How many of you; if you discovered your children had begun hanging around with the drinkers, druggers and doers at school would be content to let them continue associating with them? Not a one of us would ratify that arrangement – or at least none of us should. In fact I think it’s safe to say that if you discovered that your child was a part of that group your hearts would be broken right? Is it safe to say that the term “Vexed in spirit” would apply? I think so.
In light of that I want you to turn again to Genesis 26:34-35 because I want to share with you, “The Folly of Mismatched Mates.” What happens when you hook together the Holy and The Profane? Read these two verses with me and I’ll let you puzzle over them for a moment.
So have you gathered the personal application yet? Just in case you haven’t let’s look at this and work through it with the rest of scripture. In Genesis 26:34 we see that Esau ignored the foundation which Abraham had laid when he forbade his servant to get a foreign wife for Isaac back in Genesis 24:3. The next verse tells us that these Hittite wives were “a bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah.”
I don’t want you to miss the result of Esau’s action on his parents; and here’s where we start to get some application to our own lives. When we yoke ourselves with unbelievers we become a bitterness of spirit to our heavenly father. It grieves Him for his children to “hang with the hoodlums.”
To see where that application comes from we need to look back to the text, we have to wonder what is was about these women that caused this grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Was it their nationality? Was it their particular faith? I would suggest together with Commentator Matthew Henry that there were a number of problems.
1) Esau refused to respect his parents wishes by asking for their blessing or heeding their advise in a wife, this would be illustrated in Genesis 28:8 where Esau seeing the grief caused to his father adds a third wife from Ishmael’s family to his wives, I think in an attempt to please his father.
2) The women were not “of the faith” being Canaanites.
3) the comment in Genesis 27:46 where this is slightly expanded seems to indicate that the women were openly hostile in some way to Rebekah.
4) There is a fourth possibility involved that made Esau’s choice of wives disconcerting and that is the nagging knowledge that it was Isaac’s fault that Esau had the wrong wife(wives). As you go back to Genesis 25:20 you discover that Abraham had sought a good wife for Isaac by the time he was forty.
The result is a dual implication. Surely The emphasis is given to Esau’s continued moral failure. But the stage is also set from Isaac’s ineptitude and the pending moral failure at playing favorites by desiring to bless Esau in an underhanded manner. How is it set? By not taking positive action to ensure his son’s faithfulness he ensured faithlessness.
And let’s not forget just by way of addenda that Polygamy is not portrayed positively in Genesis. Lamech the first polygamist was a violent and godless man. Jacob’s two wives are a cause of constant irritation to each other. And don’t forget that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve and Brenda. God’s plan and design for marriage always has been and continues to be one man and one woman.
For his multiple union, Esau is called a fornicator (Heb 12:16(NIV/KJV); 13:4) it is but another demonstration that he lived according to the Lusts of his flesh rather than according to the Holy and Spirit of God.
These two verses display the strife in the family which is caused by unwise marriage. It also displays the importance of marrying within one’s faith, for ultimately the several marriage prohibitions in scripture all revolve around marrying women who worship foreign god’s. (note that it doesn’t mention marrying men because in that society – the man was the instigator of marriage. Nowadays men, we’re still instigator’s but that’s another story right :-). )
Now what are the principles for application in this section?
1) There can be no separation of Church and Mate!
No Christian should ever marry an unbeliever. Now I realize that all of us but the kids are already married but hang on a few moments. Once I’ve established this first point I want to build off of the principle for the rest of us.
Several passages are relevant but let me show you just a few. Start with 1 Corinthians 7:12-13 which presents the balance of the principle.
The strong end of the prohibition is found in 2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers...” in fact turn there and read with me
Now, why shouldn’t a believer and an unbeliever be yoked together? (And I want you to notice the context of 2 Corinthians 6 is not marriage but is broader in scope.)
I could easily use a large list of references here but please if you would, turn with me and read each of these passages and keep them in mind. Here are a few which illustrate the gravity of marrying outside the faith of Christ Jesus
The reason then for the prohibition is first because it too easily can corrupt the heart of even the faithful, a point highlighted by Nehemiah 13. Further reasons can be understood by looking at the rest of 2 Corinthians 6:14-16
“Righteousness and lawlessness describe the whole sphere of moral behavior.
Light and darkness have to do with intelligence as to the things of God.
