Thursday after the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 30, 2021 by under
Scripture: Ezra 9:6-9 (NKJV)
9:6 And I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. 7 Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation, as it is this day. 8 And now for a little while grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. 9 For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
Devotion
Ezra humbles himself on behalf of the people of Israel. He confesses to the Lord God the sinfulness of the people of Israel. He tells the truth of the matter. They have always been rebellious. They have always been disobedient to the Lord God. The latest sin that troubles Ezra is that the Israelites had intermarried with the Canaanites and the other peoples of the land. This was forbidden because “the holy seed [was] mixed with the peoples of those lands” (vs. 2). The danger that the Lord God was trying to protect the Israelites from was the adoption of the worship of false gods through intermarrying with foreigners.
These peoples were to be utterly destroyed by the Israelites when they first took possession of the land, but because they did not, the Israelites eventually adopted the false worship of the Canaanites, and this led to the exile first of the Northern Kingdom into Assyria, and then the exile of Judah into Babylon. Here they were returned from exile, and the same sins that led them there were still being carried out by the people.
Ezra pleads to the Lord on behalf of the people that He would be merciful. He reminds the Lord God of His past graces which were offered to the Israelites, even though they did not deserve it. The Lord God was not only gracious to the Israelites, but He is also gracious to us, by sending His Son as a ransom for our sins.
Prayer: Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace, to withstand the temptations of the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Thee, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
