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September, 2020 |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on February 9, 1986 And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy Sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah…that I may rebuild it. Nehemiah 2:5 Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together, and set them in their place. Nehemiah 13:11 TODAY WE ARE RETURNING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT book of Nehemiah in order that we might learn something about the kinds of people God uses to accomplish His purposes. God uses all kinds of people to do His work, but we find certain common denominators among those whom He calls to be leaders. We will begin with a brief review of the background to Nehemiah and its associated historical and prophetic books. God’s people had been carried away into Babylon for seventy years. But exactly on time, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, God raised up a heathen king who issued the decree allowing the people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. We read at the beginning of the book of Ezra, “Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia . . .Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel . . .” There were over 650,000 of God’s people living in captivity in Babylon, yet only about 50,000 responded to the call and returned home to Jerusalem to rebuild. The Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah provide the historical record of the rebuilding of the temple and the walls of the city, while the prophetic books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were written to admonish and encourage the people who did the work. There is a sense in which the work they did is parallel to the work we are doing in the church today. They were building up the house of God, making the temple and the city ready for our Lord’s first coming. We too are building up the house of God, which is the church, making it ready for our Lord’s second coming. The church is not a building; the church is a people who belong to the Lord. In Ephesians 2, Paul said we are “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” We have been assigned the special task of restoring and perpetuating His church, and we find guidance in these Old Testament books. One of the lessons we learn from these books is that the people who do things for God are seldom milquetoast. We have taught many lessons on Nehemiah and how he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. After he set things in order, he had to return to Babylon to give a report to king Artaxerxes. In spite of everything that Nehemiah had taught the people and all the things he had accomplished, no sooner had he left town than the people started violating God’s laws, including the laws of the Sabbath and the ordinances against intermarriages. When he got back to Jerusalem, he discovered that most of the people had let God down. Now none of the words in Nehemiah should be taken as some kind of legalistic directive to us, any more than the keeping of the Sabbath is a legalistic directive to us. In the New Testament, the Sabbath is fulfilled by the life of faith. You are sabbathing whenever you are acting in faith. There isn’t one particular day that is more important than another anymore. Saturday has always been the Sabbath; but in the New Testament, the Sabbath changed from being the structure of a particular day to being a function of the life of faith. In Nehemiah’s day, there were things that counted for God other than faith. Thank God, the law was incarnate in Christ and nailed to the cross with Him. When He died, the law died with Him; now the law no longer hangs over our heads like a hammer. But by analogy, everything that the people did wrong in Nehemiah’s day symbolizes the kinds of things we can do wrong in the church today. The wrong that we can do is to let up on our faith; we can cease to hang our lives on “Thus saith the word of the Lord.” We must learn to keep a tight grip on God’s word and renew our faith every day. Yesterday’s faith will not carry you today. We read in Nehemiah 13:7, “And I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.” There will always be people who come up with all kinds of ideas concerning how to conduct the affairs of the church, and that is epitomized by this episode with Tobiah. Nehemiah goes on to say, “And it grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber.” The King James Version doesn’t sufficiently give us the sense of what really happened. While Nehemiah was gone, someone had moved this rat Tobiah into a place in the house of God where he didn’t have a right to be, simply because Tobiah had family ties to some important people. When Nehemiah showed up and found out what had happened, he went into a rage and started throwing Tobiah’s furniture out into the street! Everyone knows that this is not how a man of God should behave. A letter was recently published in a local newspaper written by a man who was chastising me for my behavior and advising me on how a clergyman ought to act. I would say that if you want to know how a God-called leader should act when it comes to protecting the things of God, take a look at Nehemiah. He didn’t calmly say, “Now, brothers, let us pray and see if we can remove these things from the house of God.” He “cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber!” Most Christian preachers have to become so sweet they are worthless. It is no wonder that children in today’s world don’t want to be preachers when they grow up. Who in the world would want to be one of those wimps? What did Nehemiah do next? We read, “Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers: and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, with the meat offering and the frankincense. And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them; for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field. Then contended I with the rulers, and said, ‘Why is the house of God forsaken?’ And I gathered them together, and set them in their place.” How did the people respond when Nehemiah “set them in their place?” It always boils down to this: “Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries.” When people are set in their place, they recognize God’s rights over them and they bring tithes and offerings. Nehemiah then chose some faithful men as stewards. We read, “And I made treasurers over the treasuries...and their office was to distribute unto their brethren.” Then Nehemiah had to deal with the people who were violating the Sabbath. “In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals . . . Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day?” Again, if we were to draw an analogy to the Old Testament laws of the Sabbath, Sabbath-keeping is now faithing in the New Testament. We are not studying these passages in Nehemiah to learn how to keep the law, but to reveal a mindset that puts God first in everything. Christians no longer have to keep a certain day. Here Nehemiah assessed the problem and dealt with the perpetrators. We read, “And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? If ye do so again, I will lay hands on you.” Nehemiah locked those salesmen out of the city! Put flesh and blood on these Bible passages. Can you imagine any of today’s carnival-barker television preachers ever doing such a thing? The merchants then camped outside the city gates in the hopes that they could still make a little money by buying and selling on the sabbath. So Nehemiah went out to them and said, “Why are you still here?! If you come back and try to do this again the next Sabbath day, I’m going to lay hands on you!” Pastor Nehemiah was making sure God’s work was done right! And it worked. We read, “From that time forth came they no more on the sabbath.” Most people think that a God-called leader should never behave the way Nehemiah behaved. It amazes me that Nehemiah didn’t have to lay hands on them. Apparently, the merchants knew enough about him that they didn’t think he was bluffing. There are many more examples of Nehemiah’s style of leadership. We read, “I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath . . .” Notice he didn’t say, “Dear brethren, wouldst thou please do this?” He said, “I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves.” I used to go to ministers’ conferences where thy trained leaders to say things like “please” and “if the Lord wills.” Those conferences never produced any preachers who would treat God’s people like an army. If I didn’t have God’s book to straighten out some of this nonsensical, PR-mongering, sugary garbage that is taught today, I might go crazy. We are at war! You don’t run an army by handing out candy. I have heard people say, “You should never expose anyone’s faults in public.” Why don’t you tell God that? God could have left this section out of the Bible, but He recorded it for all mankind to read and for some of His modern-day wimpy leaders to learn that God’s work is serious and ought to be treated that way. That is rather public, isn’t it? I say that if you can’t take it, then get off the front lines! Then Nehemiah dealt with the problem of intermarriage. “In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab.” Now, if you don’t know the reason for what God was doing, you might call this racism; but this was not racism. God’s revelation is a constant testimonial to His ability to carry out His word, while Satan wants to mar that record. Satan’s goal is to somehow prove that God cannot carry out His word. And if he can do that, he has undermined faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Where there is no faith, there can be no salvation. Most Christians don’t even know we are at war, so how can they figure out the strategy of the enemy? Satan doesn’t care if you become the most righteous-looking person in town. If you are convinced you must add some good works to God’s finished work, you have thereby nullified God’s word concerning the way of salvation. That has been Satan’s goal. The Bible clearly says that Christ is formed in your heart by faith, not by the works of the law. The moment God told Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore, Satan went to work to defeat God’s promise. Abraham and his wife Sarah decided they had to accomplish God’s promise by means of their own fleshly efforts, so Abraham took Sarah’s handmaid Hagar into a tent and that relationship produced Ishmael. Since the birthright blessing was normally passed on to the firstborn son, Satan magnified the attack on every firstborn son beyond any other son in the family. Satan was determined to destroy God’s promise to a people who would be His oracle and reveal His glory, which is why he entered into the weakness of Reuben and persuaded him to crawl into his father’s bed and have an affair with one of his father’s concubines. Why do you think Satan has tried to destroy the Jews? Because God has promised to bring them back and restore them on the hills of Israel. Why else did Satan drive Nimrod and his Semiramis to invent a false system of worship in ancient Babylon? Long after Nimrod died, Semiramis claimed her son Tammuz was conceived by a sunbeam and that Tammuz was incarnation of the false god, Baal. And to this day, heathen worship practices out of Babylon have corrupted the churches. Satan is forever trying to substitute, twist, and change God’s word of promise. From the moment God’s people were chosen to be the line from which the King of Glory would come, Satan set out to tempt them to intermarry in order to dilute the bloodline so that God’s word of promise would fail. There was no racism involved in the Old Testament prohibition against intermarriage. God had decreed that the Son of Glory would come from the line of David, through the tribe of Judah. And as soon as God’s people were charged with that responsibility, Satan immediately set out to nullify God’s word. By analogy, we might wonder why the enemies of God came to destroy the temple and the walls of Jerusalem. God had promised that in the fullness of time, Jesus would stride on the scene as God’s nature incarnate in a tent of human flesh, and He would come into that temple and teach. Satan didn’t want the temple to be rebuilt, reasoning that if there were no temple, then there would be no fulfillment of these promises. God, as the Controller of history, always faces the threat of the adversary who wants to make it impossible for His word to be carried out. That is why the people were told not to marry outside of their line. Furthermore, such unions produced children who couldn’t even speak in the Jews’ language. We read, “And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.” Nehemiah had only been gone a short time, yet we can see how quickly the people’s dedication had deteriorated. It is a solemn reminder that we must never let our guard down. Likewise, we ought not to get giddy whenever we have a victory. Many Christians will pray and act in faith until God does something, but then they just sit back and watch the victory. In Nehemiah’s day, as soon as he left town, everyone went on R&R. The lesson is that you had better get up every morning expecting war and expecting all hell to break loose on you. What did Brother Nehemiah do? Did he throw up his arms and say, “Oh, Lord, will You handle this problem?” We read, “I contended with them, and cursed them.” An alternative translation reads, “I reviled them.” That means he called them terrible names! And he “smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.” Nehemiah was a tough leader. If he had been a Super Bowl coach, I believe he would have won. The church today is involved in something much more important than a Super Bowl game. Today, we are not under the law; we are under grace. By no means do I condone Nehemiah’s violence, but there are spiritual principles to be learned from these lessons. God’s ways of doing things are different from the world’s ways, and the pastor sometimes has to correct people. Some people don’t want to take correction from their pastor. It is time for God’s people to get their feelings under control and their egos under their feet, and get on God’s team. It is time for us to make up our minds that we will win. We need to support one another and get to work for God, instead of acting like those rebellious fools in Nehemiah’s day who had to be cursed and smitten. Now let’s go back to the beginning of the book of Nehemiah. He was serving as a cupbearer in the court of a heathen king, when Hanani, one of his brothers, came from Jerusalem along with certain other men from Judah. We read in Nehemiah 1, “And I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven.” Jerusalem was the place that God had established to be a witness to His power and ability to carry out His word. I used to take teaching tours to Jerusalem, and I would wonder why in the world God would choose such a place. I can think of a number of cities that, from a human point of view, would appear to be a better choice. I remember when I was an undergraduate and a reader for my political science professor, grading the papers and exams of the other students. At that time, I was considering going into the diplomatic service, and I wanted to submit an application to the American University of Beirut and apply for a scholarship to study in the Middle East. This was in the late forties or early fifties. My professor said, “Don’t go to Jerusalem. If you want to apply for a scholarship to study abroad, then pick a place that will always be of high leverage in the balance of power in the world. The Dardanelles have had their day, and Israel is rapidly going to become ancient history.” How wrong he was! God put His name on that city, and the last acts of history will be performed in that land, because God will prove, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” When God says something, it is established in heaven and He will perform it. Nehemiah was comfortable in his job in Babylon. As the cupbearer for the king, he tasted the king’s food to make sure it hadn’t been poisoned; thus he was one of the king’s most trusted aides. He was well-off. But when he heard that the place that represented God’s ability to sustain His word was having problems, he could not turn his back on it because God’s honor was at stake! He was like Elijah in the desert. Elijah knew that God had promised that if His people ever worshipped idols, He would shut up the heavens and wouldn’t let it rain. So Elijah committed himself to praying earnestly that it wouldn’t rain. He prayed that God would do what He had already said He would do, even to his own hurt. Likewise, Nehemiah determined that God’s honor was more important than his own life, and he could not rest nor look out for himself when God’s honor was at stake. I am sure those Jews in Jerusalem rationalized selling their goods on the Sabbath because they were also selling animals that would be used to make sacrifices. I am sure the merchants rationalized waiting outside the gate because at least that meant they weren’t buying and selling inside the gate. The ability of the mind to rationalize never ceases to amaze me. We are great at making excuses. Many times I have wanted to avoid a responsibility that God has put before me. Thank God I can still grow and He can still claim me. When we take on an opportunity for faith, after a while the reality of the responsibility starts to sink in. We say, “What am I in this mess for?” I can imagine God in heaven saying to Jesus, “Wait until he finds out what We have coming around the bend!” We have an opportunity greater than that of the people in Nehemiah’s day. But there are only a few people like Nehemiah who care more about God’s honor than their own interests. God honors the faith of those who hang their bodies on His promises and are willing to die, if necessary, still holding on. You might be tempted to say, “You don’t need to convince me!” The heck I don’t! We all need to hear this kind of teaching over and over again, because of our constant desire to settle down. You can’t relax in the fourth quarter of a game and let the devil win in. God has chosen us because we care like Nehemiah cared. If you had lived in Nehemiah’s day, who would you rather be? Would you rather be one of those 600,000 people who stayed in Babylon, whom no one has heard much about ever since? Or would you rather be in the band of about 50,000 people who uprooted their lives, took a four-month journey through the wilderness and paid every price just to get to Jerusalem and rebuild it? Which group would you rather be in? You have an even greater opportunity today. The gospel message of salvation by grace through faith is not being proclaimed in the churches today simply because so few people are willing to take a courageous step like Martin Luther did when he nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, shook the church, and ushered in the Reformation. Some people have had the gall to say to me, “Well, if it’s the Lord’s will for your ministry to expand, He will just do the work for you.” People love to rationalize their non-participation. The Lord’s will has been revealed in