Christ and Belial have to do with the realm of authority, in other words, the person or thing whom one acknowledges as master in his life.
Believer and unbeliever have to do with the realm of faith.
The temple of God and idols take in the whole subject of a persons worship.2
The application for the rest of us comes from how very pervasive this passage is. There is not an area of life that is not touched by this. So that not only can there be no separation between church and mate but judging from the context of 2 Corinthians 6:14 we are supposed to...
2) Separate from unbelieving religion
“What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness...”
"Don’t receive teaching from unbelievers." The context of 2 Corinthians has Paul defending his authenticity as an Apostle while simultaneously pointing out the fraudulent false Apostles. As Paul mentions the unequal yoke suggests Deuteronomy 22:103: You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. The ox was a clean animal and the donkey unclean, and their step and pull are unequal. What happens to the furrow when such a combination pulls the plow? It would be crooked right?
What if we join with those who don’t really know Christ? Won’t people who follow our example be led astray? Even though I’m the president of the Ministerial Alliance I’ve let it be known that if the catholic priest attempts to join – I will leave the alliance. I refuse to in any way by word or deed authenticate the blasphemy of earned salvation and Mary worship.
By way of clarification, when believers are yoked with the Lord Jesus, they find that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:29, 30). But are we not unequal with Jesus? Yes in strength but no longer in kind. When we become believers we become children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ. (John 1:12; Luke 8:21)
3) Pick your Friends Wisely.
“What fellowship has light with darkness? Or What harmony has Christ with Belial or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?”
I think in addition to just picking your friends wisely – that is picking believers as friends, this applies clearly to secret orders or fraternities. I have a friend who’s a Mason. He’s a good Christian – and I asked him why he joined. His reply was “For the camaraderie” When I expressed my displeasure with that he started telling me that it wasn’t hostile to Christ and Jesus was respected along side of any other religion. That bothers me. How could one who is faithful to Christ consistently go on in an association where the name of the Lord Jesus is unwelcome (or mixed equally with other gods)?
Jesus is not just one god among many, he is the God of gods, the Lord of lords and the King of kings! With all respect for my friend, Christians don’t belong in the Masonic Lodge.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Or at least I hope you’re thinking it:
What does this say about Jesus being called "A friend of sinners and tax collectors"?
Actually It clarifies our duties quite nicely, for Jesus did not sin in eating with them or being numbered with them. His activities never - but never – would have authorized in anyway their behaviour. There was no question to be certain as to how different Jesus was. As William MacDonald wrote: “A Christian should maintain contact with the unsaved in an effort to win them to Christ, but he should never engage in their sinful pleasures or in any of their activities in such a way as to lead them to think he is no different than they.”4
We who are believers are certainly supposed to reach the world but in the same vein Jude proposes: that we hate the sin but love the sinner, and we do whatever we can to snatch them out of the fire.
When you read these two verses in the context of Genesis this brief passage illustrates Esau’s incapacity to bear God’s blessing. He had already demonstrated his worldliness by selling his birthright for a bowl of soup. Now he demonstrates his indulgence of the flesh by marrying heathen women. Esau is the perfect model of the unsaved religionists. He does not have faith so he lives entirely at the human level – and as a result he is utterly devoid of God’s blessing.
The lesson for us I think is clear. As we cling to things of this earth we prove by our devotion to them our love of this world. And if we are lovers of this world, we are not being lovers of God. (1 John 2:15).
So then, if you are in a partnership with unbelievers in such as way that they are the influencer than I think the marriage principle of 1 Cor 7:12-13 applies if it is a legal agreement. In such a case we cannot separate from them and maintain Christian witness for that would give God a name of an oath breaker because we his followers would be acting unfaithfully.
In such a case your task is to intentionally live honorably in such a way and with such a hope of winning that business partner to Jesus Christ. If on the other hand you are being influenced or are compromising the purity and holiness of Jesus in this link than you must separate from the wicked unsaved.
Jesus is our perfect example in this. He dined with Hookers, Tax Collectors and Pharisees, but never approved their sin. As believers we need to influence unbelievers to Jesus and that means being among them, but there is a distinction between being a light in the darkness and dimming or even extinguishing your light in order to fit into the darkness. Jesus never changed his message to become more palatable to anyone he spoke with, and neither can we feel free to change message whenever it’s convenient.
We are called to be different.
