Steve Conover: Welcome to The Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover. With me is our host and teacher, Chris Katulka. Have you visited our website, foiradio.org? After this episode ends, visit us. If you haven't been there, we have eight years worth of programming for you to enjoy. Once again, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Steve, we're starting a new series this week, a four-part series on the Book of Ezra, a very important historical book in the Bible that not only gives us a picture of what it was like for the Jewish people to return to their homeland after they were exiled, but also to answer some deep theological questions that were plaguing those Jewish people that had returned. Ezra's going to speak right into these spiritual issues, and I think those issues also apply to us today as well.

Steve Conover: Before we get to that, in the news, as countries and states are in the process of transitioning away from oil, gas, and coal, the problem still remains, what will provide a stable and reliable source of energy? There is one company in Israel that has dived headfirst into the field of nuclear fusion. The company aims to build a compact fusion device that will be scalable enough to power anything from a factory to an entire city. NT Tau is hoping to be the company that provides the stable and clean source of energy for everyone.

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, here's my take. I know fusion energy has been in the talk for quite some time, actually almost 80 years, but it still seems like science fiction. However, this Israeli company has had some significant breakthroughs to show that they are on the right track. So maybe in our time we will see fusion energy from Israel powering our lives.

Chris Katulka: We are starting a four-part series on the Book of Ezra, a book of the Old Testament that highlights that God's promises never fail even in our darkest times. Ezra is more than a historical account of the Jewish people returning to their homeland. Ezra is speaking to a Jewish audience who were losing sight of the Lord's purposes in their lives and losing sight of their community. The Book of Ezra may have been written around 450 BC, long after the original call to return to the land of Israel was given. The Book of Ezra is speaking actually to encourage those exiles who had come back under the leadership of Ezra himself and Zerubbabel to stay strong in the Lord, to continue in true temple worship and to remind themselves to maintain their relationship with God and not to abuse His mercy toward them.

Okay, but before we move forward, let me remind you what happened to the Jewish people leading up to the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Jewish people were living in the land of Israel, but if you remember, if you read through the Old Testament, they constantly turned away from the Lord. In the law, God told Moses that if Israel continued to disobey, He would actually send nations to judge them. And you can read all about these, they're called covenant obligations. You can read about these covenant obligations in Deuteronomy chapter 28. This will actually help you better understand why their return to the land in Ezra is so significant.

Well, God did send a nation to judge Israel and the Jewish people and that nation was the Babylonian empire, which today would be located in modern day Iraq, just to give you some geographical context. The Babylonian king was Nebuchadnezzar. And in 586 BC, he destroyed Jerusalem and the temple that Solomon built 400 years earlier. You can listen and hear the spiritual, emotional, and psychological pain of the Jewish people and Jeremiah's poetic account of the events in the Book of Lamentations.

What was Jeremiah lamenting? He was lamenting over the fall of Jerusalem and the temple. Additionally, Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jewish people from Judah and Jerusalem, scattering them across his empire. And again, exactly what God said He would do in Deuteronomy chapter 28 if Israel didn't live up to God's covenant standards. The Jewish people who were pushed into Babylon became known as the exilic community. That's why Ezekiel and Daniel are called exilic prophets. They are writing from the exile in Babylon. But here's the thing that's amazing, is that in Deuteronomy chapter 28 through 30, God also promises to return His people to the land because of the promise that He made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 and Genesis chapter 15. God must fulfill His promises through Israel because it's His name that's connected to them. It's His name connected to the promise.

That's why in Lamentations, Jeremiah, as he's mourning and literally watching Jerusalem fall, the temple being burned. As he's watching this, lamenting this, he says in Lamentations 3:22 and verse 23, he says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." Jeremiah, in Israel's darkest moment, was confident in the promises of God, and even as Jeremiah and the temple were burning in the background, he could still write, "Great is your faithfulness." Why? Because Jeremiah knew God wasn't through with Israel and the Jewish people.

And this is where we pick up in the Book of Ezra. 70 years after the fall of Jerusalem, God is going to give the green light for the Jewish people to return to their homeland. By now, the political world had changed quite a bit after 70 years. The Babylonians were no longer in charge and the power shifted from the Babylonians to the Persians. And when there's a power shift, the leadership can change the way things are done, and that's exactly what the Persians did under the leadership of their king, Cyrus the Great.

Cyrus permitted those peoples, like the Jewish people, who had been exiled from their land, to return to them. Listen, it wasn't just the Jewish people who were exiled by the Babylonians. There were several people groups that were exiled. And Cyrus, what did he want to do? He wanted to establish strong buffer states surrounding his empire that would be loyal to him. Also, by having his subject peoples resettled in their own countries, he hoped to have gods in various parts of his empire praying for him to the gods of Bel and Nebo. For Cyrus, it was a strategic and political move. For God, however, it was divine providence in according with His promises for Israel.

Listen to how Ezra chapter one begins,

“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in the fulfillment of the Lord's message spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord motivated King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also to put it in writing: “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says.: "The LORD God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, he has appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Any one of His people among you, may his God be with him, may go up to Jerusalem and may build the temple of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. Anyone who survives in any of those places where he is a resident foreigner must be helped by his neighbors with silver, gold, equipment, and animals along with voluntary offerings for the temple of God which is in Jerusalem. All their neighbors assisted with the silver utensils, gold, equipment, animals, and expensive gifts, not to mention all the voluntary offerings. Then King Cyrus brought out the vessels of the Lord's temple, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem and had displayed in the temple of his gods. King Cyrus of Persia entrusted them to Mithridates, the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the leader of the Judite exiles.’” 

Now, Cyrus permitted the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland just as it was prophesied, actually, by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 45. In fact, Isaiah's going to use Cyrus's name. He's going to say this. “This is what the Lord says to His chosen one, to Cyrus whose right hand I hold for the sake of my servant Jacob. Israel, my chosen one, I call you by name and give you a title of respect even though you do not submit to me.”

So long before Cyrus even appeared on the scene, God has already predicting through Isaiah that Cyrus would be the one to return His people and God even calls Cyrus “His anointed one,” His chosen one, who would do God's work even though Cyrus didn't believe in Him as the one true creator God. Also it's vital to note that not every Jewish person returned to Judah and Jerusalem when Cyrus gave them the permission to return. Listen to the text here. It says, "Then the leaders of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and the Levites, all those whose mind God had stirred, got ready to go up in order to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Ezra details the numbers of these people in chapter two, sharing that nearly 50,000 of them returned, but it was God who stirred their hearts to return. It wasn't done out of obligation.

You have to imagine how much can change in 70 years. Just think of it like this. My family on my dad's side comes from Poland. My great-grandfather, Theodore Katulka, immigrated to the United States in the earliest years of the 20th century, around 1905. By the time I was born in 1982, it had only been 77 years since my family moved here. I'm third generation, and let me tell you, Poland is not my home. Poland wasn't my dad's home and he was born in 1954. Poland wasn't my grandfather's home. He was born here in the United States. In fact, my dad and my grandfather did me no favors whatsoever. They didn't know much about where we came from in Poland, so I actually had to do all the heavy lifting and find our family history on ancestry.com. But I'm going to tell you something, 77 years doesn't seem like a long time, but my grandfather and my father had no idea where they came from.

70 years can change everything for the Jewish people living in Persia under Cyrus's rule. Those who were exiled by the Babylonians started families in exile and those kids only knew life in Babylon. They went to school in Babylon, they started working in Babylon. They got married in Babylon and they started families in Babylon. And you know what? They never stepped foot in the Holy Land. They never stepped foot in Israel. They probably heard about Israel and the Promised Land and the return even in the synagogue, but that's no longer their life. Then those kids grow up and have another generation of kids that's even further removed from living in Israel.

