Ezra 8 – Return to Jerusalem (from Babylon).
Ezra returned with 4000 to 5000 people. Initially there weren’t any Levites among them and Ezra made an extra effort to gather them
• He knew that he would need the Levites if he is going to teach the Law of God to the people. Ezra managed to get 258 of them (add the numbers in 8:15-20).
7:9 tells us they left Babylon on the first day of the 1st month, and arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the 5th month – a four month journey, over 1500km.
• Not long after they settled down, the leaders came to Ezra and gave him a report of what was happening in the community. READ EZRA 9:1-15.
The people has fallen away from being the “holy race” committed to worshipping God, into committing detestable practices with their pagan neighbours.
• How come? They had married the Gentile sons and daughters.
When Ezra heard this news, he had only been around for 4½ months.
• 7:9 says he arrived first day of 5th month and 10:9 when the people gathered before the house of God, it was 20th day of 9th month.
• So from his arrival to this point, it’s about 4½ months.
• Most likely the intermarriages were committed by the generation that had returned with Zerubbabel, over the span of the 60 years after the completion of the Temple.
• The people disregarded the Word of God and mingled themselves with the pagan people around and adopted their practices.
God had warned Israel not to intermarry with the foreigners. This wasn’t something new. Ezra knew the Word and was appalled by it.
• The Lord first said it in Exodus 34:15-16.
15"Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.
• Moses repeated it in Deut 7:3-4. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.
Clearly the problem with marrying the peoples of the land is not racial, not cultural, and not social; it’s spiritual.
• Israel will be enticed to follow their practices, and that would mean not, just moral corruption but eventually idolatry.
It might not mean they will drop JEHOVAH (because they will still go to the Temple routinely), but they’ve merged all other beliefs together (we call this syncretism).
• Some today do not blatantly deny Christianity; they just add to this faith the beliefs and practices of the world.
• They become virtually indistinguishable from the world in their thinking and the way they live.
• This is still idolatry. “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exo 20:3)
God’s warning has proven to be true because their forefathers committed idolatry and were exiled.
• It was for this reason that the nation has fallen and taken into captivity, as the Lord so said.
• Ezra confessed it (9:7), “Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.”
And now they were repeating the same sin (that caused their downfall).
• And they were doing this AFTER their return from exile, AFTER having experienced God’s grace and goodness.
• And the priests and Levites were with them (9:1). And other leaders and officials were ‘leading the way in this unfaithfulness’ (9:2b). They were modelling it!
No wonder Ezra was appalled. From history they ought to have understood.
• The reason for not allowing them to intermarry with the pagan neighbours was good.
• It was God’s protection for His people, from being misled to false gods, false worships, false practices that cannot bless.
I like to believe they could have started well. Ezra 6 tells us after the completion of the Temple and they had their first Passover celebration.
• 6:21 “So the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbours in order to seek the LORD, the God of Israel.”
• Not sure if this ‘all who had separated themselves’ indicates a nationwide thing or just among a small group, but it was a good start.
• But they failed to guard their commitment before God. By the time Ezra arrived some 60 years later, the situation has completely changed.
Compromise is no respecter of persons. (you can write this down).
Whether you are a pastor, a reverend or not-no-reverend, whether you are an elder, a bishop, or a seasoned Christian.
• It really doesn’t matter. All of us can be tempted, as the Lord said it so clearly right at the beginning. “They will invite you and lead you to do the same.”
• Paul says 1 Cor 10:12 “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” ESV
The people has become numbed to what was wrong.
• The Temple was standing there and the sacrifices were most likely carried out routinely. On the surface, everything seemed normal.
• These outward formalities are deceiving because in reality, the people have been sinning against God. The priests, Levites, leaders and officials all included.
• Only a handful seemed to be bothered (they reported to Ezra).
That’s what compromise do to you. It numbs you. It makes sin acceptable.
• Remember what Samuel said to King Saul. He wanted to take over the priest and do the ‘religious’ thing.
• 1 Sam 15:22 “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
Ezra was God-sent, at a time like this. He studies the Law, practices the Law, and he teaches the Law of God. No wonder he was so appalled.
• The news led Ezra into a deep grief. We have a graphic picture of his anguish.
• In the OT, the shaving of hair and tearing of garment are expressions of grief but here we have the pulling of hair and beard.
