Ezra 9:1-2 The leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices… They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them.
There is an old saying that goes like this: “Bad company corrupts good character.” It did not take long for the returning exiles to get caught up with the ways of their worldly neighbors. Yes, many of these neighbors were Israelites who had not been taken to Babylon. But they had compromised their faith in God by intermarrying with other neighboring cultures. And now the people who had returned with Zerrubabel and Ezra had begun to mimic their practices. They had become unfaithful to God.
Unfaithfulness is epidemic in our Christian communities today. The rate of divorce among Christians is no different than among non-Christians. Un-wed mothers are as common among Christian women as among the larger population.
According to the pollsters, 98% of Americans believe in God. Yet we find drug addiction rampant, single parent families more numerous, states legalizing homosexual marriages, homelessness on the rise, greed rampant in our political and business leaders and children raising children in many homes.
Christians look no different than the secular culture that America has become. We have ignored the moral, spiritual and practical wisdom that God’s Word communicates to His people. We have intermingled to such an extent with unbelievers that today the people of God have fallen into the same problem as Ezra faced with the exiles. In Revelation 2:4 we see the problem: “You have forsaken your first love.” No longer is Jesus Christ the motivating factor in our lives.
Unfaithfulness has only one cure. The concern of our day is whether or not the family of God is willing to take the prescription needed for curing this epidemic.
