“‘O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached the heavens.”
– Ezra 9:6
Hi James and Ellen,
Your grandmaa drew out last evening the last slip of paper from the 1¾ ounce red Pringles can in which your grandpaa had put 1,189 slips of paper. The 1,189 slips of paper that your grandpaa put into this mini-Pringles can each had a different chapter of the Bible on it. It has taken your grandpaa somewhere around 10½ years to do a single page, three paragraph James and Ellen on each of the 1,189 chapters that make up the Bible. Ezra 9 will be the last chapter in the Bible that your grandpaa will do a James and Ellen. As God has had your grandpaa go through His Living Word – the Bible, in a random way, which involved your grandmaa – as after your grandpaa completed a James and Ellen, he would have your grandmaa draw out of the small, red Pringles can a slip of paper with a Bible chapter on it, God constantly reminded your grandpaa of His unmerited mercy that He has for His specially chosen and elected guys, gals and kids. As you are reading the ‘living words’ that make up the Bible, do you at times sense that God – as God the Father, through God – as God the Spirit, is covering you with His limitless love blanket, that He is discussing audibly with you again His forgiveness contract and that He is telling you again that it is totally impossible for you to hide from Him the residues of your old innate sin nature?
How do you think that you would still be feeling 118 years after a King Nebuchadnezzar type despot invaded the state of Delaware, demolished all the houses with a Newark address and took you as exiles to his country to live? What would you do – after your family has survived living for 118 years in a foreign country, if you were given the okay by the ruler of the foreign country that you are living in, to be able to return with some family members and friends to your state and to your city? If you had been told 118 years ago that the reason that a King Nebuchadnezzar type overran your state, devastated your city and took you away to his country was because of the rebellious, wicked lifestyles that the guys and gals who were living in your state and in your city had adopted, how might you be trying to live your lives today? In 458 B.C. – 118 years after King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army ravaged the country of Judah and leveled the city of Jerusalem, Ezra got permission from a Persian king – King Artaxerxes I, for him to make the long trek to the city of Jerusalem. Four months after Ezra got back to his family’s home that was in the city of Jerusalem, some of the city of Jerusalem residents went to Ezra to tell Ezra that a number of his people group descendants – including city of Jerusalem leaders, priests and Levi tribal clan guys, were doing the detestable, deplorable things that led God to have King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army do a horrific number on the guys, gals and kids who were living in the land of Judah and in the city of Jerusalem. King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army – in 586 B.C., had arbitrarily left a contingent of guys and gals in the city of Jerusalem. Sometime between 538 B.C. and 520 B.C., Zerubbabel received authorization by another Persian king – King Cyrus, to return to the city of Jerusalem with 42,360 guys, gals and kids. The guys who were tending towards living unfaithful, very corrupt lifestyles – such as acquiescing to worshipping manmade idol gods handmade from wood, rock, clay and metal, had married gals from non-Israelite people groups of guys and gals– such as Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite, Jebusite, Moabite, Ammonite, Egyptian and Amorite people groups. This news – per Ezra’s reaction of tearing his tunic and cloak, pulling out his hair from his head and beard and sitting down in appalled shock, was not something that Ezra had expected to hear taking place in his beloved city. Ezra’s real fear of what God would do again to his compatriots are heard in verse 6 in Ezra’s words to God, “and prayed: “‘O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached the heavens.” Instead of putting the blame on his people group guys who were living in the city of Jerusalem for having turned their backs on God, Ezra communicates knowing that he is just as sinful as they are.
As Ezra reflected on this untenable moment, God – as God the Father, through God – as God the Spirit, let Ezra know that He had returned a remnant of His specially chosen guys and gals back to the land that He had given to His specially chosen guys and gals to always to have to live in as their very own land if . . . just as He had said that He would. God – as God the Father, through God – as God the Spirit, still would remind Ezra of the evil deeds and of the great guilt that had been incurred by His specially chosen guys and gals against Him that led Him to use King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army to exact a deserved vengeful devastation on His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah and in the city of Jerusalem. What is really intriguing to your grandpaa today about what happened about 2,520 years ago is that the key advocates for God’s specially chosen guys and gals were a couple of Persian kings who allowed God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite or Jew people group guys and gals, to return to the land of Judah and to the city of Jerusalem. Today’s Persia (Iran) leadership would if they could annihilate every Israelite or Jew guy, gal and kid. The Bible’s living words that were breathed on guys by God – as God the Spirit, over two millenniums ago your grandpaa knows to be apropos today.
Ezra 9 1187