(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

By the way, Dan is quite pleased that Ezra is finishing. Good effort again. Wow, I think he got pretty much all of those put on there. Well, I know anyway. That's a tough old list of names to read, isn't it? So great work by Dan there. So, yeah, we're up to that final chapter now of the Bible study in Ezra. And I'll just do, as usual, I'm going to do a recap on where we were in the last chapter. Just to kind of remind you where we're at. We were in Ezra 9 obviously before. It was 80 years after the first return under Zara Babel that Ezra turned up with offerings, a letter from the king to find basically Jerusalem shambles, didn't he? If you remember, it's kind of towards the end of the book. Ezra's kind of all geared up to come back. He said in Ezra 9, 1, Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves and the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. So basically they'd yoked up with the world, and particularly in marriage, and were doing according to their abominations. And we looked at some examples of abominations to God, didn't we? All of which is stuff that is encouraged or at least justified in the world today. And we saw that it's not just the most obvious stuff. There's a lot of stuff that maybe many people here would think isn't that bad, which is actually an abomination in the sight of God, which people do because of being yoked up with the world. And this stuff was destroying God's people here, and it destroys God's people now, doesn't it? And we looked at a lot of this stuff. It'll ruin churches. We saw that the princes and rulers were chief in this. We talked about responsibility and stuff being sort of those chief men in a church, etc. Ezra was so upset that he plucked out his beard and hair, and then he took responsibility himself for this, even though he'd just turned up, if you remember. He was apologising to God for their behaviour as a group. There was some group responsibility taken there. And then when relaying God's will, he said this in verse 12. He said, Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth forever. And a lot of the time that's why people yoke up with the world in one way or another. It's to seek peace or wealth with the world, that ye may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve and has given us such deliverance as this, should we again break thy commandments and join in affinity with the people of these abominations. Wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou has consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping? O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous, for we remain yet escaped as it is this day. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses, for we cannot stand before thee because of this. And in Ezra 10 and verse 1 then starts with this, where it says, Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed weepy and cast himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a great congregation of men and women, and children for the people wept very sore. I'd like to pray before we continue with the chapter. Father, thank you for what's been a great book, a great Bible study, something that's been so relevant for me for this church and so many things we can learn from it. Please help me to preach this final chapter now, these final messages, just loudly and clearly and boldly and accurately, just full of your spirit, Lord. Help everyone to have a tent of peace, help all the distractions to be kept to a minimum, help everyone to just really stay alert and wide awake now for this last service today. In Jesus' name, for all of this. Amen. Okay, so if you remember back in Ezra 9, it said this in verse 3, and when I heard this thing, this is Ezra speaking, I rent my garment and my mantle and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard and sat down astonished. I mean, that's some proper stress there to be plucky out the beard of your head, sorry, the hair of your beard and of your head. Then it says, Then were assembled unto me everyone that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away and sat astonished until the evening sacrifice. So he arose at the evening sacrifice, we see after that, but it seems to me that the group of those that trembled at the words of the God of Israel has grown now. Okay, in verse 1 of Ezra 10 now, it says, Now when Ezra had prayed and when he had confessed, we have been cast him down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children for the people wept very sore. So perhaps it took Ezra to come along and show his shock, his outrage for them to reflect maybe, because this is growing now. So where were these people at the beginning? And the reason I say that, because sometimes it takes that, doesn't it? Sometimes we get desensitized to things over time, don't we? You're just kind of with time, you start to see something, and you kind of don't really necessarily just kind of look at it how you should, because you've just been looking at that sort of thing for a long time. And it's like Ezra's kind of pulled him up on this, he's like just completely gutted, and now there's a growing group of people that actually, yeah, wait a second, things aren't right here. According to verse 1, Ezra was weeping, he was casting himself down before the house of God. So it's clearly like there's a bit of a display going on here as well, isn't there? They're just, what's going on here? This chief priest come along and he's crying, he just can't believe what's happened to the house of God. And then it says after that, it said that then they're assembled unto him out of his a very great congregation of men and women and children for the people then, wept very sore. So the great congregation, all these people, they're basically the church, which is what ultimately it is as a congregation, they're now weeping very sore as well. So they're now being affected by this man of God who's pointing things out for what they are. And although, look, a lot of this stuff that they've been doing should have been obvious stuff, they're kind of yoking up with the world, they're marrying these kind of unsaved women, et cetera. So look, sometimes another angle can be good though, can't it, to point this stuff out to us. And I was just thinking about this and one way you could look at this is, for example, I'm going to preach a variety of things from this pulpit, okay, but sometimes another angle can be good, can't it? But the thing that we don't have here, we don't have a list of good preachers in terms of from other churches, pastors, who we could just call on and go, oh, do you fancy coming here and visiting and doing a sermon, I'll go somewhere. And I think that's great when they do that, yeah, because you just get another angle, another way of looking at things sometimes, you know, and you can be desensitized to certain things, maybe another just way of