In Jason Dohm's sermon titled 'Unequal Yoking Revisited,' the speaker explores Nehemiah 13:23-29, focusing on the recurring issue of intermarriage between the Jews and pagan women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Nehemiah's return to Jerusalem reveals that many Jews had taken foreign wives, leading to a language barrier that prevented their children from learning Hebrew, the language of scripture. This situation is compared to modern examples of cultural and religious assimilation. Nehemiah takes drastic actions, including cursing, striking, and pulling out the hair of those involved in intermarriage, to enforce obedience to God's laws. He uses Solomon's downfall as a warning against the spiritual dangers of marrying outside the faith. The sermon emphasizes the critical importance of choosing a godly partner, humility in spiritual growth, and the necessity of correction from authority figures. Dohm draws parallels between the actions of Nehemiah and the responses of Ezra, highlighting the diverse gifts and temperaments God gives leaders. The sermon concludes with a call to be receptive to correction and to value the spiritual guidance provided by authorities.

Our text this morning is Nehemiah chapter 13, starting in verse 23 and going through verse 29. In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people. So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair and made them swear by God, saying, You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things?

Yet among many nations there was no king like him who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, pagan women caused even him to sin. Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women. And one of the sons of Joida, the son of Elias, the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat, the Horonite. Therefore, I drove him from me.

Remember them, Oh my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Father, speak to us through Your Word. Anoint Jason, bring him the message we need to hear. In Jesus' name, Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is Unequal Yoking Revisited.

Unfortunately, we're talking about it again. It's happening again. We keep seeing it happening. Last week we saw that the Sabbath was being trampled on. The producers were producing, and the buyers were buying, and the sellers were selling.

Right there under the noses of the people who should have kept this from happening. It wasn't just happening in a dark corner of the province, but it was happening right in the middle of Jerusalem. And Nehemiah, who had gone back to serve Artaxerxes for some period of time, we don't know how long it was, but he's returned to Jerusalem and he sees that the Sabbath is being trampled and he restores order. And we are going to see more restoring order again this week. Last week's text ended in an interesting way, At least I thought it did.

It ends with Nehemiah saying, Remember me, O my God, spare me according to the greatness of your mercy. So he had done this really good thing to honor God, But he prays that God would spare him according to the greatness of God's mercy. And I think it just goes to show that the best at their best are in desperate need of the sparing mercy of God. Do you get that? If you take anything away from last week, it's this.

The best, Nehemiah is the best. We've been seeing him week after week in this book and I just love studying his life. He's such a faithful man. But the best, at their best, and certainly restoring honor for God through honoring the Sabbath, remembering the Sabbath day to make it holy is maybe among the best things we've seen Nehemiah do. And even so he feels his desperate need for the sparing mercy of God.

So this should tell us we ought never to be puffed up in any way. We should be humble before the Lord. Every day we need His sparing mercy. This week We are back to an old adversary, intermarriage, or unequal yoking as the Apostle Paul calls it. God has always intended that the yoke that two enter into to pull together in the same direction, to produce increase, should be entered into by His people.

His sons should only marry His daughters. His daughters should only marry His sons. And yet, what we see in Scripture over and over again is that the people of God cannot keep from this comprehensively, but they should. So again we have the Lord's people marrying pagans and how that dishonors God. As we go to the text, let's go to the text in prayer.

Oh Father, I pray that our first and our most uncompromising allegiance would be to you. That we would have such a love for you in our hearts that All the other things that would call us and entice us that are not in alignment with your word, that you've revealed in Scripture, We would be fortified in our hearts to resist those things. Marriage with people outside the faith and a hundred other things that are like it in some ways. Allegiance to other things. God give us undivided hearts, I pray.

We do find our hearts so divided and we do want to change. We want to repent, have a change of mind, turn around and go in the other direction. I pray that this text would help us with that. It would help us to love you more. Have you be our first in uncompromising allegiance.

Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well the first little subsection of our text today, I'd like to be verses 23 and 24. So read along with me as I reread it. Nehemiah chapter 13 beginning in verse 23.

In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people. In this section we have what Nehemiah saw. If you're taking notes on the handout, the blank is saw, what Nehemiah saw. He's returned from serving Artaxerxes and as he is governing he is observing.

And we have seen that all throughout chapter 13. He is seeing various things that aren't right and he is bringing them back into order. And He is actually making people repent, turn around and go the other direction. Here is what he sees. He sees that Jews had married women of Ashdod.

Ashdod is west of Jerusalem and Judah, up to the Mediterranean. It would have been the land of the Philistines. Ashdod was actually one of the prominent cities of the Philistines. During the time of the Persians, the whole region that would have been Philistia in former centuries has become known under the name of this famous Philistine city, Ashdod. So they're to the west and then women of Ammon and Moab, that's to the east.

That's on the other side of the Jordan. By the way, if you look at a modern day map, and you look at Israel, and you look at the Jordan River, on the other side of the Jordan River is the country Jordan. That makes sense. And The capital city of Jordan is Ammon. Ammon, Jordan.

Do you know why it's Ammon? It's because of the Ammonites. That capital city is named after the ancient people, the Ammonites. So on the east side of the Jordan is the Ammonites and the Moabites. They are descendants of Lot through incest.

They had this terrible beginning. We saw at the beginning of chapter 13 that they were publicly reading the Word of God and they see Ammonites and Moabites aren't supposed to participate in temple worship because of how they harmed the people of God during their wilderness wanderings. So we've already seen how the people are to have pulled back from the people of Ammon and Moab. But now, Nehemiah is back and he is governing and he is watching. One of the things that he sees is that Jews have married women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab.

These are not women who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. I'm using words from the book of Ezra. Do you Remember in Ezra, after they finished the temple, in Ezra chapter 6, we saw in chapter 6 verse 21, that they celebrated the Passover, and not just the returning Jews, those Jews returning from Babylon had celebrated the Passover, but they celebrated it with others. Others who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. In other words, you didn't have to be pure born Jew to serve Yahweh, the God of the Jews.

You could separate yourselves from the filth of the nations in order to seek God and say, I forsake that and I embrace this like Ruth did. That's what Ruth is a Moabitess. But she doesn't stay a Moabitess. She forsakes her homeland and all that went with it. The gods that went with it, the people that went with it.

And what does she say to Naomi? Your God shall be my God. Your people shall be my people. So then that's what's being referred to in Ezra chapter 6 verse 21. Those people could actually come and celebrate the Passover.

They were no longer to be considered people of other nations because they forsook that. They threw off the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. So these women referred to in our text today are not women who have done that. The person absolutely can join the people of God in the Old Testament. They can forsake their homeland and their past and all that goes with it and join the people of God.

Have God be your God. Have their people be your people. In our time of family worship, for fun, the last few nights we read the book of Esther. Just long sections of the book of Esther. So Esther is right after Nehemiah.

So probably at the end of Nehemiah here, you're sharing a page with Esther, if your Bible is like mine. So flip to Esther chapter 8. Since we're right there, I just wanted to see this. We saw this in what we were reading in our home last night. Most of Esther is things going really, really, really, really bad for the people of God, and then at the very end things go really, really, really, really well for the people of God.

And so well that people want to become members of the people of God. Their fortunes completely turn. They are on the verge of being annihilated across the Persian Empire, across 127 provinces, and yet at the end God flips all that for the blessing and benefit and protection of his people. And then things go incredibly well with them so that people want to join and become Jews. And The last verse in Esther chapter 8, verse 17 says this, And in every province and city, where the king's command and decree came.

The Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a holiday. Then many of The people of the land became Jews because fear of the Jews fell upon them. Many of these foreign people, these pagan people became Jews. Now the Hebrew word for that is really a word of conversion. It's to separate yourself from the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel.

This is actually the one place that this word is used in the Old Testament. They became Jews. It means they converted. It's religious. So you can, and people did, Esther is right in the middle of the time span of Ezra and Nehemiah.

So many people during this time span that we've been studying became Jews. They converted. They forsook the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. These women in our text today are women who have maintained their pagan identity. That's the whole problem in the text.

And we'll have more on foreign gods in the middle. And what happens if one of the Lord's people marries someone who has not forsaken their foreign gods. Furthermore, these marriages have been fruitful. They produce children, and half the children can't speak Hebrew, and That is a huge problem. I want us to think of it in modern terms and try to get to an apples to apples example.

Today we have many coming across our southern border, the southern border of the United States from Mexico. And some learn English, many don't learn English. And we're sort of irked by that. We think if you're going to come live here and you want to be part of the United States, you should learn the language. Some don't learn the language and we are irritated by that.

