Israel's Unfaithfulness — Chuck Smith

Welcome to the Word for Today, the broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible.

And on today's edition of the Word for Today, we'll be continuing with Israel's unfaithfulness as we pick up in Ezra chapter 9, verse 10. As we follow along with Pastor Chuck Smith.

Ezra's Confession of Israel's Repeated Unfaithfulness

And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? Now we get the report. Here they are, the leaders, the priests, the Levites, the people, they are back doing the very same thing for which the judgment of God came upon them.

What shall we say after this? God, I don't know what to say. I have no words. I'm just at that point of just total frustration. For we have forsaken your commandments. God, you gave us another chance.

In your mercy and in your grace, you gave us another chance, a reviving. You brought back something that was dead. You gave us a second chance, and what have we done? We've gone right back out and committed the same evils, the same trespasses, which you have commanded by your servants, the prophets, saying, the land unto which you go to possess is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.

God said you're going into a corrupt hole. The land is filled with filthiness and abominations. Now because of this, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth forever, that ye may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.

This is what you told us. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass, seeing that you have really punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and you have given us such deliverance as this, and now that we should again break your commandments and join in affinity with the people of these abominations, would you not be angry with us till you had consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?

God, you would be just in just wiping us out completely, not leaving us so. O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day. Your hand of judgment has not yet fallen.

God, you're so good not to have wiped us out completely already. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses, for we cannot stand before thee because of this. God, it's just, here we are. And he's just sort of casting himself upon God at this point.

Not arguing, not justifying himself, not saying, well, Lord, you know, trying to give excuses, which we are so prone to do. He just says, we're guilty. God, we deserve whatever you send. You have been good to us.

You haven't really punished us as much as we deserve. The very fact that we are still existing is a demonstration of the mercy and the grace of God, the long-suffering of God, patience of God. But be sure of this, God's judgment does not linger.

Judgment, Sodom, and the Hope of the Rapture

God is going to judge this nation, even as the sins of Sodom rose up to heaven, until they forced God to destroy them. So the sins of America have risen up unto heaven, and the time is coming very soon when God is going to bring the nation down.

But I do believe that even as the angels came down to Sodom and delivered Lot out of the city before the fiery wrath of God came upon it, that the Lord is going to descend from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.

And we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. I believe that there is a hope for the child of God, the hope of the rapture of the Church.

And I believe that what is happening today is something that should awaken every saint of God to realize time is short. The time for judgment has surely come. And even as when the angels were leading Lot out, they said, hurry, get out of here quickly.

We cannot destroy this place until you are out. I believe the Lord is going to take quickly, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, His Church out of this world, and then shall God's judgment fall. Jesus said, Pray ye always that ye will be accounted worthy to escape these things, talking about the judgment, and to be standing before the Son of Man.

Ezra's Weeping and the People's Repentance

Now when Ezra had prayed, and he had confessed, weeping, and casting himself down, he began kneeling, but he is now weeping. And he just throws himself on his face before God, there before the altar of God, casting himself down before the house of God.

There assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children, for the people were weeping themselves. The sense of guilt came upon them. Their awful sin. And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and we have taken strange wives of the people of the land.

Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. It's not over yet. It's not lost yet. Now, therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all of the wives and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my Lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.

Let's make a covenant with God. Let's start by saying, Look, we're going to put away these wives. We're going to be separate. We're going to separate ourselves from the world. Christian friend, I believe the time has come when we need to make a covenant with God.

I'm going to separate myself from the world, from the pollution and the defilement of the world. I'm going to separate myself from the worldly things, those things that tear down and defile. I won't support those companies that are sponsoring the corrupting things.

So let's make a covenant with God. We're going to separate ourselves from this. We're going to make a clean break, a new break. It's severe. Yes, very severe. It's harsh. Yes, it's very harsh. And yet it's necessary if we're to survive.

Ezra's Commission to Enforce Reform

Arise, for this matter belongs unto thee. We will also be with thee. Be of good courage and do it. Again, Ezra had been commissioned by the king to come back and to oversee the nation and to see that the law of God was practiced.

And so he said, Hey, that's in your jurisdiction, man. Go ahead. Do it. And we will be with you. Be of good courage. Let's do it. Then Ezra rose and he made the chief priests and the Levites and all of Israel to swear that they would do according to this word.

And they all swore by it. He said, OK, fellas, this is it. And they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all of the children of the captivity that they should gather themselves together into Jerusalem.

And they gave them three days to gather. Now, that's not too harsh. The furthest place at that time was 40 miles. They had not really taken back all of the land. They were just living from the area of Benjamin, which was Ramallah, on down to Beersheba in the south and from Jericho to the Mediterranean.

And so they made the proclamation that all of the children of captivity, those that had come back, should all gather together at Jerusalem at this time. And that whoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, that they would confiscate their possessions.

And he himself would be separated from the congregation of those that had been carried away. You got three days to get here. If not, your goods will be taken away. Your house will be taken away. You're going to be separated from the people of God.

You'll be ostracized or excommunicated. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together into Jerusalem within the three days. Now, this was the ninth month and the 20th day of the month.

Confession, God's Pleasure, and Separation from the World

Now, the ninth month roughly corresponds to our month of December, the 20th day of the month. So it was close to the Christmas season. And in Jerusalem in December is when they get so much of their rain.