preaching something. And we don't really have that, okay, but we do have a group of faithful men who are growing in their preaching confidence and ability here, don't we? We've got some men here who are starting to get behind the pulpit and preach the banging sermons and, you know, the men's preaching nights are always a success as well. And do you know what they will do as well, because in case someone goes, oh, if only we had, you know, we could just call on pastors, pastors, that. Well, every man that's got behind this pulpit pretty much will preach more truth than probably any pastor in this nation. I've listened to a lot of pastors in this nation over the years of being saved and I'll tell you what, they won't even preach half the truth that some of the laymen in this church who will just get up behind this pulpit and preach. And we are blessed with that really, you know, blessed to have those different angles because it is great to hear someone else, maybe they'll see something else that needs preaching, they'll have a different way, can put some time into a subject, etc. So it is something I want to do more and get some of those men preaching behind this pulpit. And here in Ezra, the result of Ezra coming along and like it can be in a church, the result of someone else coming up behind the pulpit and preaching something slightly different, a different angle, a different way, maybe they've had a bit of time to study something out, you know, that they could preach. Well, it says in verse 1 now, when Ezra had prayed and when he had confessed, we could cast him down before the house of God. So after this man of God kind of puts an angle on things, assembled unto him out of Israel, a very great congregation, men and women and children, for the people went very sore. So it didn't look like they were weeping before this point. Verse 2 there says, And Shechemiah, the son of Jehiel, or one of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God and have taken strange wives of the people of the land, yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my Lord and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law. Now, it's easy to just gloss over these verses. It's easy to skim over these verses and go, OK, yeah, fair enough, yeah. This guy, Shekhanai, he's just stood up and said, there's still hope. That's what he said. He said, yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Let's put them away, basically divorce them, and our children from these women, let's get rid of those as well. Then he adds in this sort of sweetener. He says in verse 2, according to the counsel of my Lord and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God. So according to your decision and all those God-fearers amongst you, yeah. So he then, he basically says all that, and he suggested that divorcing these women and abandoning the children is according to the law of God. You notice that? End of the verse. He says, and let it be done according to the law. Anyone know where that commandment is in the Bible? Where you should divorce your wives, get rid of your children. Is that according to the law? It sure isn't according to the law, but Shekhanai said it was according to the law, didn't he? Shekhanai claimed it was according to the law. Now, I don't know for sure, okay. Perhaps this guy really meant well. But if I had to guess, I would say that he's a bad guy. If I had to guess, I would say Shekhanai is a bad guy. And when you kind of, in case you're thinking, what do you mean by a bad guy? Aren't we all bad guys? Look, just in case you're confused about this subject, the vast majority of people in the world are just kind of neither. They're in between, they're unsaved, they're just people that have the ability to get saved. And then you've got the children of God, which should be, hopefully, the vast majority of people in this room are people who are saved and are God's children. And then you've got the children of the devil. And the children of the devil are often masqueraded children of God. No, they don't all masquerade as children of God. Some of them are literally just open children of the devil. And there's no doubt about it, and there are certain things which just make that very obvious. For example, unclean lust perversions like sodomy, things like that, the obvious ones, okay? But, however, there are those that masquerade as well that will be around the people of God. And I believe that this is Shekhanai, okay? And I'll show you why. Because he's spoken up in the middle of them all, okay? For starters, he humbles himself in verse 2. He says, and this is how these people work sometimes, he said, we have trespassed against our God and have taken strange wives of the people of the land. Now, Shekhanai isn't on the list later as one of the people that did this. So Shekhanai for me is trying to kind of take this combined blame for it. But does he really mean that? He says, yet now there is hope in Israel commanding this. He then claims basically after that some sort of godly covenant. He said, now therefore let us make a covenant with our God. Whilst disobeying God, okay, basically because God's words only gives one ever cause for divorce, then he tries to manipulate Ezra and the people. Look at verse 3. He says, according to the counsel of my Lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law, then claims its people are cool. So he's got, oh, oh, oh, but according to what, of course according to what you say, according to the people that, and of course those that tremble at the commandment of God. So basically, what's he insinuating? If you tremble at the commandment of God, you're going to agree with this, aren't you? You're going to agree to put them away according to the law, which it's not according to the law. Then look at the manipulation in the next verse. These types of people are so often just master manipulators. He says, arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee. We also will be with thee, be of good courage, and do it. So basically he's saying to Ezra, you've got to be bold. You've got to be brave to do this, Ezra. And ask men, we can get conned by that stuff, can't we? Yeah, man, I better be bold. Better do this thing of the Lord, you know? That's what he's doing. He's manipulating him to doing something which is completely unbiblical. And these guys often, they sound so knowledgeable, so factual. He said, and let it be done according to the law. I mean, what they should have done is gone chapter and verse, please, Shek and I. But they didn't, did they? And of course at this point, remember, it's not that everyone's just walking around with their calfskin Bibles. They're just going, oh, where are we looking for this, then, Shek and I? So there's maybe more of an ability to do that, although you could argue in a lot of churches in the world, it would probably be even easier to do that because they don't even know where, you know, how to even open the Bible and how to look in it. However, look, this isn't right, is it? And what does the law actually say? So just in case you're going, yeah, but wait a second, brother, and you haven't even proved me this isn't in the law. He said according to the law, are we going to trust Shek and I here? Look, Ezra, he goes for it, doesn't he? Well, what does the law say? Turn to Deuteronomy 24. The law says there's only one instance in the law when divorce is allowed. One instance in the law of God when divorce is okay. Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse 1. Deuteronomy 24 and verse 1 says this. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. Okay, now this isn't because she's a bit grubby, okay? It's not because she's a bit of a shower dodger. It's like, oh, she's a bit unclean, you know, I notice, you know, her armpits smell a little bit. This is talking about sexual uncleanness. He's discovered that she's not pure, having been led to believe that she was, okay? So he was led to believe, this isn't something that, you know, sort of 20 years down the line, actually, you know, I'm getting rid of, you know. He was led to believe that she was a virgin. She's not. That's the only grounds for divorce. Jesus Christ reiterates this in a number of passages, doesn't he? Okay, the only grounds. Turn to Matthew 19, which is clear as day and makes it clear as well, Matthew 19 you're turning to, that this one reason for divorce isn't encouraged either. So this isn't like, right, you should do this. This was if you basically can't deal with that. If you don't have it in you to forgive her, she conned you. You don't have, you're not basically strong enough to be able to just go, okay, I'm not going to be bitter, I'm going to move on with this, okay? Then you have grounds because it would be better that than this basically marriage, which was started on false pretenses and could maybe be even more just destructive, okay? Matthew 19 and verse 1 says, And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished his sayings, he departed from Galilee and came unto the coast of Judea beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there. The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? I mean, where did they get this from? I mean, would you even need to ask that question? No. But they basically changed it. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and nay twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh, what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? So they basically jumped on this one reason for divorce to justify basically divorce for any cause, to just justify, you know, our modern term would just be like a no-fault divorce, you know, where it's just, oh, yeah, just divorce for anything, because Moses said it was right to divorce. I mean, talking about misusing the word of God, right? He saith unto them, verse 8, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, that's young cleaners we just read about in Deuteronomy, and shall marry another, commiteth adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. Pretty clear, right? Pretty clear. Jesus Christ just clears it up, makes it clear. Now, it should have been clear, because they were just adding to the word of God. Moses said it clear, didn't he? He gave the one reason. He didn't say, therefore, you could do that, but these guys had just run with that and then just made this doctrine of divorce for any cause. And you don't have to know that, but Matthew 5.32 says, but I say unto you, Jesus Christ said, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commiteth adultery. There's not like, oh, well, just don't marry, you know, someone who's divorced. It's okay. No, you put her away, you're causing her to commit adultery. It's on you, okay? You put away, you divorce your wife, you're causing her to commit adultery. And unlike many of the modern Bible versions, it's fornication. It's not for, they like to add, sort of just make it sound like it's for anything. Oh, yeah, well, anything, well, and this is what they'll go with. They'll go, well, it includes adultery. No, adultery should have been the death penalty. That's what a righteous government should do, is kill people that commit adultery. Okay, then we wouldn't have a problem with that. Okay, but we then don't add in to the Scriptures because, well, we don't have the death penalty for adultery, we'd better just add divorce, okay, now, for it. But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says fornication. Because why do people want to change it to adultery and other things like that? Because then they can go, then some woman or some man could go, well, he or she looked at another person, Jesus Christ said, they're committing adultery with it in their heart. Justified divorce. But no, he said, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder. He said that it's for life. He said that they twain shall be one flesh. Okay, and that's how we should not only go into marriage, that's how we should continue in marriage. Okay, but sadly, you know, many people want to try and change this and want to try and justify divorce. Now, we're not going to go there, but in Deuteronomy 22, it gives this scenario where if there's an argument about it, just to help you understand this, a guy says that she was unclean. She denies it. So it's like, what do you do now? If he's wrong, he gets chastised. He gets chastised and he has to pay her father 100 shekels, okay, which is a large amount of money, okay? You stop accusing people of this sort of thing. This is serious stuff. Not in our day and age, but this should be serious stuff, shouldn't it? And then Deuteronomy 22, 19 says he may not put her away all his days. So if he's wrong, it's not only you got to pay money, not only are you going to get chastised by what should be, you know, God's government there at the time, but also you cannot put her away. It's not like, oh, well, you can't put her away unless one of X, Y, and Z reasons. No, no, it's done. Because that was the only reason that it would have been justified was had that uncleanness been real. Had she committed fornication before you'd ever got married and you'd been led to believe she had it, you'd married her, and then suddenly it turns out, no, actually, she'd basically been, you know, committing fornication. But if she's lying and it gets to this point, she gets stoned to death. How about that? If she's lying and it gets to this point in Deuteronomy 22, and again, we're not going to go there, read it for yourself, it's quite a long passage, she gets stoned to death, okay? That's what God thinks about that sort of thing, okay? But point being that there is nothing in the law about divorcing strangers, unsaved, et cetera, there's nothing in there, let alone abandoning your children. I mean, that's just nuts, isn't it? What on earth is going on here? So we're going to look