Obedience: Ezra 10

Victories: 1. 2.

Prayer: Westview Wesleyan Ryan Budde

Missionary Prayer: Tim & Sandy Hewitt / BEM

Bible Reading: Ezra 10:1-19, 44

What is going on?

I have been daunted by this chapter ever since I planned to teach through the book of Ezra back in the spring. It is one of those chapters in the Bible that push me to answer questions that I am not sure I can. However, when I am pushed to think through the harder questions of scripture I find that it isn’t up to me to come up with answers; it is up to God to teach me and to help me see His truths. This chapter speaks about Marriage and Divorce and abandonment. These are not easy topics because what was going on in this section of scripture was not easy for the returning exiles to deal with. Therefore what we know is that sometimes hard situations often have hard solutions. One thing I want to point out here is that we cannot take the solution here as prescriptive for all marriage, divorce and abandonment. That would be a mistake. God is not saying this is how you should always handle this. However, that does not mean that what Ezra and the people of Judah did was wrong but that it is not prescriptive to us for every situation. Instead, I believe we should look at this situation in light of what we know are truths about God, and in that we know that there are two groups of people that are expressly put out, foreign spouses and the children of those marriages. Therefore I want to start by understanding the truths that we know about God as it concerns spouses and children, and then I want to speak about another truth we know about God Himself. Here are those truths

#1 God created marriage and hates divorce.

#2 God desires for all children to be cared for and loved.

#3 God is a jealous God who will not allow His glory to be given to another.

Now, obviously, these aren’t a comprehensive list of truths about God but they go a long way to help us understand this passage today. When reading the pronouncement, that they put these wives out, we are left speechless and it can leave you feeling like you are taking a punch to the gut. How in the world can this be the will of God? I want to reiterate a truth that I spoke about last week. God doesn’t hate people of other nationalities. He does not necessarily want racial purity nor is He promoting racial cleansing, and we know this is the case because we have examples of women who weren’t of Jewish lineage who not only married into the Jewish people but were blessed by God for doing so. Moses married Zipporah the Midianite, Rahab the woman of Jericho was welcomed into the nation of Israel after the walls fell, and Ruth the Moabitess. In the case of Rahab and Ruth not only did they marry into the Jewish people but they are in the lineage of David and ultimately Jesus. Therefore, we can pretty confidently say God is not against all non Jewish people. So what is the problem with these marriages? They are specific marriages where the spouse is not only foreign but they are not a follower of God. These marriages are ones in which the people of Israel are absolutely being turned away from God which is what God warned them about in Deuteronomy 7:2–4 “and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.”

The reason for God’s warning and law is not racial purity but worship purity. God knew that if they were to marry into the people groups that surround them the Israelites would turn away from God, and this was proven time and time again. Why is this the case? Following God and following God’s rules are not as easy, fun, or Temporarily as fulfilling as following after whatever your heart desires. When it comes right down to it if someone is given the opportunity to do whatever they want compared to following a set of rules that constrict your so called freedom you will most likely choose the desires of your heart over God. Now we also know that with maturity comes an understanding of consequences and wisdom and this lead one to understand the “reasons” behind God’s rules but who needs thinks about those things when all you want is your desire. The sin that so easily entangles us, entangles us because we refuse to think through the consequences or desire the wisdom of God. This is why God made it a point to warn His people not to marry into these other people groups, it will not end well.

Let’s dig into these truths about God and see how they factor into this Ezra passage and then also glean what we can for our own lives.

God created marriage and hates divorce.

The first truth is that God created marriage and hates divorce, and we are assured of both because God gives us these in His Word. Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This is the very first creation that God gives to humanity after the creation of the world is complete. Marriage is God’s creation, God established it and God uses it to further His plan on the earth. However, as with everything else we destroy and mar it, which is why God has to make a statement as He did in: Malachi 2:16a ““For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Why does God hate divorce. It’s right there in Genesis 2:24 “and they shall become one flesh.” Marriage brings together these two people a man and a woman and in the process of marriage they are bonded together into one flesh. This Mark 10:9 says “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.””

Why does God care so much about marriage? Because, God sees marriage as a picture of the kind of relationship that He has with us as His church. When a man and a woman come together in marriage there are several aspects of the roles in the marriage that are supposed to mirror God’s roles with His church. The husband is to be the head of the marriage as Christ is the head of the church. The wife is to respect the husband as that head. They are to love each other in a way that is deeper than the love that you have for others. There is to be an intimacy that is shared between the man and the wife that is to be special and kept safe and secure which is how God wants His relationship with His church to remain. God loves marriage and He outlines all of this for us in Eph. 5. Here is just a part of that: Ephesians 5:25–27 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

If God created marriage and hates divorce then what in the world is going on here in this passage? Well, Hang on, we are going to answer that but I want to finish these truths first. However, to get started with that answer we do need to ask another question; What does God want more from His children sacrifice or obedience? I want to just drop that there and come back to it later.

God desires for all children to be loved and cared for.

Now the second set of people affected by Ezra’s pronouncement to put out foreign wives are also the most innocent and conversely for me the harder one to wrap my head around, the children. What we know about children is that they are innocent in this problem meaning that they did not choose to be born to a Jewish man or woman who chose to sinfully marry a foreign spouse. Therefore, when it says down there in verse 44 that some of these marriages had children involved we should be appalled by the fact that the children were put out as well.

Here are the truths we know about God concerning children.

He loves them: Psalm 127:3–5 “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

He knew them: Jeremiah 1:5 ““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.””

He wants them to know Him: Matthew 19:14 “But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.””

All that being said we are left with a hole in our understanding when it comes to how these children were put out. Ezra just ends. We don’t know if they were taken care of monetarily, we don’t know if they were given a choice to choose God over their idols and false gods. We don’t know any of that because Ezra just ends. Here is what we do know God loves and cares for these children and He would have taken care of them. When Hagar and Ishmael left Abraham and Sarah out of fear for their lives, God came to them in the wilderness and took care of them. Did God do that for each of these children and wives. It is not beyond the possibility for God nor is it beyond the possibility that the men of Judah took care of these children and wives monetarily and with provisions after putting them out. We just don’t know. What we do know is that God loved these children and He was not putting them out to starve to death. We can take comfort in that at least.

God is a jealous God who will not allow His glory to be given to another.

This brings us to the third truth and I believe the most important truth. God is a jealous God who will not allow His glory to be given to another. This leads us to the question that I asked earlier. What does God want more from His children sacrifice or obedience? This is the question that Samuel asked Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22 “So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” What Samuel is saying here is that obedience is of utmost importance because God is a jealous God who will not all His glory to be given to another.

Exodus tells us this. Exodus 20:5 “you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,”

Deuteronomy gives us this truth twice. Deuteronomy 4:24 “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deuteronomy 5:9 “you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,”

And Isaiah reminds of this as well. Isaiah 42:8 “I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.”

God is God. I cannot make that any more ephaptic than that, God is GOD. We spend so much time trying to make God relational and understandable and personal, which of course He absolutely is but we forget to make Him GOD. We forget as Job forgot that God set all things in place and He alone makes the rules. Job 38:1–10 “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors;”

Here is what we know. God, the big giant God of creation, He said the words I quoted to you at the beginning to His children in Deuteronomy 7:2–4 “and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” When God said these words to His people His desire was for them to be obedient to it. Therefore, when Ezra returned and found that they had disobeyed GOD’S rules Ezra was “ashamed and humiliated”, he fasted and prayed and after all of this He and the leaders, and the people of Judah came to this incredibly hard solution. Why? Because obedience to God is right. Obedience to God is more THE most important aspect of our faith.

What do we know do with this? We believe the truths of God. We treat marriage as a holy and as a creation of God that cannot be changed or redefined by us. We treat divorce as something that God hates because that is what God says about divorce. If you are divorced, know that God did not want that to happen because He brought you together and wanted no man to separate it. If you are remarried you should do all that you can to live in accordance with the mandate of God to be one flesh. Again I don’t think that this Ezra passage is prescriptive therefore I don’t think that your remarriage should be put out. I believe you should live in obedience to the Lord where you are now and God will bless that obedience.

That being said, all of us should seek out where we are being disobedient children and we should do everything we can to put it out of our lives. That is prescriptive. Sin must be eradicated from our lives at all cost. What we have as believers is the gift of mercy given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is this gift that forgives us of our sin and that covers that sin before our Holy God and it is that gift given that everyone of us must accept to receive it. Have you recieved it. Are you obedient children or are you still trying to live life your own way? Let me tell you life with Jesus is different for Jesus says to us, Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Gospel

The rest that Jesus promises is because He took our burdens and our sin from us and paid the price for them on the cross. Jesus died for our sins, and because He did, we can place our belief in that sacrifice. 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.” We have the promise of God that if we ask for forgiveness and believe in the saving power of Jesus, we will be saved. And from the saving power of Jesus, we become new creations. 2 Cor. 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” This means that as Christians, we get a fresh start, we aren’t who we used to be, and we have the power of God behind us to change who we are becoming. Glory to God in the highest, for He has saved my soul, and He can save yours too if you will let Him. If you aren’t sure, then you can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

Dear Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

For those of you who are believers-

Benediction: Galatians 6:18 “Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”