10. But to give a little bit of context, since Ezra 10 was read in the Old Testament reading, I'm going to read Ezra 9, 1 through 6. It said, now when these things were done, The princess came to me saying, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands. Yea, the hand of the princes and rulers have been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and I plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard and sat down astonished. Then were assembled unto me everyone that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away. And I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice I rose up from my heaviness, and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees. and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God, and said, O my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift up my face to thee, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens." Now that's the brokenheartedness of a man of God over the condition of the Old Testament church. Let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come to you and pray that as we open your word that your Holy Spirit would lead us and teach us what you would have to teach us from this Old Testament narrative, Father. And we pray in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. I would say that the same thing that Ezra says about the church in the Old Testament could be said about the church in America today. The church is in a poor state. The worldliness of the church is at such a state that all types of sin not only are tolerated, but oftentimes are celebrated. Churches that no longer believe the Bible. An acceptance of homosexuality. Those even within the religious and ethics group of the Southern Baptist Convention, who once supported counseling homosexuals to be changed out of that lifestyle, saying that they no longer see reparative therapy as beneficial, as being harmful to the homosexual, no longer leading them away, but just teaching them abstinence. Al Mohler, Russell Moore, some of those that have been recently vocal on that point. Actually asking the homosexual community to forgive them for their past teachings. We also see a rampant acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage not only in our community, not only in our culture, but in our churches. In fact, the Pew Research said that 63% of Protestants in 2015, I would say it's probably much higher now, 63% see no conflict with the homosexual lifestyle in scripture. It's even higher when you go to the non-Protestant denominations. In fact, in an article that Politico put out, called Evangelicals are Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage. This article also is two years old. It says, and the Bible isn't getting in their way. Amy Tincher is an evangelical Christian who plays bass in the band at her suburban Ohio church, where she and her fellow congregation firmly believe the words we adhere to are those in the Bible. But last summer, without telling her husband and two kids exactly what she was doing, she boarded a plane for a conference in Kansas, whose purpose many evangelicals would plainly consider heretical. Tenture was one of 50 people flown from around the country and the world, Canada, China, Nigeria, and South Korea, to a four-day Bible boot camp dedicated to discussing and embracing gay relationships. The gathering was organized by Matthew Vines, who by then was enjoying modest fame for a 2012 YouTube video in which Vines, looking even younger than his 21 years, delivered an hour-long lecture arguing that the Bible does not, in fact, condemn all same-sex relationships. The video went viral. It goes on to talk about how even organizations, political organizations that have been lobbying against gays and gay marriage have lost their funding. Churches are no longer supporting them. Christians are no longer giving money to those causes. That's the state we find our church in. So what about the Presbyterian Church? See I think these issues, the issue of homosexuality is a hot topic right now. But I think it's related to our text and I think it's a deeper seated issue that our text points to today. See the Presbyterian Church, in fact the last time I was here I was handed a little book called Lest We Forget. And it's the history of how the OPC came about. And I don't know if all of you have read the book, it's a good little book, but it's about how moderates within the Presbyterian Church, now the Presbyterian Church USA, took offense to men who actually believed the Bible and were teaching the Bible. And I'm not sure of the actual process at that time, but basically they removed these men from their positions as ministers, they defrocked them. And those men who left started the OPC. And they started it out of a desire to separate from these liberals the same group that we now see ordaining non-practicing homosexuals into the office of minister. The same church that we now see recognizing homosexual marriages. In fact, allowing their ministers to perform homosexual marriages in some of their presbyteries. And what we see is a branch of the church that one time this denomination belonged to that is now apostate. And what we see is the direction of faithlessness and where it leads to. And the OPC separated from the PCUSA because they wanted to hold to faithfulness. The title of today's message is Building Covenant Faithfulness. And that's exactly what Ezra was intending to do. In fact, that's what he was sent there for. I want to give you a quick overview. of this book because the church today is in desperate need of reform and that's exactly what Ezra was bringing to the Old Testament church. Now the book starts, Ezra doesn't actually come in until later in the book, but he writes down what took place. And God laid it upon Cyrus. He was led by the Lord to issue a decree to rebuild the temple And Zerubbabel leads a group of those who were in exile during the Babylonian exile back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. And then later in the book there's a point at which those that lived in the area protested and was able to shut down the building of the temple. And then King Darius was asked to look at the records and he found this edict by Cyrus and he reestablished the building of the temple. And then, at this point, we have Artaxerxes. And Artaxerxes recognizes that the temple is completed now, but that they still need proper worship at the temple. And God lays it upon Artaxerxes' heart, a Persian king, clearly showing the sovereignty of our God, even over the hearts of men. who are not a part of Israel, but he lays it upon this king's heart to send Ezra with the Word of God back to Jerusalem, to preach the law of God to the people, to those who already adhere to the law, and to teach it to those who do not know it, and to bring reform to Israel, to establish a religious community. And so he's given authority to go back and preach and bring the spiritual reform. He's also given the authority for death, for those that refuse to adhere to God's law, banishment, and even confiscation of their inheritance if they refuse to adhere to the law of God. And this is the authority that Ezra comes back to Jerusalem with. And he also sent him with great riches to decorate and beautify the temple of the Lord according to God's word. And so, Artaxerxes recognized that God was particular about how he was worshipped. And he wanted it done properly. And even in the way that the temple was decorated was according to the word of God. And Ezra came and he preached the law. And we are told that it brought spiritual reform. But as we just read in chapter 9, it was brought to Ezra's attention that there was sin. That those in Israel, many of those who had come out of the exile back into Jerusalem, married foreign wives. In fact, it says strange wives. And that's where our text begins in Chapter 10. But Chapter 9 gives us a few more details about that. It said that, They have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites." It's saying that they started participating in the practices of the wicked nations around them. They brought worldliness into the Old Testament Church. And that worldliness was brought in particularly by marrying strange wives. And so we're going to look at that and the impact that had on the Old Testament Church. But I want to look at how do we build covenant faithfulness. First of all we're going to look at how Ezra built it in the Old Testament Church and how it applies to the New Testament Church today. So Ezra, we see him, when the sin is brought to his attention, he humbles himself before the Lord. He's broken hearted, he tears his garments, he's mourning over the sin. Are we broken hearted over the sin that we see in the church today around us? Do we have leaders that have this type of compassion for God's people? The people of Israel had broken covenant with God and Ezra leads the people to reestablish that covenant with God. So what do we see is needed to establish covenant faithfulness in the church? The points of the sermon today with covenant faithfulness requires repentance, covenant faithfulness requires holy living, and covenant faithfulness requires multi-generational faith. So covenant faithfulness requires repentance. What is the model of repentance that we have in the Bible? In fact, we're given one just a couple books earlier, or actually one book earlier in this. As you read the history of Israel, you recognize that there were many times that they turned away from the Word of God. They turned to the idols and the worship of the pagans around them. And God told them, in fact we see the model in 2 Chronicles 7.14, that if my people which are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land." That is the process that we see for building covenant faithfulness, and it starts with repentance. So what is their sin? In chapter 10, we're told that they take strange wives. And as we see in more detail in chapter 9, first of all, they did not separate themselves from the people of the land. Basically, they started practicing in some of the sins of the pagan people. There was a reason that God had told them to separate themselves from the people, because there was much wickedness in the land. In fact, most of these groups were a part of what they called fertility cults. And they practiced cultic prostitution both heterosexual and homosexual for the purpose of bringing the rains and for crops. We also see that they practiced that of Molech. We're told elsewhere in the scripture that there were those who passed their children under the fire, meaning they sacrificed their children to Molech. This is the evil and wickedness of this people. These were the people that they are to separate themselves from. And as we see in our own culture today, there's all kinds of wickedness on just about every media source that we have, bombarding the church. And there is a wickedness that we are to separate ourselves from. We also see that they took foreign wives for themselves and for their sons. And there's an interesting phrase there, it says, so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of the land. Now in the Old Testament and New Testament reading we had two passages read which some would recognize that are hard to reconcile. One that clearly teaches that they are to put away these strange wives and then another in the New Testament that says that if the unbelieving spouse is willing to live with you let them stay and that the believing will make the unbelieving holy. In a sense there's a chance that that one can come to salvation And so we recognize that there is a difference here in the Old Covenant Church and the New Covenant Church. And a lot of that is around this concept of seed laws. And if we read about the seed laws, in fact, the first commandment that they're breaking here is Deuteronomy 7, 1 to 6. It says, "'When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, the Gergesites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and here's the term I want us to pay attention to, and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto the son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them. Ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves. and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people and upon the face of the earth." God desired for them to stay pure, to maintain a holy seed. They were told that these people would be delivered before them and that they were to be utterly destroyed, men, women, children, and animals. That seems harsh. But we... God had been long-suffering with these people and He was bringing a judgment upon them. The word for utterly destroy, as best I can pronounce it in Hebrew, is kiram. And the word basically means that which is devoted unto the Lord. They were to not take that which was devoted unto the Lord. Now this concept of seed is a concept that we see throughout the church. It started in what's called the Proto-Evangelion. And for those who don't know what that means, that means the first time that we see the gospel presented. The pre-gospel. And that's Genesis 3.15, where we are told that the seed of Eve would bruise the head of Satan. He will brew his hill, but one will come that will bruise the head of Satan. It means one that will crush Satan. And what we see here is there was a promised seed even at Genesis 3.15. And for those that understand covenant theology, they talk about this being that thread of grace that goes through the entire Old Testament. And that promise of the seed that will come, that will deliver His people. And we see this throughout the different covenants. In the Abrahamic Covenant we see this in Genesis 17. It's in chapter 12 and 15 as well, but in Genesis 17 it says, and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and thy seed after thee and I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant. Therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations." This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee. Every man-child among you shall be circumcised, and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your generations. He that is born in the house are bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought with thy money needs be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcision of the uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from the people. He hath broken my covenant." And so what we see here is that concept of the seed promise given to Abraham. And Abraham is to raise up godly offspring. And even those who are purchased that come in, they are to be circumcised as a mark that they are believers. They are brought into Israel with the mark of circumcision. And those who are uncircumcised are covenant breakers and are to be cast out. And the purpose was to maintain a holy seed for that seed promise. But see, the seed promise wasn't just for Israel. We're told also that the seed of David will sit on the throne forever. In fact, many of the Jews did not understand that, especially after the lineage of David, after the kingship of David had ended. Paul said that Jesus was the seed of David. In Romans 1.3 he says, "...concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made the seed of David according to the flesh." Jesus Christ is a fulfillment of that seed promise. And the purpose of maintaining a holy seed was for the purpose of maintaining a people that were separate from the world in holiness until Christ Jesus would come. And any of those who were not faithful were separated from Israel. And so what we see here is seed promises. In fact, if you read Gary North on some of these issues, he talks about how this whole process of inheritance with the land. For the seed promise of Abraham was connected with the land that that ended in 70 AD. That there is no longer an inheritance in Israel. There is no tribe of Israel who can lay claim to a part of the land there. in the sense that these seed promises were, because they were fulfilled in Christ Jesus. The seed and the foreshadowing of the land promise was foreshadowing the seed promise that Christ Jesus would establish, because Christ owns the whole world. It's not just one little piece of land in Israel. And that He opened up to the people of God to all nations, just as was promised to Abraham, that the seed would be a blessing to many nations. So what was the response of the people? See, Ezra came with authority and he preached the law to the people. And the people assembled before Ezra. And they came upon Ezra and they saw this great mourning and weeping. And the people were pricked to the heart for their own sin when they saw him weeping and throwing himself down on the Temple Mount. because of his anguish over the sins of the people. And we were told that the people also wept before God over their sin. And the people were moved to repentance. We see that Shekinah confessed, as a spokesman for the people, confessed their sin publicly. And he spoke on behalf of the people that were seated there. And he stated, there is yet hope for Israel. We know that Shekiniah had been with Ezra back in Persia. And we know that he was sent with Ezra. Ezra was told to gather together those priests and Levites to go back and establish proper worship. And Shekiniah was a man who recognized the Word of God, but he knew the Word of God and he knew the grace of God. And he says, there is still hope for Israel. We see that the people confessed their sin, and they made a covenant with God. For a second I said, we must make a new covenant with God for this, that we would put away these strange wives. Ezra called them not only to make a covenant, but to make an oath before God that they would fulfill that covenant. But the people For the people and for God, verbally repenting was not enough. They were called to action. They were called to holy living. There had to be actions that backed up this repentance. And oftentimes, I think in our church today, that's one thing that's missing. We see people that are brokenhearted and they mouth with their mouths repentance, but we never see the actions of holy living that back it up. in Ezra as a leader of the people. We see that he mourned, and he fasted, and he prayed over the sin of the people. The people came and gathered before Ezra in Jerusalem. We also see the threat of discipline in the Old Covenant Church. The same discipline that the keys of heaven have been given to the church today to exercise the discipline of the church. We see that Ezra was given the power to excommunicate the people who refused to come, those who had broke the law of God. He was able to take their inheritance and he was able to devote it to the temple. In fact, that same word there, kiram, is used in saying what would happen to those who refused to come to Israel and acknowledge their sin and repent. We also see that part of their sin was taking what was devoted to the Lord. In fact, we remember the story of Achan. Achan was told not to take what was devoted to the Lord. And he took it. He took some of the bounty and he hid it. And 56 men died before Israel realized something was wrong. And they cast lots until it came down and it fell upon Achan. And God was not appeased until Achan and his family were killed because of this sin. God took seriously the holiness of his people. We were told that they were to come before judges and that they would be judged according to the law of God. In fact, we see that God is not a respecter of persons. The roster included 17 priests, 10 Levites, for a total of 113. which shows you that roughly 25% of those who were offenders of this law were those that were in the temple, priests and Levites. Now this is 113 persons from what was estimated at this time of 30,000 people, but yet they recognize that corporate sin cannot be tolerated. They must bring about discipline for the purity of the church. They were to put away strange wives and children born to them. Now think about that. Let's separate ourselves for a minute from this concept that they had broke the law of God, but think about men who had married women, who had relationships with these women as their wives, and had children with them. Think about these being separated. You know, to our modern ears, this seems very harsh. And how do we reconcile this with what we see in the Old Testament? But we recognize that oftentimes, sin brings harshness. And even in our own day, what do you do when a polygamist comes into the church and is saved? He has to separate from wives. What do you do, even in our own laws in the books, when somebody marries too close within their family? It's not a lawful marriage and they're separated. With sin comes difficult consequences. And as we will probably one day experience in the church, if it hasn't already been experienced, what about when those same-sex couples that are married, when one or both of them come to faith in Christ Jesus? and they recognize that even though the state says they're legally married, that they do not have a lawful marriage. And what about those who have adopted children? See, evil and wickedness causes great hurt. Repentance is not easy, but it is necessary. We see that they had to put these away, first of all, because they were not lawful wives. As we saw in Deuteronomy, they had clearly violated the law of God by marrying these. But I don't think it was only that they had married strange wives. In Malachi, which takes place during this time of Ezra, the book of Ezra, Malachi in 2.14-16 says, Yet ye say, Wherefore, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, yet it is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore one, that he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed of your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away, for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously." See, that's the passage where it says God hates divorce. And what had happened here is Those who had returned from the exile saw these young Canaanite women and they divorced their Israelite wives. Those wives that were of the true seed. the Holy Seed, and they took these strange wives because they were beautiful and young. They've been living in captivity and probably a hard life. And their wives no longer looked the way that they looked when they first married them. And the sinfulness of their hearts was led towards these beautiful young Canaanite women. And I'm going to say that that's probably some of what was going on here. In fact, we are told in chapter 9 that some of them took wives for themselves and wives for their sons. And so what we see here, even with Shekiniah, if you look through the list of men, one of the violators listed is his father and four uncles. It directly affected his family. One man, and we're not told that he was a violator here, but that he took guilt. He accepted the guilt of his family upon himself because he recognized that corporate sin brings judgment from God. And so, in many respects, some of these were probably not lawful marriages because they didn't have a lawful divorce in the first place. They put away their Israelite wife to marry a strange wife. First of all, could Israelites marry foreign women? Ruth and Rahab So what's the difference there? Why are these told to put away strange wabs, but yet we know that Ruth came into the people of Israel. We know Rahab displayed faith. In fact, they're in the genealogy of Jesus. They're in that holy seed by which Christ came. So what's the difference here? They had to be believing wabs. And so the concept that's used here is strange wives. And what this is teaching us is these are not women who are just of foreign heritage that have converted to Judaism, that have converted to the Old Covenant Church. proselyte Jews, but these are women who are still in their pagan practices. They still hold to their pagan gods, and they've been brought into marriages with God's people. We're told that these trials took 75 days to judge the cases. Some commentators say as high as 90 days to judge the cases to determine if the wives were converted or not. Some don't see it that way. Some commentators say that this wasn't a true marriage because the word that's used for marriage is different. Some say these weren't true divorces. But I think if these were just cohabitations, they would have been easier to deal with. It wouldn't have taken 75 days to deal with 113 cases. And what we see here is the righteousness of God's law that even in the putting away of strange wives, they desired that it be done according to God's law. For God's law had provision even for the foreigner. In fact, we're told that during times of war, if one of the women that was captured during the time of war, if you take favor on her and you take her as your wife, and then later you decide to put her away, you had to issue her a decree of divorce, and she had rights. She received a form of restitution for you putting her away. In essence, the man had to provide for her in a way, so she was sent home to be with her father's house, but she was sent home with a dowry. And even at this time, under the rule of a Persian king, there were laws regulating divorce. But we're told that they were to bring judges and elders from their own cities to this trial. And so what we're saying here is we want men from your city, elders and judges, who can come and be witnesses, whether they can determine whether this woman has converted is a converted Jew or whether she is a strange wife. And so, we're not really told. There might have been more than 113 cases, but we know when this was finalized, there were 113 found guilty. 113 who had to put away their strange wife and any children born to her. But see, this isn't necessarily contrary with God's Word. In 2 Chronicles 6, 14-18, it says, and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, and I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. There we clearly see that God's people in the New Testament are to not be unequally yoked. They are to not marry strange wives. They are not to marry strange husbands. That's speaking of those who are unbelievers. We never go into a marriage thinking that we can change the person that we're marrying. That is a recipe for disaster. In 2 Corinthians 7.12-16 it says, "...but to the rest speak I, not the Lord." If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he is pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. O God, hath called us to peace, for what knowest thou? O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband, or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" What we see here is not what we saw in Ezra. These were two pagan people, and one of them came to faith in Christ Jesus. These were Gentiles. And it's saying that when they were married, it was actually a lawful marriage. It was not an unlawful marriage like we see in Ezra. And what Paul is teaching them is if an unbeliever is willing to stay with you, and what that means is willing to stay with you as a believer, as one who practices faith in Christ Jesus, not one who is telling you you're not allowed to go to church, but one who is supportive of you being a believer, that if they choose to stay with you, you should allow them to stay. But if one cannot handle you being in the faith, chooses to leave, it says you should let them leave. See, God allows for divorce. In fact, we're told that it's for the fornication and breaking of the marriage covenant, for desertion. We're told that when the marriage covenant is broken. In fact, our confession speaks to this. That the innocent party is allowed to remarry because their covenant was broken by the guilty party. And so we recognize that God has given provision for divorce in his word. But it has to be according to his word. So what was this purpose of these laws given? It was for purity of the seed. Why was it so important to have a pure seed? See, the last point of the text today is covenant faithfulness requires a multi-generational faith. Remember that command that was given to Abraham about the generations that would come after him, and about maintaining a holy seed, and about taking your children and giving them the sign of the covenant with circumcision? That was about raising godly offspring, about multi-generational faith, about teaching them in building the faith in them. See, rebuilding the temple walls in Jerusalem, rebuilding the temple and the walls, was the easy task that these men were sent to do. It was actually keeping the hearts of the people turned towards God was their bigger challenge. We know that Jerusalem was destroyed because Israel had turned towards idols under the leadership of Manasseh. Utterly destroyed, people carried off to Babylon in captivity. God impresses it upon Cyrus' heart to re-establish the Temple, on Artaxerxes' heart to send Ezra to re-establish right worship, and eventually Nehemiah to build the walls around Jerusalem again. And at the end of Nehemiah, and for most of you that might not know this, Ezra and Nehemiah are actually viewed as one book in the Jewish Bible because they all pick up with this rebuilding of Jerusalem. And Nehemiah picks up at the end of Ezra. In fact, Ezra is found preaching the law in Nehemiah. But at the end of Nehemiah, 28 years after these reforms, it is brought to Nehemiah's attention that there were children Jewish children in Israel that could no longer speak the language of the Jews, but only spoke the language of other people because Jews had married foreign wives. How quickly men's hearts are turned away from God's law. See, a holy seed allows for separation from the world. A holy seed allows for raising godly offspring. A holy seed allows for multi-generational covenant faithfulness. See, this Old Testament church was a remnant preserved by God. And we stand here today because God preserved that remnant in Ezra. And we are the church of God. And we are those that need to be about preserving the Holy Seed. See, Jesus came. and He was that seed that crushed the head of Satan. Jesus redeemed us from our sins. He adopted us into the family of God. We are now a part of the people of God, a holy nation set apart for His service because of that Holy Seed, Christ Jesus, and what He accomplished for us on the cross. In fact, Paul's description of the church today in Galatians 3, 28-29 says, "...there is neither Jew nor Greek, There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." That promise that was given to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and we are brought into as sons and daughters of Abraham, as heirs according to the promise, with Christ Jesus being the firstborn because of this holy seed. So in conclusion, I want to give us some observations and applications to the church. First of all, I want us to notice that corporate sin affects the entire church and that we must confess corporate sin. As the people of God, we must repent and renew covenant with God. Part of being a Christian is being those who are constantly upon our knees repenting over the sinfulness of our hearts. Church discipline is necessary. In fact, it's said that without church discipline, we have no church. In order to maintain the purity of the Bride of Christ, church discipline is necessary. And we must marry in the Lord. In fact, many of us practice biblical courtship for the purpose of trying to maintain a godly seed. Many of us educate our own children for the purpose of maintaining a godly seed, and we keep them from the effects of public education. Many of the convictions that we have are to maintain a holy seed, for we recognize that covenant faithfulness is only built through covenant families. In fact, we must have covenant children. We are still under the creation mandate to have godly offspring and fill the earth. Now this doesn't mean have as many children as you possibly can, because the goal here is godly offspring. And if you have more children than you can possibly train, then that is not productive. It's about having godly offspring and filling the earth. See, we must train our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. For we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. See, the covenant of faithfulness of God's people starts with each believing family being faithful to God's Word in His family, and coming together in covenant communities, which is what we call the church, the ecclesia, the gathered ones, and maintaining covenant faithfulness within that group of purity. And as we reach out to the community around us and we share the hope of the gospel, we are able to call sin, sin. But yet, we're able to give those who are under sin hope. Let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you. And Father, we pray that you would help us to be those covenant faithful people that you've called us to be. That we would be true to your word. That we would teach our children your word. That we would raise up godly offspring. And that we would see the faith that you've given us carried on for generations and father we pray that just as Ezra boldly preached the law that men in your pulpits today would boldly preach the law and we would see hope restored to the New Testament church and that we would see a great revival among your people and we pray in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus Amen