“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.” – Deuteronomy 7:3
“In those days also saw I Jews that
had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake
half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but
according to the language of each people.” – Nehemiah 13:23-24
From the very beginning God has always desired the desire of
man. He never wanted pretense, he is not
after false worship or legal, robotic, rule following. He wants your heart. The Law told you not to murder, but Christ
told us not to hate. The Law told you
not to commit adultery; Christ said not to lust. He wanted to reach past the hand and into the
heart; not to take you out of the world, but take the world out of you.
In the book of Deuteronomy the Jews were instructed NOT to marry
outside their faith. The Jews were a peculiar people to
God and this statute was implemented in an effort to keep them that way. Marriage is arguably the most intimate human
relationship; to marry, and bring in those who were not of their faith would
inevitably bring in values and principles that were not consistent with the
faith. This in turn would pollute the
people and the Kingdom of God would suffer for it. By the time we get to the book of Nehemiah,
the Jews were so intermingled with the nations of the world that the children
spoke in the speech of the world and could not speak the Jew’s language. The people of God were so in love with the
world, so intermingled with the world, that they exemplified no distinction to
the next generation. Furthermore, it
robbed them of their heritage. This is symbolic of the subject of worldliness.
Worldliness is the cousin of
idolatry; they are both found in the heart of man and no list can quantify the
innate desires of an unholy heart.
Worldliness is the marriage of your desires to something of this
world. You bring it into your life and
it results in an unholy intimacy that forces Christ out, pollutes the people, ultimately
harming the Kingdom. We are always being
courted by the world; we live in the world.
Every day of our pilgrimage the natural calls to us to live for this
life and forget the next, strive for the seen and leave off the unseen. An intimacy with the world is a danger to our
spiritual life and it demands our examination in prayer. We have a glorious church, a holy gospel that calls us to be a
holy people. If our hearts love the
world, and if we want the world in our lives; it not only will rob us of our joy
and inheritance, but it will show no distinction to the next generation, and
they will be robbed as well.
When you stop and consider what Christ did for
you...how he left heaven, took on the form of man, suffered and died; to save
you and me from our sins. When you think,
for just a few minutes, where you would be without Jesus; is it too much for
God to ask of us that our heart be wholly devoted to him? Does he not deserve our all? Can we not spend some time in reading, in
praying, to ask God to search us and see if we are in fact…..worldly. He is still calling for us to be a “peculiar people, zealous of good works.” He stills longs for our heart, and wants our
heart long for Him, and Him alone. Let
us “lay aside every weight and the sin
that doth so easily beset us.” Let
us love God above all else. Let us let
God examine the heart of worldliness.
