Renewal Through Repentance - Ezra 9-10 (Sept 15) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to worship with you this morning.

We're in Ezra chapter 9 and chapter 10.

Ezra 9 · chapter mention

And as we turn there, I want to put this thought before you that there really can be no progress in life apart from cutting off what hinders that progress.

I'll say that again.

There's really no progress in any area of life, but especially true of our spirituality.

There's no forward momentum if we are unwilling to cut off the things that hinder that momentum.

And so the garden doesn't grow without many weeds being pulled.

Our diets don't work, right, without many calories being cut out.

If there is any forward momentum, it requires sacrifice.

This is why the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote this: let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

It's because this process of really repentance that he's talking about, where you're cutting off the things that are not for God's glory, this process of repentance is absolutely required for life.

There's no growth apart from sacrifice.

You know that to be true in your personal life, you know that to be true in your family.

We can even go into the business world and say this, that really, as we look at the great entrepreneurs, at the great businessmen of our days, there is no business success apart from great sacrifice.

We look at the great athletes of our day and recognize that, you know, for many of those athletes, every gram of nutrition is weighed, everything is cut out that doesn't support the goal of becoming the greatest.

It's true in many areas and avenues of life.

Well, it's especially true of our spiritual renewal, our spiritual growth.

Let me emphasize this again in case we've missed it.

There is no life apart from repentance.

Without renewal, this constant renewal of our spiritual lives, where we cut off what is dead, there's no thriving.

Martin Luther wrote of this in his 95 Theses.

That all of life really is repentance.

Now maybe as we even begin this morning to dig into God's word, you hear a message like this, and your thought is sort of this like, oh great, here we go again.

I know my life is not right.

I know that you know what the writer of Hebrews says, that there is sin and weights that cling so closely to us.

I know them, and I'm tired, and I just don't know if I can do this.

Maybe your thoughts and your feelings as you think about this, that all of life is repentance, is just this hardened, unwilling.

I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna do it.

I'm just in this place where I know my sin and it's fine.

I'm unwilling to change.

Let me suggest right now that as the spirit works in us this morning, what's gonna happen is those feelings of maybe like I'm too tired for this, I don't want to do this, they're gonna change into this spirit-fueled excitement.

This spirit-fueled excitement and hope and belief that change is actually possible because of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross.

This recognition that sin it makes miserable Christians.

You know that?

It makes miserable Christians, but there is every opportunity, every power available to you this morning to cut off the sin, to be transformed in the light of the glory of the face of Jesus Christ.

It's been true for all people that repentance is the path to life, but this morning it's we're gonna see that it was especially true for Israel under Ezra's leadership.

If Israel was gonna last in Jerusalem, if they were going to accomplish their mission to rebuild the temple and to establish the temple worship, well, repentance was gonna be necessary.

There would be no forward momentum in the life of Israel apart from repentance.

Well, we see that in Ezra 9 to 10.

The people are confronted with sin.

And the way they are confronted in sin is very much like has happened for many of us who have followed Christ for a number of years.

It's like when you're in a dark room and a light is turned on, and all of a sudden you can see what's there, and what's there horrifies you.

This is what happens for Ezra.

Everything is going well until we come to chapter 9.

And so let's read this together.

I'm going to read most of chapter 9 and chapter 10, and I would encourage you to follow along with me as we read, starting in chapter 9, verse 1.

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 God of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.

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 blushed 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 hands 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, to give us protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

And now, O our God, what shall we say after this?

For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, The land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the land, 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 of the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your for 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, has 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, and it is today.

Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.

Look at chapter ten, verse one with me.

While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.

And Shechaniah, the son of Jael, the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra.

We have broken faith with our God, and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.

Therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my Lord, and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.

Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you, be strong and do it.

Then Ezra arose, and made the leading priests and the Levites in all Israel take an oath that they would do as has been said.

So they took the oath.

Then Ezra withdrew from the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehoan, the son of Eliashid, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.

And proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the returned exiles that they should assemble at Jerusalem, and that if anyone did not come within three days, by order of the officials and the elders, all his property should be forfeited, and he himself banned from the congregation of the exiles.

Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days.

It was the ninth month on the twentieth day of the month, and all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the Israel.

Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will.

Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.

Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, It is so.

We must do as you have said.

But the people are many, and it is a time of heavy rain.

We cannot stand in the open, nor is this a task for one day or for two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.

Let our officials stand for the whole assembly, let all in our cities who have taken foreign wives come at the appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every city, until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away from us.

Only Jonathan, the son of Asahel, and Jehaziah, the son of Tikva, oppose this.

And Meshelem and Shabbatai the Levite supported them.

Then the returned exiles did so.

Ezra the priest selected men, heads of fathers' houses, according to their fathers' houses, each of them designated by name on the first day of the tenth month, they sat down to examine the matter, and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer together.

Father, we bow before you as we consider this truth, Lord, that the renewal that you want to accomplish in our lives, the revival that is necessary for those of us who are dead, the life that we want to live in you, Lord, it all requires repentance.

It all requires this painful process of cutting off the areas of our life that are not lived in submission and obedience to you.

God, we think about the weight of this.

We think about Ezra, who we just read about sitting appalled at the sin of Israel, tearing out the hairs of his beard, crying aloud to you.

God, because of the weight of his sin.

And God, I just confess that in this moment, Lord, I recognize how often I fail to feel the true weight of sin, the weight that Jesus felt on the cross when he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And so, God, I pray, under the tender care of your gracious and merciful hand, Lord, would you allow us this morning to feel the weight and feel the conviction of the sin that remains so closely to us, that we might lift our eyes from its despair, that we might lift our eyes from the disgusting nature of our sin and place them on the cross where we find hope, where we find life, where we find righteousness.

God help us, we pray.

Lead us by the power of your spirit.

I pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, we're understanding from Ezra this morning that renewal happens through repentance.

And the first thing I want you to understand is this that renewal will happen in our lives when our iniquity is identified.

Renewal happens when my iniquity is identified.

Notice this is really the first step that God takes Ezra and Israel through here in chapter 9.

It is this step of showing them the sins that were in their midst, the sins that they were committing.

For Ezra, it was like this light being turned on in a dark room.

The leaders of Israel had come to him and shown him exactly what was happening.

And so we read this in verse 1 and 2.

The officials approached Ezra and they said, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land.

He goes on to list the many different nations that these people had been marrying.

In verse 2, he says, 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 land.

And listen, this is the great problem.

In this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.

Not only are the leaders corrupt, all of Israel is showing this faithlessness in light of the faithfulness of this God who has brought them from exile in Babylon down to Jerusalem.

And their response is this.

Well, what's the issue here?

The issue is that the people of God are marrying or at least connecting themselves with the people of the land.

Ezra lists them off here.

He's doing so very intentionally because what he's trying to remind Israel of is a passage that would be fresh in their minds.

If you wanted to be a successful Israelite, you memorized Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 1 to 4.

Deuteronomy 7:1–4

In fact, I want to read it for you, and Ezra actually quotes part of this in his prayer.

In Deuteronomy 7, verses 1 to 4, it says, When the Lord your God brings you, speaking of Israel, into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you.

Deuteronomy 7:1–4

Now notice here that many of the names that Moses lists here are the names that Ezra lists the Hittites, the Gergeshites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you.

And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.

You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons.

And here's the great problem: for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.

And the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

I want you to notice something really important here.

I want you to notice that the problem for Israel is not interracial marriage.

The problem is not that they are just marrying other foreign nations.

The problem here is interfaith marriage.

The problem here is that by intermarrying with these foreign nations, they were being torn away from serving the living God.

In fact, throughout the Old Testament, we have a number of examples of Israel marrying women or men of other nations, and that sort of thing being applauded in Scripture because those men or women are of the faith.

And so you likely know the story of Ruth and Boaz.

Ruth is a Moabite.

Boaz takes Ruth into marriage, and their marriage is celebrated because Ruth has faith in God's promise.

You remember Rahab?

Rahab is a Canaanite.

And when Israel comes into Jericho, Rahab, because she believes in the promise of God, hides the Israelite spies, and later we're told she's married into Israel, and that is something that is celebrated.

So notice here, the problem is not interracial marriage.

The problem here is interfaith marriage.

