In
Ezra Chapter four we see that Judah's enemies are still in their homeland. The Israelites
want to build a temple to God to establish a relationship with God.
Ezra 4:1 ESV
[1] Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin
heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel,
The adversaries are the Samaritans. These foreigners
were pagans and because they had lived there a long time wanted to be like them.
One way to do this is to help build the temple. The Israelites refuse.
Ezra 4:2-3 ESV
[2] they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of
fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God
as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon
king of Assyria who brought us here.” [3] But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of
the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with
us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God
of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.
The Samaritans did not want to lose their land.
They claim to serve God but they had many idols. To them religion, was a means to
an end. When they could not get what they want on their own power, they went to
their idols. They wanted a guarantee for their life.
Christianity is different from other religions
because we live our life as a response to the Grace of God. We are not doing actions
or serving God to get gain, but we are responding to His love.
Often times people take advantage of the church
to get services, education or comfort. We can be like the Samaritans and try to
use God to get what we want. Instead, we need to build our fellowship with God.
Like today, the Samaritans try to slowly separate
us from God. They offer help, but God did not want them to help. Satan tries to
little by little get you to fall into small temptations.
For a long time, King David prepared all the materials
for the temple. Then when Solomon did build the temple, it took seven years. Now
Israelites have to build the temple with very little. But the Samaritans had materials
that they could give them. It was tempting to take their help, but the Israelites
knew this was not what God wanted.
These days in Korea many Christians do not want
to show they are Christians because they might be teased or treated differently.
Christians have a bad reputation because of cults and high-profile cases of Christians
being immoral.
We need to live our faith in a resolute
manner. Our enemies are any person, group, ideology, situation that keeps us from
God. We must strive to keep our faith in God.
