1. "Walking into the book, if I assume that marriage between races is bad, I could find verses to pull out of context and make it seem as if the Bible supports my concern. But I would have to maintain ignorance about a number of other matters."

2. "We should just stop and appreciate here for a moment how painful it can be to turn from the path of our own cherished sins to the path of God's way to live."

3. "Christians, do you remember the painful separation you had to make between yourself and your sins when you first came to Christ? Separating yourself even from some of those sins which had grown very dear to you, some of which may even have seemed like part of your identity?"

4. "For a God who hates divorce to command divorce, it must be a very serious situation indeed."

5. "Frank confession is the necessary beginning of the U-turn of repentance. How can you repent for a sin you can't even recognize or name? And how will you ever be able to name the sin if there are not preachers out there honest enough to open their Bibles and read all of it to you and teach all of it to you?"

6. "What you want in a preacher is not someone who makes you feel good, but it's someone who will open the Bible and teach it to you accurately. It is God's Word. That is what we crave."

7. "So what I first took to be a severe command, divorce, I now understand is a mercifully amended sentence. God's mercy in it all becomes more apparent and more prominent to me."

8. "The problem is not race mixing, but religion mixing. It's not interracial marriage, but interreligious marriage. Their wives brought idols with them, which made the men adulterous to God."

9. "Marriage is not given us to lead us away from God but to bring us back to Him. Love for God is to be the most attractive thing about someone we would marry."

10. "Here, literal divorce was to divorce them from their spiritual divorce from God. The basic message for us in this is that we must work to keep the line between the church and the world clear for our own safety and for the salvation of others."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ezra 9:1-2, what specific sin did the officials report to Ezra about the people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and who was described as being "foremost" in this faithlessness?

2. In Ezra 9:8-9, what specific acts of favor does Ezra acknowledge that God had shown to the returned exiles despite their history of guilt?

3. What was Shechaniah's proposal in Ezra 10:2-4, and what phrase does he use to express that restoration was still possible for Israel?

4. According to Ezra 10:11-12, what two-part response did Ezra command from the people, and how did the assembly answer him?

5. In Ezra 9:13-14, what does Ezra say God had done regarding their punishment, and what rhetorical question does he ask about the consequences of breaking God's commandments again?

6. What practical challenges did the people face in carrying out the examination of those who had married foreign wives, as described in Ezra 10:13-17, and how long did the process take to complete?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why would God, who hates divorce (Malachi 2:16), command His people to divorce their foreign wives in this situation? What does this reveal about the seriousness of the sin being addressed?

2. Ezra 9:11-12 quotes God's command not to intermarry with the peoples of the land because of "their abominations." How does this emphasis on religious practice rather than ethnicity help us understand the true nature of the prohibition against intermarriage in the Old Testament?

3. How does Ezra's prayer in chapter 9 demonstrate the relationship between genuine confession of sin and an awareness of God's mercy? What elements of both appear in his prayer?

4. The sermon argues that Ezra is ultimately about "divorcing divorce"—using literal divorce to end the people's spiritual divorce from God. How does this interpretation help explain why such a painful remedy was necessary for the community's spiritual health?

5. How does the inclusion of non-Israelites like Ruth, Rahab, and Moses' wife in God's covenant people demonstrate that the concern in Ezra was religious faithfulness rather than ethnic purity?

Application Questions

1. Ezra responded to news of the people's sin by tearing his garments, pulling his hair, and sitting appalled (Ezra 9:3-4). When you become aware of sin in your own life or in your community, what is your typical response, and how might a deeper understanding of sin's seriousness change that response?

2. The sermon emphasized that true confession names sin directly without evasion or excuse. Is there a specific sin in your life that you have been minimizing, rationalizing, or avoiding naming clearly? What would it look like to confess it honestly this week?

