Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. It is What day is Wednesday? It is Wednesday and it is September 17th. And we have a question that was written in. So Pastor, I'd love to have us kick around this question for a second. I think it's one that all of us who are married have had at one point in time in our lives. But the question comes down to this. The person wrote in and said, if both myself and my husband, and they're saying, oh, actually, you know what? I take this back. I'm reading this live and so if myself a believer and my husband a nonbeliever are alive during the millennial kingdom, will we know each other or still be married? Interesting. I didn't realize that was the wrinkle. I thought this was just a question about eternity and marriage and what happens to us in eternity. So I guess first there's a couple layers here. As a believer. In the millennial kingdom, you'll be in your glorified body. And the separation of believer and unbeliever will have already taken place by then. If Christ comes back for his bride, the church, which is the believers before you end up being called home to him and you just pass away from natural causes or something else, then you're gonna be taken to be with him and then your husband as an unbeliever if he remains in that state, will end up when he passes away, he won't. Be present in the millennial kingdom. Those that are unbelievers presently that die before the return of Christ, they won't be there in the millennial kingdom. In fact, they don't receive their own eternal bodies, I'll put it that way, not glorified, but eternal bodies. They don't receive those until the great white throne, which is the final judgment before the establishment of the new heavens and the new Earth. If you are alive during the millennial kingdom, if we are gonna take a hypothetical situation and you have two people during the millennial kingdom that are not part of the church, but are just living, then one gets saved and the other one is not saved. That, that's a tricky situation. I imagine it would probably work out similar to how it does in the church currently today. But yeah, if you are currently a believer and your husband's a not a believer, then. Unfortunately, I think that the clear testimony of scripture is that the length of your relationship is only as good as the length of your physical time on this earth. Pastor Roger, your thoughts on that. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think the only thing I would. Add to that is you don't forget somebody, and I don't think that happens. True. I think you're carrying along all of your ideas and your memories. So some people have asked rightly then how will I think about them and not have some kind of sorrow, sadness, and that kind of thing. Yeah. And I'd have to say that I think our glorified body and our glorified minds would give us the proper view of those things, which will fit with what God wants for us. So it's hard, and it still doesn't make it a whole lot easier except to say that you're not getting some kind of lobotomy where God is erasing some memories that you've had. Instead, God's helping frame those according to His glory and his goodness. And I think once we see him and we see what he's doing, I think it'll a lot more will make sense. It won't make it easy necessarily, but it'll make sense and we'll be able to celebrate God's goodness. In that time. Yeah. While we're on the subject of it, let's just talk marriage and eternity. You and Kristen are married and That's correct. You're both believers and so you, that's also correct. You will end up one day in God's presence. What do you think your relationship with your wife will be like in eternity? This is all speculation. Let's just say that. Yes. 'cause there's nothing in the Bible that tells us what this is going to be like. But my best guess, and even as I, I'm already nervous about articulating it. 'cause I'm just guessing. I think we'll have some kind of special relationship. Sure. I don't know. The nature of the specialness, and I don't know what it would look like, but I would still imagine she'll be my best friend in heaven, of course, God himself, in, in the body of Christ. I'll be able to interact with him and that'll be different and unique, and I'm sure I'll get to know lots of new people that I wish I had known on Earth and that were maybe before me or after me. There's a lots, there's lots of factors in, in, in consideration, but my guess, and my hope is that Kristen and I will have some kind of enduring. Special, unique relationship that while it won't be romantic in the same way that it is now, will still be intimate. And again, I don't mean intimate in the romantic sense, just intimate as in closeness. There's a knowledge about one another that will, I believe carry through again, because we're not having lobotomies. God's not erasing information, he's adding to it and he's giving more color. It's all an eight k, as it were. And I think that's something of what it'll be like. I can't wait to hear your ideas though. Yeah. The passage that people often refer to is when Jesus is talking about this, 'cause he's asked the question about the man or the wife who's had multiple husbands because they keep dying. And then the they say the Sadducees, 'cause they're trying to trap Jesus. They say whose husband is she gonna be in the new. New state and he says in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. I don't know that says anything about our existing marriages. It just simply says, there's not gonna be new marriage in heaven. You're not gonna marry, nor are you gonna be given in marriage. But contextually, he's answering a question about somebody who is married. And so you can, extend that. I think I agree with you. I can't argue that. You're gonna have the closest earthly relationship with a human being here on Earth that then in heaven, it's just gonna be like every other relationship that you're gonna have in heaven. I think there's gonna be something that continues on about your relationship with your spouse here on Earth. Now, the Sadis question does raise an interesting scenario. People have been remarried and the Bible allows for remarriage and given circumstances. And so then when you get into eternity, then it's a, a different circumstance there. It's a unique circumstance because how does that work? And that's. I, the secret things belong to the Lord in that instance, I guess because I don't know that, that is a tricky one. And that, that one would argue more in favor of the, more of the equanimity of relationships in eternity when you consider the multiple spouses. Now that's a rare situation that takes place. Maybe there's a diff different way that God works that out in eternity. But you would be able to say though, that. In the new heavens, in the new Earth. When you have your new mind, you're glorified again. I think you'll be able to frame all of those situations without the tension and the potential heartache that you're maybe imagining would happen. 'cause of course, you know your first wife. Oh, she was always my favorite. My second wife was good. My third wife, she was okay. You don't wanna say that in heaven, but you won't have that, right? I think. Because you'll have perfectly godly emotions and behaviors. I can imagine there being harmony and peace in those relationships. Even if there are, heaven forbid, multiple spouses that you've went through because of situations, circumstances, I think you would still relate with them. In a proper way, although I would have to, I'd have to imagine, I can't imagine anything else. There would have to be a uniqueness and a specialness to that relationship because of its uniqueness in Earth or on Earth. And I think God honors that. I don't think that would, again, I don't think it's gonna evaporate. There's continuity in the next life, and I think that's part of it, how it works. I fear because of my sinful emotions for sure. But if my sinful emotions are dealt with by my new creation that Christ has given me, and he is made me perfectly and perfect in my mind and my heart I think we'll be okay. That's just, that's the part that's so hard for us to wrap our minds around is conceiving of what is gonna be like not to have sinful emotions. Yeah. Because even then I'm still sinfully imagining what that's gonna be like. Exactly. Exactly. That's T sin. I'm not thinking sinful thoughts. It's tainted with sin. Noic effects of the fall. Alright, those were some fun questions to kick around. Let's let's get to our DVR. We're in Ezra. Ezra one through three. So Ezra, you're gonna jump backwards in your Bible from where we've been. Although chronologically, this is concurrent with where we've been as far as what we've been reading recently this is the return from exile. This is the return under Abel and Ezra here in in the Book of Ezra, and we're reading about this. This has taken PA place as the book opens in about 5 38 bc 5 38 bc. Cyrus makes this decree. Now, what's interesting is Cyrus is going to say the Lord, the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem. That's in verse two. So the question is, when did God charge Cyrus to do this? And what was the context in which he charged him to do that or gave him instructions to do that? And this is where some outside sources have come in helpful. Josephus, who is an ancient Jewish historian, he records for us that this is traceable back to Isaiah. 44, 28. So Isaiah 44 verse 28 says this, the Lord says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. He shall fulfill my purpose, saying of Jerusalem. He, she shall be built. And of the temple, your foundation shall be laid. So Isaiah's prophesying that Cyrus is gonna be the one to do this. Josephus came along and his suggestion was that Cyrus was shown that prophecy. So this is about 150 years before the time of Cyrus Josephus is saying somebody showed that prophecy to Cyrus and then Cyrus. Understood that this was his charge, that God was charging him to commission the rebuilding of the temple. So I think that fits rather than God speaking directly to this pagan king or God showing up to this pagan king, I think it fits that, that somebody showed Cyrus, Hey, look, this is what the recorded scriptures say that you're charged with doing, and Cyrus wanting to fulfill them. And maybe boast in that a little bit, says, yeah I'm up for that. If I saw my name in God's Word and it said, rod Gomez, in the year 2025 of our Lord is going to do A, B, C, and D, I think I'd be pretty motivated. I'd be like, all right, I'm down. Yeah, let's do this. So I think Cyrus a little bit of his ego being stroked. Yeah. Is seeing himself in God's word, and not that he necessarily believed in the God of the Israelites, but that he would say as a man who's, he's pretty. Enlightened I should say, he's sending people back to their own lands. He's very progressive in terms of his imperial reign, and so he sees what the God of the Israelites is saying, and he's saying yeah, of course I'm gonna do that. I'm all for that. And it fits with his character. It fits with his rulership. And at least as much as we know about him, he leads with this kind of framework. He allows people to do a lot of what they wanna do, and his rulership be that as it may, was effective, at least in this regard. Yeah. And God was still behind it. 'cause if you go back to verse one, it says, the Lord stirred up his heart to do this. And so it's, yeah, I think it's a combination of his seeing these things, his emotions there, and then also God's sovereignly behind the scenes in enacting this and working this. And that's true for everything. Totally. And that's what's so cool about this, is that this is God operating through secular rulers, secular, according to our modern day understanding. It's, he's not secular, truly. He had his own. Pantheon of God's, but yes, absolutely. This is what's, what makes it so cool. God is the God of the Israelites, of the Persians, of all the people, the Babylonians, and on it goes. Yeah. And so the decree is issued in that concept of stirring up appears again down in verse five, but this time, not with Cyrus, but with those that are gonna go back to rebuild the temple. So God is stirring up Cyrus's heart and to your point, he's also stirring up the heart of his own people. Those that are gonna go back and lead this charge back to, to do this in obedience to what he had committed them to do. It's interesting that on the way out, this is a, an exodus part two because in verse six, similar to the Exodus, the people are given gold and silver and other treasures on their way out. And Cyrus even returns the vessels of the temple that had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar. The name Shesh Bazaar that shows up there pr who is Shesh Bazaar? My research on that. There's division in the commentaries out out there about who this could be. Do you have any thoughts on who that is? Yes. I'll select, I don't know, for 500. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the options though some have said this is the Persian name of Rebel. Others have said that this is a Persian official that was. Tasked with overseeing this project. That's what I said last year. Yeah. That he was giving credit for it. Yeah. One of those Yeah. That Cyrus trusted the Jews, but only so far as he could throw them. He's I'm gonna still send a guy with you. Yeah. Just to make sure. Yeah. And that I think that one makes sense more than it being Ro Bull's name. 'cause bulls called bel later on in the text, and so it would make sense for them to divide up the names that way. All right. Chapter two is one of those chapters that just stick with it because you're gonna get into a lot of different names and a lot of different numbers in this. But this is a reminder to us that this is a historical event that took place. These are people that left captivity and came back and the reason why this matters is because this is part of God's fulfilling his promises to Israel, that he was gonna bring the people back, that he was gonna regather them from the nations again, which remember that in and of itself. Is an already not yet promise. That's a short-term fulfillment of the ultimate long-term fulfillment that's gonna be realized in millennial kingdom. But here, these people are coming back. And the thing of note, probably the thing most of note here is the total number of people, which shows up in verse 64 there that. And 65 that there were 42,360, besides their male and female servants of whom there were 7,337. So that number together makes up 49,897 people. We're gonna read in Nehemiah that it was 49,942 people. That's pretty close. That's really close. And so I think that's affirmative for us in, in. It just confirms again, the veracity, reliability of the Bible when we're within, what, 50 people there between Ezra's County and Nehemiah's County. Okay. Someone's gonna be bothered by that though, as right? As what you're saying is someone's gonna say why is it not exactly the same? If God himself inspired the words that are being written here, why are they different? Why are they different pastors? And there's a lot of answers to that. They could be accounting different ways. Yeah. And they're adding people here, subtracting people there. They could have a different approach to the calculation. So there's more than one answer. That's the one I favor. I like the idea that, okay, there's nothing inherently wrong or inaccurate to say I'm counting these leaders, and you're counting those leaders. I think what's behind it is that they are pretty close in terms of our modern accuracy. Our precision down to the very smallest detail is a new thing. It's not saying that God couldn't do that or that he was powerless to do it. He's operating under the ways and the customs of the people. At that time. This was totally acceptable. In fact, this kind of degree of accuracy would've been pretty remarkable. Today we can look at our iPhones or Android phones, heaven forbid, and we can get, the time. For all of the whole world down to, the millisecond. Yeah. They didn't have that at this time. So the level of precision that you might ask for as a 21st century 2025 born in America person would ask for is not the same that they would ask for? Yeah, for sure. At chapter three the people return in, the first thing that they do is they rebuild the temp, the altar. And the reason they rebuild the altar before anything else is because they want to. Get after worshiping God. They want to reinstate the sacrificial offerings. They want to come back to, to begin to observe these things. They're concerned with worship before they are concerned with anything else. And that I think that's commendable. I, some of that I think was out of self-preservation as they were looking around the territory and the enemies, they thought to themselves, Hey, it'd be good to have God on our side. So I think it's somewhat self-preservation minded that they said, let's get the altar up and start doing what he wants us to do. Before they lay the foundation of the temple, before they put up any of the walls, before anything else, they're saying, let's get the, let's get the altar going. And I think the heart of worship is there too, because in verse four it says they kept the feast of booths. And so they're even beginning to observe the feasts again and make sure that they're doing that in accordance with the law. The people start strong and that's the. That's the good part of this. They start really strong. 'cause a, after this, the rest of chapter three, they lay the foundation of the temple and the, this is looking good. And yet we're gonna see it. It doesn't keep going all that well. And that's where we're gonna get to the book of Haggai in a few days here and some other things like that. But they start really strong. They lay the foundation of the temple. And yet, interestingly enough, those that saw the first temple, so these are the elders. Remember they've been in captivity for at least 70 years at this point. They look at just the foundation, just the slab that was. Poured for the temple and they weep because they realize this isn't gonna be anything like the one that Solomon had built long ago. Yeah, and I guess that's probably one of the challenges that living as long as you're able to live is that you can always look back to the past and the way things used to be and say things were better when I was this age and when I always. Know, I understand some of that. The danger though is that we are, we can miss the new thing that God is doing. Yeah. We can suddenly get so lost in what when I was your age and when this happened and when this president was running and when we had this kind of guy at the helm, things were different. We lost some pretty major players lately. I think I'm specifically thinking of Dr. MacArthur. Yeah. He's a name that I've been familiar with for most of my Christian life. Yep. To lose a guy like him and then cy sprawl not be not too long before him is difficult. And we were losing more and more people all the time because people don't stop dying. This is part of the problem that God came to solve. The problem is that if we're always looking behind us, we can't see what's ahead of us. Yeah. We can't even see what's in front of us. And one of the challenges for us as Christians is not to look back and say, man, the good old days, the good old days, the good old days, but to recognize as Christians that the good old days are really ahead of us. The best old days are always in front of us until Jesus comes to rule and rain. So even though there's dark times around us right now, there's lots of reasons to cry and to be hurt and to be sad, but never forget. We have a hope that endures one, a hope that endures beyond the grave, beyond our circumstances and points us to the coming rulership of Jesus Christ. And that's what this points to ultimately. One other quick note here, chapter three. The rebuilding of the temple. This is considered for some people the end of the 70 years. Yeah. You have the, you have them taken in the first wave in 6 0 5 bc That's pretty well attested, but one of the challenges of that is if the building of the temple is in 5 36 or so, that's not exactly 70 years. So what do we do with that? And that's where you get some of the different approaches to the dating. Some people will say the rebuilding of the temple, that's when you have the 70 years. Others will say actually it's later in order to try to make sense of the 70 years. I'm not entirely sure on, on that. I don't think I'd pound the table. Do you have any firm opinion about that? No. In fact, when we get to Zacharias, who we're gonna see that, yeah. Some argue that it's the completion of the temple in the city, and that marks the end of the 70 years too. Yeah. It, there's, I. The 70 years fits the question is where does it fit? Where does it fit? Yeah. What are the precise edges? And we could say the, is the 70 years starting at 5 86, right? Or does it start at 6 0 5, right? Or is it 5 97? And then does it end at 5 30, 8 or five? What's the other one? Five. When's the temple completed? 5 30, 15. Five 15, right? Yeah. So you're trying to figure out where to put the 70 years. Yeah. And ultimately, God knows, but there are some options in case you're wishing to know that. Yeah. And so when we say it fits where the edges, for example five 15 would go back to 5 86, which is 70 years, give or take a year. Yeah. And that's that final, that's the destruction of the temple. And that's where I land because I go from when the temple was destroyed to when the temple was completed. Yeah. I think that's the clean, the cleanest one for me. But there's other ones out there, to your point. Yeah. When you were talking about. Looking ahead. I thought about when Jesus, in Mark's gospel comes on the scene and he's doing these things and John the Baptist ends up dying and then he's charging forward and he's saying, Hey, we're here to, let's go preach. We're preaching the gospel. And he's doing that. And then he's confronted by the Pharisees about this question, about fasting. He's Hey, why aren't you obeying the things that your disciples should be obeying? Why aren't they fasting? And Jesus tells them. You shouldn't fast when the bridegroom's with you. And then he says, no one takes a piece of shrunk cloth and sows it on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it. The new from the old and a worst hair is made, and no one puts new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the wine will burst. The skins. He thinks something new is here and I'm doing something new. And you need to be excited about what's here. What. N don't look back over your shoulder. Wanting to go back to the old things that I'm here to fulfill, that I'm here to bring to completion. But there's something new that's happening here and that new is better and that new isn't always better. But when it comes to this, it certainly is. And then, yeah. Let's probably, and then we'll be done with this episode. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for just the accuracy of it. Even the, these numbers that we were talking about, 70 years of the 49,000 people that went back. Lord, these are our numbers that we can look at and just be thankful that you give us. Accurate reporting and accurate details, and we can trust in these things. And so we're grateful that our faith isn't built on things that are obscure, even as we think outside of that to archeological discoveries and things that are confirming your word over and over again. Whereas you look at some of the other false religions and how they are disproven or there's just an absolute silence in some of these areas, we can have such confidence in what you are doing in. In the veracity and truthfulness of your word. We know ultimately that comes through the testimony of your spirit dwelling within us, and so we were thankful for that as well. But we pray that we'd give ourselves over and study it well and apply it as well. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Keep your Bibles tuned again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said