Dear Editors and friends,

Please freely print this weeks Penny Pulpit Column in your papers, bulletins, emails, bloggs and twitters . Thank you for this consideration.
Pastor Ed Rice, Good Samaritan Baptist Church, Dresden NY 14441

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Msg# 1216 Building in God's Time

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

It is curious how Nehemiah's burden to go from Babylon back to Jerusalem comes 70 years after the dedication of the temple, which comes exactly 70 years after its complete destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. Neb took the priests and smiths, scholars and lawyers out of Jerusalem 20 years prior to that destruction. You recall the account of four children of Judah, named Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the college boys who were then taken into the Babylonian captivity. Well Cyrus, king of Persia, decreed the decree that sent the priests back to the Lord's Promised Land, and they did their first sacrifice and passover exactly 70 years after their deportation. For so it was prophesied by Jeremiah the prophet “And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jer25:11) and again “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.” (Jer25:12) and again “For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” (Jer29:10) Why seventy years? “Carried away to Babylon; ... until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.” (2Chron 36:20-21) It is a wise steward who waits through trials and frustrations with the understanding that things happen in God's time frame, no in ours.

An Essay from week # 16, Sunday, April 15, 2012

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