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Listener, have you allowed your heart to become comfortable with sin? In this Sunday's message, we see Israel's call to holiness and the act of protest and grief that led to corporate confession and identification. Let's prepare our hearts for the Word of God today.

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Today's scripture reading is taken from the book of Ezra, chapter 9, verses 1 to 15. Ezra chapter 9, verses 1 to 15. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the land with their abominations from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the people of the land. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and the chief men has been foremost. As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled my hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, saying, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt, and for our iniquities, we, our kings and our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today. But now, for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within this holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery, for we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended us to his steadfast love before the kings of Persia to grant us some reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, The land that you are entering, to take possession of it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you our God has punished us less than our iniquities, deserved and has given us such a remnant as this. Shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape? O Lord, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Church, from the last two sermons on Ashra and Himiah, we saw actually all the way up to the point where we are entering today, the last two chapters of Ashrah, Ashrah 9 and 10, that Ashra and the returnees had experienced only the amazing generosity and favor of both God and the Persian king. We saw this in the past uh two sermons, that favor upon favor, generosity was upon the people. And we see this at work at various points in the narrative. So the good hand of God was on Ashra as he led the returnees back to Jerusalem. We see that in Ashrah chapter 7, verse 9. For on the first day of the first month, he began to go up from Babylonia. And on the first day of the fifth month, he came to Jerusalem. For the good hand of God, the good hand of his God was on him. Again in Eshra chapter 7, verse 27 to 28, it says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who had who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officials. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord was my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. So the return to Jerusalem has been uh focused on how God's good hand was always on his people. The hand of God was also on the returnees, not just in the return, but also on the returnees, seen in the favor and help rendered by the Persian king. So we read in Ashrah 6, 8 to 9, that full legal rights were given to them to do all that is needed to rebuild Jerusalem, the temple in Jerusalem. This is what it says according to Ishra 6, verse 8 to 9. Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God. The cost is to be paid to this man in full and without delay, from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province, from beyond the river, whatever is needed, bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offering to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require. Let that be given to them day by day without fear. So it's almost a red carpet, an open door to rebuild the temple, favor from the Persian king. And again in Eshra chapter 7, verse 15 to 17, we see that there were free offerings of silver and gold being offered by the Persian king to the people who were returning to rebuild the temple. He says in verse 15 of Ashrah 7, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem. So we see up to this point that nothing but favor, both the good hand of God and the favor of the Persian king, had been upon the returnees as they returned to build the temple. However, when we read from Ezra chapter 9, verse 1 to 2, uh it it the narrative tells us that after all these things, after all the goodness of God that have been bestowed upon the people of God, um, in terms of God's favor upon them, God's good hand in terms of the favor of the Persian king, the officials approached Ashra and brought to him a report. And verses 1 to 2 kind of summarize what the report is about, and it says, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perisites, the Jabuzites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the land. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and the chief men has been foremost. What an anticlimax to the story of Ashra! That after all the good things they had experienced, we realize that there is a sin of intermarriage that affected the people in the last two chapters of Ashra. And Israel was called to be a sanctum, what we call a holy race or a holy seed. What it means is basically Israel has been set apart as a sanctum for God, for the worship of God, and for the focus on embodying his holiness. Because whenever we think about Israel, we think about them being separated unto God. The word separation is key, belonging to God and not belonging to the world or the influence of other cultures. So as God's holy people, they had to separate themselves from the local population or face God's wrath themselves. The need to be a sanctum or what we can be called a holy seed, a holy people, was central in the Old Testament to what it means to be a people belonging to God and separated unto Him. In fact, many times the reframe in the book of Leviticus tells us the identity and vocation of Israel is to be holy, for I am holy. Be holy for I am holy. And the reason why this sin of intermarriage is