It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been in Ezra, so I think it’s important that we spend a few minutes remembering where we are. That’s always an important thing to remember in your own personal Bible study. It’s very easy to get so wrapped up in a particular passage or verse that you forget the big picture. It’s always important to take a step back and check your context. You remember that back in chapter 7, Ezra finally showed up on the scene. It had been 59 years since the first remnant had finally finished the temple under Zerubbabel and Jeshua. But during that 59 year period, not much happened. The people didn’t grow in their walk with the Lord. Instead, they became satisfied with the ceremony and ritual of temple worship. In other words, they had grown complacent because they were satisfied with simply going to church. They did religious things because it was the thing to do, not out of their love and devotion to God. That’s why God sent them Ezra. By God’s grace, Ezra had devoted his life to a personal threefold mission. You remember his personal mission statement back in 7:10: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.” He devoted his life to knowing God’s Word… to doing what God’s Word said for him to do… and to teaching others what God’s Word said. So when he took the second group of exiles with him from Babylon to Jerusalem, that’s exactly what he did. And an amazing thing happened. In the process of teaching the people God’s Word, they began to see their sin. They didn’t point their fingers at other people’s sin. They saw sin in their midst and they each began to see themselves as the chief sinner. And when they began to see that, they began a period of public confession. It started with the leaders. And when the leaders began to publicly confess their sins before Ezra, it drove him to his knees. Chapter 9 gives us one of the most powerful prayers of corporate confession in all of scripture. And that brings us to tonight’s passage. Tonight’s passage immediately follows that tremendous prayer from Ezra on behalf of the remnant. What was the problem? The problem was that they weren’t accomplishing the mission God had called them to do. Why weren’t they accomplishing it? Because they had unconfessed, unrepentant sin in their midst. Because of their sin, they had erected a barrier that was standing in the way of accomplishing the work God had for them. The work God had for them was to rebuild His holy city Jerusalem. Not because God needed a city, but in order to stand as a witness and a testimony to the nations of God’s grace and power and mercy. That was their mission. What’s ours? Ours is to make disciples of Jesus Christ everywhere we go and in everything we do. Make disciples and baptize them and teach them and train them and send them out so they can make more disciples of Jesus. What’s standing in the way of our doing that? What’s keeping us from accomplishing the mission God has prepared for us? It’s got to be our own sin. So if it’s our own sin, how are we going to know when we’re ready to cast that barrier aside and get to work accomplishing our mission? We’ll know it the same way that the remnant knew it. The remnant had four things that told them they were ready to cast aside the barrier of sin and get on with their mission. The first thing was, they had the right assembly. Look at verse 1.
EZRA 10:1
The first way we can know we’re ready to accomplish our mission is that we will have the right assembly. Look at this scene that’s happening around Ezra. Ezra’s heavenly gaze is pointing all the people to God. Ezra prayed. Ezra confessed. What did Ezra have to confess? He hadn’t broken God’s law by marrying a pagan woman. But as part of them and as their spiritual leader, he identified himself with their sin. He identified himself with their sin and he confessed it before God as if it was his own. And when, as 9:5 says, he fell on his knees and stretched out his hands before God, the people responded. They responded by assembling. One of the things we talked about this morning was how the Bible tells us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. These people didn’t. They assembled in a great congregation. Everybody came. Men, women, children came and they came together. And when they assembled together, something wonderful happened. Because of the overwhelming sense of the holiness of God in that place, they saw their own sin. The leaders and princes of the people had seen it for them before. Ezra had seen it for them before. But now they saw it for themselves. This great congregation of men and women and children saw their sin. They saw how far they fell short of God’s glory. And when they saw it, they didn’t ignore it. They didn’t attempt to justify it. They didn’t attempt to deflect it on to other people. They saw their own sin and were broken because of it. They were broken and joined Ezra in his tears. That’s the right kind of assembly. We have so many different ideas of what church is supposed to look like today. And the sad thing is that most of our ideas about church tend to focus on styles. What does the sanctuary look like? It’s too contemporary or it’s too traditional. Is it formal or casual? Is it revivalistic or liturgical? Is it old-time religion or fresh and exciting and new? Guess what? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what color the carpet is if the floor underneath it is rotten. Forsake not the assembling of ourselves together. Why? To taste and see and partake of the awesome holiness of God in worship. And when we just begin to catch a glimpse of His holiness, we have no choice but to see our own sin. And when we see our own sin in light of God’s holiness, we will be broken. We’ll be broken just like the remnant was. They knew they were ready to cast aside the barrier of sin and get on with their mission because they had the right assembly. They also had the right answer. Look at verse 2.