why this has happened. But Shek and I does a convincing job, doesn't he? So look back at Ezra, Ezra 10 and verse 3, where he said, Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them according to the counsel of my Lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law, apparently. Arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee, we also will be with thee. Be of good courage and do it. Look, that's manipulation all day long, isn't it? What does Ezra do? Then arose Ezra, made the chief priests, the Levites and all Israel to swear that they should do according to this word, that's his word, not the word of God, and they swear. So this is an error all day long, okay? And you're like, wait a second, isn't Ezra the hero of the story? Wasn't the book named after Ezra? It doesn't matter. He messed up. When we learn lessons from the Bible, obviously we can learn lessons from godly men, godly women in the Bible. However, scripture, what God says trumps anything what anyone else says or says to do. And here Ezra, this is a big error here, and they don't prosper due to this either. When we get to the book of Nehemiah, 11 years on, things aren't going well. The place is like, the walls are burnt down, it's all a mess within 11 years. This doesn't all go well after this. What was the right answer? What should they have done? Okay, if you were here last week, you know what had gone on and what we talked about. The answer was to get rid of the abominations. That was the answer. Maybe to get these wives and these children right with God. That should have been the answer, shouldn't it? It was to say like Joshua did in Joshua 24.15, And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that are on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. We will serve the Lord. That's what they should have been doing, shouldn't they? They should have been doing their utmost to get these women right with God, to get them serving God, to get their kids serving God. That's what they should have done. So why did Ezra do this? Why did he agree and make a rule for them all to divorce their wives and get rid of their poor children? He made everyone else swear to it because he was manipulated. Really. Because he was manipulated by someone to do that. By a guy whose father was guilty of this. So if you look at verse 2, where it says, In Shekiniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elan. Then later in the chapter when listing those that had taken the strange wives, that's what that long list of people were, were those that had basically committed this and had to divorce his wives. Verse 26 says, Verse 26 says, Verse 26 says, And of the sons of Elan, we just saw that he was one of the sons of Elan, the son of Jehiel, Mataniah, Zechariah and Jehiel, and Abdi and Jerimoth and Eliiah. So his father, Shekiniah, was the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elan. His father was one of those that had to get rid of a strange wife. Maybe Shekiniah had an ax to grind, don't you think? Maybe he had an ulterior motive. Maybe Shekiniah was a bit angry. He was like, my dad's gone and taken one of these, whatever they were, I don't know which one he went for, a Hittite, a Perizzite. I don't know what his choice was, but whatever he did, I reckon he got angry by. And do you know what? That happens in this ministry a lot. It happens a lot. People will try to influence your preaching, your stance to suit them. And they'll sometimes do it subtly. That was fairly subtle, wasn't it, by Shekiniah? But they will try and influence you to try and preach things or try and instil, try and put rules in everything else, to try and then basically to help them out, to basically maybe just gloss over their sin or something else. That happens, believe me. I've had that happen. And sometimes subtly, sometimes not. Try and manipulate you, try and manipulate your preaching, try and manipulate your stance on things. People try and do that. Unfortunately, Ezra fails, doesn't he? And look, we're all going to fail sometimes at stuff like this. Ezra fails massively here, doesn't he? Look at verse 6. Then Ezra rose up from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Johan and the son of Eliashib. And when he came there, he did eat no bread nor drink water, for he mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carried away. So Ezra means well, okay? I believe he does. But he should have stuck to the word of God, not the word of Shekiniah, shouldn't he? Yeah, he's got no excuse, really. Verse 7 says, And they made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity that they should gather themselves together unto Jerusalem. And whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his substance should be forfeited and himself separated from the congregation of those that have been carried away. I mean, it gets more extreme and unbiblical as we go along, doesn't it? I mean, it starts off with you've got to basically divorce them all, then suddenly he's introducing forfeits for all your substance. If you don't come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and elders, then you're going to be separated for the congregation of those that have been carried away, and I think talking about those that have now come back, the exiled that have come back. And last week, look, we looked at different abominations that destroyed the house of God, didn't we? And we went through some of those that were just obvious abominations of the word of God. But here we're now seeing an example of extra biblical holiness, aren't we? We're seeing the unbiblical rules and commands as a reaction to the worldliness. So their reaction is a knee-jerk now, and I think influenced by a bad guy or probably more than one, to now we're seeing the opposite. And you know what? All that stuff destroys God's work and God's people too. It does. The people that react to the worldliness, they might obviously be in a church or in a past church or in the world, to then try and go extra biblical, to then try and go, right, now we're going to be, well, we've got to be holy in the nows then. I mean, what is this stuff? You've got to divorce wives. You've got to get rid of children. Oh, because they're unsaved. Oh, actually, as well, now you're going to forfeit everything you have if you don't come within three days to get involved in this whole just ridiculous situation that they're getting involved with. Or you're going to be separated from the congregation. And believe me, the holier the nows, okay, the extremists, and when I say extremists, not by the world's standards, look, all of us are extremists here, okay? I'm not talking about, we're extremists just because we believe the word of God, by the world's standards. But I'm talking about the extremists according to the word of God, okay? Those people, they destroy the house of God as well. And often they're a reaction to worldliness in the house of God. So