a great abomination is because in previous parts of scripture it has been outlined that this is a practice that they should observe to not be involved in. So it is an explicit uh claim of God upon their lives. So it's it's not something that uh perhaps is not so explicit in terms of uh how we handle the issue, you know. Uh, for example, uh certain things that are a bit more gray, like whether Christians should uh have tattoos, or whether um, for example, drinking uh is a sin or gambling, right? Of course, some are very clear, but it's it's not so clear the lines, right? Some of the issues that it's debatable and it's worth further um kind of dialogue. But explicit statements means there's no other way. Israel is called to be holy, there's no other way in terms of the holiness of Israel. If you are not holy, it means that you are uh intermingling with the nations. In Exodus 34, verse 15 to 16. This is the first time this uh occurs, this instruction from God. He says, Lis you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice. And you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods, and make your sons whore after that after their gods. So the reason why they are not supposed to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land is because they'll be led away, led astray to worship other gods instead of being a holy people. And in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 1 to 6, again the same idea repeats itself. It says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you the Hittites, the Jigasites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perisites, the Hiphites, and the Jabusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you. And when the Lord gives them over to you and you defeat them, you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no you shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. So the reason why Israel was to keep away from the people of the land, to not make a covenant with them, to have nothing to do with them, or enter into marriage with their sons and daughters is not because God is against intermarriage per se, meaning marrying someone of uh a different ethnic race. He's not against racial intermarriage, but because intermarriage at that time and that context means that the people are very, very likely to take on the religious practices of their land and so turn away from God and serve the other gods whom the people of then of the land worship. So this is the crux of the issue. Whenever Israel intermarried with the people of the land, their hearts will be turned away from the worship of God, turned away from being a holy people to become an unholy people. They would participate in their religious practices and as a result become intermingled with them rather than to be a sanctum or a holy seed unto God. So we see Ashra's response when he heard the news in Ashra 9 verse 3 to 5. So there's a lot of uh emotive words that is being used here. It's almost like Ashrah wants to evoke a response from the community, and he wants us to also enter into his grief at the sins of the people, especially the leaders who should have known better. So Ashra 9, verse 3 says, As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and put hair from my head and beard and sat apart. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the ridden exiles, gathered around me while I sat apart until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment and my cloak torn and fell upon my knees, spread out my hands to the Lord my God. Ashra's distress and solidarity with the people can be seen in his tearing of his garment and cloak. So we don't do that now, but in the Old Testament, whenever there's a tearing of one's garment and cloak, it's a sign of protest, meaning that this should not be the case. You know, it's a sense, it's a form of distress and a protest against what has been done. His gesture of not only protest and distress, but also grief is observed by him pulling hair from his head and beard. We may think that's eccentric practices now. You know, we may think so today, but during the time it is a gesture of grief. To pull one's hair from his head and beard is a gesture of grief. And perhaps it's an emotional act to draw the people's attention to his inner feeling of distress. He then sat apart until the evening sacrifice. So he was lost for words. So to sit aport carries the idea of being downfounded. Lost for words, just sat there stunned, didn't know how to be respond to the situation. He was overcome with distress and grief. So after a long period of distress, grief, and being downfounded, Ashra finally uttered a prayer to God in Ashra 9, verse 6 to 15. It covers the whole remaining verses of Ashra 9. While he acknowledges the favor of the Lord and his influence on Persian kings, so in Ashra, in his whole long prayer, in verse 8 to 9, is the only part where he kind of acknowledges what God has done for them, for the favor of God upon their lives and how the Lord has brought them back to the land and had favor on them. And the large part of the rest of the prayer is confession after confession, confession after confession of how Israel has fallen short of the holiness in which God requires. So Ezra 9 8 to 9 reads, but now for a brief moment, favor has been shown by the Lord our God to leave us a remnant, to give us a secure home within his holy place. Reading on from verse 9, for we are slaves, yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended his steadfast love before the kings of Persia and to grant us some reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. So this is what I read in the early part in the beginning, the verses I cited, how God's favor was upon the people and before the king. So the large part of uh the prayer again is focused on how Ashrah felt that he needs to come before God to uh as a representative of the people to identify with the people's sins. Right? So is this where in the Old Testament we have this idea of uh corporate identification. Though I Ashra likelihood commentators say that he was not the one that fall into sin of intermarriage, meaning that he was not the one sinning. Yet in his prayer, you notice that he he uses the third person uh a lot. We, we, we, we. So he's identifying with the people. There's solidar solidarity uh in uh in uh the sin. Not that we share in their sins, not that we are sinning together, but we identify that their sin grieves God's heart. How many of us have, you know, when we hear of believers falling into sin, we grieve uh with them because of how it grieves God. You know, a lot of times, maybe perhaps I'm also guilty of that, we Tend to stand somewhat away from them and think that we are maybe better than them in terms of our conduct, which rightly so in some sense. But the prayer of Ashra is striking because he doesn't stand away from the people. He doesn't say, Oh, you are you are sinners. You know, what you all do, you know, you know, I could have he could have scolded them and gave them a lesson. But he chose to pray, pray on behalf of the people. It's something that it would be good as a church, we can recapture. Uh the when we come for corporate prayer, there may be times where we need to lament and pray for the corporate sins of the people, our congregation, even the whole culture of Singapore, in terms of uh the good parts, of course, we know uh the progressive parts, but also sometimes the challenging parts of burnout, stress, that even the government acknowledges uh in our fast-paced society. Right? So Ashrah's solidarity with his people can be seen in how in two big chunks, in Ashra 9 verse 6 to 7, and Ashrah 9 verse 10 to 15. That forms almost the biggest chunk of uh the narrative. So he came he comes before God in Ashra 9, 6 to 7. He says, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blush. I am ashamed and blush to leave my face to you, my God. So he begins with a uh a personal uh uh pronoun in the sense, I am ashamed to and blush my face to live to you, my God. And he continues the rest of the prayer, you know, using the corporate identification. He doesn't say, For my iniquities have risen higher than my heads. He said, he then begins, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day, we have been in great guilt, and for our iniquities, we our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the land, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today, identifying with the sin of the people. Reading from verse 10 to 14, and now, O our God, what shall we say? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, The land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure, with the impurity of the peoples of the land, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace and prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and live it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all this has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant like this. Shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the people who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consume us, so that there should be no remnant nor any escape? Verse 15 ends with uh in an open-ended way, O Lord, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this. So we have to wait till next week to see the resolution of this, but in the next sermon. But I thought it's good that we can draw uh just one implication from the passage today, and it's this as God's uh sanctum or holy seed, we are called to be separated to God and for Him, to be wholly dedicated to God and not serve other gods and follow their practices, which will draw us away from being wholly dedicated and separated to and for God. I'm reminded of a familiar chorus that we used to sing, and I think many of us may recognize it. It says, Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, trite and true, with thanksgiving, I'll be a living sanctuary for you. And that song really sums up the message today. No, God has called us to be a holy sanctum, to be a holy seed, to be a His sanctuary, where He will live and walk among us. So if that is so, then how should we live? I mentioned earlier a lot of things in the Christian life, some are explicit, some perhaps are things that we have worked through, that we have to work through and try to understand. Right? Since I mentioned earlier about tattoos, right, we're not going to do that, but again, in terms of just some words on this, uh, it really depends how you interpret the Old Testament. Tattoos in the Old Testament serve a particular purpose, identifies with uh a certain gods and the worship of uh uh a certain uh gods or deities, right? But whether this again applies in the New Testament, especially when it comes to Christian tattoos, right, I I won't give us the answer, but I'm saying that this is an issue which there's no direct, explicit claim that you know that it should not be done that way. Similar to drinking, right, uh, or any kind of excessive habits, you know, when a pattern of doing so may reveal a trajectory of our lives, you know, because God has called us to be a holy people. Some drinking and drinking is not a sin, right? But excessiveness, we know Paul says uh everything is beneficial. And uh I believe drinking too, leisure drinking for a certain period of time, uh I think is something that is the Bible doesn't go against drinking per se. But when it becomes obsessive, when it consumes us, takes us, draws us away from God, not only drinking anything else can become uh a sin in our lives. Right, and of course, since I mentioned gambling, right, so that is again uh quite clear that it's quite a vice, right? Uh quite a stronghold, especially among a certain profile of people in Singapore, you know, and then the question will be what is our motive? Why do we want to buy Toto