Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20110501.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Nehemiah: Excelling In Leadership In Hard Times
Part IV: The Leader's Role When God's People Are Mobilized By Him, Nehemiah 8:1-13:31
G. Leading By Influencing Others To Obey God In Holy Spousal Selection
(Nehemiah 13:23-31)
  1. Introduction
    1. God calls believers in Christ not to be "unequally yoked" with unbelievers. (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
    2. This rule applies extensively in selecting a marriage partner as 1 Corinthians 7:39 commands widowed believers who remarry are to marry only other believers, a standard for all Christians who marry.
    3. Nehemiah 13:23-31 thus illustrates some dire problems produced by being "unequally yoked" in marriage:
  2. Leading By Influencing Others To Obey God In Holy Spousal Selection, Nehemiah 13:23-31.
    1. After the people of Israel had agreed to obey the Mosaic Law upon returning to Israel after the Babylonian Captivity (Neh. 9:1-3, 33, 38), Nehemiah found them violating it by marrying foreign wives, Neh. 13:23:
      1. Some Hebrews had married women from Ashdod, a city of the Philistines, in violation of their Nehemiah 10:30 covenant promise not to intermarry with the Gentile pagans of Canaan, Neh. 13:23a.
      2. Others had taken wives from the Ammonites and Moabites, relative nations of Israel that Deuteronomy 23:3-6 prohibited for Israel's fellowship due to their past mistreatment of God's people, Neh . 13:1-2.
    2. Besides, half of the children of such mixed marriages were so influenced by the dominant pagan heritage of their mothers that they could only speak the foreign languages, not the language of the Hebrews, and that only alienated them from the spiritual heritage of the Hebrew people of God, Nehemiah 13:24.
    3. Consequently, Nehemiah took strong steps within the culture of the day to reprimand the sinners, forcing them to affirm their original oath taken in Nehemiah 10:29-30 to obey the Law in not giving their children to foreigners in marriage, Nehemiah 13: 25; cf. Deuteronomy 7:3.
    4. Nehemiah added that even king Solomon who had been beloved of the Lord, being blessed so that no other king in Israel had attained his level of greatness (Neh. 13:26b), nevertheless had sinned in marrying foreign women who had led him to sin, Nehemiah 13:26a,c with 1 Kings 11:1-10. For this sin, most of Israel's tribes were torn from the rule of Solomon's son to be ruled by his servant, 1 Kings 11:11-12!
    5. Accordingly, Nehemiah admonished the wrongdoers that it was thus dreadfully unpleasing to the Lord to follow Solomon's path toward apostasy in marrying foreigners, Nehemiah 13:27.
    6. Even worse, Nehemiah found that the Levitical line had been corrupted by intermarriage with foreigners in even greater violation of the Mosaic Law, Nehemiah 13:28a:
      1. Nehemiah learned that one of the sons of Joiada, a son of Eliashib the high priest, had married the daughter of the pagan foe of Nehemiah, Sanballat, the Horonite, Nehemiah 13:28a with 2:10, 19 et al.
      2. This was an even greater disobedience of the Law than what the regular Hebrews had committed:
        1. A priest was not to marry a prostitute, an adulteress or a divorced woman so that there would be no question as to the purity of the priestly line, Leviticus 21:1a, 7.
        2. The high priest could not only not wed such women, he could not marry a widow, for there was to be no question as to the purity of his line: he could marry only a virgin, Leviticus 21:10, 13-14.
        3. Thus, for a man in the high priestly family to marry a pagan woman violated every possible regulation and testimony of holiness that especially the spiritual leaders were supposed to have!
    7. Nehemiah thus expelled this priest for profaning his office, and cleansed the priests and Levites from everything foreign and put them in their rightful callings, Neh. 13:28b, 30. He even provided for the needed offerings of wood and firstfruits for the temple sacrifices, praying for God to remember those priests who had violated the Law that they be punished (Nehemiah 13:29) and to remember himself for earnestly seeking spiritually to purify Israel though he was but the civil governor, Neh emiah 13:31b; 8:9a.
Lesson: Israel's "unequal yoking" in marriages with unbelievers and those outside God's will so diluted the spiritual identity of Israel that it threatened the nation's entire spiritual function. Thus, Nehemiah took strong steps to rectify this wrong in providing drastically needed holiness in marriages.

Application: May we not get maritally unequally yoked as it greatly threatens our spiritual vitality.