Jesus, Our True Temple

0:55The people in the book of Ezra rebuilt the temple, transforming it from a burned-out pile of rubble into a place for worship and prayer. The Texas AM football program brought in a proven leader to initiate sweeping changes that would hopefully lead to different results. And the people of Ezra in Ezra's time brought him in, a proven leader, to initiate sweeping changes that would hopefully result in different types of conclusions. And so the new stadium and the coaching regime change for Texas A ⁇ M. Them was a fresh start. It represented a new beginning, a new era. In the same way, the temple and Ezra's leadership represented those things to the people of Israel. It was to them a fresh start, a new beginning, the start of a new era, a second chance.

1:50But what if the new beginning, the fresh start, doesn't lead to different results? What if, as has happened so many times in Israel's history, they just go back to the way things were? And nothing is different in spite of the fact that they have a new temple and a new leader and all of these fresh things around them? What then? Well, friends, those are the questions that we're faced with as we come to the end of the book of Ezra.

2:19Those questions began to be raised last week in chapter 9 as we saw the people identifying that they had in fact sinned against the Lord by marrying foreign women. Not because marrying foreign women was the problem, but because those foreign women did not share their faith in God. And then we come now into chapter 10 with those questions in mind. Is anything going to be different now that there is a new temple and a new leader and a fresh start, a second chance?

2:48And so let's look together at the beginning of chapter 10 and let's answer those questions. You see here in verse 1 that Ezra is in the same position that he was in in chapter 9. He is praying. Confessing sin, weeping, and laying prostrate before the Lord. He is broken by Israel's disregard for God's holiness and God's commands. And so, many people, it says, a very great assembly gather around him, and they are also weeping bitterly. It's very clear that this is not just Ezra who's broken over the nation's sin and their lack of repentance for their disobedience to God's word. It's the people. The people have been convicted of their sin, and probably through Ezra's teaching and ministry.

3:34One of the primary reasons that he came back from Babylonia was to teach the people, to model for them godly living, and to encourage them toward faith and repentance on a daily basis. And so, at this point, there's a man named Shechaniah who steps forward and he speaks on behalf of the people to Ezra. I want you to look at verse 2, see what he says. He says, We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land.

4:07Well, this Hebrew word that's translated broken faith is ma'al. It means something like to act treacherously. And it's used primarily with respect to leaders. So, there are certain English words that when you hear them, you know that the connotation has to do with leaders. So, if I say the word impeach, you don't talk about impeaching somebody in your class. Or your neighbor, you only talk about impeaching leaders and specifically government leaders, right? And in the same way, this word, ma'al, is acting treacherously, and it almost always has to do with leaders.

4:43As we saw in Ezra chapter 9, it was the leaders who led the way in sinning against God and in getting back into idolatry. And what the use of this word shows us is that the people there didn't think of this sin as on par with every other sin. They had not simply done something that was akin to lying or stealing, which was sinful. They had done something far worse than that. They had broken faith. They had acted treacherously. They had committed treason. They switched sides from the worship of the one true God to worshiping idols along with their unbelieving wives. Again, the problem is not that they married foreigners.

5:23We talked about this at length last week. Any foreigner was welcome into the nation of Israel. Any foreigner is welcome in any sense into the faith of Israel, just as anyone is welcome today into Christianity. The doors are wide open. The only requirement is faith and repentance. The problem is that these foreign women did not share their faith in God. They were not walking in faith toward the one true God of Israel. They were not walking in repentance. They were idolaters.

5:52And they led their husbands, their families, and eventually the community into idolatry. What that meant was that they broke the first and greatest commandment. Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And they had broken that command. Shechaniah acknowledges that. The people acknowledge that, and that's why they say, we have broken faith with our God. Now look at the second part of what he says in verse 2.

6:22But even now, there is hope for Israel in spite of this. I just love that phrase. But even now, there is hope for Israel in spite of this. They have broken faith with their God. They have committed treason. They've switched sides. They're now serving idols rather than the one true God. They deserve judgment. But even now, there is hope for Israel in spite of this. This is a man that understands the gracious and merciful character of God.

