Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 8 - Restoring God's Law

Oh Lord, we thank you so much for just the opportunity to study your word here, with our adults. We thank you for those that are teaching our children. We ask you to fill in with your spirit. And open up our eyes to understand your eternal word.

And not just for the sake of having more to know, but so that we may know you and follow you aright and glorify your name in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. One of the questions that we're gonna ask, it's not an easy question to ask, is when's the last time you wept over your sin?

You don't have to answer that out loud. but we're going to see a A priest today, this morning, that his weeping, actually the Lord uses it to bring about significant change in the hearts of the people that had returned back to Israel. And it's interesting how the Lord can use sometimes really stiff rebukes, like say that came from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And.

And then also he can use just, heartbroken sorrow. to have an impact on people. So, what we're gonna do is I'm actually gonna probably skip by our review and just jump straight into our text this morning about restoring God's law. If you guys wanna review last week's material, you go back to the, they post, they post the audios on our sermon section.

So, if you wanna go listen to the stuff about Daniel, you can go check, check that out. See, I lost Connection with my. Mouse here. So, I'll let that go for a second.

But let's, what I, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna start over in Deuteronomy 7. I wanna give, first of all, just a little bit of background. To the situation that we find here in the book of Ezra. And then secondly, we're going to examine.

the hand of God upon Ezra. That, that he clearly is being moved and, and led by the Lord and sensing God's power. And then there's thirdly, this, you gotta be kidding moment where everything comes to a screeching halt. And then, in God's providence, it really seems like, fourthly, that Ezra has been raised up for such a time as this, just as Esther was put in a certain position for such a time as this, Ezra is really the perfect guy to deal with this very messy, sin situation in Israel.

So let's start back in and Deuteronomy first and just let's get some background knowledge. And I'm, I'm thinking of Deuteronomy. Chapter 7, starting in verse 1. So this is the 2nd giving of the law to the people of Israel before they're about ready to cross the Jordan.

And the Lord, and it says, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gurgishites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, Parasites, the Hivites. The Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, 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 daughters to their, your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. So you're not to marry. these people groups. Why?

Verse 4 tells us why, 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. But thus you shall deal with them. you shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images, burn their carved images with fire. You are a holy people to the Lord.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you're more in number or than any other people, for you are the least of the peoples. Verse 8, but because the Lord loves you and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for thousands of generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.

And he repays those who hate him to their face and destroys them. He will not be slack with him, with him who hates him, and he will repay him to his face. Therefore, keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you to observe them. So, the people of God, the big story up to this point is they've been brought out of Egypt, right?

wandered around the wilderness for 40 years, but now they're about ready to go take the land. One of the big commands is once you get in there, do not intermarry with the pagan peoples, not because there's all these huge race differences. In fact, some of the people that were there in Canaan were very close in their racial relationship with the Jews. The issue was one of religious solidarity, of, of keeping pure for the Lord and following the Lord.

And so the Lord knew what was gonna happen and so he, he gives this command. And so you guys know the story. They go in, they take the land, they partially fulfill what was to have happened, but they allowed certain peoples to remain up in the mountains. And time marches on and before it, you've got the Book of Judges, and then there seems to be some, some good stuff that happens where you get the unification of the kingdom under David.

And then, what does Solomon do? He goes and he marries all these pagan wives. They turn his heart away from the Lord, and you've got this dissent that eventually ends up in the division of the kingdom. And it's just downhill from there.

The North gets taken away, Judah eventually gets taken away into captivity. One of the main reasons that's given on the pages of scripture for their being sent into Babylon is God's chastisement, judgment upon them because of their idolatry that began with their intermixing with the pagan peoples. So they get sent up into Babylon, as we've seen 70 years while they're up in Babylon. There's all these amazing prophecies that speak of their return back to the land.

You're gonna come back to the land, God's gonna give you a new heart, you're gonna follow me, I'm gonna be your God, you're gonna be my people. The temple's going to be rebuilt. there's all these incredible promises, and while they're up in Babylon, there's amazing miracles that happened in Daniel's life and so on and so forth. It's a difficult time.

but there's these prophecies, and, and you begin to see the beginning of those prophecies when the first wave comes down at the edict of Cyrus, right? And here comes Rubabel and about 28,000 Jews back into the land, as we looked at probably about maybe a month ago. And they established sacrifice right away. They rebuild the altar, they lay the foundation of the temple.

Then they have some bad guys that try to stop them about 20 years go by, but eventually, they rebuild the temple. And so up comes this guy named Ezra. And so let's turn to chapter 7. About 50 years have passed since the first wave of Jews come back into the land.

And we see this priest, a scribe. Named Ezra. Who describes, he's described as, as someone who the hand of the Lord is upon him. The hand of the Lord, the power of God rests upon Ezra.

So let's check out chapter 7 and following. We'll spend quite a bit of time right here in chapter 7. So there seems to be some really neat fulfillment of the Lord's, of the prophecy. So verse one, now after these things in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Soraya, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, and we're gonna skip all the way down.

To verse 5 where it says, the son of Aaron, the chief priest, the whole reason for that list is to connect Ezra to the right, he's in the line of Aaron, the priests. so this is about, Artaxerxes is reigning from about 474 to around 425 BC. Verse 6, this Ezra came up from Babylon and he was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. The king granted him all his requests.