The issue is that by marrying into these pagan nations, the son of Israel would be turned away from the faith of Israel.

See, in the Old Testament, interfaith marriage was forbidden.

I want you to understand that when we come to the New Testament, it's forbidden as well.

Paul writes to the Corinthian church, speaking of divorce, but certainly applicable to all men and women who are in the Lord, that marriage is to be in the Lord.

He also writes to the Corinthian church saying that believers are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

And with those two verses, we understand what Paul is saying.

That if if you are a genuine believer, if your faith is in Jesus Christ and you are married to an unbeliever, you will never be able to share together the things that you as a believer are saying that are they're most important to you.

You're saying Christ is my Lord and my Savior, and you've wed yourself to someone who will never lead you in that direction.

God looks at this as a very serious problem so that when we come to the New Testament, we understand this: that it's sin to marry an unbeliever, it's sin to date an unbeliever, because God cares too much about us serving him and being his children.

That's the can't command.

Certainly we understand the principle here.

That the reason God desires Christians to marry other Christians is He wants marriages where the husband and the wife build each other up in Christ.

This is important for us to understand.

It doesn't matter how much chemistry, it doesn't matter how much charisma that the person you have found has.

If they don't share this all-important reality, a love for Jesus Christ, then God forbids us to enter into a dating relationship, into a marriage relationship with that person.

Now in chapter 10, verse 9, we're told some details about the timeline here.

And the reality is that when Ezra is told here that the people of Israel are marrying the peoples of the lands, four months has passed.

This begs us to ask the question how come it took Ezra so long?

Ezra had been in Jerusalem for four months now, and you figure one of the first things he would have recognized is that some of these Israelites are not married to other Israelites.

You would have figured that maybe on the first day he would have come to recognize this, and there's some reasons for that.

One of the reasons we'll get into this a little more later, but the word for marriage here isn't the typical word for marriage.

So it's very possible that these people actually weren't married.

They were just entering into some sort of illicit relationship, so that perhaps Ezra wasn't immediately aware of exactly what was going on.

I don't know if that was the case, but here's what I do know is that when God deals with our sin, he often does so patiently.

Aren't you kind of thankful for that?

Aren't you kind of thankful that the first day you came to Jesus Christ, he wasn't like, bang, here's a list, rolls out a scroll, it keeps rolling, here's all the ways you're gonna mess up, okay?

I just want you to read it.

Get familiar with it.

Listen, in eight years there's gonna be some great wickedness.

Prepare yourself for this day.

God doesn't do that.

I mean, you and I would be horrified to know all of the things that we will walk into in the future, knowing the ways that we've walked in wickedness and rebellion in the past.

Instead, you know what God does?

God is like a good doctor who, if they care for your body and you come in with two bad knees.

I always get the people with bad knees listening at this point, their hands are up.

Amen, hallelujah, preach.

That doctor sometimes, and in fact, oftentimes, they won't operate on both knees at the same time.

They know that the healing that's required just to operate on one knee is going to be so extensive and hard for your body to go through.

That they'll just operate on that one thing and they will leave the other for a later date.

And you know, God is like a spiritual doctor for you.

He knows all the ways that you are insufficient.

Sometimes we can we make these prayers of confession as though God is up in heaven, like, oh my goodness, like he's reading E Magazine or something, entertainment tonight.

He knows.

And he's the one who's revealed it, and he's the one who's patiently leading us along, revealing these sins at the proper time.

And for Ezra, it wasn't for four months before God said, now's the time to deal with this.

You know what that means.

It means you and I always need to be ready.

God will use the trials that you're walking through today, the circumstances that you are in, that nagging boss that you just cannot stand, the phase that your teenager is in right now.

He will use these circumstances to reveal sin in your life.

Because he's playing the long game here.

He wants you to stand one day perfect in Christ, and he is content in his loving wisdom to be patient for that day.

And so listen, loved one, God is filled with love for you so that he wants what's best for you.

He's filled with wisdom so that he knows what's best for you.

And he's filled with patience so that he's willing to walk the long road with you and reveal what you need to know when you need to know it about yourself.

And so we stand ready.

God, if you're ready to put your finger on this pain point this morning, God, I'm ready.

I'm ready for it.

