Wednesday Evening Services 7 PM - Nehemiah 11-13, Population, Dedication, Purification, Pastor Ryan

Just a closeness to you, Lord, that we would know that you're here. God, I pray that you would soften our hearts and open our minds. And Lord, that we would just prepare our hearts for your word in Jesus' name. Lost without hope, no place to begin. Your love made a way to let mercy come in. When death was arrested and my life began. Ash was redeemed, only beauty remained.

Was given a name, oh, sedan. When death was arrested and my life began. Amen. Give the Lord a praise. You can all be seated for these next two.

Something that's of worth, that will bless your heart. For a song in it. It's not what you have required.

Deeper within. Through the way things appear. You're looking into my eyes.

For a song that is full.

Is our beginning and the end. Just know that you're here with us. I pray that you would speak to us.

Fill Pastor Ryan's. He would just be full to the brim with your spirit of teaching and wisdom, Lord. If you brought a Bible. If you opened up to the book of Nehemiah, chapter 11.

Nehemiah, chapter 11. Things have been going really well for the children of Israel that have returned to the land. They have rebuilt the temple, which is great. Of course, Nehemiah came back and they rebuilt the wall. In the midst of really a great deal of challenges. Challenges of guys like Sanballat and Tobiah who were opposed to them. Challenges of threats from the enemy.

Challenges of discouragement from within. They rebuilt this wall. They did really what I would call in record time. And as they rebuilt the wall, there was great revival that began taking place within the land. They were reading the word. They were surrendering their hearts to the Lord. Confessing their sin. They even wrote up a new covenant. Not really a new covenant.

But they reaffirmed the old covenant with the Lord. Where they determined that they were going to be righteous in their business dealings. They were going to be righteous in their relationships. And they were going to take care of the house of the Lord. And so, all of these great reforms have taken place. Well, now it's time to kind of wrap things up here in the book of Nehemiah.

So, as we look at the last three chapters of Nehemiah. There's three things we're going to look at. We're going to look at population, dedication, and purification. Let's start off with population. We start in chapter 11, verse 1. And it says this. Now, the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem. But the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city.

While nine-tenths remained in the other cities. And the people blessed all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem. And these are the heads of the provinces who lived in Jerusalem. But in the cities of Judah, each lived in his own property in their cities. The Israelites, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants, and the descendants of Solomon's servants.

Now, there have been three waves. There have been three waves of people that had returned from Babylon. The first one was brought by Zerubbabel. And then Ezra brought a group back with him. And then Nehemiah brought a group back with him. But remember, for a long time, people really hadn't inhabited Jerusalem. The walls had been torn down for well over a hundred years by this point in time.

And ultimately, security was a major issue within the city. Which is why they needed to build the walls anyway. But you know as well as I do that you don't want to dwell in a place where there's not a great deal of security. So, prior to the walls being built. Not many of those that returned actually lived in Jerusalem. Not only that, many of them had established homes for themselves outside of Jerusalem.

And some of the countryside. Not only because of security. But because it was just easier for the agricultural life that they lived. Well, now that they had rebuilt Jerusalem and rebuilt the walls. It was time to populate the city. Because if the holy city was to be the place where the children of Israel were to gather and to worship the Lord together. Then there needed to be inhabitants of it.

They needed that. They needed that capital that would be the central location for the nation. But the problem was getting people there. You know as well as I do that the hardest place to leave is your comfort zone. Right? Like that's the hardest place for us to get outside of. Once we found a place that we're comfortable with. We say, hey, things are pretty good here.

Things are not really all that hard. I've got things established. If I go in that city. First of all, it's going to sacrifice my security. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how safe things are there. The place is pretty run down. Second of all, it's going to require a lot of work because the place is run down. Quite frankly, there's a lot that needs to be done in that city.

And there's not nearly as much that needs to be done on my home. And I don't want to leave my comfort zone. This is what I'm used to. So I just don't know that I want to go to live inside of Jerusalem. Perhaps you have felt this way in your life before. God's nagging at you to do something. And you're like, but in order for me to do that, I'm going to have to leave my comfort zone.

I'm going to have to leave behind what's really comfortable for me if I'm going to go and do this next thing that God wants for me to do. And it's interesting how God uses lots of different things to get us outside of that comfort zone. Well, there's three groups of people that are mentioned here that ultimately find themselves living in Jerusalem. The first group are the leaders.

We're told in verse 1 that some of the leaders had already started living in Jerusalem. And that's great. Because leading by example ultimately is the best way to lead. You know, don't tell me what to do. Show me. Because once we see that example set, then it's easier to follow rather than someone saying, you should go do this. I'm not going to do it myself, but I think you should go do this.

So the leaders jumped in there first. But the second group of people didn't really have a choice. Did you notice that? It says basically a lottery was cast. They cast lots. A lottery was cast. And one out of every ten, right? Can you imagine, like, you're standing in this long line like, okay, we're going to number off one through ten. Everybody that has the number one, you're going to go.

You live in Jerusalem. You're like, not one, not one, not one, not one. And it comes to you, you're like, one. Oh, okay, good. We get to relocate. Some of them didn't have a choice, right? And isn't that the way it works with us? Listen, some of us are leaders. And we are visionary people. And so we're willing to go get outside of our comfort zone because, quite frankly, we just want to go where God wants us to be.

And that's a wonderful thing. But if you don't have a leadership personality, sometimes God has to boot you out the door. In this case, they got booted out the door with a lottery. Sometimes there's lots. There's lots of other things in our lives that boot us out the door of comfort, right? One of my favorite quotes on leadership actually comes from the sitcom Wings.

You remember the show Wings? Probably I wouldn't go watch it now. I went back and watched it here recently. I was like, wow, that's really kind of a vulgar show. But anyway, my favorite quote from leadership comes from Lloyd, the goofy mechanic. There was an emergency in the airport, and Lloyd just jumps into gear and starts telling everyone what to do. And he, you know,

just puts everybody in place to meet this emergency. And Roy Biggins, the really, really ornery guy on the show, said, wow, Lloyd, that was amazing. I've never seen such leadership skills. And Lloyd says, well, Roy, some people take leadership upon themselves. Other people have it thrust upon them. I'm one of the people that usually has it thrust upon me. Sometimes that's how God gets us outside of our comfort zone, right, is we really have no choice.

But then there's a third group, and I really respect this third group. The third group are just willing. Look at it. Look at it again. Verse 2. And the people blessed all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem. They watched what was going on. They saw the leadership take the lead, which was great. They saw the lottery and the people who maybe didn't have a choice, but they saw them still go even though they weren't given the choice.

They're like, you know what? We'll join in with those people as well. What a great heart to just willingly jump outside of your comfort zone and take the difficulty upon yourself to reestablish yourself somewhere. And so they all reestablished themselves. Within the city of Jerusalem. And if we were to choose to do so, and we read the rest of the chapter, we would first of all see that verses 4 through 19 are going to tell us all of the people that dwelt inside of Jerusalem.

We would find that verses 20 through 36 would tell us all the people that dwelt outside of the city of Jerusalem. And I would encourage you to go read that later because there's some fascinating names listed in there. Again, one of the great things about Ezra is that Ezra, about Nehemiah, he was a historian, right? Like he kept track of all of these people.

And this really does come. This really does come into play later on within the nation of the history of Israel. However, it doesn't come into play for our lives. So, chapter 12. Now, these are the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, Saraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra. And we're going to stop there. Chapter 12 gives us the dedication.

They built this wall. They've covenanted themselves with the Lord. Now it's time for celebration. After the hard work comes the celebration. And so what we're going to see soon, and that's the part we will read, is their dedication of the wall. But part of the dedication of the wall is going to be the gathering together of the singers and the Levites and the priests and all those different people.

And so what Nehemiah does here for the first 26 verses is he goes through and lists the genealogy of all the priests that returned and all the different waves that had come back to the land. And so he lists all of these. And I love it because God knows their name, right? However, I'm not going to read those names to you. I would encourage you to do so. We're going to pick up in verse 27 with the dedication.

It says, Now, at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought out the Levites from all their places to bring them to Jerusalem so that they might celebrate the dedication with gladness, with hymns of thanksgiving, with songs to the accompaniment of cymbals, harps, and lyres. So the sons of the singers were assembled from the district around Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netaphathites, from Beth Gilgal and from their fields in Geba, Asmaveth. And for the singers, they built for themselves villages around Jerusalem. I love this.

It's time to dedicate the wall. And so they're like, let's have a celebration, right? The Forest Frank song is running through my head right now. They're like, we need to have a celebration. Listen, I think sometimes as the children of God, we need to. Remember that God loves a good celebration. Like, God is a God of joy. I used to hate the Jesus movies that would come out because you know how they always depicted Jesus?

Jesus was always sad. You ever know, like in the Jesus movies of like the 60s and 70s and 80s, every time you saw Jesus, dude just looked irritated in life. And I don't think that's how Jesus was at all. As a matter of fact, we're told that he was anointed with the oil of joy, right? Like, that's who Jesus was. He had the Holy Spirit of joy inside of him. And that's celebration.

