Ezra 10

All right, Ezra chapter 10, I tried a new method for, we're going to have another one of those, one of those genealogy type things.

So I tried a new method to sort of spell the names phonetically. So it might not work, we'll see, but I apologize in advance if it's a little choppy.

So these are the words of God. 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 Shechaniah 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 in all

Israel take an oath that they would do as had been said. So they took an oath. Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehonen and the son of Elshib 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 three days. It was the ninth month of the 20th day on the 20th 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 increase 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 and 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 Jehaziel, the son of Tikva opposed this and Meshulam and Sabathai, the

Levites 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.

On the first day of the 10th 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, Masiah, Eliezer, Jerob, Gedaliah, some of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Josedek, and his brothers.

They pledged themselves to put away their wives and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt.

Of the sons of Emer, Hanani, and Zebediah. Of the sons of Haran, Masiah, Elijah, Shimea, Jehiel, and Uzziah.

Of the sons of Pashur, Elonai, Masiah, Ishmael, Nathaniel, Josabed, and Elasa.

Of the Levites, Josabed, Shimei, Keleah, that is Kalita, Pethahiah, Judah, Eliezer, and Eliezer.

Of the singers, Eliashib, of the gatekeepers, Shalem, Telam, and Uri.

And of Israel the sons of Parash, Ramiah, Isiah, Malkijah, Mishamin, Eliezer, Hashabiah, and Benaiah.

Of the sons of Elam, Mathaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremath, and Elijah.

Of the sons of Zatu, Elonai, Elashib, Mataniah, Jeremath, Zabed, and Aziza.

Of the sons of Bebi were Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabai, and Athli.

Of the sons of Bani were Meshulam, Malak, Adiah, Jashib, Sheol, and Jeremath.

Of the sons of Pahath -Moab, Adnah, Chelal, Benaiah, Massiah, Mataniah, Bezalel, Benui, and Manasseh.

Of the sons of Haram, Eliezer, Ishijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, Benjamin, Malak, and Shemariah.

Of the sons of Hesham, Metaniah, Matata, Zabed, Eliphelet, Jeremiah, Manasseh, and Shimei.

Of the sons of Bani, Madiah, Amron, and Ewel, Benaniah, Bedediah, Cheluli, Vaniah, Merimoth, Elashib, Metaniah, Metaniah, Jasu.

Of the sons of Benui, Shimei, Shelaniah, Nathan, Adiah, Makanah, Dabai, Sashai, Sherai, Azrael, Shelamiah, Shemariah, Shalom, Amariah, and Joseph.

Of the sons of Nabo, Jeel, Matithiah, Zabed, Zebunah, Jadadiah, Joel, and Benaiah.

All these had married foreign women, and some of the women had even born children.

This is the word of the Lord. Lord God, we thank you for your word,

God, and we pray that we would be able to understand the message that you have for us in Ezra chapter 10.

Lord, that we would be able to apply certain things to our lives, God, and that we would benefit greatly from hearing it.

And Lord, that you would help us to understand it. And God, that we would be able to learn exactly what you have for us with this chapter.

God, and that we would be able to see the repentance of the people and understand that there is a real repentance that we all have to practice every single day,

God. And so with that, I pray that you would apply this text to our lives and help us to understand in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, chapter 10 of Ezra is, again, not concerned with upsetting its readers.

Everything is just laid out plainly and open for you to hear. And again, this is another chapter that's incompatible with modern sensibilities.

Now, I want to focus on the general principles of this chapter rather than the specific details.

And I think the details, you know, they're important. I'm not saying they're not important. But we're pretty far from this context from a cultural perspective.

And so it would be hard to understand exactly what's going on here or even to be able to relate to it in a helpful way.

So rather than focus on the specific details, I do want to focus on the foundations, the principles. I think that that probably is going to be more important for us anyway.

But even though I've chosen to focus more on the principles, I do want to make a couple comments about the details.

Last week, we saw the conflict of the people of Israel in Ezra chapter 9. It was marriages with people of different religious cultures.

That was unacceptable then, and it's still unacceptable now for the people of God. It does not lead to good things.

It tends, rather, towards evil. And so that's the conflict. And so in this chapter, we see what the response of the people is to this conflict and what their solution is.

And what we find is that the solution that they come up with is for the people to leave their foreign wives.

Now, that's the detail I was talking about earlier. The question that we would want to understand if we were going to go into depth about the details is, was that the right thing to do?

It's not presented as if it was wrong, but I think that there could be some kind of debate here.

Was this the right thing for the people to do? But ultimately, again,

I think we're too far from the context to really know, but there's two things I wanted to point out. First, in verse 2, the word that the people use when they're speaking to Ezra for married is not the normal word for marriage.

