Good Old-Fashioned Repentance

Good morning, everyone. Good to see you all. here this morning and I had an unusual blessing this morning for the first time in Probably a decade, I was able to ride with my wife to church this morning. So She drove while I worked on my sermon.

But that was just a, a great blessing this morning. To be able to do that. But it is good to see you, here this morning and to be able to come together and worship God and also to, to open up this word together. We worship God by, The by opening our mouths and singing and praying to Him and also by opening our hearts and our ears and receiving from Him, whatever it is that God has for us from His word, we want it.

Amen. And so let's open our hearts to God, this morning to what He has for us from his words. and to that end, let me invite you to turn to Ezra, chapter 9. Ezra chapter 9, we're going to be looking at Ezra 9 and 10.

If you've been following the readings for the summer advance, over the past few weeks, you should have, If you're on schedule, and it's OK if you're not, but you would have read Ezra 9 and this coming week, there's two readings from Ezra 10, and with that, the book of Ezra comes to an end, and we're going to just focus this morning on Ezra 9 and 10 and receive whatever the Lord has for us from these two chapters. If you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be good Old fashioned repentance.

Good old fashioned repentance. I thought about entitling the message, New Temple, comma, Old fashioned repentance.

because that's what we see. the beautiful temple has been constructed, but I don't think that temple is more beautiful than the beauty of the repentance that we see displayed in the people of Judah in Ezra chapter 9 and 10. just by way of tying this to what we talked about last Sunday, last week we focused our attention. Most of it on Ezra chapter 7, verse 10, we saw how the text tells us twice in Ezra chapter 7 in the early verses of that chapter that the good hand of God was upon Ezra, right?

And we asked the question, why was the hand of God upon Ezra enabling him to succeed in what he was doing? And in Ezra 7:10 we find the answer to that question. The text tells us, because here's why the hand of God was upon Ezra because he had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it. And to teach his statutes and judgments in Israel.

We studied, just briefly this verse last week. We decided that this makes a great paradigm for us individually and as a church on the road ahead, coming to this new facility provides a time. for us as a church to arrive at some fresh resolutions. And Ezra provides a great example for us in Ezra 7:10.

This is one area where we as a church and as individuals can make some fresh resolutions to study the Word of God, to practice the Word of God, and to teach God's word. To other people, how many of you look at that verse and say, I want that to be me? That's how I want to live my life. Amen.

Well, this is what we want to do as individuals and as a church, but here's the deal. On paper, Ezra 7:10 sounds great. It sounds absolutely wonderful. until You come across something in God's word that disagrees with you.

Something in God's word that contradicts the way you think, that contradicts the way that you're living your life, or contradicts the way that you're wanting to live your life. And if you give yourself to studying the Word of God, is if we as a church give ourselves to studying and following and teaching God's word, This will happen, absolutely. We will come crashing against the Word of God as it disagrees with us and contradicts us. And just a trivia question for you, whenever you're reading the Bible, and you discover in the Bible that God disagrees with you on something, who should repent, you or God?

All right, you should repent. If you come across something in God's word that contradicts you, you're the one who needs to change. I'm the one who needs to change, not God. It's because of this characteristic about God's word that Ezra 10 actually is a verse that should come with a warning label on it.

In fact, imagine that you're reading Ezra 7:10 and you're like, Man, I want to do this, but then you notice attached to this verse a warning label, and imagine that the warning label looked like this. Here's the warning, setting your heart to study, practice and teach God's word will sometimes lead to trembling, tearing your garments and anguish, pulling hair from your head and beard, being appalled, experiencing humiliation, shame, embarrassment, weeping, and prostration. Symptoms will also include sometimes causing others who hear you to experience trembling, bitter weeping, and great anguish of heart.

If Ezra 7:10 that you just told me a minute ago you wanted to follow, if it came with this warning label, would you still want to live by it?

Would you Would you still set your heart to study God's word and to practice God's word and to give yourself to teaching it to your children and to other people. The language in this warning that I just read might sound like extreme language, yet I lifted all of this language from the text of Ezra chapter 9 and 10. We see all of these things in the last two chapters of Ezra. This is what practicing Ezra 7:10 led to for Ezra and for the people of Judah.

