I just want to echo again what Elder Kian Ming said in the beginning that it is indeed good to be able to gather as one body to worship God. I’m sure a lot of us here would have missed even the congregational singing a while ago. So we do pray that the ruling in the coming weeks would be in our favour so that we can continue to gather to sing, to worship. And it is also a great joy I would say and I stand here to not just speak to the video camera but to speak to flesh and blood. Okay so with that before we begin, let us turn to God in prayer.

“Our Father in heaven, we thank You again for Your Word. We thank you for preserving Your truth for us. All we ask this time is that You will come once again and speak to us. Speak O Lord, for your servant heareth. We commit this time before you, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.” 

Now if I were to ask you to think of someone who is a prayer warrior, not sure who comes to your mind. I’m not talking about the charismatic prayer warriors who kind of pray for your healing here and there. But someone whose life is marked by constant communion with God in prayer. Someone whose life is marked by a life of prayer. You may think down the corridors of history, maybe somebody may come to your mind. You can remember for example the great man, George Muller. He’s a familiar character in the story of the church.

George Muller, this great man who literally prayed out his everyday provision and not just for himself and his family but also for his orphanages. So you think of a man of prayer, you say oh George Mueller is a great man of prayer. Or you can also think of the great missionary Hudson Taylor alright. Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China who engaged his mission by once saying that “I turned the hearts of men to God through prayer”. So that was what filled his passion in mission- prayer. Or the great reformer Martin Luther who said: “I have so much to do each day that if I did not spend three hours in prayer, I cannot get through the day”.

How many of us can say that I’m so busy that I need to pray three to four hours each day in order to get through the day? A great man of prayer. Or perhaps the prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon as you know the model of preaching so many of us look up to. Charles Spurgeon would say that “I would teach one man to pray than ten men to preach”. So that was what Spurgeon said. Another man of prayer. Now you see in God’s providence He has given us many, many figures down through history, great men and great women of prayer. And I would in fact venture to say that these are great men and great women because of prayer.

And so you can think of many, many other examples. And likewise, as we look at the Bible, we can also identify many prayer warriors and there is no lack of figures of prayer in the Bible. You also remember for example Daniel which is the classic illustration of a great man of prayer, who defied the command from the king to pray to the king or to bow and worship the king. But rather what he did was when he heard of the command, he went back home, opened up his windows with his face towards Jerusalem. He fell down on his knees, prayed three times a day, which was his custom. And so we say Daniel here is a man of prayer. 

How about the Apostle Paul in the New Testament who wrote in his many letters to the many churches to pray always? I pray day and night, I pray for you, I pray without ceasing. Again a man of great prayer. But of course, the supreme example in the Bible recorded for us is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that He modelled for us a life of prayer. But not just that. He also gave us a model to teach us how to pray in the Lord’s prayer. Now, so you think about people like this, like Daniel and like Job, Hannah, Paul, Jesus. And we say yes here are biblical characters, biblical men and women of prayer.

But I wonder how many people when thinking of these so-called “prayer warriors” in the Bible would say, Ezra? Ezra. Here is a great man of prayer. And you say Ezra, really? How is it that he is a great man of prayer? I say to you yes, Ezra is a great man of prayer. Now you see, recall that Ezra steps onto the scene in the seventh chapter of this book in the book of Ezra. So we only got to know something about this man in Ezra chapter 7. And you know that Ezra has got ten chapters. And so effectively we have four chapters to see something about this man, Ezra.

And did you know that out of these four chapters, three of those chapters is a reference to Ezra praying? Three of the four chapters is a reference to Ezra praying. You look with me at Ezra 8:21. Here is Ezra’s words. Now he said in verse 21 of Ezra chapter 8: “Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions.”. 

Now verse 23: “So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer.”. It’s Ezra leading the people before they returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in prayer. Ezra chapter 9, the passage that was just read. The entirety of that passage is Ezra’s prayer. Chapter 10 and verse 1: “Now while Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large congregation of men, women, and children assembled to him from Israel; for the people wept very bitterly.”. Again a reference to Ezra praying. 

So make no mistake that the highlight of this man’s life is his prayer life. That is the highlight of Ezra’s life. Now let me ask you this morning: Is prayer the highlight of your life? It doesn’t matter whether you are in your 20s or in your 30s. Some of us are now in our 40s or your 50s, your 60s, your 70s. Is prayer the highlight of your life today? If somebody were to write a biography of you up to this point in your life, how many chapters can be devoted to prayer or can be referenced to you praying? Three out of four chapters like Ezra? 

Or perhaps the real question for some of us is: If a biography of our lives would be written, can a paragraph or a sentence be devoted to prayer? But for this man Ezra, we see very clearly that prayer is certainly a highlight of his life. And so as we come to consider our text this morning, we really come to consider Ezra’s prayer. And in this, I want us to just see two things contained in Ezra’s prayer this morning. Just two things translated into two points that we see in Ezra’s prayer.

Number one: A realisation of sin. A realisation of sin. That’s the first point. Again as was just read to you a while ago from verse 6 to verse 15 of chapter 9 is a record of Ezra’s prayer. Here’s a record of Ezra’s prayer. And if you were to categorise this prayer of Ezra, we can say that this is a prayer of confession. It is a prayer of confession. Now I recall when I was back in Sunday school days, I was taught the ACTS model of prayer, of course drawing from the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles. A C T S.  So when you pray, there’s such a thing as a prayer of adoration, prayer of confession, prayer of thanksgiving, and the prayer of supplication, which is making requests to God.

And so using that model which has been helpful to me, we can see that here is a prayer of confession. Ezra is praying a prayer of confession. Now so you see, true confessional prayer must have in it a true realisation of sin. True confessional prayer must have in it a true realisation of sin. In other words, you will never pray a true prayer of confession before you have a true realisation of what sin is. And that’s what we see as Ezra approaches God and he intercedes on behalf of the people to God. We see this prayer of confession. He realises what sin is.

And I want to point out that he realises two things about what sin is. He realises two things about sin. Firstly, Ezra realises the magnitude of sin. The magnitude of sin. Now verse 5: “At the evening sacrifice I arose from my fasting; and having torn my garment and my robe, I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God. And I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.”. 

I say Ezra realises first and foremost the magnitude of sin- magnitude of sins that the people of Israel have committed. And it is this. And that they have sinned against the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the God of Israel, the God of the heavens and the earth. I want you to look at the ending part of verse 6 where Ezra is saying: “for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens”.

Now you may see this as meaning that their sins are so much that as you accumulate them, you can pile them up and that they will reach to the heavens. Now that is one way of looking at that. And commentators would agree with that way of looking at that. But there’s also another way that I would like us to see which is looking at this from another angle. Not just looking at the quantity of their sins but the direction of their sin. You see, “our iniquities have risen higher than our heads”. So there is an upward focus when Ezra comes to talk about iniquities. “And our guilt has grown up to the heavens”.

So what Ezra is trying to draw our attention to here is the focus that there is a heavenward or an upward focus when he addresses this problem of sin. And again who dwells in the heavens? But God. And so you see that every sin committed upon this earth is first and foremost a sin committed against God. Every sin committed upon this earth is first and foremost a sin committed against God. Now think for a while what that really means. Let’s ponder that thought for a while.

Now imagine you are in school with a bunch of school friends. If you’ve forgotten what those days are, imagine recall those days when you are in school and with a bunch of friends. And you as school children do start gossiping about your another friend or you start slandering a friend or you have wronged this friend. And when the teacher finds out what happens, you may be asked to apologize, to say I’m sorry. Or perhaps you may be asked to stay back for detention (if that is still something that we do). But you have sinned against this friend and you have sinned against your peer in school.

Now extrapolate that to the king or the Agong. If you gossip or if you slander with your mouth the king or the Agong, what is the consequence? You see if found out you can be put to jail or you can be fined a large sum of money. In 2014, just seven years ago, there was a man in this country who was sentenced to twenty-two days in prison. Twenty-two days in prison for insulting the royal family of Johor and the Sultan of Selangor. But you see it’s the same sin right? The schoolboy who slanders his friend and this man who insults the king. Same sin. Gossip, slander. But why is there a difference in penalty or punishment?

But the answer is obviously. It is because of who this sin is committed against. One is against your peer; another one is against the king. There is a difference in magnitude. But now consider slandering the King of kings, the God of gods, the God Most High, the One from Whom we live and we breathe and we have our being, now one again Who holds your life in His hand. Consider slandering the God who gave us everything. Now if a person gets twenty-two days in jail for insulting the royal family once, how many days in jail should we get for taking the name of the mortal God in vain?

And not just once right? We do it every other day. Sometimes unconsciously, sometimes just the way of our speech. And the Bible tells us that we are not just slanderers, are we? We are also adulterers. We are thieves, we are covetous, we are liars, and the list goes on and on. And so therefore can you see the magnitude of sin- magnitude of your sin? And that is why when David prayed in Psalm 52 (Mistakenly mentioned “Psalm 52”, supposedly “Psalm 51”), his great psalm of confession, he says: “Against you and you only have I sin”, says David.

But does it mean that he didn’t sin against Bathsheba or Uriah or his fellow nation? Now that’s not the case. Or does it mean that fellow human beings are not impacted when we sin? That is not the intention. But what David is trying to say here is the impact or he realises that the magnitude of sin is such that it is not just wrong done to fellow human beings but first and foremost sin is an offense against an utterly holy God, an utterly sinless God. Now likewise Joseph when he was tempted by Potiphar’s wife in Genesis, he said how can I do this thing? How can I do this great wickedness and sin against Potiphar or sin against the nation of Israel?

But he didn’t say that. He said how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? There is a realisation that sin is first and foremost committed against God. And likewise in Ezra 9:10, Ezra has that same sense. He says: “And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments”. We have forsaken Your commandments. Now R.C. Sproul calls this or calls sin rather a “cosmic treason”. So when you sin, you are rebelling against the cosmic divine. The One who created the cosmos. Cosmic treason. See, only when God opens your eyes to see the magnitude of sin, would you able to come truly confess your sin the way Ezra did?

And we see that Ezra also records for us his posture, his method in realising his sin as to how he prays to God. You see in verse 5 and verse 6 that there is a sense that he is humiliated, that he fell on his knees. He spread out his hands to the LORD. He was ashamed, embarrassed. He is calling out his guilt, the impact of the sins of the people. Again as we look at some of these words that are used, how often when we pray to God to forgive us of our sins, we always do so in a casual manner?

We just pray as if it is part of something that we have to include in our prayer. We check the box “forgive us of our sins”, and then we move on. But that’s not what we see here in this man. We see his posture. We see that he’s torn, that he is broken. He is ashamed. He’s embarrassed. And so as we look at this section here, the next time we confess our sins let us remember the magnitude of sin because every sin that is committed is first and foremost a sin that is committed against God. The magnitude of sin. So that’s the first thing Ezra realizes about sin. 

Now secondly he also realises the length of sin. So he doesn’t just confess the magnitude of the sins of the people but he also realises the length of sin. Now, what do I mean by the length of sin? I’m not so much here referring to the length if you were to use a measuring tape or a ruler to kind of measure the sin but rather the duration. Now the duration of their sin. If you were looking at the direction of sin a while ago, now we’re looking at the duration of sin. Now here is a realisation on the part of Ezra that these people (the people of Israel) have never stopped sinning. They have never stopped sinning.

Do you know how long have you been sinning? Do you know that you have never stopped sinning? Why have you never stopped sinning? Why have you and I never stop sinning? Now the Bible tells us because it is the fact that we sinned in Adam, that we were conceived in sin. And so here’s Ezra’s realisation that there is a duration that is attributed to the sin of these people. And look at verse 7.

Verse 7, he says: “Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation, as it is this day.”. Since the days of our fathers to this day. Don’t be confused that he’s not saying that the sin of the forefathers dating back to Abraham is now on their shoulders. He’s not saying that they are now supposing to bear the guilt and the punishment of the sins of their forefathers. That’s not what Ezra is saying (although in the sense there is such a way that the impact of your forefathers’ sin has an impact in future generations).

But what Ezra is saying here is not recounting and putting upon these people the sin of their forefathers. But rather, he is looking at them as a nation recounting how long these people as a nation have sinned and how long they have been guilty. And for us as we look at this, we realise that is how sin grows, isn’t it? Sin grows when you nurture; when you cherish, when you give it time; when you entertain the thought, when you give in to lust.

And that is what the Apostle James tells us in the first chapter of James that that is really how sin becomes full-grown when you let a desire conceive and then you entertain the thought. And then you let it grow, it grows into a small sin, it grows into a little bigger sin, and a bigger sin and a bigger sin. And when it is full-grown- when it is full-grown, it kills. It brings forth death. That is the duration of sin. That is really the trap of sin.

In fact with sin, with time, sin makes us in such a way that our heart becomes hardened like the conscience is seared and sin is just normal, and stealing is no big deal. Lying or gossiping is just a way of talking. Immorality becomes a choice. Fornication is a way of keeping up with the culture. I’m sure most of us have heard of some of the ways that the world defines sin. I say such is the deception of sin that grows with time and with duration. And as we see here, perhaps sin has become a norm for these people.

But the question is: Has sin become a norm for you? Is sin normal now in your life, whether it’s general sin or a particular sin? And maybe there are some things that you have been doing for a long time that you should no longer be doing. Maybe there are certain programs that you have been watching for a long time now that you should no longer be watching. Maybe there are certain places you should stop going to. Or perhaps it’s simply the fact that you have been turning a deaf ear to the gospel preached week in and week out to you again and again, that maybe it’s time to come and realise the length of your sin. Come in confession, in brokenness towards God. 

And what we see next is Ezra then becomes specific in his prayer with regards to his prayer of confession, which I think is also very important for us to note. The next section is really what Ezra does is he is explicitly confessing the exact sins of the people. He doesn’t just say: Oh God, we are sinners. Forgive us of our sins, and then he moves on. Again as I said in prayer, we sometimes tend to do that and we just forgive us of our sins and then we move on to the next thing. But here I think it’s an example of praying specifically. And so we ask God to forgive us of our sins, and God will say: Okay, what sins?

There’s a place I guess, I believe that we should be specific and pray to God saying that you know I’ve been unkind to this brother this morning or I have harboured hatred for this sister, or I have again fallen into the trap of pornography. Forgive me. Or I’ve once again given in to cheating. So there is a place for us to do that. And we see this in this section here in verse 10. Ezra says: “And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments”. What is that commandment?

Verse 11: “which You commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land, with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another with their impurity. Now therefore, do not give your daughters as wives for their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons; and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.’”. 

Here as I said, Ezra is confessing a particular sin. Ezra is recalling what God has commanded. He’s quoting back the commandment to God in prayer. Now this is quoted in Deuteronomy chapter 7 and we have discussed this in length before in the previous session, and that is God has commanded them to not intermarry with the pagans. This is a specific command that was given by God when they were still in the wilderness. Why are we not supposed to intermarry with the pagans? Now Ezra is recalling that God has mentioned that this will lead you into idolatry. They will turn you from serving Me to serving the gods of the land. And so don’t do that. Don’t intermarry with the pagans. 

And what did the people do after so many years have passed? The Jews are back in Jerusalem after wandering through the wilderness, entering the Promised Land, setting up the nation of Israel, taken to captivity, coming back to Jerusalem, rebuilding the second temple. Verse 14, Ezra is saying: “should we again break Your commandments?”. So this is not the first time that these people are sinning. It is not the second time, it’s not the third time, not the tenth time. But it is how long? How long already? But again should we again break Your commandment? In other words, Ezra is almost as if looking at these people, he’s saying: How long? How long Israelites should you continue to break God’s commandment? How long? Now Ezra here is confessing this particular sin of the people.

And that leads us to our second point this morning. Our second point. Now see as you read the prayer of Ezra, yes there is a recognition of the magnitude of sin. Now there is a recognition of the length of sin. But the second point is this: There is a recognition of mercy. Ezra doesn’t just realise what sin is, but he recognizes mercy. As we were reading through this passage just now, I’m not sure if you’re able to follow but it is impossible to read his prayer without seeing again and again how Ezra is recalling God’s mercy, God’s kindness, God’s grace to His people regardless of what the Jews have done. Now here’s Ezra’s prayer, is that again and again, God has not withheld mercy from them. God has been kind to them. 

Look at verse 8. Of course, Ezra is confessing his sins or the sins of the nation of Israel prior to that, and verse 8 he says: “And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage.”. Verse 9: “Yet for we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.”. 

Now verse 13: “And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, since You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such deliverance as this”. Or verse 15: “O Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we are left as a remnant”. How is it that You are righteous but we are still here “as it is this day”? 

See as you read this entire section of Ezra’s prayer, there is such a blending. It’s such a blending of what Ezra recognises is the righteous response or the just response of God to punish the Israelites for what they have done. But yet the ever restraining, the ever merciful hand of God that when He is dealing with His people, that he can’t help but keep referring again and again to this character of God in this particular section. Now I say this then must be the cry of every person. This must be the cry of every person to first recognise how sinful you are. 

So let me ask: Have you come to recognise your sinfulness? Have you come to recognise that this must be your prayer that you’re coming before an utterly holy God, coming before a righteous God who cannot tolerate sin as what we read in Ezra 9:14 (the second part of verse 14) that says that: “Would You not be angry with us until You had consumed us (or destroy us), so that there would be no remnant or survivor?”. Now God has the right to destroy every one of us this very second. He has the right to destroy us the way He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of our sin and because of our rebellion because He cannot stand the slightest amount of sin. 

We see that in many, many passages in the Bible. The psalmist says in Psalm 7 that God is angry with the wicked every day. And the prophet Habakkuk in Habakkuk chapter 1 says that Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil and You cannot tolerate wrong. And of course, we read in the New Testament in Hebrews which says that every transgression and every disobedient will one day receive a just recompense. And so the just God is perfectly just in executing judgment this very moment upon you and me. 

But thank God. But we can thank God that He is not just the just God but He is also the justifier of sinners. He’s not just the just God but He is also the God who can justify sinners and that is what Paul tells us in Romans chapter 3 that we have a God that is righteous, but we also have a God who can declare you righteous. And then you ask: How is that possible? How is it possible that a just God can let a criminal go free? How is it possible that a righteous judge can allow a convicted murderer to walk out of the stand? 

Now the answer lies in the cross. Now the answer lies in the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ, that is where justice meets mercy. And so the hymn writer can say that: “At the cross of Jesus, pardon is complete, love and justice mingle, truth and mercy meet. Though my sins condemn me, Jesus died instead, there is full forgiveness in the blood He shed.”.

And that really is the gospel even as Ezra draws near and he prays to God. He, again and again, recounts the kindness, the mercy, the goodness of God in the life of the people. And that is the good news I say will drive every person who has a true recognition of his or her sin to the cross, drive a person to his knees in prayer, remembering and clinging and recounting the mercy and the grace of God. 

In fact. this word ‘mercy’ that we see in verse 9 where Ezra is saying: “Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia” now this word ‘mercy’ is translated from the legendary Hebrew word ‘hesed’ that we have seen before. This word which is so rich to which there is no English word, no single English word that can fully encompass this Hebrew word ‘hesed’. We know that it is something that can be translated as ‘unfailing kindness’ or ‘unceasing faithfulness’ or ‘loyal love’ or ‘covenantal love’. Here the translators have translated this as ‘mercy’. Mercy. Now the Israelites were so disobedient, yet God continued to show them mercy or hesed. 

You and I today are no better, if not worse than the Israelites. But yet God has not failed in continuing to show us hesed- unfailing kindness, unceasing faithfulness, loyal love, mercy that is put on display in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the person of our Saviour. And so the question this morning is: Have you fallen on your knees? Have you come in recognition of the sin that is in you? Have you truly acknowledged that you are a sinner, you are coming before an utterly holy God? 

I’m not talking simply about just the profession of your mouth or accumulation of Bible data translated into words that you utter. Of course, profession is important. But mere profession is not what we are referring to, but rather a true understanding of your own human nature. A true understanding that comes from the heart that outflows in a response of brokenness and humility. See, truly understanding the gospel will result- will result in true brokenness of a person’s spirit and it will translate in the way that you pray, it will translate in the way that you treat others, and it will translate in the way that you speak in the life that you live. 

So have you fallen on your knees? Do you truly see the magnitude and the length of your sin? I say if you do, don’t stop there. Don’t stop there because if you stop there, the last sentence in Ezra chapter 9 says: “Here we are before You, in our guilt, though no one can stand before You because of this!”. If left to ourselves, who can stand? So don’t stop just at the realisation of sin before a holy God. The response is to run also to the cross, to fall on your knees in prayer, to see the mercy, the kindness, and the love that was shown by our Saviour on the cross, He who gave Himself for us. May we together with Ezra this morning have both realisation of sin and the recognition of mercy. Now let us pray.

“Our Father in heaven, we come as people who are broken. We come as people who is unworthy to even approach You as the utterly holy and perfect God. We realise how evil we are. We realise how corrupted and how sinful we are in our human nature and that there is no reason under heaven or for us to draw near to You if not for Your mercy. We thank You again for the great love and kindness that was shown to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. He who knew no sin became sin for our sins. We pray that You’ll help each and every one of us to daily ponder this truth, to daily remember that we are sinners but that we have a Saviour. So we commit this time before You and we ask for Your blessing, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.