By Pr Samuel Namatiiti
According to Deuteronomy 7: 1-12, the Word of God stood firm and still does today, in regard to marriage between unbelievers and believers.
When the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, after being saved from the land of bondage (Egypt), God, through Moses, vividly gave them separation guideline between them and nations found in the new land.
The instructions were: “You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them.
“You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.
“But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire” (Deuteronomy 7: 3-5).
From this, we learn that God’s intention was to have His people pure from anything that would divert them from serving Him. The above instructions are still valid, even to the New Testament believers in the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
God emphasised it to the children of Israe that they must not get involved with heathen people by exchanging sons and daughters into marriages.
Due to the fact that ‘love is blind’, the children of God would or may find themselves driven into serving and worshiping their lovers’ gods.
In verse five, God gave the children of Israel the only alternative way to deal with the heathen; “to destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire”.
And to us the New Testament believers, this instruction reminds us to preach the Gospel to unbelievers, have them change their way of thinking and lifestyle.
We need to preach the Word of God to them so that they can turn away from idol worship and witchcraft.
King Solomon
King Solomon practiced intermarriages. He married women from other nations and they turned his heart from the only true God.
1 Kings 11:1-3: “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.”
Outcome
Genesis 6:6-7: “And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at his heart.
“And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
The end results, of man disobeying God was destruction. However, only Noah, his wife, sons and their wives plus selected living creatures, were saved inside the Ark.
The criteria for being allowed into Noah’s ark was for pairs of male and female of each particular kind of creation.
I have been serving in Church in various ways since 1963, and one of the main causes of conflict I have witnessed among Christians is intermarriages between believers and non-believers.
Such marriages have always ended in disaster and falling from the grace of salvation.
There is always conflict between believers and non-believers because of the different beliefs, ways of life, aspirations and ideas about life in general.
Ultimately, God is a God of peace, and would not want His children to live in conflict.
So, Christians ought to choose partners of the same beliefs, if they want peaceful and lasting marriages.
It is important that we strictly avoid intermarriages between believers and non-believers or else we may easily grieve our Creator.
It may also cause us to fall away from grace to the extent of facing everlasting damnation. In the New Testament, Paul also questions the union between light and darkness.
2Corrithians 6:14, 15: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”
Please, consider this and take care.
God Bless you.
