Ezra went up from Babylon and he was already scribing the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given
and the king granted him all his requests according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him
skip down to verse number 10
for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgment
see Ezra knew the law of God to the point where he can teach it
and that's why I'm sure those people are like dude you're getting a little extreme there with plugging out your own beer
you know plugging out your own hair
no it just ticked them off
the fact that God's people were involved in such a wicked sin
that they were violating the scriptures
it really made them mad
it grieved them at his heart
and he was willing to afflict himself
and in fact the Bible says in James 4 verse 8
draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you
cleanse your hands you sinners
and purify your hearts you double minded
be afflicted and mourn and weep
let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness
humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord
and he shall lift you up
see God puts an emphasis at humbling yourselves
being afflicted, being bothered by sin
you know and we live in a culture today that
and by the way if sin does not bother you
it just shows that you've been conditioned to just tolerate sin
you know tolerate the fags and tolerate fornication
and the adultery and the worldliness of this world
and it just doesn't bother you anymore
you know that's why you're able to watch the movies
where they're fornicating, they're committing drugs
they're doing all kinds of crimes and things that are against God
and it does not bother you
you know why?
because your beard is still on your face
your hair is still on your head
it's not bothering you at all
no we need to be as godly as Ezra
to allow that to bother us
and look it's hard for like millennials like us
I'm a millennial by the way
I don't know if you know that
I'm a millennial
for us we grew up already in this disgusting culture that we're in
and it took Bible preaching
it took the Bible
it took you know hard preaching
to help us to have a biblical perspective of what God thinks of this culture
and have our minds to be renewed
right and to be renewed to not be conformed to the things of this world
but to be renewed according to the word of God
and to grieve us when we see sin