Confession of sin seasoned with genuine contrition are the ingredients of a fruitful prayer life that produces an aroma pleasing to God. We invite God’s favor and forgiveness upon us, standing in His amazing grace, when we are willing to get on our knees before Him in honest confession. Ezra demonstrates how this is done in his great prayer in Ezra 9.
In one of the most pivotal moments in the history of Israel, the Jews had been led back to their land after being held captive in Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). They should have been well aware of God’s commands that they were not to intermarry with certain people groups (the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites). This was not some sort of ugly racism, but rather God’s desire for His people to be protected from false systems of worship. It is clear in several Old Testament passages that when God’s people entertained the idea of intermarrying, they were doomed to self-destruction due to the allure of the false gods (see Exodus 34:12-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-6; 20:17-18).
In the scene leading up to Ezra’s prayer, the Jewish people and their leaders had succumbed to sinning against God by intermarrying. Even those so-called leaders who were supposed to be setting the example, the priests and the princes and the rulers, failed miserably in this regard (Ezra 9:1-2). When Ezra became aware of the situation, he was laden with embarrassment. As a physical expression of his grief, he tore his garment and robe while pulling some of his hair and beard out (Ezra 9:3).
On behalf of the Jewish nation, Ezra began to confess their sins, but notice his posture: he fell to his knees and his hands were outstretched. This is a posture of submission and reverence. When we gaze at God’s beauty perfection and then honestly evaluate ourselves by comparison, the only proper response is to collapse to our knees. While we are utterly destroyed by the blackness of our hearts, cleansing and healing are abundantly available… but it starts with humility.
Ezra uses two word pictures in his confession of sin to describe the magnitude of it. He says “our iniquities have risen above our heads” and goes even further by lamenting that “our guilt has grown even to the heavens”. Of course, God is well aware of the heinous nature of our sin. He doesn’t need to be informed of this as if it were breaking news to Him. But when we grasp how wicked our sin really is and express it to God, He sees our acknowledgement of it as a humble cry from a helpless soul in need of cleansing.
Ezra knew by experience that God was gracious and full of loving kindness (9:8-9). Even amid all that God had done to punish them for their sins over the generations, he also knew that God’s great grace meant that He withheld a much more severe kind of wrath from them. The Jews deserved much more of God’s wrath than they actually received (9:13-14).
This prayer of confession from Ezra ends with his recognition that the Lord God of Israel is righteous (9:15). Any manner in which God would have decided to handle the children of Israel in their sin, He would have been righteous in doing it. Acknowledgement that God is always righteous in every one of His actions in dealing with us is vitally important because it is an admission of humility. A complete, unrestrained and unambiguous confession of our sin from a position of humility invites forgiveness and cleansing from God. John was keenly aware of this at a later time in Israel’s history when he wrote, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9)”.
Establish my footsteps in Your Word ~ Psalm 119:133 