Old enemies heard that the exiles were building The Temple of the God of Israel. They said, “We’ll help you build. We worship your God the same as you.
Zerubbabel, and the rest said, “Nothing doing. Building the Temple of our God is not the same thing to you as to us. We alone will build for the God of Israel. We’re the ones King Cyrus of Persia commanded to do it.”
So, these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah, harassing them as they built. They hired propagandists to sap their resolve. They kept this up for years. They wrote an accusation against those living in Judah and Jerusalem.
The result: they lost no time. They went to the Jews in Jerusalem and made them quit work. Nothing more was done until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.
Meanwhile the prophets were preaching to the Jews in the authority of the God of Israel who ruled them. And so, Zerubbabel started rebuilding again. The prophets of God were right there helping them.
(From Ezra chapters 4-5, MSG)
There is lots more to the story. But this is the question of the day. What do we do when we know God is asking us to do something and others oppose us?
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