Malachi 2:11-12

Malachi chapter 2 verses 11 and 12. Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange God. The Lord will cut off the man that do with this, the master and the scholar out of the tabernacles of Jacob and him that offerth an offering unto the Lord of hosts. And God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. There is a fruit that’s native to the Dead Sea Valley which the Arabs call the Usar fruit. Now, this fruit resembles sort of like an orange or an apple in size and color and so forth. It’s pleasant to see in the touch. However, if it’s struck or pressed, it explodes like a puffball. And all you have left is just rind in fiber in your hand. Apparently, the wholesomeness and the beauty of this fruit is only an illusion. It’s inflated with air. doesn’t have any like flesh in it that’s really a value. Sadly, too many marriages, I think, are like the us are fruit. There’s no wholeness or substance in them, and they explode easily. And certainly the wholeness of professed Christian marriage cannot be experienced if Christ is absent absent from the heart of one of the partners in the marriage relationship. Now, we have seen that Malachi has laid down a general principle in verse 10 concerning sinning against the unity of God’s people. We talked about this in our past study. In verse 11 and 12, he gives the first application of this, and he deals with here the inner marriage of a believer and an unbeliever and how this is harmful to the people of God. Now let me begin by saying you as a Christian are commanded not to marry outside the people of God. He talks about those who have married the daughter of a strange God here at the last part of verse 11. Now, this command has nothing to do with marrying someone of another race or nationality. The issue is not what we call cross-cultural marriage, different races like whites marrying blacks or blacks marrying Chinese or whatever the case may be. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Back in the time of Exodus, some, people from other nations joined the Israelites when they left Egypt. They were called a mixed multitude, or a mixed multitude went out, according to Exodus 1238. But because these people submitted to Israel’s religion and were united with the people of God, intermarriage with them was possible, as long as they worship the Jehovah God. In fact, you recall that Moses, The leader of the Israelites married an Ethiopian woman. Now, his sister, Miriam, took exception to that, and I guess along with Aaron, but the truth of the matter was, race wasn’t an issue. She was a non-Jew, dark-skinned Ethiopian that he married. But there was no crime in that. There was nothing evil about that marriage. You recall that Boas. married Ruth, a Moabitis, a non-Jew, who was living among the Israelites, but she had forsaken the gods of her own country. And you recall that when she left with Naomi to come back to the land of Israel, she said, thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. And so she was committed to worshiping the true God. Remember, Rahab the Canaanite. Solomon married her. And she was a Canaanite, but she came to believe in the true and living God, and there was nothing evil about the marriage to her. In fact, Ruth and Rehap are both found in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1. So the grounds for God’s objecting to marriage. marriage outside of the people of God was religious. It wasn’t racial. No matter what nationality or background, with few exceptions, the basic premise is if Jehovah was their God, you could marry them. So this command has nothing to do with you’re marrying a person of a different race or nationality. But you’re not to marry any individual who is not to marry any individual who is not. a believer like you. The expression, the daughter of a strange God, means a foreign god, it refers to those who worship the false gods of the heathen which surrounded the nation of Israel. Some of the Jews in Malachi’s Day were marrying not just foreigners, but those those who were still the daughters of a foreign God. To call someone a daughter of a God meant the woman still worshipped this false God. They weren’t proselytes. They were not believers in Jehovah. She was still united spiritually to her heathen idols, whether it be bail or Dagon or Molek or whatever the case may be. Just as we are called the sons of God, are the children of God. So we have the idea here of the daughter of a false God. Indicating here that the men in particular were the ones that were mostly guilty of this in choosing out these women, they would marry a daughter of one of these false gods around them. So on these spiritual grounds, marriage, of this sort was forbidden. They were profaning the covenant of their fathers. Verse 10, as we talked about last week. The law of Moses made it perfectly clear that God did not want his people marrying outside the true faith. Those in covenant relationship with Jehovah. If you look at Deuteronomy 7 with me tonight, you’ll notice, here’s what the law states. Theeronomy chapter 7 and just the first four verses here. When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whether thou goest to possess it, and now has cast out many nations before thee the Hittites and the Gragashites and the Amarites and the Canaanites and the Parasites and the Heavites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater or mighter than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant, no bond of friendship with them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from false. me. They may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy these sidemone. Here’s the danger. If you marry someone who’s still worshiping false gods, they can turn your heart away from the true God and then it’ll bring judgment on the nation. Perhaps you might be thinking, well, that’s nice. That’s Old Testament teaching here. What does it have to do with me? well the principle holds the same today there’s no question about that look at first corinthians chapter seven with me and verse 23 or excuse me verse 39 739 we read here the wife is bound by law as long as she as long as her husband liveth but if her husband be dead she is liberty to be married to whom she will and then that phrase only in the Lord. The indication here is if the husband dies, the Christian woman can remarry anybody she wishes, as long as they are Christians, as long as they are also believers. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14 to 18. Very similar ideas taught here. It says here, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has right with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness, and what concord hath Christ with Belio, or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God, they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them and be you separate, saith the Lord, touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and be a father under you and you shall be my sons and my daughters, set the Lord Almighty. A believer needs to marry another believer, someone who belongs to the true Israel of God. In the mosaic law, you recall that the people were forbidden to use two different kinds of God. of animals to plow the fields. You’ll recall in Deuteronomy 2210 the phrase, thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. This is what the phrase unequally yoke means in this text in Corinthians. Uniting two different kinds of animals in a harness or a wooden yoke was forbidden under the law. And Paul’s point here is that the the believers and unbelievers being yoked together in the marriage relationship is like putting the ox and the ass together. They’re two different creatures. One is someone of this world and one is someone who is following Christ. Now, of course, this is a general principle that Paul lays down here. We could talk about not perhaps joining into business partnership with an unbeliever because of the problems that may arise. rise with that kind of relationship as well. But obviously here, infidels and believers should not enter a marriage covenant together and make them unequally yoked. So you’re not to marry any individual who’s not a believer like you. The same teaching that we find here in the book of Malachi. Now, there are several ways you may find yourself unequally yoked with an unbeliever in marriage. When you were married, perhaps both of you were unbelievers. Then God calls you out to salvation in Christ. You hear the gospel. You believe, but your mate does not. And so you would be unequally yoked because God called you to salvation after you were already married. However, that’s not what Malachi is dealing with here. That’s not what he’s talking about. Paul takes that case up in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. He’s not condemning that situation. It’s also possible for you to be deceived about the spiritual state of the person you marry, that you may believe that they are true believers in Christ, and then they turn out not to be, and they end up being apostates and turning away from the things of the Lord. Suppose your future mate has gone. on the church all or his or her life and from outward appearance, it appears, it looks as if this person is truly converted. And as a believer, you enter the marriage of this person only to discover later the true identity comes out and they’re not really converted. This can easily happen, but that’s not what Malachi is condemning here either. What the Bible is utterly condemning is for a believer to knowingly. defiantly against what God says in his law and in his word, marry someone who is an unbeliever. That’s what he’s talking about in this text of scripture. You know what God commands, and yet you deliberately choose to marry a daughter or son of a foreign God. They haven’t changed. They’re not making some type of profession of falling Jehovah, anything like that. You see, you can marry somebody religious instead. They’ll be marrying an unbeliever. You could be marrying a Catholic. You could be marrying Jehovah Witnesses, a Mormon. You could be marrying a Muslim. All those people are religious, but they’re unbelievers. The idol worshippers of Malachi’s day were very religious people, but they didn’t worship according to the word of God. They didn’t worship Jehovah God. So you may marry someone who has a religious background, but be as lost as can be, and that would be wrong. It boils down to this. Is this person your marriage? Is this person truly worshipping and serving the Lord God? Is this person trusting in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and following Him faithfully? That’s the question. So you as a Christian are commanded, not the Mary outside of the people of God. Notice secondly here, you should be aware of the dangers of intermarriage with God. an unbeliever. Now, you’re dealing treacherously with the separation of the people of God. Verse 11, Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, and married the daughter of a strain to God. Some translate this word holiness here as sanctuary. I prefer the King James translation. The word isn’t talking about the temple. It’s talking about the people of God themselves. Israel was called by God to be a holy nation, Exodus 196. This primarily refers to them being set apart as a people who will worship the true and the living God. When you talk about the things in the temple being holy and so forth, we’re not talking about them being. somehow spiritually holy, but we’re talking about them being set apart to serve God. And I think in this case, the idea is these individuals who belong to the nation are to be dedicated to worshipping God alone. They have no other gods before him in his sight. They are to be a special people on the Lord. Now, Judah here is said to profane that. to pollute the holiness of the Lord, their separateness unto God, by marrying a daughter of a foreign God, a heathen, who does not know Jehovah. In other words, their intermarrying with the heathen was destroying their uniqueness as a people separated to the worship of the Lord God. That is the danger. You look with me at Ezra, Chapter 9. tonight, Ezra chapter 9 and verses 1 to 4. Now, when these things were done, the princes came to me saying, the people of Israel and the priest and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hyptites, the Parasites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken a… their daughters for themselves and for their sons so that the holy seed having mingled themselves with the people of those lands yet the hand of the princes of the rulers hath been chief in this trespass and when I heard this I rent my garment and my mantle and plucked off the beard of my head and of my the hair of my head and on my beard and sat down astonished a stone eater astonished Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the transgression of those that have been carried away, and I sat a stone-ead until the evening sacrifice. He couldn’t believe they just got back in the land and what they do right off the bat, but sin against the Lord God in this way and not remain in a separate people. What this tells us here is who you marry is, not a private matter. You may think, well, I should be able to marry you wherever I want to. It should be up to me. It has nothing to do with other believers. I’m not hurting them. Well, yes, you are hurting them, and that’s what I think the point is here. Humanistic philosophy teaches that you are in control of your life. You decide what’s best for you. You need to please yourself and things of this nature. However, when you come a book, to believer in Christ, you have embraced Jesus Christ as both Lord and Savior, Lord of your life. You are not your own. You are bought with a price. He is giving you a commandment and that needs to be followed. And so when you were a believer, you were united to the body of Christ, you were outwardly seen as part of the visible church of Christ, and so you must think in this manner, these are my people, these are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and they may be very much closer to you or to you than your own family, because you have a spiritual bond with them. So when you join the church, you’re committed to God’s people, to worshiping God and to submitting to His Word. But if you marry outside of the Christian family, you’re violating the separateness of the people of God. your words say that you’re committed to Christian principles, but your life says that you’re not. You’ve weakened the cause of Christ. You’re going to be torn in two directions, even if you continue to attend church. You will find yourself compromising your work for the kingdom of God in order to please your marriage partner who doesn’t love the Lord. How can you use your home as a place of hospitality and witness? if indeed the other partner doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. And how can you both share the gospel with someone? Your children will be brought up an atmosphere where one person in the marriage doesn’t love the Lord and not committed to Christian principles, and you are. And I’m believing may be kind and tender and loving, but the bottom line is he or she doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ. Marriage is a uniting of two people together to be. to two become one, as the Bible says. But then this would weaken your commitment to Jesus Christ because you have a divided house. You’ve got people pulling in two different directions. Consider what it is that you love about an unbeliever that you would marry this person. Now, a Christian girl may love the aggressive, macho, masculinity of the man of the world that she meets. Maybe he’s a man’s man and so forth. Maybe he has rugged good looks. Maybe he has athletic skills. Maybe he’s financially secure in the world and so forth. The Christian young man may love the aggressive, seductive, sexuality of the woman. Maybe she’s a very beautiful woman physically. Maybe she has a bright and winning personality. But then you’re not being concerned with what God loves the Christian character in the individual. God looks not on the outward appearance, but he looks on the heart. Sadly, at times, Christians can actually love the ungodliness of a man or woman. You’re ignoring the important spiritual qualities that are essential to pleasing God. Now, think about this. When you marry an unbeliever, someone outside the Christian community. What about the Christian man or woman who is not married, who is unmarried, and you are not marrying them so that you could start a family together? What happens to them? Aren’t you harming them in some fashion? In other words, instead of taking advantage of the situation where the two of you as believers should get together and form a marriage and a partnership together, you’re going outside the camp of the Lord and finding someone else. You’re leaving these people out of the picture. Samson, we read, loved a Philistine woman because she was physically attractive. She was very beautiful. And he asked his father to arrange the marriage for. His father said this in Judges 14, verse 3. Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren? In other words, of the tribe of Dan, or among all my people, among all Israel, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Felicitians. Why can’t, why can’t you marry someone in the nation, or even of our own tribe? Is there not a believer then to marry? Are you that hard pressed to find a mate that you would consider marrying an unbeliever, a heathen, who doesn’t worship the true and the living God? That’s the warning that is given. here. So you’re dealing treacherously with the separation of the people of God. And you are exposing yourself to the danger of apostasy, which is we find in verse 12, the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this. The master and the skull are out of the tabernacles of Jacob and him that offerth an offering under the Lord of hosts. That word abomination that we see in verse 11 is often used with the idea of idol worship. the prophets and so forth. It has to do with someone who is drawn away to false gods. The idea of the person being cut off here indicates perhaps a denial of access to God’s people the presence of the Lord in the worship service because someone who would defiantly go against the biblical command to marry only in the Lord is someone who could come under church discipline and eventually be excommunicated from the church. Or it could indeed be that God will cut them off and strike them down. Malachi doesn’t care if the person is a master of skull. He doesn’t care what position you hold. We saw that some of the priests and the Levites, Ezra mentioned, that they were doing these things, which is terrible. But the common people were doing it as well. Even if this person is someone who is bringing sacrifices regularly to the Lord, it’s still wrong and they could be cut off from God’s people. I think God here is emphasizing the seriousness of this sin, of marrying an unsafe person, because what can happen is you can be led into apostasy by this. Now, a true believer can never be lost. Yet there are a lot of people will profess to be saved who eventually turn away from the Lord. We could talk about Judas, we could talk about Demas, we could talk about Simon Magus, we could talk about many people. It can lead you to be cut off from the people of God and drawn into this false worship. You know, Christ taught in the parable of the sower that some seeded was sewn among thorns. And at first it springs up. At first it looks good. At first it looks like you’re going to get a crop from this, something beneficial. Eventually, though, it’s strangled by the thorns. Mark 419 says, The cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things entering in choke the word. No fruit is produced. No harvest from the world. this crop. There are people who seem to start out well in what we call the Christian life. But in fact, in the end, it shows that they were never converted at all. Somewhere along the line, the claims of Christ become too tough, and they turn back to the world. The difference between a true Christian and a professing one is is what happens after they would sin, whether there is repentance and are returning the Lord in faith. Many who appear to be zealous believers and ignore Christ’s commands about a marriage partner do end up being cut off from God and his people. You may think, well, I’ll marry him or her, and he or she will be converted. In God’s goodness, that happens. it on occasion, but that’s a rare occurrence. It’s far more likely the opposite thing will happen. You will be drawn away from the Lord by this. You will backslide. You remember Solomon. You would think that the wisest man who ever lived would have realized the danger of mixed marriages. And in 1. Kings chapter 11, 1 through 8, we read him marrying the daughter of Pharaoh. Now this marriage was probably some type of political alliance with Egypt and so forth. But Solomon brought his bride back to Jerusalem. He was dedicated to serving the Lord and keeping his commandments. He’s the builder of the temple. But you can imagine there were serious spiritual differences between him and Pharaoh’s daughter. And before you know it, he’s marrying all these four wives, and he’s building various worship centers for their gods in the land, and he himself is sacrificing at times to these gods. Now, no doubt, he kept sacrificing the Lord, but he’s also sacrificing to these gods. God charges Solomon with doing evil, not only he. with regard to himself, but also leading the people of God astray by bringing this foreign worship into the land. He began to worship other gods besides Jehovah because of his wives. No wonder his kingdom was eventually divided, because it led to a backslidden condition for Solomon. So you, as a Christian, or command, not to marry outside of the people of God, be aware of the dangers, because if you intermarry, it could mean you being drawn away from the Lord. Now let me have a word with parents tonight. You know that marriage is only to be in the Lord. There are a lot of people who claim to be Christians or not. You find some people will go to great lengths to deceive you about their relationship to Lord because they want to marry your son or daughter. For your good, and for the good of your children, look for something more in a person that just merely professes faith in Christ. How zealous are they about church attendance? How careful are they about Bible reading and daily prayer? Are there any spiritual fruits that you see in their life? Don’t hesitate to warn your child of his or her obligations to marry only in the Lord if they profess faith. Remember, it’s better for your child to be single than the wish they were later. on. Don’t rush to marry them off to someone. This is something that requires very careful thoughtfulness. God doesn’t give the gift of singleness to some individuals, as 1 Corinthians 7 7 indicates. So be careful about choosing a mate. You end up as the us or fruit and the marriage could explode. If you are a Christian parent in this situation, and your saved child decides that they’re going to marry an unbeliever. My suggestion is you don’t participate in the wedding ceremony. You don’t give your blessing to that union. But let me give you a word for Christians who, for one reason or another, are married to an unbeliever. First, you know, Paul says to you that you don’t try to dissolve the marriage. If a brother or a sister have a wife that believe if not, and she’d be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put a child. her away. Don’t divorce her. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. Divorce him. If you’re in this situation, maybe because you got converted in one, and they didn’t, maybe because they professed faith, but then ended up not really being truly converted, whatever the case may be, The issue here is, be a faithful witness to your mate. You know, 1 Peter chapter 4, I believe it is, that it talks about how the wives can, has a great influence, and the husbands that are unbelievers can be won by the behavior of the wife if she has a reverent and submissive spirit about her. And as husbands, if you show them love, sacrificial love and as a wife, if you do your best to be a witness to them, this way you can try to see if they might be converted. Be careful. Watch your soul very carefully because if you’re in a situation, you could easily be drawn away from the Lord. Pray diligently about your mate’s conversion. If you had deliberately, if deliberately married an unbeliever, contrary to God’s stern warning, then you need to seek the Lord’s forgiveness, and no doubt, the forgiveness of the church as well, because you may be under discipline because of that. Realize this is a terrible sin in the eyes of God. This sin can be cleansed by the blood of Christ, but if you marry an unbeliever, you’re in for a rough ride through life, and there may be some painful consequences. consequences attached to it. And so the message here is be careful about your marriage and certainly don’t deliberately marry someone outside of the Christian faith, for it is harmful to you and the people of God as well.