Ezra 10:10

Ezra 10:10 says, And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.  Ezra stood before the people and told them they had sinned by taking strange wives, or wives from other countries.  If we see sin going on in the church today, we need to stand up and tell people that what they are doing is a sin, not out of self-righteousness, but because God’s word says it is wrong.  

Verse eleven adds. 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.  Ezra told them to confess their sins and separate themselves from those who were not God’s people.  He said this would include separating themselves from their foreign wives.  We might think Ezra was asking them to commit a sin by divorcing their wives, but since I believe that a marriage is between a man and a woman and most importantly God, and they were disobeying God when they married these women, that action needed to be taken to return God’s people to obeying His commands.  

Verse twelve continues, Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.  The people agreed to do what Ezra had said, and we must agree to do what God calls us to do today.  I am not saying that if you are a Christian married to a non-Christian that you need to divorce them.  Actually, it would not be your choice to do so as I understand God’s teaching on divorce, but I also believe that you need to marry another Christian to start with.  These people had strayed away from God and His word and needed to repent and return.  Of course, in order to return to obeying God, they first had to acknowledge Him as God and His word as the truth, but they also had to have been a part of His people to begin with.  Being born into the nation of Israel made them a part of God’s chosen people, but it did not mean that they were automatically saved.  Their relationship with God was what determined that, and our relationship with God through putting our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord is what determines if we are a part of God’s people today.