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Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever been moved to tears or significant action simply by listening to someone pray? Way too often prayer offered out loud in a public setting can be anything from a sermon to a political speech or even a rebuke of something or someone.
Down through history the prayers of some people have made it into the Biblical record and one of those is found in Ezra 9. It’s a powerful, repentant, humble, instructional prayer which poured out of Ezra’s broken heart. He was overwhelmed, ashamed for the failure of Jerusalem leaders. It’s also a prayer seeking God’s mercy and guidance in the middle of a crisis.
As we saw yesterday, the scholar and teacher Ezra sat in public shame most of that day, joined by many people who gathered around him. They joined Ezra in his shamed posture, sitting on the ground in sackcloth and ashes, for they too were humiliated by the moral failure of their leaders.
Ezra records this in his autobiographical account of this event: “I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice. Then I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the LORD my God and I prayed: ‘I am too ashamed and disgraced my God, to lift up my face to You, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached up to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hands of foreign kings, as it is today.” (Ezra 9:4-7) What did you hear my friends, what do you see?
Ezra, on that historic day, may have been one of the most educated men in all Jerusalem. He was clearly the most honored of all Jerusalem men, for King Artaxerxes had sent Ezra to Jerusalem as the king’s emissary! Yet in his self-abasement Ezra the scholar, teacher and emissary of the king sought to put himself in the lowest place of humility and even humiliation before God.
Ezra had studied in great detail God’s involvement in the history of Israel going all the way back to Moses. Only a little more than 100 years before, God’s patience had run out on the sinful, unrepentant people of Jerusalem and God had led King Nebuchadnezzar to invade Jerusalem for a third time in 20 years, this time to demolish both the city and the great Temple of God. (2 Chron. 36:15-21)
Ezra, his parents, and grandparents had all been born and raised as exiles in Babylon as a result of God’s outpouring of His righteous judgment on Israel. Ezra knew the key to God’s heart of mercy and blessing has always been honest and complete repentance followed by humble worship. Have we learned that formula with God, my friends?
I am amazed at the similarity between Ezra’s prayer in Ezra 9, offered in 458bc and Daniel’s prayer of Daniel 9 which he prayed in about 538bc. 80 years of time separated them, yet they knew God and saw Israel’s history so similarly. I have no doubt Ezra had studied the life and writings of Daniel and knew his prayer well. Unlike Daniel who died well before the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, Ezra was able to thank God for what he saw as the evidence of God’s mercy and goodness to His people after He had poured out His judgment.
Ezra prayed: “Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia; God has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and God has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.” (Ezra 9:8,9) Regardless of where you live in the world, are you able to look at the history of your place with God through the eyes of Ezra and Daniel? What do you see when you look at your city, your country with Biblical, spiritual glasses?
Ezra was very clear in accurately and properly repeating to God what Ezra knew as God’s clear commands to his people so many centuries before, and the continual failure of God’s people in holding to God’s Covenant. (Ezra 9:10-12) And Ezra’s great conclusion is so very powerful: “What has happened to us is a result of our evil deed and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us a remnant like this. Shall we then break Your commands again and intermarry with the people who commit such detestable practices? Would You not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor?” (Ezra 9:13,14) Do we hear Ezra’s agony? Do we follow his reasoning? Do we see similar situations in our countries, our cities, even our churches or extended families?
And so, Ezra concludes with this great declaration in humble prayer: “LORD, the God of Israel, You are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before You in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in Your Presence! (Ezra 9:15) Ezra had reached the end of himself. The moral failure of the Jewish Jerusalem leaders was so repulsive to Ezra he must certainly declare that God’s holy justice would be reasonable and fair if once again God simply wiped Jerusalem off the face of the earth. Ezra knew, of course, that if God did pour out such justice wrath Ezra and all who had just recently returned from Babylon to Jerusalem would be swept away in God’s wrath.
Sometimes repentance is contagious, have you ever seen that? And Ezra records that: “While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites, men, women and children, gathered around Ezra. They too wept bitterly…” (Ezra 10:1) Not since the days of the boy King Josiah had there been such repentance in Jerusalem. That had occurred in 622bc, almost 165 years before Ezra! Josiah’s repentant revival had come when the Book of God’s Law had been discovered in the Temple storerooms when the Temple was being reopened and cleaned! (2 Chronicles 34) Ezra wondered…could it be God would once again bring spiritual revival and moral cleansing to the people of Jerusalem or had God’s patience run out and was judgment about to fall?
As we close today my “Walking with Jesus” friends, may I urge you to find time to read or listen to Ezra’s great prayer in Ezra 9, all of it! And ask the Holy Spirit of God to help you understand how God sees your city, your church, your family and let’s get really personal, how does God see you and me today? What prayer would God be most delighted to hear from you and me today?
Here’s a very appropriate worship song to help us consider this important matter of the power of REPENTANCE…
Today’s Scripture: Ezra 9.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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