Ezra confronts Israel's spiritual decay after a decade of restoration, revealing how intermarriage with Canaanites, Hittites, and others led to idolatry. Tearing his garments, he prays against divine wrath as guilt mounts to the heavens, contrasting godly sorrow over covenant breach with worldly regret over consequences. While modern sensibilities clash with his command to send away foreign wives, the core issue remains idolatry rather than ethnicity. Ultimately, the sermon urges congregations toward repentance that leads to life, distinguishing biblical warnings against mixing with unbelievers from New Testament guidance for existing mixed marriages. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
Impure Lands and Abominations00:08:08
Lord's Day, and he will be preaching the final text, chapter 10 of the book of Ezra.
And then we will begin.
Well, we'll have an intermission.
We'll take a few weeks and actually teach.
I've already said this, but for those of you who aren't here, I'm going to be teaching from various New Testament texts on the topic of elders, deacons, and church members.
So we'll take a few weeks and we'll do that.
And then we'll begin, Lord willing, a new sermon series through the book of Matthew.
And so I'm excited about that.
So we'll get into a gospel and be looking.
At the teachings of Jesus and the narrative of all the miracles and the things that he did and said.
So that'll be, I think, a very rich time season for us as a church.
So today is Ezra chapter 9.
This is our second to last chapter in the book of Ezra, Ezra chapter 9.
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is Ezra chapter 9.
The Bible says this.
After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands.
And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.
As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.
Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.
And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn.
And fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, saying, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.
From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt.
And for our iniquities, we, our kings and our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today.
But now, for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery, for we are slaves.
Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia to grant us some reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem.
And now, O our God, what shall we say after this?
For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servant the prophet, saying, The land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure, with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness.
Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.
And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, shall we break your commandments again?
And intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations?
Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape?
O Lord, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped as it is today.
Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and begin.
There's a few things that I want to draw out of the text.
I'll point a couple to your attention right from the very beginning.
In verse 2 of our text, at the very end of the verse, it talks about the people intermarrying with the foreigners, the aliens, the stranger.
And at the end of verse 2, it says this This faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men, has been foremost.
So this wasn't just a fringe minority of the people of Israel who gave themselves.
Into marriage with foreign people, which was explicitly against the command of God, but this example, this wicked, sinful, disobedient example, had been actually set for the people by their leaders.
That's what we see at the end of verse 2.
Their civil leaders, even their ceremonial, religious leaders, had led the way.
The chief men and the officials, they had led the way in this rebellion against God.
Doing precisely what God had explicitly commanded through the prophet, that is, through Moses, not to do, which again, namely, is to intermarry with these foreign people in the land.
Now, verse 3 is another thing that I want to draw to our attention.
It says this As soon as I heard this, I being Ezra.
So, this news is brought to Ezra.
If you were with us last week, Ezra has now, he didn't lead the way, but he has now joined up, kind of bringing up the rear in this rebuilding, restoration project in Israel.
Ezra has now arrived.
He has left Babylon, which is now overruled by the Persians.
There's been a change in power, and by the providence of God, a change in heart.
That's what ultimately led the captives of Israel, the captives who were then in Babylon, out of captivity after the 70 year exile, which God prophesied would come about because of their, shocker, faithlessness.
The faithlessness of Israel, right?
You want to talk about constant themes in the Bible.
One is be like God, follow his example.
Another is don't be like Israel.
They're constantly faithless again and again and again.
But God is constantly merciful.
And in his mercy, after 70 years of Israel's captivity in Babylon, now taken over by the Persians, they are released from captivity.
And what we can tell from the text is they have been there, now returned and resettling the land and rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
So, a military defense measure, the homes and businesses, right?
So, an economic and household.
Portion of Israel and then the religious center, namely the temple.
All of this is just about done.
The temple is certainly done by the time Ezra arrives.
And so, biblical commentators and historians are at odds in regards to the exact amount of time that has passed from the end of the 70 years of captivity, when the first wave of Israelites go back to resettle the land, and then the time that Ezra now brings up the rear and goes after the temple has been completed.
But it's pretty, everyone pretty much agrees that it's well over 10 years.
In other words, it's been a while.
How long?
Well, long enough for Israel to go back.
And to give their sons in marriage to foreign wives that had inhabited the land in their 70 year absence when they were in captivity.
Ezra as Israel's Pastor00:04:35
And so Ezra now arrives and he arrives on the scene, and ultimately it seems as though he is encouraged.
It makes me think of the book of Acts, chapter 11, verses 22 through 24, which says this The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem.
All right, God is doing something somewhere else.
And it's marvelous.
It's wonderful.
