Does sin bother you? I mean truly bother you? When you recognize sin in yourself or in the church, does it grieve you? Are you noticeably moved and heartbroken? Or have we grown accustomed to it? Has it become just another aspect of our day or existence? Have we accepted it?
Sin bothered Ezra, as it should us as well. When he learned of how the returning Israelites had so quickly returned to their erring ways, it ripped his heart out! He prayed, “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” (9:6).
The sin of God’s people caused Ezra feel shame, to blush in the presence of God. It moved him to pray! In his prayer, he did not excuse the sin, he exposed it for what it was. The people were committing iniquities. The people were once again piling up sins to heaven, which is what got them exiled to begin with!
But sin did not only move Ezra in shame and in prayer, it moved him to call for repentance! He wept before the people and called them to radical action! They were to get right with God and renew their covenant commitment to him. (Don’t get caught up in the divorce issue that this text raises. Go to the NT to find your footing on that issue!) The issue here is that sin bothered Ezra enough that he called for change!
Does sin bother us like this? Does it cause us to weep, to pray, to blush before God? Does it grieve us so that we DO something about it, namely, change in accordance with God’s will? Believers are bothered by sin!
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