But that's not apples to apples. This is just sort of nationalism rising up within us. There's way more in play in Nehemiah chapter 13 than just nationalism rising up in the hearts of people. To make that apples to apples, to say that Nehemiah 13 and what's happening there is like what's happening in the United States. The national religion of the United States would have to be Christianity.

We would have had to, as a people, bonded ourselves to Scripture to say, we as a people are going to serve the God of the Bible, and there would have to be no Bible in Spanish. So that the people coming and not learning English didn't have access to the words of Scripture. This is what's happening. So they come and they marry among the Lord's people but they don't take up the language of the Lord's people, which is the language of Scripture, which leaves them without Scripture. That's what's happening here.

That's why it's particularly devastating. It is devastating that God said, don't marry outside the people of God, but the language problem is a scripture problem. So when we read that half the children can't even speak Hebrew, that is what is in view. It's not just nationalistic, it's religious because Hebrew is the language of Scripture and to be outside Hebrew is to be outside what God has revealed about Himself. Friends, the Word of God has always been everything to the Lord's people.

Old Testament, New Testament, between the testaments, the Word of God has been it for the Lord's people. What God has said has always been the greatest possession of His people. In 2 Timothy 3 verse 15 verse 16, the next verse is the famous one about all scripture is given by inspiration of God. The verse before that says that scripture is able to make you wise for salvation. Is scripture foundational for us?

It makes you wise for salvation. Does that mean that you're guaranteed to be saved if you read it? No. But it means it tells you what you need to know to be saved. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is revealed in Scripture. And that's not a New Testament thought. Psalm 19 verse 7 says, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Paul is just saying in 2 Timothy chapter 3, what the psalmist says in Psalm 19, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. It doesn't mean if you read the law of God you'll be converted.

It's that it prepares the ground and it gives you the knowledge that you need in order to repent. The Lord's people are not mystics who Find their own path to God. It's a well-worn path. It's a well-documented path. It's a path carved in stone.

Black letters on white paper that you can refer back to and refer back to and refer back to. It doesn't depend upon your memory. It is solid. And it is what God has revealed in a very real, unchanging, tangible way. We are not mystics.

And so the Word of God is our greatest possession because it points us to our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't be saved unless you know about Him. Now, Let's go back to our text. We're back in Nehemiah 13. The first section was about their intermarrying and about the big problem that half the children of these marriages don't even speak Hebrew, the language of Scripture.

Now let's read together 25-27. So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair and made them swear by God saying, You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him who was beloved of his God. God made him king over all Israel.

Nevertheless, pagan women caused even him to sin. Should we then hear you're doing all this great evil, transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women. In this section we see What Nehemiah did. As always, we find Nehemiah to be a man of action. Here's more action from Nehemiah.

And is it ever action? Verse 25 begins with these words, So I contended with them. That's the third time in this chapter that we've seen Nehemiah contending with various groups of people. Early in the chapter, the portions or the provisions were not being given to the Levites and the singers. And in verse 11 we see, So I contended with the rulers.

And he set that right. And then there was Sabbath breaking later in the chapter. And in verse 17 we read, then I contended with the nobles." He said that right. Now he says he contended with them. So I contended with them, those who had engaged in the intermarriage.

Consider what Proverbs chapter 28 verse 4 says. Proverbs chapter 28 verse 4 says, Those who forsake the law praise the wicked. If you forsake the law, you end up praising the wicked. But such as keep the law, contend with them. Proverbs 28, 4 says that law keepers obey and also contend with the wicked.

They contend with the disobedient. And that means different things depending on who you are and the position that God has put you in. And for this civil magistrate, for this governor, it means something quite drastic. It means that he has the authority to take these radical actions that we see in the text. Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law, contend with them, contend with the wicked.

And that's what Nehemiah is doing. He sees wickedness and he's contending with them. In contending with them, Nehemiah does four things. And The Nelson Study Bible has a great note describing these four things that Nehemiah does. Listen to this note.

These were not The dispassionate remarks of someone giving a seminar. Nehemiah used everything he could, including his hands, to enforce obedience to the law of God. What this note is saying is that Nehemiah is not giving a lecture on the disadvantages of intermarriage. Hair is flying. This is not the dispassionate remarks of someone giving a seminar.

