Adulterate

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

November 12, 2017

Scripture Reading: Ezra 10:10-11

10) “And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.

11) Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do His pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.”

Have you ever seen children of a mixed-race couple? Which race do they look like? The majority look like they are a blend of both races; they are what the Bible calls them: a “confusion of faces.” They have genes from both races, and they can usually be very confused as to what race they come from. The children are certainly not born in the image of either parent.

What race is Barak Obama? He is usually referred to as being Black, even though he is a mongrel. He is the offspring of a Jewish mother and a Black father. He is half-Jewish and half- Black. Why isn’t he considered as being a Jew rather than a Black? In fact, in all mixed-race marriages, once the offspring is mixed, the children are never considered by the world as being White. Why is that? It is because of what the Bible teaches, not the purposeful discrimination of any race.

A person could go to the Internet and type in “synonyms for strange” and get the following results. One result is the following:

1. Being out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird:

   Exotic, fantastic, crazy, gothic, queer, curious, odd, funny, unusual, oddish, eerie, quaint, rum, grotesque, other, eery, freaky, singular, antic, peculiar, rummy, fantastical, weird.

2. Relating to or originating in or characteristic of another place or part of the world:

   Exotic, alien, imported, unfamiliarity, strangeness, established, foreignness, foreign-born, naturalized, foreign, curiousness, adventive, non-native, un-naturalized, tramontane.

Which one pertains to Ezra, chapter 10? Could you replace one of the synonyms from either the first or second list in place of the word “stranger” and always be correct? No, for they have different meanings.

For example:

Ye have transgressed, and taken a weird wife, or a funny wife, or a crazy wife or an exotic wife, or a foreign-born wife or a un-naturalized wife. But this is serious business since whatever wife they had married was a trespass against God’s commandment and was not His pleasure. What kind of wife/husband causes the extreme displeasure of the God of the Bible?

The Israelites had committed two main sins:

1. They hadn’t separated themselves from the people of the land, and
2. They hadn’t separated themselves from their strange wives.

Let’s go back into Chapter 9 and see if we can find what led up to the controversy in Chapter 10. Let us read verses 1-4:

Ezra 9:1-4:

1) “Now when these things were done, the princes came to me [Ezra], saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the land, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

2) For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands; yea, the hand of the princes and rulers have been chief in this trespass.

3) And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.

4) Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied unto the evening sacrifice.”

Whatever sin the Israelites of Judah had committed must have been a very terrible sin, for Ezra tore his clothes that he had on, plucked the hair off his face and sat down in a state of astonishment. He was joined in his state by kinsmen who “trembled at the words of the God of Israel.” Have you ever known your kinsmen to have trembled at the words of the God of Israel?

Judah, Benjamin and Levi had been guilty of not separating themselves from the other races who were living in their land. They had taken interracial wives both for their sons and for themselves. That was a major reason that princes told Ezra that their own people had mingled their “holy seed” among strangers.

The ten tribes of Israel were in captivity and were not the people of Israel who were in Judea at the time of these two prophets of God. Ezra and Nehemiah were leaders who were instrumental in leading the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and the Temple. It was about 400-500 B.C. that these events happened. And it was only a very small fraction of the people of these three tribes who came back to rebuild.

Nevertheless, an important event happened in Judea. Ezra was informed that there was a very grievous sin that had occurred among his people. What was this sin? It was that the leaders of the remnant who had returned from captivity to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and its wall had committed adultery—that is, they had committed interracial marriage with the strangers who lived in the land. Is that still a sin today?

There are many who consider that interracial marriage is acceptable today if both parties who are going to be married are believers; but they must consider why Ezra reacted so drastically? Why did he tear his clothes that and pull the hair off his head and beard? Are we supposed to believe that it was a very grievous sin until the death and resurrection of Christ, and then it was acceptable? Have you seen anyone who was so upset at any sin that was committed that he acted the way Ezra did?

WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE DAYS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH?

Practically every Judeo-Christian hasn’t been exposed to the following story of what happened in Jerusalem during the reign of Ezra and Nehemiah. Maybe some who hold to the belief of Christian Identity also haven’t heard of the trials that these two men faced. Here is a short summary of it:

Several of the Israelite race-mixers did not repent and eventually went to Samaria and joined with other mongrel people and helped start the building of a counterfeit religious system known as the Mt. Gerizim Temple.   The Samaritans were a pagan sect that grew out of the mongrelization of some of the people of the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim after their deportation in 723 B.C.

Tobiah, an Ammonite,  Sanballat the Horonite, and the men of Samaria mocked and opposed Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Who is opposing America’s efforts to build the walls on its border with Mexico?

Nehemiah 2:10:

10) “When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.”

Why do you think the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are in the Bible? Are they there for Israelites to read and meditate on? Don't these two books teach Israelites the danger of integration, as well as other sins? In the above verse we have two foreign officials who were very displeased to hear the someone had come seeking to benefit the sons of Israel.

Nehemiah 2:19-20:

19) “But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? Will ye rebel against the king?

20) Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven He will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.”

Does this give the Israelites of today a vital important doctrine? Does what happened in those days apply to today’s world? The man of God answered his critics with the statement that the “God of heaven He will prosper us.” Nehemiah told the leaders of the other races that they had:

1. No portion,
2. No right, and
3. No memorial in Jerusalem.

The LORD God of heaven would prosper His covenant people in building the wall. Both He and His people did not need any help from individuals who were not in the covenant of God to help with the reconstruction of the wall. It was Israel’s responsibility only. No one other than the covenant people would be accepted in working on the wall.

Nehemiah 4:1-3:

1)“But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Judeans.

2) And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Judeans? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?

3) Now Tobaih the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.”

This was an attack of ridicule which was just one of a seven-fold opposition to the building of the walls of Jerusalem:

1. By anger
2. By ridicule
3. By conspiracy and war
4. By continual threatening
5. By craftiness
6. By accusation
7. By treachery

Nehemiah and the remnant that followed him faced all seven and overcame every attack because they obeyed their God.

Nehemiah 4:7-8:

7) “But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth.

8) And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.”

These ancient enemies of God’s covenant people were ready to fight to stop them from building the walls of Jerusalem back from their ruins. But even though actual war preparations had been made, they were thwarted by the prayers that the people of the LORD had made. So, the threat of war was ceased. The Israelites built the wall with “one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon” (Nehemiah 4:17b).

Prayer to our LORD has always been one of the greatest offensive weapons in our arsenal. Nehemiah used this battle tactic to destroy those who tried to destroy him and his people.

Nehemiah 6:5-7:

5) “Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand.

6) “Wherein was written, It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Judeans think to rebel: for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king, according to these words.

7) And thou also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah: and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.”

It was quite a battle that was going on. Would you want to be Nehemiah? Sanballat hired a prophet who tried to get Nehemiah to sin so his trespass could be used against him. Nehemiah foiled their plans.

This was an open accusation of planned rebellion against Persia; but it was denied. This was only an effort to force the Judeans into counsel which they had already rejected four times. Nehemiah, like a true man of God, prayed in every time of trouble; and God, as in all cases of true men of faith, answered all his prayers.

Nehemiah 10:29-30:

29) “They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;

30) And that we would not…

Now, what do you think the men of the remnant tribe of Judah said that they would not do at the end of this great revival of the feast of Tabernacles?

…give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons”

Does the Bible say anything about inter-racial marriages? It certainly does. It is a constant theme. The breaking of this commandment of God has always led to the destruction of the kingdom of God. There must be something done about this grievous error, or the nation of Israel, if they were to continue in this sin, would be totally eradicated.

Nehemiah 13:28-30:

28) “And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.

29) Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.

30) Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business:”

Ezra and Nehemiah had contended with the remnant of Israelites who had returned from captivity to Jerusalem to rebuild both the temple in Jerusalem and the wall. In Nehemiah 13:23-31, we see that Nehemiah had done ten things to reestablish segregation in the people of God:

1. Nehemiah contended with his people who had married foreign or strange wives
2. Nehemiah had pronounced a curse upon the adulterers
3. Nehemiah smote certain of the Israelite adulterers
4. Nehemiah had plucked off the hair of some of the guilty Judahites
5. Nehemiah made the integrationists make a vow to their God that they would no longer live a life of integration but a life of segregation
6. Nehemiah gave a lecture to the Israelite sinners
7. Nehemiah chased the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite from Jerusalem to Samaria
8. Nehemiah prayed for the Israelite adulterers to do what God wanted for the remainder of their lives; they had to separate from their strange wives and mongrel children
9. Nehemiah cleansed the priesthood by segregation
10. Nehemiah appointed priests and Levites to their duties

About 515 B.C., when the Judeans succeeded in completely rebuilding Jerusalem, Tobiah was expelled from his place in the Temple by Nehemiah. As a result, Tobiah went off in a mad rage and built his own temple and royal palace, which was in his native homeland of the Ammonites. The temple can be seen today with amazing full-size rock carved lions all the way around the top of the temple. There are also lions at ground level. One is pictured below. There are many “house of David” symbols including lily flowers of the same style that David used.

Nehemiah also restored the divine service to its former solemnity and dismissed the unworthy priest, Manasseh, to separate himself from his Samaritan wife, Nicaso, Sanballat’s daughter. Nehemiah possessed sufficient firmness to banish him from the country. Many other priests and Judeans who would not obey Nehemiah’s commands were also expelled. Thus, these race-mixing priests of the true Temple became the priest of the new Samaritan Temple.

A most important work in the eyes of Nehemiah was the dissolution of the mixed marriages which had again been contracted. Here he came in direct conflict with the high-priestly house. Manasseh, a son or relation of the high-priest, Joiada, also refused to obey to separate and was sent into exile. After peace and order had been restored in the capital city, Nehemiah tried to abolish the abuses which had found their way into the provinces.

Sanballat not wishing to see his daughter divorced, promised to build a Temple on Mount Gerizim where Manasseh would become the high priest. Sanballat also offered Manasseh a position of governing over the people of Samaria. In this fashion, Manasseh agreed not to divorce Sanballat’s daughter, and this set into motion the wheels that began the construction of a temple in Samaria. But it was not by the command of God, but that of Sanballat himself.

Wherever Judeans lived near foreign tribes, such as the Ashdodites, Ammonites, Moabites or Samaritans, mixed marriages had led to almost entire ignorance of the Hebrew tongue, for the children of these marriages generally spoke the language of their mothers. This aroused Nehemiah’s anger, and stimulated his energy. He remonstrated with the Judean fathers, he even cursed them, and finally caused them to be punished. By such persistent activity he could accomplish the dissolution of the mixed marriages, and the preservation of the Hebrew tongue (Nehemiah 13:23-27).

Most of the churches today are just like the ecumenical temple worship system in Mt. Gerizim. The Temple of Mt. Gerizim was a more ecumenical false temple than the former two false temples in the House of Israel. It was because of who was in charge. The former temple had a priest who had been a priest in the House of God in Jerusalem; the temples at the House of Israel forbid any Levite from being a priest in their false temples. It was like, but at the same time very different from, the true temple of God in Jerusalem.

Both false temples believed that interracial marriage was acceptable by God and that is what they vigorously taught in their pulpits. One reason for this belief was their pulpits and pews were full of mongrel people. They ignored and disagreed with the true Temple of God, that was in the city of Jerusalem, over segregation. That temple could only have priests who were descendants of the tribe of Levi. And they had the sacrifices and commandments given them by God and performed on a yearly basis that was just for Israelites.

The false temples were like most of today’s churches which teach that there are many Scriptures used by those who teach against interracial marriage, such as:

• Genesis 6:2-3
• Exodus 34:15-16
• Joshua 23:12-13
• Judges 3:6-7
• 1Kings 11:2
• Ezra 9:1-2
• Nehemiah 13:23-27

The problem, they recite, “is that these Scriptures come from the Old Testament as God commanded Israel to be a nation set apart from other nations.”

But the first verse was before God had even chosen Israel to be His nation.

The followers of interracial marriages say that, “God was concerned about His people worshiping the gods of other nations, not about them marrying persons who were a different race than they were. Every nation or race God commanded the Israelites not to marry worshiped other gods.”

Does this teach the equality of all races? We have countries in which no individuals worship anyone but different gods. The God of the Bible didn’t instruct His people to first send missionaries to these people and then, if any believed, they could be married. No, He instructed His people to marry no one who were a part of these countries. They were not a part of the covenant seed.

They go on and say, “If God was speaking against interracial marriages, why did Moses marry an Ethiopian [Black] woman? His sister even spoke against him, and God smote her with leprosy (Numbers 12:1-16).”

I would like to ask some questions regarding these few paragraphs from this website that is in favor of interracial marriages:

1. Why did God allow Jacob, the son of Isaac, to marry a person whose family worshipped other gods? Jacob’s twin brother, Esau, was also guilty of marrying unbelievers, two Canaanite and one Ishmaelite woman. What was the difference? Was race a factor?

2. If Moses was guilty of marrying a Black, Ethiopian woman, then his children (two boys) would have been mongrels or bastards and it would be against the Law of God for them to be in the congregation of Israel. Moses would have had to leave his children outside the congregation of Israel, which he did not. 

   This is a serious misconception, and disproves the notion that Moses married a Black woman. It also runs counter to the supposition that the writer who is in favor of mixed-marriages makes in that above paragraph. How could Israel keep themselves separate from other races, and at the same time marry into the other races?  

3. Why would this one Ethiopian Black woman, be the only believer in her whole country? How could Moses even have the time to meet her? When was he ever in Ethiopia in Africa at this time? How did she find out about the commandments of God if their nation was not given them? Zipporah saved Moses’ life by reminding him of his duty of having his children circumcised. Were mongrel children commanded to be circumcised?

4. There were two countries that were named Cushite nations at the time of Moses. One was Ethiopia, lying south of the Sudan in Africa. There was another Cush in eastern Mesopotamia or what, at other times, was part of the Babylonian empire. Both countries were never a black race at any time!

   This Cush nation flourished about 1500 B.C., identical to the time of Moses when the Exodus from Egypt occurred. In short, Moses married a daughter of the priest of Midian, Zipporah; though not an Israelite, she was White. It was not an interracial marriage!

   If God commanded His people, the Israelites, not to marry any individual from any other nation of any other race other than their own, it was because they worshipped other gods. Then why would just one or two individuals from these foreign countries break free from the rest of their countrymen and become a believer in the covenant God when that God didn’t make a covenant with them in the first place? That is one reason why none of the other races could ever be a believer! Why would any individual of any colored race believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

5. Does God still have His nation taken from one race with whom He made a covenant with their fathers? God was the king of Israel, until He was rejected and King Saul replaced Him as king. Is Israel still the nation of God? What nation did His Son come from? He was born of the tribe of Judah, the kingly tribe. What people will the former king of Israel rule over in the future? Why did the son of God preach the gospel of the kingdom?
    
6. What about the mixed-seed Samaritans. Some of them were expelled out of the kingdom of Israel because they had married other races and would not put their wife/husband/mongrel children away. They stayed married to them and kept custody of their children. Now we are told by the individuals who say that God changed what He believed 180 degrees, that suddenly, after 33 A.D., interracial marriage is now accepted and the mongrel children can now be placed in the kingdom of God?

If Israelites were strongly forbidden by their covenant God to not mingle their holy seed with anyone of any other Canaanite nation in their land, what does that tell you? The Israelites had a different kind of seed than the other nations they were forbidden to marry: “holy” vs. “not holy” seed. If they married the Canaanites, their offspring would be forbidden to enter the congregation of Israel for their offspring would forever lose their “holy” seed.

Were all Israelites sinless? No. Did all marry believers? No. Was the person that Moses married a Black believer? No, she wasn’t Black. Even though the above sentence says that Moses married a Black believer, and it is an impossibility, would that make any difference to the opposers of interracial dating and marriages?

And according to those who are pro-interracial marriages, they say that if you have married an interracial, non-Christian, you have still covenanted together with that person to love him or her until the death of either one. That may sound good to the human mind, but that is not what happened in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah.

You probably know of a person or persons who, in their youth, married a person of another race and had children. After they got older, they heard the words of the “gospel of the kingdom.” They learned what Ezra and Nehemiah told the leaders of the nation of Israel who had inter-racially married; what they had to do to correct their sin. The people who are alive today had to do the same thing that they did. Blessed be the people who have corrected this great evil.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah were very upset. They told the adulterers that they had to let their interracial wives and mongrel children go back to their own people. They both said that the Israelites had to live separate from the other races. They did not tell them that they had to stay married until one of them died. They told them the direct opposite.

CONCLUSION

The Southern Baptist Convention made the following resolutions at their Convention in 2015. It says:

WHEREAS, The Scriptures teach that God has created all men and women in His image (Genesis 1:27) and has made from one man and one woman all peoples to live on the earth (Genesis 3:20; Acts 17:26); and

WHEREAS, God loves the world (John 3:16), sending Jesus to die for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2), and, in Christ, is reconciling to Himself people from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 5:9); and

WHEREAS, Our justification before God is based on faith in Christ alone and not in our ethnicity (Galatians 3:27–28); and

WHEREAS, God has made believers one in Christ, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and uniquely qualified to stand together in faith (Ephesians 2:15–16); and

WHEREAS, The Lord has given His people the mission of making disciples from every nation (Matthew 28:19); and

WHEREAS, Racism is sin because it disregards the image of God in all people and denies the truth of the Gospel that believers are all one in Him; and

WHEREAS, In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention publicly repented of its own complicity in the sin of racism that has divided both the body of Christ and the broader culture; and

WHEREAS, We grieve over the continued presence of racism and the recent escalation of racial tension in our nation; and

WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention has taken numerous steps to enlist qualified individuals of all races and ethnicities for leadership roles; and”

(This means that they are a “Baal” church...)

“WHEREAS, Southern Baptists, in both our congregations and entities, increasingly reflect the racial and ethnic diversity in our communities and nation; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, June 16–17, 2015, rededicate ourselves to the holy responsibility and privilege of loving and discipling people of all races and ethnicities in our communities; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge churches to demonstrate their heart for racial reconciliation by seeking to increase racial and ethnic diversity in church staff roles, leadership positions, and church membership; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we urge Southern Baptist entities and Convention committees to make leadership appointments that reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the body of Christ and of the Southern Baptist Convention; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we continually prioritize and monitor our progress in adequately representing the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of our communities in our local congregations and our entities; and be it finally

RESOLVED, That we call on Southern Baptists to be faithful ambassadors of reconciliation in their personal relationships and local communities as they demonstrate the power of the Gospel to reconcile all persons in Christ.

Which two systems of doctrines do you believe? You can’t believe both. Do you believe the following verse?

Deuteronomy 23:2: “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”

A bastard or a mongrel, the offspring of an Israelite and a heathen, the son of fornication is said to be forever disqualified from entering the congregation of Israel. Israel was to be a separate people—no other races or mongrel individuals were allowed in their nation.

To the tenth generation means forever. Verse three says the same thing about the Moabites and when you compare that to Nehemiah 13:1 you have the correct answer:

Nehemiah 13:1 “On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever;”

Integration is a sin, because it will lead to the one of the worst sins: interracial marriage. Why is it such a terrible sin? Why did it lead to both kingdoms being put into captivity or have an enemy rule over them? It is racial genocide. If every Israelite committed this sin, then there would not be any Israelites left on the face of the earth. That is what Jewish Communism wants. That is what the church at Thyatira taught.

Revelation 2:18-24 summary:

Summary:

1. “…I know thy works,
2. …Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication,
3. …And I will kill her children with death;
4. …But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan.”

The Old Testament teaches who this symbolic Jezebel is. She was the wife of King Ahab of the kingdom of Israel who made the kingdom a Baal worshipping nation. Baal worship, among other things, always involved race-mixing and that was their god. Is that your church?

Daniel 9:7 “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against Thee.”

May the LORD God have mercy on our souls.

To be continued.

Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.