or Lottery? A lot of times if you trace it down, it's usually linked to uh greed, right? We want more or we want to have it easy, you know, you strike total, you know, don't have to work. So what is the motivation? If the bottom line of the motivation is greed, you know, then perhaps it's not God honoring. So a lot of things we have to work through. Um and I thought just to draw in terms of some applications for us, in what ways have we fallen short of God's standard of holiness? What are some temptations or attractions that draw us away from being wholly, dedicated, and separated to and from God? I would like to say the first thing that often draw us away from God is unaligned pursuits and ambitions, right? A trajectory of our life, a pattern of our life that doesn't uh kind of move towards God, you know, uh where we pursue our ambition uh as if it is decoupled from being holy and separated to God, then we will easily fall away from sin. So these are our modern-day, perhaps I would think, idols or gods, right? And in Singapore context, a lot of times it could be our pursuits and our ambitions that is not surrendered to God, you know, because we are very driven, uh culture and context. We are always driven for something or for someone, whether for our family or for ourselves, but we are just driven. Sometimes we don't know why we are so driven to achieve, to do more, to be in uh good books of others. So we when these pursuits and ambitions they are not aligned to God's plumb line of truth or to us being a holy people, then a lot of times we go the other opposite side, right? So it could be even as insidious or even more insidious than uh perhaps other sins that are more uh noticeable, right? More visual and public, just that no one talks about it, right? So unaligned pursuits and ambitions sometimes or oftentimes will pull us away from being holy before God. That's why we lose the passion for God. You know, and one of the things uh that we learn or we went through in the camp is about how often, what is our rhythm of our lives, what is our trajectory of our lives, what is the story that we receive? You know, and the the best way to learn about a person's um kind of walk before God, holiness, is actually his or her daily living. What do you spend your time on? In terms of your daily life, in terms of entertainment, is there a time set aside to pursue God and what is on God's heart? Right? So unaligned pursuits and ambitions oftentimes drown us such that uh the devil pulls us away such that we do not think of ourselves as holy, right? Because we are too much into the world and too much focused on pursuing our interests, our ambitions. Secondly, deciding to be yoked in marriage to someone who does not share a similar faith in God. You know, I have to share this because uh in the context of Ashra, uh that was in some ways related because uh today, if we choose to get together and to be yoked in marriage to someone who does not share a similar faith, you know, very likelihood uh we, if we are not strong in our faith, we will probably backslide or we will be probably fall away from God. And if our faith is not strong, then uh we'll be lose the sense of holiness because uh we have put someone more important than um God Himself. Right? So, of course, we won't go into this uh topic again about how whether we should uh marry uh Christians and non-Christians should we get together. But the Bible is quite clear on this that uh we should be yoked to someone who profess a similar faith so that uh we can journey and walk together so that the person will not be uh unequal in terms of our relationship with one another and with God. Right, even though God does not despise uh unbelievers and he welcomes them, but marriage is a different thing, right? Thirdly, conflicts within us, such as habitual sins or anxieties and fears that weighs us down. So these are also some other areas that uh prevent us from walking the life of holiness, habitual sins uh that plague us. You know, whether it's uh pornography, uh masturbation, sexual sins, sexual temptations, desires, those are one area. Gambling could be another issue, addictions to a certain pattern of life, compulsive um compulsiveness in our personality, our character, laziness, sloth, gluttony, or just a pursuit of enjoyment and self-pleasure at all costs. Those are when it takes us away from God, that's our overwhelming kind of focus in our lives. You know, every day is about enjoying ourselves, every day is about uh seeing when we can strike the next total. Every day we have to return to that that site uh and get drawn into the scene of pornography or other sexual scenes. Uh then all these things, uh I mean, I just wanted to be more explicit about this, but all these things, you know, kind of draw us away from the holiness that God desires us to live. Or it could be psychological challenges like anxieties, fears that weigh us down, that clouds our vision of God. So, like Ashrah, who identified with the people's sins effectively, we need to turn to God and confess our sins today. Right? All of us today are still called to be God's sanctum, God's holy people. Right? First Peter translates that idea. It tells us that uh 1 Peter tells us that we are a holy people, we are royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that we may declare his praises who called out, who calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once we are not a people, but now we are a people. Once we did not belong to God, but now we belong to God. And because of that, the God's demand for us is to be holy, for his holy. And I just want to invite us to just uh pause as we allow the Lord to just speak to us uh on this issue of holiness because I think that's uh at the center of all that God is speaking to us this morning.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishun Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.