Let's look at verse seven. Since the days of our fathers have we been in great trespass unto this day, and for our iniquities have we and our kings and our priests been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands. We've been delivered to the sword, meaning war, to captivity, and to a spoil and to confusion of face, as it is this day. That's why we're in the place we are right now. Verse eight, and now.
For a little space, grace has been shown from the Lord, our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in His holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage, for we are bondmen. Yet God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
So Ezra is praying; he's saying, "God, I know that since the days of our fathers." We have continually one after another going into captivity all these hundreds of years and centuries over and over again. You've allowed us to go into captivity because of our great trespasses against us. Because even our kings and our priests, the men of God, the clergy, the ministry. Have committed these trespasses. That's why we've been allowed to be delivered again and again into captivity, and why we've been in this seventy-year stretch.
But now, for a little space, you have shown us grace and allowed just a remnant to escape out of this captivity and bondage, that we can go back to Jerusalem. And rebuild your house, a little space of grace. Oh, that God will give America a little space of grace. I believe that after nine eleven, God gave this nation a space of grace. And for a while, people were God-minded like they hadn't been in a long time, and for the first time in years, churches were filled on Sunday mornings, and people were God-conscious, and people were trying to get close to God, and return to the old landmarks, Amen.
That they had removed, and like I preached last week, get rid of the double standard. Amen, and the bag and the weights that were deceptive. But you know what? It's almost twenty years later, and America is more wicked than she's ever been. Amen.
People have forgotten all about nine eleven. Do you know that sometimes on social media, at nine eleven anniversary, when they post pictures of the two towers with the fire and the smoke, that some social media cover it up, say it's too violent, shouldn't be shown. How deceived can you be? We need to see it. We need to remember.
Amen. Lord, that you would give us a little space of grace, and what did He say? That you would give us a reviving, Lord, that you would revive us again, revive your church. Revive means to bring life back into it where it's dead. He said, "You've given us a space of grace that we could have a nail in your holy place." What does that mean?
A nail in His holy place. It's a figure of speech that means that we could go back and build the house of God. You've given us a space of grace, and you've allowed a remnant to escape because King Cyrus did not dismiss every last Israelite; only a group. And really, people don't realize. I think it was like 500 years before they all went back.
Over a period of time, Ezra led some, and then thirteen years later, Nehemiah led some. Amen. But he was saying, "You've given us a space of grace, and you've allowed a remnant to escape this bondage, that we could go back and build the house of God." And what did he say? He said, "You've had enlightened our eyes. Oh my God, that the church." Would have a revival.
That God would enlighten our eyes, open our eyes. That the eyes of our spiritual understanding would be enlightened. That we would see as God sees, not man sees. Man is not capable of evaluating and assessing himself. I don't care what the politician says.
What does God say about America? I don't care what this one says and that one says. What does God say about the condition of the church? Open our eyes that we may see as God sees, and may I add, let it start with me. Let it start with me, Lord.
Open my eyes. Let me see my own condition. I cannot know my own heart except you shine the light of conviction into it. Except the light of your word shines in every corner and every cranny. Amen.
That God would call a people to tremble at His word, a people that would be ashamed of the sins of America and blush at their sins. And a people that would say, "Lord, give us a space of grace, revive us, and open our eyes." And so, this is the prayer that he said. And he went on to say, and I'll paraphrase now. He said, "And what am I going to say after all this? We have forsaken your commandments.
You told us not to intermingle with the people and not to intermingle with their filthy abominations, but we didn't listen." We didn't listen. We rebelled and we disobeyed, and then he said, "Now all this has come upon us for our trespasses and our iniquities." I just paraphrased ten through fourteen.
Now let's read fifteen. O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we remain yet escaped as it is this day. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses. For we cannot stand before you because of this. I hope you see the picture.
Ezra saying he felt so much of the guilt of the nation; it was so great that it was hard for him to even request that God have mercy. To the point that he could not even lift up his face to heaven, but all he could do was lift up his hands and surrender. As he interceded on behalf of the people, and I want you to notice something very striking throughout his entire prayer of intercession. He said, "Our iniquities, our trespasses. We have forsaken your commandments.
We cannot stand before you because of this." Ezra was a godly man. Ezra was one of the few that was true and faithful to God, who kept His commandments. But in his prayer of intercession, he included himself. He didn't just say, "Oh God, they are so wicked, and they have done this, and they have forsaken that." He said, "We, we, because." In a way, this is a mark of true repentance, humility, and contrition. And because, in a very real sense, the righteous—and I'm bringing up today the church—we're guilty.
Not because we've committed the abominations, but we have not stood against them strongly enough. We haven't stood against them. We we were against them. We don't believe in it. We don't believe in all this stuff.
We don't believe in same sex marriage. But in 2015, it became legalized. We don't believe in abortion. But not only has it been the law of the land since 1973. In recent years, it's been amped up to late-term abortion, and now this one past year, it's amped up up to the time of birth.
And now the next thing that they have already said in some states, if for some reason the baby survives the abortion, you can kill them. You can let them die. Where I have read, where one doctor breaks their neck, so they'll die. No, no, we think it's horrid. We think it's abominable.
It's barbaric. It's atrocious. But we have not stood up strongly enough against it, for it wouldn't have happened. Same-sex marriage would have never been put through in 2015. It would not have gone through except the administration put in very liberal judges.
Put two very liberal judges in, and those two new judges, both of whom were women, and it's the women that are saying it's our right, it's our body. They made the court sway it that way. It was very close. It was five. For for it, and for against, but those two new judges made it go that five four same sex marriage.
Amen. It's because of liberal administration put in there by voters, and you can get quiet, and you cannot like what I say. I am quoting facts. Go Google it. See the names of the judges that voted for same-sex marriage.
Look up their names, and you will find when they were put in office, Amen, and how they voted. And let all that tremble at the word of God say, Amen.
So when he prayed, he prayed in such a way that he said, "We." We have not called out against sins of the people. We have not called out the sins of the ministry. We haven't called out against it.
Now he was a Levite. He had some authority. Did he ever speak up? We don't know. We don't know if he said, "What are you priests doing, marrying these pagan women?" We don't know.
But we know that he included himself. We have saken your commandments. And that's what many in the church have done. They have forsaken the commandments of God for the popularity of people, not wanting offending some of the people in their congregation who look at things differently. We all are entitled to our opinions, but we're not entitled to change the commandments of God.
That's not up for opinion. Amen. We have to stand up against it, and we have not, or it not have progressed to this point. Isaiah fifty-eight one says, "Cry aloud and spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people, not the world, my people their transgressions and their sins." We can't show the people their sins. That don't know the word of God, we've got now really two generations that have grown up without the Bible and without prayer, so they don't really know.
Amen. And they only know what they've been told, and they've been told that God is a mean God who hates people and will judge people. They even jaywalk; He's going to be all over them. Or they've been told He has so much love; He loves you so much. It doesn't matter what you do because He loves you.
And both of those are polar opposites. And the truth of God is balanced. God is love, but He also is a God of justice, and He hates iniquity. He will judge iniquity, Amen. And so we see here that Ezra cried out.
And when he did this, now he's got all these people around him, and these are the people that tremble at the word of God, Amen. They tremble at the word of God, and so now he's finished telling them all this. And what happened? What was the result of his intercession? Look at chapter ten, verse one.
Now, when Ezra had prayed and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself 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. What a picture! A great number of people, not just the men, but the men, the women, and the children.
And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, 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. But 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, according to the law of God, not the law of man.
So what happened after he prayed this?
Some of the men came to him, and now we're talking about those who are in leadership. Came to him and said, "We have trespassed against God. We've taken strange wives. We have married pagan women." And we knew we weren't supposed to do it. We know.
So now let us make a covenant with God, because we believe there is hope because of your intercession, Ezra. Because of the way you just prayed, we believe there is hope that if we repent and confess, that we can make a new covenant with God and divorce our wives. Put away means divorce in King James. And we will divorce our wives and the children that we have had with them. I know you're thinking, and some of you're thinking, well, it's not the children.
But you've got to understand. First of all, it would be very cruel to separate the children from their mothers. Amen. Especially in that time, women were the ones who cared for the children. I mean, the fathers had very little doing with the training of the children on a daily basis.
Amen. And so, to separate the children from their mothers would have been a cruel thing. It was going to be hard enough as it was, but they had to divorce their wives.
Now, I tell you, that was a huge change, a huge change of heart, and that was an extremely hard thing to do. But for those who trembled at the commandments of God, they knew it had to be done. And when did this great change of heart and conviction come upon them? After Ezra prayed his prayer of intercession, Amen. I believe if the church will intercede on Marika's behalf, if the church will intercede for the great transgressions of the church's backsliding.
Not only the evil of America, the unsaved and the unchurched, but the church is backsliding. I believe God can send a spirit of conviction to come upon people until they tremble at the word of God and tremble until they come to a place of repentance. I can tell you this much: it certainly won't happen. If we don't, it certainly will not take place. If we don't intercede, amen.
