“Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel; then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, ‘Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye, and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.’ But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, ‘Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.’
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.” Ezra 4:1-6 (KJB)
REFERENCES: 3:3; 4:7-24; 2 Kings 17:24, 32, 33; 19:37; Acts 8:21; Romans 9:4-5; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
We should certainly be choosy about who we allow to help in our works. Too often the fact that a person is willing influences our thinking and we allow folks to help who may be false teachers.
Amen. That is what I was seeing in the text too.
I actually have seen this. In our place we called a man to be a Deacon just because he had been where he came from. That turned out badly as he was not even close to meeting the qualifications for that office. It has caused a huge issue that has really hurt the church.