Sunday School Lesson for April 11, 2021 - The Faith-in-Action Preacher: Printed Text: Ezra 10:1-12; Background Scripture: Ezra 9-10; Devotional Reading: Ezekiel 18:25-32

 

We continue this week with the second lesson of Unit 2: Prophets of Restoration. As was demonstrated in last week’s lesson, restoration often comes at a steep price. This week’s lesson focuses on true, heartfelt revival. A revival led by a man of God.

How did we get here?

The Book of Ezra records many of the details surrounding the return of the Jewish peoples from Babylonian exile. The Bible records three separate migrations across the reign of four different Medo-Persian Rulers. The pertinent details in these migrations relate to the associated timeline. Briefly, Zerubbabel and Jeshua led the first migration in 538 BC. They immediately began rebuilding the Temple. Construction for the Temple was complete by 515 BC, around twenty-three years later. 

The second significant migration occurred in 458 BC, eighty years after the first migration. Ezra arrived in Jerusalem during this second migration. Nehemiah returned in the third migration thirteen years after Ezra, in 445 BC. So then, from the first migration to the building of the Temple was twenty-three years. From the rebuilding of the Temple to the second migration: fifty-seven years. The total time between the first and second migration was eighty years. This timeline plays a significant part in today’s narrative.

God sends three...

In addition to the three significant migrations discussed above, God called messengers to encourage His people to embrace the work of rebuilding the temple. In or around 520 BC, three prophets answered God’s call...

Haggai 1:2-4 NLT

2 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: The people are saying, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.’”

3 Then the Lord sent this message through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?

 

Zechariah 8:7-9 NLT

7 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: You can be sure that I will rescue my people from the east and from the west. 8 I will bring them home again to live safely in Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be faithful and just toward them as their God.

9 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Be strong and finish the task! Ever since the laying of the foundation of the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, you have heard what the prophets have been saying about completing the building.

 

Haggai and Zechariah had similar target audiences: The Jewish general public-at-large. Malachi’s audience was more targeted...

 

Malachi 1:1-2a NLT

1 This is the message[a] that the Lord gave to Israel through the prophet Malachi.

2 “I have always loved you,” says the Lord...

 

Malachi 2:7-9 NLT

7 “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 8 But you priests have left God’s paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

 

Malachi’s message was targeted specifically to the priests and religious leaders, particularly those responsible for the Temple operations. All three prophesied or preached during the final stages of the Temple’s completion in 515 BC, and then beyond. In fact, all were still actively preaching when Ezra returned during the second migration in 458 BC. This week’s lesson begins with Ezra’s return.

 

Ezra 9:1-2 NASB

1 Now when these things had been completed, the officials approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, as to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 2 For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy [a]race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the officials and the leaders have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness.”

 

Immediately upon arrival, Ezra was approached by local leaders who immediately gave voice to their primary concern; the intermarriage of their people with the indigenous people of Canaan which included the integration of their religious practices into the Jewish practices.

 

Malachi 2:11 NASB

11 Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord [n]which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

 

Malachi offers a more complete understanding of this issue. By marrying the Canaanite women, the Israelites were marrying their religion(s), their idolatry as well. This was the very reason they had been exiled to Babylon in the first place. Why would God allow them to return to Jerusalem and allow them to start off on the wrong path?

 

Exodus 20:4-6 NASB

4 “You shall not make for yourself [c]an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the [d]punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing [e]favor to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

 

From the time of Moses, God had warned His people against idolatry. Certainly, He was displeased at their Idolatry at the outset of this time of restoration. This was the situation Ezra faced upon his return to Jerusalem.

 

Ezra 9:3-4 NASB

3 When I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled out some of the hair from my head and my beard, and sat down [b]appalled. 4 Then everyone who was frightened by the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat [c]appalled until the evening offering.

 

Ezra’s immediate response to what he heard was the same as God’s: disgust. Absolute, unadulterated disgust. Ezra preached with his actions. In doing so, he communicated the heart of God to the people. And they responded according, with reverent fear. And that was a good beginning…

 

Proverbs 1:7a NASB

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…

Before we go further, let’s take a closer look at Ezra. 

