■ Does God still stir the hearts and spirits of his people to do his work?
■ Do I believe that?
Here are our handouts. We continue in Ezra as God stirs the spirits of the people to return to Jerusalem for his rebuilding project.
Lessons in the Sovereignty of God: Building with God’s Blessing in a Pagan Land!
Message Title: The People Answer the Sovereign Call of God!
Message Text: Ezra 1:5-2:70
I have learned a new word this week: anachronism.
Anachronism …
- A thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, esp. a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.
- Something (such as a word, an object, or an event) that is mistakenly placed in a time where it does not belong, such as in a story, movie, etc.; a person or a thing that seems to belong to the past and not to fit in the present.
Example 1: Seeing a cell phone on the bedroom dresser in a 1940’s movie.
Example 2: The following instance in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is a popular example of anachronism. (From Act II, scene i : lines 193 – 194 of Julius Caesar)
- Brutus: “Peace! count the clock.”
- Cassius: “The clock has stricken three.”
- The year was 44 AD, and there were no mechanical clocks at the time of Julius Caesar but were present in Shakespeare’s times that is, when the play was written.
Example 3: Another dialog from the same play is a prominent anachronism example.
“he plucked me open his doublet and offered them his throat to cut”
- A doublet is a garment that was worn during the time of Shakespeare, and not during the time of Julius Caesar.
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So we ask … ?
■ Is God merely an anachronism in 2014?
- Does God belong in our story now as he did in the Old Testament?
- Is the mighty hand of God “a thing of the past”?
- Does the Sovereign LORD of Ezra’s time not fit our current perspective of God?
- Is this Sovereign LORD too old-fashioned, out-dated?