Renewal happens when our iniquity is identified.

The second thing I want you to see here is that renewal happens when my conscience is convicted.

Notice it's not just that our iniquity is identified.

There are many who don't grow because they know their sin, but they never have enough of a conviction about it to do anything with it.

We've got to do something about it.

So notice then how Ezra responds: as soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled my hair from my head and beard.

Church, can I suggest that when we read scripture, we often kind of put this filter on that keeps us from really understanding what is going on?

What would we do this morning if I came up here and I don't have enough of a beard really to do this anymore?

But the thing I did during my sermon was say, I'm so angry about the things that are happening in this church, I just pull my beard hair out.

I'm sure that there would be a, you know, that's pretty disgusting.

I mean, and he's really obviously very angry.

And here is Ezra, he's tearing his garment, he's pulling the hair from his beard.

It says he sits appalled.

So appalled that many, the the people who come in immediately understand what's going on and the weight of it, it falls upon their shoulders too.

And in this room, there are numbers of men gathered around Israel.

All of them, we're told, all of them trembling under the weight of God's word, all of them coming to this realization of exactly what has happened.

Let me ask you this question.

When was the last time you reacted like this to sin?

Does your sin disgust you?

Does your sin leave you appalled?

When was the last time you felt this deep and spiritual emotional pain because you sensed the gravity and weight of your sinfulness against the Lord?

And it's it's kind of easy to be appalled by other people's sins, right?

It's easy to look at other people's sins and you know, that's your sin is disgusting.

But man, it takes the spirit working in your life to look in the mirror and be more disgusted by what you see in you, and gracious and compassionate about what you see in others, because you see you know the depths of what's inside you.

Here's the reality: if if our hearts are truly inflamed with a passion and a love for Jesus Christ, then anything that stands against it will lead us to mourn like Ezra's mourning right now.

It'll lead us to stand appalled at the reality of how we can treat Jesus Christ in light of all that he has done for us.

Not only that, we'll we'll be caused to mourn for the sin of others, knowing that because of their sin, Jesus is not getting the praise that he deserves.

See, you and I are so willing to mourn sin when it hurts us.

Are we willing to mourn sin when it hurts the heart of the Father?

Here's what Ezra is doing.

I want you to understand here why I think Ezra's mourning over the sin is adequate.

I think it's because he sees the heart of this sin.

Look what it says in verse 4.

It says, Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles.

And then again, throughout his prayer, he keeps coming back to this idea of the faithlessness of the exiles in light of the faithfulness of God.

You see, the reason why Ezra is so horrified by his sin here is not because of the actions that Israel took.

You'll notice it doesn't say that he was mourning because of the intermarriage of the returned exiles.

The reason that Ezra's mourning here is because of the heart.

Ezra has seen past the actions into the heart, and the disgusting reality is that in light of God's faithfulness, the Israelites have acted in faithlessness by marrying into the pagan nations.

This is really important for you and I.

I truly believe this is the reason why so many of us fail to mourn over sin.

It's because we only see our actions and we never drill down deep enough to ask the questions of what are the heart, sins, and attitudes that are dishonoring to the Lord that are deal that are leading to those actions.

Let me give you a few examples.

We know we don't read the Bible, that's action.

But we don't see the heart of unbelief.

We just don't believe God's word is relevant or useful to us.

We know we sometimes get angry with our spouse or our kids.

That's the action.

But we don't see past the anger to the heart of anger.

That the reason why we get angry is really the selfishness that I just don't really care about anyone else and I want my way when I want my way.

Men know they watch pornography.

They don't see the heart of disregarding the worth of human beings that have been created in God's image.

You see, until we see the wickedness of our heart, we will trivialize the actions of our sin.

So what's necessary then is that we that we get past the actions and we and we ask this question when when sin is revealed in its action, we ask this question, God, try my heart.

What is the heart behind this action?

Reveal that to me, because then I can fall on my knees before you and say, God, heal me of this selfishness, heal me of this pride.

I recognize that it's not the actions that need to change, it's the heart that leads to the actions.

This is hard work.

This is taking off the bandage to see how bad the wound really is.

But we must do it.

And I want you to know that oftentimes you can't do this work yourself.

It often takes the loving and gentle words of encouragement and rebuke of a brother or sister in Christ.

Well, what do we do once we see the wickedness of our heart?

Notice here that Ezra he turns to prayer.

This is exactly what we do.

We we confess our sin.

But I want you to see something important here.

That the thing that drives Ezra to confession is this belief in the grace and mercy of God.

He confesses sin because he believes that God will be gracious with us.

So time and time again throughout this prayer, we read of the steadfast love of the Lord.

In verse 13, Ezra says, Seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant as this.

The confession of Ezra is on this foundation of this idea that God is gracious and that he is willing to extend a hand of forgiveness to those who seek him through confession.

We hate problems, don't we?

It's part of a human being, like you and I, we we just have to hate problems.

But of all the problems we have, you know what the most exciting problems to have are?

They're the problems that you know there's a solution to.

That my wickedness cannot reach the depths of your overflowing mercy.

See, it's not that we're excited about our sin, but we certainly are filled with a gospel-infused hope that the sin, when once it has been identified, can be met with the unending mercy of God.

We turn confession to hope.

Confession becomes the bucket that we lower into the well of God's grace and mercy, and we lift the bucket up and we find forgiveness.

We find peace.

We find restoration with God.

See, for many of us, confession is this dark reality.

It's this thing that's only filled with sadness.

But but here I believe Ezra is approaching this with such joy because the darkness that he has just met in Israel, he knows can be matched with mercy.

This is the reality of the gospel.

You know this, that the belief in the gospel, it frees you to see your deepest, darkest moments, to see the worst version of yourself, and it dares you in that moment to believe that the grace of God and the mercies of God are still deeper than your darkest, deepest sin can go.

I've said this before, this quote that Jack Miller says, I'll say it again.

He says this, cheer up.

You're a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you're more loved than you ever dared to believe.

I love that.

I mean, you just you don't even know the beginning of how sinful you really are.

I mean, you and I, we haven't even gotten to the stage that Ezra's at where we start ripping out our beard hairs yet, I think.

There are some patchy beards around here, so maybe this morning there is a grieving session that I missed.

I don't think we've gotten there yet.

And here is this gospel hope that as dark as it will get, as sinful as you can dare to imagine, you will always be met with imagined love.

See this gospel belief, it gives us the grounds to take sin seriously.

We don't have to try to work harder when sin is exposed to make things right.

If we're in Christ, we know that that sin is paid for and that Jesus' words are true.

It is finished, even for this thing that's just been revealed.

I love what Tim Keller says.

This is gonna come up on the screen.

He says, the gospel gives you psychological freedom to handle the wrong things that you will do.

You don't have to deny, spin, or repress the truth about yourself.

These things don't make it impossible to know who you are.

Only with the support of hearing Jesus say, you are capable of terrible things, but I am absolutely, unconditionally committed to you, will you be able to be honest with yourself?

See, the gospel allows you to see your heart and be truly convicted about it because it gives you the power to change, to be renewed.

Here's the last thing I want you to see this morning that renewal happens when my response is repentance.

Here's the most important thing: not just that our iniquity is identified, not just that our conscience is convicted, but that we actually do something about it.

So in chapter 10, verse 2, Shechaniah comes to Ezra with an idea.

He says, We've broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land.

But even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.

Therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children according to the counsel of my Lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.

Israel commits themselves to putting away these foreign marriages.

And we have an important question to ask here is Is this God condoning divorce?

Scripture gives two reasons for divorce that are permissible.

It's adultery.

If someone in the marriage commits adultery, then it's permissible for divorce, and that's an abandonment.

Paul talks about this in Corinthians.

If a spouse leaves and every effort is made to reconcile that marriage, then Paul says that that remaining spouse is free to remarry, and those are the two reasons we're given for divorce.

Well, here God commands Israel to divorce these women and men.

How do we make sense of what's happening here?

Well, we already said it.

One of the ways that we can make sense of it is by understanding that the word for marriage here isn't the typical word that's used in the Hebrew.

And the word for wives here, it also can mean women.

So it's very possible that what's happening here isn't actually marriage.

So that's what's being commanded isn't actually divorce, but more of an idea of separation.

But whether or not that's the case, we we need to recognize something about this, and that that's that what's happening in Ezra is not prescriptive for marriage.

This is descriptive of what has happened at that time, and that's an important distinction for us to make as we read through scripture that not all things that happen in Scripture become hard and steadfast rules for the church.

That time at times, especially according to God's commands, there are exceptions to the rules.

But for whatever the case is, God here has commanded that the men and women separate themselves from these foreign marriages.

I want you to notice that as they do this, they do it in a very organized way, which is teaching us something really important about our own repentance, and that's this that repentance is planning for change.

If you are truly walking in repentance, you have a plan for change.

You need a battle plan.

You know that there can be no victory in any area of life if there is no plan for how you are going to overcome that enemy and how you're gonna walk in victory.

And so you ask yourself this question: what's my plan?

What obstacles do I need to put off?

What practices do I need to put on?

How am I gonna be prepared to overcome the enemies that attack?

I have a recurring dream in my life, and I don't know if I can call it a dream.

It's more of a nightmare, and I want to share it with you so that you can counsel me.

But in this dream, I often, you know, the dream starts, and I'm in the front row of a, it's clearly a church, but I don't know what church, and it's a massive church, and the dream always starts with the person who's introducing me to preach.

And I look at myself, I don't have my Bible, I don't have notes, I'm not prepared to preach at all, and I wake up in sort of this like, I mean, I don't know if you've ever done anything like this before, but not being prepared is pretty much the most absolutely worst thing you could do.

I wake up in this sort of sweat, like this terror, I was not prepared for this.

And how many of us are addressing our spiritual sin like this?

We know that there are things that are hindering our walk with the Lord, but we don't have a plan for it.

We're not prepared for that day that temptation comes.

We're not prepared, even today, to cut off the habit that's keeping us from the Lord, that's keeping us from waking up in the morning to get into God's word and pursue Him in prayer.

And so here's my question: what's your battle plan?

What is in your life right now that's an obstacle to your growth?

Let me just suggest one that's probably relevant for most of us.

And that's an unhealthy relationship with your phone or whatever device you have.

It's an unwillingness to lock down your device so that you don't spend countless hours and hours a day mindlessly scrolling through things that just do not matter, so that you don't spend countless time watching shows that just do not contribute, but actually take away from your spiritual health and renewal.

And so, what's your plan?

How are you gonna cut that off so that there's room to grow?

Notice another thing here that's true about repentance and as Ezra leads Israel through it, and that's that repentance is zealous for holiness.

Repentance is zealous for holiness.

That means it's willing to go any length to eliminate sin.

So that when the people of Israel are truly convicted that what they had done was sinful, they were willing to cut themselves off from these families.

And some of us look at that and we say, that's incredibly harsh.

And yet, if anyone in Israel thought this was so, the reality was that they didn't grasp the seriousness of sin.

They didn't grasp how big of a deal their sinfulness and faithlessness was.

The same is true of us.

When we recognize the seriousness of sin, no weight, sorry, the weight of sin, no action that we take to fight it will be too extreme.

This is why when Jesus talks about sin, he says that if you find sin and it's a sin of your eye, you need to gouge your eye out.

It's better to go to heaven with no eyes than to be thrown into hell with both.

He says it's better to cut if your left hand causes you to sin, it's better to cut it off than to go into hell with both hands.

It was this illustration to help us understand that there is nothing we can do on this earth that will compare to the pain of the judgment we will face if we do not act seriously about our sin.

So recognize this.

True repentance, then, it doesn't really care for moderation.

True repentance doesn't ask, how can I tow the line here?

How can I like kind of get rid of this in the most comfortable way possible?

What true repentance does is it's willing to take the pain of turning away from that thing in order for the change and renewal of healing in Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna notice one last thing about repentance here.

Not that repentance is eager for righteousness.

Why did these people take such radical action?

Look at verse 14 of chapter 10 with me.

Where the people speak to the leaders of Israel, and they say, Let our officials stand for the whole assembly, let all in our cities who have taken foreign wives come at appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every city, until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away.

Maybe you're here this morning and your faith is not in Jesus Christ.

Can I tell you that one of the things that will the only thing really that will drive you to Jesus Christ is a recognition that there is a day coming where you will face the wrath and judgment of God because of the sin that you have walked in.

The Bible says that the wages of sin.

Is death.

The wages of sin is death.

And so these people understood that the wages of their intermarrying these pagan nations was death, that they deserved God's judgment.

And you need to understand this morning that if you are not in Christ, the wages of your sin, the fair payment, the just payment for the ways that you have rebelled against God is eternal death.

So ask me this question.

Do you know that the day is coming?

The judgment day is coming where all will be made right.

Every sinner will enter into the eternal payment of their sins.

Maybe for the first time this morning, the Holy Spirit is doing this work in your life where your eyes are being opened to the seriousness of sin, to the reality of eternal judgment, to the reality that because of your sin, you will spend all of eternity trying to pay back that sin, and you will never begin to scratch the surface of how great the wrath of God is against you because of the ways that you've rebelled against an eternal and infinite God.

And if that weight is felt on your shoulders right now, then what needs to happen is you allow the Holy Spirit to cause your eyes to look away from the condemnation, towards the hope of Jesus Christ, to know this, that there is a way for the wrath of God to be turned away from you.

It is through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ comes.

And just as the gavel is about to be struck, just as you are about to be declared guilty, Jesus raises his hand and he stops the court scene and he says, wait a minute.

I'll pay the penalty.

I'll pay the price.

And the father agrees.

So Jesus, 2,000 years ago, he comes to this earth.

And he's on a beeline for the cross.

And he climbs on that cross.

And he dies a death that he never deserved to die.

For the actions and the faithlessness, and the pride and the selfishness.

And the list goes on and on and on.

The sins of all those who would ever believe in him.

This is the heart of the gospel.

Jesus takes your place so that you can receive salvation.

This is why we always look to the cross.

If all we ever do is look at our sin without ever looking to the Savior, then we are to be pitied.

But here we find joy.

There's no other place we find righteousness.

If we look to the cross, we find that judgment has been paid.

Righteousness is now ours.

This is what we remember as we enter into communion this morning.

And if you weren't able to receive a communion cup when you came in, the ushers are going to make their way to the front.

And you can just raise your hand in the air and they'll get a communion cup into your hands.

And if you're not a believer, I just ask that you let this pass by.

This is a celebration for our believers of everything that we just talked about.

When we take the bread in the cup, we're reminded that Jesus' body was broken.

His blood was shed.

So, in very many ways, this is not just a ritual.

This is not just some sort of religious right.

This is real communion with Jesus Christ Christ, where Jesus is with us, and he wants us to remember that his blood has been shed.

It doesn't need to be your blood.

His flesh has been pierced, it doesn't need to be your flesh.

The penalty has been paid.

It's a proclamation.

The judgment has already fallen.

So we eat the bread.

We remember his body that was broken for us.

We drink the cup.

Remember his blood.

It was poured out for your forgiveness, for my forgiveness.

We're reminded that we are no longer under the weight of God's wrath because Christ hasn't taken it at all.

Paul says in Corinthians 11, 26 each time we partake in communion, we proclaim the Lord's death.

We're saying his work is finished.

That's incredibly important.

So we're going to take this time to reflect on that reality, and I would just encourage you to make this as personal of a time for you as you can, where you just lift these things up to the Lord where you're not, you have the courage to see your great wickedness and sinfulness, but you have the hope to know that your wickedness is met and matched by the love of the Savior.

And during the song, I would just encourage you to take the elements at your own time.

And when you're ready, join with us and sing before the Lord.

Let's turn to the Lord and worship.

Reveal to me what sin remains, then lead me, Jesus cross again, restore my soul, revive my heart, renew my life in every part, reveal to me what sin remakes, then lead me to the cross again at the cross to your hand has made so fine.

Father, as we partake in the communion, Lord, we think of the communion that we have with you, Lord.

I'm so thankful for it, Lord, knowing that that is only possible through the saving work of the cross, Lord.

Lord, I just pray that you draw us to our repentance, convict us of the sin in our lives, Lord God, and so thankful that we just have hope in Christ, knowing that you will lovingly forgive us with our every cry and prayer, Lord.

We commit this in your hands.