The Subversion of the People of God
Notes
Transcript
Revelation
Revelation
Ezra 10:1-17
1 While Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and falling facedown before the house of God, an extremely large assembly of Israelite men, women, and children gathered around him. The people also wept bitterly. 2 Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, an Elamite, responded to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the surrounding peoples, but there is still hope for Israel in spite of this. 3 Therefore, let’s make a covenant before our God to send away all the foreign wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the law. 4 Get up, for this matter is your responsibility, and we support you. Be strong and take action!”
5 Then Ezra got up and made the leading priests, Levites, and all Israel take an oath to do what had been said; so they took the oath. 6 Ezra then went from the house of God and walked to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib, where he spent the night. He did not eat food or drink water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
7 They circulated a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles should gather at Jerusalem. 8 Whoever did not come within three days would forfeit all his possessions, according to the decision of the leaders and elders, and would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.
9 So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. On the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain. 10 Then the priest Ezra stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. 11 Therefore, make a confession to the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the surrounding peoples and your foreign wives.”
12 Then all the assembly responded loudly, “Yes, we will do as you say! 13 But there are many people, and it is the rainy season. We don’t have the stamina to stay out in the open. This isn’t something that can be done in a day or two, for we have rebelled terribly in this matter. 14 Let our leaders represent the entire assembly. Then let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at appointed times, together with the elders and judges of each town, in order to avert the fierce anger of our God concerning this matter.” 15 Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah opposed this, with Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite supporting them.
16 The exiles did what had been proposed. The priest Ezra selected men who were family heads, all identified by name, to represent their ancestral families. They convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter, 17 and by the first day of the first month they had dealt with all the men who had married foreign women.
Why is it that we have gathered here today?
What is the purpose of this gathering?
What is the nature of this meeting today?
Is today simply for a check in the box?
Is it something in hopes to get some encouraging tweet-able phrases to get on with the week?
Have we, the church, become consumed with the things of this world, so much so that we have lost our focus on our true purpose and existence here on earth?
I want to walk through our text, briefly describe what we are seeing and what is happening, and then make application to our circumstances today
Continuing from last week, Ezra had just previously learned that the Israelites had begun again to marry the peoples of the surrounding lands
And we had shown that the marrying was not necessarily the issue, the issue was Israel’s seeking of other peoples in a way that would lead them to the worship of foreign gods
It was Israel’s tendency to desire and want to look like everyone else
This was, how the people in the Old Testament came to have earthly kings
1 Samuel 8:4-5
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Therefore, appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.”
It was this counter desire, the desire contrary to what God wanted for them,
as God wanted them to be unique, distinct amongst the nations that the nations would look in towards Israel
And say “there is something different with them”
So last week we saw Ezra’s confession on behalf of the people
And here we are continuing in that confession moving towards action
Because now it is not just Ezra and a few
Now, while Ezra is confessing and weeping at the spiritual state of the nation there gathers around him and extremely large crowd - v.1
This realization, the conviction of sin has arrived not just to Ezra but to the peoples as well
Then, v.2-3, Shecaniah speaks up and confesses to Ezra in response of Ezra’s mourning
And proclaims that there is yet still hope
So despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, there is yet still hope, why?
Because in spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness, there is God who is faithful
That was one of the things we saw last week, this grace being given to the people in spite of their sin
And then, Shecaniah becomes the person that every leader needs, his hype man
No seriously, Ezra is so consumed in his weeping on behalf of the sin, and Shecaniah sees the issue to,
But ever now and again, a leader needs someone to give them the hard word of v.4
Ezra 10:4
4 Get up, for this matter is your responsibility, and we support you. Be strong and take action!”
There is ownership and action
Now mind you, Ezra just arrived, and as we will later see, he wasn’t one who was guilty of taking a foreign spouse
So what responsibility does he have?
The responsibility of leading the people out of sin
Of pointing and calling the people to the light when they have surrounded themselves in darkness.
And sometimes, I can vouch for this personally, sometimes, there is an overwhelming nature of leadership when seeing people
When seeing communities and the effects sin has wrought upon lives
There can be sometimes too much to bear and you need that person to come alongside and say “be strong. Take action”
So v. 5 Ezra gets up and has the leaders take an oath
And in v. 7-11 the message goes out to all the peoples
And in v. 12-13 we see the pervasiveness of sin
The people recognize what they have done, and also recognize just how far it has gone
It has gone so far that they can’t even handle the whole situation in one day.
It is so pervasive that they need basically subcommittees to represent each town so that that it can be handled that way because there is so much to sort through
We even see in v.16-17 that they start the process in the 1 day of the 10th month and it takes them 2 months to get through all of it
We started with talking about God’s desire for his people to look different and yet we are in this text, in which the people have become so entrenched in sin
That you can’t tell them apart from the surrounding peoples
What has become of us?
Who are we anymore?