In these two chapters, Ezra 9 and 10, we find the amazing story of how The people of Judah respond to Ezra's ministry of studying and practicing and teaching God's word. We find them discovering a particular area in which their lives were in direct violation. of the written word of God. Interestingly enough, the particular sin that they became aware of, the particular contradiction that they discovered between God's word and themselves was regarding the marriage issue.

They discovered that their marital choices and preferences were not in alignment with the word of God. Exactly 110 or 111, depending on what text you're reading of the Jews who returned from captivity from Babylon back to Judah had married Canaanite idolatrous women in violation of the clear command of God in the Old Testament law. And we're going to observe this morning what they did upon discovering that they were violating the word of God in making those choices. And we're going to observe that they didn't respond by getting defensive.

They didn't respond by trying to get God to repent and change his mind on this matter. They didn't respond by labeling the Bible as a hateful book. They didn't respond by saying, Well, we are Cana sexuals who are attracted to Canaanite women, and we should be entitled to marry whom we like. They didn't do any of those things.

Instead, they repented of their sin. They changed their mind, and they did the hard work. of repentance and bringing their lives into alignment with God's word. This is something that our society knows little about today, but what guys, whatever our society may do, If there's anything that we as Christians should be known for, it's repentance.

We should be the biggest repenters on the planet. To where people take note of us and say, what, I don't know what I think of these Christians, but they repent. They know what it means to repent, and they repent with courage. What does it mean to repent?

To repent basically means to admit that you are wrong, to change your mind about that thing that you've admitted that you are wrong in, and then to bring yourself into alignment with God's word. And we all know that we need to repent in order to be saved, but repentance is actually supposed to be, according to Scripture, the pattern of our lives from day to day. You guys know when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the Wittenberg door hundreds of years ago, 95 assertions that he made.

And the very first of those assertions went like this.

He said, Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance. Martin Luther was basically saying that repentance is not simply something we do to get converted. It is to be the characteristic pattern of our lives from day to day. Reading God's word, discovering ways that our lives and our thinking and our behavior are out of alignment with God's word, and then admitting that we are wrong and then bringing ourselves into alignment with God's word, basically saying, I changed my mind and I now agree with God on this.

That is to be the pattern of our lives every day, and we need to show the world what this repentance looks like, and we need to show the world that this can be done rightly and with courage, and that repentance is really not something to fear. It's not a necessary evil, it's a beautiful thing. And what we find in Ezra 9 and 10 is a clinic on repentance, and I want you to observe with me this morning how the people respond with repentance once they find themselves out of alignment with God's word.

With the time we have, and we're not going to spend a lot of time on each of these points, but we're going to observe 9 responses.

And the people of Judah, upon discovering that they were in violation of God's word, and their response is profoundly instructive for us. The first thing we observe them doing is they tremble at the words of God on account of their sin. They tremble at the words of God on account of their sin. Look at what the text says beginning in chapter 9, verse 1.

Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Parasites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians. And the Amorites, for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has been intermingled with the peoples of the lands.

Indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness. Now look at Ezra's response.

And when I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe and pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening offering. That word appalled means devastated, horrified. Sometimes it's translated ruined.

It ruined Ezra's day. He was devastated and horrified by this information that has been brought to him. Ezra has been in Judah, about 4.5 months at this point, teaching God's word to the people of Judah. He's studying it, he's practicing it.

He's teaching the people of God, the law of God, and everyone's listening to him as he is reading and explaining the law of God to them. And in the course of their increasing knowledge of the law of God, they become aware of this particular way that they were in violation of God's word. From the language of the text, we see three ways that they were in violation. They had not separated themselves from the foreign peoples and their abominations.

By the way, when you see the word abominations, that just speaks of something that's detestable to God. It's something he hates. Anything that God hates, despises, that's an abomination. And according to the language of the text, that the people of Judah had not separated themselves from the foreign peoples and their abominations.

Also, their sin was that they married abomination practicing foreigners, and this is the sin of the parents. Parents were arranging for their children. To marry abomination practicing foreigners in the land, and they have now discovered this is in violation of God's word. In fact, there's a handful of passages we can look at, but in Deuteronomy 7, 950 years earlier, before the children of Israel entered into the Land of Promise, Moses gave them the law afresh, and he said to them before they came into the land, he says in Deuteronomy 7, You shall not intermarry with them.

You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. Notice the sequence that Moses is warning them about. You intermarry, your hearts get turned away from Jehovah, the anger of the Lord burns against you. And fourthly, you get destroyed.

You get destroyed. At the point of Ezra 9 and 10, there's no northern kingdom. They're gone They have been judged for this very thing. And now the people are realizing already just in the time that we've been back here there have been a number among us that have been marrying Canaanite people, the people of the lands, and so look at how they respond.

They tremble at the words of God on account of their unfaithfulness. Guys, the earliest stage of repentance is agitation. You ever felt that? How many of you have ever felt that agitation as you come to discover you have disobeyed God?

Just raise your hand if you've ever experienced that. A trembling at the fact that we've done something that's out of alignment with God's will and His word. This is what Ezra and the people of Judah are experiencing. And again they don't get defensive.

They don't say, Well, this command in Deuteronomy 7, it was written almost 1000 years ago. This doesn't really apply today. Our situation is different today. We're living in a different era.

This is what Moses gave to the Jews back then. It doesn't really apply. Now we have to think that if Moses were writing today and if he knew everything that we know today, he would write differently. You hear that language, don't you?

But they don't respond in any of those ways. In fact, they tremble at the words of God. There are people in our society today, they want you to tremble at them, tremble before my desires. That dictate who I am and how I behave.

Everything else must give way to whatever I want to do and what my desires are as I seek to be true to myself. The people of Judah. trembled before the words of God. They're trembling because God has awakened their hearts.

He's giving them the gift of repentance. They're also trembling because they're realizing, they've been judged, they've been sent into captivity, and now they're coming back, and the chain of events that will ultimately lead to their destruction has already started again. They tremble before the words of God. There's a second thing that they do, and that is they confess the shame of their sins before God.

They confess the shame of their sins before God. It says in verse 5, but at the evening offering, I arose, Ezra says, from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the Lord my God, and I said, Oh my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads, and our guilt has grown. Even to the heavens. Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities, we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hands of the kings of the lands to the sword, to captivity, and to plunder and to open shame as it is to this day.

Notice the vocabulary that Ezra uses and that the text uses here. They trembled. Ezra's tearing his garment, tearing his robe, pulling his hair, pulling hair from his beard, sitting down appalled. He speaks of his humiliation, falls to his knees.

He's ashamed, he's embarrassed. He speaks of their great guilt in this and other matters. As he's coming before God, and I just want to ask you a question as you read, as you hear that being read. Is your immediate reaction To think that they're overreacting.

Are they going a little overboard? With this remorse thing. Are we more enlightened and mature today because we're more modest? And our response to sin in our lives.

Your answer to that question will reveal more about you. than it does about Ezra and the people of Judah. I wish I had the direct quote with me, but William Kirk Kilpatrick in his book Psychological Seduction. he speaks to those of us who take pride.

In our calm reactions to sin. Both in ourselves and in others. And he said something to this effect. He says, do not boast about the fact that your grandmother is shocked at sin while you react with benign calm.

It may be that she is the lively animal and you are the paralytic. I love that. Seriously, we need to be careful that we do not become So desensitized to sin that we cease to be shocked and horrified by sin in ourselves and in our culture. Sin is a deadly cancer that eats at the human race.

It tears relationships apart. It destroys souls. It provokes the wrath of God because he hates it so. Sin should never be a laughing matter to us.

And yet even amongst the people of God do we sometimes sit down. In front of a television set or watch a movie and we laugh at sin. That God despises. We should hate sin as the awful thing that it is.

Especially and mostly in our own lives. But here's the really cool thing about What we see here, Ezra is ashamed. He's embarrassed. He's appalled.

And he doesn't run away from God. In fact, he runs to God, with his shame and with his embarrassment. He's ashamed to lift up his face to God, but he comes to God anyway, and he pours out his heart to God. Adam and Eve.

In the early chapters of Genesis felt shame and they ran away from God. Ezra feels embarrassed and ashamed, and he runs to God. This should be the hallmark of God's people. We should show courage in facing our sin and our shame squarely in the presence of God.

We don't run from God. We run to Him with our shame and we stretch out our hands to Him and we know that we can come to God in the shame and the embarrassment of our sin because He's a good God. And he loves us. If you won't run to God with your shame, where are you going to go with that?

Who will you run to? If there's sin in your life, That you're horrified at the thought of, man, I'm so embarrassed. I'm so ashamed. There's no way I would ever come to God.

