THANK YOU, LORD

          For those that had returned to rebuild the temple (Ezra 3), the question was “What do we do now?” However, there was no substituting human ways for what God had spoken through His prophets. They searched the Scriptures and when they “found it written,” that was the solution of the matter. The “Bible”, the Word of God, was their authority.

          They rebuilt the altar in order to offer burnt offerings on it, “as it was written in the Law of Moses, the man of God” (Ezra 3:2).

          Edersheim, author of Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah correctly points out, “This is a principle of all importance to any who to-day value the divine approbation above the approval of carnal men. The Scriptures are sufficient still.”

          The subjects of God, returning from captivity, had learned their lesson. They would now search for the pattern: what "is written." They observed the Feast of Tabernacles “as it is written” (3:4). They restored the authorized “continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the LORD” (3:5).

          The Jews did not play their instruments in their synagogues. God had authorized the instruments to be played only by the Levites at the Temple worship. It was an “ordinance of David” who was a prophet as well as king. “For [so was] the commandment of the LORD by his prophets” (2 Chronicles 29:25b).

          Therefore, when the builders relaid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests were given their trumpets and the Levites their cymbals to praise the Lord, “after the ordinance of David king of Israel” (Ezra 3:10). They sang by course and they gave God thanks by quoting the Psalm 100. The people shouted with a great shout.

          This was, by the way, the Psalms were to be used. They were not to be used to authorize instrumental music in the synagogues or churches. True thanks to God is giving Him the glory and the praise by doing what God has authorized by “what is written.”