These questions likely rattled through the mind of Ezra and he looked out at the status of the supposed to be “people of God”
The irony however, in them being called the people of God, at this point, is that they looked everything like the “people of the world”
You see, church there is this pressure, upon the church from the outside for the church to cave in and be like the world
In anyway, pick your political party or cultural battle or business institution whatever, there is pressure from all of those directions
To make the church cave and become what they want it to be
Here is proof of this, today is Sanctity of Life Sunday. Here is evidence of the political church as opposed to the people of God
You’ve got one half of the political church that has been puppeted by the left and has passed on the idea that abortion is perfectly okay
And the result is the death of 62 million human lives created in God’s image. That number is hard to comprehend but for perspective,
If you were to lay 62 million babies head to toe, they would make it 80% of the way around the world.
If you lay that many babies head to toe along the highway, you could go from east coast to west coast 7 times.
And half of the political church nods there heads in agreement as their leader is puppeted by politics
And don’t get me started on the other half, the other half was perfectly okay to nod and smile while the leader of the free world,
of the right wing, refers to people crossing the border as animals
And said things about women that if was said about my wife, I would end up in hand cuffs.
And the other half of the political church nods their heads while there pastor is puppeted by a political party and they sing God bless America as a worship song
Church please hear me...
Some want the church as the spokesperson for their political party, so they will court leaders, and pastors, and networks
Who will then platform their ideas, ideas they can’t actually derive or find in the right, proper reading of Scripture,
And so the distinctness of the church will be abandoned
And they will end up with a political puppet not a Pastor
They will end up with a Currier of political liberalism or conservatism not a church
But don’t think it stops at our politics....
Some want the church to the end of a business institution
And so the church will take on systems and practices and policies in order to maximize numbers, or budgets
And so the distinctness of the church will be abandoned
And the Pastor will begin to lead meetings like a fortune 500 company and the preaching will end up shallow like some start of the year vision cast sales pitch
And they will up with Profit-driven CEO and not a Pastor
They will have a corporation and not a church
Others want the church to the end of their version of societal change
And so the church will take ideas and theories and practices from whatever happens to be the dominate cultural hot button topic
And so the distinctness of the church will be abandoned
And you will end up with a cultural influencer and personality and not a Pastor
You will end up with a populist social club and not a church
But the key here is there will always be outside pressure
The pressure comes from outside but the subversion happens from within.
It happens when the people of God, begin not to trust in the LORD for our good,
Begin not to trust in the LORD for the plan
Begin not to trust in the LORD for the means by which to accomplish that plan
And we walk in unfaithfulness
So what do we do then?
Is this just some hard message with no solution
Just a means to outlet some Pastors frustration?
No the church can regain its distinction
And ironically, when the church does regain its distinction it is free to engage all of the issues of our world
It is free to engage the issue of generational poverty, free to engage the issue of abortion and homelessness and immigration
Free to engage people as people not as political, business, or societal means to an end
Why? Because the church is then no longer beholden to anyone but God
And we freely do as God says in His word
In all of this, there is still a hope and a beauty to the text that we read
There is still, even yet a light shining in the darkness we have covered ourselves with
Because what we are seeing in this text is the step in which we all need to take
The courage of action in repentance
Because here is the thing, biblical repentance is an evidence, a fruit, a manifestation of the working of God in your life
Remember repentance is a godly sorrow over sin that leads to change in direction
Repentance, for the people of God, is a trusting in God that He is faithful, that He knows what He is doing,
and a walking in His ways because of that trusting, Because of that confidence
And there is a temptation, and I think this temptation actually proves the point
Guys it starts with us.
This is the people of God we are seeing in this text, lets be clear of that
Whether America exists or not there will remain a people who follow the LORD and therefore
Catch this, they actually have to follow the LORD.... not the world!
I think we have become numb, numb like the people did prior to Ezra 9
Because it isn’t until Ezra 9 when He finds out that there is weeping and mourning and repentance
So what was everyone else doing?
Was everyone just blind to the sin in their midst?
Surely the sin wasn’t hidden because it was so prevalent amongst the people that to fix the situation it would take months!
And I think, the followers of Jesus here in America, we are somewhere in Ezra 8.
We have not reached Ezra 9 yet, we are still somewhere swimming in the ways and patterns of the world and haven’t yet realized to ask the question
Who are we anymore?
What have we become?
The reason there is a pressure from the outside upon the church, the reason there is a quest that there would be an internal subversion
Is because the people of God, actually living on mission is unstoppable
We haven’t quite come to terms with the just how far we have all drifted from the mission
So we are going to sing a song, and there is a deep importance to the lyrics of this song
The song is called Crown Him
And I wanted us to sing this, because as the church we need to stop crowing culture or politics or CEO’s
And recall again the one who saved us.
Because no politician or business leader or cultural influencer died for my sins
None them freely offer salvation
Everyone else offers a false salvation at a high price
Don’t trust that.
Turn to Jesus. Trust Him for salvation cost is faith.
Crown Jesus.