Embracing The Beautiful Vision

Just to bow your heads in prayer for a moment, please.

Father, we, Father, most of the time we're not really aware of this,

but sometimes your word or your Holy Spirit makes clear to us that,

Father, we're like a bundle of contradictory things.

You know, we want to, you know, we easily see ourselves as the victim,

and then the very next moment we see ourselves as triumphing,

and maybe you want to have lots of money one moment,

and another moment we want to be just very, very generous and live simple lives,

and the next minute we want fame,

and then the other moment we just want to be left alone,

and some moments, Father, we want you to act sort of almost like a divine puppeteer

and just make everything move around to fix our problems,

and then the next moment we want you to not have any type of control over our lives,

and Father, we are not always aware of just how unruly we are

and contradictory we are,

but, Father, we rejoice and just marvel that you see us perfectly,

and still you love us,

and still your Son died on the cross for us.

We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would so bring the gospel home,

the beautiful way, Father, that you continually invite us to,

that that beautiful way, Father, would become more and more real to our hearts,

that it might structure and form and shape and propel and draw us

in terms of how we live our day-to-day lives

until that day, Father, when we, your children, see you face to face.

So, Father, do that gentle but powerful work of your Holy Spirit in our lives,

and we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.

Amen.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Excuse me, I seem to have something stuck in my throat.

Hopefully, it'll just clear itself up.

So, that was quite a scripture text.

If you're wondering why we would talk a text about that describes other people's religions

as being abominations, as forbidding your sons and daughters to marry other people,

that seems to talk about there being a holy race, and it's terrible

if anybody who's not part of that holy race becomes part of your family.

It's not because I have a weird personality,

and I intentionally go looking for weird texts like that to speak on.

Like, I'm actually very Canadian, and I, you know, my wife and the staff can tell me

that when I first read this text again in preparation for,

I mean, I'd read it many, many times as part of my daily Bible reading,

but when I first read it, knowing that I was going to preach on it,

I was a bit appalled by it.

And I said to people, you need to pray for me.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to say about a text like this.

It's really, really quite something.

So, but the reason we do it is that one of the things we want to do here

is we want to, Paul in Acts chapter 20 says he wants to declare the whole counsel of God.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

And that's what we want to do here at this church,

and one of the ways that we do this is by preaching through books in the Bible,

Old Testament, New Testament.

And so what that means is that we preach,

sometimes we have to look at texts which are just very difficult.

And so actually, if you're sort of trying to figure out the Christian faith,

or maybe you're trying to figure out like whether you should stay a Christian

or whether you should join and become a Christian,

in some ways we're the perfect church for you

because, you know, if you sign a contract or a deal somewhere,

and then you find out in the small print that there's these rules

that you didn't know about and now you're sort of screwed,

we look at the fine print.

And we don't sort of hide from these uncomfortable things

and things which sort of go against the grain of Canadians and how we think.

So let's look at the text.

And so what I'm going to do, it's a bit different from how I normally preach.

I'm going to read, again, all of chapter 9,

and I'll just point out a couple of very, very small things.

And then, but because the issues of intermarriage and abominations

and the holy race and other things

are all sort of intermingled throughout the whole thing,

you know, normally I would read a couple of verses, explain it,

a couple of verses, explain it.

I think what I need to do is we're just going to look at it

so you can see that we're not hiding from anything.

And one of the things I would suggest to you,

if you have little notes or something,

is make a note.

Okay, is George going to talk about this?

Okay, is he going to talk about this?

And if I don't in the sermon sort of address these big issues,

make sure you, if you're online, send me an email.

If you're here, make sure you ask me at the end of the service.

But let's sort of look at the text.

I'm not going to read chapter 10.

It's 44 verses.

It's the continuation of the story.

But just to give you, in a sense,

the summary of what happens in chapter 10.

And actually, let's read the text,

and I'll give you the summary.

And then we'll sort of try to figure out

what's going on in this text.