Here are the four things that we see Nehemiah do as he is contending with those engaged in intermarriage. Number one, he curses them. This is not an out of control swearing fit where I've just had it and so I just I go ballistic and I say things I shouldn't have said. This is not what the text is teaching. I believe this is immediately closely associated with the covenant of chapter 10.

So flip back to chapter 10. Nehemiah chapter 10 probably dates back 15 years, maybe even more. You can't be sure because we don't have all the time markers we would need. But it's at least 13 years. And I think since the intermarriages have happened and children have grown up long enough to know language that we're talking about more time than that.

So that's one way to gauge the time markers. Here's Nehemiah chapter 10. I want to begin reading in verse 28 and read through verse 30. Nehemiah 10.28 Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the nethanim, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding. These joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, and His ordinances, and his statutes.

We would not give our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. So again, the covenant that they entered into starts broad, we'll obey the law of God, and then gets really narrow and goes to problem spots that people of God have historically had pitfalls, areas of persistent sin. The first thing they name is intermarriage and they say we won't do that. And the covenant being entered into in verse what? In verse 28, 29 it says that they entered into what?

A curse and an oath. What does that mean? It means that you call God as witness, and you make Him the one who will meet out the consequences if the covenant is broken, if the oath is broken. So God, you're witnessing this. We're before you.

We're taking it in your name. And you're the one who will meet out the punishment if we don't keep what we're promising to do. It's a curse and an oath. So now Nehemiah comes and he finds that the people have done exactly what they said they wouldn't do, and he calls upon God. He curses them.

Curses them. A few weeks ago, we saw that Elias Shib, the high priest, had given space in the temple to buy the Ammonite. And I called that a double crime. One, because an Ammonite is not supposed to be anywhere near the courts of the temple. So it was a direct violation of the law of God.

Secondly, it was authorized and done by the high priest who should have been first in line to see that God's law was obeyed and to see that the temple courts were protected from an aminite. So it was a double crime. It was a violation of the law of God by someone who should have been first to seeing the law of God kept. This actually is a triple violation. The intermarriage is here.

I want to dub a triple violation. How so? In these ways. Number one, it is a direct violation of the law of God. Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 3 and many other places in the Old Testament says, Don't intermarry.

The sons of God should never marry the daughters of men. Those of faith in the faith always marry in the faith. Number two, it's a violation of Ezra's reforms. Remember Ezra? Remember Ezra chapters 9 and 10 where he had to face down intermarriages and he actually dissolved those marriages and they sent away those women and their children and how painful it was to study those texts.

It's a violation of the reforms that God had given them through Ezra. And thirdly, it's a violation of the covenant in chapter 10 that we just read. They explicitly said, we won't give our daughters and we won't take their sons. So it's a triple crime. A violation of the law of God, a violation of Ezra's reforms, a violation of the specific covenant that they entered into in chapter 10.

So Nehemiah calls on God to come and judge and he invokes their own curse. In other words, they signed up for this curse. You get that right? Chapter 10, they entered into a curse and an oath. They called God as witness and they say, God you mete out The judgment.

Now Nehemiah comes and finds them in violation and he calls upon God to meet out the judgment. So that was the first thing that Nehemiah does. He curses them. He invokes their own curse. Number two, He strikes some of them.

Wow, I'm glad this is Old Testament. We can't have gentle Jesus striking anyone. Oh wait. He did make a whip and strike some. He strikes some of them.

Again, this is not Nehemiah in an out of control violent rampage. That is not what this text is saying. Next is saying, I want you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 25. The things that we see in Nehemiah 13 and The things that we see in Nehemiah 13 and the things that we see in Deuteronomy 25 do not compute in America in the year 2015. That's okay.

Let God be true and every man a liar. Deuteronomy chapter 25, I'd like to read verses 1 through 3. If there is a dispute between men, And they come to court, that the judges may judge them. And they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, that the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence according to his guilt with a certain number of blows. Forty blows he may give him and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight." The law of God, which was the constitution of the Old Testament people of Israel, actually sanctioned and encouraged what Nehemiah does in Nehemiah chapter 13.

Now, we're smarter than what God said now. We have learned better than what God said. That was the Old Testament cranky out of sorts God. And now we are under a new dispensation. So now we are compassionate.

