Now before we begin this morning, let us turn to God in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, we know it is indeed by no accident that we are found gathered here in this place to worship You. And we want to thank You for every opportunity we have to come open up the Scripture and to hear Your Word. So we pray this morning that You will again teach us wondrous truths from Your Law. We pray that You’ll help us to catch a glimpse of Your glory in Your sacred Word, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Okay, I’m sure all of you here have been to graduation ceremonies before. I am of age enough to have been part of a graduation ceremony. I’ve attended a couple of graduation ceremonies, and I’m sure most of you here will be the same as well. Just want you to recall with me what happens in a given graduation ceremony. You see the graduate arrive early to the campus with their families. Now you see a lot of flower sellers outside the campus, teddy bear sellers maybe. And then you see people coming in.

As they move in towards the campus, they walk to the graduation hall alright. And as you walk towards the graduation hall, you see an usher or a few ushers standing at the door of the graduation hall. And as you step into the hall, what happens? The usher hands you a book. You take the book and you flip to the first page, and you see the flow of events. What happens, and who is giving a speech, and so on and so forth.

And as you walk into the hall, you continue flipping through the rest of the book, and you find your seat. You sit down, you continue flipping. Now, what do you see? You see names. You see names. So when you go through the whole ceremony, it is essentially one name after another name after another name being called until the end of the ceremony. And then everybody claps when the last name is called because they know they can go out and take more pictures.

So names, but is it just names? Is it just names? Now, this is what we see in our passage this morning. So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the book of Ezra and chapter 2. Ezra chapter 2. Ezra is in the Old Testament, it is part of the historical books of the Bible. So if you can look for First Chronicles and Second Chronicles, you will see Ezra right after these two books. 

So Ezra chapter 2, and this chapter has got seventy verses. So quickly glance through the whole chapter. And if you are looking at this chapter for the first time, you might be feeling a little bit demotivated or discouraged because there are a lot of names (probably not your name) and a lot of numbers. And then you’re thinking to yourself: Are we going to have to read through the whole of this chapter?

And so if you’re still thinking that, I say to you wonder no more because we will be reading through the whole of this chapter. The only thing that I was thinking about when I was preparing is: Who is supposed to read this chapter? Is it the chairperson or the preacher? And I thought probably spare our pastor this time. But I’m fully aware that this chapter and chapters such as this in the Bible might not be your favourite passage.

In fact, I doubt any of you would come in here this morning and say: Oh, I really love Psalm 23, and I really love Romans 8:28, and John 3:16, and Ezra 2. But if you are one of those people, not to worry. Pastor Derrick Thomas says that there is counselling for that, so not to worry. But if you have a list of least favourite chapters, now not to suggest you make a list. If you have a list, this probably might be in those lists of least favourite chapters. So we see that this chapter is not one that immediately grabs your attention.

Now it is very understandable how a person would read Ezra 1 as we have seen previously, and look at Ezra 2, and then flip the page to Ezra 3 alright. In fact, here’s what one commentator says. He says this: “Chapters like Ezra 2 are among some of the most uninviting portions of Scripture to the modern reader.”. So again, putting everything on the plate, so this is what we have: Ezra chapter 2. But this morning I would urge that we refrain from this mindset simply because of this. If you can turn with me before we look at Ezra 2 to Second Timothy chapter 3.

2 Timothy 3:16. This is I am sure not an unfamiliar verse to all of us. 2 Timothy 3:16, we want to look at Ezra 2 because of 2 Timothy 3:16. What does it say? It says in the New King James Version: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete (verse 17), thoroughly equipped for every good work.”.

Now some of your translation says: “All Scripture is God-breathed”. And if you remember our study on the series of “Trusting the Bible”, you’ll remember that this is the verse. 2 Timothy 3:16 is often quoted to defend the doctrine of biblical inspiration alright. Now all Scripture (pasa graphe) is theopneustos, is God-breathed. I prefer that translation because it means that God is the author behind all Scripture, and that covers the Genesis account, the creation account.

That covers Sodom and Gomorrah. That covers the great flood. That would cover Jonah and the big fish. And that would certainly cover Ezra 2, which is the list of names. And we should be able to walk away this morning saying that there is profit in Ezra 2 because all Scripture is profitable, is given by God. God is the author and it must be profitable for us this morning. God must have inspired the scribe, Ezra to write this chapter for us. And so there must be something we can learn from this chapter.

So let us turn back to Ezra chapter 2, and we will be reading through the entire chapter. But what I’ll do this morning is instead of just reading through all seventy verses, I’ll read and pause at certain points for your benefit and for my benefit cause a lot of names. And then we will just look at two sermon points this morning okay. Alright so if you have your Bibles, follow with me in Ezra 2:1- “Now these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city.”. 

Now let’s stop there for a while and recall the context of where we are at this point of time. Now if you remember, the nation of Israel was one nation that was made up of twelve tribes. And after the reign of King Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into two. You have the Northern Kingdom that has ten tribes that retain the name “Israel”, and the Southern Kingdom consisting of the two tribes which is Judah and Benjamin that is called “Judah”. So you had the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom after King Solomon.

But the two nations were disobedient to God. We know that they engaged in a lot of idolatry, pagan worship, in disobedience and defiance against God. And God sent world powers to take both these kingdoms into captivity. In 722 B.C., the Syrians came and took the Northern Kingdom to Assyria, and they were no more. We never really hear of them again. And in 605 B.C., the Babylonians (led by King Nebuchadnezzar as we see here) came and took the Southern Kingdom captivity into Babylon.

So at that point of time, the Jews, the people that were in Judah (Judah and Benjamin), they were in exile. They were in exile. And you’ll remember that as we saw in chapter 1. We see that in verse 1 of chapter 1: “Now in the first year of Cyrus”, he says in chapter 1 and verse 1, “king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing”. And he said, verse 2 to verse 4, there was a proclamation of Cyrus. 

Basically, it was prophesied that the Jews were going to be taken into exile, and they’ll be taken into exile for seventy years. And after seventy years, they will be allowed to return home to Jerusalem. And this came to pass in chapter 1 of Ezra. So we saw that as Cyrus made a decree and the proclamation saying you can go back. So they went back. Okay, so that’s what we have in the context of what we read just now in chapter 2 of Ezra and verse 1.

Recall also that the Jews were taken into captivity in three waves by the Babylonians. And as they returned to Jerusalem, they are now coming back in three waves. The first wave is what we are seeing here led by the leader of this wave by the name of Zerubbabel. And he’s leading the first wave back to Israel, I mean to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. That’s the first wave.

Now the second wave is to be led by Ezra, and he will lead another group of people back to Judah. And that with the purpose of re-establishing the Law, rebuilding their lives. And the third wave is Nehemiah. So Ezra and Nehemiah. Nehemiah leads another group of people back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. So three waves into exile; three waves coming back from exile okay.

Now let’s continue in verse 2: “Those who came with Zerubbabel were Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah.”. Again I stop there. Now you see eleven names here. Now what I want to note in this second verse is that these are the names of the leaders of the people that came back. Now Zerubbabel being the main leader, you see his name mentioned. But they are also some other people there who were part of the leading group of the Jews who came back. 

We see that there are some names that are familiar. We know Zerubbabel, you know that he the descendant of David and is the main leader of the group. We see Jeshua. Jeshua is the grandson of the last officiating High Priest when they were back in Israel. We also see Mordecai and Nehemiah. Now we’re not sure this Mordecai and Nehemiah is the same Mordecai and Nehemiah that we know later on as we read about them. We know that they came back, but they came back only in the third wave.

So probably this is a different Mordecai and Nehemiah. Or Ezra just simply put all the leaders in into verse 2 and said here are the leaders that led all the people of God back to Jerusalem. So we’re not sure. But what we want to know here is that simply here are the leaders of the exile mentioned in verse 2, eleven of them okay. And what happens is Ezra continues to give us a long list of names and numbers of people that came back to Jerusalem. Might be intimidating to read through, but essentially this list can be divided into seven groups okay.

There are seven groups that we can see in this list. So the first group, let me continue from verse 2 until verse 20. Verse 2: “The number of the men of the people of Israel: the people of Parosh, two thousand one hundred and seventy-two; the people of Shephatiah, three hundred and seventy-two; the people of Arah, seven hundred and seventy-five; the people of Pahath-Moab, of the people of Jeshua and Joab, two thousand eight hundred and twelve; the people of Elam, one thousand two hundred and fifty-four; the people of Zattu, nine hundred and forty-five.

The people of Zaccai, seven hundred and sixty; the people of Bani, six hundred and forty-two; the people of Bebai, six hundred and twenty-three; the people of Azgad, one thousand two hundred and twenty-two; the people of Adonikam, six hundred and sixty-six; the people of Bigvai, two thousand and fifty-six; the people of Adin, four hundred and fifty-four; the people of Ater of Hezekiah, ninety-eight; the people of Bezai, three hundred and twenty-three; the people of Jorah, one hundred and twelve; the people of Hashum, two hundred and twenty-three; the people of Gibbar, ninety-five”. We stop there.

So this is the first group of the people who came back. And this essentially is a list of the common people that were counted by their families, actually by their surname. So you’ll see the people of Bigvai, Adin, Ater. It’s similar to people saying like: Oh, here are the people of the Leong’s, or the people of the Kek’s, or the people of the Chan’s or the Lim’s. So this what we had. This is the first group. People counted by their so-called family name or surname. So that’s the first group. 

Okay, the second group, let’s read from verse 21 to verse 35: “the people of Bethlehem, one hundred and twenty-three; the people of Netophah, fifty-six; the people of Anathoth, one hundred and twenty-eight; the people of Azmaveth, forty-two; the people of Kirjath Arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty-three; the people of Ramah and Geba, six hundred and twenty-one; the people of Michmas, one hundred and twenty-two.

The men of Bethel and Ai, two hundred and twenty-three; the people of Nebo, fifty-two; the people of Magbish, one hundred and fifty-six; the people of the other Elam, one thousand two hundred and fifty-four; the people of Harim, three hundred and twenty; the people of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hundred and twenty-five; the people of Jericho, three hundred and forty-five; the people of Senaah, three thousand six hundred and thirty.”.

Now, this is the second group of the people that were mentioned in Ezra 2. And these are the people who are counted according to their cities. These common people counted according to their cities. See, Bethlehem, Netophah, and these are all names of cities. It’s like saying that here are the people of Puchong, or people of Subang, people of Sri Kembangan, and so on and so forth. So this is the second list that you see.

Now the third list, third list is only four verses, is from verse 36 to verse 39: “The priests: the sons of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, nine hundred and seventy-three; the sons of Immer, one thousand and fifty-two; the sons of Pashhur, one thousand two hundred and forty-seven; the sons of Harim, one thousand and seventeen.”. Now of course you would know that this third group here is a list of the priests.

As you see here there are actually four divisions of the priests that are mentioned: Jedaiah, Immer, Pashhur, and Harim. Only four divisions of the priests that were mentioned. But God has actually instituted twenty-four divisions of the priests. You can see that in I think Second Chronicles. First or Second Chronicles, it’s mentioned there. But here we see only four divisions of the priests who returned. But despite only four divisions that came back, they actually make up about one-tenth of the entire number of the group of people that came back.

You see here, you count them together, it’s about four-thousand priests that came back out of the total exiles that returned of forty-two thousand. So about one-tenth, to think that wow it’s quite a high percentage of priests that came back. But if you think a little bit more, it makes sense because they were priests. And a priest works in a temple. And in Babylon there was no temple, so the priests couldn’t do what they were born to do. They couldn’t fulfil their priestly duties in Babylon.

So there’s no sacrifices, there’s no offerings, there’s nothing. And so this is their chance to come back. So when the time came for them to come by after Cyrus issued a decree, of course, they will take this opportunity to come back even if it was just a representative of the four clans that came back. Okay, so this is the third group- the priests.

Now we look at the fourth group that Ezra mentions here. Verse 40 onwards to verse 42: Now “the Levites: the sons of Jeshua and Kadmiel, of the sons of Hodaviah, seventy-four. The singers: the sons of Asaph, one hundred and twenty-eight. The sons of the gatekeepers: the sons of Shallum, the sons of Ater, the sons of Talmon, the sons of Akkub, the sons of Hatita, and the sons of Shobai, one hundred and thirty-nine in all.”.

Now here is the fourth group that is mentioned. This is a list of Levites. Levites. Now one thing to note is that we looked at the priests just now. One thing to note is that all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. Let me say that again. Now all priests must be of the Levitical clan, but not all Levites will be priests. Levi, as you know, is a son of Jacob of the twelve tribes. And God has instituted that the role of the priest will come from the tribe of Levi.

And so here we see that Levites are people who essentially assist the priests in performing their priestly duties. And not in any way saying that they are inferior as compared to the priests, but just that they have a different vocation. They have a different calling, we should say. Moses and Aaron, they were both of the tribe of Levi, but only Aaron is the high priest, and from his line came the line of the high priest. 

So that is why I said all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests. And you’ll also notice that in this list of Levites that were mentioned by Ezra, there were not many who came back. There were not many. You see singers, you see gatekeepers. We know Asaph at least, Asaph writes some of the psalms, so we know him. But not many came back. And again as you think about it, it’s not hard to imagine why not many came back. But that presented some problems in the later chapters, we shall see.

But essentially, if you are a singer; if you are gatekeeper (maybe the equivalent of a security guard in those days), it’s not very hard to maybe find another job back in Babylon. So it could be some of them would have already settled down in Babylon, and they have already found a job and lives are there, so they didn’t come back. Alright, so that could be one of the reasons. So here we see a list of Levites. Now we continue. So we’ve seen four groups, this is the fifth group. And the fifth group is from verse 43 to verse 54.

“The Nethinim: the sons of Ziha, the sons of Hasupha, the sons of Tabbaoth, the sons of Keros, the sons of Siaha, the sons of Padon, the sons of Lebanah, the sons of Hagabah, the sons of Akkub, the sons of Hagab, the sons of Shalmai, the sons of Hanan, the sons of Giddel, the sons of Gahar, the sons of Reaiah, the sons of Rezin, the sons of Nekoda, the sons of Gazzam, the sons of Uzza, the sons of Paseah, the sons of Besai, the sons of Asnah, the sons of Meunim, the sons of Nephusim, the sons of Bakbuk, the sons of Hakupha, the sons of Harhur, the sons of Bazluth, the sons of Mehida, the sons of Harsha, the sons of Barkos, the sons of Sisera, the sons of Tamah, the sons of Neziah, and the sons of Hatipha.”.

If you want to look for names for children, here could be some names that you can think about. I keep on telling myself. Yeah, so this is the fifth group of people that were mentioned. You see that they are called the Nethinim. The Nethinim. Some of your translation says they are the temple servants. The temple servants. Now the Levites assisted the priests and the temple servants or the Nethinim assisted the Levites okay. But these people will be doing largely manual upkeep, manual labour of the temple. So we see these are the people mentioned here, the temple servants okay. This is the fifth group.

Now the sixth group, Ezra says in verse 55: “The sons of Solomon’s servants: the sons of Sotai, the sons of Sophereth, the sons of Peruda, the sons of Jaala, the sons of Darkon, the sons of Giddel, the sons of Shephatiah, the sons of Hattil, the sons of Pochereth of Zebaim, and the sons of Ami. All the Nethinim and the children of Solomon’s servants were three hundred and ninety-two.”. Now the sixth group is the list of the sons of Solomon’s servants, you see it from verse 55 to verse 58.

These are actually other helpers in the temple. We are not sure if they are descendants of the people that Solomon has captured, or they’re just simply called the sons of Solomon’s servants. So we’re not sure exactly who these people are. But it’s mentioned that they are the sons of Solomon’s servants. They could be related to the people that Solomon captured or could be just called sons of Solomon’s servants okay.

And the seventh group, the last group from verse 59 until verse 63, let me read:” And these were the ones who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer; but they could not identify their father’s house or their genealogy, whether they were of Israel: the sons of Delaiah, the sons of Tobiah, and the sons of Nekoda, six hundred and fifty-two; and of the sons of the priests: the sons of Habaiah, the sons of Koz, and the sons of Barzillai, who took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name.

These sought their listing among those who were registered by genealogy, but they were not found; therefore they were excluded from the priesthood as defiled. And the governor said to them that they should not eat of the most holy things till a priest could consult with the Urim and Thummim.”. Now here the last group that Ezra makes mention of is a list of people who are coming back. But they don’t have the right documents. They don’t have maybe the birth cert if you’d like.

You know, you travel across from Malaysia to another country and as you enter the country, you need to give a passport. Without passport, you cannot enter. So this is something like that. But we see actually there are two groups of people here. Number one is just the common people from verse 59 to 60. The common people who could not identify their genealogy because people are coming back now. You must be able to prove that you are Jew.

So you come by, can you show that you are a Jew? So these are the common people who have a bit of problem showing that “I am a Jew” because maybe they lost their documents, or they intermarry, or there’s something that happened in the past. But not just the common people, even the priests in verse 61. Some of the priests also don’t have the right documents. Now that’s very important because if you are priest and you claim to be a priest, you better make sure you are of the correct tribe because you are handling sacred stuff (I mean sacred things).

And if you are not really of the priestly tribe, you get into trouble. You could die right as we have seen before. So these are people who need to figure out their genealogy. And we see that the governor in verse 63 said to them (maybe this is just a governor or another priest) that they should not eat of the most holy things till a priest could consult with the Urim and Thummim. So before we accept you to the priestly duty so to say, they need to consult the Urim and the Thummim. And then you ask: What is this Urim and Thummim?

Again we are not sure what the Urim and Thummim is, but we know that there are two blocks of stones or tablets that the priest would wear that helps them to make decisions. Maybe God would reveal something to them. In those days, remember those times in ancient times, special revelation still happens. God still speaks to His people. He reveals Himself to His people. Probably when the priest needed some decision-making or needed some advice or guidance, they will consult the Urim and the Thummim. 

So we’re not sure how it works, maybe one is yes; one is no. But it’s the priest’s way of finding out what is God’s will okay. We don’t do that today, so don’t get stones and put inside your shirt. We go straight to the Bible because this is the complete revelation. But at this point of time, before the priests could accept these people into the priestly duty, they need to first consult the Urim and Thummim okay. So those are the seven groups of people that Ezra mentions here.

Now verse 64: “The whole congregation together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, besides their male and female servants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred men and women singers. Their horses were seven hundred and thirty-six, their mules two hundred and forty-five, their camels four hundred and thirty-five, and their donkeys six thousand seven hundred and twenty.”.

Verse 68: “Some of the heads of the fathers’ houses, when they came to the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God, to erect it in its place: According to their ability, they gave to the treasury for the work sixty-one thousand gold drachmas, five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priestly garments. So the priests and the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the Nethinim, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities.”. 

Essentially here verse 64 to verse 70 is the summation. It’s the summation. You see in verse 64: “The whole congregation was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty”. And if Brother Woei Chyuen here, he would raise his hand and say: “I counted, there’s only thirty thousand. Why is it forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty?”. Because if you count the list, it’ll count up to about thirty thousand. But thank God he’s not here this morning. But there is a reason. There’s definitely a reason. Why? Of course, Ezra wrote this book, so he would have counted. And so there are a couple of possible reasons. 

Number one, the thirty thousand that is mentioned in verse 1 all the way until verse 63 could have excluded the other tribes. So we know that Judah and Benjamin came back. We don’t know what happened to the remaining ten. Maybe the forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty could have included some of the remaining ten tribes. We’re not sure. Or perhaps the thirty thousand mentioned were just men, excluding women and children. Now if you add the women and children together, forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty people, that could be a very possible reason right because you think about it, it makes sense. 