And that celebration was a part of who he was. And that celebration is a part of what God wants for us. Sometimes the world we live in is heavy, right? We've seen that recently. But sometimes in the midst of the heaviness, we need to remember that joy is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And in the midst of the difficulties of life, we can find great joy. They faced a lot of difficulties in the building of this wall, right?

Like, there were some hard times they faced. There was brokenness that came about when it was time to covenant themselves to the Lord. But after all of that was done, now it's time to celebrate. They'd gotten themselves back on track, and the celebration had begun. We all enjoy being around the person that likes to laugh, right? We all enjoy being around the person that just has that contagious joy inside of them.

And isn't it wonderful that we can have that? As a matter of fact, I'm reminded of what we were told earlier in Nehemiah, that the joy of the Lord is ultimately our strength. And so they're going to celebrate this dedication of the wall. So the first thing they do is, listen, we've got to get a band together, right? Right? We've got to get the crew together.

We've got to get the worship team together. So they go and they start calling for all of the Levites, all of the singers and the harp players, and they bring all of these musical instruments. Sidebar, I don't understand why some churches teach that musical instruments aren't in the Bible, because they are. So they bring all these people together with the musical instruments, and they're going to play together, and it's wonderful.

It's going to be this great time of celebration. But there's one thing that needs to be done first. Verse 30. The priests and the Levites, purified themselves. And they also purified the people, the gates, and the wall. They're going to have a celebration. But the first thing that they do is they take time for purification. They take time to purify themselves.

The first group that we see purify themselves are the Levites themselves. If they are to lead the people of God in the worship of God, then their heart needs to be right before the Lord. And you know as well as I do, it's hard to go through a day where there's not some aspect of repentance and purification that needs to be done in our lives. That there's something that needs to get dealt with between us and God.

I'm reading a book right now on leadership, and Robert Furrow, who's a pastor down in Calvary, Tucson, wrote one of the chapters, and he said one of the things that his pastor, Skip Heitzig, told him when he got sent out to start the churches, he said, don't ever go to the pulpit with something between you and God. You've got to deal with it first. And so that purification is necessary, because if you were to lead the people of God, and to worship, you have to deal with sin in your own life. And so that's what they did.

The Levites purified themselves. But the second group of people that purified themselves were just the people in and of themselves, the congregation. Can I just tell you, if you want to show up and have the best worship experience possible when you show up to church, and I hate even using that phrase, worship experience, but if you want to show up and have the greatest time possible in church, then start it before you get here. I think one of the best ways to do that is to show up and have the greatest time possible.

I think one of the best ways to do that is to start it before you get here. I think one of the best things you can do is wake up on a Sunday morning and start asking God to search your heart. Start asking God to show you, Lord, what's been going on in my heart this week that needs to get dealt with between me and you? Where have there been areas where you and I have a beef that we need to deal with right now?

And start confessing those things to the Lord and getting that heart purified before the Lord. Because then purification always precedes praise. And once a heart is right before the Lord, then you can praise God with an open heart, open hands, and an open life. Because there's now nothing between you and the Lord. And so there's this purification. But notice there's a third thing that takes place.

They even purify all of the things, the gates and the wall, the whole nine yards. They make sure everything is right. And notice what it says in verse 31. I had the leaders of Judah come up on top of the wall. And I appointed two great quacks. The first proceeding to the right on top of the wall toward the refuse gate. Hoshiah and half the leaders of Judah followed them with Azariah, Ezra, Meshulam, Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah, Jeremiah.

Some of the sons of the priests with trumpets. Zechariah, the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mataniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zechariah, the son of Asaph, and his kinsmen, Shemaiah, Azrael, a whole bunch of other guys. And Ezra the scribe went before. At the fountain gate, they went directly up the steps of the city by the stairway of the wall above the house of David to the water gate on the east.

The second choir proceeded to the left while I followed them with half of the people on the wall above the tower of the furnace to the broad wall. And above the gate of Ephraim by the old gate, by the fish gate, the tower of Hananel, the tower of the hundred as far as the sheep gate. And they stopped at the gate of the guard. The two choirs took their stand in the house of God.

So did I and half the officials with me and the priests, Eliakim, Maaseah, those other guys, and Maaseah and those other guys, and the singers. And they sang with Jezariah as their leader. And on that day, they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy. I want you to paint the scene, if you will, in your mind. OK, so so imagine, if you will, me and Jared, right?