And so, certain leaders then, this report comes to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent a man named Barnabas to go and inspect the work of the Lord that was occurring in Antioch.
And when Barnabas came and saw the grace of God, he was glad.
And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.
That's similar to what's going on here with Ezra.
Ezra, as you've heard me say for a couple weeks now, he's first introduced.
We find him in chapter 7.
Ezra is a scribe.
He's not a prophet like Haggai and Zechariah, who have an early appearance in this first wave of restoring Israel.
He's not a prophet.
He's not bringing a new word or a fresh word from the Lord to Israel, but he is rather a scribe.
He's also not a political ruler, although he does have a little bit of overlap.
In Israel under the old covenant at this time, he is certainly a leader and he is certainly making constant civil applications.
But he is first and foremost not a prophet like Haggai or Zechariah and not necessarily a prince like Zerubbabel.
But he is, Zerubbabel rebuilt the rubbable, right?
That's how you remember him.
And so, but he is a scribe.
Best way to think of a scribe is he was well versed since his youth in the law of Moses and being able to exegete.
To not only have the revelation, not a new revelation, a fresh one, but an old one given through Moses.
So he has the revelation.
He is well acquainted with the scripture, with the law of Moses, the revelation.
He is also well versed in his ability to provide the interpretation to that revelation and also to provide for Israel in regards to their practical daily obedience and application.
Revelation, the scripture.
Interpretation, the proper exegesis of the scripture.
And application, how then shall we live?
He's a scribe.
And the way that I've just described the scribe, essentially, I hope, without me even saying it, that naturally you were thinking, that sounds like a pastor.
And very much it was.
Obviously, some distinctions, but very much Ezra is fulfilling the role of a pastor of Israel.
And so, once there's been progress, God in his providence sees fit that there needs to be a shepherd in Israel, there needs to be a pastor.
Not bringing fresh words, a prophet, that's already been done.
But dusting off the old words, the words, the revelation that has already been given, and saying, hey, you know what?
Before we get a new word, why don't we try to just obey the word that's already been given?
And that's where Ezra comes in and says, This is the word of the Lord.
This is the meaning, the interpretation of that revelation from the Lord.
And here is how we obey.
Here's the application of the interpretation of the revelation from the Lord.
Okay, so that's what's going on.
So Ezra now arrives, and very much like Barnabas, Ezra is coming and inspecting the work that the Lord in his providence has already been doing.
Ezra's not the tip of the spear, he's not leading the charge.
He's coming in with authority, with confidence, with leadership, but also with a sense of humility.
He's coming in recognizing that God has been doing something for arguably well over a decade since the 70 year captivity of Israel and Babylon had ended.
And Ezra is now coming in as a second wave or third wave, depending how you see it, to continue a work.
Not to start it, but to continue a work that God has mercifully and sovereignly already begun.
A work that is already well underway.
And he comes, much like Barnabas, in the way that he comes from Jerusalem to Antioch.
He's encouraged.
I think that that is likely his reaction, that he's coming, and generally he's looking to say, there's a lot of good things going on.
Matthew Henry, the late great Puritan, that's his take of the passage, so it's not just my original interpretation.
For the record, if you like my preaching, if you don't, well, you're welcome.
Continuing God's Sovereign Work00:06:50
But if you do, here's my secret Never have an original thought.
That's my secret.
That's the secret sauce.
Man, that's insightful.
How do you do that?
I ignored every theologian and pastor since the 1960s.
And I found someone who was dead, and I just repeated him.
That's my secret sauce.
It's not that hard.
We have like 1900 years of great theology until about 80 years ago.
So that's it.
It's not much of a secret.
You can do it.
You can do it too.
Start a YouTube channel.
There you go.
It's really easy.
But seriously, don't be original.
Tried and true.
God has been faithful.
One common denominator, I've said this before, I'll say it again, of all cults, And just for the record, you don't want to be a part of a cult.
That's the bad team.
That's the opposing team.
One of the common denominators that they all share in terms of Christian cults, they're Christian spinoffs, they all have a restoration movement agenda.
In other words, their history is this the first century of Christians, the time of Jesus, the apostles, and those who immediately followed them, good.
Within 100 years, bad.
Right?
And they all have some kind of Illuminati.
You know, Constantine, Nicene Creed, Roman Catholic version of the WEF, you know, theology that it got, you know, was ultimately corrupted.
And this is their idea 100 years, faithful.
And then from 8100 all the way up until, and you just fill in the blank, Joseph Smith, Azusa Street Revival, whatever it is.
You can do it with Charismatics, you can do it with Mormons, you can do it with everything.
Right?
It's all the same story.
The story is one century of faithfulness.
Almost 2,000 years of faithlessness, and then our guy got it right.
