Jehoshaphat had this weakness, that he hankered after some kind of connection with the wicked house of Ahab. He had a son, whose name was Jehoram (or Joram), and he wanted his son married. He must look around for royal blood. Explain it as we may--no man has explained it fully yet--Jehoshaphat wanted to be connected with the evil house of Ahab. To that house he looked for a wife for his son, Jehoram. His son married Athaliah, and she brought into the kingdom all the idolatry of Ahab and the fierce blood-thirstiness of Jezebel. That was the root of the mischief. Some roots lie a long time before they begin to germinate. There may be roots in our lives which will take ten years or forty years to develop, but the root will bring forth according to its kind. Let us take care what roots we plant in our lives--what connections we form. Jehoram, the son of good Jehoshaphat, walked in the evil ways of the kings of Israel, and he wrought that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Mark the reason given by the inspired historian: “He had the daughter of Ahab to wife.” What secrets were indicated by that one reason! What a whole volume of tragedy is wrapped up in that brief sentence! The responsibility seems to a large extent transferred from Jehoram and placed upon his wife, who was a more subtle thinker, a more desperate character, with a larger brain and a firmer will, with more accent and force of personality. Jehoram played the evil trick, repeated the foul habit, went in the wrong direction, bowed down to forbidden altars, for--“he had the daughter of Ahab to wife.” She lured him; the seduction was hers; she won the conquest. When he would have bowed the knee to the God of Heaven, she laughed at him and mocked him into Baal worship. He fell as a victim into her industrious and cruel hands. “Be not unequally yoked together.” Do not look upon marriage lightly; do not suppose that it is a game for the passing day, a flash and gone, a hilarious excitement, a wine-bibbing, a passing around of kind salutations, then dying away like a trembling echo. Beware what connections you form, and do not suppose that the laws of God can be set aside with impunity. Get out of your heads the infinite mistake that you can do as you like and escape the operation of divine law. Deliver yourselves from the cruel delusion that you can sow tares and reap wheat. Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap. Our family life explains our public attitude and influence. What we are at home we are really abroad.