Good morning. Join me in the
Book of Ezra this morning. The Book of Ezra. Thank you for
your kind hospitality, your fellowship, good food, time together. Pray for us in the dows. Ezra chapter 9, if you would. Ezra used to be a flyover book
for me. I tried to get through it as
quickly as I could because it was history. It is the gospel
according to Ezra. He preaches the gospel just like
any other preacher of the gospel ever preached. He used the experiences
that he had to declare the mercy of God, the grace of God, the
hope of God is the hope of God's people. And here in the ninth
chapter, we come to a place, Ezra has just traveled a great
deal of distance and for quite a while from Babylon. He has
been released from Babylon by the king. The king was stirred
by God to release this group of Hebrews to go back to Babylon
after 70 years of Babylonian captivity. It seems that these
folks spent just a little bit longer because there's already
been a group that has gone back. Now, Ezra gets there, he just
has a little bit of time to rest, and a problem is brought to his
attention. And that's what we find in Ezra
chapter 9. There were a group of folks that
saw that there had been a problem, but they didn't know how to deal
with it until Ezra came, and they brought it to him, and that's
what we have now. Verse 1, now when these things
were done, when he got there, he got the things sorted out,
he got all of the gold and silver placed in the temple, He says,
the princes came to me saying, the people of Israel and the
priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from
the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations.
Now we could go back to the book of Numbers, we could go back
to the book of Leviticus, and we'd find out that God had told
those people, don't you go over and join yourselves to the folks
that are already in the land. Now it wasn't necessarily because
God was opposed to intermarriage with these folks, but he knew
the tendency of natural man's heart to adopt their religions. And that was the problem. They
had gone over. What that meant was that these
Jews, these Hebrews, believed that what they had over there
was just as good as what they had over here. that the religion
that God had given was just as good as those, and so they went
over there, they married those folks, they adopted their religions,
and Ezra is brought this news. It was horrifying to him. How
is it horrifying to the Apostle Paul when we read in the book
of Galatians, I am absolutely surprised that you so soon have
left him. That's what we read in Galatians
1, verse 6. How you've left Him to adopt
another gospel, which is not another gospel, and if me, I,
or an angel from heaven should preach anything else but the
gospel of God's grace, you let them be anathema. I've told the
men in the dowels that if I get old and senile and start to say
things that do not agree with the gospel, you set me down. Because that time may come. I
have read some sermons of old English preachers, and towards
the end of their ministry, we begin to say, what are they talking
about? How could they do that? I think
they're just like natural man, got old, and they needed to be
sat down. We may reach that. My mother
got Alzheimer's, and she didn't know who I was. And when I get
to that point, Well, Ezra said here, he brought it to his attention,
even the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites. Did you know
that there is a woman recorded in the scriptures that was saved
by the grace of God that is in the lineage of the Lord Jesus
Christ who was a Canaanite? Her name is Rahab the harlot.
And then it goes on to tell us here, the Ammonites, the Moabites. Did you know that there is a
lady recorded in the word of God who was a Moabite and she,
by the grace of God, was saved and she left Moab with her mother-in-law
because she said, your people will be my people and your God
is my God. God saved her. Now, she was brought
back into Israel, and she was brought in, and married Boaz,
and is in the direct line of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not the names of the people, it is the abominations. We find
that the other daughter-in-law, she went back to her people,
and the scripture says, and to her gods. That's the problem. All right. Verse two, for they
have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their
sons. How it breaks a parent's heart
who knows the gospel, who has been saved by the grace of God,
and to see the marriage of their children, that they're taken
off into their abominations. You been there? It hurts. Ezra was hurt. They have, so
that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of
those lands. Now that means that Ezra was
very concerned. Because he knew that sometime
in the future, as God had promised, the Messiah was coming through
the line of Judah. And he believed with every fiber
of his being to keep that line pure. You know, the worry was
over when Christ was born. We don't have much said about
the children of Israel after that. We have more said about
spiritual Israel after that. The temple was torn down. They
were dispersed through all the lands. And God said himself with
regard to the covenant that he made with them, I regarded it
not. It's over. What covenant does
he pay attention to now after the Messiah is born? The covenant
of grace. That's the covenant that he pays
attention to. That's why we have people being
saved out of every nation, kindred, people, and tongue. The gospel
has been taken to them and God has saved them by His grace.
