Ezra 5:3-5
3 At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them* and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?” 4 They also asked, “What are the names of the men constructing this building?” 5 But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped until a report could go to Darius and his written reply be received.

*the Israelites

King Cyrus of Persia, quoted in the first chapter of the Book of Ezra, had already decreed that any Israelites who wanted to do so could go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple to God, which the Babylonians had destroyed when they took the Israelites into captivity years before. Over the years of rebuilding, however, this decree was challenged time and again and the efforts of the Israelites were opposed–this quotation from chapter 5 of Ezra is the last challenge.

In a time where it might have been personally beneficial for the Persian kings to halt reconstruction on a temple built for a competing deity, instead the rulers looked with favor on the Israelites and let them continue. Each time rebuilding of the temple for God was challenged or opposed by the “enemies of Judah and Benjamin,” as the Bible calls them, God moved in the hearts of the kings (first Xerxes, then Artaxerxes, and finally Darius) to set the opponents straight.

Even during this time of positive change blended with sharp disappointments for the Israelites, God was watching over them, using even the human rulers of other lands to look after His people. Already God had brought them through the time of Babylonian exile; they were free to return home, so the light at the end of the tunnel was visible. God does the same for us today–He moves in the hearts of any who oppose or threaten His people, as we see by looking back at even recent history.

Therefore, we should not be overly worried by current events, if we trust God completely the way the ancient Israelites did. We just have to be willing to trust that God has all these situations under control, and that He protects His own.

Ezra 7:23
23 Whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should his wrath fall on the realm of the king and of his sons?

This verse is a small part of the Persian king Artaxerxes’ letter to Ezra; it let Ezra know that the king was okay with the Israelites going to visit Jerusalem and worshipping God.

Artaxerxes probably had some Jewish help drafting this, but the king himself was moved to do this for a “teacher of the law of the God of Heaven,” as Ezra was. The Jews had been stifled in exile for far too long, and Artaxerxes knew they had been chafing to go home. So he decrees that their return to Jerusalem is fine by him; he stands aside, allowing the Israelites to return home to worship.

There’s a little lesson here: just as Artaxerxes does not get in the way of the Jews’ worship of God, we should never let anything get in the way of God in our own lives. That means social beliefs, politics, work stress, family drama, what other people think–anything that takes our minds off “whatever the God of heaven has prescribed.” This doesn’t mean we don’t talk about anything else in life, but just that we don’t cloud our personal worship time with thoughts about these earthly things.

Think about how changed our lives would be if we had this uncluttered, undivided attitude about worship all the time. How often would we be praying? How close would we feel in our relationship to God? As someone who has a hard time getting her brain to hush about anything, I can say that I need a worship time that is full of God and only God. In fact, I think we can all use “quiet time with God,” these days.

Ezra 4:1-3
1 When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a template for the Lord, the God of Israel, 2 they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “Let is help you build, because, like, you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon King of Assyria, who brought us here.” 3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”

Here, we see the enemies of two of the tribes of Israel trying to get in on the temple-building action–they seem to want to ingratiate themselves with whoever has the most power in the region. Either that, or they are looking to sunder Israel from within, insinuating themselves (and thus their gods) into Israel’s worship.

Well, Israel had already had enough trouble with that (as the Book of Judges can attest, with all its alternating Baal and God worship). Zerubbabel, the popular leader at the time, is not willing to put up with any more waffling on the worship of God. He and the heads of all the tribes answer in unison, basically saying, “Get out of here, you’re not really interested in worshipping our God anyway.”

When the enemies hear that, they start trying to undermine the worship in other ways, intimidating the prophets, discouraging the builders, etc. They are actually opposed to the temple being built and God being worshipped, but that didn’t stop them from trying to pass themselves off as fellow believers.

Modern-Day Christian Posers

We may know people like the enemies of Judah and Benjamin in our lives even today. They might go to church every Sunday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, might be able to quote a few more verses of Scripture than just John 3:16, and they might even try to pass themselves off as “more righteous” than we are. But inside, they don’t truly believe in or know God, and that falseness shows through in the way they conduct their lives–in the way they intimidate rather than encourage others, and the way they undermine others’ worship.

Though the word “poser” isn’t an ancient word, I think it perfectly describes false Christians–they are trying to “pose” long enough to fool God, but they forget Who God is. God can’t be fooled; He knows everything in our hearts, even the stuff we don’t want Him to see. If we are going to dishonor Him by false worship, we might as well not bother trying.