Equally Yoked - Genesis 26:34-35; 27:46-28:9
EQUALLY YOKED
INTRODUCTION:
Suppose this morning we were to have a three-legged race here in the sanctuary. What if I teamed up Mercy with Jailynn (Grace with Marissa) as team one and Everon with Asher as team two, who do you think would have the advantage and win?
When you’re joined together, when you have your leg bound to the leg of your partner you have to stride in sync to succeed. You have to work together to get to the goal. If one of you has a longer leg so that you step farther than your partner you will soon stumble, to succeed you have to step the same distance, plus you must step with the same leg at the same time, and you have to keep the pace as you keep going, every step has to be together. Only then would you win. The better matched you are in height and size the more advantage you have.
Now I doubt that in previous centuries they had three-legged races, but they understood the principle of striding in sync to succeed. They understood that you have to work together to get to your goal. Farmers especially understood this when it came to plowing with a team of oxen, they had to make sure that the oxen were as evenly matched as possible and that they were trained to walk in sync. If one ox was larger than the other it would end up pulling most of the load and would wear out more quickly. You wanted them as evenly matched as possible. Also you had to teach them to walk in stride so they would keep an even pressure on the yoke.
Now imagine if you hooked up an ox on one side of the yoke and a donkey on the other side. This would never work because they are very different animals, they could never plow together and this was very obvious to any farmer, so why then does this appear in book of Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy 22:10 says, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” (Deuteronomy 22:10, NASB95)[1] When God says these words He is giving us a principle for life and especially for marriage, everybody knew that you do not join two different animals to plow, but God wants us to understand that this principle carries into life, do not unite together for life a Christian and a non-Christian. Paul makes this clear in the New Testament when he writes to the Christians in Corinth, and he alludes to this passage in Deuteronomy in regards to marriage. We read it in our Scripture reading this morning, let me read it again. 2 Corinthians 6:14-15, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14–15, NKJV)[2] Do not be yoked with an unbeliever. Do not marry a non-Christian. The equivalent is yoking an ox with a donkey, they have nothing in common, they cannot stride in sync. I am talking to you young people today, but it is good for all of us to be reminded of this principle. Let’s pray and then get into our text.
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 26:34-35 and be ready to turn to chapter 27:46 through 28:9. Please stand as we read God’s Word.
Genesis 26:34-35; 27:46-28:1-9,
“When Esau was forty years old he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; and they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.”
“Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?’ So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.’ Then Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,’ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; and Esau went to Ishmael, and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.” (Genesis 26:34–35; 27:46–28:9, NASB95)[3]
UNEQUALLY YOKED (Genesis 26:4-35)
When you marry someone the two become one and you must stride in sync to succeed. If a Christian marries a non-Christian that is not going to happen because you do not share in your heart the same eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. When one person in the relationship has a relationship with Christ, is a child of God and the other does not, at the core of your life you are out of sync. Everything will be out of step, and the result will be fatigue and falling down.
We see this clearly in our passage this morning in the lives of Esau and Jacob. God has a plan and a goal for Jacob’s life, God is going to work through Jacob to bless the world. But in order for that to happen, Jacob must not marry an unbeliever.
Esau, on the other hand, is just the opposite of Jacob. He does not care about the blessing, he has no concern for God’s purposes. He could care less about being a blessing to the world. The blessing, the covenant promises of God are unimportant to him. Because of this disregard he has for God and God purposes he marries unbelievers—Canaanite women, Hittites, daughters of Heth. Although God’s design was to be one woman joined to one man, the culture of the day, and this does not make it right in God’s eyes, the culture allowed you to have more than one wife and so Esau took two Hittite women for his wives. Now understand that it was not the fact that Esau took more than one wife, the problem was the “gods” of these unbelievers, which shaped their values and their interests; and these values and interests were the exact opposite in direction from the purposes that God had for this family. Verse 35 tells us that these two unbelieving, Hittite wives of Esau brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah. This word translated grief is a Hebrew word that means “to be in a state of misery, mental distress and anguish.” Imagine how Isaac felt and how the family peace was destroyed when Esau, the favorite of Isaac, brought home two idolatrous wives, an additional proof that he neither desired God’s blessing nor dreaded the curse of God. He was living for the moment and for what he could get for himself now.
EQUALLY YOKED (Genesis 27:46-28:9)
Rebekah was not about to have the same happen with Jacob, she knew and remembered constantly that Jacob was the son on whom God had now centered His special purpose and destiny for the family. Rebekah knew that God was going to carry forth His goals in Jacob—the blessing and the promise were with him. For this reason he must not marry an unbeliever, a Canaanite woman as Esau had. She makes this known to Isaac, and says if he marries an idolatrous Hittite woman then her life will not be worth living, the added grief would be too much for her to bear.
Isaac agrees that Jacob must marry someone whose values and goals fit in with the special purpose that God has for him. In verse one of chapter 28 Isaac calls for Jacob and tells him he is to go back to his mother’s relatives and look for a wife among the daughters of Laban his mother’s brother. Isaac uses this as an opportunity to bless Jacob and remind him that he is the one whom God has chosen to bless, the one to whom God has given the covenant promises. God will bring Jacob back to this land and give it to his descendants as God had promised Abraham. Isaac commands Jacob that he is not to marry a Canaanite, an unbeliever. This command was not only a command for Jacob, but a command that was repeated over and over to all the descendants of Jacob, a command that was to be followed down through the generations. God had chosen this family-line to bless the world, but in order to do that they must not marry those whose gods are different, whose values and goals go in a different direction. God will say to the descendants of Jacob again and again, “If you marry unbelievers they will draw you away from Me and from the goals I have for you.”
When the Lord led the people out of Egypt hundreds of years later He told them in the wilderness that when He brought them into the Promised Land that they must not marry unbelievers, because they would lead them away from God. Listen to God’s words in Exodus 34:15-16, “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.” (Exodus 34:15–16, NIV84)[4]
To marry an unbeliever is to marry someone who will draw you away from God and the goals that He has for your life. Young people do you hear what I am saying? To marry an unbeliever is to marry someone who will draw you away from God and the goals that He has for your life. Do not ever forget that, when you start dating remember these words when you choose who you will date.
This command had to be repeated to the next generation because the first generation disobeyed and refused to trust God and they never got to enter the Promised Land. Before God led this new generation into the land, Moses repeats this command to them, “Do not marry unbelievers in the land.” Listen to some excerpts from Moses’ instructions in Deuteronomy 7:1-6, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you…you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, 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; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you…For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:1–6, NASB95)[5] God has goals and plans for your life, to marry an unbeliever is to be pulled away from all that God has for you.
Joshua the leader that led the people into the Promised Land and conquered it at the end of his life repeated this command again to the people, listen to his words in Joshua 23:11-13, “So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:11–13, NASB95)[6] Their strength depended on their loving and walking with God, if they marry unbelievers they will be drawn away from all the good God has for them.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened when Solomon became king, his reign began when the nation was at its greatest strength after the reign of his father David, they held the greatest amount of territory, they were the strongest militarily and economically, they were held in high esteem by the surrounding nations. When they were at their strongest, Solomon married unbelievers, and it happens the nation is drawn away from the Lord and torn apart. Listen to the tragedy from 1 Kings 11 beginning in verse 1, “But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites—from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.’ (1 Kings 11:1–11, NKJV)[7] Because of his wives, Solomon was drawn away from the Lord and the kingdom is torn apart. Civil war splits the nation into two nations, but both nations are weak and eventually both are carried off by foreign invaders, Israel to the north by the Assyrians and Judah to the south by the Babylonians. Finally after decades some of the people are allowed to return to their land and they find it in ruins. God helps them to rebuild under the guidance of a man named Nehemiah. As they begin rebuilding Nehemiah notices that some of the returnees are marry unbelieving women in the area. Nehemiah pleads with them not to do this and reminds them that this what caused their problems in the first place. Listen to his words in Nehemiah 13:23-27, “In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people. So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, ‘You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin. Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?’” (Nehemiah 13:23–27, NASB95)[8]
To marry an unbeliever is to be pulled away from God. God has a plan, He is good and desires to pour out His goodness on you. The Lord has revealed Himself to us and made a way for us to be redeemed, forgiven for our sin and enter into a relationship with Him, He has called us to an eternity with Him. His intention for us right now is for us to be a part of what He is doing in the world. One of the firmest commitments you can make is that if you marry, you will marry a believer. If and when you marry, you will marry a believer in Jesus Christ. You will guard your walk with God by joining with someone who has the same eternal relationship with Jesus Christ as you have.
CONCLUSION:
To marry an unbeliever is to marry someone whose values will pull you away from God. When you desire to go to church and worship and fellowship with God’s people, the unbeliever will not want to go, and there will be tension. The temptation will be to give in to keep the peace. Soon church will be a forgotten activity and you will be drawn away from God. Your view on your children and the things they do, the places they go, the people who are their friends, the people they date will not be the same as your unbelieving spouse. You will not be in sync.
You may want to give money to the Lord’s work, to honor Him. Your spouse will think it is a waste of hard earned money. You will want to have Christian friends, but your unbelieving spouse won’t want to hang around with them. If you go to their homes, you’ll go alone. Or you won’t go at all, it’ll be too hard.
At the very center of your life, your values and interests are different. You have different gods. Your God is the God who created you, the one who loves you and died for you. The unbeliever’s god can be many things: career, success, looks, entertainment, and/or making money. To marry an unbeliever is to be drawn away from the purpose God has for your life and the goodness that God desires to pour out on you. To marry a believer is to guard and strengthen our commitment to God, and together you can pursue God’s purpose for your lives and experience the goodness God desires to pour out on you.
Young people, decide today to make this one of your firmest commitments: Should I marry, I will marry a person who has put his or her faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and is walking and growing in that faith.
When Isaac said to Jacob, “Do not marry an unbeliever;” he was not making a suggestion. Verse 1 of chapter 28 says that he charged him, this means he gave him a command that is a strong word in the Bible. When God commands us to do something we must to do it. If we are commanded to do something by God, then it is a huge matter in his eyes.
If you marry, marry a believer. “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14–15, NKJV)[9]
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 Update. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[7]The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[9]The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.