Ezra

Bible Study with Pastor Terry Gray


I admit that I didn’t take the best notes for this study, mainly because I felt a lot of the events documented by Ezra were self-explanatory. I thus leave those to be discovered by those who read Ezra on their own. I also leave out a lot of the historical significance of the events documented by Ezra. Honestly, these types of studies are a bit out of my league at the moment, but I do plan to return to those as I continue to mature as a Christian!


This is only one of the many commentaries readily available online that I found to be useful:
http://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?b=15&com=mhc


However, there are 3 life-application insights shared by Pastor Terry Gray that I’d like to jot down here.




God works in non-Christians
We see that both pagan kings Cyrus (Ezra 1) and Darius (Ezra 5-6) were moved by God to rebuild the temple.


For me, this is inspirational because…


1. God is all powerful.
If it is God’s will, it will be done. Whether we believe it or not, it doesn’t matter, and it certainly doesn’t change that fact one bit! (So, you know, I obviously would encourage us all to stand with God.)


2. God is all loving.
God finds opportunities to appear in our lives, whether we’re Christians or not. We are His children, and He loves us. He will never give up looking for opportunities to guide us back to Him.


As Christians, we can therefore pray to God to move the hearts of unbelievers. I constantly pray this prayer. I pray for God to grant me opportunities to bring the Gospel to those around me. “He who has ears, let him hear.” I pray constantly that God grant non-believers those ears so that they, too, may be able to listen.


This also makes me think that life’s greatest paradox is pride. All we need to return to God is to humble ourselves. Yet, we don’t understand humility until we get to know God. It has been said that the hardest people to save are prideful people. I can see the logic in that.




Satan will do anything to hinder God’s work
I think it is very easy to get involved in life’s details that we forget that our main goal in life is not to gain worldly prestige and power, that we forget that we’re amidst a great spiritual warfare between God and Satan.


God has already told us who’s going to win, and what is going to happen to Satan when that day comes (Revelation), so unless we enjoy eternal pain and suffering (and I’m being facetious here—there is no enjoying Hell; read the Bible), it’s pretty clear where we ought to stand.


In Ezra 4, a group of non-believers offered to help the Israelites to rebuild the temple. The Israelites refused their help, and those non-believers then went on to sabotage the work of God. Despite these hindrances, the Israelites never gave up. They continued to build.


So, several inspirations:


1. We are inclined to glorify ourselves.
Even without Satan’s seduction, jealousy and envy make humans dangerous oppositions. We see someone win, and it’s hard not to downgrade their success. This is because we want to be in the spot light, we want that glory for ourselves. Well, unless we can create the heavens and the earth, any glory is quite pathetic in comparison, to be honest with you. Still, those who cannot understand that, instead of sharing the joy of God’s glory with their fellow colleagues, they find ways to undermine their success.


2. We need to stand strong in our beliefs.
Jealous people always look for ways to undermine the success others. This is why the Israelites refused to let any one of those non-believers work with them. This is not about being exclusive, as many like to spit that in the face of Christianity. This is about unity.


As we have learned from above, God works even in non-believers. This is one evidence AGAINST Christianity being exclusive.


Here, understanding the context, we need to realize that these non-believers did not approach the Israelites with a pure heart. They were not there to really offer them help. They were, in fact, looking for ways to split them up, to prevent them from rebuilding the Temple. Some scholars would say that these people were driven by Satan. The text doesn’t say, so I can’t confirm that.


But the unchanging fact is, these non-believers obviously had their heart set on sabotage. In this case, Christians need to stand strong and be united and protect ourselves from such destruction.


If we allow non-believers to pull us away from God, we allow them to pull us toward Satan.


In this spiritual warfare, there is no in-between. We’re either fighting with God or fighting with Satan. I’d encourage us all to choose carefully and never lose sight of the warfare we’re in.


3. We are still in the spiritual warfare.
Since the beginning (and I use the word “beginning” loosely), Satan has wanted to be God. He seduced Adam and Eve to rebel against God, and the rest is, well, our history.


This warfare has not ended. Satan has not given up, and Revelation tells us when Satan’s efforts will climax. Until Jesus returns, we will continuously meet opposition in our lives. Satan will continue to seduce us the way he seduced Adam and Eve. He may seduce us with misfortunes and disasters, as he did with Job. And it would be so easy for us to place all the blame on God.


I will not diverge and get into an argument about “If God is loving, why does He allow this to happen to me?” But I will provide one perspective: God sacrificed His only Son to cleanse the world of its sins ETERNALLY. Please do not so readily spit on God’s love if we cannot fully appreciate the grandness of that kind of loving sacrifice.


Coming back to Satan and his futile plans to over-throw God, we need to realize that if we do not guard our heart with vigilance, we can easily repeat the mistakes of Adam and Eve. Just like the Israelites never gave up following God’s Way despite all their obstacles, just like Job who never lost his faith in the Lord despite all the life-shattering events Satan threw his way, we, too, should guard our heart with discipline. Satan’s traps are everywhere, eager to snatch our souls for his glory. Trust in the Lord, and follow Him. This is the only way we can be sure that we do not fall away from God.




Marriage is sacred
When Ezra heard that the Israelites had married non-God-fearing people, he tore his clothes and pulled hair out of his head and beard (Ezra 9). This is usually accomplished in great moments of stress. Try pulling your hair out of your head. Unless you are experiencing extreme frustration or desperation, I doubt you can do it.


Again, people against Christianity use this as another example to show how the Christian God is exclusive and divisive. And I would urge once more: Let us not take events out of context and jump to faulty conclusions.


This isn’t about who we can marry or who we can’t marry. This is about standing firm in our stand for God. That is, this context is just like the previous context where the Israelites did not let non-believers work on the temple with them.


We are humans, and we are easily pulled by our emotions. If we are weak against such pulls, we can easily be pulled into the opposition. And if we are weak, the best solution to prevent us from being pulled into the opposition is a complete cut-off from possible temptations. That is the idea behind the teaching, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away” (Matthew 5:30).


Why is this necessary? Because, “it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” (Matthew 5:30).


So, first, please note that the separation of believers from non-believers isn’t a matter of exclusivity. It is a method to prevent believers from falling if they are not strong enough to stand against the battering of the opposition.


When we become strong enough, we can then go out and fulfill our mission to spread the Gospel to all corners of the earth. When we can stand firmly and place our faith firmly in the Lord, we can then interact with non-believers and preach the Good News to them. We should always guard our heart, but we need to take extra care when we are still learning how to stand. It's like putting up safety gates around the house when a baby is learning how to walk.


God wants to save ALL of His children. There is no exclusivity. It's about protecting the young and the weak.


Back to Ezra, it is not hard to see why he was so distressed. When he left the temple, things were going great. Israelites were living according to the Word of God and working together in the glory of God.


However, upon his return, Ezra saw that the community had disintegrated. Paganistic practices of the non-believers had infiltrated the community and had led the Israelites astray.


Ezra was distressed not “just because” the Israelites inter-married. I’m pretty much willing to bet that if the inter-marriage brought converts of God-fearing people, and the community continued to honor the glory of God, Ezra would have been rejoicing rather than pulling hair out of his head! But, no. Instead, Ezra was distressed because the Israelites have given in to their weaknesses again.


The Israelites were obviously not strong enough to withstand the pressures of their opposition. And instead of standing firm, they gave in. THEY CONVERTED TO PAGANISM!


So, again, the idea here is to stand strong in God’s Way. If we are not strong enough to stand against opposition, we need to identify that weakness, be HONEST with ourselves about it, and seek EFFECTIVE methods to keep us standing strong in God’s Way. It can be separating ourselves temporarily from non-believers while we build our faith. It can be hanging out with Christians exclusively to learn how others stand strong in their faith. God is not exclusive. But in order to protect ourselves from temptation, our methods to protect our heart may need to exclude us from certain activities.


Now, taking a look at marriage, why is it such a big deal? Well, for one, it’s mentioned in multiple places throughout the Bible that marriage between a man and a woman is sacred. Why? Well, the text doesn't spell it out directly, but I believe it is because it reflects the image of the marriage between Jesus and His Church!


Pastor Terry Gray spent a good amount of time discussing why we should take marriage seriously and what we could do when we run into marital troubles. I won’t go into details here because it really is a whole separate teaching, but I will make a few points about it:


1. For the SAME reason we need to stand firm in our faith for the Lord, Christians should contemplate hard about marrying a non-Christian.


Before you all harp on me, allow me to say that I was a non-Christian when I was in a relationship with my then Christian boyfriend. He was not a Bible thumper, but he was a patient and devoted man of God. He stood firm in his beliefs in the Lord, and he knew that based on my curiosity and open mind, I would be able to see the Truth in Jesus in time—even when I told him he was nuts for thinking so!


I am now a Christian, and in retrospect, I can see what my husband meant when he told me, back when we were still dating, that until I become a Christian, there will always be a side of him that I cannot connect with. And if I cannot connect with him on all accounts, our marriage would never work out.


What I hope to inspire with this story is, those who are against God will fight against you. They may be the nicest people in the world, but when the subject of God is on the table, their unbelief will be the pierce right through your heart. All reasoning would be out the window, leaving behind trails of blood and tears.


If we wish to remain a devout Christian, this will inevitably create a divide. This is why pastors often discourage marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian. The idea is not exclusivity. The idea is to prevent the possibility for a divide.


However, there is no stopping love. If the love is strong, it will win the non-believer over. I know, because I've lived through it :)  Christianity is not a feel-good touchy-feely fairy tale, a philosophy, or a religion. Christianity is a fact of life. If we love the people around us enough, we simply cannot lie to them about what we know. If you're on your way to Disney World and learned that the bridge ahead has disintegrated, you wouldn't lie to your loved ones that the bridge is perfect and continue to drive forward just to make them feel better and keep them feeling great about the trip! You would do whatever you can to convince them to head the other direction. Well, I would highly recommend us to do the same and tell our loved ones to walk away from Hell, as opposed to joining them on the path to Hell just to make them or make ourselves feel better for a brief period of time. However long that "brief period of time" may seem, let's not forget Hell is eternity. Gotta make the sane decision here.


Coming back to marriage, marriage under God is the perfect unity of a man and a woman. The two becomes one and act as a unit. Each is an equal of another, and each has his/her own duties to fulfill in order for the team to operate perfectly.


Given the above, it is not hard to see why a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian would not work out. When there are conflicting beliefs and values, there will not be harmony.


2. Divorce is not a light sin.
The Bible speaks gravely about grounds for a divorce, and there aren’t many. I won’t list them here, because they, too, are part of another teaching all by itself, and I don’t want to confuse by not being thorough. However, this ought to be a sign for us that the decision to enter into a marriage is an important one. Don’t enter into a marriage unless you are fully committed.


The general idea here is to 1) think hard about entering into a marriage; and 2) work hard to maintain the marriage.


Marriage is not a whim, and divorce is not the obvious way out.




It’s never too late to repent
Lastly, I’m extremely moved and inspired by Ezra’s prayer (Ezra 9). Ezra was on his hands and knees praying for forgiveness. His prayer was so moving, others joined and repented.


What I walked away from this are…


1. Acknowledge our mistakes
God sees all. There is no point hiding. When I know I have done something wrong, I just go and apologize. It really is as simple as that. Excuses won’t save me, and they certainly won’t justify the mistake. Acknowledgement is the first step toward fixing the problem.


2. CHANGE
The Israelites who repented then went on to set things right. As I’ve mentioned above, acknowledging our mistakes or sins is only the first step toward fixing the problem. If we only acknowledge but continue to make the same mistakes or sins, we are actually worse than being ignorant. Because here, we’re actually purposely continuing to do what we now KNOW to be wrong!


What I really love about Ezra’s prayer is it paints the perfect picture of a child who has done wrong and sincerely runs to ask his father for forgiveness. It is extremely intimate and real, as how our conversations with God should be. Prayers are really just our heartfelt conversations with our Holy Dad! Our Dad is a loving Dad, who is always there for us. When we fall, when we fail, don’t run away. Run to Him! Tell Him everything that is troubling us, and He will guide us toward a solution. Always and forever.