No, God's like, please come to me. Please come to me, bring your shame and your embarrassment to me. Because I am a God who delights in those who cling to my mercy. There's a 3rd response that we observe here in Ezra 9 and 10.

In the people of Judah, and that is that they review the history of God's grace toward them in spite of their sins. Ezra, and this is part of the reason why he feels comfortable coming to God with his shame and embarrassment, because God is a God of grace, and Ezra in his prayer to God takes time to review. God's grace. Look at what he says.

But now for a brief moment, grace has been shown from the Lord our God to leave us an escape remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage. For we are slaves. Yet in our bondage, our God has not forsaken us but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia to give us reviving, to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

And now our God, what shall we say after this?

In other words, what shall we say after this grace that you have shown us, for we have forsaken. Your commandments. What Ezra's doing here is so instructive for us. In the first place, as I said a moment ago, it explains why Ezra felt comfortable coming to God with the shame and embarrassment, because God is a God of grace.

He's a God of grace who delights to save and to forgive sinners. And so Ezra is basically preaching their gospel to himself in prayer. He's reviewing the past grace that God has shown, even up to the present, and it's because this grace and loving kindness has come from God to them that Ezra's like, what, I'm humiliated by these disclosures. I'm ashamed and embarrassed, but what?

God is the God of grace and so it is to him that I will come. With this brokenness. But there's another aspect here to their contemplation of God's grace. And please don't miss this.

Ezra is contemplating God's grace and loving kindness as a way of actually bringing out the awfulness of their sins. Did you catch that? Ezra is thinking about God's grace, not in order to make the sin seem smaller, but actually to show the sin for the awful thing that it is. What he's doing is he reviews God's grace, and then he basically says, after all that you have done, Lord, and showing us this amazing grace, This is our answer.

This is how we answer your grace. By turning around and directly violating what you have taught us in your law. This is helpful for us. There are people nowadays in the church.

who think about God's grace in a way that makes them feel more OK in their sin. yeah, I'm messing up. I'm sinning, but hey, God loves me. He knows I'm not perfect.

Christ died for my sin. And I know that God's OK with me and I'm on my way to heaven, and it's almost like their mind goes to the grace of God to make themselves more comfortable. With their sin What we should be saying is, God. You, you sent your Son into the world to die on the cross for my sins.

You raised Him from the dead. You seated Him at your own right hand. You brought me to life and enabled me to place my faith in Jesus Christ, and you have forgiven me. You've redeemed me.

You've cleansed me of the guilt of my sin. You've delivered me from the power of sin. You've given me the gift of your Holy Spirit. I'm bound for heaven forever.

Christ is preparing a mansion for me in heaven, you brought me into relationship with yourself, and you made me a member of the family of God. All of which is the opposite of what I deserve. And this sin that I've just committed is my answer to that. This is, this is how I respond to this grace that you have shown to me.

And even as believers on this side of the cross, we should be able to say in our prayers, Lord, I know better than any Old Testament saint ever could have known how awful sin is, for I know that it led to the death of the Son of God who died for me. And after beholding that, I turn around and commit yet another sin. Now guys, I hope you're understanding what I'm saying here. And what my intention is, this is heavy, isn't it?

This is very heavy. A mark of spiritual maturity is the ability to receive this without being crushed. If we see our sin against the backdrop of God's grace, And see it as more awful than we ever saw it before. We then are able to appreciate God's grace even more.

And we run to Him and experience grace and forgiveness, and the more deeply we understand the magnitude of our sin, the more deeply we understand the magnitude of God's grace, and the more deeply we understand His grace, the more we love Him and want to go crazy for Him. Amen. So understanding our sin, even against the backdrop of God's grace, it's, it's not an end in itself. It's a means to the greater end of understanding His grace and His love even more.

But I, just this week being instructed by their example, when I've, found myself having sinned, it's actually been a powerful thing to just start reviewing the gospel and it's like, and this is my answer, Lord. You do all this for me and this is how I reply to that with this sin. It helps me to see the greatness of my sin, but then the greatness of God's forgiveness and it deepens my love for Him. May God give us the ears to hear what's being said and to be able to receive it, to believe it, and to practice it and fall more and more in love with our God of grace.

There's a 4th thing that they do in their path of repentance, and that is they confess God's word on the very matter in which they had sinned. They actually quote the Bible against themselves. In verse 10, Ezra says, and now our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments which you have commanded by your servants, the prophets, 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 they have filled it from end to end and with their impurity.

So now do not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever. They're quoting basically a collection of verses in this statement that Ezra is giving expression to. Teaching us guys that when we confess our sins to God, we should not only confess our sins, but also confess God's word on the matter.

Read the Bible.

When you've sinned, read the Bible, read it aloud. To confess literally means to say the same thing God says about our sin. And the best way to do that is to open your Bible and read the Bible aloud. In the very area where you and I have sinned, when you and the Bible disagree, quote the Bible.

Don't quote the American Psychiatric Association. That says that something is OK. that the Bible says is not. Quote the Bible, even against yourself.

This is what God's people do. This is part of the path to change and transformation. Stop quoting your excuses over your sins. Stop trying to get God to repent where you and God disagree.

You repent, quote the Bible against your sin. That's what the Jews are doing here. And that's what we need to do if we would learn how to judge ourselves in this way. As Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11, you would not need to be judged by God.

There's a 5th thing that they do, and that is they confess the judgment that they deserve for their sins. Ezra takes time to basically rehearse. Here's what we deserve for the sins that we have committed, verse 13, and after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since you, our God, have repaid us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us an escape remnant as this, shall we again break your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these Abominations, would you not be angry with us to the point of destruction until there is no remnant, nor any who escape?

Oh Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we have been left an escape remnant as it is to this day.

Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for no one can stand before you because Of this Ezra is confessing, essentially the judgment that they deserve for their sins. And again, we do this even as believers, as the people of God, not as an end in itself. Don't you dare go before God after you've sinned and say, God, here's my sin, here's how I violated your word. Here's the judgment I deserve, and then it stops there.

This is a means to the greater end. God, this is my sin. This is how it violates your word. This is the judgment that I deserve, and then you move on from there.

But nonetheless, this is what you have done for me, Lord, and the grace that you have shown. So that you understand and give voice to the greatness of God's grace. And those who are forgiven much, Jesus says they love much. There's a 6th thing that they do in their path of repentance, and that is they weep bitterly over their sin.

It says now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel, for the people wept bitterly. Thomas Watson, the Puritan writer and preacher said it this way, until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. There is value in understanding and feeling the bitterness of sin, weeping bitterly, because when we have done that, we are set up to appreciate the sweetness of the grace of Jesus Christ.

People who go deep in their repentance, and weep bitterly over their sins set themselves up. To appreciate the grace of God far more than anyone today with a shallow view of sin. could ever hope to experience. Notice the gathering here.

There's everyone's there. And those who tremble at God's word. There are men, women, and children who are present, and here's Ezra. Plucking his beard, renting his clothes.

And In great grief and others are in great grief. I just imagine the children that would have been in this gathering and they would have been looking around and this is a gathering they would have never forgotten. They would have been able to look at Ezra and the others. weeping bitterly.

And these children would forever know from that visual that sin is serious in the eyes of God. Ezra is a great example for us as parents. Parents, do your children know from just watching you? Do they know from just observing your life?

That sin is serious. There's a 7th thing that they do and this is where we turn a corner. By the way, you're probably thinking, why are we covering this? We're in a new building.

This is a happy time. Why, why are we doing this? Well, understand the parallel. The people of Judah just finished their brand new temple.

And they just finished celebrating the temple. They're in a new place. And then as the narrative continues, boom, this is how Ezra ends chapter 9 and 10 is all about this. And that's why like even being in this new place, this, this may be a new place for us, but The real beauty of Cornerstone is not to be in this place, in the facility, but in the beauty of repentance.

May we be old fashioned. In our commitment to repenting of sin. There's a 7th thing that they do here, and that is that they confess hope for themselves in spite of their sin. I love this verse 2, and Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, yet now there is hope for Israel, in spite of this.

Amen. We have sinned. We've sinned, we've been unfaithful, yet there is hope for us. They confessed their sin, but they also confessed the fact that they had hope in God.

People who refuse to confess their sins will cut themselves off from the experience of God's grace. People who confess their sins. And then say there's no hope for me. I will never change.

God could never forgive me. I can never forgive myself. They too cut themselves off from the experience of God's grace. Paul in Corinthians talks about how there is a sorrow that leads to death.

There's a sorrow over sin that leads to despair, and that's worldly sorrow, godly sorrow, godly repentance says, I have sinned. My sin is great. My sin is awful. I deserve God's judgment for my sins, yet there is hope for me.

