Ezra 10:2 Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.
If you have read the news today, you have probably gotten the impression that this world is absolutely hopeless. There are global and national situations that demand answers that do not seem to be readily apparent. If you have talked to a neighbor today, it may well seem that your city is hopeless. There are problems in marriages and in life that seem to have no answer. It may well be that you are grappling with a problem yourself that seems to have absolutely no answer.
Now before you say there is no hope, I want you to consider the fact that there are more problems than we would imagine that are self-imposed. That is to say, there is an answer if we are willing to hear it, heed it, and do something about it.
Ezra was a man who at times must have felt as if things were hopeless. Some of God’s people had been returned to their land where there was great destruction. More importantly, this physical destruction was a reflection of the breakdown of God’s people, morally and before God. We read in Ezra 9 that there was confusion of face. There was shame. There was a remnant that needed what Ezra called “a little reviving.”
Ezra says something amazing in Ezra 10:2. He says, “Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.” Well, what is “now”? “Now” was when Ezra had prayed. Verse 1 says, “Now when Ezra had prayed, and confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God.” So, “now” was when things were dire. It is interesting to note that God had not forsaken Israel; Israel had forsaken God.
These are wonderful words! “Yet now there is hope.” So, I want to tell you, there is hope in our day as there was in Ezra’s day. I don’t care who you are or what the issue is, there is hope if you are willing. God is not forsaking you, but we sometimes forsake God and do not even know it. You need to know that weeping is not the result of revival; joy is. The Bible tells us earlier that the Lord had “made them joyful.”
Sin is the cause for weeping, and sometimes weeping is the cause for turning back to God. That is revival, a return to God. That produces joy. So many times we associate revival with weeping, agony, and angst. And while there is no doubt that between sin and joy there may be a process that includes weeping, there is always hope when there is willingness. “Yet now there is hope in Israel.”
What follows is the people of Israel making very tough decisions, things that seemed impossible and that they did not want to do. There is a difference between being willing and being willful, and there is always hope when there is willingness.
In contrast, in Jeremiah 18:12 God’s people say, “There is no hope: but we will…” “We will do what we want to do,” is essentially what they said. That is willful. That is a hopelessness that is self-imposed. Today, anyone can have hope who is willing to go for broke and do whatever God demands for restored fellowship. There might be some weeping, confession, and soul-searching in between the sin we confess and the joy that God gives, but there is joy that comes when we do what God created us to do. There is always hope when there is a willingness to do what God asks.