If I am one who is trapped in bondage to habits and patterns that are offensive to God—even I have been brought up in the church and a Christian home, and have been under the sound of the gospel and heard the law of God read week in and week out—yet I have been in rebellion, then the promise of the gospel still does apply to me. If I repent, my sin will be forgiven. But I am not to trifle with God. I am not to think,
well, there is always going to be another opportunity. I mean the warnings in the Bible are there.Today is the day of salvation. Do not delay! Do not wait. Do not presume upon the grace of God. Do not presume upon his patience, his longsuffering, as though there will always be yet another opportunity, another day, another time. So that I can continue to sin against grace, and to use grace as it were as a license to sin.No, that is too close to what is going on here in Ezra. The hope that Ezra holds out is that the people of God will come to their senses. Do not mingle with the world. Do not indulge your lust. Do not allow yourself to be corrupted by the unbelieving. Give up your sinful, evil, God-provoking ways. Turn from it. Repent. Look to the cross, the atonement. Look to Christ. Let the blood of Christ be the path of forgiveness and of cleansing. So that our repentance might be received and so that we might be changed and reconciled to God and back into the path of his blessing and favour once again.1
Terry L. Johnson
13 And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this,