Repentance
Notes
Transcript
Ezra 10
Ezra 10
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 Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law. Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it.” Then Ezra arose and made the leading priests and Levites and all Israel take an oath that they would do as had been said. So they took the oath.
The people of Israel were not supposed to marry anyone outside of their nation in this time. They were the people of God and they were only supposed to marry the people of God, the same can be said for us today. As Christians we are the people of God and we are supposed to only marry other Christians. Though there is a lot of deeper discussion that can be had on this topic the main point is that the people sinned. They committed acts that displeased God.
In our lives we sin a lot. Though we work to not sin we still fall into it. The thing is though that we are to live lives of constant repentance. Constant turning away from our sin and back to God. That is exactly what they are doing here in this passage. They are so upset about their sin that they are weeping over it. When was the last time that you were truly broken over your sin?
In our world today it is easy to just be focused on the sins of others and the sins of the world. There is no shortage of them but we must look at ourselves more than anything and continually turn away from the sins that we fall into. We need to be broken over our sins. This is how we grow in our holiness, how we grow in our faith. Sin is a nasty thing but repentance is a beautiful thing but is a hard thing because it requires you to face the fact that you have done something wrong and have messed up.
Repentance is also part of our salvation, Jesus says in Mark 1.15 “and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”” to accept the salvation that Jesus offers we are to repent and believe. We are to turn away from our sins and to put our faith in Jesus.
Repentance is a very important thing in our lives and we should live lives of constant repentance.
