empire, Phase I, emerging. As we speak, so these things are all taking shape. Pompey conquered Judea in 68... 63 BC. Herod Antipater was an Edomite and he was appointed to rule, but he had to stay in Rome. It was too dangerous. In 40 BC the Parthians conquered Judea. In 37 the Romans again regained Judea. So Herod the Great succeeds Antipater, was not very popular. But the point is even though he's appointed by Rome, he can't rule there until it's safe enough to get there because Judea is a buffer state between two rival empires. The Roman Empire to the west and the Parthian Empire to the north. compared to the East. 31 BC we have the Battle of Actium, that's where the Republic becomes an empire under Augustus. We have the registration and census ordered that we see in the Gospel period. In 7 AD the Roman procurator, he removes the right of capital punishment from the Sanhedrin. They can no longer administer the death penalty. You and I figure, well that's a legal technicality. No, they understood what that meant. The high priests went... the Babylonian Talmud records how the high priests put on sackcloth and ashes and marched through Jerusalem. Jerusalem singing, woe unto us, for the scepter is departed from Judah and the Messiah has not yet come. They thought the word of God had been broken. Because in Genesis 49 verse 10, Jacob prophesied that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes, until Shiloh comes. Because the scepter departed, they thought the word of God had been broken. They actually thought that. What they didn't know was that up in Nazareth, in a carpenter shop, there was a young boy growing up to manhood. And... So, he had come, they just didn't know it. Well, in the next hour, when we meet again, we'll be looking at the major prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are the major prophets. We've already covered Daniel, but we'll talk about Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel as incredible, incredible treasures. And let's stand for a closing word of prayer. Let's bow our hearts. Father, we stand in awe of your word. We just thank you for who you are. And we thank you that you care so much for us to have gone to such extremes that we might live. We thank you for your word, the incredible treasures that are tucked in every nook and cranny. We thank you for the joy of your word. We thank you for the comfort of your word. But above all, Father, we thank you that your word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We thank you, Father, that through the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ. We have access to You. We have an opportunity to be clothed in Your righteousness, His righteousness, not our own. Oh, Father, we thank You. We would pray, Father, that through Your Holy Spirit You would open our understanding to Your Word. You alone, Father, can blindfold our prejudices and help us to set aside the baggage of misconceptions we've picked up along the way. Help us to understand. What you're saying and what you mean. We ask that through the Holy Spirit, Father. Let Him be our real teacher. That each of us might grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior. And Father, we would pray that we each would become more fruitful stewards. of the opportunities you've placed before us. Help us to understand what you would have of us in the days that remain as we commit ourselves without any reservation into your hands. In the name of Yeshua, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Ezra and Nehemiah, and also the charming book of Esther. And so we're going to touch on the decree of Cyrus. I made mention of it last time, but we'll focus on it for some special reasons here because it shows up in the book of Ezra.

And we'll talk about the book of Ezra, which has to do with the rebuilding of the temple. The book of Nehemiah, which follows it, which is the rebuilding of Jerusalem. I want you to be sensitive to the distinction. In Ezra, we're trying to rebuild the temple without the permission of being able to build the city wall.

Nehemiah comes along and gets that permission, and so he solves a lot of the problems, the leadership problems, by doing that. And the book of Esther actually occurs during the final years of the book of Ezra. But it's a separate book, and it happens to be in your Bible after Nehemiah. But it's a drama that is incredibly colorful.

The more you know about it, the more colorful it is. But also, the text itself... harbors some surprises that I think you'll enjoy. And we have a few remarks at the very end about the inter-testament period, the period between the two testaments. Well, the book of Ezra, the building of the temple.

Now, we talked about this Babylonian captivity, the first siege, the second siege, and the third siege that made up the... took Judah captive. And the first siege starting the servitude of the nation, which ends with the decree of Cyrus that we're going to explain here in a minute. And so...

The book of Chronicles also ends with the servitude of the nation. The book of Ezra picks up where Chronicles left off. In fact, the verses overlap. Many people believe that Chronicles, both 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemiah were collected by the same scribe.

The desolations of Jerusalem, as I indicated, started from the third siege and it ends where the book of Nehemiah really introduces the degree of artaxerxes longimanus. That of course triggers the 70 weeks of Daniel that we've just reviewed. But it actually happens, the decree takes place in the book of Nehemiah. So Esther, as I say, occurs chronologically near the end of the book of Ezra, but we have it at the end of our Bible to avoid confusion. Daniel, of course, is speaking all through the Babylonian period and following.

Ezekiel is transported in the second siege. Haggai is the prophet that is contemporaneous with the historical book of Ezra. Nehemiah is contemporaneous with Zechariah and Malachi in his years. That's a quick feeling of that.

Cyrus is another one of these incredible leaders. He established the Medo-Persian Empire. His father was Cambyses I, who was the king of Anshan, or East Elam. Elam being the ancient biblical name for the forebears of the Persians. And Cyrus'mother was Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, the king of Media.

