Marshaling Resources


Ezra 1:5–11
5Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. 6And all who were about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered. 7Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. 8Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. 9And this was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 1030 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; 11all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

God’s people are spread from Egypt to India by the end of the 70 years of captivity. Returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding that once great city would be no small task. And it wouldn’t be cheap. Efforts like that require resources, skills, and commitment. Now God moves across His people and inspires some of them to make the journey back to the land of their ancestors to rebuild. It would have taken Ezra at least four months to make the 900-mile trip from Babylon to Jerusalem. When you read the list of just the gold, silver, and Temple furnishings they carried the trip becomes enormous. The logistics of moving people (which most likely included children and the elderly) along with food, animals, weapons, and the stolen Temple furnishings, would have been daunting.

Tomb of King Cyrus, located in Iran
King Cyrus has made this possible by the prompting of God. Now it’s time for the work to begin. Most amazing to me is that after 70 years, all the Temple furnishing were still intact. Imagine how many other items of gold and silver had been stolen from other nations and religions. It must have been quite a storehouse of treasures.

The people of what was now Persia were moved by God to help the Hebrews with their desire to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. God’s hand moves situations and people in the directions that forward His plan of salvation. I think that it is important to realize that God is still moving His plans forward. He is not thwarted by the activities of the Persians or the captivity of His people. It is time for His plan to unfold and so it does.

When we struggle to see what is going to come next, the landscape can look forbidding. Often we ask God to bring us into a better situation while the circumstances point to failure or despair. But God never struggles. He has resources we don’t even know about and His ability to creatively bring us relief is beyond understanding. He moved over an entire nation and His own people to affect this return to Jerusalem. If that’s all He had to do that day, it was an easy day.

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