WHY THE OLD MEN WEPT
Ezra 3:8-13 (KJV)
Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem; and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to set forward the work of the house of the LORD.
Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites.
And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.
And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:
So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
My memory isn’t what it used to be[1]but I have a definite memory concerning this passage.
It would have been somewhere around 1990-1992.
Pastor Bill Wambsganss was the pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Bremerton.
He had purchased a used metal building from the school district but it came with no instructions how to put it up – no blue prints.
Pastor Wambsganss asked me if I would be able to construct the building without prints.
I made one trip up to lay out the foundation for the ground work.
Once the concrete was poured, Pastor Wambsganss put my family and I up in a motel for a couple weeks while I, with some volunteer help from Corey Higdon, who now pastors in Brewster, erected the iron.
I am almost positive that it was in that motel room that I read in the Sword of the Lord a message by Jack Hyles called, “The Young People Shouted While the Old People Wept.”[2]
Dr Hyles message went something along the lines of,
“You young preachers will pardon us old folks, but we just can’t get too excited about:
· The new church music you all are singing
· The new lack of standards you all are celebrating
· The new friendships with the Southern Baptists you all are sowing
He said, “You’ll pardon me if I sound like I’m throwing cold water on all your newfound Christian ministry. But I’ll be gone in just a little while and you can continue on your way.”
When I read Dr Hyles’ message back in the early 1990’s, I was a young pastor, 32-34.
I determined back then I wanted to be a young, old man.
I wanted to stick by the old stuff.
Years have moved on.
Dr Hyles died, I think, in 2001
And I am now an old, old man.[3]
And I have for many years now sensed the same weeping I detected in Dr Hyles so many years ago.
It is the nature of this universe that things run down.
Nothing improves with age. Everything, eventually wears away, decays and comes to naught.
The work of God is the one exception to that, but it does not mean that His work, as it sits on this earth, isn’t losing what it once had.
In the first century 120 people met for ten days to pray.
What resulted[4] from that meeting influences the world 2000 years later.
Now we have “megachurches” who can’t even influence their own cities to let them meet and worship.
There is no one accusing any church anywhere of “turning the world upside down” these days.
I see a lot of things happening in independent Baptist churches right now that concerns me a great deal.
I feel like I do a lot of throwing cold water on some of the younger preachers anymore.
My only consolations are that:
1. There are some new young, old men and
2. Just like Jack Hyles,[5] I’ll be gone pretty soon
I was interested in the difference of perspective between myself and the young preacher, who mentioned that passage in his message here a couple of weeks ago.
I do not fault him.
He, no doubt, did not have the advantage of hearing Dr. Hyles message.
He is a young pastor and excited about his ministry.
But he suggested that the old men in Ezra’s day were “fuddy-duddys” and the young guys were “pumped up” about serving God.
The Bible doesn’t say one way or the other, but I want to give you some good reasons for the old men in Ezra to weep.
First of all,
I. THERE WAS NO GLORY
I want to remind you that in the case of both the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, God gave them His shekinah glory.
The tabernacle
Exodus 40:33-35 (KJV)
And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.
Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
The Bible says that the tabernacle was made according to a pattern in heaven.[6]
The temple
1 Kings 8:10-12 (KJV)
And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
The Bible says that, as Solomon’s temple was being built, No one could hear the worker's hands.[7]
I am reading ahead, I know, but I know that this new temple never had the glory of God upon it.
What happened historically is that the children of Israel just kept building on it, trying to make it bigger, prettier, more impressive.
By the time Jesus was born, it was called “Herod’s Temple.”
An ungodly, heathen king, in an effort to pacify the people and get them to follow him peacefully, had engaged in a huge, expensive construction project to beautiful and modernize the Temple.
When the disciples pointed to that Temple and told Jesus how wonderful it was, they were pointing at a monstrosity not made by God, but by a compromised people of God.
I will build my church
Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 (KJV)
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus blessed His church in its first days with His very own presence.
After He ascended to heaven, He once again blessed His church with the filling of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost.
His church back then:
· Had no building of its own
· Was constantly persecuted and oppressed
· Was led by men thought to be ignorant and unlearned by the elite of the day
I’ll tell you what the difference was:
· They didn’t trust in their buildings
· They didn’t trust in the educations
· They didn’t trust in the fellowship and denominations
· They didn’t trust in their political influence
· They didn’t even trust in their own aggressiveness
They trusted in God.
They weren’t trying to build something great or build something to brag about.
They weren’t trying to build at all.
They were just trying to stay out of the way so Jesus could build His church with them.
· I weep a little when I hear the bragging.
· I weep a little when I see the positioning for a name in a church.
· I weep a little when I notice that we are more prone to lean on each other than on the Lord
That new temple was missing God’s glory.
Secondly
II. THERE WAS NO MESSAGE
Hebrews 9:3-5 (KJV)
And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;
Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.
In 1 Kings 8:9, when the glory of the Lord filled the Temple, the Bible says the Ark of the Covenant was there.[8]
Paul, when describing the Ark in Hebrews says that it contained three items:
· A pot of manna
· Aaron’s rod that budded and
· The tables of the covenant[9]
The pot of manna
In John 6 Jesus likened Himself to that manna.
He is the bread of life.
Aaron’s rod
It was a dead stick, a shepherd’s rod, that God brought to life to show where He had placed His authority.
The tables of the covenant
This was the Word of God, given to Moses while he was on Mt Sinai.
On top of the ark was the mercy seat.
But Paul then says that he could not speak particularly about these things.
The reason was that, after Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, the Ark disappeared.
No one knows to this day what became of it.
Babylon must not have gotten it, or else Cyrus would surely have returned it with the rest of the furniture.[10]
Some people believe it is hidden somewhere under the ruins of the Temple to this day.
I believe God took it to heaven because it shows up again in the book of the Revelation.
What I do know is that Temple Zerubbabel built did not have it.
· They had no bread from heaven – no message of salvation
· They had no shepherd’s staff – no spiritual direction
· They had no tables of stone – no message from God
By the time Jesus was born Israel had a bunch of teaching priests and scribes and lawyers who were experts on all of these books about the Bible, but none of them really believed the Bible.
I am afraid we are headed in the same direction.
We are becoming infatuated with Bible experts and Bible scholars and we are losing loyalty to Bible preaching.
We have so many versions of the Bible that many Christians, including most pastors, are not sure that the Bible they possess is infallible.
The last time I was involved in an ordination I grew somewhat concerned by some of the candidate’s answers about the Bible.
I looked him in the eyes and asked directly, “Do you believe the Bible you hold in your hands is without error?’
He skirted around the question for a few minutes but the long and the short of it was that he believed only the Greek Textus Receptus of the New Testament and the Hebrew Masoretic Text, neither of which, by the way, he could read, was without error.
Thirdly
III. THERE WAS NO HOPE IN THEIR FUTURE
I am, of course, reading way ahead here, but I know what happens to Israel after Ezra.
· The Bible goes silent for 400 years.
· Israel was defeated, first by the Greeks and the occupied by the Romans
· Their Messiah came, but they crucified Him
· They devolved into a bunch of Jewish sects, fighting and betraying one another until they were finally, in 70 AD, run out of their own country
They have been scattered, hated and persecuted worldwide since that time.
In 1948, they were once again given a sliver of their former country, but they have had to fight ever since to keep it.
And, for the most part, they do not believe that their Messiah is ever coming.
I am very concerned that I see a growing trend in modern Christianity, even in Baptist churches of losing our blessed hope.
Young preachers, and their followers have begun to embrace
· Post tribulational theology, that makes Christians go through the Tribulation Period or
· Mid tribulational theology, that makes us go at least through the first half of the tribulation
These positions are thoroughly Protestant. They come from reading and following after Protestant Theologians.
The Baptist guys who lead these movements make themselves sound like they are smarter than everyone else.
They can play on the fact that we live in an evil world and it SEEMS like we might be getting close to the tribulation right now.
Let me tell you, getting close and being in are two different things.
Conclusion
I said Israel had no hope in their future but I did not mean it the way it may have sounded.
I meant in their immediate future.
God is not finished with Israel.
By the time God’s plan is finished, Israel will be the seat of Jesus’ throne and they will, as a nation, worship Him.
And I want you to know, as a Christian, you have a future too.
Titus 2:13 (KJV)
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
· Weep when people turn to human effort instead of trusting God
· Weep when people turn to human wisdom instead of the Word of God
· Weep when people turn to human politics instead of the plan of God for the future happiness
But, if you will think like the ancient men, you can shout for joy because:
· God is still on His throne
· The Bible is still His Word and
· Jesus is still coming again
[1] And that has at least a little bit of bearing in this message.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q60bEdBzfz4
[3] At least as old as Dr Hyles was when he preached the message in 1985. He would have been 59.
[4] It was not their prayer that made the difference. It was the promise of God.
[5] He lived another 16 years.
[6] Hebrews 8:5 (KJV)
Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
[7] 1 Kings 6:7 (KJV)
And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.
[8] 1 Kings 8:9 (KJV)
There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
[9] The Ten Commandments
[10] It was, after all, the most important piece.
