We are going to see that it was not a whole lot of people that were doing this, but it was a significant enough number and the community had in a sense just started accepting it. The problem that Ezra sees, is that the people are now beginning to sink into this deep morass of their own sin, because they are quickly becoming the kind of community that is tolerating the kind of compromise that led to the exile in the first place. This is always the danger of any church or community of faith that does not deal with sin seriously. If we begin to tolerate, accept, and normalize things of which God has said: this is not right, we end up becoming the kind of community of which God no longer approves…
Look at us. We are an accepting congregation. Do you realize how relevant this is for us? Do you realize how the tide of culture is continually battering up against the church and what we are seeing before our very own eyes today? In 2015, as the church gets battered by the waves of culture, the church takes one step back, takes another step back, and takes another step back. If you do not believe me, look at how many evangelical supposedly Bible-believing churches and denominations have now accepted homosexual relationships as normal. It is happening all over the [world]. In fact, one fellow who has in a sense departed from the faith, has said on national television that it is just a matter of time before evangelicals will accept gay marriage. And you know what? I would not be surprised if he was right. Listen carefully, you have to make a decision as to whether you are going to embrace the trends of culture and abandon your convictions about the Bible, or whether you are going to stand firm on your convictions about the Bible and in that being a laughing stock in culture, or worse.1
Brian Borgman
11 which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness.