Ezra 9–10
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Good morning, again. Good morning, again. I mean, I get it. Sometimes that's just thrown out there as an intro, but it's also nice to interact a little bit, so I'm grateful for that. This morning, we're going to be in the book of Ezra. So if you're new to the Bible, if you're just a guest with us, or you just don't know where Ezra is, that's fine. It's on page 395 of the Pew Bible in front of you. So you're going to want to make your way to that because we're covering a big chunk of text, you're going to need to see all of that there in front of you.
Page 395 in that Pew Bible. So sadly, we're almost at the very end of summer, which means the very best part of summer is almost finished. No, I'm not talking about the heat. For those of you who hate winter and are wrong, that winter is the worst season. I'm not talking about the pool or the beach. I'm not even talking about a different kind of rhythm of life. Those are all good things. No, I'm talking about peach season.
I love good peaches. Love them, right? The best ones are juicy, they're sweet, and maybe even a little tart all at the same time. How is that even possible? There's almost nothing better than a really good peach in season. Years ago, I had what I'm going to call a life-changing experience when it came to peaches. so a friend gave me what looked like a great peach held it up smelled it you know it had all the the trappings of a perfect peach it smelled right it felt right it had just the right kind of squishiness to it but not overripe it was going to be great but she offered to slice it up for me and I'd never you know eaten peaches like that before I've always just kind of torn into them like apples and I thought okay that's fine you should go ahead and slice it up for me well Well, lo and behold, I'm glad she did because she sliced right through a white, slimy grub.
Yes, exactly. Ew. What looked to be great on the outside was just shockingly disgusting on the inside. Well, our passage this morning is going to be a little bit of that same type of feeling, that same type of ooh that just came across us. We're expecting things to look a certain way. We expect things to be a certain way. But what we find instead is appalling. So we'll hang on to that, and we'll get into it in just a little bit.
I realize that this is the last sermon in the book of Ezra, and we didn't finish that previous sermon of Ezra. We finished that last sermon like three and a half months ago. So it's been a lot of different territory that we've covered since then. So I'm going to try to bring us up to speed just a little bit. Just as an aside, thank you, church, so much for the ways that you have been not just attentive but desirous of hearing God's Word from so many different brothers up here and from so many different types of preaching, so many different books of the Bible.
That is a little bit more challenging as a congregation, and yet I think as a congregation you have done that so well. So thank you for that. I'm very excited for Greg to be back next week. Until then, here we go. So a few months ago, like I said, we worked through the first eight chapters of the book of Ezra, and I don't expect us to remember all of it, so we're going to take just a few minutes here to kind of rehash where we've been. So the book of Ezra, written mid-5th century B.C., right? So that's like 2,500 years ago by a man named Ezra, so everyone thanks.
He himself was a priest and a scribe who preached God's word and served as a priest in the rebuilt temple. So you had the temple, it was destroyed, they go off into exile, come back, rebuild the temple, Ezra serves as a priest in that temple. The book himself, or the book itself, is divided into two chunks. So you've got the first six chapters, those describe events before Ezra, long before him, even 80 years before him, and then chapters 7 through 10, including the last two chapters, that cover events that Ezra himself would have lived through and experienced.
Overall, the entire book is showing us what it means to trust God's word, and what it means to live in accordance with God's Word. That's the thrust of all of it. Here's God's Word, trust this, and here's how you do that. Well, we see that especially in those first few chapters when we're introduced to a people coming out of exile. For years and years and years, this is in fact the central storyline of the Bible and even this book itself certainly. For years, God's people have been given a promise that they would have a land, that they would live in themselves, and that they would experience God's blessing there. And yet, at this point in history, they find themselves in a foreign land under a pagan king, not in their own land, and seemingly no hope to get back to it.
And yet, here they were. These first few chapters show that the Lord fulfilled his promise. He stirs up the heart of Cyrus to send them back, they make their way back, and all of a sudden, they're in the land. And then the next four chapters detail the rebuilding of the altar, and then the temple foundation, and finally the temple itself. And in all of that, those people of God, those returned exiles face opposition. There's opposition everywhere they look. They begin seeing that every time they seek to worship God, they're going to face opposition from his enemy. So for literally decades, they face a physical opposition to it, but there's a spiritual opposition as well. Their enemy tries to discourage and frustrate them.
But the Lord is faithful. He gives prophets to speak God's word to them, and then the people obey his word. And they finish the temple, dedicate it, and everyone kind of seems happy at the end of chapter 6. There's a celebration of what the Lord has done. Well, then the next few chapters pick up the story. This is where Ezra shows up. It's now many decades later after they've just celebrated. Prior to that moment, it was Ezra kind of looking backwards and writing about the story then, and now he's writing about, well, this is what I've experienced. So it becomes very evident very, very soon that the main play, the main role that Ezra is going to have in all of this is that he's going to be the way by which the Lord ensures the people of God have his word.
He's going to speak it to them, and that's how God is going to preserve his people, because he sent Ezra as well as others to them, but he's going to make sure that they have his word. But the drama doesn't stop there. It actually gets super interesting. Ezra recounts the long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. They've got physical enemies on every turn that they had to avoid. There were surprising lapses of judgment and blunders by the leadership all along the way. And in all of it, the refrain that keeps coming up as you read through chapters 7 and 8 is that it was the hand of the Lord that was on Ezra and on God's people. They've made it to that point and they've been preserved, not because they were wise, not because they were capable, but because God's hand was on them. It would seem then at the end of chapter 8, they finally made it back to the land, that there should be this big collective sigh of relief. We've made it. We're back.
They're in the land. They have God's word. It's being proclaimed to them, and his hand has clearly been on them all along, preserving them. But the story is about to take an awful twist. And so let's read Ezra chapter 9 and a big chunk of chapter 10 as well. Beginning in chapter 9. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost. As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God saying, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift my face to you, my God. For our iniquities have risen higher than our heads and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.
From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities, we, our kings and our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame as it is today. But now, for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within His holy place that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery, for we are slaves.
Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia to grant us some reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, the land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the
peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape? O Lord, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this. And while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.
And Shekaniah, the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra, We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children according to the counsel of my Lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God and let it be done according to the law. Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you. Be strong and do it. Then Ezra arose and made the leading priests and Levites and all Israel take an oath that they would do as had been said.
And so they took the oath. Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan, the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night neither eating bread nor drinking water, For he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles. And a proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the returned exiles that they should assemble at Jerusalem, and that if anyone did not come within three days, by order of the officials and the elders, all his property should be forfeited. And he himself banned from the congregation of the exiles. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days.
It was the ninth month on the twentieth day of the month. And all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain. And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then, make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives. Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, It is so. We must do as you have said.
But the people are many, and it is a time of heavy rain. We cannot stand in the open, nor is this a task for one day or for two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter. Let our officials stand for the whole assembly. Let all in our cities who have taken foreign wives come at appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every city, until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away from us. Only Jonathan, the son of Asahel, and Jazia, the son of Tikva, opposed this. And Mushalom and Shabbathai, the Levite, supported them.
Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest selected men, heads of fathers' houses, according to their fathers' houses, each of them designated by name. And on the first day of the tenth month, they sat down to examine the matter. And by the first day of the first month, they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women. Now there were found some of the sons of the priests who had married foreign women, Maaseah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah, some of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Josedach, and his brothers. They pledged themselves to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt.
All the way to the end of the chapter. Verse 44. All these had married foreign women, and some of the women had even born children. Well, in terms of the structure of this big piece of text, it's actually, I think, very simple, very straightforward for us to see. Chapter 9 deals with Ezra being made aware of the people's sin and then his response to it. And then chapter 10 is, it's continuing with that same situation, but now it's really the people themselves beginning to confess and repent. So you've got a little bit of a two-fold approach there. Ezra learning of it and responding to it, The people confessing it and repenting of it.
And I think the main idea for these two chapters is this. The only answer for the unfaithfulness of God's people is repentance before a merciful God. The only answer for the unfaithfulness of God's people is repentance before a merciful God. And we'll break that basically into those two chapters for our points. The two different major movements of the story. Point number one, an unfaithfulness revealed. And point two, unfaithfulness repented of.
Point number one, unfaithfulness revealed. If you've ever received horrible news, you most likely remember the entire scene of where you were and what was going on when you heard it. So for those of you in the room old enough, 9-11, you'll remember exactly where you were when those towers fell. I was on my way to breakfast and about to go take a calculus exam. Or when a loved one dies. Now, coming up over five years ago, my father-in-law was sick, very ill.