And he got it right, give or take, 15 minutes ago.
Here's a freebie.
It hurts.
It hurts me, I'll admit.
It might hurt you.
It definitely hurts me.
Reformed guys, we can do that too.
We just do it with Luther instead of Joseph Smith.
Now, hear me.
I'm not saying that there weren't serious problems within Roman Catholicism, especially in the 1500s at the time of Luther.
There were.
Tetzel, right?
He's not our guy.
If you're not familiar with Tetzel, here's his famous line every time a coin in the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory springs.
Sometimes you look around, I'll be like, man, Roman Catholics have all these cathedrals.
They seem to have so much power and so much wealth.
Yeah, indulgences with compound interest over the last 500 years will do that.
If you think, how do you get such an inheritance?
What you do is you rob people blind half a millennia ago and then never give the money back.
It's not that hard, right?
That's why they're rich.
That's why they have cathedrals.
Protestants don't care about it.
They don't recognize that there's angels in the architecture, and they don't recognize the symbolic beauty of high vaulted ceilings that speak to the transcendence of God.
No, I just can't afford it.
I would love a cathedral.
But I don't have, in my lineage, in my theological history, I don't have ancestors who robbed people blind by lying to them 500 years ago.
So, we're going to have to wait 500 years and do it the ethical way through faithfulness and giving, and maybe our great great grandchildren can have the cathedral.
Or maybe we'll just take the Catholics.
Because if we don't, the Muslims will.
Okay.
Glad we got that out of the way.
So, the point is here's the point Reformed guys can do it too.
Roman Catholicism was bad at the time of Luther, and it also had.
Major theological problems here or there throughout 1400 years of history from 8100 to the 1500s.
But you do need to be careful in the way that you word that as a reformed Christian.
Five solas, all the way, yes and amen.
Saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.
I am reformed and I am not embarrassed.
That is my tradition.
You know, they wish that it wasn't my tradition.
They don't want me necessarily on the team, but I am on that team.
That said, if you're not careful, you can overdo it and condemn 1,400 years of God's providence with His church.
You can say that you can do exactly what every restoration movement does and say, for 1,400 years, there was no gospel witness, there was no faithful Christian remnant.
And what you have to do with that is you actually have to adopt the secular humanist.
And neo Marxist idea and say, Crusades, bad.
King Alfred, bad.
Charlemagne, bad.
Constantine, bad.
Nicaea, bad.
I don't even know if we have the right books of the Bible and who's to say.
And then all of a sudden, you're not reformed anymore, you're Joe Rogan, which is a low bar.
So, God was doing something.
The Catholic Church needed reformation, and for the record, that was Luther's goal.
He never wanted to leave it.
He didn't want Roman Catholicism to be crushed.
He wanted it to repent.
And sadly, it has not, still to this day, for 500 years, remaining impenitent.
The Council of Trent is still on the books.
They anathematized the very gospel of Jesus Christ.
They said that it is accursed.
Anyone who says that we are saved by grace alone, apart from works, is accursed.
They cursed Jesus.
They cursed the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But by God's grace, I still.
500 years later, like Luther, don't want to see Roman Catholicism crushed.
I want to see it repent.
I would love to see it repent.
I would love, my first choice is not to take their cathedral.
My first choice would be that we could join forces, but not like evangelicals and Catholics united, like Billy Graham and others did.
No, joining forces, but with the condition, the absolute condition of their full fledged repentance and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel, which is by grace alone and not the works of men, so that no man may boast.
Betrayal and Ecclesiastical Limits00:15:13
So, all that being said, Ezra comes in, here's the point, how I got onto this, humbly.
I do think that that's the correct.
Assumption here.
It's implicit, but I do believe it's there.
He's coming in confidently.
He has the very authority of God.
He's coming to lead.
He's coming to lead.
But there is a sense of coming in with humility, bringing up the rear, recognizing that this restoration movement of Israel has already been underway for well over a decade, that God has been moving, that Aslan has already been on the move, that God's already been doing something in Ezra's absence.
It's not like when I show up, then God will begin a work.
Don't have that attitude, brothers and sisters.
God has had a work since the very beginning.
He's been doing it with you or without you.
Don't have the Elijah complex, right?
I'm the only one left.
7,000 on reserve in the batter's box.
You want to quit?
It'll be your loss, right?
Same as Esther.
What does Mordecai say to her?
Well, you're the only person who is strategically positioned as the queen who's able to save our people.
There is a sense of that.
What if God raised you up for such a time as this?
But also, he adds, but if you don't do it, salvation for the Jews will come from someone else, but you and your house will be forgotten.
God will get it done.
The question is not whether or not you're going to help God get it done, the question is whether or not you want to be forgotten or whether or not you want to be a part of what God will do with or without you.
It's your privilege.
To get to play, it's your loss, not the kingdom's loss, not God's loss.
He'll get it done with or without you.
It is simply your privilege to partner in what God is doing, or you and your legacy, your lineage, your heritage, everything will be forgotten.
Okay, so Ezra shows up with a sense of humility.
Matthew Henry puts it like this The affairs of the church were in a very good estate, or a very good posture.
Now that Ezra presided in them, he's arrived.
Look without.
The government was kind to them.
We hear no complaints of persecution and oppression.
Their enemies had either their hearts turned or at least their hands tied.
Classic Puritan writing right there.
That's good.
I can't do it.
He can do it.
Their enemies, they had their hearts turned, so they've either gone from enemy to friend, they've joined them.
And we've seen that in earlier chapters of Ezra, that it wasn't just Israel's.
Now, when they first partook of the Passover feast, right, this coronation, before the temple was completed, they were already giving.
Sacrifices, making sacrifices on the altar before they had the temple.
So worship is already ramped up even before the completion of the temple.
And there's this coronation ceremony as they've come in before even all these things had been complete.
Things are still in progress.
And yet they observed the Passover.
And when they did, there were other people who were outside of Israel, outside of God's covenant people, who were welcomed in.
But they weren't welcomed in with their sin.
They were welcomed in the same way we would welcome in Rome, the Catholic Church, as I was saying earlier.
They were welcomed in on the strict condition of repentance.
That Yahweh would become their God, that they would not hedge their bets, that they would not be principal pluralists or polytheists, that they would not merely add Yahweh to their pantheon of false gods, but that they would forsake their own heritage and say, I count it all as loss, as the Apostle Paul said.
Whatever is there that is good in God's common grace, sure, but as far as our idolatrous pagan worship, it was all a loss.
I'm not redeeming any of it, I'm letting it all go and I'm joining Israel.
In the same way that Ruth joined her mother in law Naomi, your God, right?
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
And there were many that did that.
And Ezra speaks to that.
And so they joined.
So some, as Matthew Henry, had their hearts turned.
They're a part of Israel in a covenantal sense.
And those that did not, in God's mercy and providence, they had their hands tied.
So things are good right now.
Their neighbors were civil, and we hear of no wars nor rumors of wars.
There were none to make them afraid.
All was as well as it could be.
We hear nothing of Baal or Ashtaroth or Molech, nor images, nor groves, nor golden calves, no, nor so much as high places, not only the idolatrous altars to false gods, but even separate altars.
They're following the regular principle of worship, they're doing it one way.
They're not like Protestants in the negative sense, where it's just like, what do we do when we disagree as Protestants?
We start a new presbytery.
If you're a Presbyterian, well, first, if you're a Presbyterian, you do a two year study committee so you can outline with exact detail how you're going to compromise.
And then you compromise, and then a few people are left.
Well, usually not that.
Actually, the compromisers, they're the ones that are left, and they take all the stuff in the buildings.
And a few people, like Machen, they go and they have to start something new.
Baptists, we're not much better.
I don't think we're better at all.
The way that we compromise, how do we do this?
Church splits.
Church splits over anything.
Color of the carpet.
All right, not enough potlucks.
You know what?
You name it.
Baptists, that's what we do.
We split churches.
And all of a sudden, it's the equivalent.
It's not the equivalent, but conceptually, it would be a New Testament maybe application.
We have another altar.
So we're still worshiping God.
It's not like we split a church to go worship the devil, at least not explicitly.
But we have another altar and another altar and another altar.
There's not unity.
There's not regularity.
It's not sticking to the script.
It's not Israel worshiping one God one way in one place.
And that's what was clearly said, at least for Israel, according to the Old Covenant.
That's what Matthew Henry is getting at.
He's saying not only were there not high places and altars that were idolatrous to other gods, but there weren't even other high places or other altars to the right God.
They were joined as one.
They weren't just worshiping the right God, they were worshiping the right God in the right way in unity.
That's what he's getting at.
And that's a big deal.
We need some of that.
But the temple was duly respected and the temple service carefully kept, yet all was not well either.
So, in a general sense, Ezra shows up like Barnabas, and when he shows up from Jerusalem to Antioch, things are overall, there's a lot of great stuff.
And then he gets worried.
Oh, but there's actually one thing that's not great.
In fact, it's terrible.
It's terrible.
See, the purest ages, I like the way that Henry says this the purest ages of the church have had some corruptions, and it will never be presented without spot or wrinkle till it's a glorious church, a church triumphant.
On the whole, the church has neglected church discipline.
And that is something that churches, 99 out of 100, need to repent of.
On the whole.
That said, so that's the headline.
Here's a footnote.
I want to clearly say one's a headline, one's a footnote.
Headline overall churches need to care more about the purity of the church, care more about church discipline, and be willing to excommunicate in obedience to Jesus, what he's clearly said.
That said, there is a way to overpurify the church.
There is something to be said for pulling up the tares in such a way that presumptuously, prematurely, it damages the wheat.
There is a way to behave in a godlike manner that is not emulating God and his character in a good way, but presumptuous and arrogant.
To pretend omniscience.
To begin to not only follow the script and what God has said with those things which are external and witnessable and visible, but where we begin to speculate and guess at heart motives, incentives, It's when a church begins to practice excommunication in the way that if you ever watch the movie The Tom Cruise Minority Report.
Trying to stop a crime before it's even occurred.
Because I just got a feeling.
Got a feeling.
Forget your feelings.
Who cares?
You don't get to exercise the keys of the kingdom on sola fide, not fide, but fide.
It's not about your feelings.
You don't get to do that.
Christ is not giving you that authority.
That is overstepping your ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
And it's worth remembering.
This, again, like in our opening, our call to worship, our prayer of ascent as we began our worship service this morning.
I don't want this to be taken too far.
This is not to carve out leniency for apathy or moral mediocrity or theological mediocrity.
But it is to say, as Matthew Henry said, and I believe he said it well, the purest ages of the church have always had some corruptions, and it will never be presented perfectly without spot or wrinkle till it's a glorious church, a church triumphant.
Meaning what?
Until the end of the gospel age.
There is no such thing.
Even if there were a golden age, if you're post millennial in your eschatology and you hold, not every post millennial does, but to a golden age period toward the end.
Leading up to the final physical return of Christ, even in that, the church will not be perfect.
It'll be at its best, but not perfect.
And it's worth us remembering that Ezra, on one hand, what we see in our text is serious betrayal to Yahweh, the God of Israel, serious compromise, serious sin.
But I don't want us to see that at the cost of seeing the 30,000 foot view.
Ezra shows up, and the 30,000 foot view is, the general sense is, pretty good.
This is a pretty good moment for Israel.
It's not, this is their worst moment.
You want to see bad moments for Israel?
We've got plenty.
This isn't one of them.
This is not Israel's worst moment.
This is one of Israel's better moments.
And I believe that the point of this text, maybe not the point, but a point of this text, is to say that even in Israel's better moments, one of their better moments, there's still serious failure.
So it's not to say, look at this failure, it's one of the worst moments in Israel.
It's to say, here's one of the better moments of Israel.
And even when the church is at her brightest, there will always be profound corruptions.
And let's take them seriously on the one hand.
Remember what I said the headline is?
The church today has neglected church discipline.
And yet also temper it with a footnote, which is there is a way to seek to overpurify the church in this life.
Thinking or pretending presumptuously as though we could achieve some glorious and triumphant state of the church this side of heaven.
The church here, if you've ever heard the phrase militant and triumphant, This is the way that that breaks down.
The church here, now, militant.
The church then, there, triumphant.
That's the way that it breaks down.
The church will never be perfectly glorious or perfectly triumphant in this gospel age here, now.
So, in its best and brightest moments, there will still be deep, dark, profound corruptions and failures.
And we should care about them, but also.
Not seeking to overpurify the church in such a way that as we rip out the tares, we end up destroying the wheat.
Let's be aware of all these things.
All right.
Continuing now.
Oh, you know what?
One more verse that I want to draw our attention to, and then we'll turn the notes over to the back side of the page.
This is verse 12.
Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace.
Woo.
Woo.
That one offends our post war sentiments.
We're Americans.
And the year of our Lord, 2024, never seek their peace.
Who's there?
Foreign nations.
Never seek their peace or prosperity.
What?
But the global GDP.
What are you talking about?
I'm a Republican pastor.
The bottom line.
I mean, sure, my children will have no future and no jobs, but do you know how low labor costs are in China?
And it's great for China, not just us.
It's a win win.
And I can prove to myself I can sleep a little bit better at night because I can tell myself that I'm not racist like my parents were.
Okay?
That's not Christian, that's American post 1960.
Let's hear Christian real quick, though.
It's always good to just get a little Christian.
Verse 12.
Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that is, the other nations, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.
Notice, this is the correlation that God is making through Ezra.
He's making a direct correlation between, you can't have it both ways.
You will either seek the peace and prosperity of these other nations, which ultimately are your enemy, or You can leave an inheritance for your children, but you can't do both.
To compromise here, that is to seek the peace and prosperity of these other nations, which are my enemies and ultimately yours, it will come at the cost of your children's future.
Race, Worship, and Inheritance00:02:32
That's what God is saying.
That's what God is saying.
Now, again, that's going to have to be explained a little bit because I can feel like Joel's getting racist today.
I don't like it.
I'll explain.
And when I say I'll explain, I will let Matthew Henry explain.
I think he'll be really helpful.
I think I'll let him explain.
I've got something here.
Let me look.
All right, I'll just say it.
Bathurine would have said it better, but I know that he has said it, and not just him.
Plenty of Puritans, plenty of reformers, plenty of theologians, and I'm talking about dead guys, so not just the modern guys who want to avoid racism, which, for the record, insofar as it's legitimate racism.
Because the word is nowadays, let's be honest, it's spelled R A Y, then C I I I, racist.
And so I'm not concerned if someone calls me a racist by modern standards because you know what it means?
Nothing.
Nothing.
And I'm not concerned about pretend made up sense.
But insofar as it actually is a biased, pre biased pre judgment based off of race alone and not based off of worship and idolatry, those things, which do matter.
Insofar as it's that, then I do have certain scripture that would address that issue, and I do care because I want to please the Lord.
Here's the point.
What Matthew Henry and all these other dead guys would have said is they actually, as they're commentating on the text, and they say the foreigner or the stranger, they'll literally replace the word foreigner or stranger with the word the heathen.
That's helpful.
Because that's what God was getting after.
God is not getting after, so hear me.
God is not getting after the shade of, you know, Nobody's actually white.
Nobody's see through like Casper the Ghost.
But he's not getting after what shade of brown your skin has.
That's not his concern.
His concern with Israel intermarrying with these foreign nations is the same concern that ultimately Solomon gave way to, which is that he took all these foreign wives and then for anniversaries, I imagine, that's how I like to pretend, the wife comes and says, Solomon, I love you.
And you know I love Yahweh.
I made my peace with him.
Grief Over Broken Covenants00:15:25
I left my people.
But I would really like.
You know, for this anniversary, you gave me silver, you know, for our five year, but now it's our 10 year.
And all I would like, instead of asking for gold, all I would like is just a little high place to this false God.
You know, it's sentimental, it's nostalgia.
It reminds me of growing up, you know, growing up and worshiping Molech, just a little bit over there, just a little Ashtoreth over here.
And his heart, little by little, was led astray.
Solomon, first half, right?
Good.
Last half, bad.
And the same thing that happened with Solomon is the same thing that's happening here with Israel.
It's not about the foreign or the alien in terms of pigment.
It's about the heathen.
It's about these pagan nations.
Not just that they're foreign, but they're pagan nations who are worshiping pagan gods.
And Yahweh said through Moses long ago, they knew this, they knew better.
And God had said it more than once on more than one occasion.
He said this look at Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 3 and 4.
You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons.
Why?
Notice, look, God gives a reason.
He doesn't say, you shall not marry with them because, you know, the skin color of your offspring would not be as light or as dark.
That's not the reasoning.
No, why should you not do it?
For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.
Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
And guess what, brothers and sisters?
He did.
He did.
Israel disobeyed.
They did give their sons and daughters in foreign marriages with the foreigner who, simultaneously and more importantly, was the heathen, worshiping idols, false pagan gods.
And Israel was corrupt.
It was corrupted by these foreign gods.
And ultimately, what happened?
This is one of the very reasons why Israel was under God's judgment and put in captivity in the first place.
And here they are, they've just got out.
It's like, are you serious?
We just got out of captivity for this, among other things, breaking the Sabbath was a big one.
It was no trifle.
Watch out, that's Sabbatarianism.
They broke the Sabbath, but also they intermarried with the heathen.
Not just the stranger, but the stranger who was the heathen.
And it corrupted their way of life, it corrupted their worship, it corrupted their fidelity to Yahweh.
And because of all these things, they were under God's hand of discipline, His judgment, and placed into captivity for 70 years.
And God, in His mercy, despite their sin, has now released them.
And they're doing it again.
And Ezra arrives on the scene, and he catches news of this.
At first, the general sentiment is hey, this is one of the better moments in Israel.
We're not at war, we just got done building the temple.
People actually care about worshiping Yahweh in Israel.
That doesn't come around very often.
If you know Israel's history, it's like, hey, Israel actually cares about obeying Yahweh.
This is the minority of the time.
But praise God.
And then he gets word.
Oh, but the very thing that brought them into captivity in the past, you got here a little late, Ezra.
God's providence, the timing was perfect, but we've been here for a little while 10 years, probably a little bit more, maybe 15 at this point, and we've already begun to intermarry again.
Again.
With the heathen, with these foreign nations, the same ones that we intermarried with and compromised with in the past.
And how does Ezra respond?
How does he respond?
This is one of the big things that I want us to look at, and this is where we'll land.
So we're going back to a verse that we've already looked at, but let's look at it once more.
Verse 3 As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.
Appalled.
And then he's joined.
His repentance, look at this, there's a principle here.
His repentance is so visible, it's so visible, witnessable, and profound and deep that his repentance is contagious.
His repentance doesn't remain private and with him.
His repentance, his zeal for fidelity to the Lord and sorrow over a sin that he did not himself even engage in.
But his sorrow over his brother's compromise was enough to bring him to tears, and his genuine tears, not tears of worldly vain remorse for the consequence of sin, but tears over the sin itself and its rebellion towards God.
Those tears of godly sorrow, not worldly sorrow, lead towards not only his repentance, but the repentance of others.
It is a contagious repentance.
So now, verse 4 Then all who trembled at the words of Of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.
So they're joining him now in this repentance.
There's one more thing I want to point out.
Verse 4 says, Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles.
This is where I want to land the plane.
Ezra, his sorrow, he's ripping out hair from his beard and his head, ripping his clothes.
He sits appalled.
His repentance.
His deep, profound, gut wrenching sorrow, the word appalled is used.
And those who are now in a contagious fashion joining him in this sorrow and repentance, their sorrow, what is the source?
What are they sorry for?
Let me give you two narratives, and I'll let you guess which one is right.
Here's the first Ezra, the pastor, the pastor in Israel, and those who are influential and leaders who are helping him to shepherd the people of Israel, the church.
They are profoundly appalled and sorrowful to the point of mourning because they've discovered the law of the Lord and Israel's failure to obey that law, and the cost of repentance for Israel, the cost of recalibration, of riding the ship, will be severe.
Israel will have to send away some of their own wives and children.
Families will be split apart and it will devastate.
Israel.
And that is the source of their sorrow.
That's the first narrative.
Here's the second one.
And this one is, it'll feel strange for us.
But I want us to hear it.
Consider it.
Just consider it.
And then we'll go back and see what the text says.
Which one does the text lean towards?
Here's the other scenario Ezra and these leaders with him in Israel, Pastor Ezra catches word.
He knows the law of the Lord, he knows his commandments, and he catches word that Israel has compromised and failed.
And he is heartbroken and distraught and appalled, not because repentance will be hard and families will be broken and wives and children sent away, but because he loves the Lord his God and he cannot stand that his own brothers have sinned against him.
See, we read Ezra 9.
This has to be said, and this is where, again, this is kind of the climax of the sermon today.
We read Ezra 9 and are immediate, I believe, and I know this because Peter says that sin is common to man.
I know this because this is.
How I'm tempted to read it.
I read Ezra 9, and my first gut wrenching, you know, inclination is to feel sorry for these women and children who are going to be sent away.
Right?
That's my first thing.
Because I have a wife and children.
I can't imagine.
I can't imagine.
And I'm thinking this is not just one family, but household after household after household, an entire nation.
Families ripped apart, fathers saying goodbye.
I'm imagining fathers kissing goodbye their sons and daughters.
And that's the first direction that my heart doesn't just lean, it leaps in that direction.
But that is not the sorrow of Ezra.
And I look at Ezra and I'm convicted.
I'm convicted.
Because Ezra is pulling out his beard and his hair.
And ripping his clothes and mourning and fasting.
And it is because, back to the text, verse 4 then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because the repentance would be hard, no.
Because we'd lose our families, no.
Because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles.
The grief and sorrow is over the sin, it's over the sin.
It is not over the consequences.
That doesn't mean that the consequences did not hurt.
That does not mean that there later would not be grief and sorrow over the consequences.
But first and foremost, the center of Ezra, who is a wonderful example that we should seek as Christians to emulate, the central source of his sorrow is not over consequences, but over sin.
His first and deepest sorrow is not over broken families, but broken covenant with God.
That's his heart.
And you and I, because we often make so light of God's law and his holiness, and therefore, by way of consequence, so light of our sin, our grief, our sorrow, what 2 Corinthians, Paul says, godly sorrow that leads to repentance, which leads to life.
Our godly sorrow is so shallow because we don't see and recognize and embrace fully the holiness of God, and therefore we don't really see the severity of our sin.
We're willing, as Christians, to at least acknowledge most of the time, yeah, I know that's wrong.
Yes, okay, I will say, let the record state that is sin.
There's a difference, though, in saying, yeah, well, technically, I guess that was sin.
How many times, I mean, think about it, how many times has that been your response?
How many times have you been corrected or confronted in the scripture, corrected by a brother in Christ?
Or your spouse lovingly bringing something to your attention, or your roommate, and you argue at first, you defend at first, and then maybe after 45 minutes, you eventually get to the level of repentance, the robust level of repentance that is, well, technically, I guess that does.
If I have to put it in two categories with a binary framework, you know, it technically would be sin and not righteousness.
That is not the repentance of Ezra.
It's not.
He's not carving out nuances and exceptions.
For his sin.
And he's not merely acknowledging it.
Because he has so embraced the holiness of God, the holiness of God's law, he doesn't just recognize what is sin, but he also recognizes the full degree of that sin.
He doesn't just acknowledge, I have sinned, he acknowledges the severity of the sin.
To the point where the severity of the sin against Yahweh far outweighs.
Ezra is not a cold, heartless man.
It's not that Ezra doesn't care about families being broken.
And women and children sent away.
It is that his love of the Lord is so great that his grief, it's not an absence.
I believe the grief was likely there, but his grief for broken families pales in comparison to his grief for a broken covenant with God.
That's the issue.
And the caveat that needs to be given because it does need to be given, not just because of post war sentiments and we're moderns and blah, blah, blah, but because it's actually in the Bible and therefore it matters.
The equivalent of this scenario going on in Israel.
According to the New Testament, God's word written through the Apostle Paul would be this Christian and non Christian.
It's not black and white, it's not foreign nation and America, although I do love America, although I am greatly concerned with its current state.
But that's not the distinction that we get in the New Testament.
Paul writes, and speaking of marriage, the distinction, the only distinction that he emphasizes is this the distinction between the Christian and the heathen.
The Christian and the non Christian.
And there's also one other thing that's different.
Because of Jesus and Paul teaching what Jesus taught and the changing from the old covenant, which rolled up like a garment, and now the new covenant of the New Testament Christian church.
Here's the other thing not only is it not foreigner versus native, it's Christian, right?
An unbeliever.
But not only that, it's also if you find yourself to be married to an unbeliever, the first course of action is to remain.
And not separate.
That's what Paul says.
If your unbelieving spouse agrees to remain with you, then remain.
So, even in the case of being unequally yoked, in the spiritual sense of Christian versus non Christian, rather than native versus foreigner, even in this new rubric, New Testament rubric here of light and dark, spiritually speaking, faith and unbeliever, even in that scenario, if God saves you, And you were already married and God saves you but doesn't save your spouse.
If your spouse agrees to remain with you, then live with them in a Christian manner.
And maybe you'll win them over and maybe not.
Or maybe you weren't married before God saved you.
Maybe you were actually already saved and you actually disobeyed God.
You did precisely what God commands not to do.
You chose, eyes wide open, to marry an unbeliever, which many Christians have, by the way.
Many Christians.
You want to talk about verses, commands in the New Testament that are.
Choosing to Repent00:02:36
Utterly neglected and disobeyed and rebelled against with impunity in most churches.
This is a serious offense.
We have Christians who will knowingly date and marry an unbeliever.
And the church pretends it's not a big deal.
Even in that case, though, when the person actually sinned with eyes wide open, they were actually saved before they entered the marriage and deliberately chose to.
Then what does the Word of God say for you?
To repent is to send that wife away.
No.
Even in your case, two wrongs don't make a right.
Even in your case, two wrongs don't make a right.
The first wrong, you shouldn't have married them, you disobeyed the law.
But the second wrong would be to attempt to correct that first wrong by now sending them away.
And the New Testament does not give that impetus.
Instead, you pray, you work, you share the gospel, and you hope that God might save them.
And you also know that He would be perfectly just if He doesn't.
And if you had to live with an unbeliever the rest of your life, it would be fair.
Because you did that.
You did that.
All right, let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Bless it to your people.
Help us to live like Ezra, to live with fidelity, to care more about your holiness and the severity of our sin than merely the cost of what repentance would look like and the consequences that we might endure for our sin.
Help us to have godly sorrow, not worldly sorrow.
Worldly sorrow is vain and shallow and self focused, it is concerned with the consequences that we endure because of our sin, whereas godly sorrow is.
Is concerned for how we have sinned against a thrice holy God, how we have trampled underfoot the blood of our Savior, how we have spurned your gospel and your grace.
Help us to have sorrow like that.
One sorrow, namely worldly sorrow, leads to death, but the other leads to repentance and life.
Lord, we pray that you would give us that kind of sorrow.
Even that sorrow is not something that we can conjure up ourselves, it is granted, it is a gift.
So, Lord, would you give to Covenant Bible Church?
The glorious, gracious gift of godly sorrow for sin, that we might repent where we're wrong, and that we might be a church and families and individuals filled with life.