Great Is Thy Faithfulness (and great should be your faithfulness)! - [Malachi 2:10-16]

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We seem to live in a world of unfaithfulness these days. People not adhering to their promises, they don't keep their obligations.
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We even have in a court system where you're required to raise your hand and do you swear to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, and the whole truth so help you
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God. Even our court systems realize that for most of the time people don't tell the truth, so let's try to exact truth now.
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You see it in the sports world, cheating and doping, maybe Jose Canseco, Lance Armstrong, Ben Johnson.
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1994, figure skater, see if you can follow this, Tonya Harding's ex -husband,
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Jeff Galuli, and her bodyguard, Sean Eckert, hired Shane Stant to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg.
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Unfaithfulness everywhere. In the educational world, 70 % of public high school students say they regularly cheat, 60 % of the students say they plagiarize major papers.
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Just this last week in Atlanta, several teachers were convicted and given jail sentences for their cheating scandal as they were trying to get raises as the children would score better on their tests.
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Is there faithfulness in the business world, insider trading, overbilling?
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Is a man's word or a woman's word their bond any longer? Cooking the books for shareholders from Bertie Madoff's to Goldman Sachs' former director,
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Rajat Gupta, insider trading. What about in the ecclesiastical world, the church world, all kinds of infidelity from the moral perspective and then pastors not preaching the word of God that during their ordinations they vowed they would do?
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It almost seems like we've got a new value system. Here's the new morality of the United States and the Western world, yes, even the whole world.
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Find someone that's worse than you are so you feel better. It's comparison.
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It's the new value system. At least they're worse than I am. At least I'm more truthful than they are.
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And then even in the social world, Arthur Pink said, marital infidelity abounds on every hand.
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The sacred bonds of wedlock are being broken with as little regard as discarding of an old garment.
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Is anyone faithful anymore? Where are the faithful people? Contrast that with a few verses from Scripture to talk about God's faithfulness.
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What a diametrical difference there is between men and women and their unfaithfulness and God's faithfulness.
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Deuteronomy 7, know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God.
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Deuteronomy 32, the rock, His work is perfect. All His ways are just, a
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God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is
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He. Psalm 36, thy loving kindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, thy faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
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Isaiah 11, righteousness will be the belt around His loins and faithfulness the belt around His waist.
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Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, I know you're familiar with it. The Lord's loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.
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They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.
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And the New Testament as well, the proclamation of the faithful God continues. Faithful, 1
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Thessalonians 5, is He who calls you and He will also bring it to pass. 2
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Thessalonians, but God is faithful and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
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The writer of Hebrews chapter 10, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
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And maybe my most favorite description of the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 19.
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And I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and Jesus Christ who sat upon it is called faithful and true.
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And in righteousness He judges and wages war. Jesus, the faithful one to shelter
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His children, to judge sinners. Jesus is faithful. Arthur Tozer describes faithfulness,
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He cannot act out of His character. God is at once faithful and immutable, so all His words and acts must be and must remain faithful.
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Men become unfaithful out of desire, fear, weakness, loss of interest, or because of some strong influence from without.
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Obviously, none of these forces can affect God in any way. He is His own reason for all He is and does.
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He cannot be compelled from without, but ever speaks and acts from within Himself by His own sovereign will as it pleases
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Him. And even the Hebrew concept of faithfulness, it means something so firm, so strong, so reliable, you could just lean all your weight against it.
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No falsehood, no lie, stability, reliability. That's why you think of the word rock often to talk about the faithfulness of God.
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And the Greek idea of faithfulness is surety, reliability, faithfulness.
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And for the Bible, it's very simple. Peter says, you be holy, for I'm holy.
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Be merciful because your heavenly Father is merciful. And today, we're going to see, since God is faithful, we're to be faithful as well.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Malachi chapter 2, please. Since God is faithful, always faithful, immutably faithful, we are to be faithful as well.
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And what I love about the book of Malachi are many things. I love that it's a preacher's book.
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It just fires away. I used to think kind of machine gun disputations, except now
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I'm going to change it because there's six main disputations or disputes that Malachi has.
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I think I'm going to change it now from machine gun to bazooka because it just is this explosion of preaching through the inspiration of the
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Spirit of God through the messenger, Malachi. I love Malachi because he's not after his own fame, his own name.
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Yahweh is to be magnified. There's to be majesty for God. There's to be glory for God. My glory,
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I will not give to another. And Malachi will do everything he can with simplicity but directness to say,
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I think out of 55 verses, 20 plus says the Lord. Thus says the
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Lord. What does God say? I mean, isn't that what we're missing today? The media says this.
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The internet says this. The Twitter universe says this. My Facebook friend says this.
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The politicians say this. The educators say that. Well, what does God say? That's why
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I love the book of Malachi. It tells us what God says and it does so in a very fascinating fashion.
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People call Malachi the Hebrews version of Socrates because lots of questions are asked.
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But unlike Socrates, Malachi asks the question and then answers the question. I like that.
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He asks and then answers. I think preachers should do that more often. I think moms and dad who teach the Bible should do that more often.
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We ask questions to get the people to think through the issue and then we make sure we tell them what the answer is.
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By the way, preachers can preach from 100 to about 200 words per minute and you can listen to about 400 words per minute in your mind.
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So right now, you're listening to me preach. What are those other 200 words per minute that are going through your mind?
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Well, if I ask you questions, you'll focus in on what's going on because you can only think about one thing at a time.
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And Malachi is talking to people that are religious. He's not talking about people who they don't care about God, they don't believe in God, they're atheistic, they're agnostic, they hate
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God, they're blasphemers, they have Anton LaVey as their favorite prophet. These are people who are real worshippers of Yahweh.
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But they just want to cut the corners. They just want to say, but my heart's not in it. Here's my praise, here's my sacrifice, here's my least thing that I could do.
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It's the lowest common denominator version of religianity. Religianity, religiosity, religiousness.
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That's why I'm so glad we have editors. These people aren't saying,
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God, no. These people are essentially saying, God, yes, but their hearts are saying no.
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And Malachi in chapter 2 is going to discuss two major problems that reflect upon God's faithfulness.
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If God is faithful, third -class conditional, He is. The people are to be faithful.
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And they aren't being faithful in two particular areas. One is they're marrying unbelievers. And number two is they're getting unbiblical divorces.
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Now, those things are bad from the horizontal level, from person to person. But they're also bad because how we treat other people reflects on what we think of God.
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So we're going to go over Malachi chapter 2 this morning, verses 10 through 16. And we're going to look at how important it is for us to be faithful in light of God's faithfulness.
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That's always the way it goes. The exhortation is not simply just be faithful, tell the truth more often, don't date unbelievers, don't get unbiblically divorced, but think about the nature and character of God and just how faithful He is.
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And it only takes a second to reflect on the Lord Jesus. And just think in eternity past, the
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Father gave Him a commission, the Great Commission. What is the Great Commission? It's not us making disciples in Matthew 28.
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That's pretty good. But the greatest commission is when the Father gives a commission to the Son to go rescue the elect, to go to rescue the bride of Christ, to go rescue
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His people. And the Son was faithful to do it. And He did that very thing. He became obedient by His humility even to the death of a cross.
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And so since we are in Christ, we are to be faithful as well. And one of the things I love about the Bible before I read these verses is the
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Word of God is transchronological. Can I get a witness? I love the word transchronological.
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I use it all the time, maybe every week of my life, transchronological, across time.
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I mean, this is like it was written yesterday, although it was over 2 ,000 years ago, 2 ,500 years ago.
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And people were struggling with dating unbelievers, marrying unbelievers, and getting rid of their spouses.
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Doesn't it sound like today? I mean, talk about relevant. God is relevant. Heaven is relevant.
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Forgiveness is relevant. His Word is always relevant. And so here today, transchronological, whether you're
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Eastern, Western, lighter skin, darker skin, what language you speak, this word applies because God has written it.
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Let me read verses 10 through 16 and see if you can find five words that are the same because these five words really talk about the problem of a generation in Israel and Judah, but also today in many places.
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Verse 10 of Malachi 2, Have we not all one Father? Has not one
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God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
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Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.
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For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of Yahweh, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.
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May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the
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Lord of hosts. And this second thing you do, you cover
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Yahweh's altar with tears, with weeping, with groaning, because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
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But you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
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Verse 15, Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union?
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And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
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For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the
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Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be for the fifth time faithless.
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That is the theme of Malachi 2, 10 through 16. Faithlessness of a people who say they follow
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God. And so what we're going to look at today is in light of God's faithfulness, we are to be faithful people.
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Now we're not going to get to the part about cherishing our wives today, and loving our wives today, and not divorcing them unbiblically.
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That'll be for next time. But we are going to focus on the first one found in verses 11 and 12 after we get through the general statement.
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And that is, Israel was not to marry pagans. And it'll be a good application for us.
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We are not to date unbelievers. We are not to marry unbelievers because God is faithful.
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Now let's take a look at the general statement in verse 10 to start. This is kind of an overview, and you'll see the argument that this preacher has.
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Using questions, of course, getting them to think through. Rhetorical question one, have we not all one father, verse 10.
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Another question, has not one God created us? Don't we have all one father?
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Finally, we looked in the Bible, and there's a verse to teach us, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men.
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Everybody's going to heaven, and we're all brothers. This liberal trite cliche back of the religious pious days of old.
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Finally, we found a verse, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Well, not quite.
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That religious cliche isn't true. We know today we become sons and daughters of God by adoption through faith alone in Christ.
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People today we know are either children of the devil, John 8, or children of God. Because they're trusting in the work of Christ Jesus on the cross on their behalf.
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But back here, it says father. Don't we have one father? This is the nation of Israel.
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Hasn't God created us? That's the word bara, that's the word only used of God as subject,
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Genesis 1 .1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God, by divine fiat, he creates the world and all matter, space, time.
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And this language is also used how God creates Israel. God created
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Israel by divine fiat with sovereign, distinguishing grace. God makes
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Israel, and he's her father. He redeems
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Israel out of Egypt after already calling the people of Israel to himself through Abraham and the covenant.
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He's given his covenant at Sinai. And so what's happening? God's your father, that means you're a son, and your friend is a son, that means you're brothers.
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How should brothers treat one another? How should a brother and a sister treat one another?
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If we've got one father God, Israel, shouldn't you treat your brothers and sisters properly?
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You wouldn't want your sister to marry an unbelieving pagan, would you? And if you're married to your sister, that is, as a fellow believer in Yahweh, then you don't want to divorce your sister.
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Now, I got to go to Israel a couple months ago with some of the folks here. We had a great time. And I love being with the
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BBC people, a couple in particular. No, a couple more too, a couple, three more.
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You get yourself in trouble like this. It's like if you ever tell your kid, you're my favorite, you've got to be careful.
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My kids would say, Dad, you have four favorite kids I know, but today you're my favorite. And I love spending time with my brother, my physical brother there.
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But I especially love spending my time with my sister. I never get to see my sister anymore. Marcy's four years younger than I am.
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I never get to see her. And I'm usually kind of the leader type. But wherever Marcy sat on the bus,
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I just sat by her. Because I thought, I just want to spend time with my sister for lots of reasons. I never really get to see her.
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I love her. And she reminds me of Mom now. Mom's been dead for ten years.
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This is as close as I get. And I just wanted to be by her. And if you would offend my sister, if you would critique my sister, if you would do something untoward toward my sister, does that work?
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I would do something about it. I would protect my sister. What brother wouldn't want to protect his sister?
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What sister wouldn't want to say, don't talk about my brother that way? You have one father and one mother in the physical sense, and so there's this sibling protection.
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And so now here for Israel, the writer of Malachi is saying, wait a second, God is the
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Father. We are His children through the Abrahamic covenant. Yes, through the Mosaic covenant.
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Yes, through God delivering us out of Egypt. And we ought to treat one another in a familiar sense.
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God creates Israel. He elects Israel. Do you see in chapter 1 verse 6, it says more about God's relationship to Israel as Father.
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Malachi loves to talk about this because, don't you want to honor your father in what you do? Verse 6 of chapter 1, if I am a father, where is the honor due me?
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If God's your father, then the other Israelites are your sisters and brothers. Chapter 3,
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Malachi uses the same kind of argument. 3 .17, talking about God's ultimate compassion on Israel.
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I will spare them just as a compassionate man, or just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.
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There should be unity in the people of God, and care for one another, and a love for one another.
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And so if God is our Father, the vertical relationship affects the horizontal relationship.
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Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself are connected, because how can you love your neighbor poorly, and still say,
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I love the Lord well. Family loyalty should bind you together.
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And of course it's the same thing for the local church. If it's true for Israel, how much more for us we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us.
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And we're sons and daughters in a spiritual sense through faith in Christ Jesus. We have God as a Father, so we treat one another well, or we should.
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He asks the question, verse 10. Pretty shocking. Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
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We're faithless. Maybe your translation says we're breaking faith with one another.
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To break faith, this is treachery. This is betrayal, the highest order.
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When we're not acting towards one another rightly, and in this context here, they're marrying unbelievers, and then divorcing their spouses.
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This is like betrayal. This is like treachery. A violation of a covenant is what it is.
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There was a covenant. There was an agreement. And it's just an utter disregard for that. It's just a piece of paper.
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Now this word here, breaking faith, it's got a root of garment, or covering.
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When you act this way, it's like you just put a garment over something. You cover it over.
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It's like a cover -up, because you don't want other people to know what's going on, because it's embarrassing.
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It's wrong. This is wrong to do. So we're going to cover it up. It's faithlessness when you cover those things up.
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It's like Adam. Hosea 6, broken the covenant unfaithful to God.
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Now some people think this covenant is the Abrahamic covenant, but I think it's the covenant which God instituted
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Israel as a nation, the Mosaic covenant. This is what Solomon referred to in 1 Kings as the covenant of the
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Lord that He made with our fathers when He brought them out of Egypt. God's the
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Father of Israel, and so His children should act like brothers and sisters. Now let me say this before we go much farther.
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Aren't you glad there's forgiveness for faithlessness? What I'm not going to attempt to do here today is to say, well, if you've ever dated an unbeliever, you married an unbeliever, you're currently married to an unbeliever, you've ever divorced your spouse, it's unbiblical divorce, a biblical divorce, what
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I'm not trying to say is these sins are unforgivable. These things are irreconcilable.
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No, that's not what I'm after, because there is generosity in the grace of God.
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There's forgiveness found in the grace of God. And as we move forward though, there should be, for Israel and I think the church, you don't date unbelievers.
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You don't marry unbelievers. The language here in Malachi 2,
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ESV says why are we faithless to one another? Why do we betray one another is the NET, and another translation is why are we unfaithful to each other?
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So here's the deal. If God's your father, act like a son. If God's your father, act like a daughter.
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Don't profane the covenant. Don't treat it lightly. So that's the general statement, and now we move to verses 11 and 12.
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Since God is faithful, has been faithful to you in Christ Jesus' church, avoid, number one, marrying unbelievers, verses 11 and 12.
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We'll get to the unbiblical divorce part next time in verses 13 through 15 with the exhortation in verse 16.
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But for now, an area of unfaithfulness to avoid in Israel and in the church is avoid marrying unbelievers.
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So let's take a look at verses 11 and 12. Judah has been faithless.
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An abomination has committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. Judah profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves.
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He's married the daughter of a foreign god. Let's just stop right there.
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Now, today, I mean, I know I sound just old and old -fashioned.
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Cave dweller. That's another good synonym for cave dweller. I'm a spiritual troglodyte.
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To talk about this would be a bad thing to do, to marry an unbeliever.
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I mean, aren't there bigger sins? Aren't there greater sins? And by the way, I'm going to make the case that if you aren't to marry unbelievers, then why would you date unbelievers?
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In light of God's faithfulness, why would you do either of those? But the language of Malachi 2,
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Judah has been faithless. An abomination has been committed. What's the abomination?
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Marrying the daughter of a foreign god. That's detestable. To marry an unbeliever here in the days of Israel, it was an abomination.
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It was abhorring. You just want to turn your nose up to it. You know, they use this word, abomination, for the worst evils.
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They use this word, abomination, for serious defilement. They use this word, abomination, for things that require the death penalty.
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This is a term reserved for things like homosexuality, child sacrifice, prostitution, witchcraft, idolatry.
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See, because what we do towards other people reflects on God. And God's faithful.
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He's always faithful. He's immutably faithful. And so, in light of God's faithfulness, we are to be faithful.
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And you can already see, even today in the church, well, you know what? There's nobody else to marry. I don't want to be old and not be able to have children.
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What about this? What about that? I take as good as I can get. And you just start thinking, no, but God's faithful.
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Don't forget, single person, you want to marry a believer. It's never God's will for you to marry an unbeliever.
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And when you date unbelievers, you're basically saying, God's not faithful enough to provide for all my needs and wants and desires.
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I have to take matters into my own hands because I can't walk by faith because I don't trust the faithful one, so I'll walk by sight and that'll be much better.
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This is a word reserved for a major sin. Ezra's day, the same thing happened, and these things had been done.
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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 like those of the
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Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Egyptians and Amorites.
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They've taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and they've mingled the holy race with the peoples around them.
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And then, interesting in Ezra, and the leaders and officials have led the way of unfaithfulness.
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It's unfaithful to do that. This is an unfaithful thing to do. Now, mark this well.
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In Christ, there's no male or female or Jew or Greek or slave or free or white or black or anything else.
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This is not a matter of God being partial to how much pigment you have or don't have in your skin.
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This is not a matter of God is anti a variety of different races and He likes one race versus others.
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It has nothing to do with that at all. Here's Israel, His chosen vessel, His royal priesthood, a holy nation.
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And out of this nation, the Messiah is going to come. And it is to be pure. It is to be holy.
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It is to be set apart. And it doesn't take you very long to realize that when you start marrying other pagan women, you start acting like them.
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Ask Solomon. And so, it's in love that God does this. God's faithful. Where to be faithful?
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150 years ago, a man wrote this, God isolated the Jews from all other nations that they might be a nursery for the great ideas of religion that were to be elaborated in the history of the world and a stock from which
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He would bring forth the Messiah. All mingling with other nations who had not been trained in this way and preserved for this purpose tended to defeat this design.
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Especially was this true of matrimonial alliances. Heathen women retained a natural longing for the indulgences of their own religion and easily led their husbands into guilty compliances.
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The women of Moab and Philistia and wives of Solomon, listen, furnish mournful proofs of this fact.
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I think the principle could be applied today. That it's making something holy, marriage for a believer unto an unbeliever, making marriage something profane.
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Now, these ladies back in those days, and could be gentlemen as well as we think about it, but back in those days in the context there, here's their philosophy.
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Does it sound familiar? Ryrie says it this way. These ladies would say, marry me, marry my religion.
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If you're going to get my hand in wedding, in marriage, you're going to have to marry my religion.
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You're going to have to change your religion. But Proverbs 16 says,
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By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil. Proverbs 8, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
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The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. And so the flesh is wanting, but the fear of the
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Lord guards. Is this not in fact true today for us?
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Should any Christian who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, any
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Christian that used to be a slave to sin in the slave market of sin, and Jesus Christ gets us out of the slave pit of sin,
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He redeems us by paying a price, a ransom price, that is Himself, His death on the cross.
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And now we're no longer slaves to sin, we're slaves to righteousness, we're in the family of God, joint heirs with Christ.
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Those kind of people need to make sure they say, I have to walk by faith in the faithful one, not, well you know what, they're good looking, and they've got a lot of goats.
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I guess, is that how people pick those others today? Maybe not. Maybe back in the other's days.
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And see, the Word is so clear. You can just see the rationalization. Well, you know, nobody really is going to come to this church, and I can't find anyone, and I'm getting too old, and probably can't have kids soon.
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And then you start tricking yourself, and you're like, well maybe they really do believe in God. I know their lives don't show it or anything, but they say they're a
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Christian, and we won't get into that lordship salvation stuff, and there's a faith that doesn't save, and we won't do any of that.
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I mean, it's still true today. The Bible says, not of Christians marrying unbelievers, but the principle is right there, do not be bound together with unbelievers.
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For what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness?
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What harmony has Christ with Belial? What is a believer in common with an unbeliever?
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Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I'll dwell in them, and walk among them, and I'll be their
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God, and they shall be My people. Now, let me say this.
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If you are a believer, and you married an unbeliever before you were saved, and God saved you, well, pray that God would save your spouse as well.
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Is that something that goes without saying? Yes, God saves. I know He saves.
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He could save me, then He could save my spouse. Additionally, if you got married to someone, and you knew you shouldn't, but you're married now, you don't seek a divorce, but I will say, that you could have love, and joy, and peace, can't you?
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I meet people, and they're married to unbelievers, and I know that it's difficult, only by their knowledge. I don't personally know.
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But Christians can still have a sweet communion with God, and have love, and a wonderful life, indwelt by the
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Spirit of God. It's true. But going forward, if you're here today, and you think, I'm dating this person, and they're not really a believer, but maybe
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I can make them one. That's what happens. Well, I know of cases, where a person was dating an unbeliever, and they threw their gospel witness, turned them into a believer.
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Well, your gospel witness doesn't turn them into a believer, unless you're preaching the gospel to them. But that's not what's going on here.
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What's going on here, is you have to go to revelation, and not just your feelings. For Israel, it was major trouble.
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Look at verse 12. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob, any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the
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Lord of hosts. Now, I've got a couple of comments. My first one is, praise the Lord for Jesus.
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Hallelujah for Jesus Christ. But it was a big deal back in those days. And so, let me just be as clear as I can.
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It's never God's will for you to date an unbeliever. It's never God's will for you to marry an unbeliever.
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It's never. And could I talk to the dads and moms a little bit, especially dads as a leader? If your children are dating unbelievers, what are you thinking?
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What are you doing? Isn't there leadership? Here's how it kind of works in the Ebendroth household so you can kind of get an idea.
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This is not from the Bible. This is just my own wisdom. And I told my three girls, well, here's what
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I told Luke. Kim and I told them, but I was the teller. We were together. She was helping. Luke can't date the first year at Master's College.
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Okay, Dad. Well, I just want you to study and focus on that.
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And by the way, why would you date a girl when you don't even have health insurance? You're on my health insurance plan.
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So when you're able to get married, that's when you should start dating because as you begin to date, you have a desire for the other person to be close.
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God has wired two people, man and woman, who spend a lot of time together up close for good and godly desires to be fulfilled ultimately on the marriage day.
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That's just the way it works. So why would I want you to have those feelings now when you don't even know what a copay really is?
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You have no idea. Similarly, I have three daughters. Girls, here's what you do if somebody would like to go out on a date with you.
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If you're a great senior, 14, and they ask you, you punch them in the nose. No, I'm just kidding. No, but as you get older,
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I'd like to go out with you. Here's what you do. You let them down easy because I know how hard it is as a man to ask a lady, you know, 30 years ago to go out on a date kind of thing.
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It's difficult. So, you know, I'd love to go out sometime, have a coffee, see a movie, sit in a restaurant together and text message each other never looking at each other's eyes, you know, whatever they do.
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I see that all the time. If you don't want to go out with them, you don't find them attractive on the inside and outside, just say, no, thank you.
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Thanks for asking. Because I know what it's like to have that rotary phone with seven numbers you have to dial and I dial six of them and I'm too nervous to dial that girl's last number in, you know, 1978.
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So just say no, thank you. But if you are interested in them... By the way, this all has to be done by the dad.
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The dads have to be involved. And you say, of course, right there with the mother.
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You say, all right. Then say, if you're interested, well, you know what, I'd love to, but you'll have to talk to my...
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Well, the guys that don't have a clue, they're like, I'm not talking to the dad. I don't want to jump through those
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God -ordained hoops. I'm not talking to anybody. So we get rid of them nice and easy. And then the ones that do call me up and it's happened on occasion.
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Hi, hi, Mr. Abedrock. I try to make my voice really deep. Hello? Oh, I'd love to get together and have a cup of coffee.
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So we go to have a cup of coffee and we shake hands. The guy's all nervous and I'm thinking, one of these days, it might be this guy, but one of these days, the right guy is going to make it through God -ordained hurdles like me that have a
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FID card. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you.
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And we sit down and tell me your testimony of faith, how God saved you. And if he doesn't get that one right, then
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I preach the gospel to him. And then I said, well, my daughters can only get to know believers.
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And then I say to them, always, well, tell me about your job. Tell me about your health insurance, your life insurance, your long -term disability insurance.
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They don't have any clue. They're just like spinning around. And I said, well, back in the old days, you had to do something like that to win the girl.
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And there were people that would just join the military and the Navy just to make sure they had enough to provide for my daughter.
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And since you can't provide for my daughter, you can't date my daughter. But I'm glad you asked.
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That's how it should go every single time. But we're so lazy as parents.
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We're so preoccupied as parents. We have these adult bodies, children.
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And I want to tell my girls. I've said this to my girls. Daddy loves you. Daddy cares for you. And so does
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Mom. And it's the most important decision you'll ever make short of following the
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Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And I'll be there to help you. I'll help you make a good decision.
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I'll help you think through it so your emotions aren't running, so you're not attracted to the ones that are handsome and chiseled and gotta have a lot of goats.
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I'll be there to help you because I want you to get married.
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I want you to have a lot of kids. I want you to just have the time of your life. God gave us the best gift, the Lord Jesus. He gives all other gifts with generosity.
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But it's up to the dads and moms. It's up to the dads and moms to say, we want to be careful.
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We have to watch and teach and instruct. And you say, well,
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I'm older. I don't have a dad or mom. Friends, that's why the church is so wonderful. If you say, well,
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I'm going to date this particular guy, but I'm afraid to bring him to church. Well, it could just be pride.
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But if it's because I know Mike and the elders and my other friends are going to see right through the guy because the guy's a scallywag.
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And Mike's going to be able to... By the way, I have good scallywag detections. But you want me to be...
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And if you want to get married and you're able to biblically, I want you to. I'm here to help you and to be your friend.
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And so is the rest of the church because we have God as Father and then spiritually through faith in Christ, we're brothers and sisters.
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And so that's why the church is very important. Because left to ourselves, we deceive ourselves.
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The heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all else. But the only people that can know it are those that are in a romantic relationship.
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It doesn't work. P .S. I'm pro -romance. P .S. I'm pro -marriage.
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I'm pro -having a family. And even though the people here who are married to unbelievers would confess there's a time that you can have joy and love and laughter with an unbelieving spouse in light of who
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God is and in light of even the common graces that your spouse would give, it's hard. It's difficult.
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You have an unbelieving spouse and you want to pray with them, you want to talk with them. The person you love the most, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, they, to be theologically correct, they hate
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Him. And if they could send Jesus to hell, they would, but their arms aren't strong enough.
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And so you've got a person that's been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and someone in Revelation would stand up and say, curse you,
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Lamb. We're not even going to praise you. Let the rocks fall on us instead. And that kind of marriage, again,
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I'm not trying to blast people here who are married to unbelievers. That's not my point. But my point is, if you're a believer and you want to go date an unbeliever,
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I think you ought to reread Malachi. I think you ought to reread this and say, you know, I cannot lower my definition of being a
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Christian so I can have a spouse. I need help. Dad, help me. I need help.
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Friend at church, help me. I need help. Where are the dads these days?
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Many dads here are very faithful. Friends, if I were to ask you to do a word association game and I were to say something like the word
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Corinth, what would you say, I wonder? What's the first word that pops in your mind when you think of Corinth?
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My answer would be unfaithful. They were unfaithful.
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And in the midst of an unfaithful people, and we would all admit on our best days we still have lots of unfaithfulness.
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I want to remind you that no matter what's happened in the past and who will be there in the future as you walk by faith and not by sight, listen to how
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Paul reminds this unfaithful, motley crew, and we're far from Corinth, I know, but if it's good for them, it's good for us as well.
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Listen to what Paul says from the get -go after his introduction in 1 Corinthians 1 .9.
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What do you tell people that struggle with faithlessness, unfaithfulness, the temptations that are out there?
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Here's what you tell them. 1 Corinthians 1 .9 God is faithful through whom you
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Corinthians were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our
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Lord. There's issues in the church. There's struggles that are going on.
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Don't you ever forget, Paul says to the Corinthians, and I say to you, God's faithful. See, I'd like to get married, but who's here?
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Walk by faith and not by sight. You want your daughters and sons to get married, but where are the people there?
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If it's in the will of God, we just submit to His faithfulness. God's character provides the guarantee.
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His sovereign, unchangeable promises. He's true. He's constant.
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He is the only promise keeper. And when we don't see the difference between dating believers and dating unbelievers and marrying unbelievers and marrying believers, we basically say there's no such thing as a difference between the
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God of the Bible and any other pagan god. God is the faithful one that we need to be looking toward.
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We'll see next week more about marriage and the wife of our companion and how to bolster our marriages and be firm in those next time.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your Word. Father, I pray that through this exhortation, if there's anyone here who's dating unbelievers and they call themselves a believer,
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I pray that You grant them repentance, that it would be over. I pray maybe there's some older folks here that would love to get married.
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Father, would You grant them what You often so do. You give us things that are above and beyond and so far beyond what we could grasp or think.
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I pray that You'd do that. I pray that if there's anyone here who's married to an unbeliever, maybe they got saved after or maybe they just sinned.
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Father, You're full of grace and mercy. I pray that You'd bless them and give them the desire of their heart, the faith in Christ Jesus for their spouse.
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I pray for the marriages that are here. I pray especially for the dads that they would be involved in the lives of their children, both men and women.
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I pray for the moms that they would come alongside the dads and help as we want to train up our children.
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I pray that for the marriages that are here, I pray that You'd strengthen them. I pray that You'd give them a tenderness towards one another, a real cherishing and a real love as we'll learn in weeks to come.
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And Father, I pray for those who are divorced. I pray that You'd help them to have them see themselves for who they are in Christ Jesus.
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Divorce is not the unforgivable sin and You love people with an everlasting love in spite of their sin.
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Father, there's some that have been here that have been biblically divorced and I just pray that You'd either grant reconciliation with their spouse or if You see fit to grant them a new spouse as they would be biblically remarried in light of that biblical divorce.
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Father, we are faithful. Your Son is faithful. Your Word is faithful.
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Your Spirit is faithful. And in light of Your faithfulness, help us to run from all faithlessness.