While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children, gathered to him out of Israel, for the people wept bitterly.
– Ezra 10:1
This is really similar to what we read about in Ezra 9, and I think it’s worth soaking in again in Ezra 10, specifically the picture here of a weeping as Ezra and others pray and confessed sin. They were weeping. The Bible says they wept bitterly.
Ezra 10:1 leads us to seriously consider our sins.
I just want to ask the question in each of our lives, and I include myself in this, when was the last time we wept over our sin? And when was the last time we wept over others’ sin, sin in the world around us? Ezra 10 is giving us a clear picture of weeping over sin before God. Just consider that. What would cause us to weep over sin?
Certainly it starts with seeing God and His holiness and His perfections, and even not just in His might and His judgment do sin, but in His love for us as we have turned aside from Him, as we have done thought desired, that which is contrary to Him in His love for us.
So it starts with seeing who God is. It starts with seeing ourselves and our sin for what it is, as an offense, as a turning aside, as a not trusting, as a defaming and dishonoring of God Himself. Even the smallest sin, if we could use that word, but it’s not small. That’s the point. The sin that we might consider to be small or not that big a deal to see. No, it’s a huge deal. One sin against an infinitely holy God is worthy of infinite judgment. Think about one sin in Genesis 3 that brought condemnation for all people in all history, that brought about all the effects of sin we see in the world around us today.
Ezra 10:1 leads us to see our sin for what it is.
It all started with one act of not trusting God, of turning from God in His good ways, and we will commit… I don’t know how many people are listening to this, but between us, thousands of sins today or tomorrow, in addition to multitudes of sins we have committed, oh God, please teach us, bring us to weep over sin.
God, we pray for this reality in our lives. We pray that You would help us to see You for who You are, to see our sin, for what it is, in such a way that we weep over sin as we confess it, that we hate our sin and we hate sin and our world around us, and we weep over it. In all of this, oh God, we praise You that we do not have to pay the price for our sin. We praise You for your love for us, that You’ve sent Jesus to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, that we can be forgiven, that when we confess our sins, You’re faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So God, teach us to weep and confess sin like this and ways that lead by your grace and by the blood of Jesus to righteousness before You and to turning from sin and living in the righteousness that you have made possible for us and to the proclamation of this good news.
Prayer for the Karan Kayastasha People
God, we pray today for the Karan Kayastha people of India and Bangladesh, the Bengali-speaking Hindu people, a group of almost 1 million people who’ve never heard of Your forgiveness of sins through Jesus. Lord, we pray for the spread of Your grace, Your mercy, and Your glory, Lord Jesus, among the Karan Kayastha people of India and Bangladesh, and to people right around us today who we have opportunities to share this good news.
God, we pray, that friend or family member, just somebody we meet randomly today, or a coworker or neighbor, we pray that You would bring someone today to forgiveness of sins through us, through our lives, and our proclamation of the gospel. I pray all this according to Your Word in Ezra 10:1. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