In spite of my sin. That leads to an 8th thing that we find them doing in their journey of repentance, and that is they resolve to forsake their sin. They don't say wow, we've really blown it and oh well, let's move on. We've had a weeping session about it.

No, they determined to forsake their sin. There's a lot that can be said about this. I'm still trying to get my mind wrapped around it. but just for the sake of time, let's just linger on one fact about their resolve to forsake their sin.

Look at what verse 3 says. It says, so now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children according to the counsel of my Lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God and let it be done according to the law. Let's do this according to the provisions that are in The law You guys will be reading Ezra 10 this week. Long story short, they resolve to put away their idolatrous foreign wives from them.

They tell Ezra, we're ready to do whatever. show courage, Ezra, and lead us and assure and direct us in what you want us to do. They then call a mass meeting in Jerusalem, and they tell everyone you've got 3 days to show up and if you don't show up, all of your property is going to be confiscated. And you're going to be excommunicated from the people of Israel.

That's a great way to ensure you're going to have good attendance. And they all gather. Ezra then speaks to them, and he says in chapter 10, you've been unfaithful. Make confession.

Do God's will. Separate yourselves from the foreign wives. And the people responded by saying, That's right, we will do this. But then they say, But there's a lot to do, plus it's raining.

And let's be organized in how we do it. And so they set up a process that ends up taking a couple of months or so for them to fully execute it. As you read chapter 10 this week. One commentator describes that as one of the most miserable scenes in the Bible.

People are there gathered. And they're trembling at their sin and also because of the rain. This is in the month of December. So just the weather conditions, the chill, and their sin, they're just trembling and they're like, Ezra, we can't really deal with this right now in the rain and all at once our sin is deep and Let's set up judges and people who can then show up and we can execute this and make sure that this sin gets fully dealt with.

So Ezra goes along with that, but in the end, guys, ultimately they forsake their sin. When you tie this together with Malachi chapter 2, verse 13 to 16, Malachi is actually a prophet who's talking about the very sin of the people during this time. The likelihood of what was happening was that the exiles were coming from Babylon into Judah, and after that journey and settling in the land, there were Jewish men who were divorcing their Jewish wife and marrying Canaanite women in their place.

That's, and that's what Malachi is blasting them for, breaking covenant with the wife of their youth and marrying another.

there's a lot to talk about regarding how they handled this and putting away their wives after marrying them. know that this is in the Old Testament. We've got instructions in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 7. If you're married to a non-believer, Paul says if they are content to live with you, then you are to remain in that marriage, you are not.

So we have counsel. In the New Testament era of what to do in a situation where we find ourselves married to someone who is a foreigner in a sense to the people of God, and that is we stay married to them unless they insist that the marriage come to an end. In that case we are to let them go. But they handled this carefully, judiciously.

You're left with the impression that if any of these foreign wives, repented and said, I'm not going to practice these abominations and I'm going to lay aside my idols, And they wanted to become a proselyte to the people of God. That maybe that's part of why it took so long to work through this over the two months or so. Maybe in some of those cases the marriages were allowed to continue, but this is, this is a very serious matter that required emergency steps. But this is not ideal.

Everybody loses here. Sin is the great complicator. There are times where we have sinned and there are no easy solutions. The pain meter is high no matter what we do.

It's just better, folks, to obey God in the first place. There's a 9th and a final thing that they do. In these chapters in their journey of repentance, and that is they obtain atonement for their sins through blood sacrifice. They obtain atonement for their sins through blood sacrifice.

Look at verse 19 of chapter 10, and they pledge to put away their wives and being guilty, so they didn't minimize their guilt. They didn't deny their guilt. They acknowledged we are very guilty. So they pledged to put away their wives and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their sin or offense.

This is critical. The people of Judah didn't just clean up their act and hope that that would endear them to God. They didn't just rely on their own tears to save them. No, they knew that they needed an animal sacrifice.

Blood needed to be shed for them to be made right with God. They've wept bitterly. They've shed tears. They've trembled.

They've confessed their sins. They've resolved to forsake their sins. They've stood shivering in the rain for hours. They could have thought God must really favor us.

Look at, look at how long we stood in the rain. Plus, Lord, look at the temple we just built. See how beautiful that is. They could have depended upon those things.