3. The Israelites were called to maintain clear distinction from the surrounding culture in order to preserve their witness. In what specific area of your life—relationships, entertainment, work practices, or priorities—might you need to establish clearer boundaries to maintain your distinctiveness as a follower of Christ?

4. Shechaniah led the call for repentance even though his own family was among the guilty (Ezra 10:2, 26). How might God be calling you to speak truth about sin even when it affects people close to you, and what would it take to do so with both courage and compassion?

5. The sermon applied the principle of religious purity to marriage, urging Christians to marry only fellow believers. If you are single, how does this passage shape your approach to dating and marriage? If you are married to a non-believer, how does 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 guide your response differently than Ezra's situation?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Deuteronomy 7:1-6 — This passage contains God's original command forbidding intermarriage with the Canaanite nations and explains that the purpose was to prevent Israel from being turned away to serve other gods.

2. 1 Kings 11:1-13 — This account of Solomon's foreign wives turning his heart after other gods illustrates the very danger that the prohibition in Ezra was designed to prevent.

3. Ruth 1:1-18 — Ruth's story demonstrates that a foreigner who embraced the God of Israel was welcomed into the covenant community, showing that the concern was religious allegiance rather than ethnicity.

4. Malachi 2:10-16 — Written around the same time as Ezra's reforms, this passage addresses both faithlessness in marriage and God's hatred of divorce, providing important context for understanding God's command in Ezra 10.

5. 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 — Paul applies the principle of separation from unbelief to the New Testament church, calling believers not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers and to cleanse themselves from every defilement.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Historical Context: Anti-Miscegenation Laws and Their Misuse of Scripture

II. Divorce: God's Command to Put Away Foreign Wives (Ezra 10:2-6, 11-17)

III. Obedience: Frank Confession and Separation from Sin (Ezra 9:1-4, 10-14; 10:2, 11-12)

IV. Mercy: God's Favor Despite Deserved Judgment (Ezra 9:8-9, 13; 10:1-2)

V. Worship: Religious Purity, Not Racial Purity (Ezra 6:21; 9:11-14)

VI. Love: God's Exclusive Claim on Our Deepest Devotion (Ezra 9:9, 15)

VII. Conclusion: Ezra Is About Divorcing Divorce from God

Detailed Sermon Outline

All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mongolians, members of the melee race or mulattoes are illegal and void.

That was from the California Civil Code, Section 60, passed as a law in California in 1933. It was repealed in 1948 or '49, and it was the first in a wave of states repealing similar laws. The last state to freely repeal such a law on its own was Maryland in 1967, just before, later that year, the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia and in doing so struck down all such laws including the law in Virginia.

As best I can tell the district like New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and a number of other states never had such a law. That is why I think then I could be reminded by Liz White so helpfully yesterday that Frederick Douglass married by Frances Grimke here in the District to Helen Pitts, a white woman, after his first wife had died. And that wedding was in 1884.

In these states like Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware, a host of other states that had such anti interracial marriage laws, the concern was usually popularly defended as the purity of the white race. Even in the wording of the statutes, you could tell that it was not all interracial marriages, but particularly those with whites that were the focus of the legal concern.

Mark, why are you talking about that when we're here in a sermon from the Bible? Because, my friends, biblical justification was often found for such laws in the Old Testament book that we have been intermittently studying this year, the book of Ezra, and particularly in the two chapters that we come to today, leaving aside the strangeness of finding justification for the purity of peoples that were while Ezra was writing this, running around naked and painting themselves blue, it seems far-fetched to think even of the divine author of the book, let alone the human author, having a goal of preserving the ethnic purity of one particular ethnicity beyond the Jews. And it's an even more remote possibility to think of that among Christians being believed in a post-Pentecost world. The book of Ezra is a history of God's returning His special people, the Jews, from exile in Babylonia, which became Persia, to their own city of Jerusalem in the surrounding countryside. Once back, they rebuilt the temple and reinstituted the sacrifices.

Routines of public worship which told about the seriousness of sin and the costliness of squaring sinners like us with a holy God. Walking into the book, if I assume that marriage between races is bad, I could find verses to pull out of context and make it seem as if the Bible supports my concern. But I would have to maintain ignorance about a number of other matters. The nature of marriage and divorce, exactly what God had forbidden to His Old Testament people, the nature and image of God, the close association of race and religion in the Old Testament and how that dissolves in the New Testament, and perhaps most of all, the nature and basis of God's love and therefore the proper nature and basis of our own.

In our time together this morning, I want us to understand that these last two chapters in Ezra contain the point of the book. I'll read portions of these chapters as I speak to you about them, but I'm just curious how many of you read Ezra 9 and 10 this week. Just put up your hand. I have no idea who you are because your masks are on. I'm looking for proportion.

Put the hand up high and leave it up for a minute. So I'm thinking maybe 15-20% of us. Okay, you'll be greatly helped if you read the text before you come to the studies of God's Word on Sunday morning. If you did read this text, my guess is you felt particular sympathy with the people at a couple of points because twice in chapter 10 it mentions the crowds standing out in the cold rain. My guess is you felt an empathy for them that you've never felt before.

Well, we find these chapters are about several things.

And first, and perhaps most obviously, we see that they are about, number one, divorce. They are about divorce. Look in chapter 10, starting at verse 2.

And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra, 'We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land. But even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God. And let it be done according to the law. Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you.

Be strong and do it. Then Ezra arose and made the leading priests and Levites in all Israel take an oath that they would do as had been said. So they took the oath. And then this is what they do. When you look down in chapter 10, staying in chapter 10, look down at verse 11.

Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives. Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, It is so. We must do as you have said. But the people are many and it is a time of heavy rain.

We cannot stand in the open, nor is this a task for one day or for two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter. Let our officials stand for the whole assembly. Let all in our cities who have taken foreign wives come at appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every city, until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away from us. Only Jonathan, the sons of Asahel and Jeheziah, and the son of Tikvah, opposed this. In Meshillem and Shabbethai and the Levites supported them.

Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest selected men, heads of fathers' houses, according to their fathers' houses, each of them designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter, and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women. And you see the rest of chapter 10 then is a list of specific names of 113 families at least who were broken up by these mandated divorces.

Now we know from Malachi's prophecy, which is happening around this same time, that God hates divorce. At the time the priests were defaulting on their duties and leading the people well, they were offering blemished sacrifices at the temple and so dishonoring the Lord. They unfairly favored some people over others. And it was a time of wrong tolerance of divorce, as we know from Malachi chapter 2. And yet it is in the midst of such a time that God calls His people to enact this deliberate and severe program of separation from these wrong marriages that some of the Israelites, scores of them, had contracted.

And so here God commanded them to put away their foreign pagan wives. Their wrong tolerance for marrying foreign wives was to end immediately, and to all those who had contracted such forbidden unions, they were now to be ended. Friends, that is the sharp edge of Ezra's ministry and of this book which recounts it.

And it's a reminder to us and a warning of how painful it can be to turn from our sins. And to follow the way the Lord lays out for us. Ezra's setting is different than our own in many ways. Neither nations nor Christian churches are in a position today to order or even encourage scores of divorces like this. And we'll come to the context a bit more in a minute.

But we should just stop and appreciate here for a moment how painful it can be to turn from the path of our own cherished sins to the path of God's way to live.

Christians, do you remember the painful separation you had to make between yourself and your sins when you first came to Christ? Separating yourself even from some of those sins which had grown very dear to you, some of which may even have seemed like part of your identity? Part of who you were?

My non-Christian friend, note this carefully. We're delighted you're here with us. You're welcome to join us when we meet in buildings, whether in Maryland or back in 6th and A Northeast. But notice that while becoming a Christian will not be without reward, it will also not be without cost.

I wonder if you can already see some of the stress and strain between Jesus and some of the things that you've had in your heart for days or weeks or months.

Are you even now weighing up which you would rather keep and trust and which you would rather lose, Jesus or your beloved sin?

Friend, I pray that God will give you a heart of wisdom and a heart filled with a new love, a love for God who made you and who will judge you, and with a heart of love for the Lord Jesus Christ as you learn more of His love for sinners like us.

There are many particular questions about what these divorces would have looked like on the ground, many more than I can answer with anything beyond speculation. But that God commanded His people to put away their foreign wives was clear. God here, perhaps uniquely in the Bible, commanded divorce.

But if we're going to understand Ezra even more, we have to understand that these chapters are also about, number two, obedience. Number two, obedience. These last two chapters include moving confessions of sin. The true confessions of our sin are always accompanied by new obediences. Fresh obedience and frank confession go together.

The problem God's people had that put them in this terrible position of needing to undergo such radical social surgery, such agonizing amputations as these divorces, was disobeying God's clear command to separate themselves from the people of the lands. That command was repeated to their parents as they came out of slavery and went into the Promised Land centuries earlier. It had been taught in their law and reinforced in custom and habit and practice But now, in a terrible irony, almost as soon as these people are returned to the land, some of them had begun to return to the very sins that had brought God's judgment of exile upon them. Listen to what Ezra tells us here in chapter 9, beginning with verse 1, chapter 9, beginning with verse 1. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from 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 to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the people of the lands. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost. As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn, and I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, saying, 'O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.

From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings and our priests, have been given into the hands of kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame as it is today. And then skipping down to verse 10.

And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, the land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations?

Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape?' so friends, all of these divorces were happening because the families had divorced themselves from God and His ways, and now He was forcing them to a moment of choice. He had clearly commanded them not to take foreign wives. There was to be no intermarriage between the Israelites and the surrounding pagans. And we can tell how seriously God meant this commandment because we see the seriousness of the remedy here commanded. For a God who hates divorce to command divorce, it must be a very serious situation indeed.

Look again at chapter 9:1. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, 'The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. Notice how frankly and directly the sin is spoken of. There's no mincing words, there's no attempt to hide and evade. And it's not just the officials who were like this.

In chapter 10, verse 2, Shechem and I, one of the leaders of the people, comes to Ezra and makes this frank confession. And then down in 10:11, Ezra commands those guilty to make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the foreign wives. And so then in chapter 10:12, the people reply directly, and with no evasion, It is so.

Did you realize confession of sin is that important a part of public worship?

Did you notice how in our own times of gathering, we're not just about feel-good start your week off right with some positive vibes?

But we always try to make sure we are repositioning ourselves accurately before the holy God of the universe. There will always be some time of confession, either as its own prayer or part of a larger prayer in these days when we're trying to compress the service due to lack of childcare. My friend, frank confession is the necessary beginning of the U-turn of repentance. How can you repent for a sin you can't even recognize or name? And how will you ever be able to name the sin if there are not preachers out there honest enough to open their Bibles and read all of it to you and teach all of it to you?

Brothers and sisters, if I drop dead right now, I hope I've taught you well enough that you know that what you want in a preacher is not someone who makes you feel good, but it's someone who will open the Bible and teach it to you accurately. It is God's Word. That is what we crave. And it will teach us that we should confess our sins. Friends, privately confessing your sins to others is useful.

It's good for your humility, it's good for their instructions. It gives fodder for prayer and glory to God, even as we say in confession, that He is right and we are wrong.

Brother and sister, I wonder what temptation you're facing to be too close, too tied up with, too married to this world.

Should you be more separated from this world in order to be more obedient to God?

What do you need to separate yourself from?

These chapters are about divorce, but they're also about obedience.

But these chapters are also about, number three, mercy. Mercy. I wonder if you noticed that here. Look back at a few of those statements in Ezra's prayer in chapter 9.

Look at verse 8.

