Testimony in Troublous Times

by Ian McKee (Northern Ireland)

Paper 19 — Taking a stand (Ezra Chapter 10.5 - 12)

The time for grief is passing. The time for action arrives. Those deep feelings, which caused Ezra such distress in the presence of God, now impel him to act. He accepts his responsibility. “Then arose Ezra, and made the chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they should do according to this word. And they sware,” Ezra 10.5. Not only was Ezra prepared for decisive action but now the chief priests and the Levites are also bound by a solemn covenant before God to do whatever is necessary. And the general public were similarly committed.

Having reached this point it might have been expected that Ezra would simply give orders, delegate authority and impose deadlines with the intention of bringing all to speedy resolution. But quite the contrary. “Then Ezra rose up from before the house of God, and went into the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliashib: and when he came thither, he did eat no bread, nor drink water: for he mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carried away,” Ezra 10.6.

The man who had been so deeply affected by the reports of this dreadful sin as to be distraught and prayerful in public was similarly affected, in an ongoing way, in private. Ezra’s public grief was not contrived. He was the same man in private. He adopted a position similar to that of Moses on Sinai, “I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.” Deut.9.18. So Ezra continued to intercede and mourn over sin. As long as the sin continued, he sorrowed. Although he had secured the people’s commitment to act, that, in itself, was not enough. He recognised that he needed the power of God, which could only be found by continued seeking and self-denial.

While Ezra sought the presence of God in private, the civic rulers “made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together unto Jerusalem; And that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself separated from the congregation of those that had been carried away,” Ezra 10.7,8. This message, proclaimed by heralds in the streets, would then spread by word of mouth throughout the entire Jewish community in Judea. Given that the Jewish colony was concentrated within approximately one day’s journey from Jerusalem, three days were sufficient to effect the proclamation throughout the whole territory and provided sufficient time for every able-bodied adult male to make the necessary arrangements and get to Jerusalem by the time stipulated. However, there was no time for hesitation or delay. And to enforce compliance, the proclamation was accompanied by threat of property forfeiture and loss of citizenship.

In the face of such stern sanction it is not surprising that we read, “Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days.” Ezra 10.9. This was on the twentieth day of the ninth month, for God takes note when restoration begins. Many people came from Jerusalem itself. Others came from outlying towns and villages. But all gathered. They “sat in the street of the house of God,” or the court before the Temple, “trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain,” Ezra 10.9. Inclement weather did not deter them. The matter was of such moment that they trembled as much from the consciousness of guilt and the dread of its consequences, as from the physical discomfort.

Then Ezra stood up to speak. He came straight to the point. There was no sermonising in the rain. “Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do His pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives,” Ezra 10.10,11. The sin was declared plainly. It was not inter-racial marriage. Rather they had taken, from the nations around, women with whom they lived. The remedy was also declared plainly: confess wrong, judge the sin, separate from it and do the will of God.

While there was gross sin in many specific instances, there was also a general decline in understanding the need for separation from the ungodly nations around. Although we have focused on the specific sin, and so we should for God identifies it and its perpetrators on the page of inspiration, nevertheless we must recognise that it was the end result of a general retrograde process. The people of God, in relation to the ungodly around them, had moved from a position of distinctive separation to one of carelessness. Early contracts may have been portrayed as mutual co-operation, benign social interaction, perhaps leading on to joint business ventures or other associations, but the end result of this process was moral sin! And once one illicit relationship is established without necessary corrective action being taken, others will follow.

Liberty, so called, led to license, which was nothing less than the ancient sin deployed by Balaam. “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods,” Num.25.1, 2. This constituted “the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication,” Rev.2.14. In Ezra’s day, and in ours, decline both in spiritual tone and distinctiveness in testimony, may result in a parallel deterioration in moral rectitude.

“Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must it be,” Ezra 10.12. This was a positive, united and determined response. Anything less than this resolution to quit sin will fail. But, as we shall see, it would have been much less painful had the leaders among the people of God dealt with this sin immediately it became manifest. Sin does not improve with time! There is nothing, therefore, to be gained by a forlorn hope that, somehow, things will improve by avoiding the issue. Clearly, they will not!

—to be continued (D.V.)