And we were celebrating Christmas with family in Oklahoma when we got the call that we needed to come immediately. He might not make it until we got there. I can describe the entire setting of where we were, what we were eating, what we were doing when that bad news came our way. well that must be what Ezra felt like here in the beginning of chapter 9 this story happens within a few months of his arrival to Jerusalem and he's just made this long treacherous journey to Jerusalem and what should feel like the pinnacle of his story maybe this happy ever after ending instead gives way to God's people giving themselves over to sin verse 1 after these things have been done the officials approached me and said, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations. This is like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai and seeing the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. This moment should be triumphant. It should be jubilant. It should be full of joy, and instead it's disgusting
and broken, filled with disappointment. What should reveal the Lord's glory in this moment is instead defiled. And notice who's leading the charge in all of it. It's not just the people, right? It's not even the common Israelite. No, the end of verse 2 tells us it's the very leadership of the people who are at the forefront of this. They've not obeyed the clear commands of the Lord to separate themselves from the unclean people of the Lord. No, they've taken wives from these other pagan nations around them and made them their own.
Well, right here from the beginning, if you're like many of us who read this text, I feel like we should address what might feel like the elephant in the room on this. A quick reading of this, a quick kind of cursory glance of this, especially without the context of the Bible and without paying careful attention to the details of this passage itself, might make one think that what's happening here is just blatant racism, right? After all, isn't Ezra, what's his problem? Isn't he just upset that the Israelites are marrying women from different races?
Isn't he just racist? Isn't he proclaiming that the holy race has now been polluted, that their bloodlines are polluted? Well, absolutely not. This is not racism we're seeing here. This is just not the same thing as it would be if someone were to tell you today that you as a Christian from a certain race are forbidden to marry someone else from another race. Why? Why is that so? Why is it not the same thing? How can that be when a quick reading of it actually seems to suggest otherwise? Well, it's because of a few critical factors. Number one, God's people in this time of salvation history were a national ethnic group. It was the Jews. So the way that other people knew who God's people were was by looking at a nation, right? You want to know who the people of God were? You look at them. You look at the Jews. Those are the people of God, and they were to be distinct, separate, set apart. Another word for that would be holy. They were to be solely devoted to the Lord, and one of the key ways they did that was by
preserving the integrity of their nation, by not marrying those who were not a part of their nation. But this was not about bloodlines as much as it was about worship, which brings us to the second point on that. What characterizes and describes these peoples of the land? What does the text say? What does it say there in verse 1? What characterizes them? They're known for their abominations. Friends, that's just another way of saying they were ritually unclean, that they rejected the worship of Yahweh, and that they committed idolatry in the most heinous of ways.
Marrying those people wasn't then just a matter of preference, or love, or suitability, or convenience. No, marrying them would have been to unite themselves to those despicable, detestable practices that those nations did. But also, number three, and maybe this is just the most straightforward way, that doing this, marrying across into these other nations, was just indirect disobedience to God's clear command. It was just flat-out disobedient. You'll recognize that list of nations found in verse one, right? The Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites, at least many of those names, if you've been around the Bible at all, you would recognize those names pop up kind of all over the place in the Old Testament. And always, every time they pop up, God's people are told that they are their enemies, that they are to destroy them utterly, completely, as judgment for their rebellion against God, for their
wickedness and that they are never ever to become like them. And yet, this is exactly what we see them doing. They hear God's word clearly. They know the consequences of disobeying it, and they just step headlong right into it. Friends, this is not racism. This isn't about a particular race being forbidden for marriage for God's people. This is about a particular worship being forbidden for God's people. They're to worship God alone. So for them to unite in marriage with other nations who in so many ways are showing that they rebel against and reject the God of the Bible is for them to unite in that as well. It's to say, we refuse to worship God alone. You know, maybe a way for us to more clearly grab onto this, because that's a heavy concept. This is a heavy thing to
deal with. Just this past week, here right in this room at our monthly members meeting, we brought in new members. You know as members of this church what the bar for membership is. It's a credible profession of faith in Jesus, right? You know the gospel. You can tell the gospel, and you say, yes, I believe that. I've placed all my faith in that. And then also baptism, right? Baptism after conversion. So when we bring in new members, we, as members of this church, we're uniting with one another. We're making promises together. We're actually covenanting together with fellow members, new members. So imagine if the elders, last Wednesday, just a few days ago, had stood up here and had recommended for membership a member of a Satanist cult, or an atheist, or a practicing Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or any other person who just openly rejected the Lord and His Word and His people? How would that have gone? How would that have gone? Well, I think I know that the answer is that you would have, you, the congregation, would have immediately moved to
vacate the entire elder board. You would have rejected that nomination with every bit of zeal that you could muster. You would have moved on. Why? Well, because it's absurdly obvious that that would not happen, that we as Christians cannot unite ourselves together in membership, together in a local church, with people who openly oppose and openly reject the Lord. We'd never welcome a person like that into our membership. Into our worship services? Yes, of course. But into membership? No, not knowingly anyway. And yet, that's what's happening here. The people of God are embracing to themselves and making themselves one with those who hate God. How horrible.