We we grab one half of the sanctuary. Each and we're like, we are going to go surround the building. Only not only are we going to surround the building, it's going to be on top of the building. Wouldn't it be amazing if we all just got up on top of the churches? We should not do this. It's a bad idea. But wouldn't it be cool if we did? And we just all get up here and take a whole group.

And then there's a whole group in here that's leading the singing. Some people out on the front steps. It's basically what he does. Nehemiah and Ezra, they're leading this group and they're going to they're going to sing out and everybody starts to sing. I love. I've got this underlined in my Bible in verse 43. On that day, they offered great sacrifice and rejoiced.

Why? Because God had given them great joy. Why did they rejoice in the Lord? Because God had given them the joy. Where did that joy come from that God gave them? Well, number one, it came from a finished project. Number two, it came from a purified heart. They had finished what they needed to do with the work. And then they committed themselves to the Lord and they purified their heart before the Lord.

And listen. Where the presence of the spirit of the Lord is, there is great joy and there is great freedom. But the presence of God's spirit cannot dwell in a dirty home. Don't get me wrong. We don't lose the spirit when we fall into sin, but we lose the joy of the spirit when we fall into sin because we've quenched that work in our lives. And when we deal with the stuff that needs to get dealt with, when when purification precedes praise, then there is great joy that God gives to us.

Because there's joy. There's joy from the forgiveness of sins and there's joy in knowing what God has done in this finished work that takes place there. And so they they all sing together and look at this. Even the women and the children rejoice. I don't know why that's a big deal, but it's a big deal, apparently, that even the women, even the kids are like, I will sing on this time, too.

I love this in the verse, it says so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar. Listen, when our hearts are right with God. And they are filled with the joy of the Lord. And we express that joy by belting it out as loud as we possibly can. People can't help but notice. People cannot help but notice because they see the joy of the Lord flowing through you.

And so this is what happens to the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar. You know, Jerusalem is is one of the highest points in Israel. And so you can imagine as they're up on these city walls on this highest point of Israel that that that sound just projected out all around them says. And on that day.

Men were also appointed over the chambers for the stores, the contributions, the first fruits and the tithes to gather into them from the fields, the cities, the portions of the cities, the portions required by the law for the priests and the Levites for Judah rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who served for they perform the worship of their God in the service of purification together with the singers and the gatekeepers in accordance with the command of David and his son Solomon. For the days of David and Asaph in ancient times, there were leaders of the singers, songs of praise and hymns of thanksgiving to God. So all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah gave the portions due the singers and the gatekeepers as each day required.

They set apart to consecrate a portion for the priests and the Levites. The Levites set apart to consecrate a portion for the sons of Aaron. And so we see this joyous dedication of the wall and everything's going great for. The children of Israel, the last chapter of Nehemiah deals with purification. It kind of takes what took place there in verse 30 and it continues on with what took place within the land.

Notice what it says. Chapter 13, verse one, it says on that day, I'm assuming the day that they dedicated the temple. That's the best or the walls. That's the best thing that I've noticed or been able to ascertain and understanding on that day. On that day, they read aloud from the book of Moses. And the hearing of the people and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but they hired Balaam against them to curse them.

However, God turned the curse into a blessing. So when they heard the law, they excluded all the foreigners from Israel. And so the first thing that they do in purification is I believe on this same day, they read from the law and they're like, oh, wait a minute. There's one thing. We've not noticed yet. We need to deal with the Ammonites and the Moabites that are living amongst us.

Quick history lesson. If you go back into the book of Numbers, when they came to the very edge of the promised land, kind of right before they came into the promised land, they came across the Ammonites and the Moabites. And God said, don't attack them. I've given them this. This is not your land. I've given them this land. And so they asked very nicely, can we can we come through your land?

We'll pay for any water or food that we use. And they said, no, you cannot. Come through the land. And then they sought to attack them. And one of the things that the Moabites did is they they hired this guy named Balaam as it's referenced there. And the reason why they hired him is because Balaam was a prophet of God. He really was a prophet of God, but he was a little bit of a shady prophet of God.

And they said they sought to hire him. They thought, listen, why go into battle? Because they seem to beat everybody in battle. Let's curse them. And then God has to deal with them. We'll beat them at their own game. So they hire Balaam. And Balaam, a whole long story that I won't get into it. You should go back and read it. Balaam shows up and he says, OK, curse the people.

All right, build me a build me an altar. But God had told Balaam, you can only say what I want you to say. So so they build the altar and Balaam goes to curse the people. And instead, he ends up blessing the people. And he pronounces this blessing. He said, what are you doing? I told you to curse the people. And so so he says, maybe God will curse them from this mountain.