And just so you know,

a very typical way out of a text like this

is to say, oh, well, that's just the Old Testament.

And they're just sort of hard and judgmental,

and we're Christians,

and that's not what the New Testament is like.

And I'm not going to say that.

Because actually, that's not true.

And I'm not going to repudiate the text,

and I'm not going to do tap dancing around the text.

Believe it or not, I think this text,

in a very stark way,

which grabs our attention,

brings before us the importance

of embracing the beautiful vision of the Bible.

If we get over our fears about the text,

I think the text is calling us

to embrace a beautiful vision

and help us know what it means

to embrace this beautiful vision

and move forward to life.

Now you're really worried.

Is George going to say racism

and all his beautiful vision?

No, I'm not.

Let's look at what it says.

So it's Ezra chapter 9,

Ezra 9 · chapter mention

and here's how it begins.

After these things had been done,

now what that means is,

if you go back and you read

all of the book of Ezra,

which is a good thing to do,

about 80 years earlier,

after the nation of Israel

had been taken away into captivity,

there's basically no Jewish people left

in what the Jewish people call the promised land,

or we would now call Israel.

And they'd been gone for over like 140 years,

130 years.

And then about 80 years earlier,

a large group,

a fairly large group of people

returned from exile.

And in chapters 1 to 6,

it describes what happened

sort of in the first 20 years

of them coming back.

And then between chapter 6 and chapter 7,

there's almost 60 years of sort of silence.

And then Ezra leaves a very small group of people

to come back from exile.

And so in chapter 9 here,

it's five months after what we talked about

in chapter 7 and 8.

So it's about five months later,

and Ezra's been given the task

by the pagan emperor of Persia

to teach the Torah,

the Tanakh,

and to make it the law of the region.

And that's his job.

So now it's about five months later,

and we'll take it up again.

And 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.

If you're doing little pins

or little marks,

put a mark there.

Make sure I come back

and talk about it.

Why is it that God wants,

that Ezra thinks God wants them

to separate from the people of the land

and to describe what they do

as abominations?

And then it mentions

from the Canaanites,

the Hittites,

the Perizzites,

the Jebusites,

the Ammonites,

the Moabites,

the Egyptians,

and the Amorites.

Now, just to be clear,

so the first thing is

the officials come

and tell Ezra this,

and it's not that

they've just not separated,

but they're actually doing it.

So they've taken up

what Ezra's calling

an abomination.

The things that

the neighboring nations do,

Ezra describes

as abominations

and he discovers

that there's a significant part

of the community

which are doing them.

Then verse 2,

and this is sort of now

describing a little bit

about the means

by which this,

a key aspect

of how this has come about.

Verse 2,

for they have taken

some of their daughters,

that's the Canaanites,

et cetera,

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 the chief men

has been foremost.

Now, there's that phrase,

the holy race,

and for many of us

reading this today,

it sounds like

the Deep South

and slavery

in the United States.

It sounds like apartheid.

It sounds like

what the Nazis did

by looking for

a small trace

of Jewish blood.

It sounds like

these racial purity movements

and it's a

pretty stark thing.

So what does Ezra do?

So the people

have told him this.

Some of the leaders

have come and told him this.

It might very well be

that because he's been there

for five months

and been teaching the Torah,

they now realize,

some of them,

that there's been things

going on in the Torah

and the Tanakh forbid.

So how does Ezra respond?

And he responds

in a very interesting way.

He doesn't repudiate it

or tell them

that he's wrong,

but he also doesn't act

in a judgmental way.

He's going to identify

with the people,

but he's going to identify

with them by mourning

and grieving.

Listen to what it says,

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.

Now just pause.

We all know

that there's different,

you know,

because we have the media now,

we can see how grief works

in different countries

and, you know,

like here in Canada,

like most people

now don't even have

funerals anymore.

We don't really,

and a lot of our grief now

in Canada,

it's done very private

and it's often medicated.

This is a very,

some people in the world,

they're very demonstrative

emotionally

about their grieving

and mourning

and that's what's going on here.

The Bible's not telling us

that we should become like this,

but it's showing

how they grieved

and that's what he's doing.

Verse 4,

and here's a really

interesting phrase,

you know that,

that old spiritual,

it causes me to tremble,

tremble, tremble.

That's where they get this from.

The next verse,

then all who trembled

at the words of God,

it causes me to tremble,

tremble, tremble.

Then all who trembled

at the words of God,

the God of Israel,

because of the faithfulness,

sorry,

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 arose 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,

now just,

it's very interesting,

you know,

that he's appalled.

But as you're going to see

and what he's just done

is in a sense

he sees himself

as needing to grieve

and mourn for the nation.

Now,

this is still problematic

if it's grieving

that they're not racist enough.

Obviously,

that makes it even worse,

right?

But he's grieving

and others are grieving

and now he prays.

Like,

he doesn't immediately

take up a sword

and go starting killing people.

He doesn't do anything like that.

He grieves

and he prays.

And you'll notice

in the words of the prayer,

there's still problematic

things in them

for us Canadians,

but he constantly identifies

with the people.

So here's how he prays.

Verse 6,

Notice the R language,

not these people,

but R.

Verse 7,

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 utter shame

as it is today.

Now,

just sort of pause here

for a second.

Ezra understands,

and this is a problematic thing

for lots of Canadians,

that what has happened

to them,

they're having their city destroyed,

the people carried away,

that that is all God's judgment.

I mean,

on one level,

Nebuchadnezzar just did it

because he wanted

a bigger empire

and he wanted more tax revenues.

But Ezra understands

that what's happened

is actually God's judgment.

And I'm not going to be able

to talk about God's judgment.

I mean,

I'm going to have enough

just trying to talk

about abominations and racism

without talking about

God's judgment,

but it's a key part

of his prayer.

It's not that he's having

this power of positive thinking,

putting the best face forward.

He's acknowledging

the deep guilt

that led to God's judgment.

And he sees them now

continuing that

which led to God's judgment

on them.

But he's also going to talk

about grace and mercy.

Let's see how he goes on.

Verse 8.

But now for a brief moment,

favor or grace

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

might brighten our eyes.

It's a wonderful phrase.

excuse me,

it's a wonderful phrase.

That he might brighten our eyes.

That's a wonderful phrase,

isn't it?

And,

sorry,

I've lost my place

turning around.

If he has shown us favor

to leave us around,

brighten our eyes,

that's verse 8,

and grant us

a little reviving

in our slavery.

For we are slaves,

yet our God

has not forsaken us

in our slavery.

You see,

here's acknowledgement

of God's steadfast love.

And once again,

if he's acknowledging

God's steadfast love

in the context

of being racist himself,

this makes it even worse,

not better.

That's the question

that we need to go back

and think about.

Verse 9 again.

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 give us protection

in Judea and Jerusalem.

And now,

our God,

what shall we say

after this?

For we are forsaken

your commandments,

which you commanded

by your servants,

the prophets,

saying,

now here comes

once again

for us Canadians

the problematic bit.

The land

that you are entering

to take possession of

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's a hard phrase,

isn't it?

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.

He's basically quoting

or paraphrasing

parts of Deuteronomy,

but as well as that,

Exodus,

and as well as that,

actually,

the book of Judges

and Joshua.

And after,

verse 13,

after all that has come

upon us

for our evil deeds

and for our great guilt,

seeing that you are God,

have punished us

less than our iniquities

deserve,

and have given us

such a remnant as this,

shall we break

your commandments again

and intermarry

with the people

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.

Now,

you'll see

there's 44 more verses

after this,

and I can just tell you

that the short answer

about what's going

to happen after this

is some of the secular leaders

are struck by this,

as Ezra continues to pray.

