Israel's Great Sin

Well take your Bible this evening turn to Ezra chapter 9. You know by now our verses I mentioned them this morning also I mentioned them during our scripture reading earlier will be in verses 1 through 4. Now you know that this is not a true verse by verse study. We have tackled quite a few verses in different messages. It's not my desire to zoom through the book but I don't want to belabor in the book either. I'm trying to do more than just hit the high spots but some of the messages just the way they come together we take more verses and some we take fewer. But tonight we will just cover four verses there's a lot two verses 1 through 4.

Now if you've kept up with our study you know that we have had eight messages so far within the book. We've already seen the first wave of exiles come back the second wave they came back the second wave came with Ezra. If you keep up with the writing style you can see that when Ezra comes he begins to write in the first person because he is on the scene. But these exiles have come back home to the homeland to Israel. The temple has been completed and they are well on their way to rebuilding and reforming their worship of the one true God. Now I hope you understand the purpose of God in all of these these goings on.

It's about God's purpose to have a people set apart for himself. These are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are the people that he is called and so in calling them back out of Babylonian captivity, calling them back out of Assyrian captivity, they have come home to rebuild and renew and reform their worship. Now as we progress starting in verse or excuse me starting in chapter 9, we will see that it won't be long before we see the need for two other words. Those words are repenting and reviving.

We are going to see that some great repentance needs to take place and then as we continue we will see a great spiritual revival work its way through the people. We're going to see this very soon. Now I want to take a step back and I want to give some context to these verses. I've just given you a little background that helped set it up and I want to give you a little bit of context. Remember that Ezra did not arrive. He didn't come back. He didn't come out of captivity until about 75 years after the first wave of about 50,000 under Zerubbabel who came home with the first group.

When Ezra did arrive with his 2,000 or so exiles he found much of the work incomplete. He found that the temple had been rebuilt but the walls around the city were not rebuilt. The general population was in a sad and sinful condition. We're going to see that. They had lost their zeal for God and his purpose in calling them back to their homeland. Now if you go ahead and you study the prophets, namely Hagia, you will notice some of the condition of the people.

As a matter of fact one of the men of the church were telling me earlier in the series that they had gone ahead and they had studied through the book of Hagia and it really shed some light on the circumstances. But the prophet Hagia tells us of a great discouragement that it settled into the lives of the people and therefore they had settled into a sad state of sin and that's what we're going to see in Chapter 9. And we will see just how sinful this situation is as we get into these firsts. So here starting in Chapter 9 we have Ezra.

He's having, we have Ezra and he has been on the scene for a short while and the reality of the situation is coming to light. It is coming to his attention and we will see how Ezra is used of God in this situation. Now to be truthful I did wrestle with how to title this message. I like titles. I work hard with the titles of the messages because I want them to clearly and truthfully and accurately represent what we're studying. A lot of times I will borrow a title and I might twist it a little. A lot of times in my reading I might see two or three titles and just kind of blend them together.

So there are a lot of different areas I get the title. Sometimes they come purely from me. But this one just just fell as Israel's great sin and I really don't think that that is a complete title because it really does not bring Ezra into the situation. We're gonna see a great sin but we're going to see Ezra and how he interacts with the situation. So let's look at our verses and you see on the screens the truths that we're going to look at. Let's read these verses.

"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 people of the lands according to their abominations." And then we see a listing of the peoples that were among the Israelites. Those are the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, 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 intermingled with the peoples of the lands.

Indeed the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness." So if you pause there you see the first major truth, the report of the sin. Then verse three, "And when I heard about this," Ezra's talking about himself, "I tore my garment and my robe," that's his outer and his inner garment, "and I pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard and I sat down appalled." In other words he's disgusted.

Then we see a transition in verse 4, "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." So what do we see? This is Israel's great sin and Ezra's involvement as a man of God, a leader of God, a prophet in this situation. So we see how we're going to break these verses down, the report of the sin, Ezra's reaction in verse 3, and the people's reaction in verse 4. So let's look at main truth number one, the report of their sin. It's just two verses but it is rather lengthy.

It's rather lengthy because we see in verse 1 that the princes came and gave the report, then we have the listing of the peoples that were influencing the Israelites, and then we have in verse 2 more details about their sin. But notice the beginning of verse 1. All of the translations have the beginning of verse 1 the same. It says in the beginning, "Now when these things had been completed," this is after the implementation of the priests and the Levites and all the duties were divided according to the law in serving in the temple.

Remember when Ezra came back, he brought back those who would serve in the temple and worship within the temple could not be complete until, excuse me, worship within the temple could not be complete until the priests and the Levites were in their places according to the law of Moses serving. So what the beginning of that verse tells us is everything had been set in there its proper place. The temple had been completed, the second wave was back, and finally they were settled in. But I want you to notice the time frame. Ezra arrived, if you go back and look, chapter 7 verse 9, on the first day of the fifth month.

And he addressed these matters that are before us on the seventh day of the ninth month. You see that time frame? It's just a few months that Ezra has settled in. Now seeing Ezra's heart, we cannot think. We know Ezra's heart and we cannot think that he would hold on to this information, this sinfulness, this deplorable situation. He did not hold on to it. There was a delay in the report of the condition of the people to Ezra. So I wanted you to see the time frame. After Ezra had settled in, after a few months, the condition was reported.

Matthew Henry the old Puritan commentator said, "Many corruptions lurk out of the view of the most vigilant rulers." That's exactly what's taking place here. This great corruption was just out of the view of this vigilant prophet. His name was Ezra. So let's look at this report of this sin, and we're going to ask ourselves three questions here. The first question is, who was in sin? Who was it that was in sin? We see that in verse 1 and in verse 2. The beginning and then after this listing of the people. Notice that verse 1 says, "The people of Israel." So what do we see?

The people, the common people, which would have been people from all of the tribes. This was part of the general population. So the people of Israel, the common people were involved in this sin. But then also notice it goes beyond the people to the priests and the Levites. Notice this report, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites. They have not kept themselves separated." So now we see the priests and Levites, and these were the spiritual leadership. Their job was to teach the law of God to the people of God, and it was for this reason that their sin was even greater in the eyes of God.

In other words, if anyone could have claimed ignorance, maybe it could have been the people, the general populace, but not these who were the religious leaders. And then also notice the princes and the rulers. They have led out in this sin. Look at verse 2, "For they have taken some of the daughters as wives, and for themselves for their sons, so that the holy race has been intermingled with the peoples of the lands. Indeed, the hands of the princes and rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness." So the princes and the rulers led the way. These are the ones who had legal power to stop such sin among the people, but they led the way.

So notice who was in this sin. Really you can turn it around. You can go back to verse 1 and read it like this. "Now when these things have been completed, the princes approached me saying, 'That was a small group of princes who had not fallen into this sin, and you basically could have said, 'Everybody's involved in this sin with the exception of a few.'" You see? That too is in this sin. The second question, "What was their sin?" This is listed in verse 1 and verse 2. Verse 1 says that they had not separated themselves from these peoples, these people groups, these nations, these pagans.

And then verse 2 says that they had taken some of their daughters for their sons, and also they had taken sons for their daughters. So let's look at the two sins that are mentioned. First, they were not separated from the pagan peoples. They had allowed themselves to mingle with and among these pagan peoples in such a way that they were being polluted by their abominations. Look at that word at the end of verse 1. It says that they had not separated themselves from these peoples according to their abominations, their evil practices. So they had mingled and they had become polluted with these people. Now, what were these abominations?

It was not that they were engaged necessarily in their idol worship, but they had not kept themselves a proper distance from them. The Israelites were to be a holy people, a separate people, a unique people, and they had specific commandments in telling them to do that. They were to be holy and separated, but yet they had begun to intermingle with these people. Second, they had married into these people and polluted the holy race and the rulers, the princes, have led this in this sin. Now, why does Ezra list the leaders here this way? Matthew Henry kind of helps us here. I like some of his observations.

I took four of his observations and I abbreviated them. So if you were to read Henry on here, you would see how familiar this is that I'm going to share with you. So listen to Henry's observations about what's taking place. Notice, they disobeyed the express command of God. Deuteronomy 7 verse 3 says that they are to explicitly says that they are to remain separate. They profane the crown of their peculiar atlarity. They were supposed to be a peculiar people and they profane that. They tainted themselves. They distrusted the power of God to protect them and to advance them.

A practical disbelief of God's all sufficiency is at the bottom of this sin. Is it the bottom of their sin? In other words, they intermingled and intermarried for security reasons. And that's why it's important to notice that it was the princes and the leaders who led out in this. And they exposed themselves and much more their children to the peril of idolatry. The Scripture doesn't say that they had fallen to idolatry, worshiping the pagan gods, but they exposed themselves in this. And that was the very sin that they were judged for. So notice that they married into these people.

They became a polluted race and the leaders had fallen into this. They led the way in this. And Henry's description explains what they've done and also why they've done it. So what was their sin? They intermingled with these pagan people. They married these pagan people, but at the under one of the underlying currents was security. They just could not trust God. These were these unholy alliances that we've seen Israel fall into before. And then third, notice this question, who were these peoples? Now notice the list of the foreign peoples there in the verse. Some of these people you're familiar with.

You're probably familiar with the Egyptians and the Moabites and the Canaanites. And after that, they all probably run together for you. As a matter of fact, some of you might even have a hard time pronouncing some of these peoples. As a matter of fact, I would encourage you to go maybe read on the internet, reading some of your study resources about some of these peoples. Now I'm going to mention two of them and I'm going to do this purposefully for the sake of time. And then also I'm trying to make a point here. First of all, I want to mention the Canaanites. The Canaanites. I mentioned the Canaanites for a specific reason.

I'll explain that to you. But the Canaanites were the descendants of the sons of Ham and we see that in Genesis chapter 9 and chapter 10. Their descendants occupied the land of Canaan, thus they were called Canaanites. Now these people were the principal peoples who occupied the land before Israel, led by Joshua, took the promised land. So when Joshua was leading the people and they were to take the land of Canaan, it was occupied by these people, these Canaanites. And Israel never fully exterminated or judged or executed God's judgment against these people.

And listen, these Canaanites worshiped a whole host of gods, but the most noted were they worshiped the God of Baal and the God of Molech. Now I'll also mention the Moabites. They were the descendants of Moab and they settled just to the south and to the south of the Dead Sea. The Lord God commanded Moses not to mix with the Moabites on their journey to the promised land. As a matter of fact, if you go back and study in the book of Numbers, in Numbers we see that the Israelites were seduced by Moabite women through the cunning of Balak. The Moabites were a continuous problem for the Israelites and their principal deity was Molech as well.

Now why do I mention these two peoples and why do I bring them to the surface? In worshiping Molech, they were involved in these gruesome orgies in which children were sacrificed. They would literally take their children and they would kill their own children and Jewish tradition says that when they worship Molech, they had a bronze statue and there was a fire that was created beneath it and the statue literally had its arms held out and over those arms were a grate and they would literally put their children in the fire. This was the principal God of the Ammonites as well. Now why do I mention this?

These people were pagan and their worship practices were pagan. We don't have time to get into all the different gods of the Egyptians but what am I showing you? It's not that these people just had little statues in their yards. These people were engaged in horrific evil practices and now with that being said just a small explanation about these people. Let me go back and read the verse. The people of Israel, the priests and the Levites have not separated from, separated themselves from the peoples of the land according to their abominations.

These people were literally sacrificing their children and other unheard of immoral things and this was a great sin. This mingling with these types of people and beneath and beneath this sin, the government and the religious leaders were involved. Now get this, those who ruled the people by the law of the land let out and the religious leaders who were supposed to be teaching the Word of God were involved and then the common people. That's why it says the people of Israel. This would indicate a broad group.

If it was just a few of a particular tribe it would have listed that particular tribe and the depth of the sin was that they were mixing with these heathen people, even giving their children and receiving their children in marriage and then the breadth of the sin is basically a whole host of people. Now what can this say to us today? I know that we are not in the habit of mixing with people who sacrificed their children in the fire but the trap is still the same.

If we're not careful as the people of God we can mix with the world, we can mix with the worldly people around us, we can become too friendly with the world and look we can even see people in the life of the church, they are sacrificing their families, they're sacrificing their children to all of the things of the world and they're giving their children to the world and they're just sprinkling a little bit of the church in their life and what we see is that there's so many churches the standard is so low the children are not separated unto God they're not separated for the kingdom of God and kingdom purposes.

No we just want them to be a little bit Christian and yet go out and live for the world and live for money and live for position and live for acceptance. That's what these people were doing. They wanted to be accepted by the parasites and the Hittites and the Egyptians and the Ammonites. They wanted to make alliances with them to better their lives and this is far more relevant to today than you know. Most of you know that I spent 10 years in student ministry.

There are lots of struggles that you face in ministry, lots of struggles you face in student ministry but one of the hardest struggles that I faced was trying to lead students to live for the Lord and live according to the Word of God and live a holy life separated unto God when their parents wanted to live, wanted them to live in the world and for the world. Many of their parents were just sacrificing them to the gods of the world. Little G and here I was pushing and praying and preaching and teaching against that. We will revisit this particular sin later on when we deal with some of the messages that we're going to deal with very soon.

Now let's continue. Let's look at this second truth. Let's look at Ezra's reaction. Ezra's reaction. Verse 3, "And when I heard about this manner, it's been reported some of the princes who were not involved came. What does it say? I tore my garment, my robe, my inner, my outer, my inner garment. I pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard and I sat down appalled." Here we see in verse 3 Ezra's great grief and his horror. I think that word horror helps us see. He was horrified, mortified. It was so much so that it overturned his life.

Interestingly, this mixing and this intermarrying with the pagans had not been a problem when they were in exile. In exile, it seems that they found security in staying together and being a unique people, but then when they got back to their homeland, it seems that they found security in mixing and forming alliances with these people. So this was not a sin that came with them from Babylon. So let's look at Ezra's reaction. Two things out of this reaction. First question, what was this reaction?

The beginning of the verse says, "He tore his outer garment, his inner garment, and he pulled the hair from his head and his beard." So first we see that he tore his outer and his inner garment. This was a common form of showing grief in Old Testament times. This is not common to our culture, but very much common to their culture. Reuben tore his clothes when his brother sold Joseph into slavery, and Joseph's father Jacob did the same thing when he believed the lies that Joseph was dead. We see that in in Genesis chapter 37. And second, we see that Ezra pulled his hair from his head and his beard.

Now this was uncommon and an uncommon form of grief. Most commonly, the Old Testament peoples would shave their heads during great mourning. So what do we see? He experienced and he expressed a common form of grief and then an uncommon form of grief. And then third, we see that he sat down appalled. The King James reads "astonished." This was a very serious offense, so much so that Ezra could not perform everyday duties, but he sat down in horror and disgust and he was utterly turned upside down by this offense. Now if you want to go back and study on your own this same word, this same language is used in Daniel.

Daniel chapter 4 verse 19 and chapter 8 verse 37. Daniel does this very same thing, being appalled, being grieved. The second question, why was he so broken? Look at verse 3. In verse 3, he says, "And I sat down appalled." What do we see here? It was obvious that his brokenness was from their sin against God, but it was more than just their sin against God. These sins were the same sins which had caused God to judge them previously. They had sinned in multiple ways here. They had sinned against the direct commandments of God. They had sinned against the judgment of God.

It was the judgment of God that brought about this correction in their life. Remember? They were judged according to the sins of their forefathers and they are sinning against this correction. And then third, they're sinning against the grace of God because they had experienced the great grace of God by bringing them back home. Have we not learned of the great things that God did to bring them back home? So notice why he was so broken. They sinned against the direct commandments of God. They had sinned against the judgment, the correction of God, and they sinned against the grace of God.

So Ezra saw the extent of their sin and he was truly broken for this sin. So here we see Ezra's reaction. His reaction to the sin of the people, the sin of the leadership, whether it be the religious leadership or the government officials. He sees this sin in its entirety. He sees the depth and the breadth of their sin. Now how does this apply to you, to me, and to us? It is very difficult for many people to see sin in the life of the church. What I mean is it takes a special work in the hearts of special people to see sin in the life of the church.

There are more people that will become apathetic and discouraged and go along with sin in the life of the church and it is very rare for an Ezra-like man to step up and see the circumstances the way God does and Ezra did. Now, hats off to these people, hats off to these leaders, these princes, who did come and they did bring the report to Ezra, but they were not the men who could do something about it. It was Ezra, the prophet of God who could.

And it is a rare thing today, and I'm sad to say this, it is a rare thing today when the proper men of God within the church of God can see sin in the life of the people and the lives of the families and the lives of the children and in the lives of the church, the people of the church, it is a rare thing for the leaders of God to see the people of God in their sin accurately according to the Word of God. Seems like in our day most men want to pacify people, tickle ears, and get along. It seems in our day that most men in the life of the church want the crowds to be larger, the offerings to be greater, and they want to succeed.

As a matter of fact, it seems like many ministers of the gospel, so-called ministers of the gospel, would rather make alliances with worldly people sitting on the pews, they would rather make agreements and alliances with people in leadership positions that are worldly and carnal and even lost rather than be an Ezra-type figure and deal with the sin. See Ezra's reaction? There is a quotation that is on my desk in my home. I've had this quotation for years. Years ago I wrote this quotation out in prayer and I put it on my desk and it's followed me wherever I've gone in ministry since. It's a quotation that fits Ezra.

It was given by Leonard Ravenhill. He was a very famous English evangelist and revivalist. There's a lot of things I love about Leonard Ravenhill. I would not see eye to eye on everything with him theologically, but you cannot discount that he was a great man of God and used of God. If you want to learn about prayer and historic revival, he is a man to listen to and read, but listen to what Leonard Ravenhill said. One sign of spirituality is when you ask God to put a burden on you that no one else wants to carry. You see what Ezra was doing? He was appalled. He was broken. He was carrying the burden of the people and their sin.

He saw it in a very holistic manner. Now again hats off to these princes who came, but they could not carry the burden like the prophet of God. Let's continue. Let's move on. Let's notice main truth number three. Let's notice the people's reaction. We see this in verse four. Then natural progressions in these verses. It's obvious that verses one and two go together. Verse three together in verse four. 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. Here we see the people's reaction to the entire situation.

Princes or leaders had approached Ezra with the situation which they knew about. Now we will see how they reacted when the man of God addresses the situation. Two observations here. First of all, some were gripped with fear. What does it say? Then everyone trembled. This is fear. This is a holy, reverential fear. They were gripped with fear for several reasons. First, they had sinned against God's Word. Isn't that what it says? Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel. They were seized with fear because they had sinned against God's Word.

They knew the commandments not to intermarry and not to mix with these peoples, yet they saw their brothers, their friends, their leaders guilty. And then second, they feared the Lord's judgment on them again. They feared the judgment of God people. They were fresh out of the judgment. So they were gripped with a holy, reverential fear. They had sinned against the Word of God and they had sinned against God and they were gripped with fear because judgment could come again. And then second, notice they followed Ezra. Isn't that what this says?

For everyone trembled at the words of the God of Israel on the count of the unfaithfulness of the exiles and they gathered to me. That's Ezra. We can go past that. They gathered to me. The text says that they gathered. All the translations read the same thing. Now this was more than gathering to a cause. You can rally people up to a cause. They were not rallying to a cause. This was more than gathering to a man. You can gather people. You can get a following to follow a man. But they were gathering to a work which God was doing in a man. You have the work of God, the purposes of God within a man.

They were gathering to the man and the work of God that was in that man and this was inseparable. Ezra was on the Lord's side and they were gathering to the man and to the work of God and the purposes of God that were bound up in that man. You see? That's the people's reaction. And so we see that they were gripped with a great fear, a reverential fear for the situation according to God's Word. And listen, they were gripped together around the man of God, the prophet of God, Ezra. God was working in and through Ezra and they were reacting properly. I heard this mysterious work described this week.

I've been listening and doing some studying, pertaining to a subject that we're going to address in the future. Some of these messages that are on my heart that we will begin to look into. But I've been listening to John Piper. I don't know if you're familiar with John Piper, but John Piper in a message was describing a famous Christian, a famous man of God that lived years ago. And he was trying to describe this event, this mysterious work in Ezra. He didn't mention Ezra, but this is exactly what he was saying. He was talking about Robert Murray McShane and he said that within Robert Murray McShane, there was this force.

He says there was this force created by God within this man and it caused people to follow that man. They're following the work of God, they're following that man of God, and he was going on to say that even long after the man was dead, people are still studying the man, listening to the man, reading about the man, and he's explaining that by saying they're following this force within that man. That's exactly what was going on here with Ezra. They're gathered to this man, they're gathered to the work of God within this man, and it is mysterious, it is experiential, and they are drawn to that.

And those are the kind of men that we must have leading the church today. Those are the kind of men that must lead Nola Baptist Church. We, Brother Keith and I, must be these kind of men. There must be a force within us, there must be a work of God within us, not that you would just follow us, but you're following us, you're following our leadership, that you would follow the work of God within us, and those are inseparable. We see it in Paul. Now as I move to the conclusion, this is what we see.

We see the report of the sin, it was a select group, came to Ezra, they reported the sin, it had flown under the radar, he did not know, we see Ezra's reaction, he did not jump up, he didn't rally the troops, he allowed the burden of God, the brokenness of God to overwhelm him, he allowed God to enable him to identify with the way God felt about the circumstances, and then the people, they were drawn to Ezra and drawn to the work of God in Ezra. And as I concluded earlier by saying that Brother Keith and I must be this kind of man, because if we're going to lead the church, we must be an Ezra type figure.

Now I want to conclude, I want to move away from the message by explaining to you briefly my personal burden for the church. See Ezra had a burden for the church. Now those were the people of God, they weren't the church, New Testament sense, those were the people of God, the chosen people of God, called under God, called for his purposes, he was the man of God to lead them, and he had a burden for the work of God on the face of the earth at that time. And for years God has been doing a work, a burden, a work within me for the church. It all centers around my call. I speak about it from my past.

In my years of being on staff, I remember vividly the times when I was broken and burdened for the church. I remember being vividly broken. I remember being expressing it in a very external manner in the right setting. I remember just being grieved when I began to see leadership within the church embrace sin. Never forget my first youth ministry position. I'll never forget one of the leading deacons in the church, he and his wife divorced. It's a very sad situation. Nobody seemed to try to help them work out their marriage and I remember being grieved.

I remember being in staff meeting and literally just expressing myself in an undignified manner. I remember as I began to progress in ministry years, seeing worldly leadership, unqualified ministers, deacons who were leading the church and they had no business leading the church. I remember being broken over power struggles in the life of the church, true Christians being hurt because they were no godly men to lead the church. What am I showing you?

In my past, as I've been growing in Christ and growing in the ministry, I have always carried a burden for the sin of the church, the lack of leadership within the church, and the possibilities of what the church could be and should be. There's another burden that's really come to light in my life pertaining to the church, especially the past few years. That is watching friends and people that I love struggle with no church. A sick church, unhealthy church, church where the preaching of the Word is so weak and shallow, bad theology, terrible leadership.

Every now and then I have friends that call me and they just moan and complain, weep and cry because of the weak ness and the leadership of the church, no direction, and it's a burden that I carry. Brother Keith can attest to that. He and I have mutual friends, I have friends, and we just watch them and listen. It causes me to see what we have and to treasure it more each day. And I also speak about this burden from my current situation. Here is the pastor at NOLA. Brother Keith can attest to this. My wife can attest to this. It is an increasing desire within me that NOLA become the church that God wants us to be.

It is a burning desire that I would become the pastor that God wants me to be. It is a burning desire that gets larger and greater that I would be the elder, the pastor, the preacher, the teacher, the organizer, the leader, the planner, that I would lead us, that Brother Keith and I would lead the church in a godly manner. That I would be an Ezra type figure. There are a lot of desires I have in life, but they grow smaller and smaller as the days go by. Because what do we see? What do Brother Keith and I see? What do I see?

Listen, we have this wonderful opportunity of the church and here we see the nation of Israel, the Jews being called back home to become the people of God, the chosen race of God to fulfill God's purposes on earth and then all of a sudden sin comes slipping right back in the people and Ezra knew exactly what it would do. And no, Brother Keith and I do not see sin like this, but we oversee and we pray and we watch and we want you and we want us, we want the church to be all that God wants us to be. And a prayer that I have prayed out loud on Wednesday nights, I have prayed before you and I pray privately.

I want us to reach our potential and then I want the Lord to expand our potential. And yes, I believe that God can do great things around the world through us. And you know, as we've been studying Israel, we've noticed how insignificant they are in returning, how helpless they've been. They've been this ragtag group, but yet they have had the goodness of God and the grace of God. As I see that, I see there is hope for us. And I'm excited. So Israel's great sin. May we never fall into great sin and if great sin were to come, may Brother Keith and I be Ezra type men to deal with it properly. Lord Jesus, thank you for this message.

Thank you for the truce here. Thank you that we can learn from the mistakes of your people in the past. Thank you for the heart, the zeal, the brokenness, the burden of Israel.