The Prayer Of Ezra (Ezra 9:1-15)

Introduction

A. Preliminaries

Good morning. We continue our sermon series on the book of Ezra this morning, and we find ourselves in Chapter 9 today. There are only 10 chapters in Ezra so we are nearing the end. We’ll have another week or two in Ezra.

So by way of reminder, Ezra has arrived in Jerusalem with a second host of returned exiles. And I’ve been telling you that he’s coming to Jerusalem with a mission in mind. A desire for Reform and Revival. Today we discover what it was that had driven him back to his ancestral home. They have arrived in Jerusalem. They have offered up sacrifices to celebrate.

Let’s look at the text now.

B. Sermon Text

Ezra, speaking in the first person says...

Ezra 9:1–15 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. 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.”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God!

C. Textual Walkthrough

So last week I tried something a bit different and that was to start the sermon with a broad overview of the text after reading it. I do think that helped with understanding, so we are going to do that again.

Verse 1 immediately gets to the point of what the problem is. The people of Israel have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations.

Verse 2 is more specific. They have taken wives from the women who live in the lands surrounding Jerusalem. This was an explicit violation of the Mosaic law.

Deuteronomy 7:3–4 ESV

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

We see also from verse 2 that this is specifically called “faithlessness” and that the officials and chief men (the leaders!) were the ones most commonly found guilty of this.

Verse 3, Ezra tears his garments and sits appaled. In verse 4, other godly men join him. And in verse 6 he starts praying.

The prayer is prayed in the covenantal plural (“Lord we have sinned”) about which more in a moment. Ezra says that we are slaves—likely a reference to their servitude to the king of Persia, but also possibly a reference to their own slavery to sin.

Ezra recalls the words of Holy Scripture in verses 11 and 12, saying once more that they have broken God’s commands, and in verse 15, he cries out to God, acknowledging the reality of their sin.

So what is before us is about what God’s word says about marriage, it’s about repentance, and it’s about mercy. Ezra comes to Jerusalem to bring about Reformation and Revival. And his force order of business is to say “Your marriages are a wreck, and we must cry out to God.”

D. Sermon Points

So there are at least three things I want to draw out from the text this morning.

First: The Start of Reformation

Second: The Look of Repentance

Third: The Hope of Mercy

I. The Start of Reformation

Ezra comes to Jerusalem from Babylon because he knows that they are in need of Reformation. Yes, the Temple is built, but real reformation and revival has not succeeded. This is a good reminder to us, that we can have the most beautiful buildings the world has ever seen, but if the inside is full of dead bones, it’s not pleasing to God. That’s not saying we can’t build beautiful churches—on the contrary, God loves beauty. Saying you truth or beauty is a false choice. I am not saying you can only have one. I am saying that the presence of beauty and glory does not by itself create hearts that obey God. It can be a strong help and a blessing to them, but it cannot create hearts that love and obey God.

So Ezra arrives in Jerusalem and his first order of business, the very start of his Reformation is to tend to marriages. In this case, marriages that were in violation of the law of God.

Now it’s important we get real clear here, because the problem of Israel intermarrying with the Gentile nations around them is an issue that is really important for the rest of the book of Ezra, and in the book of Nehemiah as well. So I want to get real clear with you up front that the issue is not so much marriage to people in other cultures, but rather, marriage to unbelievers. Israelites were permitted to marry Gentiles, but they had to be converted Gentiles, and members of the Covenant family. How do I know that? I know that because of the book of Ruth. Ruth who is a Moabitess, marries Boaz (a Judah-ite), and nobody says Boaz has done anything unlawful. Intermarriage was permitted as long as faith was in alignment.

This same principle is reaffirmed in the New Testament. Now, to be clear, principles in the Old Testament don’t have to be repeated in the New for them to still be God-given principles. But this one is.

When Paul says to the Corinthians

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

So, a yoke is a wooden bar that joins two animals together to pull a plow or cart. For the animals to work together effectively, they have to be of similar kind, strength, and purpose. So if you yoke together a strong ox and a weak ox, or two differnet kinds of animals, what you’re going to get is inefficiency, strain, and disorder. Because they can’t pull together.

So Paul uses that concept to forbid marriages between Christians in the New Covenant and unbelievers. The idea being that it’s impossible for them to pull together. And actually, that passage isn’t even about marriage. It’s about close friendships. How much more so should it be true of marriages. So that’s why we teach that Christians can only marry in the faith.

This is reflected in the laws of our denomination, where I am permitted to officiate weddings between believers. I’m also permitted to officiate weddings between unbelievers. But I am forbidden to officiate a wedding between a believing Christian and an unbeliever. And this is why. Because God has always forbidden it.

Why? Well, because, simply put, you become like who you marry. For good or for ill. Not in every way. Only in significant ways. How’s that for encouragement?

Here’s the point I want you to get: Ezra understands that godly marriages, either their presence or their absence can and will make or break a people. Marriage gets talked about a lot in the Old Testament and the New. Why? Well, to be frank, it is simply that important.

Ezra knows that this assembly of God’s Covenant people in Jerusalem are only as strong as biblical soundness of their marriages. That’s why his day one Reform is a Reformation of Marriage, to bring it back into alignment with what God has said.

So Ezra has realized the depth of this sin, and it breaks his heart. It’s not just a few people here and there that are guilty, but this sin is widespread, and even, as we saw earlier, it has especially infected the leadership. So he leads the people in repentance. And that is the second point...

II. The Look of Repentance

So what is Ezra’s response to this problem? His response is first to mourn.

Ezra 9:3 ESV

As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.

His first action is inaction. He tears his clothes, an ancient sign of grief or horror at sin. And he simply sits down. And some others join him, look at verse 4

Ezra 9:4 ESV

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.

Who was it that joined him? Those who tremble at God’s Word. This is probably a reference to Isaiah 66:2

Isaiah 66:2 ESV

...But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

There are plenty of reactions to God’s words that are appropriate. Sometimes you might be confused. Sometimes angry, if it reveals something you don’t like, or you wish wasn’t there. Sometimes it might even make you laugh. Like when King Agrippa asks Paul “Do you really think you can make me a Christian?” And Paul says to King Agrippa “I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”

Many reactions to God’s word are appropriate. And one of them is shock and horror at your own sin. In fact, repentance often begins with shock over your own sin. To be really surprised by it. Because what you’re going to find in the midst of big sins is usually an identity crisis.

Apparently I am not who I thought I was. This can also impact a community, as it does here in our text. Apparently, we are not as godly and put together and respectable as we thought we were. We’re supposed to have it together right, we’re Presbyterians! Apparently not. Apparently we’ve got some real problems that need some real work and some real repentance.

But this is the hope that we have in Christ, brothers and sisters. That you cannot out-sin the mercy poured out at the cross. This is one marked difference in the New Covenant that is given to us by Christ. We come with assurances of mercy for all who repent. Assurances of mercy. That does not lessen our horror at our sin, if anything it increases it. We come with tears, even as we know our tears don’t save us.

Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow All for sin could not atone, Thou must save, and Thou Alone.

And that is the third point,

III. The Hope of Mercy

Ezra turns to God in prayer on behalf of the people. And there are some really beautiful things about this prayer that I think teach us about the good work of praying out loud.

Which is a skill all of us could use a little growing in, I think. That’s part of what our Sunday Night prayer meeting does, it grows us in the work of praying for each other out loud.

And I want to dig in a bit, into Ezra’s prayer, to see what we can learn from it.

First I want you to see something, let’s look at verse 6

Ezra 9:5–6 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.

Notice something. He begins his prayer as an individual. I come before you, Lord. I am ashamed. I blush to lift my face to you.

Why? For our iniquities...

Our guilt...

Ezra prays using what I like to call the “Covenantal We.”

Ezra understands something that we often forget. We know that individuals can sin. We forget that groups of people can sin, too. Nations can sin. Cities can sin. Churches can sin. Families can sin. And in fact, taking on the covenantal “We” recognizes that we are bound together on purpose, by God’s design. And just as we should and do repent for individual sins, we also repent for group sins, wherever we are bound together in Covenant.

We actually do this every Sunday. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we confess individual sins and corporate sins. We start in the plural. We say Our Father.

How does this work practically? Well, let’s think of it on the family level. Imagine that you find some ugly stuff on the internet history. And it turns out it’s one of the older kids. What if you reacted by bringing that before God as a family? “Lord, the sin of lust has entered our house, and we have sinned.” What that communicates is not heaping up guilt and shame. It communicates solidarity. We are with you. We are not abandoning you. We are in this together, and we will find the way out together.

I believe that Ezra here gives us a model for family and churches and nations. So let me ask you, what do you think are the prevailing sins of our church?

Pride? Pride can be a big issue in Reformed circles. We fancy ourselves the university of the faith. And we are called to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to grow in the knowledge and understanding of our faith. But it must go hand-in-hand with humility before the holy. Big heads make for shriveled hearts.

Or what about Prejudice toward particular groups? Thank you God for not making us like that church and those people. We are so much better off than they are. This is especially tempting whenever there are church splits.

Or how about Materialism? Materialism can take the shape of greed or self-protection. It can also take the shape of hoarding. Endless accumulation of stuff and fierce, terrified protection of all of it. You can’t take it with you. And I’ll be the bad guy and say the hard thing—your kids probably don’t want most of it, either.

Corporate sins, wherever God reveals them, are opportunities for corporate repentance. And theologian Derek Thomas goes so far as to say

As a general rule, the Holy Spirit does not come in his reviving power until a church confesses its sins as a church.

Now, I want to be clear here—we are talking about actual sins. Not made up sins. There are lots of calls today to repent of fake sins like your privledge or your skin color. I’m talking about actual sins that are actually called sin in God’s law.

But maybe you’re thinking “Wait a minute, Bryan, your third point in the sermon was titled “The Hope of Mercy.” Can we get some hope and mercy please?

You bet, let’s get there.

Look at verse 8

Ezra 9:8 ESV

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.

But now for a brief moment, God has been gracious. That’s what favor means. We are sometimes tempted to use grace to excuse sin. That is not what Ezra does here. He takes hold of the hope of God’s mercy and grace in spite of the gravity and horror of their sin. And we must do the same, for the cost of our forgiveness is the shed blood of the Son of God.

And we need to hear of God’s favor and grace and mercy in the midst of the horror of our sin. Just as Ezra talks about it here. So that the people hear about it. We need to hear of it. And dear saints, I want to tell you that is the reason why every Sunday we have an Assurance of Pardon.

I know if you’re not used to it, an Assurance of Pardon can seem weird. Might even seem Roman Catholic. The first time I was in a worship service where there was an Assurance of Pardon, I looked up at the Pastor and I wanted to quote the Pharisees— “Who is this man who thinks he can forgive sin? Only God can do that!”

But that is why the Assurance of Pardon always begins with a text from the Bible of God Almighty speaking in his actual words about his actual forgiveness, and I’m putting those words into your actual ears. Only God can do that? Yes. And when those words ring out from this pulpit every Sunday, God is doing exactly that.

Not by any power in me. My ordination just means it’s my job to speak God’s words to you, straight from the Bible, so that you hear the voice of God in your ears. That’s what the Scripture spoken out loud is. It is God speaking to us.

But we need to hear of God’s grace and mercy and pardon. We need to hear of it all the time. So that our slippery untrustworthy hearts can root themselves in the firm assurance that our sins are forgiven.

And at the end, Ezra casts himself on the mercy of God

Ezra 9:14–15 ESV

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.”

What is Ezra saying here? He is saying “Lord, do with us what you will.”

The prayer ends on a note of uncertainty. What will God do with us? Will he destroy us?

But this is a distinction in the New Covenant. On this side of the cross, we can come to God with a broken-hearted confidence. Because he has already destroyed his Son on the cross for us.

Jesus Christ took the blow of justice we deserved so that when we come in prayer and repentance, and we cast ourselves on the mercy of God, we always land on the firm foundation of the blood of Christ and the announcement “Your sins are forgiven.”

So come running to the Father.

There is mercy for you.

Be horrified at your sin. There is a time for that. There is a time for weeping and shock at what you have done.

But be ready to rise.

For that is what God does with his sons.

He raises them up from the grave.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.