They say that

we need to deal with this,

we need to put away,

literally,

they need to put away

their foreign wives

and the children

from the foreign wives

and that we need

to deal with this,

and they start to deal

with it right away.

In fact,

this has probably happened,

they can date it

if you're sort of curious.

This has started to happen,

I've lost the dates here,

but I think it's something

like the 12th of,

oh yeah,

the 16th of December

is when this happens.

The 19th of December,

they call everybody together

and they say

that if you don't come together,

your property's forfeit.

Ezra wants to deal

with it right away,

but the leaders

of the community

say,

no, no,

this is a very,

very big issue,

we want to make sure

we do it in a just way,

and so people go home

and on the beginning

of the 29th of December,

they begin looking

at individual cases

and they are to judge

these people,

the goal is to have

the wives

and the children put away,

I'll talk about it

a little bit in a moment,

but they're all to be judged

according to the law,

according to what we call

the Tanakh or the Torah

or the Old Testament,

and by the 27th of March,

so they take three months

and it's all dealt with.

So what's going on?

As I said,

I didn't go out of my way

to find a chapter like this

and I've read it many times

but it never really struck me,

I guess it strikes you

very different

if you have to speak

about it in public,

and in our case,

it's on YouTube,

so who knows

what's going to happen

downstream.

So here's a couple of things,

let's just walk towards,

if you could put up

the first point,

that would be

very, very helpful,

and this is something

which I've only been

becoming aware of

over the last couple of years.

The world has been

so changed by Jesus

that it is hard

to look at anything

the way an ancient pagan would.

This is a very odd way

to begin this,

isn't it,

for some of you,

but it's the truth.

The world has been

so changed by Jesus

that it is hard

to look at anything

the way an ancient pagan would.

There's a fellow

by the name of Tom Holland

who wrote a best-selling book

called Dominion,

and some of you

are aware of him.

There's a very, very good book

brought by Glenn Scrivener

called The Air We Breathe,

and he looks at seven things

which most modern Western people

just think of as obvious,

and he does a very, very clever thing.

He uses non-Christian scholars

and experts

to show how all of those ideas

that the average Canadian think

is just obvious and reasonable

aren't obvious and reasonable,

but all, in fact,

come from the Christian faith,

all of them.

And so we're so used

to thinking in these categories.

Like, Jesus is so completely changed

the way people in the world think

that when they look at stories like this,

whether people realize it or not,

they're looking at it

from part of the way

that they've learned to think

because of Jesus.

And so when we hear a text like this,

we think of the soccer moms

who live next door to us,

we think of our nice neighbor,

and we think this sounds

like very, very, very type

of extreme type of behavior

and way of discussing it with them.

But what we don't understand

is what actually,

what is it that the people did?

Like, what were those people

doing around there?

And what did they believe?

And what were the stories

that they told themselves?

If their kids went to Sunday school,

what would they be taught

in Sunday school?

And how did that,

that they were taught

in Sunday school,

then how did that reflect

in their religion

and their culture

and their politics?

Well, here's what they were taught.

Baal, the main god

that they worshipped,

had sex with his mother.

Why did he have sex

with his mother?

Because his father,

who was a higher god,

was mad at his wife

and he wanted to humiliate her.

So he encouraged Baal

to have sex with his mom.

You can just picture

some of the moms here

telling them a nice sweet story.

Yes, I want to tell you

all about Baal.

He had sex with his mother.

Because his dad

wanted to humiliate his wife.

It gets worse.

Baal, sister,

one of his sisters

took the form of a cow

and while she was

in the form of a cow,

he raped her

77 to 88 times.

He raped her

77 to 88 times.

This is their gods.

As well as that,

Baal

regularly had sex

with his daughter.

And Baal

fought with

and murdered

his brothers.

And part of their mythology

and part of their worship

is that after this

had happened,

it was like an endless cycle.

So it's not as if

Baal just once did it.

