Priests to Guard Offerings

                                                                        Ezra 8:24-30

  

 March 20, 2021

 

 Priests to Guard Offerings

 

Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests: Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with them.   And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered.  I weighed out into their hand 650 talents^] of silver, and silver vessels worth 200 talents,  and 100 talents of gold,  20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics, and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold.   And I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers.   Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers' houses in Israel at Jerusalem, within the chambers of the house of the Lord.”   So, the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem, to the house of our God.

 

Do you find it of interest that Ezra picked 12 men who were all priests and Jesus picked 12 men, all unknown businessmen, none were of the priestly line?  Now Ezra did an inventory before turning over the gold and silver to their care, very wise.

 

Ezra 8:31-34

Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way.  We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days.   On the fourth day, within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed into the hands of Meremoth the priest, son of Uriah, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them were the Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua and Noadiah the son of Binnui.   The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded.

 

The Church needs to understand, that it was not the king's protection that Ezra and the priest sought, it was God’s.  They did not have a quick prayer asking God to protect them, not even a prayer meeting, they stopped what they were doing for three days and fasted and prayed, before going forward.  And the hand of God was on them and they made the journey with no one trying to rob them or do them harm.

 

Ezra 8:35-36

At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord.   They also delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and they aided the people and the house of God.

 

I’ve had the attitude that I've always been free, I grew up in Texas, one of the greatest states in our nation, in a town of about 75 thousand when I was a child and went without fear of harm all over the place.  But for 27 years I was deceived for I was under the control of sin; I had a nature that was controlled by the one Jesus calls the thief in John 10:10.  At 27 in Victoria, Texas in a hotel room I read Romans 10:9-10 and acted by faith and ask Jesus to forgive me and set me free from the control of the evil one.  I now was free to choose to sin or not to sin.

 

The bottom line is we all have sinned; we all were in captivity no matter where we live and only the blood of Jesus Christ can set us free.  Jesus is very clear He is the only one, the only way to the Father, one way and only one, as the song goes we sang as children.

 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice