Identification, Please

“And said, O 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.” (Ezr 9:6 AV)

Every time I read this, Ezra’s attitude towards the sin of his people moves me.  There was a small portion of the remnant that had intermarried with the pagans around them.  This is the sin that started Israel down the road of idol worship centuries ago.  Right after the Exodus, Moab attempted to militarily defeat Israel.  Balak hired the Gentile Seer Balaam to curse Israel.  God would not allow it.  So, Balaam advised Balak to intermarry his nation’s women with the Jewish men.  This event compromised Israel and introduced them to Baal worship.  Baal worship with be a constant struggle to the nation, leading to their eventual downfall.  Now, after spending seventy years in captivity to the Babylonians, the returned remnant fails in the same manner.  Rather than react with self-righteous displeasure, Ezra takes the blame for this upon himself.  He associates himself the sin of his people.  This is what a godly leader does.  He associates himself with the faults of his flock rather than chasten them in private to the sympathetic ears of a listener.

I have witnessed, and perhaps even failed in the area.  Specially in the company of other men of God.  It is one of the reasons I stopped going to Pastor’s fellowships many decades ago.  No so much now, but back then, it was common to sit down to a fellowship over a meal and hear pastors complain about their church folk.  They would often complain about one or two rebel rousers that were causing him problems.  Or, they might complain about a congregation that was too slow to respond to his leadership.  Or, perhaps a congregation that was micro-managing him.  Maybe it was a series of trouble filled business meetings.  Perhaps is was the lack of activity at the altar.  A lack of commitment to ministry and meetings was a regular topic of discussion.  The point is, back in the old days, the men of God didn’t identify themselves with the faults of his people like Ezra did.  Ezra was not guilty of wedding and pagan woman.  Personally, he was innocent in all if it.  Yet, he went to God and asked for forgiveness.  He begged God’s mercy for his people.

The man of God is like a father to his children.  His heart should ache when the children of God do no live right.  A godly father will not resent his children when they do wrong.  His heart is moved because he knows by experience the cost of disobedience.  He knows first-hand what awaits his child for the choice that he has made and Dad sees that choices as a failure of leadership on his part.  What a difference it would make if the man of God would see the failures of his sheep, in part, as a failure of his own.  Perhaps he did everything he was supposed to do and they made that choice anyway.  Perhaps he prayed and fasted for them.  Perhaps he couldn’t instruct any more than he did and all avenues of discipline were exhausted.  The man of God who loves his sheep will still feel bad when the sheep fail.  It should be a characteristic of our ministry.