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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Quite often I hear the cry for reliable, honorable, honest Justice, what about you? Come with me again to Jerusalem about 458bc as we are watching Ezra deal with God honoring justice when facing widespread leadership failure.
Yesterday we watched as the people agreed with Ezra’s condemnation of them. (Ezra 10:9-12) They had rejected God’s laws about marriage and many of them, leaders included, had married women from the wicked, idol worshiping nations around Israel and brought those women to live in Jerusalem. Of course they brought their idols with them.
God had warned His people about this for centuries, and history proved that each time the men of Israel sought and married women of the idol worshiping nations around them, those men turned away from God and followed their women into idolatry and all the wickedness associated with it! Even King Solomon had failed miserably in this. (1 Kings 11:1-10)
In Ezra’s day, the leaders of Jerusalem acknowledged their miserable failure and agreed to send their foreign wives back to their homelands and their families. (Ezra 10:3) But here is where God honoring Justice was needed. Each inappropriate marriage situation needed to be evaluated uniquely and God honoring Justice and Mercy applied personally to each marriage.
The people agreed with Ezra’s plan described in this way: “Let everyone in our towns who has married a foreign woman come at a set time, along with the elders and judges of each town, until the fierce anger of our God in this matter is turned away from us.” (Ezra 10:14)
There’s an important lesson for us here my friends. No two marriages are identical, because no two people are identical. God is the author of marriage and thus God is the ultimate Judge who can bring resolution to any and every marriage problem or conflict. Do you believe that? Have you learned how to bring marriage problems to God and let God’s Truth Word, as applied by the Holy Spirit, give wisdom and resolution to marriage problems? While the essential problem in Ezra’s day was similar in hundreds of sinful Israelite marriages with foreign women, each marriage needed to be evaluated uniquely.
The record says: “So the exiles did as was proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family heads, one from each family division…On the first day of the tenth month these men sat down to investigate the cases and by the first day of the first month they had finished dealing with all the Israelite men who had married foreign women.” (Ezra 10:16,17) So it took about 60 days for this entire process. Each marriage was individually, and carefully evaluated and holy justice was applied!
What do you suppose they were looking for in these marriage evaluations? Undoubtedly an understanding of the woman, her family heritage, her people group, her religious background, the circumstances in which the couple met and married, the length of time they’d been married, the number and ages of children they had etc. I also imagine they sought to evaluate the impact this foreign woman had on this Jewish family. Had the Jewish man turned to join her in worshiping her idols or had she renounced her idols and joined her Jewish husband in worship of the God of Israel? What spiritual culture were they nurturing in their home and how close was it to the model God set forth in Deuteronomy 6:4-9?
Finally, IF it was decided the foreign woman must be sent back to her family and homeland, I presume they spent considerable time developing a PERSONALIZED plan. When would she leave? What would her husband give her to take with her to help her in the transition back to life in her homeland? Would her husband travel with her all the way to her homeland, making sure she was safe along the route? How would her husband give his wife back to her family explaining why she could not remain in Israel and explaining the sin he had committed by marrying her? And of course, the emotions involved in this radical action of dealing with their sin was enormous for everyone involved and long lasting.
Now it’s important we understand something fundamental here my friends. This is a ONE-TIME event in the Bible. It is not a precedent or a pattern. It was intended to teach Israel a once for all lesson. The same was true in Numbers 25 when generations before Israelite men had done a similar thing and God had dealt with their sin differently, at that time. Sadly, the men of Israel did not learn this lesson, nor have we!
A few years later God spoke an important message through His prophet Malachi about this problem: “You have been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: You have desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves by marrying women who worship foreign gods. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD remove him from Israel – even though he brings an offering to the LORD Almighty.” (Malachi 2:11,12) Do you see God declaring justice judgment on the Israelite man who pursued and married the idol worshiping foreign woman?
Perhaps you know the apostle Paul dealt with this very same issue when he was traveling around the Roman Empire bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who had never met Jesus or heard Jesus’ message? Paul wrote this as led by the Holy Spirit of God: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (Satan)? Or what does a believer in Jesus have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? (2 Corinthians 7:14-16) Oh it’s very clear isn’t it my friends? Paul uses the word “yoked together” intentionally. In their day oxen were yoked together to do the work of a tractor in our day, pulling heavy loads. While those oxen were two individual, separate animals, each with their own will, they were united into working together, in lock step with each other, as the immovable yoke harnessed them together as they pulled their load. It’s a wonderful picture of a marriage. But rather than a heavy wooden yoke, it is the love covenant the man and woman make before God and their family & friends which harnesses husband and wife together in marriage!
While the oxen were released from their heavy yoke at the end of their workday, the marriage covenant is NEVER ending and those who lovingly covenant themselves to each other and to God have CHOSEN and COMMITTED to yoke themselves together with each other and with God for the remainder of their lives! That is why Paul was so strong in his admonition that two people should NEVER enter into a marriage covenant quickly or without extensive thought and prayer seeking God’s guidance.
Paul’s use of the phrase “unequally yoked” can be applied to almost every aspect of life, but it especially applies to the spiritual, moral, ethical, fiscal and worldview values of each person as they contemplate marriage. Values differences BEFORE marriage will only grow during married life unless God intervenes and makes major changes in one or both persons in the marriage! Have you discovered that?
Sadly, in much of the world, this fundamental life principle has been ignored, and marriage is viewed with much less integrity and respect than God intended. Thus divorce, abandonment, and separation are epidemic in many societies of our world, driven by ‘irreconcilable differences’! Of course, that phrase means a hard heart, unwilling to allow God to bring the necessary changes into both lives in the marriage to overcome their being ‘unequally yoked’ and unite them in serving each other in God honoring love. As we all know a large percentage of adults today in North America and Europe are the children of broken marriages and have followed the pattern leaving two generations or more of broken marriage as the legacy they are passing to their children.
We should NOT view Ezra’s solution to the Jerusalem problem in 458bc as God’s affirmation of abandoning ‘unequally yoked’ marriages. Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at God’s solution to the Ezra problem in our day. For today, let this worship song draw our hearts in a fresh way to consider God’s design for God honoring marriage.
Today’s Scripture: Ezra 10:14-17 & 2 Corinthians 6:14-16.
Choose below to read or listen.
Ezra 10:14-17
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2 Corinthians 6:14-16
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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