EZRA 10:2
The second way we can know we’re ready to accomplish our mission is that we will have the right answer. Out of all of the brokenness and weeping a man named Shechaniah is the one to speak out on behalf of all the people. When he speaks out, he confesses the most blatant and obvious and widespread sin of the remnant. He confesses that the men of the remnant had been marrying foreign women. God didn’t forbid Jewish men from marrying foreign women because they were of a different nationality. He forbade them from marrying foreign women because they were of a different religion. And He still forbids that today. 2 Corinthians 6:14 speaks to Christians today when it says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” God didn’t intend for us to witness to the world by entering into marital relations with them. Because He knows that pagan wives make for pagan households. And pagan husbands make for pagan households. And that’s what was happening with the remnant. Believing Jewish men had gone against God’s Word and married pagan women. And Shechaniah stood as a representative of the people and answered for the people’s sin. I want you to notice how he gives the answer. He doesn’t whitewash it. He doesn’t gloss it over. He doesn’t blame it on the past. He just says flat out—we’ve trespassed against God. The word translated trespassed literally means “to deceitfully and willfully break faith”. It carries the idea of treacherously breaking their part of a good faith covenant. It wasn’t just like this was an accident. They knew the law. They knew that God told them not to intermarry with pagans. They even knew the consequences. But they purposely chose to put all they knew behind them when they saw that pretty foreign girl waving at them. How many times do we do that? We know it’s a sin to gossip. We know it’s a sin to backbit and carry tales. We know it’s a sin to harbor bitterness. We know it’s a sin to not forgive. We know it’s a sin to tear people down instead of build them up. We know all that. But sometimes it’s so appealing. So we do it. And then comes the real crime. When we do it, we hold on to it. We justify it. We rationalize it. We minimize it. That’s the wrong answer. The right answer is Shechaniah’s answer. We have trespassed against God. And notice that even as he was giving the right answer of confession, he pointed to the hope of repentance and restoration. How do we know we’re ready to accomplish our mission? We’ll have the right assembly and the right answer. But we’ll also have the right agreement. Look at verse 3.
EZRA 10:3
The third way we can know we’re ready to accomplish our mission is that we will have the right agreement. It’s interesting that Shechaniah is the one to speak on behalf of the remnant. He was the son of Jehiel and was from the family that was headed by Elam. We know from the list in chapter 2 that the family headed by Elam was part of the original group that came from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Jeshua. So his family had been there for a while. Also, we know from the list later on in this chapter that he himself hadn’t taken a pagan wife. His daddy had, but he hadn’t. So what did that mean? It meant that, even though he hadn’t been party to the sin, he was going to be greatly affected by the consequence. As the remnant’s representative, what he was calling for was to send all the pagan women back to their home countries. But not only were they going to send the wives away, they were going to send their children away too. It is very likely that since Shechaniah’s daddy had married one of those women, she would have been Shechaniah’s mom. Do you know what that meant? That meant that he was telling the people that as a product of this sinful relationship, he was advocating his own exile back to his mother’s homeland. That’s how purposeful and determined he was for Israel to repent of the sin in their midst. Now, a couple of things to note here. This passage is descriptive and not prescriptive. In other words, it describes certain things that happened historically. Since it is God-breathed Scripture, we are called to derive certain principles from it. But since it is not prescriptive, it doesn’t directly prescribe how we are commanded to do things. In other words, the presence of pagan women mixed with this particular Jewish remnant was so offensive to God, their continued presence outweighed His hatred of divorce. But in no way does this passage condone divorce. God hates divorce because of the damage it does to the picture of Christ’s bridegroom relationship to His church. While He did not condone this mass divorce in Ezra, it was the only option for the remnant. Because of their sin, they had painted themselves into a corner that this was the only way out. That brings out another very important principle. When we sin, even though God is gracious enough that when we confess our sin, His is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Even though that’s the case, He will not remove the temporal consequence of our sin. If you rob a bank, you’re going to jail—whether or not Jesus has forgiven you. If you drink a bottle of liquor every day of your life and then get saved, you still might end up with cirrhosis of the liver. The abomination of divorce and the destruction of broken homes was the terrible consequence of the remnant’s blatant, willful sin. And it was necessary in that unique situation to preserve that unique group of people called the remnant. New Testament Scripture is very clear that it is not necessary in similar situations today. With all that being said, the principle we can draw is that the remnant didn’t stop with admitting and confessing the problem. They took the necessary steps to turn from the problem. And they were hard steps. Even to the point that the spokesman was going to see his home and lifestyle radically altered. And the people publicly covenanted with God to go through whatever radical, life changing steps were necessary to move forward in the work He had for them. They weren’t bargaining with God. They weren’t begging from God. They were agreeing with God. They had the right assembly. They had the right answer. They had the right agreement. Finally, they had the right attitude.
EZRA 10:4-5
The fourth way we can know we’re ready to accomplish our mission is that we will have the right attitude. Remember how this whole thing started. It started with a small group of men being convicted over the remnant’s sin. They were convicted, so they brought it to Ezra’s attention in confession. When they confessed to Ezra, he didn’t blast the people. He didn’t whip the people. He didn’t set up a task force to clean up the people. He didn’t even meet with the people. What did he do? He prayed for the people. He had been feeding their heads full of the Word for so long that it was having an effect. It was doing what the Word does. It cuts. And it had cut into the hearts of this handful of men. And when it cut into their hearts and the sin of the people was exposed, Ezra prayed. He prayed a prayer of confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God. And when he did, God drew the people around him. What a picture of leadership. He could have led them like a dictator. “You people are going to straighten up. You’re going to shape up and fly right, and we’re going to get Jerusalem rebuilt come hell or high water. No excuses, get to building.” He could have led them like a cheerleader. “OK guys, here’s the plan. We’re going to build a city! You can do it! I know you can! The first one to get something built gets a free camel ride!” That’s the best kind of leadership that human reasoning can come up with. But we don’t depend on human reasoning, do we? Because if it’s something we can gin up, Sanballet and Tobias will tear it down. Psalm 127:1 says, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it, except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen waketh but in vain.” Ezra had the right attitude in leadership. As he looked upward to God, the people assembled around him and began to look upward. And as they looked upward, they confessed their sin. And as they confessed their sin, they took concrete measurable steps to turn away from it. And then they got up and were ready to follow. What they told Ezra is essentially this: we know that God is holding you uniquely responsible for us. Because of that, we promise you today that we’re going to completely follow your direction and leadership. We want you to take heart in the fact that we’re here to support you and do the work that you call us to do because we recognize that you’re under God’s authority. And they finished up by making a public commitment—and they sware. And as we look on into the book of Nehemiah, we see that God accomplished mighty things through them. He accomplished mighty things because they had the right assembly, the right answer, the right agreement, and the right attitude.
We know that God has a work for us here. We know what our mission is. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s Matthew 28:19-20. Our mission is not to sit here in a little spot by the road that has no effect on the area around us. Our mission is to reach Brushfork with the gospel. Our mission is to reach Bluefield with the gospel. Our mission is to reach Mercer County with the gospel. Our mission is to reach West Virginia with the gospel. Our mission is to reach the world with the gospel. What’s stopping us? The right assembly, the right answer, the right agreement and the right attitude. When we get those four things right, we’ll be ready. So how do we start? 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” That’s where it has to start. If it starts anywhere else, it will crumble and fall. I pray that God will give us an overwhelming sense of His holiness. And as He gives us an overwhelming sense of His holiness, it will break us. Will you join me in that prayer? Will you humble yourself and pray and seek His face tonight? Will you turn from your wicked ways tonight? If you will, there’s hope in Brushfork concerning this thing.