Well, as we go down through here, it says here in verse 5, Ezra, there's a word used here
I've never read before, and it's the word astonished. It's used
twice. He was flabbergasted. He was
brought to silence. That's what it says here in the
book of Ezra chapter 9 and verse 5. And at the evening sacrifice
I rose up from my heaviness. Now that word heaviness, This
is the only place it's mentioned in the Old Testament, this particular
Hebrew word, and it really means fasting. Heaviness. He was silenced. He was stopped
with words. He couldn't speak. That's what
the word fasting really means. You don't use your mouth. You're
silenced. And this word is used in secular
Hebrew writings, and one time it's used as fasting, and another
time it's used and translated, he was speechless. Just stopped
in his tracks about what was going on here. You know, it reminds
me of a king by the name of Jehoshaphat, when it was brought to his attention
that there was a host of Moabites coming against Israel. that they
were out there. Turn with me back just one book
to the 2nd Chronicles, if you would, chapter 20, and we find
that this great king, he was stopped in his tracks, he was
silenced before God, but he says this wonderful passage of scripture
in 2nd Chronicles chapter 20 and verse 12. Verse 12 of 2nd
Chronicles chapter 20, we have Jehoshaphat saying this, O our
God, wilt thou not judge them? For
we have no might against this great company that cometh against
us. Neither know we what to do. Have you ever been there? I just don't know what to do. don't know what to pray for as
we ought. We know not how to pray as we
ought. Thank God for that passage of
scripture in the book of Romans that says, but the Holy Spirit
to us, makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot
be uttered. And that's not some ecstatic speech. That's spiritual
language. I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit
interprets our heart for us to God. But it goes on to here in
this verse of scripture, neither know we what to do, but Our eyes
are upon you. We're waiting to see what you
will do. Stand still and see the salvation
of our God. Now that's a lot of what we have
Ezra doing here in the ninth chapter of the book of Ezra.
It also reminds me of Job. Job chapter 1 verse 22. You know,
God allowed so much to come upon Job. There was great trials brought
upon him. His family is taken, his possessions
are taken, and finally his health is taken. And he is a broken
man before God. He is there with potsherds, scraping
the sores on his body. His wife says, just curse God
and die. But we read there, it says, in
all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Ezra was in heaviness. Ezra chapter 9 there in verse
5, he said there, and having rent my garment and my mantle,
I fell upon my knees. Now notice what he did next.
Ezra spread out his hands unto the Lord his God. Now what does that represent?
Augustus Toplety caught this in the third verse of his hymn, Rock of Ages. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling. That's what he wrote. Nothing
in his hands. He didn't have the law in his
hands. He didn't have some self-righteousness in his hands. In fact, he goes
on to share with us that he included himself in the problem. He realized
that he was also included in that problem. If it wasn't for
the grace of God, he would have been in the mess with them. He
would have not been here in Jerusalem and being brought to this message
that there's a problem here, that a bunch of people have adopted
the religions that are out there and called themselves Jews. I was discussing the other day
about the name, the name of our church is Sovereign Grace Baptist
Church and you know what Baptist means anymore? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I got into a discussion one time
with my sister. She's older than I am. She lives
over here in the Bay Area. And we were at a family reunion,
and she was giving my daughter a hard time about what I believed.
And I stepped in, and I says, what's going on? She says, well,
my daughter said, dad, they're trying to figure out what you
believe. I says, you want to know what I believe? Ask me.
And I shared with them what I believed, and I said, if you will check
in American history, in the 1700s, almost every church that called
themselves Baptist believed in the sovereign grace of God. And
she said, you're right on that. She knew history. We've forgotten. Well, Ezra, brought nothing in
his hands before the Lord. Turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes,
would you? Ecclesiastes chapter 2. These
are the words of Solomon. These are the words of Solomon.
Ecclesiastes chapter 2. When Ezra came before the Lord
his God, he came with nothing of his own. Nothing in his hands
did he bring. He had them open before the Lord.
And in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verse 11, the wise
man Solomon wrote this, Then I looked at all the works that
my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored
to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there
was no profit under the sun." Now, no truer statement has ever
been said about our works of righteousness. They are vexation,
and they accomplish nothing. The only way that we're accepted
before God is nothing in our hands we bring. Simply to thy
cross I cling. And that's what this man Ezra,
this man who was a Levite, this man who was a priest, this man
who was a preacher of righteousness, this man who knew the gospel,
this man who brought the gospel, this is what he believed and
he included himself in the problem. No gospel preacher has ever excluded
himself from the problem, and no believer in Christ Jesus has
ever excluded themselves from the problem, and the problem
is we've been ruined by the fall. And there's only one hope that
we have, and that is who this man Ezra is bowing before. He's bowing before the Lord his
God. His Savior, he's bowing before
his Savior. Nothing in his hands he brings.
He has nothing. Titus was written this by the
Apostle Paul, not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saves us. That's exactly what
we have Ezra doing here as he comes before the Lord. with this
heap of problem, and this heap of problem is the results of
sin, and the results of sin is the results of our father Adam,
as our representative, disobeying a thrice holy God, and going,
and taking, and drawing, and piling us into sin. He knew exactly what he was doing.
He was not ignorant of it. He knew what he was doing to
his family. He knew what he was doing to all generations after
that, and he could care less. God made him so he could fall. That's right. I've been told Adam was perfect. No, no, no. And he was not immutable. He
was mutable. And he changed. And we're the results of it.
And guess what? Things are not getting any better. It's amazing. When I was a kid,
polio was a scourge. And then we found a vaccine for
polio. And it wasn't very long, something
worse than polio came along. It just seems to go in that cycle.
We're not getting any better. We're just, in fact, things are
getting worse. And that's what makes Jesus Christ
that much more precious. I've been told that a person
who becomes a teller in a bank, they don't show that teller,
that prospective teller, thousands of different pieces of false
money, fake money. They teach him what the truth
is. They teach him about good money.
And then they're able to recognize the bad. This man Ezra did not
bring up all the problems of these false religions. He brought
up the truth of the gospel to these folks. And that's found
later in this chapter. You remember what Jonathan did
to David one time? David has been anointed king,
but he hasn't been put on the throne yet. And the king's son,
who was nixed in line, Saul's son Jonathan comes to David. You know what he did? He took
off his clothes, handed David his sword. The scripture says
he came to David and gave him everything
because he recognized him as the king. And that's what Ezra
did when he stood before God and bowed before God and said,
I am also the problem. Let's notice there in the book
of Ezra, chapter 9, if you would. Going back to the book of Ezra,
chapter 9, it says there that they, in verse 5, and at the
evening sacrifice, I rose up from my heaviness and having
rent my garment and mantle, I fell upon my knees and spread out
my hands. unto the Lord my God, and said,
O my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift up my face to thee, my
God, for our iniquities are increased over our head." You know what
that means? They jumped off in the deep end. They jumped off in the deep end,
over their heads. Trespasses grown up unto the
heavens since the days of our fathers. Where did he go? He was in the line of Adam since
the days of our fathers. We've been in great trespass
unto this day, and for our iniquities have we, our kings and our priests. Nobody is excluded. The king
was not excluded. The priests were not excluded.
Nobody was excluded from this problem. been delivered into
the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to the captivity,
to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. Do you remember what is written
about the Lord's hands in Isaiah? Would you turn with me to Isaiah
49 for just a moment? Isaiah chapter 49. Ezra brought
his hands and there was nothing in his hands. In the book of
Isaiah chapter 49 verse 16, we have these words recorded about
what the Lord did on our behalf. Isaiah chapter 49 verse 16, the
scripture says, Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of
my hands. Now, in order for that to happen,
our Savior, now this is metaphorically speaking, but let's just look
at it. Every name of everyone that Jesus Christ was going to
save by His substitutionary death is pictured as being on His palms
when He went to the cross. Now we notice who did the graving.
He did. On the palms of his hands. His
hands. And they would not have been
there if he had went to the graving like this. He openly, voluntarily
opened his hands before the graving process and there he voluntarily
accepted the names of all his people that he was going to die
for. As it says there, Behold, I have grave of thee upon the
palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me." When
Jesus Christ went to the cross, he knew exactly, exactly who
he was laying down his life a ransom for. He shared with his disciples,
I lay down my life a ransom for many, an opportunity if ever
he could have said who he was going to die for if it was going
to be the whole world. But he shares with us, and he
shares with the church, he was going to ransom many. The number
is known by Him, but to us it's many. Here we have open, spread
hands. He came before the Father with
the names of His people on there. You know what the Pharisee brought
in His hands? The Pharisee that Jesus Christ
shares with us about. He went down to the temple to
pray. And his hands are so full of his own doings and his own
works. In fact, he shares them with
us. It says there in Luke chapter 18. Just turn there with me. Two verses of scripture in the
book of Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18 and there in
verses 11 and 12, we have someone who brings a whole gob of stuff
with him to God and then there's a man like Ezra who brought nothing
in his hands. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling. In the book of Luke chapter 11,
excuse me, chapter 18 and verse 11 it says, the Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself, Let me show you, Lord, what I
have. He goes on to say, I thank thee
that I am not as other men. What did Ezra do? I'm just like
everyone else. I'm just like him. I'm a sinner
saved by grace. The Pharisee said, I thank you
I'm not like other men are. I'm the exception. And then he
goes on to say, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. Now let's look at the other hand.
I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. He's like that farmer coming
into the barn with a bundle of sheaves of grain. He's got his
hands spread out. He says, Lord, look what I've
done for you today. Now let's see what the publican
brings. He's an outcast. He is a guy
that is hired by the Romans to collect taxes from these Jews. He comes down to the temple,
and it tells us there, and the publican, standing afar off,
would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Extend mercy to me. You know when we ask for mercy,
we're admitting, we're admitting we're sinners. The original meaning of mercy
went back to slavery. We're extending mercy. God extended
mercy to slaves of sin and bought us out by a redemptive price. And as a redeemer, he's the one
that paid the redemptive price and showed mercy. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Ezra brought nothing before the
Lord and quickly admitted all fault. How much did Ezra believe
in the fallen state of man? I'm totally depraved. And without
you, I'll never get out of this mess. And then, In closing, who did
Ezra bow before? Let's go back to the book of
Ezra chapter 9 there and verse 5. Ezra chapter 9. Ezra chapter 9 and verse 5, the
last phrase there, I fell upon my knees. and spread out my hands
unto the Lord my God." That word Lord has been translated from
the Hebrew word Jehovah. Now I learned it as Jehovah and
they want to teach me Yahweh now. Could I just say Jehovah
and you know what I mean? Jehovah. Jehovah, God of my salvation. There was only one place to go,
and it was not to the preacher. It was not to the priest. It
was not to a ceremony. You know, the Jews had great
ceremonies. But He did not go to the ceremony. He did not go to a priest. He
was one. Where did He bow? He bowed before
God. He didn't go to a doctrine. He
didn't go to a law. He didn't go to works. But He
went to the God of His salvation. That's who He bowed before without
anything in His hands. Only God can deal with the problems
of sin. Only God can deal with this intermarriage
problem that was going on. And it wasn't the marriage that
was so bad, it was them adopting the religions of everyone else.
And by nature, we'll adopt anything. I remember in a religion, it
was just as easy to go from Chevy to Ford. Oh, Dodge? Okay, I'll go to the Dodge. There
was no allegiance. We were turned by every wind
of doctrine. The new thing that came along.
We adopted it. But here, there's only stability
in one, and His name is Jesus Christ the Lord. There is only
one, only Christ was an offering for sin. Would you turn with
me to Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14. Hebrews chapter 10,
verse 14. For by one offering. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14.
For by one offering. He, the Lord, hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. By one offering, God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Only Christ can deal with this. And in the next two verses there
in the book of Ezra chapter 9, he gets into the gospel that
he preached. Ezra demonstrates how God's people
came with nothing in His hands and was blameless. He didn't
blame anybody else. He didn't blame his mother or
his dad for his problems. He said, it is all our fathers. Blaming no one for the sin, trusting
God for all his salvation. Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling.