Join Pastor Allen Bonnell as he delivers a powerful and challenging message from Ezra chapter 10, titled "True Repentance". Pastor Allen begins by celebrating the amazing work God is doing in the church, with 24 people coming to faith in August and 14 in the last week alone. He encourages the church to join him in a goal to see 300 people come to faith this year.

The sermon tackles the difficult and controversial passage in Ezra 10 where the Israelites, in an act of repentance, are told to put away their foreign wives and children. Pastor Allen first sets the stage by explaining that the purpose of marriage is to show the world what a relationship with God looks like. He illustrates this with the biblical foundation of marriage as "one flesh" and the picture of God's covenantal love in the story of Hosea and Gomer. He clarifies that the prohibition against intermarriage was not about race, but about interfaith relationships with those who practiced pagan religions, including human sacrifice and cannibalism.

Pastor Allen presents two common interpretations of Ezra 10—whether the divorces were a morally appropriate response to protect the community or if they were a wrong decision despite the people's earnest repentance. He explains his position that this was a descriptive, not prescriptive, truth, as other prophets like Malachi taught that God hates divorce. The ultimate lesson from this difficult text is about the importance of being holy and set apart from the world. Pastor Allen challenges the audience to recognize their own modern-day idols, such as materialism, lust, or self-worship, and to be quick to repent and turn back to God.