 

Ezra 7:6-7 NASB

6 This Ezra was a scribe who was well versed in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given to the people of Israel. He came up to Jerusalem from Babylon, and the king gave him everything he asked for because the gracious hand of the Lord his God was on him. 7 Some of the people of Israel, as well as some of the priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and Temple servants, traveled up to Jerusalem with him in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes’ reign.

 

Ezra was a scribe. That would have qualified him as an expert in the Torah, the Law of Moses. This would be the modern-day equivalent of a Supreme Court Justice, someone with whom the law could not be argued. Additionally, and more importantly, the Hand of God was upon him. God granted him favor in all of his efforts to return to Jerusalem. The fact that he was accompanied by Temple officials-in-waiting tells us that his primary purpose was to teach the Torah and to reinstitute true worship in the Temple of God.

The Lesson:

Ezra 10:1 NASB

1 Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women, and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept greatly.

Upon hearing of Judah’s sin, Ezra began praying in intercession for the people of God. No posturing, no preening, no glitz or glamour. Just real, heartfelt intercession. Ezra prostrated himself before God on behalf of God’s people. And God stirred the hearts of those in his immediate vicinity to join him in this call to repentance.

2 Corinthians 7:10 NASB

10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance [d]without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. 

---------------------------------

Ezra 10:2-4 NASB

2 Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have [a]married foreign women from the peoples of the land, yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. 3 So now let’s make a covenant with our God to send away all the wives and [b]their children, following the counsel of [c]my lord and of those who fear the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the Law. 4 Arise! For this matter is [d]your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.”

 

2 Corinthians 7:11 NASB

11 For behold what earnestness this very thing, this [e]godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment of wrong! In everything, you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.

 

Clearly, the people of Judah were ready and willing to put things right. They were ready to follow the instructions set forth by Ezra, the man of God.

 

Haggai 1:5-8 NASB

5 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 6 You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

7 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 8 Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.

It is no wonder that the people of Judah were wringing their hands in despair. They have reaped the bitterness of God’s wrath. The prophets of God had warned them of the price of disobedience and they were experiencing it first hand. Nothing was working for them. It seemed God had removed His favor from their lives.

 

Ezra 10:5-8 NASB

5 Then Ezra stood and made the leading priests, the Levites, and all Israel take an oath that they would do according to this [e]proposal; so they took the oath. 6 Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there, he did not eat bread nor drink water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles. 7 So they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the exiles, that they were to assemble at Jerusalem, 8 and that whoever did not come within three days, in accordance with the counsel of the leaders and the elders, all his property would be forfeited, and he himself would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.

 

Ezra was not only a man of prayer but, a man of action. Ezra enlisted the cooperation of the priests and the Levites. By doing so, he immediately multiplied his effectiveness, He delegated responsibility to others, which allowed him to remain apart from the others in an attitude of humility and consecration before God on behalf of the nation. While he remained in prayer, his team proclaimed a holy convocation. A mandatory assembling of all of the Jewish exiles of Judah. And the surrounding areas.

 

Ezra 10:9 NASB

9 So all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month on the twentieth of the month, and all the people sat in the public square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and the heavy rain. 

 

So all of the people assembled in accordance with the proclamation of Ezra. They assembled under the weight of their collective guilt and shame. The incidence of a very heavy rainstorm added to the weight of the moment, reminding them that the storm was providentially ordained by God. God was in attendance as well.

 

Ezra 10:10-12 NASB

10 Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful and have married foreign wives, adding to the guilt of Israel. 11 Now, therefore, make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 12 Then all the assembly replied with a loud voice, “It is [f]our duty to do exactly as you have said!

 

What’s happening here? Why is God allowing this mass divorce proceeding? Because Israel has allowed the defilement of the Temple by allowing the worship of idols in the Temple of God. Israel is at risk of losing its identity entirely, both spiritually and physically. If they do not maintain purity in worship they will be assimilated into the culture of the people around them. Ezra is there to return the hearts of the people to God. He’s there to cleanse and purify the Temple and the worship therein. He’s there to teach the people so that they may adhere to the truth in God’s Word and to God’s intent for their lives. Ezra is there to lead a revival. 