But they don't do that after all the fine stuff that they have done. In this path of repentance, they know we still need atonement through the slaying. Of a blameless animal. We need blood sacrifice.

If you're here today. You need to hear God when he says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins, and appreciate the fact that God sent His Son Jesus into the world to be the blameless one, to live a perfect life, to die the death that you deserve to die, to shed his blood upon the cross. You need atonement. Don't think that you can shed tears, that you can do good deeds, that you could build things and help people and that will endear you to God.

You need atonement. And I call upon you to run to Jesus today. God has provided that atonement for you. Run to Jesus.

There's no other savior out there who has died for you like Jesus has. Believe in Him. Even for us as Christians, when we sin, we can go through the same journey of understanding the magnitude of our sin, the judgment we deserve, but then we review the grace of God, and we know that there's hope for us. And as John says in First John, we can confess our sins and know that he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is so helpful for us today. I just want to ask you, how good of a repenter are you? Are you a good Repenter Would your children, Dad, say, yeah, one thing about my dad is he's a good repenter. He's got his other faults, but he knows how to repent.

He knows how to say, I'm sorry. And when he sees that he's out of alignment with God's word, he repents. He grieves over that and forsakes his sins. We find in these people of Judah a great example of how to repent.

They tremble. At God's word on account of their sin, they bring the shame of their sins to God. They review God's grace toward them in spite of their sins. They confess God's word.

They quote the word of God on the manner in which they had sinned. They confess the judgment they deserve. They weep bitterly over their sins. They confess hope for themselves in spite of their sin.

They forsake their sin, and they obtain. And receive atonement for their sin through blood sacrifice. So we end with this, even if Ezra 7:10 comes with a warning label telling us, hey, if you follow this verse, You're going to find yourself experiencing the depths of such things. We still even reading that label, say, what, that's the way I want to live my life.

Because these things are the essence of salvation, and they render us beautiful in the eyes of God. God gives daily salvation to people who repent in this way. And Isaiah 66, God gives to us this promise, this assurance. He says to his people, Heaven is my throne.

And the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house that you can build for me, and where is the place that I may rest? And then he says, but to this one I will look. In other words, as I look for a place to dwell and as I look for a place to rest, this is the one.

This is the place that I will look to for rest and to dwell. Him who is humble and broken of spirit and who trembles at my word. Listen carefully and draw great encouragement from this. What God is saying is this, I would rather dwell in a And a broken soul.

I would rather dwell in a broken soul that totters and trembles at my word. Then in the most beautiful Sturdy temple that anyone might ever try to build for me. In fact, God is saying, if you want to know where I live, my address. Look for those who tremble at my word and who are broken over their sin.

I live in them. That's my address. That's my address. And that's why Ezra 7:10 is a pattern.

That's worth following. Let's go to God in prayer and ask him to help us to live this out. Lord, if there's any here today who have never put their trust in you and run to you with their shame and brokenness. We ask, Lord, that you would would draw them to yourself, that you would give to them the gift of repentance.

Repentance, Lord, is a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift from you. To both Jews and Gentiles.

We ask, Lord, that You would give us the gift of repentance, make us a people who are Good At repenting That the depths of your grace and your salvation are appreciated in our midst. And that we as a people love you mightily, Lord, because those who are forgiven much love much. And Lord, I know that in this room not everyone has the ears to hear what's been said. Not everyone has a heart to appreciate the model that we see in Ezra 9 and 10.

But we know that many do have the hearts and ears to do so, and those who may not in this moment have the ears and the hearts to appreciate these things, Lord, we just ask that You would grace them, that you would bring them to life, that you would grant to them this wonderful gift of repentance. Because those are the ones that you look upon with favor, those are the ones that you give atonement to through Jesus, those are the ones in whom you dwell. May your presence, Lord, be palpable in our midst.

May all who come into our gatherings, know that God is here, that God has chosen to dwell here in and amongst these people.

And Lord, what we've seen on display here in this passage tells us part of the path to that happening. If we are a repenting people, Receiving your grace. Then we will love you. And you will dwell in our brokenness, and you will transform us, and a light will go forth from this church that will give healing and warmth and insight to many in this community who desperately need it.

We thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to give of our offerings to you, receive these funds that we give to you in this offering. And use every penny, Lord, for the glory of Jesus and the spread of this amazing message of salvation through Him. We give ourselves to you also, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,