Boast in the Lord!

Ezra 8

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, December 1.

Does God get glory from your success? That all depends on whom you boast! Ezra was caught in a catch-22 as he prepared to make the four-month journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, which covered approximately nine hundred miles of dangerous terrain. The priest describes his predicament in Ezra 8:21-23:

Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.” So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty.

Ezra was an expert in God’s Word, so, in doing what he did, he was doing more than trying to save face with Artaxerxes the king of Persia. He was exercising his faith in God’s promise from Deuteronomy 20:1-4, which had been invoked previously by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 31:1-3). Ezra knew that the victory belonged to God, not in horses or chariots. Ezra 8:31 records the fulfillment of the promise in Ezra’s decision to entreat the Lord rather than the king for the caravan’s safety, “Then we journeyed from the river Ahava on the twelfth of the first month to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was over us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.”

God bless you!

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YOUTUBE:

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