And likewise, when Ezra says it, he doesn't say the normal word for marriage. He uses a different word. And also, in verse 3, when it says we're going to put away their wives, that's also not the normal word for divorce.

And it's not used in the Bible. This word is not used in the Bible anywhere except for Ezra. And so to me, it appears that Ezra is using a word and terminology intentionally to question the validity of these interreligious marriages.

It's almost like he's not even willing to call them marriages. But they technically are. So when he says in verse 3 that they should put away all these wives and let it be done according to the law, he is saying, in a sense, that he doesn't count these as valid marriages, but he knows that they are, so they still have rights according to God's law.

According to God's law, you can't just get rid of your wife and leave her with nothing. They have to be financially provided for.

They have certain rights according to God's law, which was, by the way, pretty unique in the old days.

The law of God says you can't just send away your wife with nothing. That is unlawful, so you have to provide for her.

She has certain rights. And so whether or not we have questions, was this the right thing for them to do?

I think that there's a debatable point there. Even though we have questions about that,

I want you to know that Ezra had a certain frame of mind. He knew they were technically marriages, but he almost didn't even consider them real.

And so whether or not it was right, that's something I felt like we should probably understand. And so let's move on from that for now, because I think there's a more fundamental, foundational topic here.

Hi. And I think it's the topic of repentance. That is the topic of Ezra chapter 10.

We see real -life, wholesale, deep, heartfelt repentance. And it is quite a scene.

Verse 1 has Ezra weeping. It says that he casts himself down, and the great assembly around him is joining him.

They're weeping openly, and there's clearly a profound sorrow over their sin. Now, a lot of times we'll read something in the

Bible that I've never experienced personally, but this is something I've actually witnessed before.

I've witnessed an event very similar to this, believe it or not. I was at a street preaching conference, and it was a two -day conference.

And it was basically—it wasn't only for Reformed people, but for some reason it was just Reformed people that showed up.

There was maybe a few that weren't. But it was a bunch of Reformed men. They had gathered to learn and to listen to preaching and to be encouraged and to train and to basically hone their skills in street preaching and street witnessing.

It was awesome. I had never been around so many Reformed brothers before, and the confidence that they had in God was just amazing.

I remember being so influenced by it and overwhelmed at the ability for God to use regular people for his plan.

These guys were battle -hardened guys. They had amazing stories of God's power.

It was just inspiring. It really was. On the last day of this conference—the second day, rather— there was the final sermon of the conference.

It was late afternoon, and there was this brother who was a passionate street preacher.

He does tons of witnessing. He's been doing it for years. You may know of him. I've actually spoken about him recently in men's group and stuff.

But this guy's name is Tony Miano, right? He preached a sermon that I'll never forget for the rest of my life.

Now, at this point, I had never done street preaching, so I wasn't part of a street preaching or street witnessing community or anything.

But apparently, it had become commonplace for street preachers to slander the

Church, claiming that it was too mamby -pamby or that it was too compromised to be legitimate.

There was no fire in their belly, so they were almost not even real Christians, right? And so this was apparently something that was happening amongst street preachers.

And so this pastor, this brother, he's preaching this sermon, and he's begging these men to stop slandering the

Church. And he's saying, look, the Church is not perfect, but it's the Bride of Christ. We cannot slander the

Church. And he's weeping. He's crying. His voice is cracking as he's preaching this sermon.

This is a big dude, mind you. He's an ex -cop. He's like a man's man. He's just up in front of a group of 100, 200 men, weeping.

And so he's just asking people. Just imagine this beastly man, right? And he's just weeping in repentance because he had done the same things.

He had actually done this kind of slander. He was admitting it. And he was sorry about it, and he was preaching against it, essentially.

And so the sermon suddenly ended. And all of a sudden, you could hear grown men from around the conference.

And again, I have to stress, this wasn't like a bunch of emo guys, right? This was like, these were men, you know what

I mean? Hardened men, groaning and weeping and calling out to God for forgiveness.

I had never seen anything like it. I saw men, multiple men, not just one or two, spread out with their face down on the carpet, crying over their sins.

And this lasted for a number of minutes. Now, as I said, this was the last conference, the last sermon of the conference.

And so the guy that I had come with, he had to be back in New York. This was in Philadelphia. He had to be back in New York at a certain time, so it was getting around that time where we had to leave.

And he asked me, he said, should we leave? This is unique, right? And I remember

I used him having to leave as an excuse. I said, yeah, let's just go. But really, I was just uncomfortable with the whole thing because I had never seen anything like it before.

So cowardly, I left. And afterwards, I heard that it went on for a long time.

It went on for, I think, an hour or two. Men brought to their knees, scandalized by their own sin, weeping in repentance and committing to change their ways.

And that's obviously an event I will never forget. Clearly, the Holy Spirit was moving in this moment.

I doubt, you know, like I said, these didn't seem to me like the kind of men that probably cried very often.

But the Holy Spirit was moving, and clearly, this was an act of repentance here.

This was going on not just with one or two guys, but with the whole group, essentially. It just happened.

But the question is, how do we tell the difference between true repentance, like what we see in Ezra, and someone just being sorry that they got caught or someone that was just sorry they got called out for their sin?

I've been watching this show lately called Locked Up Abroad, and it's about people who are trying to smuggle certain things across country borders, and they get caught by customs agents.

And oftentimes when they get caught, they cry, they weep. And the question is, is that repentance?

Or are they just afraid of being put in prison in a place like Saudi Arabia? Ezra chapter 10 gives us a framework,

I think, we can use to identify what true repentance is. And when we deconstruct the scene in Ezra 10, we'll see that true repentance starts with an acknowledgment.

There is no sense in hiding the sin. There's nothing to be gained by pretending that it isn't there.

A truly repentant heart acknowledges that there is a real sin against a real God that we've either committed or are currently doing.

Now that might seem kind of basic and kind of dumb. Like, yeah, obviously, right? But I would say that that's such a difficult step.

It's a big deal to acknowledge your sin. In the psalm we read earlier, Psalm 32,

King David starts here as well. He says, quote, I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.

I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

So true repentance must begin with an acknowledgment of the reality of what you have done.

And it's not just a kind of a fake admission, right? It's not like just, yeah, this is just how I am, you know, this is how

I was born. It's not just that this is just nobody's perfect, you know, right? I just made a mistake. It's not like that.

It's acknowledging that your sin was real, it was willful, and it was horrible.

It was disobedience, regardless of how you were made. Some of us were made with, you know, a hair trigger where we just get angry quicker than most people.

That is not an excuse. Your anger is willful. That's what acknowledgment means.

And in chapter 10, we see this. It says, Ezra prayed and made confession.

He says, we have broken faith with our God. There it is. It's plainly stated. He says, we have broken faith with our

God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land. There's no hiding that fact.

That's an acknowledgment of sin. The next step from there after you acknowledge your sin is sorrow.

So first you acknowledge the reality of your sin and then you experience a sadness, a deep sorrow over it.

Now, don't get me wrong. You know, when I said earlier that people are just kind of crying and upset because they got caught, you know, and they fear the consequences.

Like, that's okay, right? It's okay to fear the consequences of something that you do. I think that's pretty common, and I think that's a healthy reaction.

But it cannot end just there. Repentance includes a sorrow for the sin itself.

Again, King David is awesome at this in Psalm 32. He says, when

I kept silent, my bones wasted away. Through all my groaning all day long, day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

See, there's a deep, deep sorrow there. It's not just like you cry a few tears and then, you know, you got it out of your system and you're done.

No, this was like a groaning, a day and night deep sorrow. He describes it as his bones wasting away.

And it's the same in Ezra. We've already talked about this, right? Like, Ezra is moved.

The people are moved. Just like what I said happened at the street preaching conference, right? That's beyond just normal sadness.

It's beyond like a little tear in your eye. It was different. And did you notice,

David, he credits this. He credits this to God. He says, your hand was heavy upon me.

The Holy Spirit of God, that's the one. He's the one who drives his people to repentance.

Nobody can experience the kind of repentance that the people of Israel did in Ezra or these brothers did at this conference.

Nobody can experience that without God being the one moving first. This is why some people, they laugh about their sin.

They don't think it's a big deal. And other people weep over their sin. The Holy Spirit drives his people to real repentance.

That's who was moving in Ezra chapter 10. So we have an acknowledgment of our sin.

We have a sorrow of our sin. But here's the key to all of this, I think. This is what separates being sorry you got caught and being truly repentant.

The third step here is action. Yes, action.

Ezra in verse 3, the people, they acknowledge their sin, they weep over it, and then they start taking action.

He says, 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 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. So they took the oath. This is the key.

Action. This is what repentance does. It leads to action. They take steps to change their sinful behavior.

Now, none of this could erase their guilt. They did what they did.

They could never change the fact that they did it. And only forgiveness from God could save them from that particular sin.

But they could take action to no longer continue in sin. And that's what they do.

The psalmist, again, David, in Psalm 32, he says, Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.

That's action, right? Surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him.

You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. Another one of David's psalms of repentance is

Psalm 51. It's a great one. He says, After he repents, after he gets forgiven, then

I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness,

O God, and O God of my salvation. And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

You see, true heartfelt repentance is more than just saying you're sorry. It's about actually being sorry.

