READ: Deuteronomy 7:1-6, Ezra 9 and Ezra 10
Ezra
is grieved to find that the people have intermarried with women of the land –
women from tribes God had explicitly told His people to stay away from. This
wasn’t because God was hateful or cruel or because he was being exclusive in
His love. God always accepted outsiders as His people if they would dedicate
themselves to His ways. But the nations listed in Deuteronomy 7 and Ezra 9 were
extremely wicked and especially hostile towards Israel. God had commanded His
people never to intermarry with people from other nations who were not willing
to give up their idols to serve the Lord God only. Intermarrying with pagans
was dangerous because it would lead children and families away from Yahweh.
Ezra is appalled to see that the people have so callously disobeyed God’s law.
His heartfelt prayer in Ezra 9 gives the reader a look into Ezra’s heart and
his deep desire for holiness.
Ezra
10 paints a picture of national repentance; even the weather is sad, as the
people assemble in the rain to confess their sin before each other and the
Lord. In repentance, all agree to end the foreign marriages. We are not given
specific details about what happens to these women and their children – whether
they are given any form of support and protection or even about the legitimacy
of the marriages to begin with. The reader must keep in mind that these were
women who refused to give up their idols to follow the Lord; if they had, they
would have been grafted into the Israelite nation. This is a descriptive
passage, describing something that had to be done at the time because of the
people’s national commitment to Yahweh. It is not a justification for divorce
today, as Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 7 that Christians are not to
divorce their unbelieving spouses.
Whatever
the case, marriage and family is important to God. He designed for marriage to
represent Himself. He desires to be central to marriage and family life. He
commissions married couples to set themselves to raising godly children. He
calls married couples to faithfulness and humility, love and respect. As
believers, our marriages can be great testimonies to God’s character, or
considerable stumbling blocks to the gospel. Satan has gained much ground
through broken marriages; he is an expert at ruining marriage and family, even
within the church. We need to take back the ground he has stolen.
JOURNALING AND PRAYER
1. Spend time today praying for marriage
and family. Pray for your own marriage (if you are married, or your future marriage
if you hope to be), the marriages of family and friends, and also for marriage
within the church.
a. Pray for your own marriage.
- Pray for your spouse: relationship with the Lord; sexual purity; wisdom to make decisions; health; humility; integrity; etc
- Ask God to show you areas of selfishness within your marriage. Are you willing to repent of these things and surrender yourself to Him?
- What is one thing you want God to do in your marriage? Pray for this thing!
- What is one way you can bless your spouse today? Do it!
- Pray that your marriage would strengthen your family and show your kids the character of God. Pray that they would want to commit fully to Him because of what they see in their parents’ marriage.
b. Pray for marriages in your family.
- Pray for healing and restoration where there is brokenness.
- Pray for blessing and protection.
- Pray that these marriages would be a testament to God’s goodness.
c. Pray for marriages in the church.
- Pray that through God’s restoration and strengthening, Christians would take back ground that the enemy has stolen.
- Pray for humility in the home, that spouses would seek to serve each other.
- Pray that men would love their wives as Christ loves the church.
- Pray that women would honour their husbands; that they would not use manipulation to control their husbands.
- Pray that married couples would speak well of one another.
- Pray that God’s moral boundaries would be embraced by the next generation because of the Christ-centred marriages they witness within their homes.