this is kind of snowballed on now, okay? So the extremists by God's standards, those that want to bring in new rules, okay? You get these people, they want to bring in these new rules that have got nothing to do with the Bible or anything else, new so-called standards. And like here, it's often to amend, make amends for their own wickedness. That's what these people do a lot of the time. They want to make these extra kind of biblical, these holier than now standards to make up for their failings, to make up for their wickedness, to make up for their abomination. And this stuff is just as destructive. And I've preached on this before, I keep preaching on this stuff because I don't want this in this church either, okay? We don't have to do that. Turn to Mark 7 where we see another example of this sort of thing. And by the way, Mark 7 is where this lot, this bunch, end up a few centuries later, okay? This is where they end up. Look at Mark 7 and verse 1. Mark chapter 7 and verse 1 says this. Then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defile, that is to say with unwashed hands, they found full. Full of Pharisees and all the Jews. All the Jews, yeah, not some of the Jews, the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not holding the tradition of the elders. So they've just introduced their own rules, haven't they? And when they come from the market except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be which they have received to hold as a washing of cups and pots, braising vessels and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? Now, just by the way, you know, the continual, at least the spiritual descendants of these people are those crazy Jews with their curly sideburns and stupid assortment of hats and stupid outfits doing all this. They do worse than this. Crazy, I remember going through this, I preached on this a while back, how they do all this weird hand wash where they put like one hand round the back and toss something over. It's not quite as bad as that, but it really was, wasn't it? They have to wash this one for like a certain amount of seconds and then this one. And these guys think that it's actually some sort of command of God. Or at least they convince themselves it is. But what has Jesus Christ said? He answered and said unto them, Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. And look, they're teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. So they're basically making doctrine, which should be a teaching from God, they're making the commandments of men a doctrine. That's what they're trying to do. And this is the sort of stuff you see, not just with the synagogue of Satan, but amongst Christians. There's stuff all over the place to cover their own wickedness. They try to push these new outward standards. You'll see that all over the place in churches. They suddenly have this new stuff. For example, and I went through a whole sermon on some of this stuff, but for example, suddenly anything on the screen is wicked. Yeah, you come across those sorts of Christians before. Anything on the screen is wicked. Okay? TV's of the devil. Okay? Any screen, anything with any sort of projecting anything to you must be wicked. Is that the truth? No, look, most of what's broadcast on TV is wicked. Yeah. But is that screen itself wicked? Is there stuff that isn't wicked? Is there stuff which isn't sinful? Yeah, of course there is. Yeah, in fact, probably, you know, a lot of these guys probably got saved after watching documentaries and stuff on the screens. Yeah, but there are people like that, aren't there? Or you'll get those that are, for example, certain biblical words are now swear words. I mean, that's come on leaps and bounds, isn't it, in Christian life? So, you know, if I, for example, if I say the word piss behind this pulpit, which I just did, there are churches around this nation where they'd probably be like, get him off. People would be like, what on earth? How dare this guy? But is that not a biblical word? Does it talk about him that pisseth against the wall? How about bastard? So you go block your ears now, block those kids' ears. It's a biblical word. They're biblical. Are we saying that the words of God are actually condemned by the world? Are we going to agree with that? Anyone want to agree with that? I don't want to agree with that. These are the holy words of God. Preserve words of God. Yeah, and hell even. Hell even. There are churches where they wait for mention of the word hell. They think it's a cuss word. Saying the word, what on earth? I mean, that is a word all over the Bible. OK, and look, there's a lot more of that sort of stuff. What is that? That's extra biblical. That's completely extra biblical. They're taking words that are biblical and saying they're now swear words. OK, and also on top of that, they'll then make, a lot of them will put swearing as we know it up here. Yeah, look, we don't want to go out and try and offend people, but swearing by words which aren't even in the Bible and words which the world have now decided to swear words and make that this sort of heinous sin. I remember a pastor going to me, you know, the way these people talked, I was wondering, are they even saved? Well, what are you talking about? Oh, suddenly if you're saved, your mouth is going to be pure, is it? Now you're not going to say words that the world have decided are rude words. Yeah, we don't want to offend people, do we? We don't want to come across crass. We don't want to use words that have sort of connotations of a lot of the time smut and things like that. No, it's got nothing to do with salvation, is it? Okay, and again, it's not up here when some of the sins, you know, these guys are clearly committing are up here compared with saying words that the world has deemed are rude, yeah? Things like that. Another one I've heard, that apparently joking is now ungodly. People come out with this junk. That somehow making a joke, that somehow having a sense of humour, that making a joke behind a pulp is somehow ungodly as well. Oh, it's a joke. Got to be grave. What? I don't remember that in the Bible. But again, people will take verses out of context and then try and teach just crazy unbiblical stuff. It's holier than thou nonsense. It is, it's nonsense. Whereas here he said in verse 7, how be it in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. And now some people try and take a verse out of context and do that. Okay, I've seen people do that many times, but a lot of the time they won't even take a verse. They'll just come out with a new doctrine, a new doctrine which is a commandment of men. And this is what's going on back in Ezra chapter 11. And for me, it's all followed on from the yoking up, the abominations. This is now knee-jerk extremism, assuming that it will then please God. Is it going to please God, knee-jerk extremism? And when I say extremism, I mean according to God. No. Look at verse 8. And that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the prince and the elders, all his substance should be forfeited and himself separated from the congregation of those that have been carried away. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month on the 20th day of the month, and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter and for the great rain. I mean, it gets worse and worse. Now they're like shivering outside in the rain. It's like, what? In verse 10 says, Ezra the priest stood up and said unto them, ye have transgressed and have taken strange wives to increase the trespasses of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do, what did he say, his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the people of the land and from the strange wives. His pleasure is to separate from the people of the land, but his pleasure isn't divorce. That's not God's pleasure. Divorce, abandoning children, verse 12 then says, and all the congregation answered said with a loud voice, as thou has said, so must we do. Look, leadership is a big responsibility, isn't it? It really is. It's a big responsibility, and Ezra has been manipulated here and he's getting it wrong. Verse 13, but the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two, for we are many that have transgressed in this thing. Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand. Let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us. Only Jonathan, the son of Asahel and Jehozah, the son of Dikfer, were employed about this matter, and Meshalem and Shabbathai the Levite helped them. And the children of the captivity did so, and Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names were separated and sat down the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. This is basically nine or ten days later, it looks like, when you look at where we were previously. And verse 17 says, And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month. So two months later, it seems basically they're going through the list of everyone there, and I think it looks like they're kind of making some sort of writing of divorcement or something, aren't they? They seem to be basically agreeing this, they're going through all these people agreeing this divorce. Verse 18 says, And among the sons of the priests they were found that had taken strange wives, namely, of the sons of Jehoshua the son of Josadak and his brethren, Mahesiah and Eliezo and Jarib and Gedaliah. Now, Jehoshua, or Joshua, was the high priest that went up with Zerubabbel. Of him and his brothers, there's these four guys. So, look, this sort of stuff, this isn't just kind of like a, you know, some of the few, like, you know, down these kind of, like, lower level type guy. This is like, these are sons of the high priest. And they've been taking these women of the land, and, look, what the Bible does say is not to do that, OK? It did say not to do that, and that was from early on, not to yoke up the people of the land, not to take unto them, you know, not take from their wives for yourselves or give their, you know, give their, give your sons or your daughters to them, et cetera. However, it doesn't then say to divorce them, OK? Just to make that clear. Verse 19, And they gave their hands that they would put away their wives, and being guilty they offered a ram of the flock for their trespass. Sounds biblical, but the trespass offering had nothing to do with marriage and divorce, OK? And the sons of Imma, Hanani, and Zebediah, and the sons of Harim, Maasiah, and Elijah, and Shemaiah, and Jehiel, and Uzziah. Now, I just want to give you an idea of the numbers here, OK? So, in chapter two, when it gave the list of the first returns from exile, Ezra 2, and you can turn if you want there, Ezra 2 and verse 37, we've just seen in the sons of Imma, Ezra 2, 37 said the children of Imma, these are talking about those, you know, that are coming from, you know, coming from Babylon, a thousand fifty and two. So there are a thousand fifty and two of the children of Imma, and that was coming 80 years ago. Ezra 2, 39 says the children of Harim, a thousand and seventeen, and we've just seen of the sons of Harim, although there's a Harim later, the same thing though, they both got, both mentions five of their sons, we've seen Maheshah, Elijah, Shema, Jehiel, and Uzziah. So, of a thousand seventeen of the children of Harim, and of a thousand fifty and two of the children of Imma, it's like two and five. Two of those, five of those. So, look, it's not that there's like, because you can read this and just think there's all these people. Look, there were a lot of people that had returned. There was a big community already formed. Point being, it was actually a real small amount of them, OK? But it was still a big deal, OK? I'm not talking about now, you know, just find a divorce part, but what had happened, them going out and marrying all basically these wicked worldly bunch, it was a big deal. Why? Because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. That's why. You've got five here, five out of a thousand seventeen, two out of a thousand fifty and two. You're thinking, well, it's kind of borderline insignificant. Who even cares? Do you know why they care? Because it makes a big difference, doesn't it? Because those abominations that they were then committing after yoking up with these women, then would and does go on to affect all the people of God. Which is why when there's clear open church discipline sin in a church, we don't go, oh, it's just one person. Oh, it's just a couple of people. You know, it doesn't really matter, is it? No, we kick them out. We kick them out, we boot them out. As soon as we have a biblical reason, again, we don't add extra biblical reasons. We don't add extra biblical reasons, do we? We don't go, well, you don't believe in the pre-trib rapture, so you're at the church. We don't go, well, you don't believe that, you know, some random, you know, converts to Judaism, you know, centuries later aren't God's special chosen people with their own special salvation. And the rest of it, you don't believe that you're out for being an anti-Semite. OK, we don't add those those extra biblical reasons for kicking people out of churches. No, what we do is we kick people out for the real biblical reasons. But we do it because it has to be done because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And that list in 1 Corinthians 5, you know, adding on Romans 16 as well to that, look, you know, this stuff's important, isn't it? Because it will destroy a church. We've seen that before here. We've seen that little bit of leaven just starting to poise at everyone around them. OK, here, just a few of them. However, here, you know, it's still a big deal. OK, verse 22. So we've got priests involved, haven't we? We've got Levites. It said here also of the Levites. It says, Singers, porters. It