His word: faith! You either have faith or you don’t. You can substitute your own works of righteousness and go to hell. Only faithers are saved. God is looking for those who will stand up and say, “Here I stand, God.” If it takes our whole lives to do this work, God will provide the means through us! God has called us. There are too many people who have never become part of God’s team and put on the tough shoes that He supplies for the trough trip. When Nehemiah heard about the conditions in Jerusalem, he fasted and prayed for four months. Then he appeared before the king, and the king asked, “Why do you look so sad?” Nehemiah replied, “God’s house lies waste. Let me go fix it.” I am sure it sounded like a glamorous adventure at first, but the glamour faded quickly after he made the four-month journey across the wilderness to get to Jerusalem. When he arrived there, he rode around by night to survey the situation, and he didn’t tell very many people what he was doing. There were places where there was so much rubbish, he had to get off his animal because there was no room for the beast to pass. Likewise, there is much rubbish in the church today, figuratively speaking; but the people who care are the ones who will set about cleaning it up. I imagine that the Lord is smiling in heaven and saying, “See, there are still people who care enough about My word to become My channel to effect a miracle. See, I will find faith when I come!” God will reward us according to our faith. The concept of a homogenized heaven is heresy. There are many who will destine themselves to rule and reign with our Lord throughout eternity because they will rise to such an occasion. So let’s bear down, get to work, and take the gospel to the world! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott  The Fall Feasts are almost upon us! By that I mean Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Each of these feasts has a universally accepted meaning to Jewish people in general, but to those of us who have received Yeshua (Jesus) as our Lord, and to the believing Gentiles that have been grafted into the House of Israel, there is a deeper, more prophetic meaning. Let’s take a look at each of them in turn. Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Trumpets. It is widely celebrated in the Jewish world as the civil new year, and is the entranceway into the ‘Days of Awe.’ The blasts of the shofar are our wake-up call to repent before it is too late. Even those of us who have received salvation need to be shaken out of our complacency and pushed to higher levels in Messiah. As believers though, we are desperately awaiting that time when the Lord Himself will return to this Earth. Scripture states in 1Thessalonians 4:16-17 that the “Lord himself will come down from heaven with a rousing cry, with a call from one of the ruling angels, and with God’s shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise; then we who are left still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord.” The blast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah will signal the end of the world as we know it. And then, “It will take but a moment, the blink of an eye, at the final shofar. For the shofar will sound, and the dead will be raised to live forever, and we too will be changed.” (1Corinthians 15:52) So we approach the Day of Trumpets with Godly fear and repentance. Yom Kippur is considered to be the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, after Shabbat. This is the day in which we make atonement for our sins before the Lord. This is the day of somber reflection, prayer and fasting. In ancient Israel, after the high priest sacrificed the bull and goat for the sins of the people, a second goat, known as the scapegoat, was taken by the high priest. He would lay both hands on its head and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites and put them on the goat’s head. He would then send the goat away into the desert to a solitary place. (Leviticus 16:20-22) As Believers, we know, of course, that our atonement is Yeshua Himself. It is only through His sacrificial death on the executioner’s stake that we can receive forgiveness of sins. He is the scapegoat, sent to die outside the camp for all of our wickedness and rebellion. It was all placed on His head, thus causing Him to die the most horrible death in all of human history. The atonement of Yeshua reaches backwards and forwards so that every person who has ever existed has the opportunity to repent before God and be saved. What an awesome thing! Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, is the most joyous celebration of all. The Lord commanded the Israelites to build booths and live in them for seven days: “All native-born Israelites are to live in booths Sukkot-Graphicso so that your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 23:42-43) We are also commanded to “take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.” (Leviticus 23:40) Sukkot is the ingathering; it’s the time to remember how the Lord provided for us as we wandered in the desert for 40 years. Prophetically, though, Sukkot points us to the time when God will dwell with us in the holy city, Yerushalayim. “(Jerusalem) This is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Tsiyon and dwell in Yerushalayim. Then Yerushalayim will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.’” (Zechariah 8:3) Imagine what it will be like when the Lord returns to this earth and sets up His throne and all peoples stream to Him! “The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.” (Zechariah 14:9) Now we need to be commanded to be joyful, then there will be no holding back the exaltation! Our bodies are temporary structures, like the booths at Sukkot. A day is coming when we will be given new bodies, we will realize eternity, and the Lord will be with us always. “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will shepherd [us], will lead [us] to springs of living water; and God will wipe every tear from [our] eyes.” (Revelation 7:17) Deborah Galiley is Rebbetzin of Congregation Beit Shalom in Utica, NY Rosh Hashana……………… Feast of Trumpets………..September 19-20 Yom Kippur…………………Day of Atonement……………September 28 Sukkot……………………….Feast of Tabernacles…….............October 2-9 All holidays begin at sundown on the evening before the date specified. 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