Now we are compassionate and out of our compassion we just lock people up in cages for years and decades. God is smarter than us. It's a debate for another time, whether we should do this now. I just want us to recognize that when we think we're more compassionate than God, that's not right. When we think we've gone beyond God in understanding, that is never true.

And to just have some things that are so startling to read like Deuteronomy chapter 25 that all our sensibilities revolt against. And just to know that God's Word is never the problem. It never is the problem. Romans chapter 13, I've quoted this the last couple of weeks. It's the go-to New Testament passage about government, the role of government, how we should respond to government.

Here's Romans chapter 13 verse 4, speaking of the civil magistrate. For he is God's minister to you for good, but if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Paul is writing to the Romans under Roman government and he is speaking of Roman government and he said that is God's minister and he doesn't bear the sword in vain. Here we see Nehemiah, a righteous governor, actually not bearing the sword in vain and taking very drastic steps, steps that make all our sensibilities revolt and wonder what this man is doing.

He's actually doing what God has put him in a position to do. And he's being a blessing. You have to understand how devastating intermarriage is and what it does to the people of God in order to think this is an out of line. But when we align our brains with what God has said, we'll say, you know what? The people of God, we just, we can't afford the consequences of intermarriage.

It's worth radical action because of how devastating it is to intergenerational faithfulness to God. The alternative is sacrificing your children. You get that, right? The alternative is putting your children at Tremendous risk, like we see in chapter 13. Half of them don't even speak the language of scripture.

So first he cursed them. Second, he struck some of them. Third, He pulls out some of their hair. I read this as the ones he struck. He also pulled out some of their hair.

Again, this is not an out of control temper tantrum. It reads that way, doesn't it? When you read Nehemiah, the first time through, you read it, and you're like, this guy is out of control, pulling out hair. This is a temper tantrum on a massive scale. What kind of adult with any sense of dignity would do what Nehemiah is doing.

When you study it down to its roots, you find out that this is not an out of control man at all. This is highly significant that he is pulling out hair. Isaiah chapter 3 is a classic chapter on the judgment of God falling upon people. It's a judgment chapter. Listen to Isaiah chapter 3 verse 24.

And what you are going to see in this verse or hear in this verse is signs of blessing contrasted with signs of cursing and judgment. So that is what the verse is. Isaiah chapter 3 verse 24. And so it shall be, instead of a sweet smell, there will be a stench. The sweet smell is a sign of blessing.

The stench is a sign of cursing or judgment. So it shall be. Instead of a sweet smell, there will be a stench. Instead of a sash, a rope. Instead of well set hair, baldness.

Instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth. And branding instead of beauty. And you find almost identical language in Isaiah 15, chapter 2, talks about baldness and the removal of the beard. Find the same thing in Jeremiah chapter 48, verse 37. You find the same thing in Ezekiel chapter 29, verses 17 and 18.

I'll spare you the repetition because it says almost the same thing. It is a sign of cursing and the judgment of God when you lose your hair. And so it's a physical depiction of shame and judgment. Nehemiah is saying through a physical depiction, you're under the judgment of God. You should be ashamed of your sin.

God is bringing you into the shame of your sin. That's what the plucking out of the hair means in this passage. It's not an out of control temper tantrum, it's a physical picture. Be ashamed of your sin. God told you not to do that.

God sent you reform 30 years ago with Ezra, That's been 30 years. Painful reforms that required the sending away of wives and children. And you forsook that and then you entered into a covenant that you explicitly wouldn't do that. And now you've done it. Be ashamed.

One last point. In Ezra chapter 9, this is about intermarriage, in Ezra chapter 9 verse 3 we see that Ezra plucked out some of his own hair and some of his own beard. So Ezra did it to himself. Hair out, some of the hair from his beard out. Nehemiah does it to others.

Matthew Henry, I think, has a really helpful comment on this. Listen to what Matthew Henry says. Ezra, in this last case, had plucked off his own hair in holy sorrow for the sin. In other words, when Ezra did it, he was showing his own shame and association with it. It was a holy sorrow for the sin.

Matthew Henry continues, Nehemiah plucked off their hair in a holy indignation at the sinners. See the different tempers of wise and good and useful men, and the diverse graces as well as diverse gifts of the same spirit." What Matthew Henry is saying is he is looking back at Ezra and plucking out of his own hair and saying, he was a good and godly man doing something that brought honor to God in identifying himself with the shamefulness of his people. And he looks at Nehemiah plucking out hair of the sinners, the ones who had engaged in the intermarriages, and he is saying Nehemiah is a good and godly man. He is doing something that honors God. People who are more of the disposition of Ezra.

Really tender-hearted. Really tend to be really merciful. Easily see Ezra as a good and godly man doing something that honors God. And it's easy for them to point to Nehemiah chapter 13 and say, Nehemiah is out of bounds. He's not like me.

I can't identify with that. I don't want that among the people of God. And the people wired like Nehemiah, wired for action, God has made them that way, looks at Nehemiah and says, hooray! There's a good and godly man doing something that honors God. And they look at Ezra and say, why is he wasting his time plucking out his own hair.

He should be getting after those people and they despise Ezra. I think we should recognize this about ourselves. I think the contrast between Ezra and Nehemiah should cause us to pause and think about the diverse gifts and temperaments that God gives us among His people. People often want to stone the prophets. The truth is, God sends the prophets.

They can be very confrontational. Easy for us to get our noses out of joint when God sends a prophet among us. Somebody who is sort of wired like Nehemiah. Wired for action. Wired for contending.

Confrontation. Rebuke. Like Why do we have to put up with this guy? Be careful. God sends prophets.

God sends men and women among His people who are wired differently. And we should give thanks for both. So first, he cursed them. Second, he struck them. Third, he pulls out hair.

And then finally, he makes them swear by God. This is actually a helpful teaching about swearing, about vows and oaths. Vows being made to God, oaths being made with another person, with God called as witness. And this is what the Bible teaches us uniformly from Genesis to Revelation. They are never to be undertaken lightly, and they are always to be undertaken in the name of God.

That's two central things you should know about vows and oaths. Never lightly. He's making them vow not to intermarry. Life-shaking stuff. You should never make a vow or take an oath lightly at all.

It's appropriate for marriage. It's appropriate for marriage. It's good to stand in front of the Lord's people and enter into a vow or an oath. But it should always be done in the name of God. And that's what we see here.

Essentially, he makes them quote a portion of Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 3. Meaning that he doesn't tie this back to his own sense of what's right and wrong, he ties it back to the Word of God. He grounds it in the Word of God. He's not rooting this in his own authority, but as a man who has been given an office by God, he says the violation is God's Word. You swear not to do what God has said not to do.

It's almost a direct quote of a portion of Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 3. At this point the commentators have a food fight over whether Nehemiah forced them to dissolve these marriages or whether he just made them swear that they wouldn't do it in the future. He at least makes them swear that they won't do it in the future, I would say the text doesn't say. We have a highly compressed text, meaning a lot more was said and done than just what we have in these very few verses, so we don't know. If it was important that we know God would have given it to us, and so we'll just content ourselves with what God has given us.

I don't think you can argue either way. I think an argument either way is an argument from silence. I wouldn't bet against it that he made them dissolve those marriages. Ezra did, so maybe he did. Having done those four things in verse 26, Nehemiah gives A great reason.

Solomon. Solomon is the great reason. Other than God said don't. That's the greatest reason. He's already said that.

God said don't do this. But a great reason is the life of King Solomon. Solomon was special. Even among the special, Solomon was special. Even among the kings of Israel, Solomon is marked out as having enjoyed particular favor from God.

God appeared to Solomon twice. He was beloved of God. Our text says that. He accomplished most as king. His kingdom was the largest that Israel ever was.

And it was the most peaceful. He enjoyed the most peace during his 40-year reign. He had a long reign. He had the largest kingdom. He had the most wealth.

He was the wisest. He was beloved of God. And God appeared to him twice. And yet, none of that saved him from the consequences of intermarriage. In spite of the marks of favor on this king, in spite of his strength, in spite of his wealth, in spite of his wisdom, none of that saved him from the devastating effects of intermarriage.

Turn to 1 Kings. This text in 1 Kings ties so closely to what we are seeing in Nehemiah chapter 13. It's perfect. First Kings chapter 11, I'm going to read a long section, 1-13, but all of it applies and it won't even really need much explanation. It just ties in so closely that no connections really need to be made other than reading the text.

Listen about the life of Solomon. 1 Kings 11-13, 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.

