Ezra 10

Notes
Transcript

Verse 1

While Ezra prayed and made confession… (What we covered last week in Ezra 9:6-15), after he had already been so distraught about the sin of the people in intermarrying with the people who worshipped other gods that he had pulled out his own hair and beard hair...
As he prayed and made confession he wept as he (continually) cast himself (to lay flat on his face) before the house/Temple of God and thus before God Himself...
Confess - to admit guilt, to agree (with God on what He calls sin)
Now a great crowd gathers of those who tremble before God and His holy word, and they too weep bitterly as they acknowledge (agree with God about) the sin of the people in marrying non believers.
What a powerful picture of repentance we see here!
When a man or woman of God agrees with God and is genuine in their confession and repentance before God, others will join as they too come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Guess what, sometimes it takes that first person to stand up (or fall on their face as it were) and declare that God is right about what is sin, and that they will submit themselves to Him, His word, and rely on His grace and mercy in full submission and faith in Him before others will feel the freedom or safety to do the same even if they have quietly been feeling and believing that way for a while.
Don’t miss that Ezra did this in a very public setting and that setting allowed others to see and join with him as they cried out before God about the situation that they found themselves in.
BTW, study any great revival in history and you will always see that it starts with the people of God making confession to God about their personal sin as well as the sin of God’s people.
Confession allows the worshipper to unburden their heart.
I read this quote in another commentary and think it’s spot on...
““Confession of sins is a neglected doctrine. It only comes into its rightful place in times of revival, when the Holy Spirit comes in doubly-convicting power and makes it impossible for the erring believer to have any peace of mind until the wrong is confessed whenever necessary.” (J. Edwin Orr)
It is my opinion that this type of confession is in itself an act of true worship that pleases God and edifies the church.
I’m not talking about the person who is just trying to be seen or heard and therefore makes some public act of saying sorry for something that they should do before God alone, but this type of radical admittance of sin that so deeply hits the heart of God and draws others onto their own faces before God so that they too can confess, beg for forgiveness, and leave knowing that God has cleansed them thoroughly for which also they weep in exuberant joy, only to be used by Him for His glory moving forward according to His will.
Also, don’t forget that all of this is taking place in just a generation since the exiles returned.

Verses 2-4

Look at how this all impacted the people of God!
Shechaniah doesn’t just feel bad about his sin, he offers a way to correct the wrong that had been done against God.
Now don’t forget (for those of you who read Malachi as your homework) that one of the major issues that lead up to this moment was the fact that leaders were divorcing their wives in favor of the pagan women...
Malachi 2:10–17 ESV
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts! 13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” 17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
Malachi 2:16 (NKJV)
16 “For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.”
The far reaching trouble of the sin of the people is being realized now.
Sin never only impacts your life alone, it is always far reaching among the family of faith and amongst your family at home.
Even though divorce was never the intention of God when He created marriage and displayed it first through Adam and Eve, He did warn the people not to intermarry with those who worshipped idols and even gave provision under the Old Covenant law...
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 deals with that issue although it certainly is written in such a way that seems to indicate that even in that case the man would have married a fellow God worshipper
Deuteronomy 24:1 ESV
1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
If you remember we covered that verse as a reference text a few weeks ago when we were in Mark 10 when we learned that divorce really displays a hardness of heart...
Mark 10:5 ESV
5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
In this case the call for divorce was one to repent of a hardness of heart against God and His word to His people that warned them of the devastation to come from marrying unbelievers.
In the church age under the New Covenant we learn this about marriage and divorce of an unbeilver...
1 Corinthians 7:10–15 ESV
10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.
Nevertheless in the case here in Ezra they were commanded to not only put away their wives, but even their children form those foreign wives because they were the offspring of sinful behaviour.
Now what that means is that the children would go with their pagan mothers and the fathers would financially support them.
Let’s make something clear though in all of this. The command isn’t to divorce a wife and make the children leave too because they are from a different place or of a different genealogical people group, but to make them leave because they worshipped other gods in contradiction to worshipping the God (YHWH) of the Bible.
If the wives had become followers and worshippers of God and the same goes for their children, then they would not be told to divorce them or send away their children. This was all based on spiritual traits not physical traits.
Again we see the far reaching effects of sin when we look at how all of this was to be remedied.

Verses 5-8

Ezra listened to the words of Shechaniah and agreed with his suggestion and now makes everyone swear an oath to do as was suggested by Shechaniah.
Notice that Ezra started with the leaders so that they would set the standard and lead the people in active repentance before God.
When we look at verse 8 we might think that Ezra is being a little over the top but remember that this was the man that set his heart to study, do and teach the word of God in Jerusalem was also the man that King Artexerxes gave civil authority to make such a command...
Ezra 7:26 ESV
26 Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”

Verses 9-11

This would be early December timeframe.
This is what it looks like when the Holy Spirit is moving upon hearts and those hearts respond in such a way that they are willing to sit outside in the freezing rain trembling because of their sin.
But Ezra wasn’t going to just let them have a quick emotional moment and go back to their sin. It was time for them to do the business of confessing and repenting before God seeking His forgiveness and cleansing power over their lives.
If they do not confess, they will not repent. If they do not repent, they will not be forgiven and cleansed. If they are not forgiven and cleansed of their sin, they will live on in their sin in total spiritual defeat and not do His will...

Verses 12-15

Verses 16-17

This was a 3 month long process.
No doubt a part of the examination was to find out if any of those foreign women had left their idolatry to become followers of God.
The pain of all of this is why we learn in the NT book of 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Verses 18-44

What is interesting and powerful to see is that just over 100 out of the probable thousands of marriages ended in divorce which further goes to show that the Holy Spirit was moving in such a way that this was a true revival!
Side note - If you are in here or if you are watching this online and your marriage is struggling to the point that divorce has been discussed or even yelled about, please see how many marriages God spared in this chapter and trust that He could also spare your marriage if only you would be honest before Him about your own sin so that He could heal you and your home. Even if your spouse is not a believer, God can capture their heart and that is ultimately what your heart’s desire would be for them and for your children.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more