And Jerusalem gets cold in the wintertime when it rains. And so the people assembled and they sat in the street of the house of God, around the outer court there of the house of God, trembling because of this matter and for the great rain.

They were there getting soaked. And so they were trembling, partially because of the severity of the issue and partially because of this rain. And Ezra the priest stood up and said unto them, You have transgressed and taken strange wives to increase the trespass of Israel.

Now, therefore, make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers and do His pleasure and separate yourselves from the people of the land and from the strange wives. Three actions. You're guilty. You have sinned and trespassed against God.

So, first of all, confess your guilt. Always the Bible tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. If you seek to cover your sins, if you seek to justify yourself, then there is no forgiveness.

Forgiveness comes through an open confession. God, I am guilty. God, I have sinned. You remember how Jesus spoke about the two men who went into the temple to pray. And the Pharisee as he stood there said, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men.

And how he presented himself to God and Jesus said the other fellow being a publican, a noted sinner, wouldn't even as much as lift his head towards heaven, but just with bowed heads smote on his chest and said, Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

And Jesus said, I tell you, he went away justified, whereas the other one went away bearing his guilt. Confession, the first step towards a renewed relationship. Second, do his pleasure. It isn't a matter, is it right or is it wrong?

The question is, is it pleasing to God? We are living in a day of changing morals as far as the world is concerned, as they are sinking deeper in the mire. And the mores, which generally determine the practices of a society, are deteriorating year by year.

But we are not to live by the mores of the society. We are to live by the commandments of God. And we are to do his pleasure. And the question is, not is it right or is it wrong, but does it please God for me to do this?

And let that be the standard for what you allow and for what you do. And then finally, separate yourself from the world. Come ye apart from them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters.

But God calls his people to be separate, to separate themselves from the world. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As you have said, so must we do. Not we ought to do it. Yes, that's really what we should do.

And that's the problem in our Christian body and community. So often we hear these things. Oh man, we ought to do this. And we talk about what we ought to do. God help us to get to the must. We must do it.

If we're going to survive, we must do it. So must we do. But the people are many. It's a time of much rain. We're not able to stand out here, and neither is this the work of one day or two, for there are many who have transgressed in this saying.

Yes, we must do it, but give us just a little time. We can't just do it overnight. So let now our rulers of all of the congregation stand, and let all of them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at the appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter is turned from us.

Let's go ahead and start action now. Only Jonathan, the sons of Eshael and Jehoziah, the son of Tikva, were employed about this matter, and Meshulam and Shabathiah and the Levite helped them. And so the children of the captivity did so, and Ezra the priest with certain chiefs of the fathers after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names were separated, and they sat down on the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.

So it was determined we've got to take this course of action. And so the tenth month roughly corresponds with our January, and so on January the first, the tenth month, the first day, they sat down to work out now the program by which we're going to deal with these issues and be separated from the world.

So 20 days, they were on the 20th day that this whole assembly took place, and now on the first day of the month of January they are determined to start taking the action. And among the sons of the priest there were found those that had taken strange wives, namely the sons of Joshua, the son of Josedach and his brethren, Mosiah and Eliezer and Jerob and Gedoliah.

Judgment Beginning at the House of God

Now Joshua was the high priest, and even his own sons were guilty of this sin. The Bible says the time has come when judgment must begin at the house of God, but if it begins here, man, what's going to happen to those that are really out in the sin?

As it was reported to Ezra, the priest and the chief rulers were actually the leaders in this whole thing. It is interesting that at least, first of all, it lists the priest and those that were guilty from the priestly families.

And being guilty, these priests offered a ram of the flock for their trespass. And then after naming the sons of the priests, it names the Levites that were guilty. Verse 23, also the Levites and the names of the Levites.

And verse 24, those also employed in the worship of the temple, the singers. And it names those from the temple employees, the singers and all that were guilty. And then of the families of Israel, beginning with verse 25 and going to the end of the chapter.

Now, these names are the infamous names of the violators. Recorded that through all history, their sin might be exposed. These are the guilty culprits. Oh, thank God he doesn't do such practices today.

But their names have been recorded. And probably the purpose of it being to put them to open shame for their trespass. The final verse. And they averted the judgment of God because God is gracious and God is merciful.

We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse venture through the Bible in our next lesson. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you missed any part of today's message, or perhaps you'd like to order a copy for that special friend or loved one, you can do so by simply contacting one of our customer service representatives.

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Personal Allegiance to Jehovah and Jesus Christ

It comes down to you, your personal relationship with God, your personal commitment to Him. But as Elijah stood before the people and said, Choose this day who you will serve. If Baal, Molech, or Mammon be God, then serve them.

But if Jehovah is God, then serve Him. Commit yourself, because you can't serve two masters. You'll either hold to the one and despise the other. As for me and my house, we're going to serve Jehovah. We're going to follow Jesus Christ.

We're going to live to please Him. We're going to cleanse our house from the defilement of the world. We're going to live a separated life unto God, a life that pleases.

The Word for Today would like to invite you to come along on a revolutionary study of the Bible as we introduce Pastor Chuck's Genesis Commentary in an e-book format. Not only will you have Pastor Chuck's in-depth commentary, this e-book allows access to enhanced research studies by honored Christian scholars instantly.

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