“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
I just want to read and pray according to this verse, based on what we read and prayed according to in Ezra 9. So that scene in Ezra 9 was Ezra falling before the Lord on his face, just weeping over sin and conviction of sin in his life and the people of God around him. But then to read Ezra 10:1, and to see that while Ezra did this, while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly… So not just a few people, but a lot of people, of men, women, and children. So all these other people join in this weeping and casting themselves down before the house of God, praying and making confession.
Ezra 10:1 Teaches Us to Weep Over Sin
It says, “For the people wept bitterly.” I read this and I’m just provoked to lead us to pray for these realities in our own lives like Ezra 9:4–6 showed us. And then for this reality of confession and contrition and humility and brokenness over sin to spread in our families and in our churches among more and more people that, not just individual ones alone with God might be broken over sin, but that we, as the people of God would be broken over sin. You look in the history of God’s people biblically and since biblical times, just times of revival and spiritual awakening in the church have come when God’s spirit has brought about this kind of conviction. Not just among a few people here or there, but across God’s people. So can we just pray for that together?
Ezra 10:1 Leads Us to Soften Our Hearts
God, we pray Ezra 10:1, not just over our lives, but over your church and our churches, our local churches, that we’re a part of. Oh God, we pray for a spirit of confession and brokenness over sin, for weeping over sin, to mark our churches. God, help us not to be casual with sin, as your people, but, God, to hate it and to weep over it together. God, we pray for this kind of movement of your spirit in our churches today, like we read about here in Ezra 10:1.
Only you can bring that about. God, soften our hearts. Open our eyes. We read about this in scripture, in times in church history, where there’s been such a sensitivity to sin and such a weeping and brokenness. God, we pray that it would be so among us today, as your church, in our churches. God, we pray for Ezra 10:1 to be a reality among us. 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.
