In Ezra, chapter five, verse five, those who commit their lives to God’s cause and work are peculiar objects of his watchful care. If you strive to exalt our Lord’s kingdom and righteousness, He will never withdraw His eyes from you, as in Job thirty-six, verse seven, and Matthew six, verse thirty-three. This promise belongs to you: “The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry” from Psalms thirty-four, verse fifteen.
We are under His special protection while employed in God’s work, and His eye is upon us for good. The holy security should keep us to our duty and encourage us therein when difficulties are ever so discouraging. The elders of the Jews gave the Samaritans an account of their proceedings. Let us learn with meekness and fear to share a reason for the hope in us; let us rightly understand and then readily declare what we do in God’s service and why we do it. And while in this world, we always shall have to confess that our sins have provoked the wrath of God.
All our sufferings spring from thence, and all comforts from his unmerited mercy. However, the work may seem to hinder. Yet, the Lord Jesus Christ is carrying it on his people are growing unto a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous” with a jealous watchfulness, which never for a moment slackens. Nothing happens to them that He does not know and allow. At this time, the elders, who pre-aided over the workers employed in the restoration, were under God’s watchful care, so those who would fain have hindered them could not. The work of rebuilding went on uninterruptedly during the whole time that the messengers were away.