Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people converged on the city for what promised to be the single greatest event of their lifetime. Fathers, mothers, children, and grandparents-- every able-bodied person arrived full of anticipation and a sense of pride and hope.
It was just like rush hour. Every major road leading into the city was jam-packed. Streets were crowded. Kids were standing on their toes trying to see through the crowd. Mothers were nervously gathering their children to themselves to insure that they wouldn't drift off into the sea of people. Fathers were patiently navigating their families through narrow, congested streets. Public officials scrambled to make housing and food arrangements to accommodate the flood of visitors into the city and to insure their physical safety.
Suddenly and without warning a large hush fell over the bustling masses. All eyes were drawn to a large wooden platform located in the heart of the city. This was a platform that had been specifically constructed for this unique occasion. Everyone, despite their diversity, was assembled together as one, and together they told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had commanded for Israel.
And so the much respected scribe Ezra stood on the high wooden platform and opened the Book of the Law. As he opened the book everyone stood in unison. Ezra read the law aloud from daybreak until noon as he faced the square. And all the people, men and women and those who could understand, listened attentively to the Book of the Law. As Ezra read, a group of men known as Levites instructed the people in the law while they were standing there. They gathered people into small groups and it says in Nehemiah 8:8 (NIV),"They read the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read."
When they finished, Nehemiah 8:6 (NIV) says that, "Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, "Amen! Amen!" Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground." Nehemiah 8:9 (NIV) continues, "Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, 'This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.' For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law."
Day after day they continued to gather around Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the law. They would stand and read from the Book of the Law for part of the day and then spend another part of the day in confession and in worshiping their God. In the afternoon and evening they would return to their work and their homes.
Contagious revival.
What the people in Ezra's day experienced was a contagious revival of unparalleled magnitude, greater than anything they had ever known. God had finally penetrated their hardened consciences, and for the first time ever they had become broken and contrite about their sins, where formerly they had been arrogant. For the first time ever they were reflecting on how their choices and priorities had led them far away from the Lord their God and how deeply their rebellion had scarred the heart of God. And for the first time ever they were ready. They were responding. They were reasoning. They were reacting appropriately to God's word and commands. For the first time ever they were offering their lives up to God as living sacrifices. They were synched up with God. They were on the same wavelength!
Today many have sounded the call for revival and have offered simplistic steps. But what led up to the revival in Nehemiah and Ezra's day? What led up to that momentous occasion? What kinds of seeds were sown in advance? Were the seeds sown by Ezra? By others?
What we discover is that the seeds for revival were sown decades earlier. This revival wasn't just a spontaneous, emotionally charged, one-time event. Rather, this revival had been gaining momentum and energy, and stood at the climax of a rather long and involved process centering around a man named Ezra.
Ezra was a scribe and a priest.
Ezra was a transitional figure in Israel's history. He was both a scribe and a priest. As a scribe he had spent his life from an early age meticulously duplicating God's word. He was flawlessly copying every word, every pen stroke, every jot and title, every letter, and every punctuation mark from one scroll to the next. As a priest Ezra spent his years applying God's word to his own life.
Ezra 7:6 (NIV) says, "He (Ezra) was a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses." Ezra 7:10 (NIV) says, "Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel." Ezra was intimately acquainted with the intricacies of God's word. He knew God's heart. He knew God's passion. He knew how God worked. He knew Israel's history. He had witnessed God's faithfulness in scripture.
You should note that every major revival in history has always been led by an Ezra, by someone intimately acquainted with God's word. Martin Luther (Lutheran). John Calvin (Baptists/Reformed). Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley (Methodists). Alexander Campbell (Christian). Dwight L. Moody (Christian). These men fully immersed themselves in scripture before God began working so powerfully in and through their leadership.
But this morning I would like to call attention to three distinct traits of Ezra.
Ezra showed courageous faith in a hostile culture.
See Ezra 7:27-28 and Ezra 8:22-23. Both Ezra and Nehemiah lived in a culture that was hostile to their faith. Before Ezra arrived in Jerusalem and before Nehemiah rebuilt its walls, a group of Jews had gone up to Jerusalem to rebuild the altar and temple. The Lord had moved the heart of the religiously tolerant King Cyrus, King of Persia, to allow the Jews to return to their homeland for this purpose. The group that first arrived in Jerusalem experienced tremendous resistance. The people groups in and around the cities had no desire to see the city rebuilt, and so they did everything in their power to resist the Jews' efforts.
First, they tried to involve themselves in the work of rebuilding the temple. Cloaked in good intentions they approached the Jews and said in Ezra 4:2 (NIV), "Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, who brought us here." The risk was too great. The Jews feared that involving unbelievers in God's work would lead to certain compromises that could threaten the whole project. So the Jews sent them away saying in Ezra 4:3 (NIV), "You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us."
Not to be outdone, they next tried to discourage the Jews by making them afraid. They hired counselors to mingle among the workers, to taunt them, to threaten them, to distract them, and to make their work a burden.
Last, they tried to use political power to coerce the Jews to stop. They wrote letters containing false accusations to King Cyrus, King of Persia. When King Cyrus died, they wrote letters to each of his successors. They twisted the history of the Jews to persuade each king into thinking that the Jews were a rebellious and wicked people and a terrible threat to the empire.
It is interesting that in our own day opposition groups have done the same thing. They have turned our positions on moral issues like abortion, homosexuality, and school prayer and weaved them into hot-button political issues. With the help of the media, they have convinced the public that our beliefs and values cause great damage to our culture and that we should be silenced! These groups work through litigation, zoning boards, and every available political avenue. And all for the same purpose of offering resistance to God's work.
It was in just this sort of hostile environment that Ezra had to courageously stand along with his fellow Jews, not only for what was right, but for what was of God. With great resolve and great faith, despite the personal risks to him and his fellow Jews, Ezra sets out for Jerusalem. Ezra could have asked the king for a band of soldiers to protect him. But in Ezra 8:22-23 (NIV) Ezra explains, "I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, 'The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.' So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer."
In our day God is looking for men and women who will courageously take a stand. God wants us to live by faith and not by fear. He wants us to calculate our steps not on the basis of public opinion or fear, but on the firm ground of faith. He wants us to make our voices heard in our culture. He wants us to penetrate our culture with our beliefs and values. He wants us to courageously go out and fulfill his great purpose wherever he calls us to go. This may be your child's classroom, the school board, local newspaper, the courtroom, your workplace, or your neighborhood. Ezra marched to Jerusalem trusting in God.
Ezra showed extreme passion in an apathetic culture.
When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem he discovered that God's people had not separated themselves from the detestable practices of their neighboring peoples. He noticed that that God's holy race had lost its distinctiveness. He noticed that that the leaders and officials of Jerusalem had actually led the way in this. As a result he ignited.
In Ezra's own words in Ezra 9:3-6 (NIV) he said, "When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice. Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the LORD my God and prayed..."
The one thing that was true about Ezra is that he had a fiery passion for holiness. When he heard what the Jews were doing and saw how immoral their personal choices were, he was outraged. He was appalled. He was sick to his stomach. He pulled hair out of his heard. He pulled hair out of his beard! Now just imagine what would happen if the primary cause of male pattern balding was Ezra-like passion instead of the physiological reduction or absence of DHT! "Hey Joe, you're balding. What's up? I'm sick of sin, that's what!"
Not only do we live in a culture that is apathetic about sin but we find that the Christian community, the Church at large, is apathetic about sin. We have lost our outrage. Nothing surprises us anymore. Nothing shocks us. We are numb. We can be entertained for hours in front of a television set by premarital sex, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, sexual innuendo, filthy speech, lying, conning, nudity, pornography, divorce, lust, and coveting. You name it! We have dumbed down our personal standards of what is acceptable and what is detestable.
When will we ever become passionate about God's holiness? God needs leaders, he needs parents, he needs grandparents, he needs community leaders, church leaders, and political leaders who will rise up and say, "No more. This is outrageous. This must stop. Enough is enough. Holiness matters. Morality matters. Character matters. Integrity matters. God's law matters."