According to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. So that phrase hand of the Lord upon him, there's various ways that's stated, but that happens about 5 or 6 other times in the book. And the idea seems to be that God in His providence is guiding Ezra. And Ezra, who is supposed, supposedly the author of this book, is, is, is recognizing God's hand upon him.

Are you guys getting feedback or is that just me hearing the feedback? You guys are OK? All right. verse 7, so, so some of the children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, singers, gatekeepers, the Nephanim came up to Jerusalem in the 7th year of King Artaxerxes, and Ezra came to Jerusalem in the 5th month, which was in the 7th year of the king.

On the 1st day of the 1st month, he began his journey from Babylon, and on the 1st day of the 5th month, he came to Jerusalem according To the what good hand of his God upon him, so God's providence and power. And in verse 10, we see the summary statement of Ezra's life up to this point. Ezra had prepared his heart to do what? To seek the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel Everything that we see basically in verse 6 to 10, this is a preview of the whole package of the journey.

this is very common in Hebrew literature to kinda, tell you the whole thing and then they go back and, and get out the particulars. So, it's a preview of what's gonna come in the rest of the chapter. but Ezra in verse 10, so he prepared his heart. So, what could that possibly mean?

That could probably mean that as a, a priest that he had kept himself from being defiled, even though he's in a pagan land. He's trying to keep himself from being defiled. He's trying to stay, stay pure before the Lord, staying away from immorality, probably certain food regulations, Levitical food regulations, so he's preparing his heart, and then he's seeking the law of the Lord. So he's studying it, and then he's doing it.

And then he's prepared to teach the statutes. blessed are the pure in heart, for they will what? see God. So Ezra had prepared his heart to be able to see God in the word and then to be able to transfer that knowledge to the people of God once he got back into the land.

So far, so good. Then you come to verse 11, you say, here's a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave Ezra the priest, the scribe, by the way, an expert in the words of the commandments of the Lord. And his statutes in Israel. And so then we get this letter that we're gonna read part of, and now the, the text moves to Aramaic, so it switches from Hebrew to Aramaic.

We've seen that before, right? In the book of Daniel. so here's the letter, Artaxerxes, King of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of God in heaven. Perfect peace, peace, and so forth, or some translations say, and now, I issue a decree that all those of the people of Israel and the priests and Levites in the realm who volunteer to go up to Jerusalem may go up with you.

And whereas you are being sent by the king and his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the law of your God, which is in your hand. And whereas you carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, and whereas all the silver and gold that you may find in all the province of Babylon, along with the free will offering of the people and the priests are to Be freely offered for the house of the God in Jerusalem.

Now, therefore, be careful to buy with this money, bulls, rams, lambs with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and offer them on the altar of the house of your God of Jerusalem. This is a pretty amazing development.

Artaxerxes, he's given this letter to Ezra, and not only that, he's given him gold, and he's also given him access to the treasury that's down there in Jerusalem. To be able to buy bulls and, and sacrifices to offer up on behalf of the Persian king and kingdom. Verse 18, whatever seems good to you and your brethren to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, do it according to the will of your God. It's getting a blank check here.

Just go, whatever, here, here's, it's designated for this amount, but if whatever's left over, you just use your wisdom. In, in using that money. for the Lord. Verse 19, also the articles that are given to you for the service of the house of your God deliver in full before the God of Jerusalem.

This would have been some of the articles that had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar, some of which would have come down in the first stage, but no doubt there was probably some other articles from the temple that had not been brought down, and so he's bringing those down. Verse 20 whatever more may be needed for the house of your God, which you may have occasion to provide, pay for it from the king's treasury. And I, even I are Xerxes, the king, issued a decree to all the treasurers who are in and beyond the river.

Now, beyond the river is actually a technical term for that's what the Babylonians called the, the area of Israel.

They call it in the NIB it should say Transjordan, I think. The literal is beyond the river. So if you, if you were with your buddies in Babylon, you said, hey, we wanna go to Israel. If you're a Babylonian, you wouldn't say Israel, you would say, hey, we wanna go to beyond the river.

That's the name of this area. And so then middle verse 21, that whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law, the God of heaven may require of you, let it be done diligently. So here's some of the stuff that they're able to access while they're in Jerusalem, not counting the money they're bringing with them. Verse 22, up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cores of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribed limit.

No limit on the salt. My kids would enjoy that. Verse 23, whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven. For why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?

That seems to be reminiscent that Artaxerxes has heard the stories of Daniel, Shadrack, Meshach, and Amenigo and probably heard about what happened to Nebuchadnezzar being put, made into a beast and an animal and running around the field for seven years. He doesn't want these types of things to happen to him. He's not necessarily a monotheist, but he's like, whoever their God is, he must be a pretty bad guy or pretty powerful guy, so let's go appease him. So that no wrath comes upon me or my sons.

Verse 24. Also, we inform you that it shall not be lawful to impose tax, tribute, or custom on any of the priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, Nethanim, or servants of the house of God. Pretty good deal. No taxes for any of these guys that are coming back down in the second stage of the return.

Verse 25, and you, Ezra, according to your God-given wisdom, set magistrates, judges who may judge all the people who are in the region beyond the river, that's the Transjordan, all such as know the laws of your God and teach those who do not know them. So now, Ezra's actually been given authority to create a government. Go down here, create a government, set up your officers. whoever will not observe the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily on him, whether it be death, banishment, confiscation of goods, imprisonment.

So he's been given a lot of authority to go down there and establish this government. Then, Ezra says, starting in verse 27, Blessed be the Lord, God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem, and has extended mercy to me before the king and his counselors and beyond all the king's mighty princes. So I was encouraged as the hand of the Lord, my God was upon me, and I gathered leading men of Israel to go up with me.

So we see right here, an evidence of Proverbs 21:1, the Lord is turning the king's heart wherever he wants it to go.

And this is pretty amazing, isn't it? That a cap, a people that are captive, that the Lord turns the heart of the king in such a way that says, go back, establish a government, here's all this money, you've got a blank check and teach your law. To the people there, just make sure that you sacrifice on behalf of me and my sons and our nation, so the wrath of God does not come down upon us. And, and then so Levi, Ezra begins to then find leaders.

So he goes out and he recruits leadership, he becomes a leader of leader. And so then in the next chapter, He begins to, he tells us who he recruits and And then he also talks about just the need to protect everything that was, that they were going to travel with. If you look down around verse 21 of the next chapter, they fast and they're trying to figure out how we're, they're really asking the Lord about how are we're gonna travel down with all the, these little ones and all of this money.

and so in verse 24 and following, they divide they they decide to divide up.

the materials between 12 basic travel leaders. This is what I do, whenever we go on mission trips, a lot of times I'm bringing like large chunks of cash. A lot of time, last time, Vincent Greene, for some reason, he wanted me to bring him like, I don't know, it was an insane amount of American money, because it's a lot more expensive to change it there in the Philippines. So rather than just walk around with all this cash in my money belt, we divide it up amongst the team.

And then we recollect it when we get over there. So, if somebody, something comes up missing, somebody gets robbed, whatever, it's not all on me, right? It's divided up. And that's, that's the idea in verse 24 and following as they're dividing up the, the loot, so to speak.

And there is a, a crazy amount of stuff. Commentators say there's about 25 tons of silver they're bringing down with them, 4 tons of gold. all the different people plus their families, and this is a 1000 mile trip that they're taking, from where they're at in Babylon down to the, down to Jerusalem. So it takes them 4 months.

You can imagine there's some planning. You can understand why Ezra's a little nervous. They fast, they cry out to the Lord. And, and he keeps saying the hand of the Lord is on us, the hand of the Lord is on us.

Let's pick it up in verse 31. Again, we're just seeing God's providence and His goodness so far. 31. Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem, and the hand of our God was upon us.

Again, that's the power of God, the providence of God. And he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road. In all likelihood, this means that there was no occurrence. It could be that he's saying that they were attacked, that people tried to ambush, but they were able to fight them back.

Probably I think the better way to read it is they got down there without incident. And so he came to Jerusalem and stayed 3 days. Now, on the 4th day, the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of God by the hand of Meammoth, the son of Uriah, the priest, and with him was Eliezer, the son of Phineas. With them were the Levites, Jozabad, the son of Joshua.

Noadiah, the son of Benui. With the number and weight of everything, all the weight was written down at that time. The children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 12 bowls for all Israel, 69 ram I'm sorry, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and 12 male goats as a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord.

And they delivered the king's orders to the king's satraps and the governors in the region beyond the river. So they gave support to the people in the house of God. Life is good. Everything is going according to plan.

The hand of the Lord has been upon Ezra. There's been no incident in their travel, even though they have all this stuff coming with them. And so you can just see Ezra. Kinda.

curling up on his hammock after a long trip and just praising the Lord and just feeling like everything's going good. All of a sudden, there's a knock. On the tree next to his hammock in some community leaders, not like the. The governmental leaders, but some leaders of the community, probably some folks that are.

Just over little sections of the area of Jerusalem. Knock on the door and say, by the way, And so this is where we get to the 3rd point that you've got to be kidding chapter. So look at chapter 9, starting at verse 1. When these things were done.

The leaders came to me and again, this is leaders of the community, not the, the head honchos probably. Saying the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the land with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Parasites, Jebusites, Amorites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. They have taken some of the daughters. For themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands.

Indeed, the hand of the leaders and the rulers has been foremost in this trespass. the end of verse two is why we know that these leaders that come to them are not the head honchos, they're probably the community leaders because part of what they're saying is, it's the head honchos that are foremost in this sin. they've, they've, they've gone back to the abominations, which means not only have they, come together with these pagan wives, but they've actually begun to participate in some of the abominations, meaning syncretism is already starting to occur.

They're starting to worship Yahweh and these false gods of the area.

there's some interesting language here in verse two, it says, for they have taken some of their daughters. And a lot of you guys might have their daughters as wives or might say they have married the daughters. The Hebrew word here is actually a unique word that just literally means That they had. Given them a dwelling or giving them a house.

some commentators think that basically what's going on here is they have cohabited with the daughters of the land. although in the customs of the daughters of this land, it may have been viewed as a full marriage by their tribes or their peoples. And it's, and the people that are foremost in it are these leaders. so this is the tragic revelation.

I want you to stop right there. And let's Let's turn over to Micah for a second. I'm sorry, Malachi. Malachi is the Italian prophet.

Down there. What's that? Malachi, yeah, that's right. Malachi.

It's the final prophet in the Old Testament. Look at chapter 2 starting in verse 11. Malachi is prophesying around this same time period, probably a little bit before Ezra's return. So it's a little bit, it's, it's, he's prophesying around that fifty-year period between Zerubbabel, the, and Ezra Yeah, I want you just to notice part of what Malachi is saying, starting in verse 11.

It says, Judah has dealt treacherously. And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution, which he loves. What institution is that?

He has married the daughter of a foreign god. Right? Married the daughter of a foreign god that's very similar to the language of 92 Ezra 92. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob, the man who does this thing being awake and aware, yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.

And this is the second thing you do, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. So he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and what?

The wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did he not make them one, having a remnant of the spirit? And why one?

He seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let none of you deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Verse 16. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates what?

Divorce, for it covers one's garments with violence, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. So this prophecy is going on during this, this period. And what.

Bible historians and commentators suggest when you assemble all of the The data. Is that in that first return under Zaruba Bell, they're coming back with their wives. it's 28,000 people, but there's a couple of things that could be going on. One is, it could be that there aren't as many women that come back with the men, Jewish women.

but one thing that we do know is that Jewish men, as they got back down into the area. they came back and there's already people there, right? So, to get their land back and to get their property back is not so easy. But people who have ways and means could get property down in the land.

How would you get property? Back in these days By marriage. So you could come in and you could, you could through marriage, you could achieve property and build your status and your financial well-being. In the book of Ezra, it's the leaders that are really accused, the people that are probably more well-to do are accused of intermarrying with the peoples back in, in the Transjordan or in the area of Israel.

And so what commentators are suggesting is that perhaps as the Jews were coming back, they're bringing back wives who had been really beat up pretty bad by captivity. That are older and these Jews began to divorce their wives. That were no longer had the youth that they had when they first got married, they get back to the land. There's motivations for property rights.

They're looking at younger women. There's not as many Jewish women that go around and they're divorcing their wives and marrying foreign wives. Clearly in Malachi, we see that, right? Malachi, the first in chapter 11, talks about them marrying and given in marriage with foreigners.

As you read the rest of the context, they're divorcing the wives of their youth. And so, Malachi is rebuking them for that. He says, God hates divorce. You're divorcing your Jewish wives and marrying these foreigners and going after foreign gods.

So, you get here to chapter 9 of Ezra, let's look again at verse 2. Remind ourselves what is being said by these community leaders, for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons so that the holy seed is mixed with the people of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers are foremost in this trespass. So now, thirdly, I, I, as, as part of our third point, let's see, Ezra's graphic response, verse 3 and 4.

So when I heard this thing, I tore my garments and my robe and plucked out some of the hair of my head and beard and sat down astonished. Then everyone who trembled at the words of God of Israel assembled to me because of the transgression of those who had been carried away captive, and I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice. Man, that's pretty extreme, Ezra. these people just, they just fell in love.

They fell out of love with their Jewish wives and they fell in love with the pagan wives, and why are you getting so upset? Because people just fell in love. He doesn't see it that way. Ezra had prepared his heart, right?

To seek the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach it. He knew what this meant. And the guy, you, you gotta be kidding. Moment comes, I think in his prayer.

He explains why this is such a big deal. Why is, why is he plucking out the, the hair of his beard? I don't know that I've ever done that. There are times where I've grabbed my hair.

I've been so frustrated with something, one of my My progeny has done, and it grabbed my hair. But I can't remember ever like grabbing my goatee and yanking, actually yanking hair or beard out, but that's what Ezra does. And so let's, let's look at his epic prayer. Verse 5 and following, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting, having torn my garment, my robe, and I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God.

And let's just see if we can detect both from the, from the, from God's standpoint, but also historically, what this really means in the mind of Ezra. Since the days of our fathers to this day, we have been very guilty for our iniquities. We are kings, our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation as it is to this day. He's just reciting what happened in the captivity.

These are words that are, you, you see it all over in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Verse 8, and now for a little while, grace has been shown from the Lord our God to leave us a remnant. To escape and to give us a peg or a standing or a stake in the holy place that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. That's Ezekiel type language.

There's a remnant that's been preserved. God has shown us grace after we were cast off into captivity. Verse 9, for when we were slaves, yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage, but he extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. And now our God, what shall we say after this?

For we have forsaken your commandments, which you have commanded us by your servants, the prophet, saying the land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land, with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another for their impurity. Now, therefore, do not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.

And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, since you are our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us such deliverance as this, should we again break your commandments and join in marriage with the people committing these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you had consumed us so that there would be no more remnant or survivor?

Oh Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant as it is this day. Here we are before you in our guilt, though no one can stand before you because of this. Ezra just gets it totally right on in his prayer. We were sent up into captivity because of this very sin.

We're not back in the land more than 50 years and we're already doing the same thing. And so you can, if you, if you can get inside of the mind of Ezra, can you see why the train would just come to this big screeching halt? It's like, he's, he's in a pagan land. Artaxerxes is saying, here's a letter, here's all this money.

You just go. Just make sure you offer some sacrifices for me. The Lord protects them on the way down. There's no ambushes, no enemies.

They show up, they offer the sacrifices, life is good. All of a sudden, We are married, we're divorcing our Jewish wives, marrying foreign wives, and syncretism is beginning to happen. I don't know if you guys remember Jeremiah. He had warned obviously the people to turn themselves over to Babylon to go up into captivity.

But the other thing he did is he warned them not to go back down to Egypt after there's, most of the people were taken up into into Babylon, but then he was left behind and was hanging out with some of the folks that were left behind. They asked for a word from the Lord. He gave it to them and then they despised it anyway, and they went back down to Egypt, and he took, they took Jeremiah with him. We call that group that went down to Egypt, they're called the elephantine Jews.

I don't know why, I don't know where that word comes from, but that's what they're referred to. Those people went back down to Egypt, they began to marry Egyptians. They, they fell into syncretism, and they just went away, they just disappeared in history. They intermarried, they began to worship foreign gods, and they just disappeared off the face of the map.

No doubt they just got. It just intermixed with the Egyptians and to, to this day, or I, I, I forget how long they existed, but they're just known as the, the group that disappeared. And And that's what Ezra is pretty much convinced is going to happen. this is, we've, we're like a dog that's returned back to its vomit.

We're intermarrying with foreign wives. Our kids now are gonna grow up. They're not gonna know the Lord. They're gonna start worshiping Baal and Molech and everybody else again.

And not only that, but you, you'd have to think that Ezra is a little bit confused. Because the prophecies he's heard from Ezekiel are what? The Lord's gonna bring you back down into the land. He's gonna take out a heart of stone, he's gonna give you a heart of flesh.

He's gonna put a spirit in you so that you're gonna wanna obey the Lord. The temple's gonna be rebuilt, all this wonderful stuff's gonna happen when you come back. And so these are prophecies that have been made both in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel. And so to come back and just to find out that there's this intermarriage stuff going on.

Just had to be devastating. to Ezra. Say it again. That's who Jeremiah Berry You're gonna have to interpret that for me.

A weeping prophet. Oh, there you go. I'm the weeping prophet. There you go.

I like that. Yeah, that's pretty good, Brian. It's pretty quick. Maybe that'd be my nickname, huh, Jeremiah Berry.

so let's, let's look at a final point here in chapter 10. And that is what I'm gonna call this 4th section for such a time as this. There really doesn't seem to be much hope. I don't, I don't know about you, but sometimes you can think about your own life or you can even maybe in counseling or maybe situations you've seen your children get involved in.

Maybe you have family members. It's like sin can sometimes so complicate people's lives. You're just like, What do we do? Right?

I remember years ago, I was, I've been a baseball coach for a number of years and that's given me opportunities to also do some counseling because these kids, they come in with some difficult situations, the parents find out I'm a pastor. And I just remember counseling this one family that was so blended, like they had kids from multiple previous marriages and boyfriends and girlfriends, and there's all this dysfunction. And when you're just trying to sit there and talk with them, it's just so mixed and messy.

It was hard to know what to say.

And how to counsel them. and so you, you see this situation where the weeds and the crab grass have just gone down deep and you're just like, what do we do, Lord? But remember, the hand of the Lord had been on Ezra, and he had prepared his heart to seek the Lord in his law, to do it and to teach it. He's an expert in the law, and a scribe.

And so let's see what happens starting in verse 1 of chapter 10. Now, Ezra. was praying. Or while he was praying, while he was confessing and weeping and bowing down before the house of God.

and this, the idea of him bowing down before the house of God, the literal idea here is he was continually throwing himself down. Almost like some of the prophets like Ezekiel. Some of these prophets, they would just do weird street theater things to get the attention of the people. And so he's just continually throwing himself down.

Before the house of God, And a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel, for the people wept bitterly. So he's weeping, now they're weeping. There's this chorus. Of weeping now, verse 2 and Shecaniah.

The son, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, which we're gonna find out later, he's one of, his dad is one of the ones who's intermarried. spoke up and said to Ezra, We have trespassed against our God and have taken pagan wives from the people of the lands. Yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this. And I don't know about you, but if I'm listening to Shaq and I, I'd be like, All right, tell me what you're thinking, hope.

What hope could there possibly be when we've got. All of these families that are now intermixed, right? Children involved. And, and by the way, the word taken pagan wives is again that unusual phrase that literally means given a home to.

So it's not the usual word for married, so it's hard to tell exactly what these arrangements really were. Were these just domestic, relationships where these, did everybody have a, I forget what the Jewish word is for it, but basically a mistress. it's not real clear, and, and part of what gives us pause is it's not the usual Hebrew word for married, covenant marriage. It's they've been given a home.

so he says, hey, there's hope. So verse 3, now, therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives. Again, the word here put away is not the usual word for divorce. the, the the more literal idea is to excommunicate.

Let's excommunicate. stop communion with these wives and those who have been born to them. According to the advice of my master, he could be speaking to Ezra or the Lord. There's different views on that.

and those who tremble at the commandment of God, let it be done according to the law. So Shecaniah stands up, we haven't even seen this guy. All of a sudden he stands up and says, hey, here's, here's, here's the idea, let's put away. Our, our wives, our mistresses, let's, and, and let's do this according to the law.

Let's see, let's look around. Who could we find who's an expert in the law? Oh, hey, Ezra, there you are. You've just pulled out your beard and your hair and you're throwing yourself down continually before the house of God.

You're an expert in the law. Let's see if we can figure this thing out before our Lord. Can the Lord untangle this mess through his law? Verse 4, arise for this matter is your responsibility.

we also are with you, be of good courage and do it. So the Lord raises up this Shecaniah guy to, to, to encourage Ezra. You've got the goods, Ezra, and, and we're willing to do what you say. And so, get up and be of courage and let's, this is gonna be messy, this is gonna be hard, this is gonna be painful, but let's do it.

And that's where I get the idea here of for such a time as this. Esther's job was no less messy, right? You think about what Esther had to do. it's a very difficult, basically, she's trafficked, right?

She's trafficked by the king of Persia, but then the Lord uses sex trafficking to save his people. And here we've got mistresses, we've got divorce, we've got children, some of them are probably illegitimate. We've got people in leadership who have done this in order to probably achieve land. This is a messy, tangled situation.

And Shaqaniah stands up and says, Ezra. You're the guy You can, you can do this, you can help us. There is hope. So then Ezra rose and made the leaders of the priests and the Levites and all Israel swear an oath that they would do according to the word.

And they swore an oath, they said, we'll do it. All right, let's, let's go. Verse 6, then Ezra rose up from before the house of God, went into the chamber of Jehoanan, the son of Eliashib, and when he came there, he ate no bread, drank no water, for he mourned because of the guilt of those from the captivity. So they've got direction, but it doesn't suddenly make Ezra feel a lot better, like, hey, he's ready to sit down and watch a football game.

Now, he's not eating, he's not drinking. He's, he's, but he's heading to business. Verse 7, they issued a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the descendants of the captivity that they must gather at Jerusalem. They call for a required members meeting.

This is, this is not optional. Everybody must, must come. Verse 8, and that whoever would not come within 3 days, according to the instructions of the leaders and the elders, all his property. Notice that.

Where's Ezra hitting them? Property rights. All his property would be confiscated and he himself would be separated from the assembly of those from the captivity who had given him the authority to make these decisions before he ever arrived. Yeah, the king Xerxes, by the hand of God.

Ezra, he's an expert. He knows what to do. Boom, he hits him in the pocketbook. You must arrive.

If you do not arrive in 3 days, you will lose your property. That property you gained by divorcing your Jewish wives because you didn't think they were beautiful anymore. They got too tanned from being out there in captivity. You've got to come.

We got to take care of this. Verse 9, so all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered at Jerusalem within 3 days, they did it. It was the 9th month on the on the 20th of the month and all the people sat in the open square. So this is in late December by our reckoning.

in the open square of the house of God trembling for two reasons, because of the matter and because of the heavy rain. So they're trembling because they know this is serious stuff, and it's really cold and it's rainy. Verse 10, then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, you have transgressed and have taken pagan wives, adding to the guilt of Israel. Now their previous stuff had been forgiven, but it's the idea here is you're like dogs who have returned back to the vomit.

Verse 11. Now, therefore, make confession. Literally, the idea here is worship, confess, and give thanksgiving to the Lord, God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, from the pagan wives.

Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, yes, as you have said, so we must do. But there are many people. It is the season of heavy rain, and we are not able to stand outside, for it is, nor is this work of one or two days, for there are many of us who have transgressed in this matter. Please let the leaders of our entire assembly stand and let all those in our cities who have taken pagan wives.

Come at appointed times together with the elders and judges of their cities until the fierce wrath of our God is turned away from us in this matter. It could be that the fierce wrath is, is they're sensing God's wrath just from the way that Ezra has behaved, or it could be that they're actually beginning to see signs of God's wrath coming upon them, perhaps in, in the form of pestilence. We're not really sure. so they, so they give this, they say, yes, we will do what you do, but Ezra, it's cold out here and this is gonna take a long time.

There's a lot of us that we, we're gonna go to divorce court, so as it were, and this is gonna take a while. So let's, let's get a plan together here. So verse 15, only Jonathan, the son of Asahel, and Jehaziah, the son of Tikva, opposed this. Emeshallem and Shabbathai, the Levite gave them support.

Now, what did they, what does it mean that they oppose this? some would say it means they oppose the whole idea of putting away the foreign wives. It'd be a little unusual for there to be no other comment after that. most commentators think that what they oppose is the delay of taking care.

Let's, let's take time to deal with this. These guys wanted a swift movement. These guys were the ones that were like, how like in. Leadership structures.

Jonathan knows this, elder board, we have some people who like to move real slow and some people are like, boom, let's do it right now. So, some of those guys are like, we want it now and the and the rest of them are like, no, let's, we gotta take some time with this. And so verse 16. Then the descendants of the captivity did so, and Ezra the priest with certain heads of the father's households were set up apart by the father's households, each of them by name, and they sat down on the 1st day, the 10th month, to examine the matter.