And so they were ready. They were ready. They confessed. They were convicted. They said, "Now we got to do the right thing.
You can't just repent of your sinning and then go back and still do it." I said, "You can't say I repent and then return to the same lifestyle." And it wasn't a matter.
Well, we will no longer have sex with them anymore, but we'll still live with them. But we won't have sex with them anymore. No, no, no. It wasn't that at all. We got to separate.
We have to divorce. We have to put them away because we don't want them to influence us with their paganism and their idolatry and their sin. Amen. We have to keep a holy seed, and the only way to have a holy seed is to get rid of the contaminators and the contaminated seed. You can't get all emotional, say, but I don't think that's right.
But I don't think that's fair. I don't like that. It doesn't matter if you think it's fair. You're not God, and God is looking at the big picture. He's looking at having a holy seed, and he's looking at keeping that seed holy.
Enough until the day that he sends his Messiah, Amen. I'll paraphrase now for sake of time. A proclamation was sent out to all the towns and all the cities and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and they were told, "You have three days to come and gather here in Jerusalem. We are going to have a meeting." And so they came. The people came.
But the particular day that they finally all gathered and got there, it was a terrible rainy day. It was raining, as they say, cats and dogs. And yet the people sat out in the street before the house of God. They sat there in the rain and listened to Ezra talk to them and tell them, "You have transgressed, taking these strange wives, and you've increased the trespass of Israel." Before our God, and He called upon them. He said, "You have brought judgment upon us for your sin.
Now confess your sin to God, and then separate yourselves." He said two things: from the people of the land, and from your wives, your strange wives. Another word: stop your assimilation. Stop all of your socializing and fraternizing with the people of the land. You're in the land, but you're not of the land. You're in the land, but you're not of the people of the land.
Like Jesus said, you're in the world, but you're not of the world.
So that was number one. Stop all your fraternizing with the wicked people of the land. For their abominations are filthy. Number two, I know this is going to be harder than number one, but you must divorce your wives, put them away, and their children. And you know what?
All the congregation, with a one loud voice, said, "As you have said, we must do." But it was so many people. Oh my goodness! It was so many men that it committed this sin. It was so many of them, and it was such terrible downpour of rain that they said there is no way we can accomplish this here today. They decided everyone would go back to their own town, their own city.
They would get an appointment with the elders and the judges of their cities and towns. They would come before them, and they would divorce their wives and put them away with their children. And this altogether took three months for this to be carried out. Three months. And do you know that a great number of these men.
Were priests. Were priests. We wouldn't read them, but if you just glance in your Bible from verse eighteen in chapter ten, from verse eighteen all the way to verse forty-three, look at all those names. See all those names. Tons of names.
They're all priests, Levites, and singers, platform workers. There were so many of them amongst the people, and the last verse says, "All these had taken strange wives, and some of them had wives by whom they had children." I will say this: I like the fact when I read "some," because it indicates to me that there weren't a lot of children involved.
Some it didn't say, and many had children. Said, and some had children by these wives.
So it indicates to me that it wasn't a great number of children. Why there wasn't a great number of children, I don't know. Maybe God cursed them with barrenness, so they would have a lot of children. Because you know that was one thing that would happen to the wicked and the ungodly. Amen.
So today we have called for a day of fasting and prayer for the church at large. Churches around the country are doing this, and we're going to join with them. That we will intercede for the sins and transgressions of America, and for the sins of the church.
So when we intercede, we can't just say, "Oh God, America is so wicked. They are this and they are that." I was going to go to Daniel, but I would be too long-winded, so I won't. But if you read Daniel's prayer of intercession, it's the same thing. We have sinned; we have committed these sins in your sight. He says it like six or seven times in his intercessory prayer.
Amen. Because we're all guilty. Because even if you haven't committed some of these sins, truth be told, have you stood up against them strongly, or if you thought, "Well, I'm not getting into that," or if you thought, "Well, I can't help it; I can't do nothing about it; it is what it is," God doesn't look it that way. Amen. So, as we prayed today, we need to include ourselves.
And folks, please understand this: this is not about. Partisan politics. This has nothing to do with red states or blue states. This has to do with the sins of America, the abominations of the land, and the sins of the church. Amen.
It's about that. It's about the abomination of abortion. It's about the abomination of homosexuality that's in the church too. Abortion's in the church too. Oh yes, it is.
I know people in the church who've had abortions. These are the things we need to pray for. We need to repent of this. We need to intercede and ask God to give America a space of grace, give the church a space of grace, give us revival in the church. And I don't just mean that we can shout and get happy and feel good and get edified.
I mean That the eyes of our spiritual understanding would be enlightened to be able to see the picture that God sees. Amen. I'm going to close with this scripture, First Peter four seventeen and eighteen. For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it begins at us. What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? God says, "Judgment begins at His house." How many people will you hear preaching that in pulpits? He said, "The time has come. It must begin at the house of God." God will judge America for her wickedness. He is judging America, and we will see judgments increase as the wickedness increases.
But He said it must begin at the house of God, and there are people in the church that are committing adultery and fornication and homosexuality. There are people in ministry. That are in these things. There are people in the church and in ministry that are on alcohol and drugs. This is an awful thing to say, but there are pedophiles in the church, and in the course of this church, we have had one or two.
And pedophilia now is is one of the greatest sins on the increase with all this sex trafficking, snatching children. I've seen videos: parents walking down the street with their child, and someone try to snatch them out of the parents' hands. You're in Walmart with your child or grandchild. You must keep your eyes on your children. Don't be looking around here, looking at.
Well, I got to see what color I want to get, and you think, but I've got them right here in the cart, sitting here. It doesn't matter. They watch you. They watch you. They see how attentive you are or aren't.
And when you turn away for that second, they swoop in like an eagle, swoops down and gets its prey, and off with your child. I'm telling you, God is going to judge the church for her sins, and for not standing up strongly enough against all these abominations. This is how we must pray, Amen. Let's stand if we would together. Let's pray, Father.
We thank you for your word, because your word is forever settled in heaven. Your word is not a matter of man's opinion, but your word is your law, which you have spoken. And if we obey Your word, then it opens up the vista of blessings, and You take us into that promised land that flows with milk and honey, in the spirit. For we know, Lord, that we live in a fallen world, and we live even in a nation that was. Founded to be a Christian nation on Christian and Judeo principles, but America has strayed far, far, far from these, and these are now mocked and ridiculed and held against people that seek office, and people that seek high office, and people that would be nominated to the Supreme Court.
It's held against them if they're a Christian. And yet, we hear that there are those that, if they have leadership, they will place in other religions, like Muslims, in every place, in every part of administration. They'll put them in, and yet Christians are sanctioned for believing in Christianity. What a day we have come to! We have strayed far.
Far from the foundation. That you have given us in this nation of America, but if you will give us a space of grace in your mercies, in your long suffering, in your loving kindnesses, if you will give us a space of grace, if you will revive your church, if you will revive us to stand once again on your word and speak it and cry aloud and spare not and show this nation her. And shown the people of God her sins, and not standing up strongly. Against these abominations, then, Lord God, we do repent, and we pray, Lord, that that would come to pass. We put all these things in Your hands, Father God.
You have the power to raise up. You have the power to put down. You have the power, Lord, to change hearts. You can change the hearts of people. You can change the hearts of those that have been blinded and deceived because no one has told them.
The truth, for if our gospel be hidden, is hidden them that are lost, in whom the god of this world, Satan, has blinded their eyes and their minds, lest the glorious light of the gospel should shine unto them. Father, we pray, Lord, that you will revive us. You will stir our hearts, put a spirit of holy conviction upon us, holy contrition upon us, and holy intercession upon us. Father, we pray that you will do the same. You will do the same, Lord, as the church intercedes, as churches across America today join in unity, as we come together with one purpose.
And that's to be the church, to be the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to lift up the blood stained banner, to preach the gospel, the pure, unadulterated gospel that saved us, to earnestly contend for the faith. That was once delivered unto the saints. This is our prayer today. We pray that much good fruit will come out of it. We pray for your anointing to be upon us, and even as you lead us in personal intercession for our own families, for our unsaved spouses and children and grandchildren and family members, Lord, that you would put travail upon us, that we would travail as a woman in labor.
That we would not have a spiritual abortion, but that we would travail all the way through all the birth pangs, and as the pangs get closer together and harder and harder, that we would not abort, but we would travail until the birth. We ask it in Jesus' name, Lord. Touch those that are watching us. Stir their hearts. Let the word of God go forth.
Let the Holy Spirit deal with them, and Lord, witness with them. This is the word of the Lord. Lead them in your scriptures. Lead them in your word to verify, confirm that in the mouths of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established. We thank you for every real man and woman of God in ministry.
We thank you for every real prophet and prophetess. We thank you for every real apostle, evangelist, and pastor and teacher. We thank you for every real Sunday school teacher, every real one that serves in the ministry of the body of Christ that are preaching the truth. We thank you for them, Lord. Put a shield around them.
Put a wall of Fire around them, protect them from the attack of the enemy, and give them a greater anointing. We ask it all in Jesus' name.
