Traversing the Trench: Ezra 9 & 10

Lord, I pray that You will create in our kids a clean heart and that You would constantly renew a right spirit within them, keeping their thoughts and actions pure and motivated by love. Guard them from temptation, and let them know You are always faithful to give them a way out and help to endure. May the words of their mouths and the meditations of their hearts always please you.

We also want to pray for our homeschool parents, school teachers, and administrators. Bless them with wisdom, integrity, patience and the physical and mental energy equal to their tasks.  May you continue to use these servants to build your Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Introduction

Ezra 9 & 10

Go ahead and turn with me to Ezra chapter 9 this morning. Today we will be looking at the final two chapters, still studying in an attempt to extract principles as to how God goes about building his people.

Tenzing Norgay

One of my favorite experiences during our time in India was touring the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute dedicated to training the next generation of Himalayan Trekkers.

The museum was named after Tenzing Norgay, the famed sherpa who was first to summit Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1954.

Since that tour I have been addicted to reading or watching anything that has to do with mountaineering, especially Everest. Of course from the comfort of my lazy boy.

But I’ve learned that summiting Everest takes on average 8-10 weeks, and costs approximately $50,000 for a Westener, all to have a mere 50% chance to succeed and a 5% chance to die…

But what I’ve learned… is that the most dangerous portion of Everest is actually met on Day 1 of your climb, and is known as the notorious Khumbu Ice Fall.

Picture

The Khumbu Ice Fall is a huge glacier, but on the glacier there are blocks of ice bigger than houses, and trenches between the ice hundereds of feed deep.

One wrong step, and your walk… not just on Everest, but earth is over!

Let’s zoom in so you can see the danger here…

So because the Khumbu Ice Fall is so dangerous the mountaineers spend nearly 2 weeks acclimating to the altitude at base camp, but also training and being educated on the best approach to traverse these perilous trenches.

Ezra

So far in our text, the remnant of Israel has been on quite the journey.

The first trek, led by Zerubbabel in Ezra 1-6, was successful.

They rebuilt their worship, and dedicated the Temple.

They rebuilt their personal and private lands and homes.

They got married… had kids.

To some degree their Trek up to this point looked like this:

Graph!

How many of us when we began our trek with God expected it to be like this?

You get saved, or recommit to the Lord, and your expectation, aware of it or not, is that its smooth trekking from here on out.

But if you’ve been walking with the Lord for any amount of time, at some point you step out of basecamp, and the myriad of trenches that litter your path sober you up pretty quick.

What many of you know is that walking by faith with God is more like this:

Graph

In our text today, we are going to find the people of Israel in a Trench.

Even in-spite of years of God’s tangible steadfast love, patience, mercy, and favor leading and guiding their rebuild they take some massive missteps and fall into a proverbial Trench.

Ezra in very demonstrative fashion is going to teach them how to Traverse the Trench, and I believe the principles we will see in our text are still very applicable to us today as well.

Let’s begin by reading Ezra 9:1-4

Ezra 9:1–4 ESV

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.

The Word of God Exposes the Trench

Context

Zerubabbel and company successfully accomplished phase 1 of the rebuild, but by the time Ezra leads Phase 2, 57 years has transpired.

And as Coleman preached last week showed us last week in Ezra 7,.

They successfully arrived in Jerusalem in the 5th month (which in the Hebrew Calendar would have been August).

The confession of this congregational sin in our text today take place in the 9th month (December) according to Ezra 10:9

But something took place between their arrival in August, and this revelation of sin in December is incredibly significant to our text today, and it is found in Nehemiah 8.

Nehemiah 8:1-3 “And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. (This would have been OCTOBER).

Nehemiah 8:8 “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”

Remember, Ezra was a scribe who Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

And as soon as he successfully leads Wave 2 of the Jewish remnant back to Jerusalem he stands up before all the people and reads the entire Torah!

And what is the outcome of this expository preaching of the Word of God?

Ezra 9:1 “After these things had been done, the officials approached Ezra and said, “the priests, the levites, and all the peoples have been FAITHLESS (vs.2).

And this is point #1 for us this morning:

How do we traverse the trenches of our faith?

WE NEED THE WORD OF GOD TO EXPOSE THEM.

All Scripture is profitable for reproof and correction. (1 tim 3)

The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any 2 edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirits, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” (Hebrews 4)

According to Paul, this is one of he primary purposes of the Scripture.

Romans 7:7-8 “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the Scriptures, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

The Word of God Exposes Trenches.

Deep crevasses of sin that will dangerously hinder your journey with God, and to traverse them you need the Word of God to light your path. To expose your sin. To traverse the trench.

A couple of additional points here:

Notice that they all had sinned…

But I want to highlight the priests and levites.

The priests and Levites were supposed to be the spiritual leaders. The shepherds of Israel who were appointed and set apart by God to model righteousness and faithfulness.

There’s a principle here:

As the leaders go, so the church goes. When spiritual leaders abandon their personal passion for Jesus, and His righteousness it isn’t long until that level of spiritual apathy entrenches the entire community of faith.

Secondly, let’s dive a little deeper in what their trench, their sin, actually was.

Faithlessness

Ezra 9:1 “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations…

Ezra 9:2 “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.

In short, they had intermarried.

From the beginning, God had chosen Abraham and his decedents and established COVENANT with them, and one of the conditions of that covenant was that they be A HOLY RACE (vs. 2).

A ethnic group of people that is distinct, because their God is distinct.

A category of people that is markedly different than the world around them.

A race of people that is set-apart, or separate from others.

Not because of who they are, but because they are intended to reflect a distinct, separate God.

A God who isn’t simply holy, but holy, holy, holy!

But I have to be clear here, their sin wasn’t racial. This isn’t a racial sin.

You see the OT didn’t completely forbid intermarriage.

Several men of faith in Scripture had non-Israelite wives, and the Book of Ruth is a striking example.

Ruth shows that David and even Jesus was a descendent of an “inter-racial” marriage.

So to read this text and assume the issue is inter-racial marriage is a gross misunderstanding.

This isn’t about racial intermarriage, but about SPIRITUAL intermarriage.

Look at vs. 1, “they have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands and their abominations.”

The Law, which Ezra just preached and explained reads, Deut 7:3-4 “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 from following me, to serve other gods!

The issue wasn’t the race of their spouse… the issue was the gods of their spouse.

The OT directly spoke into this countless times, and always at its core was the warning that the worship of who you marry either serves to fuel the fire of your devotion for Yahweh, or snuff it out.

So here in Ezra 9… after 57 years of peace and prosperity the people of Israel married spiritual idolaters, and consequently it was leading them to reject God and conform to the patterns of this world.

The same issue that got them exiled in the first place.

They were once again entrenched in faithlessness.

That word means= a breach of trust. It was a violation of covenant.

They had once again, only after 57 years, failed to uphold the conditions of God’s covenantal relationship.

And Ezra vs. 4… sat appalled. Stunned. Awe-struck, at how a people could be so blind, so apathetic, so numb to the commands and conditions of their God.

Surely the Solomon was right when he wrote, “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.”

Entrenched Today

But let’s take this a little closer to home this morning.

How many of us, live entrenched in the sin just as they did?

You see, we too are called to separate ourselves from the world

We are called to live in the world, but not be like the world.

We are called to love those in the world, but not the things of this world.

What I’m saying is that being a disciple of Jesus Christ implies a distinct lifestyle because your allegiance and loyalties are different from those of the world.

Romans 8:29 says “we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,” in contrast to being conformed to the patterns of this world?

So let me ask you a very clear cut question this morning...

Are you distinct? Is there something different about you? Is the way you talk, work, live, play, love, parent, different from the unredeemed world around you?

Are the things you listen to, entertainments you enjoy, movies you watch, purchases you make, friends you surround yourselves with, different from the world aroundn you?

Are you distinct? Or are you guilty of faithlessness, and violating your covenant with your God?

Now let me close this point by saying this:

The last thing I want you to do is leave today and try harder. You need to understand something… You can’t get yourself out of this Trench.

There is no amount of effort, or behavioral modification you can do to wriggle yourself free.

The Word of God exposes your trench, but fortunately the Word of God is going to show us the way out also.

Ezra 9:5–15 ESV

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 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 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.”

Throw Yourself Upon the Mercy of God

The Word of God has exposed their faithlessness, and you would think after Ezra’s demonstrative reaction of tearing his cloak, and pulling his hair and beard out, and fasting…he’d be primed and ready for action.

But his reaction, could easily be perceived as inaction.

Instead of rushing to confront, he proceeds to THROW HIMSELF UPON THE MERCY OF GOD.

He didn’t begin with a flurry of activity, instead he ran to the closet of obscurity.

He didn’t run to the whiteboard and begin drawing out the strategy and plan of action to deal with the people, instead he hit his knees to deal with His God.

Look at the beginning of his prayer.

Ezra 9:6 “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.”

Church, don’t miss this:

Ezra wasn’t personally guilty. He hadn’t intermarried. He knew the law, and he had set his heart to do the law.

But from the outset of his prayer he personally identifies with his community and grieves over their sin as if it is his own sin.

Spiritual Leaders: Elders, Deacons, Pastoral Staff, Ministry leaders, Grow Group Leaders, cbcKids volunteers, listen to me…

A Spiritual Leader must identify with, and not stand above the congregation they seek to minister too.

A true religious leader isn’t someone who can lead a religious organization, or preach powerful religious sermons… but the true test of a shepherd of God is rather or not they grieve over the sin of their people.

And Ezra models that beautifully. But there are 2 key truths in this prayer that will help us Traverse the Trench of our sin.

First, Ezra notes Yahweh does not owe us mercy.

The first thing he does is acknowledge their sin:

Ezra 9:7“From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt... and to utter shame, as it is today.”

Ezra recognizes that the pain, and suffering, and grief they’ve endured as a collective people is due their consistent faithlessness.

Yet even in spite of centuries of rejecting God Ezra says...

Ezra 9:8 “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.”

Ezra has acknowledged how guilty they have been and currently are. Unworthy of mercy, grace, and love… yet, as he reflects on their past and present

Ezra acknowledges that the return and the rebuild up this point is all due to the mercy of God, and they have done nothing to earn it!

He goes on to say, Ezra 9:13 “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,”

In short, Ezra owns their sin, and in the meantime is reminded of God’s Mercy, and it was totally unearned by them!

Secondly, Ezra is aware Yahweh will uphold justice.

Church, God is merciful… but he is also Just.

In fact, Psalm 97:2 “justice is the foundation of his throne.”

This means that for God to overlook sin would in fact be sin.

justice requires that evil is punished and righteousness rewarded. That is fair. It’s Just.

His prayer is the tensions of these 2 truths.

He is merciful, yet he is also just so...

So Ezra concludes… Ezra 9:15 Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.””

Ezra knows… we are guilty. He owes us nothing but the justice we deserve…

What can be done!?

he concludes we must throw ourselves upon His mercy, and perhaps His mercy will triumph over judgement as it has before...

So let’s drive this home a little bit for us today:

The Word of God has exposed that you are entrenched in sin.

What do you do? What can you do?

He does not owe you anything:

For you, like the nation of Israel, stand guilty of sin.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

We are all guilty. We can make no claims to God’s mercy. We have no righteousness to plead before Him.

The debt of your faithlessness would take all of eternity to pay off.

He owes you nothing, and you have earned the inevitable death that the khumbu ice fall of your sin provides.

and… He is Just.

Romans 2:6 “He will render to each one according to his works:”

Colossians 3:25 “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”

He is Just, and He must punish sin.

Ya’ll this is very bad news for us…

What must we do? What can we do? How do we traverse this trench?

We must throw ourselves upon the Mercy of God.

And if you want a true picture of His Mercy, look no further than to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:23-26 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a substitute by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

At the cross of Jesus Christ, God demonstrates that he is Just.

Sin was punished. Just not on you… but a substitute.

But at the cross of Jesus Christ, God was the justifier and cleanses you to the point that it’s now just-as-if-i’d never sinned.

Oh He is merciful!

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Listen… if you’re not a believer in Jesus Christ… you’re not starting the trek of your life from basecamp… what you need to be aware of is that you born in the khumbu ice fall.

You’re entrenched, and don’t even know it… the only hope for you is to throw yourself upon the mercy of God at the cross of Jesus Christ.

But if you are a believer in Jesus. You have received his mercy, and attempt to trek through life with God… yet, you have somehow found yourself entrenched in sin… and newsflash, you will slip up.

You will stumble.

Perfection awaits on the other side of eternity, so its really not if you fall in to the trench, but when… what do you do?

You too, must throw yourselves upon the mercy of God

but in chapter 10 Ezra gives us one more tip to traverse the trench.

Confess and Repent

Ezra 10:1-4 “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.”” a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

This is so beautiful… one man’s brokenness spurs on the brokenness of the nation.

truly as psalm 51 says, God does not despise a broken spirit,

and the brokenness of Ezra over sin testified more powerfully to the reality of God.

And simply witnessing the contrition of Ezra produced corporate conviction among a very great assembly (vs 1).

Now the masses have become aware of their faithlessness, and say in Ezra 10:2 “, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.”

This assembly agreed with Ezra… We are guilty, and we deserve to be punished far worse than mere exile…

Yet… it hasn’t happened. We are still alive. Still Breathing.

Can I encourage you this morning… some of you are entrenched in sin. And you’re so deep in it that you’ve grown hopeless. Hopeless that you’ll ever emerge from the darkness of that trench.

Some of you have kids that live unashamedly in the trench, with no seeming sign of conviction or conscience.

Let the word of God encourage you… THERE IS STILL HOPE. GOD IS STILL MERCIFUL.

As long as you have breath in your lungs, you can still cry out to God and throw yourself upon His mercy.

And this assembly, recognizing there is still hope states that they want to renew covenant.

Look at Ezra 10:3 “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.”

It’s not too late… let us renew covenant.

But then they say…

Ezra 10:4, “Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you, be strong and do it.”

They recognize what needs to be done, but then go… ummm this aint’ gone be good. You’re going to tell all these men that their out of line with Scripture, that they’ve been faithless, and in order to renew covenant they must divorce their kids and their children!”

Oh man, this hit me in the soul this week ya’ll. You see,

Every church wants a Pastor like Ezra. Someone who has devoted themselves to study the Word, to do it, and to teach it.

Oh we love that Pastor. He preaches the Word…

But Pastoral Ministry isn’t simply about preaching the Word, but also holding each of you accountable to living it! And when you start holding people accountable to the covenantal relationship with God it gets dicey pretty quick!

It takes courage. Pastoral Ministry isn’t for the faint hearted.

But Ezra knew that the image and character of God was at risk… and church it is no less today.

You and I are the body of Christ, we are Christians, “little Christ’s” and when we live out of alignment with the distinction we are called to reflect Pastors must rise up and call each of us to align ourselves with what he requires. .

And a proclamation is issued that all men in Israel must assemble in Jerusalem and if they fail to appear their property would be confiscated.

Ezra 10:10-11 “And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of 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.””

Standing out in the freezing rain, Ezra full of the Holy Spirit calls a spade a spade, and says you’re guilty. You have been faithless… but there’s still hope… and he gives them 2 steps to traverse the last part of the trench:

Make Confession to the Lord!

Make Confession to the Lord

Ezra had confessed on behalf of the corporate congregation. Now it was time for each individual to confess.

To confess is admission of what we did and agreement with God that our actions or words or thoughts were wrong. Confession is admitting that we violated God’s law. That we were faithless.

And there is Hope!

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

So many of you remain entrenched, because you won’t confess!

You’re ashamed to admit your guilt, or embarrassed as to what others might think. And as long as you live in silence, you remain entrenched.

To traverse the trench you must confess.

Secondly, Ezra tells them to Repent.

Repentance involves the desires and actions to actually change course. Confession without repentance is mere words.

Repentance is the next step, because repentance demonstrates the truthfulness of your confession.

Ezra told men that day… confess, but then when you leave here Separate Yourselves.

Your guilt is that you have conformed… your repentance is that you leave transformed.

For some of you the step of repentance has been lacking. Oh sure you’ve confessed, largely because you hate you’ve been caught or just want to make it better, but your guilt hasn’t broken you enough to actually desire a changed course.

For some of you this is how you get out of the trench:

Sheep:

All kidding aside, isn’t that so true for us… sometimes what you need is to confess, and then invite someone into your life to help you walk out the repentance.

So to be a people built for the Kingdom of God, you’re going to have to learn to traverse the trenches.

It won’t be all smooth sailing. You’re going to fall, you’re going to stumble.

But...

Let the Word of God Expose your Sin.

Throw yourself upon the Mercy of God.

Confess and Repent and be on your way as a person built for the Kingdom of God.

Conclusion

After Ezra’s instruction, Ezra 10:12 “Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, “It is so; we must do as you have said.”

So over the next several months, every city had officials and elders and judges assigned to them to ensure the follow up,

Ezra 10:17 “and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women.”

They had traversed the Trench.

Let’s pray.