Spiritual Infidelity - ANB W3, D3 - 3.20.13

Wednesday, March 20                                                        Spiritual Infidelity

Ezra 9

These are passages that express the true anguish of the Gospel ministry. We do not know the exact timeline of events in the life of Ezra, the priest. What we do know is that he had not been in Jerusalem for very long when his appointed leaders approach him. The people of Israel had “not separated themselves from the people of the lands with their abominations” (v. 1). The people in Israel had broken the command of God given in Deuteronomy 7 that they were not to intermarry with the people of the land of Canaan. “For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermindled with the peoples of the lands; indeed , the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness ” (v. 2). No wonder God needed a man like Ezra to go into Jerusalem and teach the people. No wonder they had been spiritually dry for sixty years. Even their leaders, the men that were to be teaching them the Law and performing the sacrifices were living in outright and unrepentant sin.

The issue here was not interracial marriage. If you ever hear someone say that God disapproves of interracial marriage, ask them why they think that. More often than not it is because of their ethnically centered heart and not because of the reason God gives. God was not concerned with the ethnic identity of the people of Israel or his servants. For proof, read Ruth. This was an ethnically mixed relationship to which King David traced his lineage. And you know what that means…Jesus, of the line of David, was ethnically mixed. The issue is the spiritual condition created by the intermarrying of the Israelites to the people of the land. God says it explicitly in Deuteronomy 7.3-4: “You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods” (emphasis added). God did not care about a half-Jew, half-Canaanite marriage ethnically any more than He cares about the marriage of white people and black people. He cares about the spiritual condition of your heart and my heart. It is by no mistake that Ezra calls the Jews a holy seed (v.2). It was to be spiritually set apart, not ethnically. This is the exact principle that Paul expounds upon in 2 Cor. 6.14 when he says, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” This is a warning against placing yourself in a relationship that will negatively impact your walk with Christ.

What Ezra is dealing with is spiritual infidelity; Sin against God created by the intermarrying of Jew and non-Jew, which led to the adoption of pagan practices and away from the worship of God. Hear his anguish: “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens” (v. 6). His job was to teach the people, purify their worship, and reconcile them to God, but how was he to do so when even their teachers had been living in spiritual infidelity? What we miss in our individualistic Western culture is the sense of community that was common to the Jewish mind. Ezra expresses it so clearly in this passage. He teaches us how important it is to identify with the entire community of which we are a part of. In one sense we are all responsible for our own sins and bear the weight of that sin before God until we confess and repent. In another sense, we are all responsible for each other’s sin and must confess as a community of believers our guilt when one of our members falls. When was the last time that we anguished over another person’s sin? Better yet, when was the last time that we felt comfortable to confess our sin to our brothers and sisters, knowing that they would mourn with us and assist us on the pathway of change?

Spiritual infidelity does not just happen overnight. You can watch the news and see the big stories. A church deacon robs a bank, a prominent minister runs off with his secretary, a preacher’s wife conspires to kill her husband so she can be with another man…the stories go on and on. But it doesn’t just happen. It’s not just life, life, life, explosion. There is a pattern to every one of these stories and every one of our stories. We intermarry with a foreign, extra-biblical idea of morality and become comfortable with it until it overcomes us. We let culture rather than Scripture define for us the standard of life to which we must live. Or we get caught up in a cycle of sin but are too embarrassed by ourselves that we do not confess that sin and then something huge happens and the rest of us are taken by shock saying, “He was such a nice guy.” What we have done is ascribed to a moralistic deism that tells us that we must do this and this and this and we cannot do this and this and this without giving any real biblical relevance to our hearts and how we are made in the image of Christ. And, in doing so, we create a church culture where we must always have our game face on and cannot show any chinks in the armor, lest we allow our sin to be confronted. And the biggest reason for this is our lack of community in the church. Instead of exemplifying the attitude of Ezra in this passage and mourning over another’s sin, we point the finger at them and make them feel even worse for doing what they have done. We do not bow at the cross of Christ, where we found forgiveness and clear the space next to us to invite our sinning brother to come and kneel and find the same grace that we have. We do not let our forgiveness transform the way we live and interact with those who have sinned.

No wonder the church is referred to in Revelation as the great harlot. We have intermarried with the expectations and practices of the world around us to where we cannot deal with sin biblically. We do not fall on our faces before God and exclaim as Ezra does “Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this” (v. 15). Our new beginning comes when we deal with sin; when we learn to hate sin, both in our own lives and in the lives of our neighbor. It comes when we no longer ignore the warning signs and come to the cross for forgiveness and grace, which we then extend to those around us. A New Beginning is about our spiritual fidelity and safeguarding our walk with God. Where are the chinks in your armor? What is your weakness? Where have you allowed yourself to be wooed by the world? Where have you fallen into spiritual infidelity?

Prayer:

God, I come to You knowing that my life is not perfect. My spiritual health is not at its best. But God, I thank You that had it not been for Your grace, my life would be in shambles. Please forgive me for my infidelity. Help me create a culture of grace and forgiveness in my life, my Sunday school and in my church so that we can confess our sins to one another, knowing that our burdens will be shouldered by those around us and not judged. I love You, Father and I want only You.