• The Jewish people probably understand what this means and the intensity of it.
• He was appalled (he said twice), utterly broken by the news of his people’s sin.
He was acutely aware of God’s mercy in keeping a surviving remnant (4 times).
• 9:8 "But now, for a brief moment, the LORD our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary…”
• 9:13 "What has happened to us (in the past) is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this.
• God’s punishment has been mercifully light! In protecting us (the remnant), God has been exceptionally gracious, merciful and kind.
• 9:14 14 Shall we again break your commands and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor?
Why was Ezra so appalled and the people so oblivious to what was happening?
• Ezra knows God. He knows His Word. He studies it, follows it, and teaches it. He knows the will of God and the ways of God. We heard it in his prayer.
• The man who knows God’s Word will be keenly aware of any transgression against His will and His character.
• No wonder he was so grieved. The person who sees the greatness of God will be abhorred at the sight of sin.
Do we see the severity of sin in the circumstances around us?
How does it make you feel? Are we quite numbed to it? Could it be that we don’t hate sin like we think we do?
The danger of compromise is this - we can be going about our daily routines, just like these people, without realising anything is wrong, until a man like Ezra steps in.
• Pray that we will always be vigilant and sensitive to what is right.
When Ezra grieved, the people noticed that something was amiss.
• 9:4 “Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.”
• It could mean those who knows the Word came. But another scenario could be the people saw Ezra grieving and wondered, “What’s wrong? Why are you so sad?”
• Ezra went on to explain the words of God to them and they trembled. They trembled because “of this unfaithfulness of the exiles”.
Ezra then came to the house of God at the evening sacrifice, fell on his knees with his hands spread out to God and prayed a prayer of confession.
• He was “too ashamed and disgraced” to lift up his face to God.
• His first response was to admit sin, NOT on behalf of his people but WITH his people.
• He littered his prayer with OUR and WE in one of the most moving corporate confession we have in the Bible. It wasn’t THEIR sin but OUR sin.
Ezra could have reacted like any Pharisee would, in Jesus’ time, condemning the sin of the people in a self-righteous way. And you can’t fault him because he did not sin like them and he kept the Law.
• Yet he did not stand aloof but with his people. Ezra identified himself WITH them.
Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18) – both came to Temple to pray.
• The Pharisee says, “God, I thank you that I am not like all these other people. I read and study Your Word and I do them.”
• Ezra prayed like the tax-collector, who stood at a distance and would not even look up to heaven, saying, “God, have mercy on us, sinners!”
• Jesus says (Luke 18:14), “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God (God heard his prayer!). For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Ezra 10:1 “While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping 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.”
• God started to work even while he was still praying, and stirred the hearts of the people. This was the move of God because only God could have done this.
Reminds me of the words of E. M. Bounds in his book “Power through Prayer”:
“What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.”
We can learn from Ezra. A few things we can ponder as we remember Jesus today in a time of Communion:
• Acknowledge the absolute righteousness of God in all His dealings with us. The fault is with man, not with God.
• Submit to God’s righteous judgment against sin, without complaint or excuse. We don’t blame the circumstances, the pagan neighbours around us, or whatever. When God punishes, He is always just and right.
• Agree with God concerning His view of sin. Ezra says, “It’s our sin, our evil deeds, our great guilt.” Don’t hide it, ignore it, or minimise it. Call it what it is.
• Trust in the forgiving grace of God.
And that is on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ’s atoning death on the cross.
• Ezra’s prayer makes no petition. He casts himself and his people upon God’s undeserving mercy.
• They are completely dependent upon God’s grace and forgiveness. So are we today.
Ezra made his prayer at the time of the evening offering (9:5), and that’s when a lamb has to be offered. See Exo 29:38-39.
• The sight and smell of the sacrifice reminds him again that God has made a way for sinners to be reconciled to Him, through the shedding of the blood of a substitute, a lamb.
• It points ahead to the Lamb of God that we know today, to the shed blood of Jesus Christ for our sins.
On what basis we sinners can stand before a righteous God? On the basis of Jesus.
• Let us honour Him. Confess our sin. Repent from our sinful ways.
• Let Him stir our hearts and cleanse our lives.
Let’s response to His Word singing this HYMN.
HAVE THINE OWN WAY, LORD Adelaide Addison Pollard (1862-1934)
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.