He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. 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 Ashteroth, 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 Chimosh, the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem. That's the Mount of Olives by the way. 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 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. Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David. I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen. Ever wondered why the rift between the northern and the southern kingdoms, the separation between Israel and Judah? This is why. Intermarriage.

God told Solomon not to do it. He did it. And in doing it, he made peace with the God of the Sidonians and the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of Moab. Do you know what was a central mark of the worship of these gods? Child sacrifice.

Chamash and Ashtoreth and Milcom, child sacrifice. Inner marriage caused the great King of Israel to make peace with that. And so Nehemiah makes an argument from the greater to the lesser. An argument from the greater to the lesser. If him, then you.

If Solomon, with all these marks of favor and his power and his wealth and his wisdom couldn't withstand intermarriage, you can't either. If he was vulnerable, then you're vulnerable. If his heart was turned away, then your heart will be turned away. All by itself, that's a great reason not to intermarry. We think, I'll influence them.

That's not how it works. They influence you. You enter this marriage and your children won't even speak the language. And we have verse 27 to end this section. Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women.

I agree with Matthew Poole's assessment of this verse that he's essentially saying should we hear a report of this and do nothing? Should we put up with this? It's a rhetorical question. No. Should we hear a report and not act?

No. Now the last two verses. Verses 28 and 29. In one of the sons of Joyada, The son of Eliashib the high priest was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I drove him from me.

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and the Levites." In this section we have Eliashib's grandson. If you're taking notes on the handout, the blank is grandson. Eliashib's grandson. This is the height of the transgression. No one else is named.

In Ezra, when we had the intermarriages, you actually had a bunch of names. A lot of names are named in Ezra chapter 9 of ones who had engaged in the intermarriage. Here in Nehemiah you only get one name, it's Eliashib's grandson. You don't even get the name of the grandson. Eliashib's son was Joyada, and he had a son who's not named, but who did intermarry, and he was the son-in-law of Sanballat.

Sanballat his daughter was married to the grandson of the high priest. So it's really given as the height of the transgression. One, because this is the line of the high priest. That is significant. Leviticus 21 verse 14, the second half of the verse says this, he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife." Now Leviticus 21 is, this section of Leviticus 21 is outlying specific requirements for the high priest.

There are a number of things that would be on limits for others within the people of God that are off limits for the line of the high priest. And so there are stricter marriage requirements for the line of the high priest. And that's what we see in Leviticus 21, second half verse 14. He shall take a virgin of his own people as wife. She will have to be a virgin and she will have to be of his own people.

Cannot marry outside of the people of God. So someone in the line of the high priest could not do what Boaz did in marrying Ruth. He would not be at liberty to do that because there were tighter marriage requirements for the line of the high priest. Secondly, Sambalat is an arch enemy, has been since the very first chapters of Nehemiah. How many times have we seen Sambalat in the book of Nehemiah actively Opposing the people of God, the work of God, God.

Actively opposing God. And whereas Tobiah was kind of a snake in the grass who was building alliances within the people and really doing it in backhanded ways. Sanballat has never been that. Sanballat was threatening to do it militarily, to make the work stop militarily. And yet the high priest allows his grandson to marry this man's daughter.

It is the height of the transgression. So Nehemiah drives this unnamed grandson away. Here's what Josephus says. This is really interesting. This is not scripture, but Josephus is the famous Jewish historian from the time of destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

And Josephus is a good historian. It's possible that this is true. Josephus says that this man's name is Manasseh and that after being driven out he fled to his father-in-law Sambalat in Samaria. That Sambalat built a temple on Mount Gerizim and made Manasseh, this man, the high priest of sort of a rival temple, rival worship. And that this is what Jesus refers to in John chapter 4 verse 20 where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well.

She says, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship. Maybe. It's really interesting. It's possible that after this man was driven out that he did join his father-in-law in Samaria and started the rival Samaritan worship at that time. Here's the point, this man was leaven.

This man was leaven. When we look at 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and what the apostle Paul says there, he says purge out the leaven. If you don't purge out the leaven, it works its way through the whole lump of dough. So you've got to get the leaven out of there because leaven is active and it spreads until it's everywhere. That's what Nehemiah does.

This man was leavened, and so he purges him out. Finally, Nehemiah has been saying over and over again, remember me, oh my God. This time he says, remember them. He's been asking God to remember him for good. Remember him for the things he's been doing for God's honor.

Now he says, these people who have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites, remember them and their defilements. Turn to our last cross-reference, Malachi chapter 2. Malachi of course is right before Matthew. It's the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 2. We think of Malachi chapter 2 as the divorce chapter, as the broken marriage chapter, but it's also the wrong marriage chapter.

It deals with intermarriage as much as it does with divorce. And it deals with priests and Levites engaging in this specifically. And that being a breaking of the covenant that God has with this tribe. Again, Malachi, it depends on the scholar you consult. He was either prophesying just before the time of Ezra, or he was prophesying during the time of Nehemiah, depends on who you listen to.

So he could have been prophesying right now, or he was prophesying something like 30 years earlier. In any case, God has just spoken these things within a period of a few decades of when Nehemiah 13 is happening. Follow along as I read Malachi chapter 2 verses 1-12. And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.

Yes, I have already cursed them, because you do not take it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your descendants and spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your solemn fasts, and one will take you away with it. Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear me. So he feared me and was reverent before my name.

The law of truth was in his mouth, and Injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity and turned away many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth. For He is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have departed from the way.

You have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, I also had made you contemptible and base before all the people, because you have not kept My ways but have shown partiality in the law. Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?

Why do we deal treacherously with another by profaning the covenant of the fathers. Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution which he loves. He has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob, the man who does this thing, being awake and aware, Yet he who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts." And then it goes on after that to say that God hates divorce.

But before we even get to the severing of marriage, he talks about wrong marriage. He talks about marrying the daughter of a foreign god. That's exactly what's happening here. You can see how tightly Malachi 2 fits with Nehemiah chapter 13 and the covenant of Levi and the priesthood. And how what Elijah's grandson did profaned that and defiled it.

It's exactly what Malachi is talking about in chapter 2. Okay, three quick applications, and we're done Number one think again about how important marriage is Think again about how important who you marry is. That's what I mean. Marriage is important. Who you marriage, who you marriage, who you marry is important.

Who you marry is important. Young ladies, I want to address you directly. Who you marry couldn't be more important to your future. The classic case of intermarriage is You marry someone who just professes that they're not in the faith. The more common instance of intermarriage is a young lady who hasn't done her homework.

And fathers and mothers, this goes to you too. If you allow yourself to be fooled by a false professor, The fallout from that can go for decades. You have so much recourse, you can just say no before you are married. Know before you're married. After you're married, you're bonded to this unbeliever.

And it'll have an impact on your life every single day. You better make sure you marry someone who really loves the Lord, who really fears the Lord. Before you're married is when you have the most control over that. You cannot afford to just fall for the first guy who shows interest. Absolutely not!

So much about the rest of your life hangs in the balance. Can God break through and do miracles? Of course he can. I'm just talking about playing with fire here. Number two.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." This is the argument about Solomon. I'm just quoting directly from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 the Apostle Paul talks about the Old Testament histories and he said they were given for us. So we would learn, we would see, we would know. And then he says, "'Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.'" God loved you more than he loved Solomon.

He appeared to you twice. He gave you a kingdom at peace and expanded it. He gave you all that wisdom. He gave you all that wealth. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Number three. Do you despise or welcome correction? There's some people here who lost hair. I'm laughing. It probably wasn't funny to them.

I'm laughing because I don't have any hair. Their best friend was Nehemiah. Got to quote J.C. Ryle, Your best friend is the one who tells you the most truth. Sometimes it seems really unwelcome at the time.

That's still your best friend. Do you despise or welcome correction? The restraining influence of the authorities that God puts in your life is a gift. You can despise the gift. Young Christians almost always do, but they learn better through time.

God has to teach us through time that these people are not our enemies, They're our friends. The restraining influences of the authorities that God has put in your life and my life are a gift. George Whitefield said, critics are the unpaid guardians of the soul. We should think of people who bring correction that way. They're not even getting paid for it, but they're helping guard our soul.

Let's pray. God, I pray that you would help us to be people who are tender-hearted, who welcome the restraining influence of the authorities that you put in all of our lives. I do thank you, God, that You give us authorities in every sphere of our life. And they do have a restraining influence. If we just followed every inclination to its end, we would destroy ourselves.

Surely we would. We've seen that. God, I thank you for our study of Nehemiah and how many nuggets of truth and wisdom and beauty we continue to see. I pray you would drive these truths deep into our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.