6:59Shechaniah is not presuming upon the grace of God. He's not saying, of course, God is going to forgive us for our sin. That's his job. Nothing like that. He understands that God is just. He understands that what they deserve is judgment for their sin, not mercy, not grace. But he knows the character of God, that he is perfectly just, and that he is perfectly merciful and gracious. And friends, this is how God has always presented himself in Scripture.

7:28It's not just that his people. Have thought of him this way. This is how God Himself speaks of His character and who He is. Look on the screen at Exodus chapter 34. And what you need to know about this context is this is after the people of Israel have left Egypt and they have sinned against God by making the golden calves idols and worship them. Look at what he says about himself. The Lord passed before him, that's Moses, and proclaimed, The Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

8:22See, the way that God always reveals himself in Scripture is as one who is perfectly just. He does not, he cannot overlook sin. He is perfectly holy, and so sin cannot go unpunished. But he is also perfectly merciful and gracious. And the beautiful thing about the God of the Bible, the God of Israel, is that he has borne that punishment himself in his son. He is perfectly just and perfectly holy. And he has poured out his wrath for sinners onto his son, Jesus, in our place. He is perfectly merciful and gracious. And so, I don't want you to ever think that you are beyond the grace and the mercy of God.

9:07No matter where you're at, no matter what you have done, there is hope for you in spite of this, whatever this is. Because God is slow to anger. He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. There is hope. But that hope, friends, is reserved only for the repentant. Only for those who are willing to humble themselves before God and acknowledge their sin and confess it before him. That's who his mercy and grace is reserved for. That's all that's required, is that you humble yourself and acknowledge that and confess that.

9:42And as we've seen all throughout the Bible and all throughout the book of Ezra, especially, repentance has to be lived out. Repentance is not merely agreeing with God. It's not merely confessing your sin. It has to be lived out. It is a change of heart, a change of mind that leads to a new way of living. And so look what Sheconiah says in verse 3. He says, 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.

10:18Now, what's interesting when you read this is that the word here isn't divorce. He doesn't say, let us divorce these women. It's something like put away or send away. And similarly, in verse 2, the normal Hebrew word for married is not used. It's something more along the lines of lived with or gave a house to, like put a roof over. And so it's possible that these men married these women. It's also possible that they weren't married in the sense that we would understand it, but that they were shacking up together. They were living together.

10:57And so the context of this scenario is one that is very sad. In Malachi chapter 2, a prophet who is speaking to the people of Israel around this same time, he actually speaks to the people because many of the believing Jewish men divorced their wives in order to marry unbelieving women from the nations around them. In other cases, these believing men in Israel, they just married these foreign women or they were living with them. And so you have this really sad and complicated situation. Ezra 10, like Ezra 9, talks a lot about marriage, and here it talks about putting these women away or divorcing them. But I want us to keep in mind that Ezra chapter 9 and Ezra chapter 10, as much as they talk about those things, aren't really about marriage or marriage and divorce. There are lots of chapters in the Bible that address those things, but that's really not the primary thrust of what Ezra 9 and 10 are about. Ezra 9 and 10 are primarily about the holiness of God. That's what all Of this is about.

12:02It's about God who is holy and who cannot be in the presence of evil. And so his people, therefore, because he is holy, are called to live holy lives in obedience to his commands. But even knowing all of that, Sheconiah's proposed solution here to send these women and their children away, it might make you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. And I think a lot of you, if you know the scripture well, if you know the New Testament, you might be thinking, well, Alan, doesn't the Apostle Paul say in 1 Corinthians 7 that you shouldn't divorce your unbelieving spouse?