But now for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within His holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery. For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us His steadfast love before the kings of Persia to grant us some reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. And then again down in verse 13 of chapter 9, and after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved, and have given us such a remnant as this, shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor any escape to escape?

And then at the beginning of chapter 10 again, those first couple of verses, while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly. And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, the son of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra, 'We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.' so we hear Ezra praying, mentioning God showing favor, giving a place to His people and praying for God to brighten their eyes and to revive them. He mentions that God had not forsaken them, He had punished them less than their sins deserved. And then of course there's Shechaniah's wonderful phrase in verse 2, the end of chapter 10, verse 2, But even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Their immediate hope was that God would not disown them and re-exile them if they repented.

His mercy was being shown merely by calling the people to realize the truth, to wake up, to separate from their foreign wives by divorce. Friends, you can go back this afternoon and read the Lord's commands in Deuteronomy 13 and 16 and 17. The command was to purge the evil from your midst by putting the idolaters to death.

Here God was showing His mercy.

In simply instructing them to separate themselves from their foreign wives by putting them away.

So what I first took to be a severe command, divorce, I now understand is a mercifully amended sentence. God's mercy in it all becomes more apparent and more prominent to me. And it stands in complete consistency with the purpose of the law, to keep the people separate from the nations as a distinct people. And as I stare at this juxtaposition between God's commands in Deuteronomy and here in Ezra, I see taking shape the familiar outlines of the gospel. God has made us We have sinned.

God provides a way. We, trusting Him, repent and go on, knowing His mercy and grace now more than ever. Can you see that? My non-Christian friend, do you understand what I mean when I say the gospel? It's the basic message of the whole Bible.

It's that there is a God who's made all of us in His image. And that we have all sinned against Him. That is, we've done what He's told us not to. And we've done it repeatedly and wholeheartedly. It's an expression of our nature.

God in His great love has sent His only Son to be a Savior for us, to live a perfectly good life and die on the cross of Calvary as a sacrifice, as a substitute. In the place of all of those who would turn from their sins and trust in Him. God gave Him to us out of His love. God so loved the world. He loved the world in this way.

God raised Him from the dead and accepted the sacrifice that His Son presented of Himself. And He calls us now to turn from our sins and trust in Him, and we can be forgiven for our sins. And have new life in Christ. Can I point out something else remarkable in this account? It struck me there in chapter 10:2, who it is that comes and speaks to Ezra and makes a suggestion about confession and repentance.

It's Shechaniah. Now I know Shechaniah is not a common name among us, but it seems to have been at times in the Old Testament. But if this is the same Shechaniah we meet over in Nehemiah chapter 3, we see that He holds a significant position in Jerusalem. He's the keeper of the east gate. That's the gate from the Mount of Olives, just south of the temple itself, right by it.

He's described here in Ezra 10:2 as the son of Jehoiakim of the sons of Elam. Now if you slide your finger over to verse 26 of chapter 10, in that list of names of those who were named as guilty of this intermarriage, We see both the names of Elam and Jehoiada mentioned. You realize what that means? The terrible solution of divorce would be ripping into Shechaniah's own family it seems, since they too were among those guilty of this heinous sin.

May God use us as vessels of His mercy even when it puts us in the most difficult situations with our own family or our own friends, those whom we love.

So this is a story of divorce and obedience, yes, but also it is shot through with mercy.

Also, this book of Ezra is also a story about number four, worship, worship. Ezra recounts what is essentially the refounding of the nation of Israel or Judah, the refounding of Jerusalem and of God's temple in it, the reestablishment of God's worship. The initial chapters of his book recount the return a couple of generations before Ezra and the last half of the book, Ezra's own time, to lead a further return. Even as those who had gone before restored the temple and the sacrifices, now Ezra was coming to restore the teaching and the obedience among the people. And the center of the concern here is not racial purity, but it's purity from the abominations of the land.

It's religious purity. The Old Testament itself had already taught us to suspect that in a few ways. The condemnations in the Old Testament of intermarriage were condemnations of idolatry and unfaithfulness to Yahweh, not of the marriage itself.

You see, probably the most famous example of a tragic intermarriage, the wives of Solomon. After an account of the great reign of King Solomon in the first Ten chapters of 1 Kings. Then 1 Kings chapter 11 begins, Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, 'You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. ' Solomon clung to these in love, and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after gods, other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

That's what the Lord was preventing with the command. With the forbidding of intermarriage with the peoples of the lands. On the other hand, we have numerous examples of those who are not ethnically Israelite, but who get added in as they adopt the worship of the true God. Moses, the lawgiver, his own wife was not a child of Israel. And yet there was no violation of him in marrying her.

She adopted the worship of Yahweh. Rahab, the Joshua and company find in Jericho. Or David's own Moabite great-grandmother Ruth. In fact friends, you can go back to Exodus chapter 12 where the Passover is initially set up and who is it set up for? The children of Israel and the strangers who would take on the sign of the covenant and become part of them.

Friends, the point of the intermarriage forbiddings in the Old Testament is not race, it's religion. We see that even earlier in Ezra's own book. If you look back in chapter 6 of Ezra, verse 21, referring to this initial Passover when they started observing the Passover again as the exiles came back to the land. We read in Ezra 6:21, It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile. That's referring to the Passover.

It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And you see the purpose stated clearly right there. It was not the genetic purity of the people, but the religious purity of God's worship. I assume that the wives who worshiped Yahweh alone were not to be divorced. Perhaps that's why it took them three months from the 10th month to the first month to work through the hundred or so families who came before the examiners.

Listen again to Ezra's prayer in Ezra chapter 9 beginning in verse 11.

And now, O God, what shall we say after this? For we've forsaken your commandments which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, the land that you are entering to take possession of, it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity. That you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples, not who have a bad gene pool, but who practice these abominations?

Friends, it's the religious abominations that were practiced that was abhorrent to God and was a threat to the welfare of God's people. The problem is not race mixing, but religion mixing. It's not interracial marriage, but interreligious marriage. Their wives brought idols with them, which made the men adulterous to God.

Friend, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I think you'll find if you look at the religion of the Bible, it's a religion of change and forgiveness and redemption and a restoration of God's place in your life. Even here in chapter 9 in Ezra, in verse 8, he could refer to God's favor. Or in verse 13 about how God has punished us less than our iniquities deserved. Do you have any sense that God has punished you? Less than your iniquities have deserved?

I think when you begin to understand that is your case, that's when you will begin to see God's grace and mercy. And that's the day that may very well change the course of your life literally forever.

So Ezra is about divorce, and obedience and mercy and worship, anything else? Yes. Ezra is also about, number five, love. Love. This is what's really going on when you look back over Ezra's mission as a whole.

They were to worship only God because He is the only God. Everything else would be false, an illusion, a pretend where creatures of the imagination or of the real world are put in the place of the Creator of all. And when there is only one object for our love, for the kind of love that's our deepest love, then that one object gets it all.

Can you see that in our passage? God beckons the people to love Him. He beckons us through this book to love Him, as we see in Ezra 9:9. Ezra in prayer, reminding the people of God's having extended His steadfast love before the kings of Persia and allowing them to return from exile. Friends, throughout the history of Israel and the breadth and length of Scripture, God is revealing Himself as the only true God.

And as the only true God, then He requires our whole and undivided commitment and love to Him. Remember what God commanded the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 6: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And friends, after a thousand years of God's faithfulness in His people's history, here is Ezra, standing before this God who has loved and called for love, and what can Ezra pray?

Look at chapter 9 verse 15, the last verse in chapter 9.

O Lord, the God of Israel, you, are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped as it is today. Behold, we are before youe in our guilt, for none can stand before youe because of this.

