Have you ever experienced God moving in a community? Ezra 7-10

Ezra 10:10-12
" Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful and have married foreign wives adding to the guilt of Israel. Now therefore, make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” Then all the assembly replied with a loud voice, “That’s right! As you have said, so it is our duty to do."

When God grips the heart, the lives of people change!!   God has the power to change people and only God can change them.   In this book of the return to the promise land from captivity, the scribe, Ezra, discovers that those who were left in the land had married foreign wives.   Ezra, as the scribe, was well versed in the ways of God's Word and he informs those who were left in the land during the captivity that they were not allowed to marry and mix with the nations that surrounded them.   This remaining remnant had figured since the majority of God's people were gone, they were no longer responsible to keep the Law of Moses.   But, Ezra reminds them that they were and are required.   When Ezra (and Nehemiah, later) return, revival begins to take place.  Ezra falls down in prayer of this and begins to ask God to move in the hearts of these people.  As a result of God's hand upon him and them, the above verses are penned.   The remnant is moved by their guilt and their desire to walk upright with God, according to His Word.   Change takes place because the men of the day were moved by God and God's hand was upon them.  That movement caused them to repent and repentance always changes the way we leave.    The book ends with an entire listing of those men who had taken foreign wives.  Some had even produced children as a result of these unholy marriages.   According to the text these men "put away" these wives, with the children.  God's Word was specific in this regard.   God, in His plan, was keeping the line of Christ pure.  It was important to God's plan.   In order for that to happen a revival was going to have to take place and drastic change was going to have to be realized.   When God moves in the hearts of men, whole communities move and change.   Read the stories in Acts when Peter and Paul entered towns and preached the gospel.  Drastic changes are seen when the Gospel is preached and, by faith, acted upon.    God is in the business of changing things.