Ezra chapter 9. The title of
the lesson this morning is A Space of Grace. Now many years before
Ezra was born, Israel had been carried away into captivity in
Babylon because of their sin. And even before they went into
captivity, many years before they went into captivity, God
told them they would go into captivity. And He showed us His
purpose of grace for His people. Before they were carried away
captive, God told them that He had an appointed time He would
deliver them from that captivity. He had an appointed time for
them. They would be carried away captive and they would return
to Jerusalem. They would rebuild the temple
and they would restore worship. Hold your finger there. Look
in Isaiah chapter 44. God had an appointed time and
He had an appointed deliverer who would come and deliver Israel
and send them back to Jerusalem And that deliverer was King Cyrus. Isaiah 44 verse 28. That saith
of Cyrus, he's my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,
even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the temple
thy foundation shall be laid. Now that was written 200 years
before Cyrus was even king, before he was even born. And sure enough,
Cyrus became king of Persia, And he came and conquered the
Babylonian empire while Israel was in bondage in Babylon. And
after he conquered them, somebody brought the word of God, read
Isaiah chapter 44 and 45 to him. And lo and behold, there was
his name. God's prophet came with the word
of God and there was a message for Cyrus. Can you imagine? And Cyrus did what the word of
God told him to do. In Ezra chapter one, Cyrus issued
a proclamation, told all the Jews they'd go home if they wanted
to. All you Jews, you just go back to Jerusalem and rebuild
the temple if you want to. And Cyrus said, I'll even help
pay for the building. And he took all those vessels
that many, many years ago had been taken from the temple, gave
them back to the Jews and said, you take those back and you rebuild
the temple. Now you and I this morning are
not gonna find our given name here in the Word of God. But
I pray God would let us see a message from Him, to us, from His Word
this morning, and that God would give us the faith to believe
it and to obey it. Now, when Cyrus told the Jews
they could go back and rebuild that temple, you want me to tell
you what happened? You can read it as you read through
the book of Ezra. Almost nobody went. Cyrus said,
go back and rebuild a temple. Go back to your land, rebuild
a temple if you want to. There were over 3 million Jews
in captivity in Babylon. Less than 45,000 went back. Just almost nobody. And about
80 years later, there was another departure from Babylon back to
Jerusalem. You know how many people went
then? About 2,000. Almost nobody went back to Jerusalem. Well, why? Here they are in this
land of captivity. Why wouldn't they go back to
their land and rebuild the temple, worship the Lord? Because while
they were in captivity, the Jews began to like the Babylonian
way of life. They became businessmen and bankers and teachers and
political figures and shopkeepers, you know, and they liked it there
in their land of captivity. Now that's a picture of all of
us by nature. We've left God. We've been carried
away, captive by sin. Because we have a sin nature,
we like it there. We like it. You know, the Jews,
when they went to Babylon, their nature didn't change. Their nature
was revealed there, and they liked it. Just like you and I,
we like it in sin. And we won't leave that kingdom
of darkness unless God takes us out. The Jews had fallen into
a spiritual stupor. They lost the worship of the
Lord, they lost the reverence of the Lord, the awe of the Lord.
And even a believer, I know most of Israel, they didn't know the
Lord, they weren't believers, but even a believer can fall
into that spiritual stupor. We saw that in Song of Solomon,
didn't we? We can lose the sweetness of
the worship of the Lord. We can lose that enjoyment of
his presence. Well, how does that happen? What
happens when we feed that old man and we don't feed the new
man? When we start hanging out with the people of the world
and start getting caught up in their ways, we start acting like
them. Evil communications corrupt good manners every time. It never
works the other way around. Evil communications corrupts
good manners every time. And that just shows us how we
need God's grace. We are totally dependent upon
God's grace. We need God's grace to elect
us. We need God's grace to forgive us of our sins. We need God's
grace to cleanse us in the blood of Christ. We need God's grace
to call us out of darkness into light. And we need God's grace
to give us faith in Christ. We must have God's grace to save
our sinful soul. But you know, a believer never
loses that dependence on God's grace, do we? We need God's grace
to keep us. We need God's grace that they'll
just prayed about. You know, the evil in our own
heart of Ezra chapter nine. Here's some evidences of what
we need. We need God's saving keeper. Verse one of Ezra chapter nine.
Now, when these things were done, the prince fights have not separated
themselves from the people of the lands. doing according to
their abominations, and the Ammonites, and the Moabites, and the Egyptians,
and the Amorites. Why nobody would want to come
back to the worship of the Lord? It's because they're acting like
the rest. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this?
For we've forsaken thy commandment, to which ye go to possess it,
is an unclean land, with the filthiness of the people of the
land. And God's commandment to Israel was, don't you act like
them, don't you mix in with And every believer here knows this
can happen with God. And I know why we do it. You
know why? Because we've got to say there's
a new man born. He's a holy man, a righteous
man, a man that loves God, that loves God. He's not changed in
the least when God saves us. We've got as much as it ever
did. But now listen to me. That does come out of nature
that does nothing but sin. Most often, and it utterly shocks
me, how I can be reading the world. Sinful, just sin is ever
present with me. Well, I've got the same desire,
the same nature as every other heathen in this world, but that
don't work. Does not mean we have to act like it. Nothing
is more unbecoming to, look, I'll show you this in Titus chapter
two. Titus chapter 2, this is Paul's
instruction to this preacher, reading in verse 11 of Titus
chapter 2. For the grace of God, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this
prayer of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself
for us, the people, zealous of good works. These things speak
and exhort. Well, it teaches us salvation,
by grace alone, through faith alone, doesn't it? In this present
world, God's grace teaches us a holy walk. God's grace teaches
humility in serving others, which is, that they that are great
exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so. It teaches
an attitude of humility in serving one another. That's contrary
to this world. No years nor extortioners shall
inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you such.
But now you've been washed in the blood and I don't give into
it instead of living for the things of this. Common with them and what communion
hath light with darkness and what concord hath Christ with
and I'll be their God and they should be my people. Wherefore? Come out from anybody in the
world. You know, we work with people. We talk with people.
This is how we witness to people. But Ephesians 5 verse 1. The way of this world hatred.
God says now as his children don't, but rather giving of thanks
for this, you know that no whoremonger be not ye therefore partakers
with them. For you are sometimes in darkness.
One more scripture, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Furthermore then,
we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus,
that as you have received, every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. I mean, you ought
to do it. You know, just don't be always insisting on my rights
and my way. Seven, four, God hath not called
us unto uncleanness. Grace, just saving, keeping grace
is gonna have an effect on that. We'll disobey God and leave him
every time if he leaves us to ourself. Verse two, you know,
the princes and rulers have been chief in this, I tell you often,
every time. There's children of Israel, when
you go into the promised land now, don't you marry those heathen.
There's all these heathen nations. Give not your daughters unto
their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, seeing
that thou, Our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve. Same thing applies to us. God's
been so good to us. Now, He chastises His children,
but you've got... And we tell our young people
that all the time. We tell them all the time, don't you marry.
Don't tell your daughter to tell her boyfriend or your son, tell
your... Men are famous for this. They'll
do anything to get the girl. They'll do any... Willingness
or a desire to go to the worship surface. It was given to me,
and I'll give it to you. Don't tell them, I'll let you
marry my daughter if you make it. That's the best you can get
from them. Just wait and watch. I can't
tell you what a blessing it is for me to be able to talk to
my wife, and we talk of strong, happy marriage. But otherwise,
I'll tell you what's going to happen. There's going to be an
unbeliever. Got one heart. It's hard. It's unrepentant. It's your spiritual life. And
Ezra says, we've done these things. It's no wonder there's no worship
of the Lord. Nobody... off the hair of my
head and my beard. He didn't cut it off. He didn't
shave his head. He said, I plucked it out. ...until the evening
sacrifice. Ezra was grieved. He grieved
Ezra so much was the spiritual state that Israel had fallen
into. They didn't follow him. Look at Ezra 7 verse 10. For
Ezra of the Lord is the word of God and to teach people what
God's word says. If you ever find yourself in
that situation, now I'm not talking about it. What's the solution
to it? What's the solution to that cold, dead, bad evening
sacrifice? The sacrifice that pictured our
Lord Jesus Christ as my heaviness and having rent my garment, my
mantle, I fell upon my knees and spread the heavens. Since
the days of our fathers have we been in great trespass unto
this day. This is Ezra's great prayer of
repentance. And he begins by saying, notice
how Ezra's prayer is here. He says, I'm ashamed of all suffering. Now he said, our trespass has
grown up into heaven. True repentance never talks about
somebody else's sin. And Ezra said, we won't wonder
what's going on anymore We'll repent. We'll moralize. We'll be so ashamed of our sin. Sin in me, and he begged for
mercy. And if you and I ever see Christ,
we'll do the exact opposite and give us a little reviving in
our bondage. He's given us a space for grace. He's given us a little moment
of grace in this day. Don't wait till tomorrow. Today's
the day of grace. And here's to all sinners to
see whether or not they'll accept him or reject him. No, God is
elect. Ezra says here, you've given
us this grace, a space of grace. 2 verse 1. God is according to truth and
against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this? Well, it's only by God's grace,
isn't it? That's the only way we'll escape. How shall we escape? Therefore,
we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have
heard, lest, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. But if God
has been gracious to us, if he set his grace on us, we must
escape Christ. He nails our feet to Christ the
solid rock, so that we'll say with David, sure abode. No matter what we fall into,
those times we fall into, verse 6, verse 19 says this, we have
an anchor of the soul that's always, surely, completely accepted
in the Lord Jesus Christ and God. But in grace, God gives
the new birth. He gives us new eyes to see.
They don't see their need. They don't see. But if you see
a little reviving, Ezra says, in our bondage, We get bogged
down in it. You've got to go out there and
work in the world. You've got to interact in the
world and you go through it. It's enough to get you through
to Wednesday. Wednesday, you come back, you
get a little reviving. You get a little refreshing.
You give a little reviving in this bondage. To the kings of
Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God
and to repair. Just up to the heavens, you just
stack it up on top and go clear up into the heavens. This afternoon,
as Ezra as a type of Christ. Ezra makes this great prayer
of repentance. He was astonished, until when? The time of the evening? Now
he was given to the sword of justice of his father. You read
that this afternoon, you'll see it.