So Cyrus is an interesting position because he's half Mede and half Persian, which he trades on to weld an empire. But in 550 BC he attacks his father-in-law, the wicked and corrupt Astyagos. And he captures his father-in-law's capital, Ecpetana, without a battle. That's going to characterize his...

he's a very shrewd guy. He captures most of his things without actually having military might, but not actually having a battle. And very, he's a very modeled leader. Many people throughout the world. He's been fabled through, in some respects even greater than Alexander the Great for his his diplomacy, his leadership, and so forth.

He welded the Medes and the Persians into a unified empire that continued for over 200 years. Interesting guy, indeed Cyrus the Great. Want to focus on the conquest of Babylon on October 12, 539 BC. His general captured Babylon without a battle. The Persians diverted the river Euphrates into a canal upriver.

By then they'd conquered several of the towns, the outlying towns, and were able to divert the water so that the water level fell to the middle of a man's thigh at Babylon, which rendered the flood defenses useless and allowed the invaders to slip in under the gates and take over the city. There were residents that didn't know they'd been taken over for three days. No battle.

Very important point. And Herodotus is the... He wrote in the 5th century BC. He's considered the father of history and he details a lot of this. But what's interesting, a few days later after his general conquers Babylon, Cyrus makes his grand entrance.

And when he makes his grand entrance, he's greeted by, guess who? Daniel, the elderly Daniel. And he shows him a scroll that had been written 150 years before Cyrus was born.

And there's a letter addressed to Cyrus in this scroll. I want you to imagine yourself Cyrus the Conqueror. This guy comes up to you and shows you this aged scroll that says, To the deep be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers, that saith of Cyrus. Oh, hey, there's my name, Cyrus. He is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid.

Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus. Here it is again. What a strange thing to find in the Hebrew text. To his anointed? Strange word.

Of a Gentile king? Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut and sunder the bars of iron.

He goes on. There's a very humorous sidelight here, because Belshazzar, when the handwriting of the wall, He's writing in Daniel 5, it says his loins were loosed. And we didn't make a big thing of that, because it's hard to talk about that in mixed company, but you get the picture. What's interesting, that was a public awareness, embarrassment.

Because Cyrus recognizes that here. God says, I will loose the loins of kings. He probably chuckled, he knew exactly what he's talking about, what happened 12 days ago. God continues, says, I will give thee the treasures of darkness, the hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. God is writing this 150 years before Cyrus was born with the deliberate intent of getting Cyrus'attention.

Notice the next verse. God says, For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

Can you imagine Cyrus as he's reading this thing? God can say, I am the Lord and there is none else. There is no God beside me.

I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. Now, it's tragic to have to cut this off. If you read this in Isaiah 44 and 45, God goes on with this incredible declaration of God's own greatness.

It's one of those rare places in the Bible where God argues for himself. It's outstanding. But we'll go on here. Cyrus, of course, was impressed. Wouldn't you be?

So he frees the captives. He discovers that among his things he's captured here are Hebrew slaves. And he turns them, he not only turns them loose, he gives them financial incentives to go home.

He makes donations to make the temple, to help the temple getting built. And he returns to them the vessels that had been plundered 70 years earlier by Nebuchadnezzar that were used as party tools in this party 12 days ago. He gives them to them for their temple and his incentives. Now, less than 50,000 take advantage of it. Many of the Hebrew captives have found a home in Babylon.

They're happy to be there. But just a little under 50,000 pick up and go back to rebuild a new life in their old city. Now, if you go to the British Museum in London, Go there and look up the cylinder of Cyrus.

It's there on display. It's about 12, 15 inches if my memory serves me correctly. And it has the translation where he brags that he conquered Babylon without a battle. I mention that because we're going to later on talk about Babylon in one of the subsequent sessions.

How Babylon is being rebuilt today and that because of Jeremiah 15 and 51 and Isaiah 13 and 14. Babylon has a destiny to once again emerge as a major capital to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah was. It's never... that's never been done.

Many of your Bible helps are wrong. They say, well that happened in 539. No it didn't. That Babylon was conquered by the Persians but without harm.

It forms a... it's a capital, a secondary capital for Persian Empire for 200 years until Alexander conquers the Persians. And Alexander makes it his capital until his four generals... when he dies the four generals divide up the empire and by then another cities become more relevant.

Babylon... Gradually decays. It atrophies. But as late as the 1800s of, you know, in the 19th century, the archaeologists were able to hire locals to help build. To help excavate.

In other words, it hadn't been destroyed, there's no inhabitants and all the conditions that are described in the prophecy. So, anyway. Without a battle, he entered the town, sparing any calamity.

I returned to sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which had been ruins for a long time. established for them permanent sanctuaries. Also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitation.

So it's an allusion that is consistent with what the Bible says. And you find this decree also recounted in the opening verses of the book of Ezra, which is why we're getting into it. it. Thus saith Sireth, the king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdom of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem.

Notice the focus of this is the temple, not the city. That's the difference between Ezra and Nehemiah. We'll talk about the city when we get to Nehemiah. In Ezra they got permission and money to go back and build the temple. And they struggle, they don't get very far because they're harassed by all kinds of adversaries.

They don't really get... it's a very discouraging time. Haggai, the prophet, keeps talking about for them to get their act together and keep at it. But it's an uphill battle.

So Ezra is probably the author of 1st and 2nd Chronicles also. Not only Ezra and Nehemiah. All of this was regarded as one book earlier. Ezra is sometimes assumed to be the... credited with establishing what we call the canon.

The basic foundation. foundational documents of the Old Testament. And about 49,697 returned in 536 BC. About 80 years later under Ezra we had another couple of thousand that joined. In 515 we have the temple finally rebuilt, not quite finished.

In 558 we have another couple thousand under Ezra. All this is in the Book of Ezra. The Book of Esther occurs approximately 483 BC we figure. So it's in that era that we... explore Esther.

And without Esther, we'd never have the temple. We'd never have anything else. You'll see why when we get the book of Esther. It's far more important historically than most people realize.

In 445 BC, that's 13 years later, of course, after the other one, that Nehemiah obtains the authority to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, build the wall and protect themselves against their enemies. And that's the big event. And that's the one that triggers, of course, the 70 weeks of Daniel. Okay. Now, as we're talking about the temple, and that's really what the book of Esther is all about, it's interesting to notice that in the New Testament, it says you are the temple of God, right?

Did you realize it said that seven times? That caught my attention. My wife pointed that out to me.

Seven times, you are the temple. Now that may just be a figure of speech because we're the temple of God in the sense the Holy Spirit dwells in us and of course that's true. But it turns out there may be far more significance in the archaic.

architecture of the temple to enable us to understand our internal architecture. And so the great commandment defined by Jesus Christ quoting from Deuteronomy 6, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. By the way, the one Lord, the word there is Echad, not Yashid.

It's one in the sense of like a bunch of grapes. It's unity. It doesn't mean there's one God. It means that God is in unity.

You can find the Trinity in all of this, but I'll keep moving here. Oh, here is the Lord. God is one Lord.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And when Jesus quotes it, he adds thy mind, right? All thy strength and all thy mind. So here it's three things and Jesus mentions four. But the point is, what does that mean?

That's the greatest commandment. What does that mean? To love God with all thy heart as opposed to all thy soul?

Or with all thy... How are those different? Those are terms we throw around rather loosely.

And these are actually... You see, the real you is not hardware, it's software, using modern vocabulary. And how do you determine the architecture of software?

You can't do it... You can't determine the architecture by external behavior of software. You have to have the owner's manual.

There are different words. The word heart, kardia in the Greek. The word soul, psuche in the Greek. Spirit, pneuma.

And each one of these has a Hebrew equivalent also. Heart, soul, spirit, mind. there are places in the scripture.

My wife spent 20 years tracking down every use of every Greek and Hebrew word that relates to any of these things, plus a few others. And made a number of discoveries that I lean on heavily. Just rather exciting. The word mind is the most leading of all probably because we think of the mind as brain. No, the mind is far more than the brain even neurologically.

But it actually is the channel for, or willpower, it comes close to, that's where you exercise volition. But if you look at the... temple, the original tabernacle. We studied that when we were in Exodus.

But when you get to Solomon, God appears to Solomon and gives him some additional details. Some things are in the temple that are not in the tabernacle, namely among other things the two pillars, Jochen and Boaz. which carry nothing, they're pillars with no weight on top.

In His strength, in His counsel, in His might is what the words mean. And you have this strange porch there. Everything inside the temple is gold, everything outside is bronze. Everything outside is bronze because it can deal with sin and judgment and so forth.

Inside is holy, is pure. That's the concept that underlies all this. And around the temple we also find there are these wooden chambers.

And each one of these has some provocative possibilities. These per... these wooden chambers were the private storage places of the priests, where they could store their personal implements, including idols or whatever.

Their secret private little chambers. And obviously there are cases in the scripture where they needed to be cleaned out. So do ours.

See the Holy of Holies, of course, is the inner thing. The holy place is the... preceding to that.

And then you have this porch. strange place called the porch. Then you have the inner court and the outer court.

These are the elements of architecture of the temple. My wife was the one that really explored the possibilities that these represent our architecture. The outer court represents, say, the body.

The inner court, the soul. The heart is the holy place in a sense. And the spirit is in the Holy of Holies. And the great mystery, of course, is we know God dwells within us, but why is it we can't tell? by your behavior?

If God dwells in you, why is it that we are so ornery? So self-willed? Because that doesn't mean He's not dwelling in us. It means we're throttling His ability to work through us.

And that's why this is all so relevant. And we are faced with our willpower. Are we choosing His ways?

Are we making faith choices or self-choices? If we make faith choices, God will align our desires to our choices. But we choose first and feel afterwards if we're walking by faith. I'm oversimplifying My wife has done a trilogy, The Way of Agape, Be You Transformed, and Faith in the Night Season that deal, that expand this in practical, personal walk terms.

So that the Holy Spirit can shine out of us if we let Him. We constantly throttle Him by our self-will. It also leads to this interesting thing of the chambers, which look like they are correlative to the subconscious. And the subconscious is the one that is the most powerful.

subconscious is not a Freudian concept. He was very much absorbed with that. It actually goes way back to Augustine and earlier. It's in the scripture in a dozen places.

I won't get into that debate here. I would simply say that you need to let the Holy Spirit help you clean out our closets. All of us. Because if not, they will invisibly affect our behavior. Well let's get, let's move to some more fun stuff.

The book of Esther. The name Esther means something hidden. I do understand some of you are wondering, well, what does that Hollywood stars have adopted that name. I wonder if they know what it really means.

But anyway, in the Kings of Persia, we're going to move down and pick up a guy by name of Xerxes. He was the Ahasuerus of Esther. And he's quite a character, very colorful character. The Greek translation of a very complicated name to pronounce is the Greek translation of Xerxes. The English adaptation of the Hebrew is Ahasuerus, but the same guy, we believe.

And so, but he was a... Quite an impulsive guy. He had a very, very passionate extremes.

He had gigantic ideas and very imperious temper. He actually built a bridge over the Hellespont, the Dardanelles. When a storm took it down, he ordered 300 strokes of scourge on the sea for doing that. And threw a pair of fetters in the sea. And then he had the builders of the bridge beheaded as if it was their fault.

And then... There was a guy by the name of Pythias who was a Lydian. He was offered a sum of five and a half million, whatever, towards the expenses of the military expedition.

Xerxes was so impressed that he sent the money back and gave him a handsome present. And yet, when Pythias wanted his eldest son excused from an expedition, Xerxes was so upset by that that he cut him into pieces and had his army march among the pieces. So the picture you get of Xerxes, he's very Chimerical. Up one time, down another, very hard to predict. And we see that temperament in the book of Esther.

And he is, this is the wild man that is the ruler of the world during the days of Esther. Now the drama that occurs is second to few in all of history. The king throws a lavish royal banquet and during that banquet he asks his queen Vashti to immodestly reveal herself in this drunken revelry that's going on and she refuses to do that to her credit.

But because she refuses to do that, she forfeits the crown. The other nobles are so incensed and they feel that by her not obeying the king, that's going to cause all the wives to stop obeying their husbands. Got to make an example. So the king, he actually loses her place as his queen.

But that sets the opportunity for Esther. And she's an orphan Jewish girl raised by her cousin Mordecai. And she ultimately gets selected as a replacement for Vashti. So she becomes the queen of Persia.

Mordecai who has raised her is smart enough to warn her, don't let him know you're Jewish. So that he doesn't know that and she doesn't call attention to that. So that's...

but in her situation that's going to be a time where it's going to be life-threatening. And so... now there's a little incident that occurs...

early in the book that seems incidental, but turns out to be very important. Mordecai somehow finds out about a plot against the king. And Mordecai tells Esther, and from that this plot is thwarted, the guys are apprehended and killed or whatever.

And it's just an incident, unrelated to everything else, and it turns out to be very pivotal. Mordecai never gets acknowledged for that, but God... it's one of those things...

God's timing is phenomenal. We watch what happens here. here.

Mordecai, to really understand what's going on here, you really need to know the rest of your Old Testament. Way back in 2 Samuel 16, there's one of the descendants of Saul that's harassing David. Obviously, Saul's past is gone.

David's now in charge. But this guy Shimei is along the hills cursing David and throwing rocks at David. And his men want this guy squelched. And David says, no. Let him, if he's cursing, let him curse.

let him curse. He spares Shimei. Because he spares Shimei, one of his descendants is Mordecai, who's on the scene in Esther. Got the picture?

It gets deeper than that. He was a... Mordecai was a descendant of Shimei, of the house of Kish, the father of King Saul. So he's... So Mordecai is a product of David's grace.

Right? Get the picture? Yeah, Wow is right.

As you understand how this all ties together, it really blows you away. Now he's going to ultimately confront the villain of the whole story, Haman. Haman is a result of Saul's failure to follow God's instructions. See, and see Mordecai, Haman hates Mordecai because Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman.

So Haman is... Haman has a vendetta against Mordecai. That's the plot of the whole story.

But what you got to understand, see this whole story is the flesh versus the spirit. This goes way back to Jacob and Esau. Remember when they're struggling in the womb? And Amalek. descended from Esau.

And Amalek fought with Israel at Rephidim. And the doom of the Amalekites and Edom are foretold by Balaam in Numbers 24, by Moses in Deuteronomy 25, and the whole book of Obadiah deals with this. Edom represents the flesh versus the spirit. Now we get to Saul in 1 Samuel 15. He's instructed by God to destroy the Amalekites. which includes the king, Agag the king.

Saul spares the king Agag, the king of the Malachites. And when Samuel finds that out, he's really upset. What's all this, what are all these sheep being? Saul has taken the spoil rather than wipe it up. Because Saul didn't do what God told him to do, the kingdom is taken away from Saul.

What you need to understand is that who is a descendant of Agag, King Agag? A guy by the name of Haman, who chose him in Esther. So in Esther, you've got the result of Saul's failure to do what God said on the one hand.

and you got Mordecai, that's Haman, and you got Mordecai, the result of David's grace. Now, Haman is out to wipe out all the Jews. He's particularly after Mordecai, but he wants to wipe out all Jews in the kingdom. If he had succeeded, there'd be no temple.

If he had succeeded, there'd be no Redeemer. So God's not going to let that happen. He's very invisibly behind the scenes, obviously. But Haman does succeed in getting the king to order the extermination of all Jews in the Persian Empire.

Think about it. And once that's signed, the king himself can't change it. Now Mordecai realizes that the fate of the Jewish people hangs on Esther.

Because she's the queen, she has access to the king to somehow do something about this. And for her to approach the king uninvited subjects her to the possible death. So she's taking a huge risk in the court procedures of the Persian Empire.

But Mordecai says to her, thou art come for such a time as this. He's convinced that she is where she is because God wants her, has her there for a destiny. And she finally, after being very concerned about this, she finally says, if I perish, I perish. She gets to the point where she's going to do this. She knows that she may not survive the ordeal.

So she asked for three days of fasting and prayer, understandably. Then we get to the critical moment. Esther enters the inner court of the king. At that moment, the king, seeing her, extends his scepter, which is inviting her to come. So she's gotten over the first hurdle.

He didn't kill her for violating the procedures. And all she does, she's a very shrewd gal, or the Spirit's leading her, maybe both. She invites the king and Haman to a banquet.

She's going to throw a banquet. That's what she wants. Invite you and Haman to a banquet.

The king says, okay, great, super. He's obviously a party animal, you know. And Haman, of course, because he's invited too, thinks this is great stuff. He is on an ego trip. And she invites them to a subsequent banquet.

And what a day brings. Haman is so gloating because he's on the inside with the king and the queen. So the scripture says he prepares a gallows for Mordecai. That's an erroneous translation.

We think of a gallows as a place that you hang somebody. The translators, the King James, that's the way they visualize the Hebrew word. The words actually imply impaling on a tree.

The Persians invented crucifixion. The Romans really ran with it later, but the Persians invented it. And what's really talking about here is impaling.

He's going to impale Mordecai on a tree like a crucifixion. But while he's building this so-called gallows or whatever, It happens that night, the king can't sleep. And when he can't sleep, he does a smart thing.

I don't know about you, I do the same thing. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I find if I roll over, I don't go to sleep right. So I get up and I read for a little while, half an hour, whatever. Then I go at it and I fall right away. You follow me?

So in the middle of the night, get up, you can't sleep? Okay, read. Pick up something and read.

Well, that's apparently what this king did. He picked up the Chronicles, the journal, what's going on. And as he's reading, he discovers something that really bothers him. He discovers that he is reminded of this plot where he was going to be killed. and Mordecai apparently thwarted this on his behalf.

And he realizes Mordecai's never been rewarded for that incredible gesture for the king. So he's, that's on his mind. So the next morning Haman's in the court and the king comes out. He asked him, he asked him, Haman what would you do for someone, what should I do for somebody I really want to honor? Haman of course jumps to the conclusion, he's talking about me.

So he said, well if you really want to honor him, you put him on your robe, give him your signet, put on your crown and parade him through the town for a day. Let him be king for a day and parade him through the town. All the people will know that you're honoring this person.

Mordecai, I mean Haman obviously... visualizing himself in that role. Let everybody see me and bow down.

I'm the king for today, can I? And the king says, good idea. Do so for Mordecai. Ah. So this backfires, of course.

And that, of course, humiliates. That makes Haman even more upset, but he also makes him nervous. He's getting advice from his friends.

Hey, buddy, you may not realize it, but you are in deep yogurt, you know. So the second banquet... When Esther has the king and Haman present, the king says, okay, what's on your heart? She says, I'd like my life to be spared.

And the king is shocked. What do you mean your life being spared? She explains she's Jewish and he signed his decree of all Jews killed.

And he of course is so shook up by that. He is so shook by this. that he can't even respond.