You say: Oh, there’s only twelve thousand women and children, thirty thousand men, makes sense because it’s a long journey. And if you are planning to go on this trip back, most likely you will need to have some physical strength. It’s a long journey to travel. And the women and children, some of them might stay behind and not come back. So that could be a reason, thirty thousand men. The rest, women and children. And we see in the subsequent verses (verse 68 to verse 70) is the people giving freely for the building of the temple as they came back to their towns okay.

So what do we make of these seventy verses? We’ve seen seventy verses. Just two points this morning. Point number one (see on the board), we look Ezra chapter 2. And the one thing that comes immediately to mind, that comes to light is the faithfulness of God. We see the faithfulness of God as we look at all these seventy verses. You say: How can we see the faithfulness of God? Turn with me to the book of Genesis, first book of the Bible. Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis chapter 12, I’ll read verse 1 and verse 2, and this is famously known as the Abrahamic covenant. Genesis 12:1- “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.”. Now there are two things mentioned in the Abrahamic covenant. Number one, God promised Abraham that He will give Him a land. Number two, God promised Abraham that He will make Abraham a great nation.

So two things were promised. And so as we come back to the time of when this was written, we see the nation of Israel basically gone. They were in exile. It is as if whatever God has promised didn’t come to pass because there’s no nation, there’s no land, people are all taken into captivity. And so as far as we look at this chapter, we see that God is a God who has not forgotten His promises. We know how disobedient, how ungrateful, how pagan the Israelites were. And God had to discipline them as it were, send them into exile. But He didn’t forget His promise made to Abraham. 

God is a faithful God. He remembers what He has said to Abraham. And as we look at Ezra 2, that should be a fulfilment that we can see of this promise because we see the Jews, which is the people returning to Jerusalem, which is the land. So it is as it is the promise is fulfilled by God. And God remembers His promise to Abraham. But not just that. If you look with me at verse 2 of Ezra chapter 2, we read just now in verse 2 that there were eleven people mentioned here. Now, this was a list of the leaders that led the Jews back to Jerusalem. Now verse 2, you see there are eleven people mentioned. But there is actually one more in chapter 1 and verse 8. 

Now let me read for you chapter 1 and verse 8: “And Cyrus king of Persia brought them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer” (brought them out means referring to the temple articles that were taken into captivity as well). King Cyrus “brought them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.”. Now Sheshbazzar, some commentators say he could be the same person as Zerubbabel, the leader that led the people back. Some say that these are two different people.

But I think that these are two different people for this very reason. There’s eleven in chapter 2 verse 2, there’s one more in chapter 1 verse 8. So you add both together is twelve. Now, what does twelve tell you? Twelve tells you the twelve sons of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Apostles, the multiples of twelve in Revelation. Twelve is actually a number of perfection. It’s a symbolic number of perfection in the Bible.

And as the people, imagine you are one of those people who are walking back to Jerusalem, and you look in front of you and you see twelve people. What comes to your mind? You say immediately you see a fulfilment of God’s promise. Again it is as it is the twelve tribes are complete once again. We are back to where we once were. The twelve leaders, we are here. We are going back to a land. So God remembered His promise made to Abraham. We see a fulfilment of that as we look at these seventy verses.

But again and again in the Bible, we are reminded that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness”, we even sing that hymn. And so if you know the Scripture, you can be confident that God remembers His promises that He made to His people. So if you know the Scripture, you will recall what the Apostle John says in 1 John 1:9. He says what? “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”. So God is faithful to forgive us if you would confess your sins.

If you have sins, have you confessed your sins? Do you remember the faithfulness of God that He will forgive you of your sin, cleanse you from all unrighteousness despite how evil you think you may be? I’ve done too many wicked things, God will never be able to forgive me. But God is a faithful God. He has promised that He will forgive your sin if you come to Him and confess your sins. Or how about if you’re struggling this morning? 1 Peter 5:7 says we can cast all our cares on Him, “for He cares for you”.

God has promised to care for you if you cast your care on Him. The question is: Have you cast your cares on Him? Or do you take things into your own hands and say that: “Oh, I can handle this on my own. God might not know what I’m going through.”? If you cast your cares on Him, the faithful God will care for you as we have seen in the Scripture.

If you’re suffering this morning or you have a loved one who’s suffering, how about Romans 8:28? That famous verse that says “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” because you can be sure that in whatever situation you’re in, God has your good in mind. Going through a terrible time, time of suffering. Even just time of nothingness, you know God has your good in mind if you belong to Him.

You just think about what happened to our Brother Uche. You can see how God was so faithful to preserve him every step of the way from the time when he overstayed his time in Malaysia to the time when he met his mother back in Nigeria. We’ve seen how faithful God has been in preserving, protecting, providing for him up till this day. So the faithfulness of God. But only if you are God’s child this morning. Can you rest in His everlasting faithfulness, rest in His eternal promises that God is a faithful God?

And He has also said in the Bible that if you do not belong to Him on that last day, Judgment Day, there will be eternal damnation. There will be gnashing of teeth. There will be suffering forever and ever. And that will come to pass because God is a faithful God. So we want to see number one: the faithfulness of God. Number two, we also want to see the faithfulness of the exiles. Besides the faithfulness of God, we want to see the faithfulness of the exiles.

Now we can see two areas from Ezra chapter 2 where the faithfulness of the exiles is demonstrated. Number one. We see their faithfulness shown in them returning from Babylon. Returning from Babylon. We read just now in verse 64 the number of them that came back. So as they come back, this is a proof of their faithfulness. Now let’s not confuse the faith of the exiles with the faithfulness of the exiles. Those are different things. Now faith is a belief, a trust in the Word of God that what He says will come to pass, believing that He is the sovereign Lord and sovereign Creator, God who is in control of all things. So whatever He says will come to pass. He is a faithful God.

But faithfulness is a person living in accordance with that faith alright. So true faith will lead to faithfulness because you know that faithfulness is also a fruit of the Spirit. If you have true faith, you will bear the fruit of the Spirit. And “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness”. So faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit. And yes, there will be exiles in Babylon who would have claimed that they have faith in God.

I have faith in God, faith in the coming Messiah as written in the Old Testament cause they only have the Old Testament during that time when they were in Babylon. But when the time came for them to return to Jerusalem, here were the list of names of the people who were found faithful. Only here, the faithful few who returned. Now I say the fact, the very fact that they returned from Babylon is a proof of their faithfulness because as I mentioned, this is a four months journey. It is a very long journey. It is 1500 kilometres.

So if you want to think about that, it is basically from Perlis all the way down to JB. Make a U-turn, go back up to Perlis. That’s how long this trip will take. On foot- no aeroplane, no car, no aircon alright. So it is a long journey. And there were forty-two thousand Jews who returned. You say that’s a pretty good size, forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty people. And with their male and female servants about fifty thousand. But according to commentaries, this is only twenty-five percent of the total population of the Jews who returned from Babylon. Where are the remaining seventy-five percent? Where were they?

Is it possible that they were too comfortable in Babylon, that they were so immersed into the pagan culture, so comfortable? Their lifestyle is so soaked into the lifestyle of Babylonians that now they find it hard to leave their comfort zone. Babylon is portrayed in the Bible as always the world or the things of the world, the lust of the world. So that is the representation of Babylon. And no doubt during their stay in Babylon, some of the Jews would have become so accustomed, so comfortable that they cannot leave that place because where are we going to? We are leaving what we have alright.

Bear in mind, some of these people have never seen, they’ve been in captivity for seventy years. They have never seen Jerusalem. We are leaving this place where we have been for seventy years to rubble and stubble, to rebuild a temple, to a dusty place? And so they become complacent. And when the true test of their faith came, they were not found in the list of the faithful few that returned. But only twenty-five percent of the total Jewish population came back. And as I said, faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit.

I’m sure all of us have heard of stories of a faithful few people who continued to sustain a small congregation in an area. Or a faithful minister who continues to uphold the Word of God in hard lands that are going through persecution like China. Or even our church fathers, Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna who was faithful to the end that he was burned on the stake. He said: “Eighty and six years I have served My King, and He has done me no wrong.”. He cannot recant. And so he was faithful till the end, and so many faithful martyrs who gave their lives for God.

And so as we read Ezra chapter 2, here is a list of faithful people who left the comforts of the Persian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and came back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple to worship God. So if this was you, will you be found among the list of those who are faithful? It might not be something as big as returning from a faraway land to somewhere. But what about in your daily lives? Faithful in defending the criticism that your colleagues throw on the Christian faith?

Or are you a faithful witness in school? How about being faithfully found in church every Sunday, always being the person that everybody can depend on in church? The dependable person, the faithful one who’s always found. Or about your personal walk with God, are you faithful in reading the Bible? Are you faithful in prayer, in your quiet time, in the study of the Word of God that has been passed down from generation to generation on the blood of martyrs?

Now here is a list of people that were written for our benefit in a very fact that they came back. So that’s the first area of their faithfulness that we can see. And number two, we see their faithfulness also shown in their giving. Now verse 68 to verse 69, now let me read this again: “Some of the heads of the fathers’ houses, when they came to the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God, to erect it in its place: According to their ability, they gave to the treasury for the work sixty-one thousand gold drachmas, five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priestly garments.”.

Now here if you want to translate them into modern terminology or modern calculation, it’s something like five hundred kilograms of gold and three thousand kilograms of silver that the people gave to the rebuilding of the temple. Of course, when you come back, bear in mind they also carried all this back because when they left Babylon, Cyrus also gave them a lot of things to carry back with them. So that’s why theologians called this “The Second Exodus”, we saw Exodus this morning. Now, this is like the second Exodus because again it’s a group of people leaving a pagan land back to a homeland and it was as if people were driving them out, giving them things just like the first Exodus.

So the second Exodus. And when they returned, they gave (keyword: freely). They gave freely in verse 68. They offered freely for the house of God. They gave joyfully, willingly. And here we see again their faithfulness shown in their giving because when they came back, what will you think of when you’ve travelled for months to nothing? You want to think of building your house, you want to think of building a place for your family to stay. But what these people did was they gave freely for the rebuilding of the temple. So the priority was upon the rebuilding of the temple of God.

So the faithfulness of these people are clearly seen, and they gave according to their ability. So we know that God loves a cheerful giver, Paul has said in Second Corinthians. And God loves a cheerful giver, not somebody who gives grudgingly or out of compulsion. So would you ask yourself: How faithful have you been in the giving of your resources, your time, your money to the work of God? Now, do you keep first the best for yourself, and then whatever that is left, the residual, then you only give to God?

Now we know that everything that we have comes from God. Now Job says naked will I come to this world and naked will I leave. God gives us everything. He’s faithfully been providing for us, and nothing belongs to us. So He has actually the right to demand everything from us, but He has been faithful in providing for me. And so how have you been in giving back to Him? Alright, so we have seen that God is a faithful God, and here is a group of faithful people demonstrated in the fact that they came back and in their joyful giving.

So we know that of course in subsequent chapters, these people will have their flaws as we shall see, but at least as we look at Ezra 2, we see that Ezra recorded this list of people for our benefit and this divinely inspired chapter for our purpose. So we can see at least that the faithfulness of God is manifested and the faithfulness of the exiles being shown. So back to our title, is it “Just Names”? Is it just names in a graduation ceremony book?

How about your name? On that last day, the only list of names that will matter is the list of names that is found in a particular book, and that is the Lamb’s Book of Life. So when the Lamb’s Book of Life is opened on that last day, you would want to hear the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”. So on that last day, it wouldn’t be just names. Let us pray.

“Our Father in heaven, we are once again thankful for this time that we can come and read of Your faithfulness in the book of Ezra chapter 2. We see that You are indeed a God who has been faithful to us in our lives and the things that we have. But most of all, we realise that You have been faithful in providing a way of salvation for us through Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray even as we have heard Your Word that we will all be deeply convicted, we’ll be touched by Your Word, and that we will also aspire to live lives that please You, lives that’s faithful as a result of what You have done. Be with us this day, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.