Patchwork: we resort to it when we are unwilling to do something thoroughly. Imagine that you have a leak in your roof. When you try to uncover the source of the leak, you find that the whole roof is rotting. You realize that if you would do thorough work, you would have to replace the whole roof. If you are like me, you ask: What can be salvaged? Perhaps you try to remove what is worst and attach the new to the par­tially rotten.

Spiritually, we do the same. Often what is most necessary is most difficult, and, like Adam, we resort to a patchwork of fig leaves. That is our nature. The Bible warns against such patchwork (Luke 5:36). When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he realized patchwork would not do. Something thorough was necessary: brokenness.

Brokenness Required Because of Spiritual Compromise⤒🔗

What was the problem in Jerusalem? Ezra received news that the people had not separated themselves from the indigenous people and their sins. In fact, they had joined with them by intermarriage, and the lead­ers of the people had led the way. Even those who were to be spiritual leaders had acted most unspiritually.

The problem was not per se that Israelites had mar­ried non-Israelites. God had not forbidden that as such. There were the notable cases of Moses and Zipporah, Salmon and Rahab, Boaz and Ruth. Instead, the prob­lem was intermarriage with idolaters. Moses had warned specifically against the people indigenous to the land of Canaan (Deut. 7:1-6), in view of their inextri­cable connection with the idolatrous worship in the land. Likewise, the Egyptians were also included in this ban (see Lev. 18:3). Such marriage meant unfaithful­ness to God.

The sin of spiritual compromise is rampant today as well. Of course, we no longer live in the era in which God’s special dealings are tied to a particular race (the Jews) and His stipulations connected with a particular land (Canaan). Nevertheless, ours is also a day of pervasive unfaithfulness to God and disobedi­ence to His Word. Moreover, worldliness shows itself in the arenas of marriage and family today. Many in our world detest all who would live separately in this world, especially if this separation is based on the revealed Word of God.

People often advocate an accommodation with the world in very appealing terms. We hear things like: “We need to cooperate with people in order to impact them.” “We shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.” “You can’t live in a shell.” “We need to redeem cul­ture.” “You will lose the next generation.” It is true: Scripture does not send us to monasteries or ask us to live in Amish-like communities. Nevertheless, Paul does say:

Come out from among them, and be ye sep­arate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean things. And I will receive you. 2 Cor. 6:17

Christians are to have a pilgrim identity (Heb. 13:13). The world will not recognize the godly, for neither did it recog­nize Christ (1 John 3:1).

Brokenness Offered in Thorough Humiliation←⤒🔗

Though Ezra and the band of returning people had offered sacrifices on their arrival in Jerusalem, Ezra did not at this time ask for mere sacrifices to be offered. Instead, he tore his inner and outer garments, pulled out his hair as a sign of deep humiliation, and sat in silence in a public place for an extended period of time. This was the language of grief and mourn­ing. It was as if someone had died (see Job 1:20; Isa. 22:12; Ezek. 7:18).

The truth was that something even worse had taken place. When Ezra finally arose from his “heaviness” or his visible demonstration of humiliation (Ezra 9:5), he explained himself in his prayer: “Our iniquities are increased over our head, and our tres­pass is grown up unto the heavens” (Ezra 9:6). What is worse than death is the sin against God that deserves death. This explains Ezra’s deep humiliation.

Ezra understood that this was not the time for burnt-offerings. It was a time for brokenness. As David had said:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Ps. 51:17

And so we see here in Ezra 9 that Ezra offered the sacrifices of God.

Thorough humiliation is not easy. It is easier to heal the wound slightly. Our repentance must be more than a morning cloud or the early dew.

Ezra teaches us three lessons about thorough humiliation:

First, he saw sin as heinous. Ezra joined with his fel­low-Jews in owning this sin (v. 6). He acknowledged that their sins reached unto the heaven and had pol­luted all the land (vv. 6, 11). He did not hide sin, but confessed it. Like Adam, he felt shame; unlike Adam, he confessed it.

Secondly, he saw sin as unreasonable. In light of God as the good-doing God, sin is absurd and most unreasonable. Ezra indicated this when he said: “And now, O our God, what shall we say after this” (v. 10). Later, he asked: “Should we again break thy com­mandments?” (v. 14). Ezra made no excuses for sin. Instead, he made sin appear most inexcusable and wicked.

Thirdly, he saw sin as devastating. He understood that sin had consequences and that these consequences are most damaging. Sin incurs the anger of God, and this anger is both just and complete (v. 14). God would be righteous if He would wipe Israel completely from the earth.

Every thorough humiliation will be marked by these three things. It is the godly sorrow Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 7:9. It produces carefulness, indigna­tion, fear, vehement desire, and zeal (see 1 Cor. 7:11). We see all these things in Ezra.

Brokenness Concluding in Divine Vindication←⤒🔗

We might be surprised that Ezra’s prayer does not end with any specific plea. We might expect a plea for mercy, pardon, deliverance, etc. Verse 15 simply reads:

O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day: behold we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this. v. 15

In this prayer of deep contrition, Ezra justified God. He demonstrated in his prayer what Paul would later state: “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). Ezra’s prayer was not one of fatalistic resignation. It was the prayer of faith, for he rested in God and His revealed attributes: “O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous.”

What is true prayer but resting upon God’s revealed attributes? Prayer is casting oneself, body and soul, for time and eternity, upon the great attributes of God, each one of them, and finding there in Christ a resting place for one’s poor and needy and sinful soul.

Ezra’s prayer was a prayer of thorough broken­ness. He could also have used David’s words: “I con­fess thy judgment just” (Ps. 51). With the people who had joined him, he had come to rest solely and wholly upon God.

So Ezra’s prayer comes to us as a message about God’s righteousness, which was most gloriously unfolded in Christ’s sacrificial death. At Golgotha, Ezra’s confession of God’s righteousness receives its deepest sense. As Paul says: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier” (Rom. 3:26) ... of Ezra ... and all who in brokenness of heart cry out to God.

Questions:←⤒🔗

1. Name some areas in which we can engage in spir­itual compromise. Give practical examples of how we should be separate from this world.
    
2. Read verse 4. What characterized the people who joined Ezra? Compare Isaiah 66:2. What does it mean to tremble at God’s Word?
    
3. Ezra expresses “shame” and “confusion” (re­proach) on account of sin. Contrast Ezra’s attitude with what we read in Zephaniah 3:5. Why was Ezra so sensitized to sin?
    
4. Ezra acknowledged that God has given the Jews “a nail in his holy place” (v. 8). This word “nail” means a tent peg. He is saying that God has given them a place to pitch their tent in their earthly journey. What have the people returned to God for this kind hospitality and why does this make sin all the more heinous?
    
5. What are the sacrifices of God? How did Ezra offer them? Why do we so often rest content with patchwork?
    
6. Compare Psalm 51:4 and Ezra 9:15. How do the two relate?
    
7. Read verse 15b (after the word “behold”). What is the tension Ezra is speaking of? Where must this tension bring us?