In fact he says, wait a minute, he goes out on the balcony to compose himself as he thinks through the implications of this. He begins to realize not only his beloved queen is Jewish, but he realizes that Haman engineered this. He's a victim. So he's really, he's out on the balcony for a bit.

While he's out, Haman realizes his life's at risk and he falls on his knees in front of the couch that Esther's on pleading for his life. Haman realizes he's in jeopardy. As he does so, when the king walks back in, he misconstrues. He thinks he's attacking the queen, and he's really upset now.

The king misconstrues the move and orders Haman hanged, or more precisely impaled. And he gets impaled on the very gallows that he built for, guess who? Mordecai.

It gets worse. Haman's entire estate is this cheat to the crown, and it is set under Mordecai's supervision. Do you see a little irony here?

Isn't God great? Now the king can't undo the decree that's gone throughout the realm. It's already a done deal. But he's regretted it. So all he can do, the next best thing, he issues a second decree which authorizes the Jews to defend themselves in 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia.

He also instructs all the magistrates of the king to assist them. So the Jews, obviously, and they celebrate this holy event every year at the Feast of Purim. And it's a...

and the perm is the Hebrew word for lot because they cast lots to determine the date earlier in the story. An incidental thing, I won't go through the details because I'm sure the text is probably hard to read on the screen, but the 10 sons of Haman are also crucified or impaled. And as you read the Persian names and try to decipher them, you discover the 10 names mean curious self or busybody, weeping self, self-pity, assembled self, self-mobilized, self-sufficient. Generous self, spendthriftiness or self-indulgence.

Weak self, self-consciousness. Strong self, assertiveness, insisting on one's own way. Preeminent self, ambition and so on.

Bold self, imprudence. Dignified self, prude, haughtiness, what have you. And pure self, worst of all, self-righteousness. But it's interesting that the names of his ten sons exemplify self-traits that stand in the way of a relationship with God.

And so all of us need to hang our sons of Haman. in our lives. But let's move on.

The book of Esther is often disparaged by some. Even Luther said it shouldn't be in the Bible because the name of God does not appear in the book. Well, that's kind of interesting. But see, the word Esther means something hidden. So let me share with you some surprises.

There are hidden codes in the book of Esther. There are five acrostics that are well known among Talmudic scholars. And I published those in our news journal many years ago, and one of our subscribers is a rabbi by the name of Yaakov Ramsel who sent me a note, says, by the way Chuck, there's three others you don't know about, let me share them with you. And so, in Esther verse 1 verse 20, there's an acrostic that spells Yad-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is the unpronounceable name of God. It's the initial letters of these four words because the event that's being alluded to there is initial, but it spells God's name backwards because he's turning back the counsels of man.

Okay, cute little thing. Esther 5, again we have initial letters because God's initiating the action, but this time it's spelled forward because God is ruling and causing Esther to act. Kind of curious. Esther chapter 5, again we have Yahweh...

The final letters of the words, because Haman's end is approaching, they're written backwards because God is overruling Haman's gladness and turning back Haman's counsel. And in Esther 7-7 you've got again Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. That is final because Haman's end had come and forward because God is ruling and bringing about the end that He had determined. Now these interpretations are the rabbinic interpretations why they're forward or backward.

First whether they're a forward acrostic or a backward acrostic and whether they're spelled forward or backward. You see there's four different things here. And so the pairing, you see the first two, the initial letters are used because the facts are initial and the last two are final letters because the facts are final.

The first one's backward, the second one's forward. The third one is backward, the fourth one is forward. The ones that are backward deal with the Gentiles, the ones that are forward deal with the Israelites. Because the Israelites read that direction, the Gentiles that direction. There's also a case of introversion.

The words spoken concerning a queen versus words spoken by a queen, or the words spoken by Haman, or the words concerning Haman. There's a structure every place you look here. There's even one where King Ahasuerus answered and said to the queen, who is he and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do so?

This is when the king finds out that she's a woman. she's under threat here. It's interesting that in the Hebrew of that phrase, If you find the word, I am. Yeah, okay.

In Esther 1, verse 3, there's an equidistant letter sequence of the interval of 8. Interval of 8. If you look at those letters, you find the word Mashiach. And it's 8. Just as 666 is the number of Satan, 888 is the number of the Messiah. And there's also another one in Esther 4, verse 7, in which it spells Yeshua, Jesus. And then there's another one in Esther 4 verse 2 that is El Shaddai, the Almighty.

But Ramsel mentioned another one. He said, Chuck, this one you'll get a kick out of. This is an interval of six.

Okay, you ready for this? Interval of six, in the Hebrew it says Haman and Satan stink. Something hidden. Now you certainly don't use those to build doctrine, but there, in cryptology, we call it authentication codes. The little hints there that it's by design.

Those things don't happen by accident. You can quickly convince yourself that there's no way it could happen randomly. The book of Nehemiah, Rebuilding of the City. In this case, we're going to move up to Artaxerxes I. Artaxerxes is called Langemanus, that we've already talked about a little bit.

