I have to say that while I look forward very much to our midweek Bible studies on Thursday night

and teaching through the Old Testament, especially here in the book of Ezra, I am really excited about what the Lord has for us tonight in the two chapters that are before us. We're making

our way through the Bible, book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And tonight we're

going to take two chapters, chapters seven and eight. We did chapters five and six last week.

And these are two chapters, I think think that kind of need to go together

especially chapter eight i'm really excited about something that i've actually been wanting to

talk about in recent weeks and so i'm really looking forward to again what the Lord has for us. Why do we pray

and we'll ask God to bless our time together in His word tonight. So if you would join with me.

Father in heaven, I'm so thankful to you for those that are here tonight. I, Lord, thank you for their love for you and for

your word and Lord, that's why we're here tonight. We're here because we want to hear you speak

into our lives in and through your word. Lord, we love your word. We love you. And so Lord,

would you just minister to us tonight and not allow anything to distract us

or keep us Lord we don't want to miss anything that you have in store for us tonight so Lord speak

your servants are listening we pray pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. So there's actually a 58-year gap between chapters six and seven. And so it's for that reason, I think it would be good if we had a bit of the backstories

so we have a better understanding of what is happening here. We're going to be introduced to

Ezra tonight. We sort of turn a corner where the first six chapters in the book were about the first wave of Jews

that had returned from captivity to Jerusalem with Zarubabel. I mean, the book could have

actually easily been titled the book of Zarubabel because the first six chapters of the ten chapters in the book were chiefly focused on him and this first wave of Jews that had returned.

Now, we turn this corner and learn about this second return, this second wave, if you will,

of Jews that are going to now return to Jerusalem. And this time, the focus will be on

Ezra. Now, if you're anything like me, you're going to really love Ezra. This is an amazing guy.

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