Perhaps even worse than all of this, who's leading the charge in it? Who's out front leading them toward this? As we've already seen, the very end of verse 2 tells us it's the officials and the chief men. They're the ones who have been at the front of this. So fellow elders, Maybe even men aspiring to be elder one day, either in this church or another church. Brothers, this should be a wake-up call to us. A title, a role, a job description simply does not prevent you from beginning to wonder.
This is why Paul gives the charge that he does to Timothy. Keep a close watch on your life and on your doctrine. My guess is that these men here in Ezra didn't set out to one day abdicate their responsibility and knowingly lead these people into this grievous sin. But here they are. Brothers, be careful. Watch your life and your doctrine lest you do the same. So what's Ezra's response to this news? Well, it's utter despair.
Verse 3, he tears his clothes, he pulls out some hair, and then he sits appalled. He's stunned and broken by the sin of the people. And he stays that way until the beginning of verse 6. his response at that point is the only thing he knows to do it's to pray to the Lord and I think it's helpful for us to see how he prays the people came to him in verse 1 saying here's what some of the people are doing and look at how Ezra identifies the sinners in his prayer he says it's our iniquities it's our guilt look at verse 6 oh my God I am ashamed and blushed to lift my face to you my God for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.
From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt. He's frank and honest. He points out exactly what the people have done and the consequences that their actions have gotten them. And he doesn't try to soften it. He does not excuse it. But he goes on right there in the middle of the prayer. He points to the mercy and the grace of the Lord. Verse 8, but now for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant. So in all of this judgment through exile, right, their sins gotten them exiled out of the land, that's part of God's judgment on them, the Lord has still shown them favor. And that's what he points out. He leaves a remnant, and now he's brought that remnant back into the land, and Ezra grabs a hold on to that to show God's faithfulness. You see that progression there?
He sees sin, he acknowledges it, confesses it, and then immediately starts turning his mind and others' minds to the goodness and to the faithfulness of God. That's helpful for us. But he keeps going. He recalls exactly how they broke God's commands. Verse 10, he says, we've forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants, the prophets, and we've done that by uniting ourselves to the peoples of this land. You told us not to do it, but we did it anyway. And then he finishes with these two just climactic questions in verse 14.
Should we disobey your word? It's like he's asking these rhetorical questions. Should we disobey your word and do this even after you've rescued us from slavery and brought us back? Well, the answer is, of course not. Of course we shouldn't do this. And then he follows it up. wouldn't you be angry with us and utterly consume us if we did that? Yes. That's the implied answer. Yes, you should and you would consume us. Look, this is the important part here. Ezra correctly identifies their sin, right? He sees their sin. He identifies it and compares it as the grotesque reality that it is with the kindness of God and rescuing them out of slavery and bringing them back, and then he immediately follows that kind of logic up with, well, this deserves a punishment. This thing deserves a punishment, and the only right punishment for that is eternal punishment. He just kind of stops there. Right at the end of verse 14, if you stop,
you should feel the weight of the exiled sin just come crashing down on them. The Lord has rescued them. He's worked miracle after miracle to bring them back into the land and they've defiled it again. They don't deserve anything but God's wrath at this point, consuming them in his good, righteous anger. Friends, how often do you see your sin like that?
When you look at your own life and you see the ways that the Lord has worked and acted to rescue you, when you pan back over those dramatic mountaintop sequences of maybe the first time you heard the gospel, maybe those first days of when you believed and your eyes were opened up and you saw all the glorious truths in God's Word, maybe that time you were baptized. For many of you, it was right here where you were baptized. Maybe that time when you first saw clear spiritual growth in your heart and you were excited about it.
Maybe it was when you've gathered in here on Sundays like we're doing right now and you've just sung your heart out and felt the joy of gathering with brothers and sisters as we praise the Lord. When you see all of those good things and then the next sequence in your mind is your sin against that same Lord who gave you all of those spiritual blessings. what do you think? What happens in your mind? Are you numb to the fact that those two shouldn't be in the same movie reel in your life? Or have you gotten so accustomed to and just very comfortable with your sin that it doesn't jar you? You just expect it to look like that.
some of you in here probably need to be jarred by this. You're so engrossed in your sin that it no longer causes this type of reaction in your heart, and that ought not to be. Brothers, sisters, you need to stare at the reality of who God is and what He's done in saving you. He is a holy God who is all-pure and knows no sin, not a trace, Who acts in full grace and mercy to save you.
And who's commanded then you to live separate from the things of this world. You need to feel the weight of these questions that Ezra asks. Should I continue in sin against you, Lord? Of course not. But I have. Well, won't you consume me then because of that sin? Well, left to yourself. Left to your own. Yes. And he would be just for doing so. Amen. Brothers and sisters, don't presume upon the grace of the Lord.
Yes, the forgiveness of your sins is complete, and it's eternal in the gospel of Jesus. This text does not refute that in any way. But as a Christian, you are one who is to be set apart. The cross of Christ, the very death of God's Son, on your behalf is the cost of your sin. You need to look at that and be reminded what your sin has earned. Brothers and sisters, flee from your sin. Don't give it shelter. Don't give it safe harbor in your life. Flee from it and stop uniting yourself to it. Well, verse 15 isn't quite the happy and full resolution we'd hope for, but it's exactly what we need. Ezra is at this point of tension where he's feeling that weight of verse 14 and these questions, and it seems like there's no way out of this. And the only thing he can do is call God's character of being a good and righteous and just judge. He doesn't plead for forgiveness.
He knows they're guilty. He doesn't plead for mercy. He has no claim on God's mercy, but he knows he can trust in a God who acts justly, and so he bows in guilt before the holy judge of the universe. Look, these returned exiles, they were unfaithful to the max, right? Instead of celebrating God's work and preserving them, which is what they should have been doing. They've gone out and instead united with his enemies, and now that's all come to light. But thankfully, that's not where the story ends. And point number two, unfaithfulness repented of. Unfaithfulness repented of. You know, our minds don't just work such that if you know something, like if you learn something for a short time, that it's locked away forever. If you've ever studied a foreign language, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You can memorize list after list after list of vocabulary words for that test,
and you can go out and regurgitate all of that stuff, and two or three days later, you do not know how to say the word for milk or for whatever it is you think you would need to know. But if you go into the grocery store in a foreign country where that language is spoken, and you have to say the word milk, you're going to remember it, right? That's just how our brains work. That's how we're wired. If you have knowledge but you don't actually apply it and apply it correctly, it's less likely to actually stick at all. Knowledge of sin, likewise, is just not enough on its own. To know of your sin is not the point. To know of it and then act upon that is what we're to do, and that's what we see here in chapter 10. So Ezra's praying. He's still praying. There at the end of chapter 9, we read through his prayer. And while he was praying, others began gathering around him. There were many people grieving their sin. And out of that group, one man named Shekinah stands up and speaks. And he offers a way of repentance for God's people. His words are similar to Ezra's.
He confesses sin and he appeals to the hope for God's people found only in God. And look what he says there in the beginning of verse 2 of chapter 10, we have broken faith with our God and we've married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Verse 3, therefore let us make a covenant with our God to do what? To put away all these wives and their children. It's like he says, you're right, we've sinned. You're right, Ezra, we have messed up, but there's hope for us. Let's obey God's word like you've told us. Let's put away these foreign women and trust our God. Well, Ezra agrees with it and makes everyone else agree to it as well with an oath, but he's still troubled. So he knows that the sin has not actually been dealt with yet. They've got a plan for repentance, but they've not repented yet. So he retreats to a room, fasts and mourns all night for the sin of the returned exiles, and then all the people are told, hey, you need to come to Jerusalem, the entire nation. You need
to come to Jerusalem within three days. If you don't, we're going to cut you off from the people of God. I'm going to take away your land and you'll be cut off from the people of God. So all the men of the returned exiles make their way to Jerusalem. This is verse 9. And right here, verse 9 going into verse 10, this is where the scene reaches its climax. On this spiritually heavy, and as the text points out, rain-soaked day, this would have been in the middle of, we think, December. So December in Israel, cold, wet. This would have been miserable to be outside. The entire assembly sits before Ezra out in the open to hear him, and he pulls no punches when he says, you have sinned. You've been unfaithful. You need to confess it and repent, and here's how you'll do that. You'll repent by separating yourselves from the peoples of this land. This was huge.
They couldn't just mouth something and that be their repentance, right? There would be no compromise as far as Ezra was concerned. There was no partial measure. They don't get to keep their idolatrous wives as long as they don't try to pull them into idolatry. They don't get to keep their idolatrous wives as long as they don't keep taking more and more of them. No, Ezra says this has to stop immediately. You have to separate from the peoples of this land. Well, this whole notion of being separate, it's been important from the very beginning. It's the word that's used in the law to describe how God's people would be distinct from the pagan nations. They would be singled out. They would be separate. Those lines were never to be blurred.
Here's God's people. Here's everyone else who's not. There's no murkiness in between. And that's why this is so important. For God's people to unite with those who were not his, it was the exiles were essentially saying, we don't want to be distinct. We don't want to be separate. In fact, Lord, we're trying to nullify the work that you've done in bringing us out of them and making us your own, making us your treasure. We're working against that. Friends, that's what sin does.
It actually aims to work against God's work. It actually aims to undo His good and righteous work. how foolish of us to chase after it. But that's also why when we talk about holiness, it's not just some sort of arbitrary moral code, right? It's not just doing some things and not doing some others, and yeah, you can just kind of pick whatever you want. No, it's about living in such a way that who you are, right, a child of God, part of God's people, is obvious to others.
So, you don't do that thing because you're a Christian. You do that thing because you're a Christian. It's not legalism. It's not works-based salvation. No, these exiles, for instance, weren't earning their standing as God's people. He's already chosen them. He's already made them his own. It's how they're showing to others around them that they're God's people. Friends, your own personal holiness, like your own as individual Christians, your own personal holiness and our corporate holiness, they matter. They have ramifications. They have implications for each of us. Your holiness matters to me, and my holiness should matter to you. Why? Well, because it's proclaiming things about what it means to be a Christian. So encourage one another to that end. When you see a sister fighting against her sin here in our congregation, tell her you're grateful for the ways that she's doing that, and how her pursuit of obedience spurs you on to pursue obedience as well. Her life is proclaiming something about what it means to
be a Christian. When you see a brother struggling to remain faithful to the Lord, pray for him first and then go to him gently and say, is there anything I can do to help you? Your life is proclaiming something about what it means to be a Christian. Or maybe more to the point, when you yourself, because this will be all of us, when you yourself are feeling weak in your own fight against sin. Remember, you're not on your own. Look around this room. The Lord in His kindness has given you brothers and sisters to help you fight against your sin. Brother, sister, your life is proclaiming something about what it means to be a Christian. Pursue holiness.
Our holiness matters. Well, the people did as they said they would. In verses 13 and 14, you see that they actually ask for a way to do this because it's December and cold and wet and rainy and it's hard and they're a big nation. And so we need some time to be able to do this, but we will do this. And so they do it nonetheless. And by verse 17, they've created a list of every man who's married a foreign woman. And these men put away their foreign wives. A little sidebar on that. What is meant by this putting away? Is this divorce? Is this abandonment? I mean, verse 44 tells us there are children involved in this. Well, it's not clear, actually. But we can trust and we can know that God hates divorce, right? His Word tells us that very simply. He created man and wife to be together as husband and wife until they die. But He also created His people to be distinct from the other peoples around them. So most likely what's going on here
in Ezra anyway is simply sending these wives and children back to their native peoples for them to be cared for there. That's most likely what's going on, but either way you can see your sin has consequences. There's ripple effects. One sin leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. And now there's a whole mess. And what matters in the end is that the exiles repented. They actually did it. They actually repented. They turned away from their sin of uniting with the nations. And that's what the end of the chapter shows us. Most of those names we skipped over, but it's a list of men who had taken foreign wives and every single one of them, from the leadership all the way down through the ranks of Israel, every single one of them repented. But it's kind of sobering, and it's abrupt how it all ends, right? I mean, that's the end of the book. That's the end of this story. Wives and children were born in all of this.
If you scale back out and you kind of see the entire storyline of Ezra, it's even more so shocking and abrupt. This is a story of a people whose greatest threat was always external, right? They had foreign rulers. They weren't in their own land. They had no temple. I mean, that's what the first six chapters were showing us, right? That they had these external problems that came their way. But now they're back in their land with the temple and they still have threats to their very existence. But this time they don't come from without. It turns out they can't get away from them because they come from within. Their greatest challenge is not an external one. It's one that lies within their very own hearts. Friends, this whole story reveals that mere humans cannot keep God's Word and live in obedience to His commands as He demands. That's what this whole thing has been working to show us. They were to inhabit this land, and they were to be fruitful in it for His glory alone, but they failed. Right first, centuries
before. Their ancestors were given that task, and they failed, so they were sent off into exile. And now God gives us another chance, and they come back, and they fail. They can't do it. Well, this whole story feels like, what are we supposed to do with that? If we just stop at the very end of Ezra, what are we supposed to do with that? Well, it's been preparing us for something greater. It's been preparing us to see that no human king or priest or leader can do what they were told to do. And so God Himself would have to come do it for us, and that's exactly what we find as we read through the rest of the Bible. Eventually, God would send His Son, Jesus, to do this thing for His people. He would take on human flesh, and He would live a perfect life, and then He would actually die for the sins of these exiles and their ancestors before them. And not only that,
he would die for the sins of those people who would come after them as well, including even you and me, if we believe the gospel. But he didn't stay dead. This Jesus did not stay dead. The Bible tells us that the universe-altering reality is that he got up from the dead as well, and that he now has all power to save people like you and me. Look, friends, the problem that the exiles had here at the end of the book, this tension that we're supposed to feel of what's going to happen, that problem that they had was the sin within their own hearts. And that's the same problem that you have. But now we know the answer to it. So for Christians, we've already confessed that.
we know that the answer is belief in Jesus and repentance from our sins. But maybe, likely, there are many in here who are not Christians. Maybe you're hearing this for the first time. Maybe you're hearing this for the upteenth time. But the reality is you have the same problem that these exiles had. You've sinned against a holy God, and God will crush you for it, and He will be just in doing so. But there's hope. You too can do what they did. You can repent from your sins, means turning away, and you can trust in the way of salvation in Jesus.
Friends, repent before a merciful God. That's the message. That's it. That's what it's all about from these two chapters. Repent before a merciful God. Now, this whole book of Ezra has been intent on showing us how to trust God's Word. Here's God's Word. Here's how you trust it. Here's what it looks like if you trust it. But just like these returned exiles, we too have been brought out of an exile. Ours was not physical. Ours was spiritual, but we've been brought out of an exile. We've been brought into a new kingdom. But we're not home yet. We're not to that kingdom yet fully. For now, we live in an age where we wage war daily, constantly against our sin. And often, often, maybe soon after this ends, we'll find ourselves failing yet again in that battle. Brothers and sisters, when you fail, don't give up. Be like the exiles here in Ezra. Repent. Repent before your merciful God. He will preserve you. He will keep you, and one day he'll bring each and every
one of us home to himself. But until then, you set your eyes on the one who's come to save us and walk by faith. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you are a merciful God. God, without the fact that you are filled with mercy and grace, we would be without hope. God, thank you this morning for this word that reminds us that sin is costly. It's costly in the ultimate terms. We pray that as a congregation that we would be aware of our sin and that when you reveal it to us that we would do exactly what your word has told us, that we would turn from it and that we would trust your word and that we would find relief and blessing and salvation at the hands of Jesus. We pray this in his name. Amen.