Artaxerxes

It's getting hard to keep these Persian kings straight. As such, here's a list of the Persian kings, with the years of their reigns, courtesy of Wikipedia:

King	Reign
Cyrus	550-530 BC		538 BC	First return from exile under Zerubbabel
Cambyses	530-522 BC	Not mentioned in Bible
Bardiya	522 BC	Not mentioned in Bible
Darius I	522-486 BC
Xerxes	485-465 BC			Esther
Artaxerxes I	465-424 BC		458 BC	Second return under Ezra
			432 BC	Last return under Nehemiah

In particular, I enjoyed Ezra 4:15, which states:

In these records you will find that this city is a rebellious city, troublesome to kings and provinces, a place of rebellion from ancient times.

That's not the half of it. The people of Israel had been troublesome and rebellious to THEIR OWN KINGS, let alone the people in the surrounding countries. What else should anyone expect from a stick-necked people? The people that wrote that letter (Bishlam, Mithredath and Tabeel) are described in the NIV Study Bible note for Ezra 4:7 as spies for Artaxerxes, people who kept him informed on events that occurred in his far-flung kingdom (you'll see just how far-flung in a map I'll show on Sunday--don't you just love my maps?). 

When you compare the events in today's reading with the events immediately prior in Ezra 4, which described the rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel (which we read about on September 8th), we can see that things have changed. For one, the events described in Ezra 4:1-6 occurred under the reign of Cyrus, almost 100 years prior to today's events--a lot can happen in 100 years. Second, Cyrus was authorizing the rebuilding of the temple. One can plausibly argue that it's hard to build a temple without a city around it, but the objections being made to Artaxerxes are with regard to the rebuilding of Jerusalem itself--the temple had been completed some 60-70 years earlier.

No matter what happens, there will always be obstacles to our "temple-building" events in today's world. Some will be nuisances, some will be true obstacles (the hostility toward Christianity that exists in parts of the world, and by that, I mean the parts where your Christianity can cost you your life), but none are insurmountable. To the extent that he wishes and that it extends his kingdom, God will remove our obstacles. It won't always be in the time frame or manner of our choosing, but his will WILL be done. Our job isn't to complain about what isn't happening, but to be ready for when God removes the obstacles and allows us to continue to fulfill the Great Commission. After all, what's the point of complaining about those impediments if we're not ready to act when God eliminates them?

Scott