12:41Well, yes, he does. But I think that this situation is different for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that in 1 Corinthians 7, the people to whom Paul is writing almost certainly became believers after they were already married. So in other words, two unbelieving people got married, and then one of them came to faith in Christ, maybe through Paul's preaching or through someone else's. And so he's telling them, don't divorce your spouse. Who knows? God may use you to bring them to faith in Jesus. Stay married. Be a good witness to them. This situation is different because the people in Ezra were already presumably believers when they willingly chose to disregard God's commands and marry or live with these unbelieving women. So it's different from. That reason. The second reason it's different is that Israel and Ezra is under the old covenant, and therefore they are living in a theocracy. God's law, the law of the Lord, is the law of the land. It had to be enforced. And not only that, you may remember from the previous chapters in Ezra that King Cyrus, King Darius, and King Artaxerxes all said, The only reason you will be allowed to return and rebuild that temple is if you promise to obey the law of your God completely. Isn't that amazing? So they weren't just under the law of the Lord, they were actually under an official decree from three different kings who said, You can go back, you can rebuild the temple, but you have to obey God's law completely and perfectly. And so, this situation is different for a lot of reasons. And so, even hearing that, you may still say, Okay, I get that, that makes sense to me. I'm still uncomfortable with it, and I'm still uncomfortable with it too.

14:31But, friends, one of the things that we have to remember is that our sin almost always has uncomfortable consequences for us and for others. Our sin almost always has uncomfortable consequences for us and for others. There were no easy solutions here. If these men, many of these men, had in fact divorced their believing wives in order to marry or live with these unbelieving women, there were already people who were hurt in the situation. Situation. No matter what choices anybody made, there was going to be hurt people in this situation because of sin.

15:10You see, the lie that sin tells us, and you have probably heard this in your own heart and mind, you've had people say this very thing to you, is that you can sin and it doesn't hurt anybody. You won't be hurt by it. Other people won't be hurt by it. That's the lie of sin, is that we can disobey God's Word with no consequences. But, friends, that's just not true. We know that because the Bible teaches that principle over and over again, and we know that from our own experience. It is not possible to sin without hurt. It leads to hurt every single time. And so, no matter what decisions are made here, there are going to be hurt people because sin has consequences that have to be faced.

15:58And some of the consequences that are going to result in this situation are that leaders like Ezra are going to have to step up and they're going to have to announce and implement a decision. Leaders have to pay a high price in situations like this. And that's why Shekaniah says what he says in verse 4. Look at verse 4. He says, Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you. Be strong and do it.

16:23He says, Look, get up. You have wept, you have confessed, you've prayed, but now it's time to act. You've got to get up. Up and you've got to do it. It is your task. You're in charge. And that's the burden and the blessing of leadership, isn't it? Ezra has to get up and he has to announce and implement this proposed solution. It takes courage to lead, even when you know that you are making the best possible decision. And that's the position that Ezra finds himself in. So I'm sure he was encouraged to know that he had the support of people around him. And so now, in the next section, it's time to begin implementing this proposal. Look at verse 6.

17:07Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan, the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles. I think for Ezra, the reality is setting in, and he's probably wondering to himself, you know, why did I even come back? Why did I even come back? He left Babylonia, went on a 900-mile journey, led all of these people back to lead the charge in them living lives of repentance and faith in God. He's been teaching, he's been praying, he's been modeling what that looks like, and now he finds himself in this situation with all of these people who are blatantly disregarding the word of the Lord. He's discouraged. And so he makes this proclamation. He says, look here in verse 7, that everybody has to assemble in Jerusalem within three days. And if you don't come, then you're going to be excommunicated from the nation of Israel, and you're going to forfeit your land. You might hear that and say, man, that seems pretty intense. Why is that necessary? Well, once again, we're reinforcing the idea here. This is not an ethnic cleansing of any sense. This is a spiritual cleansing. Anyone who is repentant, anyone who will humble themselves before the Lord, anyone who's willing to walk by faith in the God of Israel is welcome. But if you refuse to repent, if you refuse to turn and to follow the Lord and his commands, you have to go.

18:44And your land is going to be forfeited as well. Why? Because this is not just any land. This is the land that God promised to Abraham and to his spiritual descendants. This is the land that was promised to them. And so if you have people marrying people who don't believe in that God, who's going to inherit the land? The children of the people who don't believe in that God. And so again, this is all part of this spiritual renewal and spiritual cleansing that's taking place in the nation of Israel. But as it were, everyone does show up, as we see in the next verse. They all show up, and it's the middle of the ninth month, so it's December. December the 20th. It sounds like they're having a fall, kind of like ours. It's raining every day, and it's raining. Raining hard, and I love this statement at the end of this verse here, verse 9. It says they are trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain. So they're out there shaking, and they're shaking for two reasons. One, because they're fearful of the Lord and his righteous judgment, and two, because it's pouring and it's cold. It's so human, the whole situation. You can identify with that. So they get everybody together. Ezra repeats the charges. The people confess their sin and they agree that they have to do something about it. They have to send these women away, but they also note the reality of the situation. There are a lot of people here. There's a lot of people who sinned in this way. And it's pouring. So they come up with a sensible solution. They say, let's have everybody come back at an appointed time. They will meet with the leaders, and along with them will come elders and rulers from their own people. People who know each individual situation very well. There's so much wisdom in this whole thing. They're going to take their time and do it right. They're not going to rush to make some decision just so they can feel better about themselves because they've done something. How many times have we done that in our lives? Where the right answer is taking our time and making sure that we do the right things. Instead, we rush to do something just to try to put our consciences at ease.

21:00But they're not going to do that here. They actually care about justice being done. So every case is going to be examined on its own merits. Again, it's a spiritual cleansing. So if any one of these women says, Look, I believe in the God of Israel. I humble myself before him. I am repentant of my sin. They are welcome to be a part of the covenant community. But if they're not, if they're still beholden to idols, if they're still worshiping and serving anyone or anything other than the God of Israel, they have to go. The goal is faithfulness before God. Look at verse 14. The very end of this verse says they're going to meet in this way. Why? The end of the verse says, until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away from us. That's their focus. Their focus is doing right by the Lord. Not by what it's going to cost them, not by what people are going to think, but doing right by the Lord.

22:03So join me now in verse 16 as they implement this decision. 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. So, we have these summary statements about how they put this into practice. And what we learn here is that this process starts 20 days later and it lasts for three months. 90 days. Well, as we'll learn if you go back and you read at some point verses 18 through 44, the end of this chapter, these are the names of all the people who sinned in this way. There's about 111.

22:55And what that means is they basically took one case per day, more or less. They took their time, they examined each one. They wanted to be careful to make sure that justice was done. And on the one hand, you look at this group of people, over 100 people, and it's really not that many. Keep in mind that when the first wave of exiles returned in chapter 1, do you remember how many people came back with them? 50,000. 50,000 people. That was 80 years ago.

23:27Many of those people have married, had children. It's grown a lot. Then in the second wave with Ezra, you had 5,000 more people. Some of those people have married, had children. So this is a big group of people at this point. There's only a little over 100 who have sinned in this way. It's not that many people. But on the other hand, as we learned last week, and as you'll see in verses 18 through 44, many of the people who sinned were leaders.

23:55There were 17 priests, six Levites, who had been. The example with their hypocrisy of saying one thing that we are here to worship and live for the glory of the Lord and then doing another in their lives, disregarding his word. And friends, that's how the book of Ezra ends. Not exactly a Disney ending, is it? The book began with the dawning of a new day. In fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, King Cyrus said that the Israelites could return from where they had been in exile for 70 plus years and they could rebuild the temple. Everything was off to a great start. There was so much hope, but right away there was conflict. All they got done was the temple foundation, and it sat there untouched for 20 years because of the opposition that they faced. But then God moved through the prophets, Haggai and Zachariah, and the people got back to work. And then King Darius said, Hey, I want you to finish the temple. Not only do I want you to finish the temple, we, the Persian government, will finance it. It was an amazing turn of events. They began to worship again, they celebrate the Passover, and then Ezra comes back, and he begins teaching and modeling godly living. But then the book ends with everybody crying in the rain and people sending away unbelieving wives and children. Children. This is just not the ending that we would have expected even a few chapters ago. What do we make of this?

