Overview
Rev. Rico Magnelli traces the phrase “the God of heaven” through Israel’s exile and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. He explains how God protected and prospered His people through foreign authorities, connects that biblical history to religious freedom and tax exemption, and calls believers to prepare their hearts, teach the Word, pray for authorities, and trust God’s covenant faithfulness.
Transcript
The God of Heaven in Exile and Captivity
Please turn to Ezra chapter 1. We want to briefly consider the God of heaven. The God of heaven is a phrase that is significant to the exile and captivity of God's people in the Old Testament. Israel, as we all know, had turned their back on God over many years, and as a result, God allowed them to be overrun by superior forces.
Yet God cared for those who stayed faithful to Him, but not from Jerusalem. He just did it from heaven. The leadership did not do their job to stay faithful to the Lord and His word, and the people as a nation went into idolatry, and the Holy Land had been occupied, and they were a conquered people.
It's in this context that God rose up benevolent kings, specifically of Persia, that cared for and protected God's people and initiated the rebuilding of the temple, the wall surrounding Jerusalem, and so much more. And this is the setting of Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah, and other prophets as well. So the God of heaven opens up the doors to protect and prosper His people, even though they are not in the situation that He originally set up in the Promised Land.
He did it in Babylon. He did it in Persia, and we'll see this here in Ezra chapter 1, verse 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus, Cyrus the Great, this is the son of Astyagos, who is the king in Nehemiah, that opens up in Nehemiah, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, there's the phrase, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
And like I said, Cyrus was Cyrus the Great. He was the son of Astyagos, and there's confusion at times on who these individuals are, because names were associated also with titles, like the title Ahasuerus just means venerable king. Artaxerxes means the great king.
Darius means the maintainer. So it can be used with various kings. It's kind of like with the president of the United States.
He can be called president, he can be called commander in chief, he can be called the chief executive, depends on how he's functioning. But there's a section in here regarding this, in Ezra, that's very significant and appropriate, and it's in Ezra chapter 7. We want to look a little bit deeper at how God was able to protect even these unbelieving nations, because they protected and prospered God's people. And in Ezra chapter 7, verse 6, it says, this Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was ready scribed in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given.
And the king granted him all his requests according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. And there went up some of the children of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nephthynims unto Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. There's the title, the great king, Artaxerxes.
It can refer to various people, depends on the context. And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him.
Ezra and the Decree of Artaxerxes
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. That's fantastic, because he had prepared himself to teach people the word. And you'll see how significant this is when we read the letter from the king.
Now this is the copy of the letter that the king, Artaxerxes, gave unto Ezra the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord and of his statutes to Israel. Here is the letter, starting in verse 12. Artaxerxes, the king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven.
There's that phrase, the God of heaven. Now you have a non-Israelite using this term, God of heaven, because God is not executing his protection and his blessings from Jerusalem anymore, because Jerusalem had already been overrun. Now he's doing it straight from heaven.
That's the emphasis. Perfect peace and at such a time I make a decree that all they of the people of Israel and of his priests and Levites in my realm, which are minded of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. For as much as thou art sent of the king and of his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand, and to carry the silver and gold which the king and his counselors have freely offered unto the God of Israel whose habitation is in Jerusalem, and all the silver and gold that thou can find in all the provinces of Babylon, because when Nebuchadnezzar had routed Jerusalem, he took all the gold and silver, he took all the precious things out of the temple with the free will offering of the people and of the priests offering willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem, that thou mayest buy speedily with this money bullocks, rams, lambs with their meat offerings and their drink offerings and offer them upon the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem.
And whatsoever shall seem good to thee and to thy brethren to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, that do after the will of your God. Look at the trust and confidence he had in Israel. The vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God, those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem.
And whatsoever more shall be needed for the house of thy God which thou shall have occasion to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure house. And I, even Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river and whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of God of heaven, there's the phrase again, shall require of you it be done speedily. Unto a hundred talents of silver and to a hundred measures of wheat and to a hundred baths of wine and to a hundred baths of oil and salt without prescribing how much.
What's this? Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven. There it is again. For why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? This is a truth that's 2,400 years old and a secular king is recognizing that if you bless and protect God's people, it's going to come back on me in a positive way.
And the next verse indicates the very foundation of and the documentation of tax exemption, verse 24. Also, we certify you that touching any of the priests and the Levites, singers, porters, nephetims, or ministers of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose toll, tribute, or custom upon them. Wow.
This is something that was inspired of God because God's people were now in captivity. They were in a foreign land. They were no longer a nation state where they could rule themselves.
Now they were being ruled. And this is significant to us today. This tax exemption that was initiated back 2,400 years ago was picked up again by the Roman emperor Constantine when he converted to Christianity because he granted Christian churches the complete exemption from all forms of taxation following his conversion.
You see this also in church property used for religious purposes in medieval England. The English also statutes of charitable uses of 1601 also carries this through even into the colonies, the 13 original colonies of the United States. Nine of the 13 were giving some sort of tax relief to churches.
Why is this so significant? Why am I making such a big point about this? Because this is something that God initiated 24 or so hundred years ago and that thread is still carrying through today. In 1777, Virginia officially enacted an exemption for paying property taxes to what they called houses of divine worship. New York followed in 1799.
Then the United States government enacted what was called the Tariff Act of 1894. Even though it was considered unconstitutional two years later, Congress went back and in 1913, the Revenue Act of 1913 initiated this tax exemption all the way back from here. Why is this so important? It's because Oikias Christian Network has been granted IRS 501c3 public charity status.
Religious Freedom and Tax Exemption
We just got our determination letter and it's backtracked all the way to August of last year. So from August 7, 2018, the IRS is recognizing this. Now, why again is this so significant? Because we have to see this spiritually.
This is an avenue where God can bless our country. This is an avenue where this thread of truth that God never forgets. He initiated it.
He doesn't forget it. It gives access for God to bless any nation that blesses God's people and recognizes any aspect of his word. Now, I know that just because someone has that status, it doesn't mean that God is necessarily going to bless.
We're going to get to that here in a minute. But the point is very simple, that this is an avenue where God can bless our country. And that's one of the reasons why we pursued this.
Yes, there's tax benefit, but we're actually entering into an agreement with God, the God of heaven, because we want him to bless our country. We want him to prosper our country. And if our country legally is recognizing what we're doing, there is a contract to what degree and to what extent, I don't fully understand.
But there is a contract which God Almighty recognizes. He will do his part. So this is part of what we can do.
And then we'll see some other things. We'll keep reading verse 25. And now Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God and teach ye them that know them not.
He was supposed to teach. So you get this privilege from the government, teach the word, teach the word. The people that don't know it, teach the word.
And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, this is pretty stiff here. And the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. This guy, he wasn't messing around.
He meant business. Ezra says, blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and hath extended mercy unto me before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me.
What's our response to this? Well, it isn't just a paper designation. It's a lot deeper, the way God thinks, that the word's right. It runs a lot deeper.
If you look back, God initiated that in the heart of an unbelieving king. And you see that what happened was, is that he, the unbelieving king, said you cannot tax these people. That's the rudiments of what happened all the way through in Rome, and then through the Middle Ages, and then where the founding fathers got this idea.
They didn't make this stuff up. Where did they come up with this? They read this. They read this stuff.
And the idea was, is that they wanted to recognize the labor that was done by the Christian churches, and they recognized that God would bless them for recognizing it. And that's the point. It's not the status.
That God does work with authorities. That's why we're supposed to pray for kings and those in authority. He does recognize that.
And if they benefit his people, that's a good thing. And you can see the documentation of it. Does he recognize that we are in a country? Yes, he does.
Does he recognize that there's authorities over us? Yes, he does. Can he bless them back by what they do? Yes. And our job, right there in the context, you could take it out from verse 10 of chapter 7. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord.
Preparing the Heart Like Ezra and Nehemiah
It starts with us preparing our heart to seek the Word, and to do it, not just to talk about it, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. Look at Nehemiah, please. Now, Nehemiah actually took place a lot of years before what we just read.
But he had the same heart as Ezra. And it was the father of Cyrus that Nehemiah actually went before. His name was Astyagos.
