May 13, 2005
“GOD, WE’RE SORRY!”
Ezra 9-10
There was a president of the United States in the 1920’s by the name of Calvin Coolidge. He was well known for being a man of very few words. One day he returned from attending a church service, and his wife, who had not accompanied him, asked him what the preacher preached about. He answered, “Sin.” After waiting a while and then realizing that he was not going to expand, his wife persisted. “Well, what did he say about it?” After a long pause, Mr. Coolidge responded, “He was against it.”
This morning, my sermon is also about sin. And like Mr. Coolidge’s pastor, I can assure you that I am against it. But I also want to say that I am not preaching about sin because it is my favorite topic to preach on, anymore than it is your favorite topic to listen to. I am preaching about it because that is what the text for this morning is about. We are in Ezra 9-10. Last message, we learned about the wonderful hand of God that was on Ezra, bringing him safely back to Jerusalem with another wave of returning exiles.
We also learned what Ezra’s goal in life was in Ezra 7:10: Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. This life purpose was specifically related to his purpose in returning to Jerusalem. It is even included in his commissioning letter from the king of Persia. We read it in Ezra 7:14: You are sent by the king…to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God, which is in your hand.
So he is coming back to Jerusalem to teach the Law of God and to ensure that the returned exiles were living in accordance with God’s commandments. With that as his mandate, I guess it should not surprise us that it was not long before Ezra found himself confronted with a serious sin problem among the people.
Read Ezra 9:1-2
Let me first make very clear what the issue was here. This was not an issue of racial purity, or ethnic separation. The issue here is a spiritual one. Notice that key phrase in verse 1: they have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices.
God never forbade marriage with people from other races or nations, provided they declared their faith in the God of Israel first. Read the Book of Ruth if you doubt this. What God forbade was intermarriage with people who were still worshipping idols and false gods. And he forbade it because he knew that such marriages would inevitably lead to the people of Israel themselves following after these false gods, and engaging in the detestable and immoral practices that accompanied such worship. The sin here was one of moral and spiritual compromise. What made the matter even more devastating and painful was the fact that it was the leaders and officials who had led the way in this unfaithfulness.
At this point in time, Ezra had a number of options before him. He could have ignored the problem and simply turned a blind eye to it. He could have made excuses for the people and the leaders. Maybe there weren’t enough Jewish women to marry. Maybe they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong. They’d been traumatized by all the upheaval and change in their lives. I’m sure he could have found any number of excuses. Then, of course, he could always have preached and practiced “tolerance.” In a different time and place he might have quoted Jesus’ own words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” And, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
But Ezra chose none of these responses. What I want to do is highlight what he did do; his responses and their effects on the people. But I want to be quick to say that I am pointing these out only as observations. I am not presuming to construct a method for dealing with sin. There is a kind of approach to Scripture that tends to reduce everything to a method or series of steps to take to overcome a problem. I think it is a dangerous approach, because if we’re not careful, it can leave us trusting in our method and not in God. The story of Ezra 9-10 is the story of a unique moving of the Spirit of God. There is nothing else quite like it in the Bible. It’s a story of a man, a leader, steeped in the truth of the Word of God, simply reacting to the problem of sin in the community. And God used his reactions to trigger a wonderful revival among the returned exiles.
His first response: He expressed shock and dismay over the sin. To begin with, he communicated in non-verbal actions. Look at verse 3: When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. And at the end of v. 4: And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.
I fear one of the things we have lost is the capacity for moral outrage. Nothing shocks us anymore. We almost seem to pride ourselves on being unshockable. This is true in our societies at large, as we are battered 24 hours a day by all the outrageous acts of violence and corruption from around the world. But it has also permeated the church, the people of God. Ezra’s actions here seem almost quaint. Yes, the tearing of his clothes and the pulling of hair from his head and beard may be culturally conditioned ways of expressing his shock, but what about the emotion that inspired his actions? Are we even capable of feeling horrified anymore, even by compromise and sin in the lives of God’s own people?
What was the effect? The faithful gathered around him. We see it in verse 4: Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles.
There is a group of people, referred to twice in these chapters as “those who trembled at the words of the God of Israel.” They were the people who took God and his words seriously. They were also troubled by the unfaithful acts of sin within the community. There was an immediate sense of bonding and coming together around Ezra’s leadership. Now remember, he hasn’t even said anything yet! But they are gathering around him. Clear spiritual leadership attracts the faithful.
Ezra’s second response: He prayed publicly and aloud. He waited until the time of the evening sacrifice. Scholars tell us that this was around 3 pm. It was the time when the maximum number of people would be assembled at the temple. In this case, his actions were both non-verbal and verbal.
We read it in verse 5: Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed:
We’ll look at the prayer itself later in the message, but look down now to chapter 10:1: Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God.
What was the effect? A large crowd gathered and wept with him. The spirit of revival is spreading. Look at 10:1 again: While Ezra was praying and confessing and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites – men, women and children, gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. Now the community as a whole is being affected. The words and actions of Ezra are having a powerful effect. And it is not just emotional. It is leading to a desire for action. (Read 10:2-4)
Now we see Ezra’s third response: He secured a commitment from the leaders to act in accordance with God’s Law, and he summoned the people.