And as you mentioned, you know, Ezra's the end of Ezra. Then we have the book of Nehemiah, during which we find the decree of Artaxerxes, which, of course, triggers the study of Ezekiel. And so we have the various prophets also supplementing that. Something as you get through Ezra and Nehemiah that I like to point out for your own understanding, there are people that try to build... On the one hand, people make mistakes by not being precise.

precise enough in the scripture, but there's also a corollary type of error where you make precision where there isn't precision intended. Where you're splitting hairs, so to speak. There are people that tried to build huge cases about the term Jews versus Israelite. The Jew represents Judah and not Israel. There are some places where that's true, there's some places where it's not.

I want to alert you to something. After the Babylonian captivity, the terms Jew and Israelite are used interchangeably. I'm asserting that. I want you to check it out for yourself.

Ezra calls the returning remnant Jews eight times. He calls them Israel 40 times. They're used interchangeably.

All Israel, and these are in Ezra 2, 3, 8, 10, and so forth. Lots of places. Nehemiah also uses Jews 11 times, Israel 22 times.

See the point I'm trying to make? They're used interchangeably. All Israel, being back in the land. Nehemiah 12, verse 47. and so on.

Malachi speaks the remnant as the nation. Malachi 1.1 and so forth. In the New Testament too, well, in the New Testament, Anna, you may recall in Luke 2, knew her tribal identity as a tribe of Asher. Not 10 lost tribes. The 10 lost tribes is a myth of literature.

It accrues from a misunderstanding of 2 Chronicles 11 and a lot of other passages. It's a myth. I'm accepting the tribe of Dan. It did spin out in some strange ways, but the idea of the north, you know, the lost tribes. They had faithful of all 12 go south before the captivity.

The idol worshipers went north and got wiped out. Paul knew he was of the tribe of Benjamin. He calls himself a Jew and an Israelite in Romans 11 verse 1. The New Testament uses the word Israel 75 times, the word Jew 174 times. At the Feast of Pentecost, Peter cries, ye men of Judea, Acts 2. Ye men of Israel, Acts 2, same chapter, eight verses later. All the house of Israel in Acts 2. All three terms Peter is using to the people he's talking to.

Anyway, let's move on. We have the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire. In the Greek Empire, of course, we have the Septuagint. I've alerted you to that so far. There's another guy that shows up that's important by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes.

He's not an important guy in secular history. Antiochus III is called Antiochus the Great. Antiochus IV is a guy that shows up who's very important biblically. And Antiochus IV, he came to power in about 175 BC.

In about 170 BC, Ptolemy of Egypt sought to recover territory ruled over by Antiochus. And so he invaded Egypt and defeated Ptolemy VI and proclaimed himself King of Egypt. And so he, upon return from his conquest, trouble broke out in Jerusalem.

So he decided to subdue Jerusalem. And people were subjugated. The temple desecrated.

The temple treasury plundered. And from his conquest, Antiochus returned to Egypt, but was forced by Rome then to evacuate Egypt because Rome is getting powerful by now. So he's really upset about all of this.

And so he's taking it all out on Jerusalem, which is a buffer state. between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Empire. So he plunders and desecrates the temple and he calls himself Epiphanes, the illustrious one. The kids on the street called him a Pimines, which means the madman.

But he makes, he's bad news. He made Torah reading, reading the Torah, the five books of Moses, punishable by death. He forced the Jews to eat desecrated foods, unclean foods.

He slaughtered a sow on the altar. You know how the Jews feel about pork and how they feel about their brazen, you know, the holy altar in Jerusalem? You can imagine how that went over. But he didn't stop there.

His big event was to erect an idol to Zeus in the Holy of Holies. See, an abomination in the Bible is idol worship. Any idol is an abomination to God. He says, Lord, that God is a jealous God, and so forth. The most abominable of them all is an idol that is erected in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred spot.

If you really want to insult God, you don't want to get an idol. You put it in the most sacred spot on the planet Earth, in Jerusalem, in the temple. In fact, in the holy place.

No, in the Holy of Holies. And that's exactly what he did. And that precipitated the Beccabean Revolt.

And so... Mattathias, a patriotic priest, had five sons and they, and one of the sons, Judas Maccabeus, was an incredible military genius. They actually threw off the yoke of the Seleucid Empire.

Took them three years. They re-... they took the temple vessels that had been desecrated, destroyed them, made new ones, and rededicated the temple. All this was on Antiochus Epiphany's birthday.

He erected that idol on his birthday, 25th of Kislev on the Jewish calendar. The third anniversary of all this, when they finally were strong enough to do that, they rededicate the temple, and that is celebrated to this day by Hanukkah. Now Hanukkah, like all holidays, they have some colorful legends around it, but the real point of Hanukkah is the rededication of the temple. And it is authorized in the New Testament, in John 10 verse 22. So Hanukkah has a biblical relevance. Why?

Because Jesus makes reference to this. Jesus has... four disciples come to Jesus about His return.

Peter, James, and John, and also Andrew, Peter's brother. And they have a private briefing on His second coming. It's recorded in three of the gospels. We'll take the Matthew 24, 25. Mark 13, Luke 21. And we'll take a quick look at Matthew 24. These all point to Daniel as the key to end time prophecy. Let's take the Matthew account.

Set up on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the age? Good question. We're very interested.

He gives them a two chapter answer. Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you. He opens and closes his presentation by telling them not to let themselves get deceived.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. Ye shall hear wars and rumors of wars. See that ye not be troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

They're not signs. Some people list these as signs. No, they're not signs. The end is not yet.

For a nation shall rise against a nation, and a kingdom against a kingdom. And there shall be famines, pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places. All these are but the beginning of sorrows.

But they're really not signs. He's going to tell us what signs are. The end is not yet.

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Let's pause right there. How can somebody see something that's standing in the holy place? The holy place, the Holy of Holies is...

Only the high priest can go in there and only once a year after a great ceremony of preparation. But he's going to tell them, let them which be in Judea flee the mountains when you see this. How can they see this?

On CNN. This is a politically, I'm not being flippant, this is a political event. And when they are conscious of it happening, Jesus says, you split and you split right now. Don't even go grab your coat.

You get out of there. Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. Notice he says, Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. We covered that before. And he points to Daniel 9 in this passage.

Who's so real? Let him understand. Do your homework, he's saying.

Let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him which is in the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child. to them that give suck in those days. And pray that your flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath day. What has the Sabbath day got to do with anything?

They'll be celebrating the Sabbath at this time. He's talking to Jews. See, the Jew has a problem. How do you flee on a Sabbath day?

Pray that it's not on a Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulations, such as not since the beginning of the world to this time known or ever shall be. In other words, it's going to be worse than the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. The entire world is at risk.

But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. Well, of course, we have the Roman Empire, Phase I, emerging. As we speak, so these things are all taking shape.

Pompey conquered Judea in 68... 63 BC. Herod Antipater was an Edomite and he was appointed to rule, but he had to stay in Rome.

It was too dangerous. In 40 BC the Parthians conquered Judea. In 37 the Romans again regained Judea. So Herod the Great succeeds Antipater, was not very popular. But the point is even though he's appointed by Rome, he can't rule there until it's safe enough to get there because Judea is a buffer state between two rival empires.

The Roman Empire to the west and the Parthian Empire to the north. compared to the East. 31 BC we have the Battle of Actium, that's where the Republic becomes an empire under Augustus. We have the registration and census ordered that we see in the Gospel period.

In 7 AD the Roman procurator, he removes the right of capital punishment from the Sanhedrin. They can no longer administer the death penalty. You and I figure, well that's a legal technicality.

No, they understood what that meant. The high priests went... the Babylonian Talmud records how the high priests put on sackcloth and ashes and marched through Jerusalem. Jerusalem singing, woe unto us, for the scepter is departed from Judah and the Messiah has not yet come.

They thought the word of God had been broken. Because in Genesis 49 verse 10, Jacob prophesied that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes, until Shiloh comes. Because the scepter departed, they thought the word of God had been broken. They actually thought that.

What they didn't know was that up in Nazareth, in a carpenter shop, there was a young boy growing up to manhood. And... So, he had come, they just didn't know it. Well, in the next hour, when we meet again, we'll be looking at the major prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are the major prophets.

We've already covered Daniel, but we'll talk about Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel as incredible, incredible treasures. And let's stand for a closing word of prayer. Let's bow our hearts. Father, we stand in awe of your word. We just thank you for who you are.

And we thank you that you care so much for us to have gone to such extremes that we might live. We thank you for your word, the incredible treasures that are tucked in every nook and cranny. We thank you for the joy of your word. We thank you for the comfort of your word.

But above all, Father, we thank you that your word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We thank you, Father, that through the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ. We have access to You.

We have an opportunity to be clothed in Your righteousness, His righteousness, not our own. Oh, Father, we thank You. We would pray, Father, that through Your Holy Spirit You would open our understanding to Your Word.

You alone, Father, can blindfold our prejudices and help us to set aside the baggage of misconceptions we've picked up along the way. Help us to understand. What you're saying and what you mean.

We ask that through the Holy Spirit, Father. Let Him be our real teacher. That each of us might grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior. And Father, we would pray that we each would become more fruitful stewards. of the opportunities you've placed before us.

Help us to understand what you would have of us in the days that remain as we commit ourselves without any reservation into your hands. In the name of Yeshua, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Transcript for:Post-Exile Bible History Overview

Transcript for:
Post-Exile Bible History Overview