And Nehemiah hears that Jerusalem is in shambles. The wall's broken down. And in verse 4, chapter 1, this is his heart.
And it came to pass when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven. That's something that we can do to fulfill our end of this contract, for God to bless our country, to protect our country, that our country is actually backing up what we're doing is very spiritually significant. In no way am I saying that we are some sort of exclusive group.
There's plenty of groups that are doing stuff. I think history has so many lessons that people forget. There's reasons why these things are done.
And some of these things were actually initiated by the Almighty, by God Himself. And there's reasons why. And I said, I beseech thee, O Lord, there it is, God of heaven.
Why? Because Israel has been displaced. He's the God of heaven now. Jerusalem is in shambles.
And there's no way that the Lord God Almighty would have allowed Jerusalem to be in shambles if they had not walked away from Him, turned to idolatry. So He's up in heaven, executing His loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment. The great and terrible God that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments.
Look at this prayer. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes be open, or thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned. Look at the humility of this man.
He knew what had happened, but yet he still understood that God was merciful. We have dealt very corruptly against thee. Look at this.
And have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant, Moses. He never plays the victim card. He says, we know what you said, we didn't do it.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant, Moses, saying, if you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if you turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out into the uttermost part of heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them into the place that I have chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand.
O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear or respect thy name and prosper. I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, which was the king, for I was the king's cupbearer. Fantastic.
We have entered into a contract. God recognizes that the United States, being represented by the IRS, has recognized what we're doing officially. Therefore, there is going to be a commensurate blessing back from God to the United States.
That's right. That's the way he works. But what do we do with that? We do what Ezra did.
We prepare our heart to seek the law of the Lord, to do and to teach statutes and judgments. We do what Nehemiah did. With great humility, we pray.
Praying for Kings and Authorities
And let's close in 1 Timothy 2. So we wanted to announce that we're a 501c3 public charity, but wanted to give some of the backgrounds. It's not just to get tax exemption. It's not about money.
It's about contracting with God and allowing God to bless the United States back. That's why these verses mean even a lot more. In chapter 2 of 1 Timothy, I exhort therefore, verse 1, that the first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, which is dignity.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. This world's not our home. We don't have a Jerusalem.
There isn't one place where we're all going to go. We're all over the place. But yet the God of heaven is going to prosper where we are.
And if we take on the mantle, if you will, of teaching the word and ministering that word to people, and we take on that mantle of service like Nehemiah did and bring quality back to God's people, if we have the courage of Esther to stand in the face of possible death and yet stand her ground and see God deliver, if we can have the integrity of Mordecai that understood what was necessary to deliver God's people, there's going to be commensurate blessing back to this country. And I know it's a lot deeper than anyone understands, but for the government to recognize it, make no mistake about it, God is completely aware of it, and he can bless it back because of God's people. Our job is to do our part, and we will see that quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity really come into fruition and manifestation for God's people.
I just was thinking about the connection of this with freedom and how Cyrus actually within history was unique in introducing this whole concept of religious freedom, which was not a part of things in the ancient world where people could worship according to their conscience. Within his kingdom, he allowed the freedom of religion and supported God's people in doing what God's people needed and wanted to do. And the blessing of that freedom of religion, and then the accompanying freedom back to that empire, and just how our country has been blessed with its founding going back to having that principle of freedom of religion, and the freedom that has existed in our country as a blessing back from God, the land of the free, it's really wonderful to think about the part that we have to play now in fulfilling our contract with God and seeing this blessing showered on our country.
And certainly our heart and our desire is to give people biblical education so they can, we can walk together in newness of life. And we are not alone in the pursuit to try and give people the opportunity to learn who God is and to stand against the evil in our day and time. But God can work in so many ways beyond what we can consider or understand or expect.
But God can bring about what we need as we pray. Just like in this time, things came to pass and when you read the book of Esther, you see how God worked in the situation as the enemy endeavored to cause a genocide and wipe out Israel, pieces came together as Mordecai instructed his niece to move and all of that book unfolds and got rid of the evil man Haman. So God's certainly at work, and it's not just us, but we can be a great part of it as we continue to pray and to move forth and speak the word.
