God’s Word for You
Ezra 9:13-15 Ask for his help
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, July 30, 2025
13 “What has happened to us is because of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this. 14 Should we break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Wouldn’t you be angry with us enough to utterly destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor? 15 O LORD, God of Israel, it is because you are righteous that we are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though not one of us can stand in your presence because of it.”
Ezra prays, “You have punished us less than our sins have deserved.” This is from a man who was part of the very last group to return from captivity in Babylon—a captivity that endured so long that “Babylon” had become “Persia” while they were there. He had walked, on foot, more than three months to return to this place, with all of the joyful images in his head of the idyllic return to the Holy Land (Psalm 78:54), the Promised Land (Hebrews 11:9), the land flowing with milk and honey (Joshua 5:6). But then he found the people disregarding the Lord’s commands and laws, and he was amazed that God had not punished them still more. At least, not yet.
These sins teach us about crosses that we still bear today. What should be done about specific cases of marriages that displease the Lord? Someone might ask, “How could we know what marriage is pleasing to God, and what isn’t?” The Scriptures do not hide these things from us. Leviticus 18 is filled with unacceptable marriage partners. Many of these are simply close relatives, but they were clearly forbidden, and this continued to be a problem that had to be addressed by Paul in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:1). Other examples of forbidden marriages were plural marriages of any kind (Genesis 2:24), even if the two women were sisters (Leviticus 18:18), or a mother and daughter (18:17). And it is forbidden for men to have sex together (18:22; 1 Corinthians 6:9) or women (Romans 1:26). And humans may not marry or have sex with animals (Leviticus 18:23). And besides these things, it is also forbidden for a couple, once divorced, to remarry if one of them has remarried and become divorced again (Deuteronomy 24:3-4). But what about those who desire these relationships? What should they do? These, like intermarrying with someone who may destroy your faith, are forbidden by the Lord. So someone who craves such a marriage, such a relationship, has a hard cross to carry.
To deny the self and follow the Savior is a high responsibility. To let our family know this is also a high and tremendous responsibility. We can help one another understand that those cravings that do not fall in line with God’s will are sinful; that everyone is tempted and even tormented by cravings and desires that are sinful. Our loved ones who struggle are not alone. They are not strange, or weird. They are human, and therefore sinful just like everyone else. And the best thing we can say is often, “I’m sinful, too.” Be there for them. Set a Christian example for them. “Let the son see his father pray and his mother quietly reading her Bible. Let the daughter see her father gently hold his wife’s hand and let her see her mother yield to her husband’s headship. Let our children hear their parents discuss the Sunday sermon at the Sunday dinner table, discuss it with reverence and respect. Let them share some of the problems their parents have. Then let them hear how their parents rely on the mercy of God to get them through their problems. Let them hear sometimes their parents’ confessions to one another and the forgiveness they share with each other and then with their children too.”
Left with nothing but guilt before God, we cannot stand; we cannot justify ourselves, or argue a case for ourselves, or wriggle out of God’s condemnation. But Christ has come. He was tempted; he overcame. He suffered for our sins and was killed—but he overcame death and the grave as well. He who stilled the wind and waves and who raised the dead is with you always. Ask for his help. Ask for his forgiveness. “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped” (Psalm 28:7).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.