seems like just it's of everyone all over. And again, I'll tell you how that probably started. One or two people somewhere and it just started affecting others. Suddenly one of the singers is involved. Now one of the Levites because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And Now that's the other harem that I mentioned earlier. Either one could be from the original in chapter two. Either way, it's five sons of a thousand odd. OK, just to keep that point going. Let's read the rest of them. Verse 32 says, And in case anyone here is ever looking for baby names in the future, there are a ton of them here. OK, you could be the most far out in whatever group it is. Yeah, just find something obscure here, man. People are going to go, wow, what Bible knowledge? Don't even know what that is in the Bible. OK, and again, I'm not saying people find something obscure. You know, that's their choice. You know, maybe it's for a very good reason. All these had taken strange wives. Some of them had wives by whom they had children. Imagine going down in history on this list. That's not good, is it? There are some reasons, you know, where you could go, OK, well, you know, some person, maybe something bad has happened in their life and it's been used for the good of many in history. But this list, I mean, it kind of could have been done with a few of them, couldn't it? So if you're on that list, you know, look, I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of those people are saved people, right? Who are up in heaven, who are in that eternal word of God forever because they went out and basically took daughters of the land contrary to what the word of God said. But again, did anyone see anywhere in this chapter where God advocated divorce? Anyone see that anywhere? Is there anywhere in this chapter where God said you need to divorce him and abandon your children? Anyone see that? Not once, did they? Yeah, it didn't say in the Lord, spake unto Ezra. It didn't say in verse whatever and according to this particular chapter, it didn't say that anywhere, did it? However, I bet there's a lot of people that go through a chapter like this and justify divorce because of it. Well, she was unsaved. He was unsaved. So it's okay. Is that okay? It's not okay. Why would it say that? 1 Timothy 5, 8 says, by the way, because this is abandonment, this is like just cast off your kids, but if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Yeah, people abandoning their families, abandoning their wives, abandoning their kids are scum. They're scum. The Bible says that they are worse than an infidel. Okay? Look, that's a scummy thing to do. Now, look, there might be people here that have passed where they've done something like this. Look, so be it, but I'm still going to preach what the Bible says, okay? And now you know better, okay? Anyone in this church who ends up doing that, abandoning their wives, you're scum, you're worse than an infidel. Okay? You know better. You have the Word of God which says no. Okay? The Word of God says if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house. And by the way, that's talking about widows. That's talking about widows, relative widows, not just talking about your kids. The kids that you've had, you've had kids, you've married, you've made vows to God, and you don't provide them, you've denied the faith, you're worse than an infidel. Okay? It's wicked. And again, so many will go to chapters like this to try and justify it. But do you know what it is, though, as well? Look, aside from all of that, this is a really sad end to the Book of Ezra, isn't it? It really is, because at the beginning, you know, we've been applying this to us, rebuilding, yeah, they did the foundation, yeah, they got rid of the wicked people, they did this, did that, and we're all kind of, yeah, you can see this applying to us. And then look at what a just disaster in the last couple of chapters. It started with this exciting return from captivity, didn't it? Yeah, that was exciting stuff. Because it was prophesied before as well, wasn't it? And they returned, according to the prophecy, with basically a command from the ruling king that they could go and do this work, et cetera. They started the work on the foundations, they fended off the infiltrators, if you remember early on as well. Yeah, go on, Zerababbel, smash them. You know, in my mind, I'm sure Zerababbel got a little bit physical, he probably got away with a bit of it, you know, kicked him out. And then they continued the work, there were ups and downs. But much was solved by what? By hard preaching, yeah? We saw the hard preaching Zechariah, didn't we? We saw that hard preach come in Haggai, and they're preaching hard, and they get them, they spur them on, they're working hard again. There's all these great lessons going on in there. They completed the work, and then a few decades later, Ezra returns. Yeah, here comes Ezra. Come with the Loeb Wall, these godly men, chief men, and everything else to come and inspire everyone and continue the work of God, and it's a mess. It's a shambles. And he doesn't make things better. He doesn't do what he should have done. In fact, he makes things worse. Because instead of solving it according to the word of God, they go outside of that and the result is not good, is it? Okay, so instead of doing what he should have done and solved it and dealt with it and done it according to God's word and got rid of the abominations and tried to get things right with those women, with those children, everything else, instead he went outside of that, and the result was a disaster. Because Nehemiah arrives 11 years later to correct things and read the book of Malachi to see how quickly things deteriorate. Okay, and we're at the point where he's just basically just a hard preacher against all of them. Add another kind of half a century in, you know, pretty much silence and not much going on, and then Jesus Christ returns the whole place as an absolute mess, isn't it? In fact, just before that, John the Baptist comes and has to start preaching hard and hard and hard at them, doesn't he? Then they need, like, you know, the greatest man that's ever lived, needs to come in and start preaching some truth to them just to get some of them saved, to pave the way, you know, for the Lord Jesus Christ. But what a mess and what a disaster. And look, there have been some great lessons for us with church building and everything else, but what this really, for me, this book's ended with a sobering couple of chapters warning us what could easily happen to the house of God here. Okay, because if you haven't been with us with this, we've been going through this book chapter by chapter just relating it to what we're doing here. And if you go, what are you doing here? Isn't this just like a church like every other? No. Because there ain't no other church like this in this nation. That's why