A Day of Transition

…I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the LORD my God. And said, Oh, my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. Ezra 9:5-6

This is a day of solemn transition!

On this month, in America, the country is to inaugurate a new President whose declared purpose is to set the nation on a new direction. But then, coming closer to home, this is a day of solemn transition for every one of us individually as we consider yet another revolution in the calendar of time.

For our admonition, it is most useful for us to take note of just such “transitions” in the record of sacred history. One of those occasions is to be found in Ezra chapter nine. Israel, there, was experiencing an opportunity for change. Most instructive for us is the record of Ezra’s conduct in the midst of this change. Verses five and six tell us that he “blushed to lift up his face” to God. His “trespasses and iniquities” literally brought him down to his “knees” and into “great heaviness.” Well would it be for us if we could find ourselves in that same place today. But then, even as he mourned their sins—wonder of wonders!—the record tells us that God granted Israel “a little space” for the grace of repentance. Oh, what an infinite and unexpected mercy is this!

Ezra would lose no time, but would set about immediately to the work; and the remainder of the record tells us with what grand success the work was wrought.

And so, today, as we stand here viewing the horizon of a new year, with a new President, and a new Cabinet, and new national opportunities, I ask us as individual believers, will we go on in our old sinful ways—our old sins, our old attitudes, our old loves? Will the transgressions of our past not drive us to our knees with Ezra in painful repentance? Will God, in this “little space” not dislodge us from our “iniquities”? If not, then the prophet Isaiah has the only word remaining for our ears:

If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Isaiah 1:19-20

May God grant us each a renewed purpose to forsake ourselves and take up His “Law” anew as in the days of Ezra.

Dr. John Suttles