(Read 10:5-7) Once again we find that Ezra’s actions are both verbal and non-verbal. He speaks, he makes decrees and proclamations according to his authority. But he continues to fast and mourn over the sin of the people. For Ezra, this is still primarily a spiritual exercise. He maintains the spiritual intensity of the moment by his continuing actions. I do not endorse Mahatma Ghandi’s theology, but I cannot help but think of him and his use of fasting and non-verbal communication as a 20th century parallel of a man who mobilized a nation and changed history.
The effect: The whole community gathered. We read it in verse 9: Within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin had gathered in Jerusalem. And on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the square before the house of God, greatly distressed by the occasion and because of the rain.
Not only did they gather physically, but it is evident that they were spiritually prepared as they gathered. The text says they were greatly distressed. It literally says that they were trembling. This effect was intensified because they gathered in a heavy rainstorm. It is a dramatic setting. It leads to Ezra’s fourth response: He called the community to repentance and obedience.
In verse 10-11 we read: Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”
He confronted their sin, and he called for them to confess and take action. What is even more remarkable is the effect: The whole community responded to his call. We read it in verse 12: The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: “You are right. We must do as you say.” It was an incredible act of national repentance on the part of the nation.
It led to Ezra’s fifth response: Under Ezra’s leadership, good intentions were turned into good actions through good organization. It’s really a rather remarkable turn of events, and it is a point where many revivals and works of God have gone awry. Incredible amounts of spiritual energy are released, but there is little practical effect. Under Ezra, they did not make this mistake: Read 10:13-14,16. The effect: All the cases of intermarriage were appropriately resolved. The summary is given in verse 17: By the first day of the first month they finished dealing with all the men who had married foreign women. It took 3 months, but they carefully and wisely resolved each case.
Let me make one quick disclaimer here. Under the Old Covenant, and under the guidance of God’s Spirit, the action they took was to dissolve these marriages and separate from these unbelieving wives. I firmly believe that as they investigated individual cases, they may have found cases where the foreign wives had come to trust in the God of Israel, and these cases were treated differently. I would also point out that we have clear instruction in the New Testament, that today we should follow a different pattern. If a believer is married to an unbeliever, Paul clearly states that he or she is to remain in that marriage. But I would also point out that Paul is equally clear in a New Testament context to warn us not to form marriages with unbelievers. So we have clear New Testament teaching to guide us in these matters today. We are to be guided by the New Covenant instructions as we relate to the specifics of dealing with these issues.
But there is much of relevance for us to ponder here. What I find intriguing in this story is the spread and impact of this revival and national response to this issue. How one man’s prayer and godly response to sin spread so quickly to the few, to the many and even to the whole nation. But then, how the effects of that response were then brought back down into specific homes and families and lives via careful godly leadership and administration. As I said, I ‘m not trying to design a 5 step method for dealing with sin. I just find the overall flow of events and godly change rather intriguing.
At the heart of this great revival, though, is Ezra’s prayer of confession and repentance. That is where I want to focus our attention now. The prayer that changed a community. (9:6-15)
The first thing that strikes me in this prayer is Ezra’s point of view. It is as though he takes upon himself the whole history of Israel, and kneels before God as the quintessential Israelite or Jew to articulate a national prayer. He does not talk about “they” and “them” and “he” or “she”, but speaks in the first person, in the language of “we” and “us.”
He begins by confessing the historic sins of the nation that led to the exile in chapter 9, verses 6-7: (Read) He uses powerful images of guilt and sin higher than their heads, and declares God’s absolute righteousness in sending the nation into exile.
He then marvels at the grace of God in preserving a remnant alive and bringing them back to Jerusalem in verses 8-9: (Read) There is an interesting word picture in these verses in verse 8. NIV translates it “he has given us a firm place in his sanctuary.” The literal language is that he has given us a “nail” or a “peg” in his sanctuary. Scholars are of different minds as to the actual metaphor here. Some take it to refer to a nail that is driven into a wall of a home and then used to hang things on. The rebuilding of the temple, then, has become a secure nail on which the nation’s honor and identity can hang. Personally I prefer the metaphor of a tent peg. With the nation of Israel as a tent that has been blown and collapsed in the winds of war and exile, God is now erecting the tent once again, and the first act is to drive one secure peg into the sanctuary through the rebuilding of the temple. Either interpretation of the metaphor teaches the same truth. God, by grace, is re-establishing his people in the land once again. That is what makes the next part of the prayer so poignant.
Read 9:10-14. By repeating the clear instructions of the prophets, Ezra in essence says, “God, we’ve done it again.” In spite of our sins that led to exile, in spite of your grace in bringing us back, we’ve learned nothing. We are repeating the same sins all over again!”
Distraught, all he can do is simply cast himself and the nation upon the mercy of God. (Read verse 15)
It was this prayer, spoken through tears, and while prostrating himself repeatedly before the temple, that broke the heart of the nation, and brought them together in repentance and obedience. I offer it as a source of meditation and introspection for all of us when we are convicted of sin in our own lives, our own families, and our own communities.
Finally, I would leave you, not with a method or a 3, 4, 5, or 12 step program for revival, but with some fundamental truths to meditate on from these chapters.
I don’t know what the Spirit of God is doing in your heart this morning, but I want to close by leading us in the words of a prayer, taken from the closing verses of Psalm 139: Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.