Jewish people would actually remain in Babylon and Persia, or as we know them, Iraq and Iran, until 1948. That's how long they stuck around in these countries as a result of the exile that happened in 586 BC, almost 2,500 years. That's why God needed to stir the heart of Cyrus and stir the heart of His people to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Remember, those who are returning are not going back for a better life. They had a better life in Persia. They're going back because of God's stirring in their lives and a biblical imperative that Israel is the promised land for the chosen people.

Now, when we come back, we're going to actually look at an archeological find that is going to define this moment when Cyrus gave permission for the Jewish people to return.

From the original tabernacle to the temples built, destroyed, and still to come, God's dwelling place with man has always resided in the temple. Our one-day Prophecy Up Close conference focuses on what understanding the temple reveals about God's intentional design to be both present and protecting His people at the same time. Join the Friends of Israel throughout the country for our popular one-day conference. Find one in your city at foi.org/prophecy. Again, that's FOI.org/prophecy.

Chris Katulka: Welcome back, everyone. We are continuing our introduction to the Book of Ezra. Ezra opens with a decree from King Cyrus giving permission for the Jewish people to return to their homeland after 70 years of being exiled. Now, what's so amazing about this decree is that it's actually proven to be true through archeology. The Cyrus cylinder was discovered in March of 1879 during excavations in Mesopotamia carried out for the British Museum. It's a barrel-shaped cylinder that they found that's actually made of baked clay that measures about nine inches in length and almost four inches in height. And the language that's etched in the clay around the cylinder is what's called Akkadian Cuneiform.

The cylinder details the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 BC when the Babylonian empire was toppled by him. It also details Cyrus's restoration to various temples of statues removed by Nabonidus, the previous king of Babylon, and of all the work that Cyrus had done in Babylon as well. The cylinder is typical of royal inscriptions of the late Babylonian period and the text on it actually shows that the cylinder was written to be buried. It was written to be buried in the foundations of the city wall of Babylon. It was put there after the capture of the city by Cyrus and presumably written by his orders.

The text around the cylinder is quite incomplete, but from what can be translated, it explains that Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, had perverted the cults of the Babylonian gods, including Marduk, the city god of Babylon and had imposed forced labor on its free population who complained to the gods. The gods responded by deserting Babylon, but Marduk looked around for a champion to restore the old ways, so he chose Cyrus, King of Persia, and declared him king of the world. The cylinder explains that Marduk ordered Cyrus to march on Babylon and which he entered in without a fight, actually. He walked right in and Nabonidus was delivered into his hands and the people of Babylon joyfully accepted the kingship of Cyrus.

From that point on, the document actually transitions and it sounds as though Cyrus is speaking of himself and he says, "I, Cyrus, king of the world." He presents himself as a worshiper of Marduk, who strove for peace in Babylon and abolished forced labor of its population. The people of the neighboring countries brought tribute to Babylon and Cyrus claims to have restored their temples and religious cults and to have returned their previously deported gods and people. Did you hear that? The Cyrus cylinder mentions that he returned their deported gods and people. It was the Jewish people who were deported and sent to Babylon. The Cyrus cylinder co corroborates with the biblical accounts of Daniel and Ezra.

This is an amazing archeological find, sharing in broad detail how Cyrus came to power and that it was him who permitted the exiled people and their gods to return to their homeland. And Ezra shows that Cyrus gave permission for the Jewish people to return, fulfilling God's will. And notice what Cyrus does from Ezra chapter one. He gives the temple vessels to return to Jerusalem, just as the Cyrus cylinder states that Cyrus restored their temples and religious cults.

Look, what's amazing here is that God was at work through a pagan king to return His people to the promised land. You know what that reminds me of? It actually reminds me of 1948 when Israel became a nation again. God didn't use some big giant movement of Bible-believing Christians. Yes, Christians were involved in the process and played an important role, but it was ultimately the United Nations that gave permission for the Jewish people to reestablish a Jewish state. I wouldn't call the United Nations a bastion for biblical truth, but ultimately God will use the nations to bring His chosen people back to their land to show them His glory just as He used Cyrus, the Great.

Steve Conover: Israel, on the verge of becoming a state, a teenage Holocaust survivor arrives on her shores alone. His name, Zvi Kalisher. Little did he know, his search for a new life in the holy land would lead him to the Messiah. Zvi, enthusiastic to share his faith, engaged others in spiritual conversation, many of which can be found in our magazine, Israel, my Glory. While Zvi is now in the presence of his savior, his collected writings from well over 50 years of ministry continue to encourage believers worldwide. Now, Apples of Gold, a dramatic reading from the life of Zvi.

Mike Kellogg: Something happened recently and was hard even for me to believe, but as we say here in Israel, when God wills it, everything is possible. Not long ago, my wife was in the hospital. When I went to visit her, I would speak to people at hospital. It's not a place where you can speak openly about faith in Christ. There are many Orthodox who believe they must watch those who visit to prevent them from sharing the gospel. Many people I met, however, were open to hearing about the faith.

One day I met a man who was a patient as my wife was. He, more than anyone else, wanted a long conversation about Christ. As a visitor, however, I had to be careful. "Please come back," he said. "I will do my best," I told him. Soon my wife returned home from the hospital. I was doing everything I could to help her because she needed much help. I did not forget the sick man who wanted to know more about the savior, but I could not figure out how I would be able to make the time to go to the hospital. I did not want to break my promise to him, but I knew it would be difficult to speak about salvation in that place.

Several days later, I became very sick. My wife quickly called an ambulance, which came and took me to the hospital. And to which of our many hospitals was I brought, to the same hospital where I was supposed to visit the sick man who wanted so desperately to know about salvation through Christ. And into which of the hospital's many rooms was I placed as a patient, into his room. When I arrived, he was greatly surprised. He looked at me and said, "You said one day you would visit me and here you are. I am sure this is not the way you're meant to arrive." He was certainly right. It is still hard for me to believe what happened. "You are here," the man said, "but of course, it was not your will to come in such a way." I knew, however, that it was God's will because now we would have all the time we needed to talk about faith in Christ without worrying about the Orthodox throwing me out.

His first question was, "How did you come to know the Lord? Please tell me." I told him I learned about the Lord from the Holy Bible, not from the rabbinical commentaries that the Orthodox prize so highly. It is clearly written in the Bible, "You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you." "Now, look around", I told him, "most of the people here worship the rabbis and do not realize it. They respect the Rabbi so much that they listen to them instead of following what is written in God's word." "So where is it written in the Bible about this one in whom you have believed?", he asked. I replied, "This is the best question."

I opened my Bible to Isaiah 53 and began reading. "But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." I told him much about Jesus, our savior. We had a very long conversation and I was able to tell him everything he wanted to know.

Chris Katulka: The impact of Zvi's life in ministry in Israel, it didn't end when he went home to be with the Lord. In fact, Zvi's legacy lives on. Our Friends of Israel Ministry representatives continue to share the gospel in Jerusalem, Israel, and really, all throughout the world. We also serve Holocaust survivors and their families. We provide free food, medicine, and clothing, and we even promote the safety and security of the state of Israel and the Jewish people everywhere. So when you give to the Friends of Israel, your donation actually allows us to advance the gospel of our Messiah Jesus. You can give online by visiting FOIradio.org. Again, that's FOIradio.org. You can click right there on our donate link. Also, be sure to let us know where you listen when you contact us.

Steve Conover: Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll continue our series in Ezra next time. Chris, where's our focus next week?

Chris Katulka: Yeah, so we looked at the background of how Ezra and the Jewish people would return to their homeland under the leadership of Ezra and Zerubbabel, and next week we're going to look at some of the theological issues that they were struggling with and really how they apply to us as well.

Steve Conover: We look forward to it. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka. Today's program was produced by Tom Gallione, edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. And I'm Steve Conover, executive producer. Our mailing address is FOI Radio, PO Box 914 Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio, PO Box 914 Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. And I'll give you one last quick reminder to visit us at foiradio.org. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We are a worldwide evangelical ministry, proclaiming biblical truth about Israel and the Messiah, while bringing physical and spiritual comfort to the Jewish people.