SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, from everlasting to everlasting, you are my rock.
SPEAKER_02: And now, Lord, as we approach the scriptures, we want to continue our worship by looking at the words that you have written.
SPEAKER_02: And God, I pray that the Holy Spirit, be yourself in this space.
SPEAKER_02: As we approach difficult texts of the Bible, God, I pray that we can move on with confidence, knowing that you are good.
SPEAKER_02: You are a good Father.
SPEAKER_02: And we're trusting in you to do a work in us this morning.
SPEAKER_02: It's in your amazing, chain-breaking name, I pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_02: Hara, are we good?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02: Here, your Bibles, would you go ahead and grab those?
SPEAKER_02: Go to Malachi chapter 2.
SPEAKER_02: Malachi chapter 2.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a Bible, you can just relax as these passages are gonna appear here on your screen.
SPEAKER_02: But I'd I'd love for all of us to be looking at God's word together.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be in Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 through 16.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Leo Almeida.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of the teaching pastors here on staff, and it just hit me now that it's been almost a year of being here on staff.
SPEAKER_02: Um, that was real fast.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that was incredible.
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for being such a good church home and an admission of mine, since it's been almost a year, is I am a sucker for a cheesy commercial.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I like a good cheesy commercial.
SPEAKER_02: And by cheesy commercial, here is what I mean.
SPEAKER_06: Nothing's ever good enough.
SPEAKER_02: You're not a bad sister.
SPEAKER_02: You just need better internet.
SPEAKER_02: ATT final is faster than the internet.
SPEAKER_02: We're good, we're good.
SPEAKER_02: So um, we're not sponsored by ATT, I promise.
SPEAKER_02: But, okay, I love that commercial because I can relate.
SPEAKER_02: So for most of my life, all of my family has lived in different continents.
SPEAKER_02: So right now, most of my family lives in Angola, and a lot of them live in over in Portugal.
SPEAKER_02: So from an early age, I was accustomed to making international calls to people who had varying levels of internet quality.
SPEAKER_02: And I was young on MSN Video, people who remember that is on Dial Up Internet.
SPEAKER_02: I was young on Stipe.
SPEAKER_02: I was young on Viber.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone remember where Viber is?
SPEAKER_02: Just me, okay.
SPEAKER_02: From from WhatsApp and all these.
SPEAKER_02: So, like this commercial, I am no stranger to bad connection.
SPEAKER_02: Even now, every other Monday, my family gets together on Zoom at two o'clock for 30 minutes, and we have a prayer session.
SPEAKER_02: And some some of my family is in the inner city Angola and their internet is very bad.
SPEAKER_02: So they're praying for me, and I go, amen.
SPEAKER_02: And I only heard like half the prayer.
SPEAKER_02: So they could have just cursed me and I am it.
SPEAKER_02: I have no idea um what they've said.
SPEAKER_02: So um, like this commercial, whenever your phone or your internet has bad connection, okay, whether it's to a cell tower or to a satellite, whenever your phone or internet has bad connection to a to a cell tower or a satellite, it affects communication this way with others.
SPEAKER_02: So, in other words, when north-south is off, east-west is gonna be off.
SPEAKER_02: When north-south is off, east-west is going to be off.
SPEAKER_02: Now we're gonna jump right into the text this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, verses 10 through 16.
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to keep your eyes sensitive to this reality.
SPEAKER_02: When north-south is off, east-west is gonna be off as well.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: Have we not all one father?
SPEAKER_02: Has not one God created us?
SPEAKER_02: Why then are we faithless to one another?
SPEAKER_02: Profane the covenant of our fathers.
SPEAKER_02: Judah has been faithless, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign God.
SPEAKER_02: May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: And this second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he no longer regards or he no the offering or accept it, accepts it with favor from your hand.
SPEAKER_02: But you say, Why does he not?
SPEAKER_02: Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you've been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
SPEAKER_02: Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union?
SPEAKER_02: And what was the one God seeking?
SPEAKER_02: Godly offspring.
SPEAKER_02: So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
SPEAKER_02: For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord God of hosts, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Did you see it?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, when north-south is off, east-west will be off as well.
SPEAKER_02: But unlike that commercial, what's happening here in Israel is not accidental, and it's a lot more tragic than communication problems.
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot more tragic than that.
SPEAKER_02: The book of Malachi is the prime example of what happens when affection for God starts to cool off amongst God's people.
SPEAKER_02: And I've said this multiple times, but I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_02: People usually don't just fall into sin.
SPEAKER_02: People usually slide there.
SPEAKER_02: And the first things that happen is that your affections for God start to cool off.
SPEAKER_02: And what we see in this book is that whenever your affections for God start to cool off, it affects everything.
SPEAKER_02: It affects your worship.
SPEAKER_02: You see in this book, they're spending a lot of time accusing God for their situation, demanding proof of God's goodness.
SPEAKER_02: And instead of offering up good sacrifices, they're offering up basically roadkill, like Brent says.
SPEAKER_02: It affects their giving.
SPEAKER_02: You'll see in the next chapter here that God accuses them of robbing him.
SPEAKER_02: It even affects their preaching.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, right before this, he says, You have caused many to stumble by your instruction.
SPEAKER_02: It affects everything, whenever your heart for God cools off, it affects everything.
SPEAKER_02: And you can see in this passage, it affects the relationships with each other.
SPEAKER_02: When north-south is off, east-west will be off as well.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: Have we not all one father?
SPEAKER_02: Now, in this passage, Malachi is about to address some behavioral issues that are happening amongst them.
SPEAKER_02: But he sets the table for this by appealing to the north-south relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, he's appealing to their history.
SPEAKER_02: Have we, Israel, have we not all one father?
SPEAKER_02: What's gonna happen here is whenever a Jewish person hears that, a good Jewish person, they're gonna flash all the way back to Exodus chapter 4 or the second book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: When God is instructing Moses to let the to talk to talk to Pharaoh, to let the people go.
SPEAKER_02: God tells Pharaoh, listen, God tells Moses, hey, tell Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son.
SPEAKER_02: And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me.
SPEAKER_02: So before addressing their behavior, he starts tugging at their heart, saying, Listen, remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Remember who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, oftentimes Satan doesn't have to poke at you, he'll just sit back and watch spiritual amnesia ruin your life.
SPEAKER_02: And you forget who you are and forget whose you are.
SPEAKER_02: So he's reminding them, listen, have we not all one father?
SPEAKER_02: Remember how we got here.
SPEAKER_02: And then he keeps going.
SPEAKER_02: Has not one God created us?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, Israel owes its existence to the same God who created the skies and the dirt.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that same God who created everything.
SPEAKER_02: I heard some, I heard a guy say, um, light, light did not exist.
SPEAKER_02: God said, let there be light, and light knew what to do.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that same God created Israel, redeemed Israel, and made a special covenant with Israel that would bless the entire world all throughout history.
SPEAKER_02: So Malachi sets that before he addresses their interpersonal problems, he sets the table by appealing to north-south.
SPEAKER_02: And then he goes east-west.
SPEAKER_02: Because friends, failure to love God will eventually lead to failure to love his people as well.
SPEAKER_02: Those two are very connected.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 10b.
SPEAKER_02: Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, faithless.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is the key word here in these six verses.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, this word um is the word bagad in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_02: It appears five times in only six verses.
SPEAKER_02: Some of your Bible say unfaithful, others of your Bible say, why do you deal treacherously?
SPEAKER_02: But this word bagad literally means to treat people with ruthless betrayal, to act fraudulently, to consistently act deceitfully, to break faith or consistent covenant breaking.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, what Malachi is addressing here is that there are people who are professing to be a part of God's team, but they're treating each other like their jerseys reversible.
SPEAKER_02: And this faithless attitude leads to two national scandals that are very relevant for us here today.
SPEAKER_02: The scandal number one was this God's people were intermarrying with people around them.
SPEAKER_02: God's people were intermaring with people around them.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verses 1 through 12 or 11 through 12.
SPEAKER_02: It says this.
SPEAKER_02: Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves.
SPEAKER_02: And he has married the daughter of a foreign God.
SPEAKER_02: May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: So the sons of God were marrying the daughters of pagans.
SPEAKER_02: They were marrying unbelievers, and God feels very strongly about that.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the words he's using.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Abomination.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, abomination.
SPEAKER_02: That literally means disgusting.
SPEAKER_02: It was disgusting to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I um when we first got here to America in 2001, um, there was a lot of adjustments that needed to be made.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, there's a big cultural shock, but one of the shocks that people don't think about is this one right here.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it smelled different.
SPEAKER_02: Everything was smelling way different.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so one of the adjustments was the smell.
SPEAKER_02: So things that are common and normal smelling to you are very different to an outsider.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember one of the first times ever going to a movie theater.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I don't know, I think we were watching Castaway.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, the blockbuster hit castaway.
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but I remember watching the movie, I remember turning to my right, I was seven years old.
SPEAKER_02: My brother at the time was nine years old, and he had his entire face inside a popcorn bag.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought he was just going to town on the popcorn, but I looked closely, he was throwing up.
SPEAKER_02: He was throwing up.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, what was if you think about it from the outside looking in, like a bag that's like super greasy with popcorn, that's drenched in butter.
SPEAKER_02: That's a shocking smell to someone who's not used to that.
SPEAKER_02: And for my brother, it nauseated him and it made him throw up.
SPEAKER_02: Now, it was common to everybody around, but it was very uncommon to him.
SPEAKER_02: But nowadays, he's the best popcorn maker in the family.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not getting he's the best popcorn used to, he's adjusted.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, sometimes we think that's how God is.
SPEAKER_02: He gets over what once offended him because it becomes common to us.
SPEAKER_02: He gets desensitized to things the same way we get desensitized to things.
SPEAKER_02: God is okay with it these days.
SPEAKER_02: But friends, God's eyes don't adjust to wickedness like our eyes do.
SPEAKER_02: So if somebody hits those lights, okay, it'll get dark in here and you won't be able to see anything.
SPEAKER_02: And then your eyes will adjust to that darkness and it'll become almost normal.
SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes we think that because things are normal to us, that they're common to God, but what you see that God thinks that this is an abomination.
SPEAKER_02: This is widespread.
SPEAKER_02: If you read the book of Nehemiah or the book of Ezra, you see that the people were intermarrying with pagan daughters, it was widespread all over the country.
SPEAKER_02: But look at the way that God addresses it here.
SPEAKER_02: An abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: And as a result, God accuses them of profaning the sanctuary of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, the reality is um they were being completely disobedient to God's laws.
SPEAKER_02: God gave them a specific law not to take in foreign wives.
SPEAKER_02: Do not marry foreign wives.
SPEAKER_02: Now I have to make this point.
SPEAKER_02: The point of this was not racism, okay?
SPEAKER_02: And I have to say this because I have one of my friends is vanilla, he's he's a he's a white guy, okay?
SPEAKER_02: He's a close friend of mine.
SPEAKER_02: I love him very much.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, he's probably gonna watch this later.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but um, he married a Hispanic woman, and he's known as like evil Kinevil in his town for doing that because he comes from a fundamentalist background that uses verses like this to say, hey, interracial marriage, that is not, that should not happen.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but listen, what's happening here, the point of this law was not racism.
SPEAKER_02: There's a book in your Bible called Ruth.
SPEAKER_02: Was Ruth Jewish?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Ruth is a she was a Moabite, but she rejected her pagan gods and she pursued the Lord in such a way that she makes a guest appearance in Jesus' genealogy.
SPEAKER_02: Furthermore, Rahab, was Rahab Jewish?
SPEAKER_02: She forsook her pagan gods and she feared the Lord in such a way, she makes a guest appearance in the hall of faith.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this is not about the race of foreign women, but God gave, when God gave his instruction to the people who were entering the promised land, he talks to them about how to deal with foreigners in the land and around the land.
SPEAKER_02: He says this.
SPEAKER_02: This is in Deuteronomy 7, verse 3 and 4.
SPEAKER_02: He says this you shall not intermarry with them.
SPEAKER_02: Give your daughters, or giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, this is not a racism issue, this is a holiness issue.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is holy, and therefore he calls his people to be holy.
SPEAKER_02: Israel was not mightier or wiser or intrinsically better than anybody else, but they were called to be set apart from everybody else.
SPEAKER_02: They were called to be different on purpose.
SPEAKER_02: It was not the race of these foreign women, it was that they're followers of a foreign God.
SPEAKER_02: And marrying foreign wives could be spiritual suicide.
SPEAKER_02: This is all over your Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: Numbers 25 says like this, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_02: When Israel lived in Shedim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab.
SPEAKER_02: These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods.
SPEAKER_02: And the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
SPEAKER_02: This is a people group who witnessed incredible things, but through marriage, their allegiance switched over.
SPEAKER_02: It's dangerous.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, 1 Kings 11 says like this.
SPEAKER_02: Now King Solomon loved many foreign wives, along with the daughters of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning the Lord, which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.
SPEAKER_02: But Saul Solomon clung to these in love.
SPEAKER_02: He had seven hundred wives, who were princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.
SPEAKER_02: For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
SPEAKER_02: For Solomon went after Ashtareth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.
SPEAKER_02: So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, who did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done.
SPEAKER_02: So not marrying with foreign wives was not a matter of prejudice.
SPEAKER_02: It was a matter of spiritual preservation.
SPEAKER_02: And in this passage through Malachi, God is telling he is not happy with their behavior, no matter how common it is to them.
SPEAKER_02: And then in the last verse right there, he says, May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: That's strong, consequential language.
SPEAKER_02: Marrying foreign wives.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what we can do when we read a text like that is we can back up and have aesthetic distance.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, the reason you don't um call the police whenever you see somebody get shot in the like uh when watching a movie is you've created an aesthetic distance.
SPEAKER_02: And we can read text like this and go, that's not me, but does God still care about this today?
SPEAKER_02: Does God still care?
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's look at um 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 16 say this do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
SPEAKER_02: For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness, and what accord has Christ's belly all?
SPEAKER_02: That's a euphemistic name for Satan, or what portion does a believer believer share with an unbeliever?
SPEAKER_02: What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
SPEAKER_02: Friends, this passage can very easily apply to Christians in marriage.
SPEAKER_02: We're called to not be unequally yoked in marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Now, a yoke, according to Google, I grew up in Cadia, so I had to Google all of this.
SPEAKER_02: A yoke is a wooden bar, right?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and it's it's it's it's for joining two oxens together and the burden that they pull.
SPEAKER_02: And an unequal yoke is whenever one of them is taller or it's unequal yoke, it speaks of joining two things that should not be joined.
SPEAKER_02: That's the language there.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so sometimes an oxen is taller and stronger, and one of them is weaker and slower, and what happens is instead of going in a straight line, they're gonna pull in circles instead, or pull in circles in instead.
SPEAKER_02: Well, Paul is saying, listen, don't do this in partnership with unbelievers.
SPEAKER_02: If you are here and you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, man, we are excited.
SPEAKER_02: We're not just happy you're here, we are excited that you are here.
SPEAKER_02: We want this to be a safe space for you to search the the riches of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: But I want to plead with my brothers and sisters, do not be married.
SPEAKER_02: Um, Christians and non-Christians should not um be, um it's not God's will, they marry.
SPEAKER_02: And God, and Paul says this what what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness or and light with darkness, or Christ with Belial, or temple of God and with idols, they don't go together.
SPEAKER_02: So, in here, okay, for those of us here who are unmarried and you're looking for a spouse, okay, I want to make this clear.
SPEAKER_02: I want to be As pastoral as possible, it's not God's will, it's not God's desire that if you are a Christian, that you marry an unbeliever.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you are already in a marriage with an unbeliever and like one of you came to know Christ in your marriage, the Bible says, listen, live in such a way that you consistently point them to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: But I just want to talk to my unmarried folks in here who are dating and praying and evaluating and swiping and pursuing.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let me narrow it down for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not God's will that a follower of Christ marries someone who doesn't know him, doesn't follow him.
SPEAKER_02: Even when Paul addresses widows, he says this but if her husband dies, she's free to be married to whom she wishes.
SPEAKER_02: And he gives us four words.
SPEAKER_02: Only in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, marriage is a partnership in doing God's work.
SPEAKER_02: You want to do that with somebody who professes to know God?
SPEAKER_02: You want to do it with someone who is in pursuit of God?
SPEAKER_02: You want to do that with somebody who is running at your pace towards God.
SPEAKER_02: So when I was 18 years old, Brian Hogan broke this down for me.
SPEAKER_02: Um rest of it, he passed away now.
SPEAKER_02: But I remember he was a senior in college at the time, so he was seriously dating.
SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was just graduated high school, I remember uh Brian once said, listen, what you want to do in your Christian life is you wanna run as fast as you can towards Christ.
SPEAKER_02: You wanna run as fast as you can towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And as you're running towards Jesus, as you're running towards God's will, you're gonna see other people running.
SPEAKER_02: Some people are gonna be running in different directions.
SPEAKER_02: Some people are gonna be completely stopped and not running at all.
SPEAKER_02: Some people are gonna be running slower than you.
SPEAKER_02: Remember him, Leo, find someone who is running the same run as you.
SPEAKER_02: Don't stop for anyone, don't change directions or slow down for anyone.
SPEAKER_02: You wanna run so fast, and then if there's someone right here, you want to pursue someone or date someone or marry someone that is running your race towards towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And that was extremely helpful for me.
SPEAKER_02: Now, um, as I'm preaching, um, I usually try to anticipate um questions that people might be asking emotionally.
SPEAKER_02: And I know this is a very difficult topic, and we haven't even gotten to the most difficult part yet.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but um right now there's probably unmarried people somewhere here or hearing this online and they're emotionally um disagreeing with me.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and oftentimes two objections can happen.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, objection number one is this, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Leo, he's not a Christian, but fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, he's not a Christian, but he really understands me.
SPEAKER_02: He's not a Christian, but he's nicer than most Christians I know.
SPEAKER_02: He's not a Christian, or she's not a Christian, but she's super attractive.
SPEAKER_02: She's not a Christian, but I'm lonely and I've waited long enough.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not I'm not mocking anyone if you're there.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm being as pastoral as possible.
SPEAKER_02: If that is you here this morning, my encouragement to you is this make your requests known to the Lord and then wait on the Lord in obedience.
SPEAKER_02: Right now, this is probably the most difficult time in history to be content in your singleness.
SPEAKER_02: Because as you are swiping on Instagram or on Twitter or whatever, you're probably watching a lot of your friends get married and flowers and dresses and all the beautiful fixings of a wedding day.
SPEAKER_02: And those things make it very difficult for you to be content.
SPEAKER_02: But my my encouragement to you is listen make your requests known to the Lord and wait on the Lord in obedience.
SPEAKER_02: So objection number one can be, Leo, he's not a Christian, but objection number two is I hear what you're saying, but I can save them.
SPEAKER_02: I can Leo, I can save them.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a I'm a flirt to convert.
SPEAKER_02: So, which by the way, this might be some of y'all's story in here.
SPEAKER_02: Some people wander into church chasing someone, and lo and behold, 10 years later, they know and love Jesus more than anything in the world.
SPEAKER_02: That might be some of your story, but listen, I if that's you thinking this way, I can save them.
SPEAKER_02: I want to encourage you this way.
SPEAKER_02: You are no one's Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: You make a very lousy God.
SPEAKER_02: That is not a burden that you want to put on yourself.
SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, Jesus says this in John 6 it is the Spirit who gives life.
SPEAKER_02: The flesh is no help at all.
SPEAKER_02: So, unmarried friend.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, if you're one of these two objections, either I can save them or she's not a Christian, but listen, friends, instead of craving an experience where God tells you that you're the exception, let's listen to the word.
SPEAKER_02: It's not God's will that you marry an unbeliever.
SPEAKER_02: Parents and grandparents here in the room.
SPEAKER_02: Let's disciple our kids and disciple the people that look up to us to view godliness as the ultimate attraction.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but that's the number one thing that's happening.
SPEAKER_02: There's cooling of affections in Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And the national scandal that's happening is they're intermarrying with their foreign wives.
SPEAKER_02: The second thing that's happening is their cooling of affection, the cooling of their affections is leading them to a low regard for marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 13 through 16 with me.
SPEAKER_02: And this second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping, with groaning, because no he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
SPEAKER_02: But you say, What is he not?
SPEAKER_02: Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you've been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
SPEAKER_02: Did he not make them one with the portion of the spirit in their union?
SPEAKER_02: And what was the one God seeking?
SPEAKER_02: Godly offspring.
SPEAKER_02: So guard yourselves in your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
SPEAKER_02: 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 Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_02: So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what's happening here, there's massive confusion and massive emotion.
SPEAKER_02: People can't figure out why God is withholding blessing from them.
SPEAKER_02: So Malachi tells them in verse 14, it's 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.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is withholding blessing from them, withholding fever from them because they've been unfaithful to the wives of their youth.
SPEAKER_02: And friends, this is not far from us here today.
SPEAKER_02: First Peter 3:7 says this husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
SPEAKER_02: Husbands, the way that you treat your wife affects your prayers.
SPEAKER_02: The failure to live as a godly husband has spiritual consequences.
SPEAKER_02: It can and it will hinder your prayers.
SPEAKER_02: And friends, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02: If I came to your house and I wanted to borrow your truck, you'd say yes.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: If Neil came to your house, no, if I came to your house and I wanted to borrow your car, you'd probably say, I'm very convincing and I'm cute and I beg, you'd probably say yes.
SPEAKER_02: However, if I consistently meet mistreat your daughter, and then I ask for your truck, things change a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: That changes things.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying this for us men to walk out of here scared, like, oh, I didn't put the trash out.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, is lightning gonna strike?
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to give you undue fear or be terrified as you walk out of here.
SPEAKER_02: But I want you to feel the weight of what God has entrusted you with.
SPEAKER_02: You have a wife.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_02: That is not saying, hey, bow down and worship your wife.
SPEAKER_02: No, this is not a call to worship her, but this is a call to worship Jesus by the way you sacrificially love your wife.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this text right here, I gotta be more brief.
SPEAKER_02: This text right here uh tells us a lot about marriage from God's angle.
SPEAKER_02: So oftentimes I have a picture here um from uh a wedding um that I did.
SPEAKER_02: Look at that little guy in the background over there.
SPEAKER_02: So that's me um in June-ish um 2021.
SPEAKER_02: I was wearing a suit in like a hundred-degree weather.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, these are former students of mine.
SPEAKER_02: They met um in my youth group and I got to marry them off for my birthday.
SPEAKER_02: So oftentimes, if you look online, this is what we see.
SPEAKER_02: At the surface level, this is what we see.
SPEAKER_02: But what this passage shows us is that God there is something roaring underneath tantalizing wedding pictures.
SPEAKER_02: There is something happening underneath it.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, verse 14 says, the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth.
SPEAKER_02: He was witness.
SPEAKER_02: What that means is um back in those days, um, they had they had witnesses for the for their weddings.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, these are people, the way this the same way we use a best man or a matron of honor, these are people who hear the vows.
SPEAKER_02: They're listening to the vows in your wedding day.
SPEAKER_02: And then throughout your marriage, they start reminding you of what you've been vowed.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, what you vowed to your wife, what you vowed to your husband.
SPEAKER_02: This pastor said, No, God is a witness in your marriage.
SPEAKER_02: He was that witness.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 13 says this Did He not make them one with the portion of the Spirit in their union?
SPEAKER_02: That is a jaw-dropping sin.
SPEAKER_02: Did he not make, not did Leo make them one or the past, did he not make them one with the portion of the spirit in their union?
SPEAKER_02: Friends, marriage is supernaturally carried out by God.
SPEAKER_02: There is something majestic that's happening where God is turning two people into one flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Again, it's not just pretty pictures that we look, there's something roaring underneath it all that is God spiritually uniting two people in the most intimate way possible.
SPEAKER_02: And in verse 15, B keeps going, says, and what was that one God seeking godly offspring?
SPEAKER_02: One important reason for this oneness is to establish a proper environment for raising godly offspring.
SPEAKER_02: The idea is this, friends.
SPEAKER_02: I show you that picture and tell you this I felt I facilitate ceremonies and I do some counseling, but marriage is done by God.
SPEAKER_02: And what God has joined together, let not man separate.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, God loves marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, God loves marriage.
SPEAKER_02: The words use the wife of your youth, your companion, your wife by covenant, that's evident that he loves marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And since he since he loves marriage, it makes sense that God would hate the splitting of a marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And that God hates divorce.
SPEAKER_02: Not in divorced people, not in divorcees, that is not the unforgivable sin, but the dissolving of something that he hates if he loves, the dissolving of a union.
SPEAKER_02: That is something that is tragic to God's heart.
SPEAKER_02: And the men of Israel were divorcing the wives of their youth, and they were chasing after pagan women.
SPEAKER_02: They were ignoring the covenant faithfulness of God and instead of focusing on attractive women in front of them.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 16, it says, For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel covers his garment with violence.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, part of the marriage ceremony back then was you covering your wife as a symbol of protection.
SPEAKER_02: But here it's saying the sense, well, whenever you forsake your wife, you are covering yourself with a garment, uh, you're covering your garment with violence.
SPEAKER_02: That's strong, strong language.
SPEAKER_02: What he does is he instructs them to guard themselves in their spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And again, I'll close with this.
SPEAKER_02: Does God still care about this today?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Again, we can create an aesthetic distance, but withes God still care about this today, yes.
SPEAKER_02: In the U.S., about 50% of married couples divorced.
SPEAKER_02: That's at the sixth highest in the world.
SPEAKER_02: And friends, that is something that God laments.
SPEAKER_02: Because it hurts his picture of marriage.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, marriage is a picture of the faithfulness of God and his people, whether it's God and Israel or Jesus and the bride, the church.
SPEAKER_02: We get to mirror that for the world.
SPEAKER_02: And the world gets to look at what God's faithfulness looks like up close through our marriages.
SPEAKER_02: So when there's a breaking of that covenant that looks a certain way to the watching world.
SPEAKER_02: So it hurts the picture of marriage, it hurts participants.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone that's ever been in divorce, you know, there is a deep, deep, deep wound within divorce.
SPEAKER_02: And God in his mercy wants to spare us that.
SPEAKER_02: And three, it hurts the chances of godly offspring.
SPEAKER_02: Godly offspring can still be born, but the best chance of godly offspring is in a home with two godly parents.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the Bible does give us some grounds for divorce.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, if 1 Corinthians chapter 7, um, Paul lists abandonment by an unbelieving spouse as grounds for divorce.
SPEAKER_02: In Matthew 19, Jesus lists adultery as grounds for divorce.
SPEAKER_02: However, if you are in a marriage that is difficult, and many of us are, okay, take verse 16 to speak to you.
SPEAKER_02: Guard yourself in your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: As you read the Bible, friends, listen for what's repeated.
SPEAKER_02: This repeated twice.
SPEAKER_02: Guard yourself in your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Satan hates your marriage.
SPEAKER_02: The world trivializes your marriage, and your flesh is struggling, struggles with marriage.
SPEAKER_02: But we need to consistently guard against developing a negative attitude towards our spouse.
SPEAKER_02: Guard yourself in your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: That might look like you praying with your spouse more.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's hard to be mean or cruel or short with your spouse if you don't have to hold hands with them and pray with them later.
SPEAKER_02: I heard someone say this.
SPEAKER_02: Um, the shortest distance between two people is prayer.
SPEAKER_02: So guarding yourself in your spirit might look like you praying with your spouse.
SPEAKER_02: Um, guarding yourself in your spirit might look like prioritizing date night.
SPEAKER_02: Guarding yourself in your spirit might look like you actually getting help.
SPEAKER_02: Whether that's couples counseling for the both of you or you yourself doing individual recovery work to deal with wounds that you suffer before marriage that are affecting your marriage.
SPEAKER_02: For some of us, men in the room, guarding yourself in the spirit might look like prioritizing the stand.
SPEAKER_02: Last weekend we had the men's weekend, and I I can't tell you how many men I heard talk about, man, this the stand.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have become a new man because of what's happening over in the stand.
SPEAKER_02: What's happening in the stand, these are men who have chosen to put their flesh to death.
SPEAKER_02: Or as the kids say, these are men who woke up and chose violence.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, they're putting their flesh to death for the sake of Christ and their marriage.
SPEAKER_02: So, what is guarding yourself in your spirit look like for you?
SPEAKER_02: To create a lasting, flourishing marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're unmarried, what is it like to encourage your married friends as they guard themselves in their spirit?
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is a tough, very tough text.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So I end like this Um in John chapter 4, um, we have a story of a Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's crowned as a story of the woman at the well.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and Jesus is having a conversation with her, and in that conversation, it's revealed this lady has had five husbands.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way Jesus brings it up, and by the way she kind of dodges that, and by the way that she's operating out of shame, you can tell these it isn't just five men who passed away.
SPEAKER_02: There's probably divorce in her background, and yet Jesus chooses this woman.
SPEAKER_02: This woman with the type of marital baggage that she has was one of the first people in human history to hear from the lips of Jesus that he himself is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: It was this woman.
SPEAKER_02: And if you read the book of John, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02: Because if in our wisdom, it should have been one chapter before when he's talking to a man whose religious varsity, Nicodemus, who's probably never sinned in his life, he's probably sinned before.
SPEAKER_02: But he chooses this woman to say, I'm the guy, it's me.
SPEAKER_02: So, friends, if you've had uh divorce, if you've been affected in any, and all of us have been affected in some way by divorce, there is healing in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: There is mercy in the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You have incredible value in the kingdom of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: This is one of the first women we see be a missionary for Christ.
SPEAKER_02: John chapter 4, verse 39 says this many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of this woman's testimony, saying, He told me all that I ever did.
SPEAKER_02: He used her.
SPEAKER_02: That's huge.
SPEAKER_02: That should be incredibly comforting for anybody in here who's struggling with shame from your past.
SPEAKER_02: There is healing.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just remove our guilt, just washes over our shame.
SPEAKER_02: Let us rest in that as a church.
SPEAKER_02: Let us rest in that as a people.
SPEAKER_02: So the cooling of their affections led them to intermarry with foreign wives and led the widespread low regard of marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And friends, I could talk more about East-West techniques, but how is your North South?
SPEAKER_02: This all starts with North South.
SPEAKER_02: Let us be a people who are so staggered by the beauty of Christ that it affects every relationship that we have.
SPEAKER_02: Whether you're unmarried, whether you're 30 years into your marriage, whether you're, it doesn't matter where you let us be so staggered by the beauty of God, it affects every people, every person we encounter.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, being salt, salt promotes thirst.
SPEAKER_02: Let's be those people.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for um this passage, and thank you for how you've encouraged us and um that you are good even when the text seems um tough to swallow, and you're you're still good, Father.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_02: We ask now that you can speak to us.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: So at the end of each one of our services, we're gonna sit step back and allow you some space for you to get some mental worship.
SPEAKER_02: So I have some questions here to kind of guide you on your mental worship so you can process what you kind of heard.
SPEAKER_02: You can zero in on one question, and you and the Holy Spirit can just journey through that one question, or you can take a picture of this and you can keep thinking about this more and more later.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm gonna step back for a couple minutes and I just wanna have you um Just chew on what you've heard here.
SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_02: It's timeless.
SPEAKER_02: It's also timely.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, God, for what you've done in just in this short 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_02: We love you.
SPEAKER_02: We praise you.
SPEAKER_02: It's in your beautiful name I pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Alrighty, I want to thank you so much for coming.
SPEAKER_02: Again, my name is Leo Almade.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of the teaching pastors here.
SPEAKER_02: After every one of our services, we have our pastor stand here to pray with you, to help you process what you've heard, or even just to answer any questions about here our church.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're visiting here, welcome.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you you matter to God.
SPEAKER_02: So you matter you matter to us.
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't have a church home, we'd love to be that church home for you.
SPEAKER_02: If you would, would you just text welcome to this number here on your screen?
SPEAKER_02: That gives us a record here of your visits.
SPEAKER_02: But again, thank you so much for coming here today.
SPEAKER_02: And if this is your church home and you like to worship it today, but um but through your through through your tithes and your offerings, um, there are some brown boxes around the room to which you can do so.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I want to point your attention to the screen so you can see what's happening to the left of our church.
SPEAKER_00: The number one thing that takes up my time is art related, whether I'm doing it for school, church, or work related.
SPEAKER_04: School and I play basketball, uh, try to solve some Rubik's Cubes, learn some new ones, and I play some piano.
SPEAKER_03: The thing that causes the biggest stress is school because just over time it just becomes a daily occurrence in which just like math and history just overloads me with so much work that it's just it's hard to focus on anything else.
SPEAKER_06: Having a whole bunch of homework to work on, um stuff that I don't understand and I don't know how to ask for help with it.
SPEAKER_05: What causes me the most stress would be college applications just because it's very time-consuming and there's lots of little details to fill out.
SPEAKER_00: Just social um issues with school, and I think that causes me the most stress because it's kind of the start of a new year and things are changing.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's really different to have different friend groups, and um I don't know, it's really hard to not have a bunch of friends or people you're really close to, so just being lonely is always a tough thing.
SPEAKER_05: I'd say what distracts me from God the most would be hanging out with friends or at least wanting to, just because it's my senior year, so I am trying to make it memorable.
SPEAKER_06: Homework, school, friends, even.
SPEAKER_03: I think the world really defines rest as I mean, whenever you say rest, everybody's gonna say sleep.
SPEAKER_03: Everybody's gonna say sleep.
SPEAKER_03: Um, and a lot of times it's even like, oh, I'm gonna spend time alone listening to music, I'm gonna spend time by myself.
SPEAKER_03: Um, but in reality, that's not what we're called to do for red.
SPEAKER_03: Rest is a time of rejuvenation.
SPEAKER_03: Rest is a time to really just re almost realign yourself to what God has for you.
SPEAKER_04: I think rest is important for our generation because like it helps you a lot mentally and physically.
SPEAKER_04: Like, I think it can definitely help you grow like your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_04: I think when you like you're well rested, you're not like as anxious or anything, and you feel like you can do more things, like it just like really helps like overall with everything.
SPEAKER_06: Join us at regenerate as we learn to be still.
SPEAKER_03: Come join us at regenerate while we learn to be still.
SPEAKER_00: Join us at regenerate as we learn to be still.
SPEAKER_03: Join us at regenerate as we learn to be still.
SPEAKER_02: Awesome, and I want to remind you that after um after every one of our service or this this service, um, there's a Thanksgiving booth out here, um, and there's a camera set up for you to tell you, hey, what are you thankful for?
SPEAKER_02: So our our media coordinator, Yaz, is back there.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to film some people, talk about some of the things that they are thankful for.
SPEAKER_02: That's gonna be um really cool for us to hear as a church, church body.
SPEAKER_02: So will you stand for this this morning and receive this blessing?
SPEAKER_02: Every relationship in your life.
SPEAKER_02: I declare these things in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.