we've got people that have come from Bristol to get baptised. That's why we've got people that come from Bristol most weeks just to come and hear the word of God and get involved with a proper church. That's why we've had people that have moved down from Scotland, as far as Scotland, from a bit close to Sheffield, to come and just be in this area to be able to go to a house of God which preaches the word of God and goes out and preaches the gospel like the Bible says we should do. Because it's such a mess in this nation now. Because they've all failed because they're either liberal, disgraces, or they're just basically preaching a false gospel because many, many false prophets are in the world, aren't they? OK, and look, that's why we... And again, you can kind of sit and go, oh, come on here, and you just want to try and big up this church. No. It's just the truth. Look, so many of us here have been searching for churches for years before we got this church started. OK, it's so bad out there. It's so bad. And that's why it's always just a bit disappointing, isn't it, when you go out to someone around the corner, you get them saved, you preach the gospel like you're going to come along, you try and encourage them, you don't know how good you got it because most of us were travelling hours. Hours. Some are still travelling hours just to come to church on a Sunday, to come to a church where they can go, I know this is a church, I know they believe the right gospel, I know they're preaching the right gospel, I know they're standing on the King James Bible, and I know they're going out and preaching the word of God to the lost like the Bible tells us to. Because without a doubt, what even is this? What, a social club? What even are most churches social clubs? Social clubs, or they're going out and preaching a false gospel and they're doing the work of the devil. Basically what I see out there, or you might have a couple just about that maybe are shoving some flyers through some doors, or giving out a few flyers, which doesn't even have a Bible way to heaven on it, and according to them faith cometh by reading and reading by the word of God. And that's basically the options out there, isn't it? And look, so, point being that it's so, look, it's such a big thing that we're trying to do here. We're trying to build a proper house of God in this nation and eventually more houses of God in this nation and around the world where we can as well, where we think that we can make a difference. For example, we'd love to get a church site in South Africa as well. Okay, but with that, this is sobering, isn't it? How easily could that fail? And it fails by yoking up with the world that we saw here. It failed, well, starting there were issues and risks where they just started getting slack on the job. They were put in fear. So it started with fear, if you remember. We saw back, I can't remember which chapter, where basically, you know, they were threatened to stop working. They stopped working. However, when they started again, they got their hearts right and the preaching got them fired up and they started working again. Everything kind of worked out, didn't it? Okay, so there's fear that can stop what we do here. And look, there's going to be attacks of that in the future. There's going to be the worldliness. Okay, there's going to be people yoking up with the world, trying to bring worldly abominations into the house of God and that will start to turn people's heads and a little leaven will leaven the whole lump and more and more will start getting involved in that like we saw here. Okay, and then what will happen with that as well? Then we'll get the knee-jerk, sadly, extra holiness in other areas that then just makes things even worse outside the word of God. People are just making it up as they go along, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men and everything else. And you end up with basically just a mess, a mess. And what happens eventually with this lot? Destruction. No house of God. When John the Baptist returned, was there even a house of God there? That temple was full of false prophets, wasn't it? And that's something that is a very real threat to our church here. That's something that we have to constantly watch out for. That's something that we all have a responsibility to be on top of and that's by just keeping those abominations out, which is actually right, by not becoming holy in the nows and adding our own standards to church life and everything else. A lot of the time, ones which people then can't aspire to and then they start to feel insecure and start to, you know, there's all different angles, it all works. And by basically saying, no, we're just going to stand on the word of God, not being like Ezra and going outside of that. And it's sobering. However, look, like I preached last week, we can learn from the mistakes here, can't we? That's what we should do, learn from the mistakes here. And we want to have a house of God, we want to have multiple houses of God in this nation for many years to come, don't we? And when I say many years, I'd like for centuries to come if we could. The reality is, the truth is, that's probably not going to be the case, is it? And where will the churches of old here? Where will the churches of old anywhere? Sadly, that's the case. However, we want to do our best to not let it be the case. We're not just going to accept failure, are we? Okay, we're going to do our best. I'm going to finish up there. I hope you've enjoyed going through the Book of Ezra. I really have. I think it's been a really, really good thing for our church and where we're at right now. Hopefully, I'll think of a good series or Bible study we'll do for starting next week. On that, we're going to go to the Lord in the word of prayer. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for, well, for the Book of Ezra and all the lessons we've got from it, Lord, the lessons of things that we should be doing and also things that we shouldn't be doing, Lord, help us to just apply it to our lives, apply it to our church life. Help everyone to want to take responsibility being a part of this church, Lord, to just want what's best for this church, to resist the attacks of the devil as they come in, Lord, to resist all these different angles. We see even the subtle ones, the manipulation, to start to do unbiblical things. Just help us to just be strong, Lord, to stand in your word. Help us to just be the sort of church, Lord, that you want us to be. Help us to just get things right. Help us get things right. Help us to get things right according to your word and help us to get home safely this evening. Help us to get out soul winning in a week, Lord, and to return for Wednesday evening service. And if we can't make that, Lord, if that's not possible, to at least be back here on Sunday for another day in your house. In Jesus' name we pray all of this. Amen.