Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart.
Kings of Persia--nursing fathers of the Church
The book of Ezra contains an interesting record of the dealings of God in His providence towards His visible Church under the Persian Empire. That empire performed important services for the Church--a brief consideration of which as they are recorded in the first seven Chapter s of Ezra will exhibit wonderful instances of the watchful care of Providence for the Church, and open up the way for the following inferences:
I. The decree of artaxerxes was right in the judgment of God as well as in the judgment of the church. Ezra gives thanks to God for this decree and ascribes the procuring of it to the immediate hand of God.
II. That it is of great importance to obtain the countenance and aid of the civil power in favour of the visible church in all ages. It is true God can preserve and increase His Church without the aid and in spite of the opposition of kings and rulers. It multiplied amidst the exterminating persecution in Egypt; and it was not lost during the seventy years’ captivity in Babylon; and for three hundred years after Christ the Church was generally persecuted by the civil powers, and yet multiplied exceedingly. But still opposition by the civil powers, and much more persecution, is in itself an evil; and the nursing care of the kings of the earth is s great blessing to the Church.
III. If civil aid and countenance be so important to the church, it is the duty of all who love the prosperity of jerusalem to endeavour to obtain it. Ezra did so (verse 6), “And the king granted him all his request according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him.”
IV. We ought not to be discouraged from seeking the adequate support of the state by the apparent improbability of obtaining it. “Who art thou, O great mountain?” said the prophet Zechariah, in reference to the usurping Persian king, stirred up by the enemies of the Church, “before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain” (Zechariah 4:6-7).
V. The friends of religion and the church ought not to be unduly concerned which party is up or which is down. When the friends of the Church are uppermost, give thanks, like Ezra, to God, who putteth it into the heart of the king to beautify His house. When the enemies are uppermost, do as David did, when he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
VI. The friends of the church ought not to be much moved either by the flatteries or the threats of the enemies.
VII. The church needs, and is entitled to, the private liberality of individuals as well as the public support of the nation. Large and liberal as were the government grants by Darius, Cyrus, and Artaxerxes, yet the voluntary liberality of the private Jews was called into exercise. So it was in the time of Moses and the kings, and so it must be as it has been in the times of the gospel.
VIII. The church of god ought not to be treated either by individuals or nations in a mean and niggardly manner. Artaxerxes had not to build the temple--that was done already--but he beautified it; he laid out money on it, as some would say unnecessarily and extravagantly. But Ezra thanks God for putting such a thing as this into the king’s heart, to beautify the house of God.
IX. As it is the duty of all to serve and glorify God, so no one is exempted from the duty of supporting His true church.
X. We ought not to refuse to add to the number of ministers and buildings in the church until the church is perfectly reformed.
XI. The aid of government to the extension of the church is the rich giving to the poor.
XII. Let us not think that we shall grow poor if we give much to God. (W. Mackenzie.)
Exemplary praise
I. The true offerers of praise. Ezra exhibits in these verses--
1. Unaffected humility.
2. Sincere piety.
3. Practical religiousness.
II. The grand object of praise.
1. The Supreme Being.
2. The Supreme Being in covenant relation with His worshippers.
3. The Supreme Being whom our fathers worshipped.
III. Good reasons for praise.
1. God inspires the worthy purposes of men.
2. He beneficently influences the moral judgments of men.
3. He invigorates the heart and life of His servants. (William Jones.)
To beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.
God’s love of the beautiful
One of the desires common to humanity is the desire for what is beautiful. We need not go far for evidence of this universal feeling. It is seen declaring itself in the little flower that lends a nameless grace to the cottage window, in many a simple ornament and picture to be found in the homes of labour and in the preference given to some spot favoured with more than usual sweetness and charm. The desire for beauty and the expressions of it are the creation of the Divine inbreathing. To limit human conduct to what is strictly useful would impoverish existence and rob it of half its interest and grace. If utility were to be the sole standard of human action, the mother would be forbidden to kiss her child and the mourner to shed a tear at the graveside of a friend. According to this, to admire the glowing sunset or to lift our eyes in wonder to the star-spangled sky would be foolishness. The spires and monuments of our cities, the ornamental facings of our buildings, the taste and skill displayed in the laying out of our public parks and gardens, according to this system of appraisement, would be wasteful and worthless. Man desires beauty in the house of God because of its fittingness; we feel it to be in harmony with God’s works above and around us to introduce something of the beautiful into the house of prayer and praise. The feeling of hostility in the presence of flagrant abuses of art is now passing away. There is no inevitable alliance between artistic arrangement and idolatrous practices-superstition need never be the offspring of the beautiful; and if good taste is desirable in the home, there is even stronger reason to give it fitting expression in the house of God. We are learners in the school of One who was greater than the temple, One who was altogether lovely, whose loveliness was the loveliness of perfect deeds, and whose beauty was the beauty of holiness. With this beauty we must adorn life’s daily temple, taking care that no image of falsehood, uncleanness, or dishonour mars its fairness and grieves the Holy Spirit that would dwell within. (W. Proudfoot, M. A.)
Beauty in God’s house
So long as our streets are walled with barren brick, and our eyes rest continually, in our daily life, on objects utterly ugly, or of inconsistent and meaningless design, it may be a doubtful question whether the faculties of eye and mind which are capable of perceiving beauty, having been left without food during the whole of our active life, should suddenly be feasted upon entering a place of worship, and colour and music and sculpture should delight the senses and stir the curiosity of men unaccustomed to such appeal, at the moment when they are required to compose themselves for acts of devotion; but it cannot be a question at all, that if once familiarised with beautiful form and colour, we shall desire to see this also in the house of prayer; its absence will disturb instead of assisting devotion; and we shall feel it as vain to ask whether, with our own house full of goodly craftsmanship, we should worship God in a house destitute of it as to ask whether a pilgrim, whose day’s journey has led him through fair woods and by sweet waters, must at evening turn aside into some barren place to pray. (J. Ruskin.).