And like that book of Esther closes, we're looking out for the welfare of God's people. So it's exciting. One of the things I thought about was how God told Abraham, look, I'm going to bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you.
And, you know, there's plenty of ink in the New Testament showing us that we're supposed to think like Abraham. We're supposed to believe like he believed. He was a real prototype in a lot of ways for many of the things that we do in the way we think.
Abraham, Blessing, and God’s Covenant
He was a friend of God. He thought like God. God told him that all families of the earth are going to be blessed.
And that includes us. You know, even all these thousands of years later, we're still getting blessed by the things that these men did and the principles that they lived by. We're supposed to follow suit, you know, in our own time.
And to me, that's what what he told Abraham as well. Yeah, I was just remembered last night we had someone sharing fellowship and showed all the countries that are hostile and that don't allow freedom of worship. And when you look at those countries and see the poverty, all the stuff that goes on in those countries, you can see that God's not blessing them.
And the reason is is because they do not accept God's people. And you can see it very plainly when you look at it in that aspect. And you look at the separation of where God's people are being able to worship freely and to do the things that they want to do.
God's blessings and hands are on those countries. The countries that don't, you see it, abject poverty, all kinds of things going wrong. Not that they can't get blessed in those countries, but it's a lot different.
So it was pretty neat to see that. I've got to say that in all my years, I've been a Christian from the time I can, well, from the time I can't even remember, because I was a baby. But I was brought up as a Christian.
But honestly, I have never understood. Well, I never really thought about the tax exempt purpose as anything but tax exempting. Yeah, I never really thought about the biblical significance of that.
But I definitely see how this can be worked further. It's given me an appetite, actually, to look into this further and see how God really was the one that brought this about. And also, it also shows me that I have a responsibility now.
I mean, my country has given us that status. And I, in my turn, have a risk, and God is really the one that's given it to us, that enabled it to happen. And that I now have a responsibility to give back to him.
And it's exciting to me. And like I said, I don't totally understand the whole thing. I can't say that, you know, that I saw everything.
But it's definitely helped me to see that there's a lot more to the word on this topic that I can sit and look. I just wanted to share Proverbs chapter 2, verse 11. Well, verse 10, When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee.
That word discretion there has the reference of counsel, planning, plot, desire, purpose, schedule, any detailed method. How God provides his protection in a detailed method. And when that's recognized by our government, or those that are in authority, that blessing of God is there.
The blessing of God is available to us because we're following his plan, his prescribed manner of accomplishing things. And I think that's really the essence of what we're looking at there in terms of the government doesn't mean anything. But God's blessing means something.
And when we act according to God's will, his blessing, well, then the government gets blessed. The people that we associate with get blessed. Everywhere we are, we take that blessing with us.
And because our government recognizes the blessing, they get blessed.
Key Takeaways
- The phrase “the God of heaven” is especially significant in the setting of Israel’s exile and captivity.
- God worked through Persian kings to protect, supply, and restore His people.
- Government recognition and religious freedom can provide an avenue through which a nation honors the work of God’s people.
- Ezra prepared his heart to seek, do, and teach God’s Word, while Nehemiah responded with humility and prayer.
- Believers are encouraged to pray for rulers and trust God’s covenant faithfulness and ability to bless.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is God called “the God of heaven” in Ezra and Nehemiah?
The teaching explains that Israel had been displaced and Jerusalem had been overrun, so God was protecting, directing, and blessing His people from heaven during exile and foreign rule.
How did God work through Persian authorities?
God stirred rulers such as Cyrus and Artaxerxes to authorize restoration, provide resources, protect worship, and support Ezra’s work of teaching God’s law.
What response does the teaching call for from believers?
It calls believers to prepare their hearts to seek, do, and teach the Word, pray humbly for authorities, and trust the God of heaven to work and bless.
Scripture References
Ezra 1:1-4; Ezra 7:6-28; Nehemiah 1:4-11; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; Genesis 12:1-3
This text was prepared from the source transcript. Please verify scripture references against your own Bible.