Taking steps to correct the infraction that you cause. Remember, only God can forgive your sin.

Only through Christ can your sin be removed from your account. But we can work in the here and now to right the wrongs that we have done.

And that's what Ezra and the people commit to doing in this chapter. They had messed up.

Yes, that is clear. And they could never erase that. God could erase it. But as Ezra says,

Therefore let us make a covenant with God. Ezra knew, just like David knew, that God was righteous and holy.

But also exceedingly merciful to his people. So if you call out for forgiveness, you will receive forgiveness.

If you call for God to empower your repentance daily. Because again, we need to be repenting daily.

This needs to be practiced. God will answer that call.

And he will show you how to make restitution for the sins that you have done. You remember

Zacchaeus, right? This is what I kept thinking about when I was writing this. The wee little man Zacchaeus.

This is why he gives the money back that he stole, right? Christ saves him. It's not like he's...

Christ already brought salvation to him, right? He's not earning his salvation by giving the money back.

But what he's doing is practicing repentance. He's never going to steal again, that's what he's saying.

But not only that, I have it within my power to start hopefully righting some of these wrongs.

He could never save himself. He could never erase the fact that he was a thief. Only God could do that.

But what he could do was repent in the here and now. So that's what he does. That's why that wee little man is such a cool guy.

That's what they do in Ezra chapter 10. So let us not be hypocrites, right? That's the common accusation that the church gets.

You'll see it all the time. Everyone says, oh yeah, that church is full of hypocrites. I personally don't think that's a fair accusation most of the time.

But it's a common accusation. But here's the way around it, right? Repentance.

This is the easiest way to short -circuit that accusation. Because hypocrites act as if they're better than they are.

Hypocrites put up a front. So they have this face that they put up. But secretly, they're different.

They're completely different from this front that they put on. See, repentance leaves no room for hypocrisy.

Because repentance starts with an acknowledgement of sin. So there's no pretense there, right? Nowhere to hide.

No front to put up. Because you're admitting that you've sinned. Repentance moves on to sorrow over sin.

Again, you don't hide the fact that you've sinned. You don't pretend to be holier than you are. You weep over your sin.

You admit your sin. And finally, repentance leads to action, like I've said.

So, eat your humble pie if you have to. But take action to make right what you have done.

Repentance is the kryptonite to hypocrisy. Someone who's repentant every day, it's very hard for them to be a hypocrite.

So let us take the advice from the great, great movie Indiana Jones and the

Last Crusade. At the end, they're hunting for the Holy Grail and he repeats to himself, the penitent man will pass.

That, Dr. Jones, is good theology. Let's pray. Lord God, thank you for this chapter that shows us real repentance.

Lord, we may not understand all the implications, all the cultural implications of what was happening between these wives and their husbands and the religious factors involved, but we know that you call them abominations.

So there was a serious thing that was happening here, God, so we can understand that. Even if we don't understand why they did what they did or what was the purpose or how it was according to the law, what happened in there, we don't need to understand it to know that there was a clear desire to repent of that sin,

God. They went through. They didn't leave any stone unturned. All those names that I read, those are the people that had broken faith with you,

God. They went through and they knew it would take longer than a day.

They knew it would take longer than two days, but they were going to right the wrongs that they had done. Lord, I pray that you would help us.

You would grant us repentance, Lord. That we would be deeply affected by the sins that we commit.

That we wouldn't just shrug it off like, oh yeah, nobody's perfect. That we wouldn't think of our own sins as no big deal.

Let us remember that these are willful, horrible pieces of disobedience,

Lord. That our God, our Lord who saved us so graciously, who went to the cross on our behalf,

Lord, that that's who we're sinning against. That's who we're rebelling against, God. That's a serious matter.

So help us to remember that that's the case and help it to affect us in such a way that we would have deep sorrow over our sin.

But Lord, let us not end there because just like Zacchaeus, he doesn't stop with being saved.

He was grateful, he was joyful that he was saved. All those things were true, but he hasn't just stopped there.

Lord, help us to repent daily. Help us to repent of our sins. Thank you for the times, thank you for the grace and the mercy that you give us, the times that we don't even notice our own sin,

Lord, that we overlook our own sins. So how can we repent of something we've overlooked? God, thank you that your grace extends even to those things.

Your mercy is sufficient for even those things that we overlook, that we don't even realize that we're doing.

I pray that you would reveal every sin in our hearts, Lord, to us, that we would be able to confess, acknowledge those sins, weep over those sins, and then to correct them,

Lord. I pray that you would sanctify us day by day, Lord. You've promised to do that, Lord, and we thank you for that promise.

Lord, I just pray that this chapter of this book was a blessing to your people, God, that you would apply it to our hearts and to our lives,