Imagine Boris Johnson paying for your church mission trip from the national budget.
That’s the surprising picture of Ezra Chapter 1 where a foreign king pays for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.
Verse 1 says: It is to fulfil the word of the Lord and that the Lord moved the heart of the King.
God predicted this through the prophet Jeremiah and God made this happen through a foreign king.
Just think: This is not how we do things.
I have a couple of friends going on mission. They have to raise funds. The church is sending them. That’s mission.
But this is mission in reverse!
An ungodly nation pays for the temple. The people being sent back are foreign Israelites living in Babylon.
Verse 5: Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Up to 5 million people from Hong Kong are expected to arrive in the UK. That’s 2500 people a week! And Chinese churches around the UK are seeing 100%, 200%, 300% growth.
During a pandemic!
Ezra 1 tells us: When God builds his church, He does it his way to remind us it is His church for His glory alone.