25:41Well, friends, the book of Ezra gives us two very important reminders. The first is this. Ezra reminds us that the Bible is not a collection of cute religious sayings. The Bible is not a collection of cute religious sayings. It is a historical account of real life in the real world. And in the real world, people sin against one another. We make a mess of things even after God forgives us and restores us, pours out his grace and mercy on us. We still make a mess of things. Ezra is a reminder that the Bible is reporting things as they actually are. It's not a fairy tale. The second reminder that comes out of the book of Ezra is this. Ezra reminds us that we need something more than a second chance.

26:44Ezra reminds us that we need something more than a second chance. See, for hundreds of years, the people of Israel, they had been given second chances by God, and third chances, and fourth chances, and 25 chances. Again and again, they Would repent of their sin, they would start walking in faithfulness, then they would slide back into sin and idolatry, and God would discipline them. They would promise never to do it again, to be wholeheartedly faithful to him, then they would slide back into the same sin and idolatry again and again and again until they were finally exiled. God sent them away.

27:19And here they are in the book of Ezra. God has given them a new chance, a fresh start. They rebuild the temple. They've got this amazing leader in Ezra. And what happens? The new temple didn't change anything. The new leader didn't change anything. The second chance didn't change anything. And so, what Ezra teaches us is that what we need isn't another chance. What we need is another heart. And that's what the prophet Ezekiel said during the exile. Look on the screen at Ezekiel 36.

28:00He says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

28:29Friends, God. Could give us a million chances, and we would always need one more. We would always need one more, because our greatest need is for a new heart, a new spirit that only God can give to us. And so, hundreds of years later, this second temple, the one that we've been talking about in this book, it has been destroyed, and they've rebuilt it. So, they're on version 3.0 when Jesus comes onto the scene. And if you're familiar with the gospel accounts in the New Testament, you know that this temple that was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, that was supposed to be a place of worship, had been converted into a spiritual marketplace where things were being sold.

29:19And so, Jesus comes into the temple one day, and he overturns all the tables, and he makes a homemade whip of cords, and he drives all those people out of there, consumed with zeal for the Lord. And so, the Jews are furious with him. The leaders are furious. Look at what they say to him in John chapter 2. What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

30:00When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. You see, Jesus, as God in the flesh, Jesus of Nazareth became the true temple. He became the dwelling place of God in his incarnation. He came and took on flesh because we needed something more than a second chance. We needed forgiveness. We needed to be saved from the power of sin and the penalty of sin in our lives. And through faith in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from the dead, we have forgiveness and freedom, the very things that were promised in the new temple. Freedom and forgiveness and a fresh start. We have all of those things in Christ Jesus.

30:54He not only promises those things, he delivers them because he is the true temple. And so, friends, Ezra may seem like it ends on a discouraging note, but it really doesn't. Because Ezra points to the reality that Jesus is the true temple and the hope of every repentant sinner. Let's pray. God, we are so thankful that you have preserved the book of Ezra for thousands and thousands of years. So that it could teach and instruct us in our faith today.

31:40I think sometimes our temptation is to look at the people of the Old Testament and to think, How could they do that? How could they do that again and again and again? But we know, if we're introspective and honest about our own lives, that we do the very same things. We make promises to you to try harder to do better. And then we break them. Because what we need is a new heart, a new spirit. We are so thankful that Jesus came to bring those things to us.

32:29And so, Father, I pray as we close this study of the book of Ezra, I pray that you would teach us to hope completely in Jesus Christ. I pray that anything that we are putting our hope and our trust in, that those things have been exposed as false saviors, things that cannot save us, cannot forgive us, can't help us. And I pray. That we will put our hope and our trust fully in the person of Jesus and his work.

33:07Father, I pray for our church because we see again and again in this book that you are a holy God and you require us to live holy lives of obedience as your people. Would you help us to do that? We want to be what you call us, a city on a hill, a shining light in the darkness. We want to be those things, God, but we know that that requires us living holy lives, which we cannot do apart from your grace and your spirit. So pour it out on us, God, we pray. Help us to live holy lives in our neighborhoods, in our offices, in the classroom, in our community.

33:48We pray that our light would so shine before men that they would see our good deeds and glorify you, not us. Thank you, God, for your word toward us. We receive it today by faith. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.