So he takes them all over the place. And Balaam just keeps blessing them. Because God turned the cursing into a blessing. Isn't that great? Isn't that just like God to take what the enemy would use as a curse in our life and ultimately turn it into a blessing in our life? Something that the enemy would use for to tear us down. And he ultimately uses it to build us up.

Well, of course, the unfortunate thing is Balaam did come up with a plan. He said, listen, if you can't beat them, join them. Why don't we send the girls in? And God will have to deal with them. Because if they sin, God will punish them for their sins. their sin and so ultimately that's what took place and there was a great plague amongst the people because of the sin that that took place and so god said you need to write it down in the book

no ammonite or moabite should be allowed in the assembly of the people well as they gathered back together and come back into the land they realized that they had not kept up with that they they'd not followed that law and so they said let's obey that one too and isn't that kind of how it is when we first start walking with the lord it's like you don't know anything and so you're just doing the best you can to walk with jesus and and every new thing that you read you're like well shoot i guess i better obey that too and some of them are easy and some of them are hard and honestly that doesn't quit it doesn't stop being that way the longer you walk with jesus you keep walking with the

lord and you're like oh i have been ignoring that haven't i yep i got to deal with this in my life now too because that's what god's word does to us and so they get rid of the foreigners in the land beautiful moment purity within the land yay everything is good now between verse three and verse four there's about a span of about 10 to 12 years you see nehemiah had lived with him for the amount of time that it took to establish the people but he had told the king that he would return remember we were to go back to chapter two chapter two yeah chapter two uh he says i'll i'll return to you because the king wants to come back and bring report so he goes back and serves the

king for 10 maybe 12 years and when he comes back he finds that things are not going as well as they should have gone he actually finds that they have not been doing as well as they should have gone have fallen back into some of the issues that they had been in before notice what it says verse four now prior to this eliah shib the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our god being related to tobiah oh we've heard this name before had prepared a large room for him meeting tobiah where formerly they put the grain offerings the frankincense the utensils the tithes and oil prescribed for the levites the singers and the gatekeepers the contributions for the priest

but during all this time i was not in jerusalem for the 32nd year of artaxerxes king of babylon i had gone to the king after some time however i asked leave from the king and i came to jerusalem and i learned about the evil that eliah's ship had done for tobiah by preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of the king and i came to jerusalem and i learned about the evil that of god so while he was away compromise started to creep back into the land and the biggest part of the compromise is that one of the priests eliah ship who is related to tobiah who by the way was an ammonite allowed him not only to stay in the land but even cleaned out a room for him a storage

room on the outskirts of the temple that should have been used for the storing of grain offerings and so he's got this blind spot and instead of dealing with the sin that was right in front of him because remember tobiah was not just sort of against the things of god he was against the things of god he opposed everything to do with what they were doing with the building of the wall as a matter of fact he had death threats out against uh nehemiah and the other men who were building the wall at that point in time and you allow that sin back in and i ask you this how many times have you allowed sin back into your life even though it tried to destroy you even though it tried to pull

you away from the work god called for you to do and yet time passes you gain this blind spot again and we let the sin back in that ultimately wanted to destroy us we just call it compromise and this is what happened and so nehemiah comes back so i love the reading of verse eight it was very displeasing to me like let's watch how he handles it so i threw all of tobiah's household goods out of the room and i gave an order and they cleansed the room and i returned there the utensils of the of god with grain offerings and the frankincense now i can just picture nehemiah is an intense man we're going to see this in just a moment okay if you remember ezra ezra was a really gentle guy right when there

were issues ezra like confronted it very gently there's nothing gentle about nehemiah nehemiah is just a bull in a china closet right now and listen sometimes it takes gentle rebuke and sometimes you need a guy to smack you in the head with a two-by-four am i right on this like sometimes we need dealt with harshly because our sin deserves harsh treatment and so this is what he says i was i was greatly displeased but what did he do dude starts chucking stuff out of the room right like i don't know about you but what i picture here and based on everything that i've read this is what took place he didn't just start carrying it out he's literally throwing it out of the room and i don't know why we let him

live in here and i don't know what we were thinking to do this where is he liarship because why did he allow this in here doesn't he remember this and he doesn't remember this and he doesn't remember what took place with tobiah that's how i pictured this going the reason why i think this is because later he's going to start ripping people's beards out that's why i think that that's how he was doing it this guy was a man's man who had no problem mixing it up a little bit throwing hands if necessary and so he starts clearing this stuff out because listen sometimes when there's sin that's established itself in our life again you have to throw it out you have to deal with it harshly too many of us want to gently deal with it harshly and so he starts

dealing with the sin in our life while jesus is saying cut off the hand and this is what he does here too many of us want to deal with sin in the world this way too well let's just hope it stops the only problem is it's not going to if you just keep hoping sometimes sin has to be dealt with harshly and this is what he does so this is the first aspect of purity that takes place but this is not the only issue he's going to find he says i also discovered that the portions of the levites had not been given them so that the levites and the singers who performed the service had gone away each to his own field so i reprimanded the officials and said why is the house of god forsaken they gathered them together and restored

them to their posts and all judah then brought the tithe of the grain wine and oil into the storehouses in charge of the storehouses i appointed shelamiah the priest zadok the scribe pediah of the levites in addition to them was hanan the son of zakur son of mataniah for they were considered reliable it was their task to distribute to their kinsmen remember for remember me for this oh my god and do not blot out my loyal deeds which i have performed for the house of my god and its services you may remember in chapter 10 they made a covenant right do you remember the three main stipulations of the covenant one they were going to be honest in their business dealings and they were not going to do business on

the sabbath number two they were going to be pure in their relationships they would not intermarry with the people of the land number three they would care for the house of god and make sure that the levites could do the work that needed to be done those were the things that they set out to do well so far they had failed in the in one of them they had stopped contributing to the work of the house of god so much so that the levites were going to be honest in their business dealings and levites had to get back out into the fields and start working to provide for themselves therefore the house of god was falling into disrepair because they had stopped prioritizing the work of the house of god as a matter of fact if you were to read the book of malachi

you would see that this is exactly because malachi was a contemporary with nehemiah you would find that this is exactly what malachi addresses in his letter or in his prophecies is he addresses them uh regarding the work of the house of god and isn't it amazing nehemiah has gone for 10 years and they start falling back into all of their old ways and we'll deal with these other two and then i'll make a point out of that in just a moment so the first thing he does is is he says this can't be and he gets everything back in order as far as dealing with caring for the house of god says in this verse 15 in those days i saw in judah some were who were treading wine presses on the sabbath

and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys as well as wine and grapes and figs and all kinds of loads and they brought them into jerusalem on the sabbath day and i admonished them on the day that they sold food also men of tire were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise and sold them to the sons of judah on the sabbath even in jerusalem then i reprimanded the nobles of judah and said what is the evil you are doing by profaning the sabbath day did not your fathers do the same thing that our god brought on us and on this city all of this trouble yet you're adding to the wrath on israel by profaning the sabbath it came about just as it grew dark at the gates of jerusalem before

the sabbath i commanded that the doors should be shut and that they should not open them until after the sabbath and i stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the sabbath once or twice the traders and the merchants of every kind of merchandise spent the night outside of jerusalem i warned them i said why do you spend the night in front of the wall if you do so again i will use force against you see what i mean man's man from that time on they did not come on the sabbath and i commanded the levites that they should purify themselves the gatekeepers to sanctify the sabbath day for this also remember me oh my god and have compassion on me according to the greatness

of your loving kindness they've now violated two of the laws of the covenant that they had made with god now they were doing business on the sabbath day which they were not supposed to do on the sabbath day which they were not supposed to do and they were buying and selling on the sabbath day which they were not supposed to do something that they had told god that they were not going to do and they found themselves profaning the sabbath day and so he comes in he says what are we doing here don't you remember this is part of why god dealt with us in the way that he did do you remember why they had to be in captivity for 70 years because not only did they not honor

the sabbath day but they didn't honor the sabbath year they were not keeping up with the law of god they were not honoring god in their business dealings and so he dealt with them and i love that he looked at the merchants you know he he says close the gates let's deal with this first of all by closing the gates on the sabbath day so that so the people know not to come in only the problem was all the merchants were like it's okay we'll camp on outside until you're ready for us he goes out and he goes listen show up again and you and i we have problems and i'm going to drive you out it won't just be kind of it'll be for real i'm gonna use force against you and they were like duly noted and they left well there's one more

thing that he runs into with the people and this may take the cake of all of them verse 23 in those days i also saw that the jews had married women from ashdod amman and moab as for their children half of them spoke in the language of ashdod and none of them was able to speak the language of judah but the language of his own people so i contended with them i love this and i cursed them and i struck some of them and i pulled out their hair and i made them swear by god you should not do this to me and i said no you shall not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves did not solomon king of israel sin regarding these things and among the nations there was no king like

him and he was loved by his god and god made him king over all of israel nevertheless the foreign women caused him to sin do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our god by marrying foreign women even one of those of joy to the son of eliaship the priest was a son-in-law of sand ballot the whore knight so i drove him away from me remember them oh my god because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the levites thus i purified them from everything foreign and appointed duties for the priests and the levites each in his task and i arranged for the supply of wood at appointed times and for the first fruits

so to top it all off they were not being honorable to god in their relationships their relationships were mixed in their marriages now listen this has nothing to do with ethnicity it has everything to do with sin it has everything to do with the fact that they were intermingling with people who worship different gods than they do they were intermingling with people who who worship foreign gods and he said don't you remember what happened to solomon solomon the wisest man no king has ever been like him in his wisdom and yet he had one problem in his life and the one problem he had in his life is he allowed foreign women to move his heart away from the things of god i've said it before i'll say it again the people that you give yourself to emotionally

will change you spiritually they will either change you for the better or they will change you for the worst and listen we talk to kids about this all the time but we as adults have to pay attention to it as well and we have to pay attention to it as well and we have to pay attention to it as well the people that we bond ourselves to emotionally will have a spiritual effect upon us and so this is what happens in the land and so so he gets real worked up about this one he is kicking rear end and taking names on it he is smacking people around and pulling people's hair out why because the sin is serious and this is i think one of the greatest things that we can point out from this

entire section is sometimes you have to get serious about the way that we deal with sin they had just come back into the land they had just been restored from what had been decades of being in captivity and he said if god has set you free why are you going to go back to bondage if god has set you free from all of these things why are you going to go back into bondage to all of these things again and i would ask all of us the exact same question if god sets us free why do we ever put ourselves back in bondage why do we ever allow ourselves to get back to the land and we're going to have to get back to the place i find it kind of amazing that for these children of israel it took 10 to 12 years for this

to happen it probably didn't really take that long to happen i bet it was within a year of him departing that they found themselves slowly starting to drift away from the things of god why because our walk is a continual process of returning to god and the things that we do have you ever noticed that the bible really just says the same thing over and over again you ever you ever thought about that every story in the bible is almost the same you know every season is always about the same it always ends the same sin does bad things god does good things we fall into sin and bad things happen we return to god and good things happen why do we repeat these things because our lives we get so distracted we get so distracted from the things of god by the

because the things of the world are so flashy the things of the world are so shiny right here is love and uh... well here's what's more happy and more sound to see that you're seeing this is that you can start to make just one decision about moving as the sounds have just kind of raise in love bit the sermon this is kind of moving in that direction my name is kent jubitson i'm a podría i'm a priest i'm going to go down the aisle with colin who used to step in there it's like i have three children and posses told us it's like something's the theme of my life i've been staying home the whole time in the office for like seven years and now seeing all of the things i've seen i Ap приехers进

she loved it. But then pretty soon, if you didn't get the spoon in there fast enough, and I'm talking fast, the first thing that would happen is her bib would go in her mouth, and you'd pull the bib away from her. She'd stick her fist in her mouth, and you'd pull her fist away from her. She'd stick the other fist in her mouth, and you'd pull that. Finally, with four

hands, you have everything pulled away, and you can put one more spoonful of food in there. But she would get so distracted by whatever was in front of her in that moment, because she was so distractible by all the things that were right there. And I'd go, oh, that's so cute. She's so distractible. And I will never forget sensing God go, I wonder where she gets it from. And I

thought, you know, that's so true. Like, it's so easy for us to get distracted. And we can look at the children of Israel, and here we go, dude, you made a covenant. Why did you go back? Well, because we're easily distractible, just like they are, just like they were. That's why our walk with God is a continual return to where God wants for us to be. That's why your daily time in the

Word is so important, because it continues to point you back to where you are. And that's why where you need to be. There's a daily repentance that takes place. There's a daily understanding of sin that takes place. And as you do so, you go, whoop, kind of got a little distracted there. God's like, whoop, pull your fist out of your mouth. Whoop, pull the bib out of your mouth.

Stay focused, right? Because that's the way that it is. And we need that in our lives. And so this is what took place here with these children of Israel. And they kept committing this great evil. But as they committed this great evil, God was always still, and He was faithful. He was faithful to sin guys like Nehemiah. And this way, Nehemiah is a lot like the Holy Spirit, right? He kind of gives us a perfect picture of the

Holy Spirit. When we start to drift from the things of God, what does the Holy Spirit do? He shows up and He goes, what are you doing? Why are you living in sin right now? I told you not to do this. What are we doing here? Oh, I'm sorry. And sometimes the Holy Spirit starts pulling our hair out, right? Listen, I'm not saying that's why I'm bald, but I'm not saying it's not why I'm bald.

It's a good reminder. The Holy Spirit starts doing work, which is a great reminder of a point that's to be made. Listen, it's great to make rules for ourselves, right? It's great to have some expectations for ourselves, but too many of us want to live by a list of rules. And what happens when you start living by a list of rules? Pretty soon you find you can't keep those rules. And then you start

realizing, maybe I'll just live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through His Word. And as we live by that guidance of the Holy Spirit, and we stop trying to make rules for ourselves, we A, stop living defeated, because rules really were made to be broken. And they have no power in our life. And so we start living according to His power. We start living according to His guidance.

And pretty soon you stop feeling like you're defeated all the time, and you start feeling like you're victorious, because now He who called you is faithful, who also will do it. Well, as we wrap up Nehemiah here, I want to read the very last line of the entire book. And it's something that's kind of repeated throughout this chapter in each of these situations. He says, remember me, O my God, for good. Remember me, O my God, for good.

And he said that after every single time that he had to correct the people. He said, Lord, would you remember me? Now, I don't think this is prideful on the part of Nehemiah. I just want to point out that I did not fall into the things that they fell into. Could you remember me for my good? No, I don't hear that. I don't hear that in the context of what he's saying at all. Listen, I want to close with two points.

Number one, leadership can be painful. And I think that's what I hear in the heart of Nehemiah here right now. Leadership can be a really painful thing, whether you're the leader of a church, whether you're the leader of a small group, whether you're just the leader of your family. Leadership can be a painful thing, because you live your life pouring into someone.

You're pouring into your kids, you're pouring into your small group, you're pouring into your church, whatever it is. You live your life pouring into people. At that point in time, they make their own decisions. And that's the point. The really hard part is when they start making their own decisions. And sometimes when they make those decisions, they do the exact opposite of what you told them to do. As a matter of fact,

it's like they go, let me take notes. Don't do X, Y, and Z. And below that, it says, note to self, do X, Y, and Z. Right? I mean, sometimes it feels that way. And sometimes it's really painful to be in leadership, because you pour your heart into people and you see them go the exact opposite direction. And listen, it's okay that it hurts. It's okay that it's painful

to be in leadership sometimes. It's okay that it's painful to be a parent. I had a guy text me, one of the guys I work with, with FCN. He texted me, he said, I just want to talk to you sometime, because you're raising kids about the exact same age as mine. I said, I get it, man. Raising teenagers is not for the weak of heart. And he said, amen, in all caps, with lots of exclamation

points. Because that's the way it is when you're raising kids. And it's the way it is when you're raising people, right? It's leadership can be a painful thing. But number two, I want to point out, God sees your faithfulness. God sees your faithfulness. And sometimes in the midst of going, wow, they're doing the exact opposite of what I told them to do. God's like,

but I saw that you told them. I saw that you did what I called you to do. I saw that you declared the truth. I saw that you love them with all of your heart. I saw that you did the best that you could to point them in the right direction. At this point in time, this is not on you, because I see your faithfulness. I see what you've done. I do. Remember you for good, because I think that's why he keeps saying that, Lord, I tried to teach

them better than this. Remember me for my good. And now I'm correcting them again. Lord, remember me for my good. I think this is the broken heart of a leader who's like saying, Lord, you saw that I was faithful, right? And God does see that he's faithful. You know how we know that God sees that he's faithful? Because God enshrined his story in one of the 66 books of the Bible that is read for

all of history. God said, I want everybody to know how faithful you were. In order to do that, I'm going to make sure that as many people read your story as possible. And sometimes in the midst of it, you go, Lord, I don't know if anybody sees. I don't know if anybody cares. I feel like I'm just talking to myself sometimes. And God says, I see and I care. And I know that you're faithful. Keep doing your job. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we come before you

and Lord, I thank you that you have given us the example of Nehemiah. Lord, I pray for hearts that are pure. Lord, I pray for the hearts that are pure. Lord, I pray for the hearts that are pure. I pray for hearts that celebrate the greatness of you. And Lord, I just pray that you would keep us close to you. Lord, may we continue just to keep coming back. Lord, we know that we get

distracted. We know that we drift. But Lord, we know that you are faithful. We know that you're faithful even when we are faithless. So God, keep us close to you, both as your children who are easily distractible. Lord, and the teachers of your children who are easily distractible. And so Lord, may we just remain faithful in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.