It's how they understand

how fruitfulness happens.

Like part of fruitfulness

is to, in a sense,

worship and reenact

Baal having sex

with his mom.

And as well as that,

the whole purpose

that any of the gods

had any human beings

created was so that

human beings

could be their slaves.

Every human being

was a slave.

Glenn Scrivner,

if you go googling,

he has this

very powerful video

called

The Night Before Christmas

and one of the things

he says

is that for the pagan gods,

if a pagan god

was to arrive,

people would flee.

And it's a stark

contrast with Emmanuel,

the Christian notion

of God with us

as Jesus.

So imagine

you live in the neighborhood

with people like this

and they're your neighbors

and you start to realize

that the neighbors,

that's the stories

they tell their kids.

Would you let your kids

play with them?

And then you get

to know the neighbors

and one day

they're saying,

oh yeah, yeah,

you know God,

you know,

the gods,

Bahal and Asherah,

they've given us

two boys

and four girls

and then you sort of

ask them,

well,

one moment

there's just like

two boys and two girls.

Did something tragic

happen to two

of your daughters?

They say,

oh no, no,

nothing tragic.

One of our daughters,

we gave them

to the temple priest.

You know when you go

to see the priest

having sex with somebody?

Well, one of them

is my daughter.

And what about

your other daughter?

Well,

we needed to deal

with the gods

being angry at us

and they needed

a human sacrifice

and it was our

great honor and privilege

to give our other daughters

so the priest

could kill the daughter.

Would you let your children

play with your neighbors?

Would you want

your son or your daughter

to marry

one of the neighbors?

Well,

my George,

that paints this whole picture

in a very different light.

what do you think

the family structures

would be like

where the stories

that they tell you

to structure the universe

is of this type of...

I mean,

let's...

How many of you

want to agree

with the word abomination?

That's not a judgmental phrase.

It's actually

a pretty good phrase.

Really?

That's how your family

is structured?

That's how you see the world?

That's what you reenact?

You reenact

the regular rape

of Baal of his sister?

Like,

that's how you

understand the world?

Now,

here's the other thing

to understand

and this...

When I tell you this

and you might want

to read Glenn Scrivener's book

or Tom Holland's book

Dominion

or hear Tom Holland

do some interviews.

And...

You see,

this great...

This profound project

is...

That's how everybody thought.

Like,

if you could go back in time,

okay,

the equivalent of the CBC,

the equivalent

of the Supreme Court,

the government,

the spiritual leaders,

the universities,

the artists,

like,

that's just...

That's just how everybody thinks

and that's just what

everybody knows.

And...

And...

And...

If you can think about it,

so God is actually

trying to form a people

that are centered around

a beautiful vision

which is radically...

To say radically

is too weak a word

for how different it is

from what everybody knows.

And you can understand

a little bit

if they...

If people are told...

I'm going to describe

more of it in a moment

that no,

we...

We...

No,

we actually

don't have a priest

having sex

with a whole pile

of young girls

as a way of worship.

We read the scripture.

Boy,

is that ever lame.

No power in that.

No...

With that.

What wimps.

And don't you know

this is how the world is,

you Jewish people?

Now you understand

a little bit

about what the constant

struggle is

that God is trying

to form a people

in the midst of

how everybody thinks

like this

which is very,

very different.

G.K. Chesterton

wrote a book

over a hundred years ago

called Orthodoxy.

It's still well worth reading.

And one of the things

that he said

is that

the sort of

in some ways

the modern world

has gone mad

and it's gone mad

because the modern world

has taken

some of the Christian virtues

maybe one or two of them

out of the whole range of them

and they've

followed them

to the utmost

but they follow

these virtues.

It's very interesting.

I was just watching

Tom Holland

who's still not a...

He's basically

become a Christian

in his thinking

but he acknowledges

that he hasn't

become a Christian.

But he now

just sees

that it's hard

for him to see

the world

through anything

other than Christian eyes

but he can't quite

have that giving

of himself.

And, you know,

he said

in this conversation

that

the modern world

takes a different virtue

and sort of drives it

like a sledgehammer

through everything

and has disconnected it

from the other

Christian virtues

and it's also

disconnected it

from God,

grace,

forgiveness

and forgiveness

and that that's

what's describing

the modern world.

So, if you could

put up the next point,

this would be

very helpful.

There can be

no good yes

without saying

multiple no's.

This is something

which is very hard

for us to think about

but if you think about it

all,

that's actually just

true all of the time.

If one of you decides

that you want to get

your PhD

which is a good thing

to do to pursue

that higher education,

you're going to have

to say no to all

sorts of things.

You're going to have

to say no to spending

the money that you spend

on your PhD

to maybe buy a car

or some other types

of things

or a nicer car.

You're going to say no

to spending,

you know,

on a nice day

you're going to go study

rather than go play

some sports.

Like, you have to see

a range of no's.

If you're going

to have children,

if God gives you

that ability

and the opportunity

to have children,

you have children,

you say yes to children,

you're going to have

to say no

to all sorts of things.

Your house won't be

as tidy,

you won't have

as much money

to spend on yourself.

You have to all of a sudden

take them into the account

when you do things

and if I want to say yes

in marriage to Louise,

I say no to three

and a half billion

other women.

That's like that.

You can't say yes

to something good

without saying

a whole range of no's.

The yes forms the no's.

That just makes sense,

right?

We want people

to say yes

to things which are good

and once you say that,

there's going to have

to be a whole pile

of no's.

And so that's what we see

working out here

in the text.

And if you cover up

the next point,

here it is.

The Lord is inviting you

to say yes

and embrace

his grace-given

beautiful way.

The Lord is inviting you

to say yes

and embrace

his grace-given

beautiful way.

You see,

here's what's going on

in the text

which we don't

entirely realize.

What they're saying,

what the Jewish people

are invited to learn

and we're invited

to learn from this

is to say,

no, no, no, no, no, no.

Human beings

aren't made

to be slaves.

God made human beings

so that we could be

in a covenant

of love with him.

His desire was

that we would walk

with him

and have talks

in the garden

with him

that he could have

fellowship with us.

That's the vision,

not slavery.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't just,

you don't just do

all of these things

to people.

You don't just sort

of treat your children

and your wife

and your kids

like property.

No, every human being

is made in the image

of God.

They have an integrity.

They have a dignity.

They have a value

that works.

No, no, no, no, no.

Everybody doesn't

have to be married.

Like, just,

what did I just say?

Every human being,

even if they're single,

even if they're a widow,

even if they're an orphan,

they have a value.

You can't just oppress them.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

The community

that should be formed

around this beautiful way

is one where they acknowledge

that there's the broken,

there's the poor,

there's the orphans,

there's the stranger,

and we're supposed

to care for them,

and we're not allowed

to oppress them.

And no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not as if men

are sort of somehow

better than women.

No, no.

There's this beautiful vision

that every man

bears the image of God

and a woman

bears the image of God.

And God wants

a husband and wife

to cleave to each other

and forsake all others

and to be generous

and to be fruitful

and to be multiply

and to make the world

into a garden

and into a beautiful place.

And it's to be characterized

not by the darkness

of doing these things,

but God wants there

to be light

and he wants there

to be life

and he wants there

to be generosity.

And he wants to be able

to walk with you.

And that's this beautiful vision.

And why wouldn't you

want to embrace that?

If you're watching this

and you don't know

where you are with Christ,

why wouldn't you want

to embrace that?

That's the vision.

Don't you want that

to be true?

That's what we want

to be true.

And the Bible says

God's,

and if you embrace

that vision,

you say no

to child sacrifice.

You say no

to incest.

You say no

to murdering your brother.

The beautiful way says

we're going to figure out

reconciliation

rather than murder.

We're going to figure out

truth-telling.

We're going to figure out

repentance.

We're going to figure out

prayer.

We're going to learn

how to walk

with our God together.

We want to row

in the same direction

in the family

and the community.

Isn't that a beautiful vision?

And if you do that,

you've got to say no

to all this other stuff.

So even in chapter 10,

I have to watch my time.

I'm sort of already

at the end of it.

Here's the thing,

is that from the law's

point of view,

and this is just

to give you a sense

of the complexity

of the issue,

not the complexity,

the closest modern

Canadian example

of what they're facing

is the issue

of bigamy.

You see,

according to Jewish law,

these relationships

were all illegal.

So just in Canada,

if it turned out

that I have

a second wife,

well,

that's against the law.

You folks would have,

if Louise didn't

kill me first,

you would have to

figure out what to do

with me about

having two wives.

But what the Canadian law

doesn't allow

is for there to continue

to be two wives.

One of them has to be

put away.

But how are they

put away?

There's two things

in the text

which give you a hint.

The first is,

by the way,

that there's conversion.

If you go back

and read Ezra 6,

Ezra 6:21

verse 21,

you'll see that

part of what's

been going on

on this whole

80, 100-year journey

is that the peoples

of the nations

get captivated

by this beautiful vision

and are included

in the beautiful vision.

And so conversion

is an option.

And the other thing

is that the law

which is used to judge,

and they don't go

into all the details,

there's literally

thousands of cases,

they can't go into

all of the details.

Well, they're judged

not according to

the pagan myths,

but they're judged

according to the law.

And the law

specifically says

you are to care

for the orphan

and the widow,

that justice

is to be done to them.

So it doesn't go

into the details,

but you know

that that's how

they're to be judged.

Now, just in my last

couple of minutes,

what about the racism

and the holy race?

If you could put up

the fourth point,

that would be very helpful.

The holy race

is not a biological reality,

but a grace-created reality.

The holy race

is not a biological reality,

but a grace-created reality.

In fact, actually,

literally,

it doesn't say race.

The Bible has no category

for race.

Race is a secular idea,

not a biblical idea.

Biblically,

there are only human beings,

and every human being

is made in the image of God,

and that's the only reality.

There's just human beings.

That's all there is.

But the actual literal word

isn't holy race,

but holy seed.

And it's a collective singular,

which is a weird tense.

But you see,

what makes,

in a sense,

so on one level,

it's describing

the people that God

has called apart

for himself,

but God calls them apart.

He doesn't just say,

oh, well,

you have the right chromosomes,

or you have the right skin color.

No,

everybody enters by grace.

God is the only one

who can set us aside

for himself.

It's a grace-driven reality,

and it's this odd

double symbolism,

because you see,

right,

if you go right,

the term first comes up

in Genesis 12,

where God said

he's going to bless

all of the people groups

of the world,

and he's going to bless

all of the people groups

of the world

through his holy seed.

And on one level,

it describes those people

that God has called

apart from himself,

but it also describes

the one who would come

from that people group,

which is the Messiah.

It's this,

because it's a collective singular,

it on one level

describes the people,

but it also can describe

one person.

And you see,

all the way through this,

even if you listen

to this text,

Ezra,

there's a,

you know,

there's both a promise

and a riddle

to how Ezra thinks.

He knows about this

holy seed,

and God is going to,

is doing something

through the holy seed,

and one day he's going

to go through something

with the holy seed.

He also understands

that he can't stand

in God's presence

because his sins

are so bad,

and he understands

there's something

grace there,

but he can't quite

get his mind around

how that's going

to all work out,

because you see,

if you just have,

if God just sort of

lets you just go

for the wrong things

you've done,

that's called favoritism,

that's called prejudice,

it's actually not

anything good.

And so there's this,

there's this profound

mystery and riddle

which is there

that somehow or another

there's this promise

of grace,

we don't see how grace

is going to work

because we do things

which are wrong,

and yet at the same time

we understand

that there's going

to be a way

that God is going

to make us holy

and stand in his presence,

and if you could put up

the final point

that would be very helpful.

it's a promise

and a riddle,

this beautiful way

points to the beautiful way

in all of its fullness

and completeness

that comes to Jesus,

from Jesus,

where even though

people reject Jesus,

virtually nobody in the world

anymore can think

apart from Jesus' teaching.

It's because of Jesus' teaching

that we're at first

struck with what's been

happening to the women.

That's not how pagans

would view it.

They would just say,

oh, well, you know,

sucks to be those women.

You know, we can kill them anyway.

Like, we can just kill

the children anyway.

But on one hand,

yeah, the Savior that comes

that changes how the world thinks,

at the same time,

well, here's the thing,

Jesus dies,

you know how all

of the pagan myths

say that human beings

are created to be slaves,

and part of the beautiful way

is that God did not make

human beings to be slaves.

But Jesus dies a slave's death

so that you, a slave

to the world, the flesh,

and the devil, and to idols,

and your passions

might be free in him.

That's the culmination

and the propulsion

of the beautiful vision.

If the pagan gods come,

you run because they want to kill.

when Emmanuel comes,

he dies

for those of us

who are slaves

so that we could be his children

by adoption and grace.

Isn't that a beautiful vision?

That is the beautiful vision.

And he wants to include you.

And he wants you

to embrace the beautiful vision,

and if you embrace

the beautiful vision,

there's going to be

a whole range of no's

that you have to say.

And by the way,

this whole issue

of intermarriage,

it's part of the reason

why it still is

a Christian teaching,

and it's a Christian teaching

if you just think about it

for a second.

I'm called to be generous

with my money,

and I think that the Bible

wants me to try

to be generous

with 10% of my money,

and if I marry somebody

who actually thinks

that's really wrong,

how's that going to work out?

I think I need to gather

with the Lord's people

on a Sunday morning,

and if I marry somebody

who says,

no, Sunday mornings

is when you sleep in,

and then maybe go

and have some really nice

croissants and coffee,

how's that going to work out?

And if you say,

I think I really need to go

and spend some time

in Bible reading and prayer,

and they say,

well, I wanted to spend

some time with you,

how's that going to work out?

And it can go on

and on and on,

and it's not that

the Lord is cruel to you,

he wants you to embrace

the beautiful vision,

and he wants you to walk

in the beautiful vision,

and he wants you to walk

in the beautiful vision

and the power

of the Holy Spirit

for your great good

and the good of the world,

and I urge you

to embrace it,

but stand in prayer.

Father,

I began by praying

about how we seem

to be contradictory

and we want it all,

and we want people

to think we're generous,

but we don't want

to give away any money.

We want people

to think we're smart,

but we don't want to read.

We want to be athletic,

but not work out,

and we never even

see ourselves usually

most of the time,

and Father,

we give you thanks

and praise for this

beautiful vision

and how it's anchored

in grace,

and we ask,

Lord,

that your grace

given to us in Jesus

would become such

an anchor to our soul

and such a strong

place to stand

and such a reality

in our lives

that pushes us

to be generous,

and it pushes us

even to look at ourselves

and on one hand,

Father,

just laugh at ourselves

at how ridiculous we are

and at the same time

call out to you

for help,

that Father,

our lives,

Father,

more and more and more

might embrace

the beautiful vision

in all of its completeness

in all of whom we are,

that this beautiful vision

would be that

which guides our church,

our individual lives,

our friendships,

our interactions,

Father,

with the state

as we try to get them

to cast away things

which aren't in keeping

with it,

not that they all

become Christians,

but that it's ultimately

a beautiful vision

for everybody,

and so,

Father,

we ask that this

beautiful vision

would become more real

to our hearts,

and we ask this

in the name of Jesus,

your Son and our Savior.

Amen.