Friends, God's love would let Ezra ask here, but ashamed of his people's unfaithfulness, Ezra only confesses.

Again, if you're listening to this as somebody who's struggling with your sin, and you're not a Christian. It is good and right for you to confess your sins against God. It is also true, though, that at some point, God's love in Christ must kindle in your heart an answering love to Him. We've all sinned against this always good God and not loved Him as we should. But his love for us is what will make a way for us to come back to him.

Not our love for him, but his love. Praise God. And even in making such a prayer of confession, God is at work building a path for his people to come back to him.

You know, friends, marriage is not given us to lead us away from God.

But to bring us back to Him.

Love for God is to be the most attractive thing about someone we would marry.

Have you ever noticed how many interracial marriages we have here in this church?

I have visitors comment on that to me sometimes. Friends, I think it's a striking witness for the gospel. Inter-racial marriages can expose the world's lies about what really is our most fundamental identity, whereas inter-religious marriages can simply lead us on a path away from God if a Christian marries someone who doesn't love God. The application for us is not to divorce non-Christian spouses. Paul deals with that expressly in 1 Corinthians.

But rather it is to marry only someone who shares our love for the Lord and will help us to love Him more. That's what we learn about marriage from reflecting on this book. So Ezra is about divorce and obedience and mercy and worship and love. As I was thinking about Ezra this week, it struck me that Ezra was really about divorcing divorce. I was thinking about the title of John Owen's famous book on the death of Christ called the Death of Death in the Death of Christ.

And while at first it's just kind of catchy as almost a word play, when you think about it, you begin to understand what he means and you realize that's really an excellent summary of what God has done in Christ, the death of death. He's called death, he's caused death to die for believers in its most terrible power by the death of His own Son. So here in this book, by means of literal divorces, God intended to divorce His people from their divorcing Him through the unfaithfulness introduced through idolatrous wives. He was leading them to divorce divorce from Him by divorcing their unbelieving, idolatrous wives. Ezra is about divorcing divorce.

Here, literal divorce was to divorce them from their spiritual divorce from God. The basic message for us in this is that we must work to keep the line between the church and the world clear for our own safety and for the salvation of others. It's that line being kept clear and distinct that's the way their witness would thrive as God's distinct people in the world. If the people were not holy and distinct, If they looked no different than the world, they'd have no witness. And that's how their mission would survive until the Messiah came five centuries later.

If it was to continue on, they had to have that same shared hope in that same promise of God's provision.

Well, friend, that's Ezra.

This is not the month that I thought I would be concluding Ezra in. I thought that would happen back in March. And this is not the place I thought I would be concluding Ezra in. I thought that would be in our dear old building back on the corner of 6th and N, Northeast. And these are not the circumstances that I thought I would be concluding Ezra in.

I didn't know that a pandemic would ravage families and jobs and make normal work and church life nearly extinct.

But you are the people I expected I would be concluding Ezra with. Regardless of what changes we've undergone in this eventful year, we are surviving. And I trust with God's help our witness to Him through these changing circumstances is even thriving. Can you think of people that you have shared the gospel with for the first time this year?

We can even think of some of our number who've come to know Christ this year.

And God is the God I expected I would be concluding Ezra with. His love is the constant from commands to the cross, from Persian emperors to presidential elections, from exile in the park to exile on the corner of 6th and A Northeast. All the way He leads us home. Friends, He is the God of glory that we worship, and of truth that we obey, and of mercy that we live by, and of love that we return. This is how we began the year, and by God's grace, this is how we're finishing it.

Let's pray together.

Lord God, we read youd instruction in youn Word that husbands are to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. O God, take youe Word now preached and use it to make us more and more without blemish. We thank youk for the holiness yous have gifted us and purchased for us in Christ. We thank youk, Lord, for the gift of youf Holy Spirit to enable us now to live into that holiness. Do that with us even this week, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen.