Thank you for watching today's daily PBJ devotional. If you're reading through the Old Testament this year, read Genesis 9 and 10, Ezra 9, and Psalm 9. This devotional is about Ezra 9. Let's read it. After these things had been accomplished, the leaders approached me and said, The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the surrounding peoples, whose abominations are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. Indeed, the Israelites have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed has been mixed with the people of the land, and the leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness. When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled some hair out from my head and beard, and sat down in horror. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles, while I sat there in horror until the evening offering. At the evening offering, I got up from my humiliation with my tunic and cloak torn, and I fell on my knees, spread out my hands to the Lord my God, and said, Oh my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to you, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth, and put to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation as we are to this day. But now for a brief moment, grace has come from the Lord our God to preserve for us a remnant and to give us a stake in his holy place. Even in our bondage, our God has given us new life and light to our eyes. Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. But He has extended to us grace in the sight of the kings of Persia, giving us new life to rebuild the house of our God, and repair its ruins, and giving us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem. And now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commandments that you gave through your servants the prophets, saying, The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples, and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end. Now therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Never seek their peace or prosperity, so that you may be strong and may eat the good things of the land, leaving it as an inheritance to your sons forever. After all that has come upon us because of our evil deeds and our great guilt, though you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and has given us such a remnant as this, shall we again break your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations? Would you not become so angry with us as to wipe us out, leaving us no remnant or survivor? O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous, for we remain this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it no one can stand before you. This is God's word. Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Sometimes we don't get a choice. Ezra didn't get one. Things were going well in Jerusalem, finally. God's people were back in the promised land. They were rebuilding God's temple, and had a new priest teaching the law and calling people to obedience. They had cash to pay for the work, and had just received God's protection as a large group of them had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in Ezra chapter 8. That was the good news, after long last. Now the family leaders of Israel came to Ezra with the bad news. And it was terrible news. The people of Israel had disobeyed God's commands and had married women from the unbelieving nations around them. We read that in verses 1 and 2. As if that kick in the gut wasn't enough, it was delivered with a steel-toed boot carrying tetanus. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness. The men who should have been teaching and warning and leading by example against this sin were instead the trend setters in sinning in Israel. I'll be honest with you. Had I been in Ezra's situation, my instincts would be to distance myself from it. If we were there, you might have heard me say, that's on you. May God deal with you for it. It isn't my fault that you disobeyed. Well, I would have been speaking Hebrew, so it would have sounded much different than that. But you get the idea. Ezra was a much better spiritual leader than I am. And listen, I can imagine your collective statements of, duh. But Ezra was offended on God's behalf about this, according to verses 3 and 4. But instead of denouncing the people like a prophet would, he led them in national repentance, owning their sins with this language. Our sins are higher than our heads. That's verse six in the NIV. Our guilt has reached to the heavens. Again, verse six in the NIV. We have forsaken the commands you gave. That's verses 10 and 11 in the NIV. Here we are before you in our guilt. We have forsaken the commands you gave. That's verses 10 and 11 in the NIV. Here, we are before you in our guilt. Though because of it, not one of us can stand in your presence. That's verse 15 in the NIV. Notice, every time Ezra prays, he includes himself. It's we, it's our guilt and so on. But did Ezra really believe himself to be guilty of this? Did he really think, given what he knew about Noah and Lot, that God would include Ezra in his judgment if it came? Of course not. But he was a priest, not a prophet. It was his job to reconcile people with God. And Ezra knew that God's people were interconnected. In order for God's promise to Abraham, Moses, David, and the whole nation to happen, the nation had to survive so that God would bless it. That's the main reason why God gave the command not to intermarry, so that Israel would survive as an independent nation instead of being absorbed into other nations and cultures. Think about the other nations listed in this verse, the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites. Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. Only the Egyptians remain from that list. The rest were absorbed into other nations through intermarriage just like is described here in Ezra. Israel remains to this day too, but their disobedience described in this passage could easily have caused Israel's extinction. Furthermore, intermarriage with other nations and cultures would have corrupted Israel's worship just as Solomon worshipped other gods to please his foreign wives. We're not ethnically connected to one another like Israel, but we are interconnected with one another spiritually. It goes against the culture of rugged individualism that we've inherited as Americans. But we are the body of Christ. The legs of a person's body may be strong enough to run a marathon, but if that person has a heart attack while running, the whole body dies. Even those strong, tan legs will fail. So sins that are widespread among our church body affect us all. We need each other and God has given us the ability through spiritual gifts to help one another. But we can also harm one another. One aspect of spiritual leadership, then, is to lead in what might be called corporate repentance for widespread disobedience in a church, a family, or any other group of professing believers. So think about the kinds of sins that our culture is guilty of, or things that might be problems in the church. and spend some time asking the Lord to forgive us of these things and to root them out of us in repentance. And if you found this devotional helpful, please sign up to receive it every day in your email so that I can keep in touch with you and so that you can be cued every day to be in God's Word. Go to dailypbj.com slash subscribe and just put your email address in. And for free, every day, a transcript of these devotionals will show up as well as links to the audio and video. And that way you can be in God's Word every day. I'm also looking for financial support. If you can help with that on a monthly basis, please go to dailypbj.com support. Please share this with anyone who might be helped in their faith by it, and I'll see you next time. May God bless you. Hope you have a great day.