Some might believe that the scriptures above prove somehow, that God is against interracial marriage. Those people are not rightly dividing the Word. This episode is a unique event in Israel’s history that was necessary to preserve the spiritual heritage God would use for the salvation of all mankind. If there is a lesson to take from this lesson, let it be to remind each of us that we are to strive for a life of holiness before God, in and through Christ.

 

Ephesians 1:4b NASB

4b ...He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before [d]Him. In love 

 

In this New Covenant of Grace, in Christ, God shows us a better way

 

1 Corinthians 7:12-14 NASB

12 But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, he must not [g]divorce her. 13 And [h]if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not [i]divorce her husband. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through [j]her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy

 

Selah,

wb

Sunday School Lesson for April 4, 2021 - The Suffering Servant: Printed Text: Isaiah 53:4-11a; Background Scripture: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Luke 24:1-35; Devotional Reading: Philippians 2:1-11

 

Get the Setting:

In the previous unit, we studied ‘Prophets of Faithfulness. This unit, unit 2 follows the theme, ‘Prophets of Restoration’. Lesson one focuses on the prophet, Isaiah, and one of five major prophecies written by him called ‘the Servant Songs’ which speak of the Messiah who would appear some seven hundred years later in the person of Jesus, the Christ.

The book of Isaiah is regarded by many theologians as, “The Fifth Gospel” because it provides the clearest portrait of the coming Messiah in the Old Covenant. The time window in which Isaiah prophesies places him is the time when the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel descend from prominence into idolatry and finally, into captivity to Assyria. As the major prophetic voice to both Israel and Judah, Isaiah had the unique responsibility to chasten and comfort the leaders of both kingdoms by the unction of the Spirit of God. Isaiah 53 gives a very clear prophetic glimpse of Jesus as the ‘Suffering Servant.’

Isaiah 53:4 NASB

4 

However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,

And our pains that He carried;

Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,

Struck down by God, and humiliated.

Matthew 8:16-17 NASB

16 Now when evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. 17 This happened so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled: “He Himself took our illnesses and [u]carried away our diseases.”

In verse four of the lesson, Isaiah prophesied that God’s Messiah would bear our sicknesses, pains, and sorrow. In chapter eight of the Book of Matthew, the writer records several episodes involving divine healing. Verses one through four record the healing of a leper. In Jesus’ day, leprosy was incurable and highly contagious. So much so that a leper had to take the initiative to separate himself from the general public in all circumstances. It would disfigure and maim the leper, making their existence wretched to the very end.

Verses five through thirteen record the healing of the servant of the Roman centurion from what is described as a crippling and painful form of paralysis. In that, the centurion was Roman meant that, as a gentile and as a member of the occupying force of Rome, he was hated and despised by the Jews. Matthew could identify with the Roman centurion, in that, as a former Jewish tax collector for Rome, he too was despised, hated by his Jewish countrymen. 

Verses fourteen and fifteen record the healing of Peter’s mother from a fever. When word of her healing spread, many of her neighbors came to receive a touch or a word from the Lord. 

Matthew then goes on to quote directly from Isaiah 53:4 to indicate to his readers that the demonstration of Jesus’ ability to heal is affirmation that He was the Messiah, God’s promise to Israel of a Deliverer to come. In this same passage, Matthew also reveals the limitless power available through Christ to heal. God is no respecter of persons. What Jesus did for the leper, the servant, and his disciple’s family he can and will do for us.

Unfortunately, we are sometimes inhibited from receiving all that God’s grace makes available to us because of our limited understanding of God’s unlimited favor. In the same way that Matthew’s audience may have considered Jesus to have been deservedly punished by God, we too consider ourselves undeserving of the fullness of God’s favor, thereby missing out on the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10b, “I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly..”

Isaiah 53:5 NASB

5 

But He was [a]pierced for our offenses,

He was crushed for our wrongdoings;

The punishment for our [b]well-being was laid upon Him,

And by His wounds we are healed.

1 Peter 2:24 NASB

24 and He Himself [y]brought our sins in His body up on the [z]cross, so that we might die to [aa]sin and live for righteousness; by His [ab]wounds you were healed.

In verse five, Isaiah reveals that Christ was wounded for our rebelliousness against God, that he was bruised, beaten because of the depth of our depravity. That He was punished so that we might have everlasting peace with God and that by the stripes, literally, the wounds he endured in the beating before the crucifixion, we are healed, or rather, Rapha, the Hebrew word used to indicate actual physical healing from disease or affliction is made available. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter confirms this fact with a direct quote of the same passage in Isaiah, affirming God’s desire for the believer to be healed completely, both spiritually and physically. Dr. R.W. Shambach used to say, “Divine healing was the children’s bread.” He would then add, “Divine healing wasn’t God’s best for you (the believer), divine health was.” His words reveal a comprehensive understanding of God’s intent for complete healing for the believer made available through the eternal salvation provided by Jesus at the cross. We are saved at the moment we believe. We don’t get more saved as time passes. Neither do we become more saved when we pass from this life to eternity. Rather, we are as saved, as righteous as we are ever going to be at the moment we place our trust in Christ. It then becomes contingent upon us to find out just what, exactly that God’s great grace affords us. I have stories to tell. I just don’t have time to tell them in this venue...

Isaiah 53:6 NASB

6 

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all

To [c]fall on Him.

1 Peter 2:25 NASB

25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and [ac]Guardian of your souls.

Isaiah completes the thought by intimating that each of us are essentially taken by our own whims, trapped by devices of our own making, but that the Messiah would take upon Himself the entirety of our guilt. Peter again confirms this in repetition but adds that Jesus is the embodiment of Isaiah’s words who has both saved us, and now keeps us eternally, spiritually safe, and secure.

Isaiah 53:7 NASB

7 

He was oppressed and afflicted,

Yet He did not open His mouth;

Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,

And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,

So He did not open His mouth.

John 1:35-36 NASB

35 Again the next day John was standing [ah]with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 

In verse seven, Isaiah reveals the length to which the Messiah will have to suffer to accomplish the redemption of all mankind. With the use of the word ‘lamb’, Isaiah identifies the coming Messiah as one who will make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the redemption of the nations: death. In essence, the Messiah’s sacrifice would make atonement before God for the sins of all mankind. In the first chapter of the Book of John, Jesus is revealed to be the very Lamb of God and the fulfillment, yet again, of Isaiah’s word.

Isaiah 53:8 NASB

8 

By oppression and judgment He was taken away;

And as for His generation, who considered

That He was cut off from the land of the [d]living

For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?

2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be [a]sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

In verse eight, Isaiah foretells the unjust and wrongful prosecution Jesus would suffer at the hands of Israel’s religious leaders. Paul echoes Isaiah’s words in his third letter to Corinth, making it clear that Christ paid our sin debt at the cross.

Isaiah 53:9 NASB

9 

And His grave was assigned with wicked men,

Yet He was with a rich man in His death,

Because He had done no violence,

Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

The accuracy of Isaiah’s prophecies is proof of the omniscience and providence of God. The Good News is, that because of that omniscience, God’s promises for healing and restoration for those who are called His children are assured.

Isaiah 53:10-11a NASB

10 

But the Lord desired

To crush Him, [e]causing Him grief;

If He renders [f]Himself as a guilt offering,

He will see His [g]offspring,

He will prolong His days,

And the [h]good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

11 

As a result of the [i]anguish of His soul,

He will [j]see it and be satisfied;

In these final verses, Isaiah foresees the reward received by the obedient Servant: eternal life and a legacy that we, today call the Church. The risen Christ 

Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB

Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking only at Jesus, the [a]originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

This lesson is incomplete but finished for the time being. I may return to complete it at a later date (The beauty of blogging)

Selah,

wb