as you have before you, Nehemiah
13. I was planning to speak tonight
in sense in overview of this chapter and then next week speak
in a bit more detail and then over the next few weeks I thought
we'd have a look just briefly in overview at some of the books
of the scripture that relate directly to this time in the
history of redemption and those books are books like Zechariah,
they are books like Malachi who was a prophet at this same time
in Israel's history, books like the book of Esther which is one
of the books about the gathering of these people that we are reading
about here back to the Lord. And that's where we're going.
I pray the Lord will have mercy on us and cause us to see His
Word. And Nehemiah is a great type
in many ways of the Lord Jesus. His name means the comfort of
the Lord. What a great description. And in chapter 2, verse 10, as
I've referred to many times, he is given a name, a description,
which is a great title for Nehemiah, but a great title for the Lord
Jesus. There was come a man to seek
the welfare of the children of Israel. It's a great description
of the man who is the comfort of the Lord. And of course the
history is that Nehemiah had been greatly moved by the distress
of the people in Jerusalem and especially, of course, that Jerusalem
represented and was the city in which God had sought and sent
the place for His name in all of the world. And Nehemiah heard
about that place, heard about the situation of the people and
particularly heard about the wall, and he was sent, he was
empowered by God to come there. And he comes and then he goes
back to Babylon, back to Shusha and then he comes back again
after some little time and here in chapter 13 he finds this situation
and to understand the chronology of this chapter, we need to remember
that it opens with a beginning of the reading of the Word of
God. God's Word comes and is revealed
and comes with power. Then he talks about the evil
of Eliasheb. The chapter begins with the evil
of Eliasheb and finishes with the evil of Eliasheb in verse
28. And it says in verse 6, it says,
in all this time whilst I was not at Jerusalem, He came unto
the King and He obtained leave. And then in verse 7, He comes
back to Jerusalem. And what He comes back to Jerusalem
to do is to come as the comfort of the Lord, as the Lord's messenger,
as the Lord's servant, because to the Lord's people, God will
not leave them. alone for very long. He allows
sin and evil and rebellion to reign, but to reign just for
a season. Let's just read the chapter and
it's divided fairly clearly into four parts. The first opening
nine verses are about the house of God. Why is the House of God
forsaken? In verses 10 down to 13, part
of the reason for the House of God being forsaken is that the
servants of the House of God are not at their posts. And then
it goes on in verses 15 down to 22, and the Sabbath is not
kept. There are foreigners around and
the people of God have joined with them in trading on the Sabbath
day. And then in verses 23 to 31,
we have the problem of their marriage. They're joining together
with others, in a sense a liarship at the beginning joins together
with Tobiah and at the end we see that his son-in-law is married
to Sambalat, the two great and evident enemies of all that God
did through Nehemiah. They openly and wickedly and
deceitfully conspired against him. As we saw last time we met,
Compromise is always about the house of God. Compromise is always,
at the end of the day, an attack on the very gospel and the very
glory of God. The enemies of God have one place
they wish to call mine. Satan wants to usurp the very
place of God. Let's read this chapter and then
we can look at some highlights of it briefly. On that day they
read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people and
therein was found written that the Ammonite and the Moabite
should not come into the congregation of God forever. Because they
met not the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired
Balaam against them, that he should curse them, howbeit our
God turned the curse into a blessing. Now it came to pass when they
heard the law that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude,
and before this, So these are the events, as we read the rest
of this chapter, are the events that happened under the leadership
of Eliaship. Eliaship, the high priest, having
oversight of the chamber of the house of our God, was allied
under Tobiah. And He had prepared for him a
great chamber, where aforetime they laid the meat offerings,
the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes, and the corn,
and the new wine, and the oil, which was commanded to be given
to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the offerings
for the priests. But in all that time was not
I at Jerusalem, for in the two and thirtieth year of Axodexes,
king of Babylon, came I unto the king, and after certain days
obtained I leave of the king. 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. and it grieved
me sore. Therefore I cast forth all the
household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded
that they cleansed the chambers and did abide again the vessels
of the house of God with the meat offering and with the frankincense. As we saw a few weeks ago, the
house of God is fully equipped and full, and you can only put
things that are opposed to God in there by removing the things.
And these things that Elijah removed were the very emblems
of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. and cleansed the chambers. And I perceived that the portions
of the Levites had not been given to them. For the Levites and
the singers that did the work were fled, every one to his field. Then I contended with the rulers
and said, why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered
them together and set them in their place. Then brought all
due to the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil
into the treasuries. And I made treasurers over the
treasuries. Shalamiah the priest, Zadok the
scribe, and of Levites Pedaiah next to them was Hanan the son
of Zakkur, the son of Mataniah, for they were counted faithful
and their office was to distribute unto their brethren. Remember
me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds
that I have done for the house of my God and for the offices
thereof. In those days saw I and you to
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. their dwelt men of Tyre also
therein, which brought fish in all manner of wear, and sold
on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. Then
I contended with the nobles of Judah and said unto them, What
evil thing is this you do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did
not your fathers thus, and did not our God, bring all this evil
upon us, and upon this city? Yet you bring more wrath upon
Israel by profaning the Sabbath. 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 eye at the gates, that there should be no borden to be brought
in on the Sabbath day. So the merchants and the sellers
of all kinds of wear 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. From that time forth they came
no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that
they should cleanse themselves and that they should come and
keep the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day. Remember me, O my
God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness
of Thy mercy. In those days also saw I Jews
that had married wives of Ashdod, and of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spoke half
the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language,
but according to the language of each people. And I contended
with them, and cursed them, and 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 for yourselves. Or did not Solomon, king of Israel,
sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there
no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him
king over all Israel. Nevertheless, even him did outlandish
women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you
to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in
marrying strange wives? And one of the sons of Joida,
the son of Elisha the high priest, was son-in-law to Sambalap the
Hororite. Therefore I chased him from thee.
Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood
and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites. Thus cleansed
I from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and
the Levites, every one in his business, and for the wood offering
at times appointed, and for the first fruits. Remember me, O
my God, for good." And thus finishes this word of God from our friend
Nehemiah. What a great example he is, what
a great testimony to the graciousness of God that he allows his chosen
people to go so far and then he restrains them. The Lord God limits his absences
from his people. He has amongst this gathered
multitude, He has a remnant according to the election of grace. And
then He must bring in, and then He must gather, and then He will
be a shepherd to them. He will be a shepherd. And one
of the things that's so striking in these chapters, of course,
is that God comes and He exposes sin. It's the greatest mercy
that God can ever bring into our lives. But we will be caused
by God to see sin as sin. in our own lives, in this world
around us, and especially in the Church. You see, Nehemiah
doesn't call it a little thing, he calls it a big thing, he calls
it evil. Again and again in this chapter
he says it's evil, it's the evil thing. He says in verse 27, all
this great evil. Compromise is great evil
and God in mercy sends Nehemiah back. What what must have confronted
him. And you look back on this short
history of his time there and the remarkable events that happened,
52 days building a wall, the remarkable events in Chapter
8 where they celebrated and God caused them to celebrate with
great joy. caused them to know that in the
Lord Jesus, which all of this temple and all of this sacrifice
and all of this wall was representative of Him and His perfect work. What a remarkable thing for him
to have witnessed all of that, and for these people to have
witnessed all of that, and then in such a short time they are
turned back. They are turned back away from
God into the most appalling apostasy. It's interesting isn't it, I've
been thinking about the words of comfort in the scriptures
and the great ones that you probably know well are in Isaiah 40. They start, Isaiah 40 begins,
doesn't it? Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
sayeth your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. that her iniquity
is pardoned. Read chapter 8 of Nehemiah and
you'll see that being fulfilled before their eyes. For she has
received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. complete forgiveness
of all of her sins and perfect righteousness of God applied
to His people through the work of the Lord Jesus. The voice
of Him that cries in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord
and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every
valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made
low. The crooked places made straight
and the rough places are plain. What extraordinary obstacles
were overcome by Nehemiah, by the grace of God, to bring these
people to this place of protection. And the glory of the Lord shall
be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth
of the Lord has spoken it. The voice said, Cry, and he said,
What shall I cry? What's the gospel? What do you
proclaim? All flesh. is grass. All flesh is grass
and all the goodliness thereof is as of the flower of the field."
What do we see in Nehemiah's day? All flesh is grass. O flesh, and the goodliness thereof
is as the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower
fades, because the Spirit of the Lord blows on it. Surely
the people is grass, the grass withers and the flower faded,
but The word of our God shall stand forever. O Zion that bring
us good tidings, get thee up onto a high mountain. O Jerusalem
that bring us good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift
it up and be not afraid, and say unto the cities of Judah,
behold your God." What a great, great cry, isn't it? What a great
thing that God had done. Covenant faithfulness to His
people. Behold, verse 10, the Lord God
will come with a strong hand and His arms shall rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him
and His work before Him. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young. You read the rest of the chapter,
you get to see how big God is. The universe is but a span. The waters of the earth are held
in the palm of his hand. Our God is a big and gracious
God, but man left to himself is but grass. Alayah Sheb, what a terrible,
terrible testimony the scriptures leave of this man. And it's remarkable
to remember, isn't it, that probably very few people on all of planet
Earth had witnessed the things that a laya-sheep had witnessed
in such a short space of time. It is remarkable, isn't it? People
keep saying, if there is enough evidence, people will believe.
If there is enough evidence, people will live obediently and
honour God and worship Him. These people had the most remarkable
amount of evidence, just like the people in the day of the
Lord Jesus had the most remarkable evidence, just like the people
in our day have had the most remarkable evidence. It is a great reminder, isn't
it, that God's work is a spiritual work. And if it's a spiritual
work that's been begun, it's a spiritual work that He will
continue. Nehemiah never gave up. Nehemiah was encouraged. Nehemiah was strengthened. Nehemiah
was empowered by God. And he came as God's servant
and he sent his servant to bring his word. Nehemiah came and then
in verse 1, on that day they read in the book of Moses and
there it was revealed to them. Nehemiah came and they read in
the book of God. Nehemiah comes with the gospel
and he exposes the false. He exposes the false high priests. that the true high priest might
be seen and honoured among his own and in his own house. As Hawker said, how many Eliashebs
exist today? He was writing of a day that
we would think is a better day than ours. It wasn't. How many liarships exist today
and throughout history who substitute falsehood for the truth in the
services of the sanctuary, who teach the people to accommodate
to buyers of every description, character, instead of Christ. Alas, alas, what rubbish of anything,
of nothing, of worse than nothing is sometimes made to supply the
place of Jesus and His one salvation for poor perishing sinners. O for the spirit given to Nehemiah
to reform these abuses, to be poured out now, that a holy zeal
might cast forth the false refuges of lies out of the Lord's chambers
wherever they are found. The liarship is just a great
picture of the evil of compromise. We want so much in our flesh
to compromise. But God's servants, God's ministers,
are people who will be sustained by God not to compromise. They'll be shown by God in His
Word that compromise is compromise about the person and the work
of the Lord Jesus. And as Nehemiah says, it is evil. It is an evil thing. It is a
great evil. I pray that God would cause us,
cause us as a church to be made to stand firm against the compromise
that is so much a part of our flesh. Eliasheb's flesh and our
flesh, brothers and sisters, is the same. It is only God It
is only God who makes the difference. And if ever we had a word for
our day, it would be in verse 11. Why is the house of God forsaken? If ever it was forsaken, it was
forsaken in our day and in our land, and it's forsaken As this
chapter reveals, it's forsaken because the leaders, those who
have the God-given position of responsibility, have compromised. I pray that you would pray that
I would not be a compromiser. I pray that you would pray that
those who speak on God's behalf here would be people who don't
compromise. Don't compromise the truth of
God for anything. If God would give us the grace
to stand firm for Him, we would know, we would come to know the
truth of His promises, that He honours those who honour Him. There's a great picture of Nehemiah's
approach to this situation. In verse 10, we see when it comes
to the servants of the house of God, He comes to Jerusalem
and He sees, He bears witness to what is going on. He perceived
that the portions for the Levites had not been given them. And
the Levites had fled, they had gone to their own fields. You see, He sees the problem. In verse, when it comes to the
Sabbath, he comes again and he saw. In verse 23, he sees what's
happening with the marriages. But to come back to the Levites,
he sees that they have left. If they had left because they
were not supplied with their daily needs, it was a reason
for rebuke of the people, especially these leaders who had so recently
seen the provision of the Lord in this land. You see, the provision
was there for them. You see in verse 12, then brought
all due to the tithe of the corn of the new wine into the treasury.
They didn't have to wait for the wheat to grow. They didn't
have to wait for the olives to be crushed to produce the oil.
It was there in the land. And so, if they had left, because
they were not supplied, it was a great rebuke to the people.
If they had left, their post for their own gain,
to return to their own fields and places, then it's a great
rebuke upon them. It may very well be that it's
a rebuke on both hands. God has promised to provide. He's promised to provide in abundance. God will take care that his servants
are fed. The tithe was available, but
the leaders were held responsible. He contended, verse 11, with
the rulers. And he gathered them together,
these people together again, and he set them in their place.
And so it wasn't a big deal. They hadn't gone so far that
Nehemiah couldn't bring them back. But the rulers had forsaken
the house of God. You see, the Old Testament covenant
is a covenant that's a mediated covenant through prophet, priest,
and king. And where God's prophets are
shut up and false prophets are allowed to speak. We have the
situation that reigned in that land so often. Just read the
early chapters of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. You'll see that these
people were led astray by people who came speaking lies. They forsook the house of God
and they built their own houses. And then Nehemiah prays. At the end of each of these sections
we have this prayer from Nehemiah. He says, Remember me, O God,
concerning this. You see, the tithe had been brought
in, the treasurers had been reappointed, new ones no doubt. And they stood,
as they did when they built the wall, they stood next to each
other, they stood side by side. Nehemiah put it back together
again, as it should have been. And then he says, remember me,
O my God, and wipe not all the deeds I have done in the house
of my God. And then in the next section
he comes and he sees that the Sabbaths had been desecrated. He saw in Judah they were treading
wine presses on the Sabbath. You don't have to tread a wine
press on Saturday. And he saw that they were bringing
sheaves and lading asses. The law was clear. The evidence
was there. They were treading wine presses
and bringing in sheaves, and yet the law said in Exodus 34,
21, in earing time and in harvest they should rest on the Sabbath.
Not only should the people rest, but the animals have a day of
rest on the Sabbath. Laid in their asses, the cattle
should rest, says Deuteronomy 5, 14, on the Sabbath. They should
bear no more burdens. And the other thing was that
they were there, the temple of God, the city of God was turned
into a marketplace on the Sabbath. And buyers and sellers, they'd
invited and they had welcomed the people of Tyre to come into
Jerusalem and set up their marketplace in Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Nehemiah's response is to testify
against them. He contended with them. He says
this is evil that you do. You profane the Sabbath day. You no longer treat the Sabbath
as sacred. And then you bring more wrath
upon Israel. See the Sabbath is a rest. It's a holy Sabbath. and to rest
unto the Lord. The Sabbath is a picture of the
Lord Jesus. These weren't just activities
done on Saturday, they were activities that directly attacked the very
person and work of the Lord Jesus. You see in Genesis 2 the Sabbath
in a sense begins. God ended His work. He rested on the seventh day
from all the work which He had made and He blessed the seventh
day and He sanctified it. So for over 2000 years men worshipped
and they walked with and they loved and they honoured the Lord
without the Sabbath day being mentioned. They walked with God. They trusted the Lord Jesus. The Sabbath that these people
were desecrating was established for two reasons. It was a symbol
of God's rest in Exodus 28-10. It's a symbol of the rest that
God entered into on that seventh day. And it's a symbol of God's
restitution of all things in Christ Jesus. But also it was
a constant reminder to Israel of their redemption out of Israel,
their redemption by Christ. They were redeemed. And here's
this people now, a redeemed people yet again. They not only had
redemption from Israel, they had recovery from Babylon. And
here they were desecrating the very things that reminded them
of who their God is. And Sabbath rest in the Lord
Jesus. You see, the story is, of course,
isn't it, that every doctrine and every practice is a doctrine
and a practice which has direct reference to the Lord Jesus.
And unless we see that it has direct reference to Him, we'll
misunderstand what God in His Word is saying. They had desecrated the Sabbaths
before and God had sent them out. You see the evil and the
horrible things that happened that are recorded in Jeremiah
and Lamentations about them leaving Israel. They were done by the
Babylonians. But you see, in verse 18, it
was really done by God. Did not your fathers do this
same thing? And did not our God bring all
this evil upon us and upon this city? And yet you bring more
wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
You would think that we would learn. Are you like me, brothers
and sisters? We go through a time, don't we,
where we stumble and fall and the Lord God comes along and
picks us up and puts us on our feet and we think, now I've reached
some place. Now I've reached some place where
I won't stumble again. there are no plethas brothers
and sisters, there are no steps to go up to meet God on We are
constantly recipients of grace if we are God's children, and
it's only by grace that we stand, and it's only by grace that we
are what we are. You see, Nehemiah in verses 19
down to 22 puts wonderful things in place, just as he had before
he left. And those gates were built and
all that opposition came along. And it came to pass that when
the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before Sabbath, he
commanded the gates would be shut. So they were shut before
dark, they were not open until after the Sabbath. And he put
his own servants there because the other servants had proved
to be so negligent in their duties that there would be no burden
brought in on the Sabbath. And then he spoke to the people
who had made that place a marketplace outside and he testified against
them and he said, why do you lodge there? If you do so again,
I will lay hands on you. He will either send them away
or put them in jail. And then he commanded that the
Levites, they should cleanse themselves and they should come
and keep the gates and sanctify the Sabbath day. How long did
it last? How long did the Sabbath? How long was it kept? The reality
is that we don't have a lot of Biblical history after the days
of Nehemiah. But we can know for sure that
by the time the Lord Jesus came, the Sabbath was honoured in the
lips of men, that their hearts were so far from God, that when
the Sabbath is pointed forward to, arrived in that city, what
did he find the temple to be? The temple was a den of thieves
and robbers and the temple courts were a marketplace. And yet in
Jerusalem, ruling over Jerusalem in so many ways were some of
the most legalistic self-righteous people the world has ever seen. You see again we are reminded
that it is God by His grace that maintains and preserves and brings
His people to a place where they can worship. And finally, and
just briefly, we'll just look at this whole business of marriage. Foreigners marrying the Israelites
was forbidden. If you turn briefly to Deuteronomy
chapter 7, there's just a beautiful description of why. Why God's
people were to be separate. And to be separate in marriage
was just a sign that they were to be a separate people and that
they were to be a holy people. They were not to be together
with unbelievers. The liarshebs marriages of his
children and grandchildren was the wicked, wicked picture of
compromise. In Deuteronomy 7, 3-6 we see
that neither shall you make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou
shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take
unto thy son. Because, verse 6, because they
are a holy people unto the Lord thy God. They are a holy people,
the next part of that verse says, that they are a chosen people
to be a special people from all others on the earth. They are
a people who are to reflect the electing and gracious love of
God. See the Lord, verse 7, the Lord
did not set His love upon you nor choose you because you are
more in number than any other people, for you were the fewest
of all people, but because the Lord loved you. They were to
be a separate people to reflect that God is a covenant-keeping
God. and because He would keep the
oath which He had sworn unto your fathers. The Lord God is
a covenant-keeping God. The Lord God is a redeeming God. He brought you out with a mighty
hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the
hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, the faithful God. See, they were to be separate
from these other people, to be holy people, to be a people who
reflect the chosenness, the electing love of God, to reveal His graciousness,
to reveal His covenant keeping, to reveal His redemption and
His faithfulness. Therefore foreign marriages will
turn away thy son from following me. and also the anger of the Lord
will be kindled and sudden destruction will come upon them. They had
committed two evils, hadn't they? These people, as Jeremiah 2 says,
they committed two evils, these people, for they have forsaken
Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out them out systems,
broken systems that can hold no water. They had forsaken God. To enter into a mixed marriage
was to forsake God, forsake His covenant, forsake His redemption,
to forsake Him. Nehemiah acts in a way which
these days is very politically incorrect. He contended with
them, he cursed them, he smote certain of them, plucked off
their hair, and he made them swear by God, you shall not give
your daughters unto their sons nor take your daughters unto
your sons for yourselves. And he gives them the example.
of Solomon, and we might talk some more about Solomon next
week, Lord willing. He calls this a great evil and
then he describes the activities of the sons of Joida, the son
of Eliashib, the high priest, the son-in-law of Sambalac, the
Hororite. It's an extraordinary and graphic
word from God, isn't it? Here was a man who's the comfort
of the Lord, the comfort of the Lord, one who came to seek the
welfare of the children of Israel. And this man was unrepentant. And when it says that he chased
him from thee, he actually chased him from him, from Jerusalem,
from Judah, from Israel, banished forever. Remember them, he prays again,
O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant
of the priesthood and of the Levites. And then he finishes this amazing
chapter. He says, Remember me, O my God,
He cleansed them and He appointed again wards, the priests and
Levites. He says, remember me, remember
all my work. But in verse 22 we have Him praying
again, these brief but beautiful prayers to His God. Remember
me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according
to the greatness of Thy mercy. There was another man 2,000 years
ago who said those same words to his saviour as he hung on
that cross beside him. Remember me, O my God, and spare
me according to the greatness of thy mercy. What great mercy
it is when God sends knowledge of sin. And especially great
mercy when God sends knowledge of a redeemer. Someone that takes
away all the sins of his people. Someone that builds the house
of God. Someone who builds the walls
of Jerusalem. Someone who gathers and protects
and nurtures and cares for his people. Let's pray.