By the 1st day of the 1st month, they finished questioning all the men who had taken pagan wives. This is about a 3 month period. So you got Ezra and other people that he had appointed. The idea would be here is each Each guy is coming and answering for what he had done.

and you can just imagine, if you guys ever watched, divorce court or any of these things on how complicated things get, and so, you just imagine we've got mistresses that are involved. Is this a mistress or is this a covenant of marriage? Is this, are there children? What property is exchanged?

What will this mean to the property? is she converted? Because even in chapter 6, verse 21, we see evidence, it's not that the Lord, it's not that, somebody who was following Yahweh couldn't come be part of the people. we've got examples of Ruth, right?

For example, in 621 where there were converts that had come down that were actually Persians or Babylonians that had come down and joined themselves to the people of the Lord. And so there would be probably a, a doctrinal test in, in this whole thing of, of, are you willing to follow Yahweh? Or, and then if the, if the gal says no, OK, you, this is your mistress, your wife's dead, will you marry the mistress who is now converted to Yahweh? You can just see how complicated sin complicates.

And so, but Ezra is an expert in the law and so God has risen him up for such a time as this. And in spite of the complications, the hope here is that the people said, we will do what the Lord wants, even though this is an incredibly complex situation. And so, what you have following that is a list of all of the people who had married foreign wives, all these various leaders and so on and so forth. Now, some people think that this list is just representative of the larger group and some people would say, no, this is the complete list.

I'm inclined to think that this is more the complete list. and so if this is the complete list, you have basically 111 people. out of 28,000 people. Which is a relatively small percentage.

if you look at the percentages here, the largest offenders percentage wise would have been the Levites. And so, so again, some people are thinking, no, this couldn't be possible yet. Why would Ezra react so strongly? Because Ezra knows where this is leading.

This is what caused the captivity in the first place. Why would they take 3 months with 111 marriages? Because there are complexities here that have to do with mistresses versus actual marriages, with property versus doctrinal discussions and things like that. Does the Jewish wife, is the Jewish wife still alive?

Is this a legitimate, illegitimate marriage, and so on and so forth. And so Ezra. And his groups, they go through this very difficult, divorce court situation. And then in verse 44, just like, this is just the way Jewish literature and, and a lot of times the Bible rolls, verse 44, all these had taken pagan wives and some of them had wives by whom they had children, the end.

It's like the, the Bible just doesn't like wrap things up the way we like it done in English literature. It's like, we wanna be like, and they all lived happily ever after. Yeah, the closing sentence is, this is, this is messy, sin is messy. There's nothing in here that tries to disguise the mess of sin.

But the hope that I think we're meant to walk away with here is that no matter how messy the consequences of your sin or anybody else's sin, if we come to the Lord and we'll just humble ourselves and cry out to Him and say, Lord, I will do what you want. Then the, the consequences may never completely go away, right? The consequences of David's sin with Bathsheba never entirely went away, right? He had warfare in his house to the day of his death, but he was able to humble himself before the Lord and finish up as a servant of the Lord, even though there were consequences of Absalom and so on.

And maybe in your life, I don't, I don't know. I think most of us, by the time you hit my age, you, you have some regrets, right? You have things that you've done or not done, you look back upon, you wish you'd be able to change it. And a lot of times you just can't unravel everything.

You can't change everything. Sometimes, some, sometimes it just involves things that have been done unto you. Sometimes it involves decisions you've made that have affected other people. But what we can do is take all that mess and go to the Lord and say, God, what do you want me to do?

And I would encourage you, the Lord had given Ezra expertise and specialty knowledge. And I just want to encourage you that we're in the body of Christ for a reason. We're not in the body, we're not just Christians by ourselves. We've been put into a body and God has given different gifts to the body.

Some of the gifts he's given to this body are pastors and teachers. And, and we have just amazing counselors here in this at, at this church. And there may be very complicated situations that you're involved in, where you want to repent, you wanna do what the Lord wants, but maybe there's a part of you that's just been buying into what the devil says, or the devil saying, hey, it's too messy, there's nothing you can do. No, that's never the case.

If we're willing to humble ourselves, no matter how messy it is, the Lord can still work. It's not gonna change the pain. I'm sure some of these people, when they're putting away their mistresses and there's children that they've had out of wedlock and stuff, they're handing them back over to their foreign tribes, for them to go off and worship false gods. It's very, very painful.

But what, the Lord brought some severe pain. To those tribes, and they did not go the way of the elephantine Jews. They continued and it led all the way up to the Messiah that we have in the New Testament. Let me say just 21 last thing here and then we'll, take a couple of questions.

And that is, how should we understand The concept of divorce in light of. Ezra chapter 10. The reason I raised this is because it's clear that God is moving Ezra to put, to move upon the Israelites to put away foreign wives. Whether you regard them as mistresses or married or whatnot, there's a separation that is being commanded here.

And some people will go to this historical passage and say, that's, that's my support for my divorce. so I wanna give you, I can email this out. You don't have to write all this down. I'm just gonna run through this real quick.

First of all, I wanna say that, that this is response to grave national sin. This is grave national sin that is very, very unique. It's a unique historical occurrence that we don't see anywhere else on the pages of the New Testament. And, and what seems to be part of the Lord's concern is the fact that these leaders in all likelihood had divorced their Jewish wives to get to the pagan wives.

And so the divorce that God's most concerned about in, in most of these situations is the divorce of the first wife in order to get to either the younger or the property rights wife or mistress. also, we need to remember that this is a narrative, not a prescriptive passage. Didactic passages always, trump narrative passages. So when you get to the New Testament, the New Testament says very clearly in a didactic passage from Paul, if you're married to an unbeliever, do not leave them.

Then that's, that's a very clear passage. But if the unbeliever leaves of their own accord, you should not feel bound to remain in that marriage is Paul's advice or not just advice, is teaching. And so we would not look at Ezra 10 and say, I'm married to a pagan who worships a false god, therefore, I need to divorce him. No, that's a historical passage, unique historical occurrence.

We have prescription in the New Testament, by the way, New Testament always, right, is, is, is advancing the thoughts of the Old Testament. So you never go backwards in your theology, you go forward. In your theologies, like we're not gonna all run back to the sacrificial system. Wait a second, Jesus Christ is the final sacrifice, right?

We're not gonna run back to the Aaronic priesthood. Jesus is the priest according to Melchizedek. We're not gonna run back to Ezra 10 to justify our divorce. Paul has told us, and Jesus said, do not divorce your wives.

If you divorce your wife, and then she goes and marries another, you've caused her to commit adultery, right? So we have to be very careful on that. there's no indication anywhere in this passage that this was meant to be normative through the times of Jesus. Also, we need to See if I can read my own writing here.

This required Ezra's expertise to figure out the marriage, divorce thing and the whole mistress thing. also, we just said that Jesus, Jesus is, teaching trumps these teachings. And then also just keep in mind that, there is the law, there is what God says in his law. But what's interesting is how many exceptions God will allow within his law.

So the, there's this big idea of, yes, we will put away our foreign wives, but we know plenty of examples of people who converted to Yahweh, who remain in the people of Israel. And And so I guess that's just something, to keep in mind as we're trying to interpret this particular passage is God, there's a pattern in the Old Testament of God saying, here's the law, and sometimes people will appeal back to him and say, well, what can we do this? And then he'll say, yeah, go ahead and do that.

And so, the Lord gives the general principle, and then a lot of times it gets adjusted to particular circumstances.

Say it again. Yeah, totally. Yeah, you have the, there's the, nobody's allowed to have any cookies after 7 o'clock. Well, and then sometimes you make exceptions if there's a good.

And obedient that day. I just memorized 4 Bible verses today. OK, I'll let you have 1 cookie. I shouldn't say this.

That I we're too late. I was gonna tell you a weird analogy from Ezekiel, but, I'll just open up a can of worms. You can go read it on your own Can I say one thing real quick? Now, I'm a little.

Anybody ever buy Ezekiel 4:9 bread? I should, you should never end a lesson on this illustration, but OK. Ezekiel 4:9 bread? OK.

Does anybody know the context of Ezekiel 4:9? OK, so the context of Ezekiel 4:9 is, is it's one of the signs of the prophecy where God gives Ezekiel bread that is distasteful and not very pleasant, and he gives them a limited amount of water, and he says, you're already eat this bread and drink this limited amount of water as a sign of the judgment that's coming, that people will not be able to have enough bread that satisfies them in water. And so you're gonna eat this distasteful bread.

And by the way, you need to cook it over human dung.

And, and then eat it. And so it just cracks me up that we buy Ezekiel 4:9 bread as some of this health benefit thing when the context is judgment and cooking it over human dung. And so I've been really tempted to write the Ezekiel 4:9 people and say, hey, how do you guys cook your bread?. And Yeah, they, I think they have ovens, yeah.

But anyway, the whole point of this analogy is, if there is a point, is that Ezekiel appeals back to the Lord and he says, Lord, I've been undefiled for all these years. Can we not, can we leave out the human dung part? He says, OK, cow dung is OK. So they cook the, the bread over cow dung and he eats it that way.

anyway, all that to say, yeah, so the you see examples of that all over the Bible where the Lord gives the, here's the general idea, put away your pagan wives, right? But, during that whole divorce court proceeding that there were gonna be intricacies of the situations where the Lord was gonna allow Ezra to make certain decisions and in the same way he did. according to Old Testament law and procedures, yeah, it. Exactly, yeah, 3 months of very complex, proceedings and stuff.

And again, the thing that I'm excited about, when I first was starting to say this passage was like, I do not want to deal with this passage, but you just see the Lord's wisdom and raising up Ezra for this very complex sin situation and how the Lord is willing, he puts us in the body to help us with our complex sin situations, and we look to Christ ultimately, right? over time. You guys can beat me with a wet noodle. if any questions come on up, we'll, we'll talk more about it.

Lord, we just, thank you so much for the wisdom of your word. And we see your Province and Ezra preparing him and even Lord just using his tears and devastation to bring a sense of devastation upon your people. Help us to weep over our own sins and to see the, just even sins that might seem small to us, how that if we let them go unchecked, that they can become big. We know that there is really a devil who has a plan for our lives and it is not a good plan.

And. But you are greater than he is. Help us to repent daily. Help us to see that you are there to help us through the complexities and consequences of sin.

May we today just look to Christ as we partake of communion this morning. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen.