Last week we saw that when the priests had shown favoritism within God’s things they had become despised by the people. Today we will look at how this treachery against God and each other was not just among the priests. It was riddled throughout society.
It is important for people in the United States of America to listen to this message because our society is riddled with the sin of treachery as well. We live in times when most people do what is right in their own eyes and have no concern of being faithful to God and their fellow man.
In Malachi 2:10-12 the problem of mixing God’s things with demonic things is highlighted in the area of marriage. They were profaning the covenant that God had made with them. Now to profane something is to pollute something that is intended to be pure. God’s covenant and His holy things were supposed to be kept pure, but they were mixing pollutions into everything.
It is interesting to me that today we have a similar problem. There is a certain irony and hypocrisy to the fact that we will bend over backwards to fight pollution in the natural all the while embracing pollution spiritually. The very arguments that are raised against pollution and for greater restrictions and bondage will beg the question later. Why did you not feel this way about spiritual matters? Today we are using all our creativity to make even larger and larger “pumps” of spiritual pollution.
When you mix God’s things with demonic things you are committing treachery against God and against your fellow man. Now the word treachery means to act covertly, i.e. have a hidden agenda. When we live to only please ourselves or we use religious things to cover selfish desires, we are acting through covert means that will end in injury to our nation. This is the ultimate treachery because it makes us enemies with God and it makes us fools who undermine the very foundation upon which they stand.
You may wonder why I use the phrase “demonic things.” I do so because it is the heart of the matter. God’s concern here is not that inter-racial marriage was happening. This had never been the problem. It had always been marrying those who worshipped false Gods. Now we are told that the desire to make images and worship them as Gods, and the stories that surfaced about such gods, had their source in the demonic. Fallen spiritual beings had a vested interest in getting humans to “worship” them under the guise of a religion. To marry in to such things was to mix worship for the true God with worship for demons. God warned the Israelites that their hearts would be turned away from him by these marriages. Now marriage in concept is a good thing. But when we mix it in such a way it becomes a bad thing. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul used the phrase “unequally yoked.” “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”
Today we are a people who are embracing and “marrying” into all manner of ideas and teachings from around the world. These teachings and philosophies have nothing to do with the way of the Lord and will in the end lead to destruction. We need to recognize the treachery throughout the land and within our own heart that starts with first mixing, but ends up jettisoning the Truth of God.
How can we stop such treachery? It starts by seeing it in my own heart and choosing to live God’s Way and His Way alone. It then moves to pleading with the hearts of those around you to turn back to God’s way and be faithful to His Word. God help us to turn back the tide of pollution that has made us an abomination to God and threatens our very existence. Selah!