Ezra's extreme passion impacted and influenced those around him for the good. In Ezra 10:1 (NIV) we read, "While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites-- men, women and children-- gathered around him. They too wept bitterly."
In a hostile culture God is looking for courageous faith. In an apathetic culture God is looking for extreme passion and outrage over sin.
Ezra showed fierce determination in a compromised culture.
Ezra didn't stand around piddling his thumbs on this stuff. He reacted. His soul was repulsed by it. He was appalled. He was outraged! Are you? Ezra's extreme passion evolved into a fierce determination to change his culture. He gathered the people together and they made a covenant before God. They took an oath and made it binding on themselves to do what was right. They purged themselves of all the foreign gods and idols. The most difficult thing they did was to terminate the large number of mixed marriages.
Marriage in Ezra's day was about political and religious alliances. These mixed marriages obligated the Israelites to foreign gods and to other faiths, and obligated them to live by ungodly values and morals and beliefs. Ezra acted boldly along with the elders to terminate such relationships and to purge Israel of those who stood opposed to the things of God. What he did wasn't popular, but it was right, and God honored his determination.
There are many among us who are just treading water in our walk with God. There are those of us who are either actively engaging in sin or who are passively allowing sin to thrive in our presence. There are those of us who are living compromised lives, who have compromised families, compromised children, and compromised beliefs, values, and morals. There are those of us who will not take a stand because we are afraid or because we might be labeled intolerant or because of this or that. There are those of us who have become much too comfortable in the presence of sin, who take pride in their popularity, who take pride in being tolerant, and who would rather be the friend of men than the friend of God.
The life of Ezra forces us to rethink living such compromised lives. Our sins wreck our relationship with God. The sins and tolerance of this church quench God's Spirit and they prohibit his work among us. It matters where we stand and what we do about the sin in our lives.
We must know that we are not saved by our works in any way at all. We must know that we cannot earn our way into heaven by being good. We are saved by grace alone. But our determination or lack of determination in dealing with sin is the primary thing that reveals whether we are a child of God. Ezra recognized this. Jesus said in John 14:15 (NIV), "If you love me, you will obey what I command."
What next?
And so Ezra showed courageous faith in a hostile culture. He showed extreme passion in an apathetic culture. He showed fierce determination in a compromised culture. All of these qualities led up to the revival that I described at the beginning of this message. All of these qualities were the bedrock and the stimulant for what I would call a contagious revival in Ezra's collapsing culture. These qualities cannot in any way be undervalued. Before God can move our culture he has to be able to move us.
And this brings us back to Ezra's love for God's word as both a scribe and a priest. Do you remember? As a scribe he had spent his life from an early age meticulously duplicating God's word. Flawlessly copying every word, every pen stroke, every jot and title, every letter, and every punctuation mark from one scroll to the next. As a priest Ezra spent his years applying God's word to his own life. Ezra 7:6 (NIV) says, "He (Ezra) was a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses." Ezra 7:10 (NIV) says, "For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teachings its decrees and laws in Israel."
Ezra was intimately acquainted with the intricacies of God's word. He knew God's heart. He knew God's passion. He knew how God worked. He knew Israel's history. He had witnessed God's faithfulness in scripture. God's word was the crucible that refined Ezra's courageous faith, that ignited Ezra's extreme passion, and that fueled his fiery determination. It was his intimacy with God's word that led up revival in Jerusalem.
That's why in Jerusalem, when the people called upon Ezra, he read from the law from daybreak until noon, day after day, making every effort to insure that the people understood everything that was written in the Book of the Law. Ezra put God's word, the Holy Scriptures, in the center of Israel's quest for spiritual renewal. This morning I would suggest that we should do the same.
The same was true of the early Church. In Acts 2:42-47 (NIV) we read these words. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
The early Church started with an Ezra-like devotion to God's word, to scripture. This morning that is where we must begin if we are to transform our families, our churches, our culture, and the world at large. Scripture is where we must begin to cultivate courageous faith, extreme passion, fiery determination and ultimately, contagious revival.