Ezra 9:13 “What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us a remnant like this.
Years ago, a school where I taught would hold parent meetings for the purpose of establishing school guidelines and rules. It would be easy to come away from those meetings encouraged about the upcoming school year because it seemed as though the parents were really behind the school! Then later, when a student would break one of these rules, far too often the parent who had been part of the committee wanted no part of the consequences for their child that they had helped establish!
Ezra had led a group of Israelites from Babylon, where they had been captured in a military conquest 70 years earlier, back to Israel. The amount of time they had been exiled was not a random thing. God had led His prophets for generations before the exile occurred. They preached His warning to worship God alone and they had foretold the consequence for Israel’s idolatry. Sure enough, God’s word came true and they were carried off. Now, the next part of His word came true and they were returning 70 years later.
In chapter nine, Ezra is praying and crying out to God because things are still not as they should be. His concern is that they have not really learned their lesson. But his admission in today’s verse is so important. Ezra makes no excuses for their behavior. He owns it. As long as we are unwilling to admit our own fault and sinfulness we will never be in a right relation-ship with God.
God is an unchanging God. What He has said before, He means. In the Garden of Eden He told Adam and Eve that disobedience brings death. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, put it this way:
For the wages or sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ezra knew that all that had happened to them was because they had sinned. But he also knew that God had been merciful to them! Our sin, according to God’s word, deserves death and that price is not negotiable. Furthermore, death is the penalty for all sin, the ‘big’ ones and the ‘little’ ones. If we have told one lie, for example, the penalty is the same.
But the good news (the Gospel) is that Jesus paid that penalty on the cross for us if only we will accept His gift! He Who had no sin, became sin for us. He paid a debt He did not owe for us, who had a debt we could not pay!
Blessings
Pastor Russ
