We'll turn in your scriptures
again to Nehemiah chapter 10. I will remind you again of that
verse that we often quote in Romans 15. Romans 15.4 says that these things were written These whatsoever things were
written aforetime, these things that we are reading here, were
written for our learning. So we are here to learn. That, and the result of it is
we, through patience, And that's one of the reasons, isn't it,
you have to ask why did God take so long, why, why so many, so
many particular things, so many extraordinary events over such
a long period of time, is that God is saying He has history
under control and we can wait And we can wait patiently. We can be patient. We can wait
for God to do the things He's promised. And that we might have
not only patience, but we might have comfort of the scriptures. We'll have comfort and patience
of the scriptures. We will be comforted by what
God says in His word. And then the end result of it
is that we might have hope. What a great, great Gospel and
what a great, great God we have. What a great God to proclaim. What an amazing Gospel that Isabel
searched out. What an amazing God to take her
from Morocco to Germany to Bermagui to Queanbeyan to us. What a remarkable
journey that lady has been on. All of it, all of it. is in the
perfect and sovereign hand and perfect and sovereign will of
our great and awesome God. And in Nehemiah, as we've seen
so often, we have this remarkable episode in the history of Israel
where the Jews, according to the promise of God, had turned
away from God, had been sent to Babylon, and here we have
this amazing gathering. What an amazing gathering it
is. Out of all the people in all
of the earth, God had gathered this particular group of people
at this particular time. We are so inclined, aren't we,
to think that because we are few in number, There aren't very
many of us. There aren't very many of us
here. There aren't very many of us that we know of in America,
in the UK, in other parts of the world. There aren't very
many of us. God always deals in remnants. What did he say
about us? Fear not, little flock. It's the Father's good pleasure
to give you the Kingdom. So as we've seen before, this
gathering of God's people is about the gathering of God's
people in church. It's about the gathering of God's
people into that promised land and all of those promises associated
with it, all of them, all of them shadows, all of them shadows. and we witness something of the
reality of it now. Isabel and all of us here in
the not too distant future will witness the reality of God who
is a gathering God. God who brings His people together
and He brings them together in Nehemiah around a rebuilt temple,
around a wall, a wall of separation of God's doing and into a place
of the most amazing blessing. But pictures, all of them, Pictures
of the salvation of the Lord Jesus. All of this is just but
a picture of Him. And I pray the Lord might do
that with us this night. We saw last week that in verse
1 these people made a covenant and they sealed it. Nehemiah
the governor, the tercifer. And he sealed it and then they
have a list of all those people in verse 28. And the rest of
the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers,
the Nephilims, and all they that had separated themselves from
the people of the lands unto the law of God, their wives,
their sons, their daughters, everyone having knowledge and
having understanding. And they claimed to their brethren,
their nobles, and entered into a curse and into an oath to walk
in God's law which was given by Moses the servant of God and
to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and His judgments
and statutes, that we would not give, and that we would not give
our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters
for our sons. And if the people of the land
bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell, that
we would not buy out of them on the Sabbath or on the holy
day, that we would leave the seventh year in the exaction
of every debt. Also we made ordinances for us
to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for
the service of the house of our God, for the showbread and for
the continual meat offering and for the continual bread offering
of the Sabbath and of the new moons, for the set feast and
for all the holy things and for the sin offerings to make an
atonement for Israel. and for all the work of the house
of our God. And we cast lots, cast the lots
among the priests, the Levites and the people for the wood offering,
to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of
our fathers, at the times appointed year by year, to burn upon the
altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law, and
to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of
all trees, year by year, unto the house of the Lord. Also the firstborn of our sons
and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings
of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our
God, unto the priests that minister in the house of our God. and
that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough and our offerings,
and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil unto
the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God, and
the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites
might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage. and
the priest of the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites when
the Levites take tithes, and the Levites shall bring up the
tithe of the tithes into the house of our God, to the chambers
into the treasure house. For the children of Israel and
the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of
the new wine, and the oil into the chambers where are the vessels
of the sanctuary, and the priest that minister, the porters and
the singers, and we will not forsake the house of our God."
It's a remarkable set of promises. It's a remarkable covenant that
these people sign. And as we saw last week, they
sign it, they set their seal to it with the most remarkable
act of faith, don't they? In verse 29 they say they're
entering into a curse. They're entering into a curse.
They know that they cannot do it. In their flesh they can't
do it. What great faith to obey God
knowing what it is and knowing that as we saw a couple of weeks
ago that unless the Lord Jesus had entered that curse for them
there was no way that this can be fulfilled. So I'd like us
to go through a little bit of it today, this evening, if the
Lord allows, and let's try and see, see beyond the shadows and
see the reality of the Lord Jesus in these verses. I love verse 29. These people
are separated. They had separated themselves
under the law of God. So they did two things, didn't
they? They were separated from the world and they clung to their
brethren. It's a beautiful picture of God's
church. And as we saw, they entered into
a curse. to observe and to do all the commandments of the Lord
our God and His judgments and His statutes." It's extraordinary. At either side of the Ten Commandments,
the people of Israel said, all that the Lord has spoken, we
will do and we will be obedient. What extraordinary promises they
made. You can read about them in Exodus
19, 8 and 24, 7. And then Moses reported the words of the people
to the Lord. The reason they entered into
this covenant is that they had been at Mount Sinai and made
a promise. What an extraordinary thing.
What an extraordinary thing that people still today think they
can go to that law, think that they can go to that law and do
it, think that they can go to that law and find peace in that
law. Nehemiah and his friends here
that clung together knew that they weren't doing that. They
weren't doing something that earned their righteousness. They
were entering into a situation of grave and deep and serious
danger. And so we see in verse 30 that
they were separated. They were a separated people.
God's people are separated. They were separated in eternity
and then God in his covenant promises keeps on separating
them. He separated them at the Exodus. God says, I put a difference
between the Israelites and the Egyptians. God puts a difference. God makes a difference between
his people. And he causes his people to take
seriously the fact that they are a separate people. And when
God's people join with the world, they just become like the world. God's people are no different
from the others. The difference is in the Lord. The only difference is the difference
the Lord makes. But you think every time there's
a compromise, every time there's a movement, there always is just
a declension until God comes along and moves the hearts and
spirits of His people. Lord, as we saw in Song of Solomon,
blow upon my garden, cause your wind to blow upon my garden. How much we need to be separated,
how much God alone can do that separating. But that separation
is a separation unto the Lord Jesus. It's just again a picture
that He creates this separation. There they are inside a wall,
a wall of God's appointing, a wall constructed by God. In Nehemiah
6, All the people, the people on the inside and the people
of the enemies on the outside, turned and when they saw that
wall finished in 52 days, surrounding that city and separating that
city, and they saw those walls, and they saw those gates, and
they saw those doors, and they saw the massiveness of it all,
they saw that this was not the work of men. This was the work
of God. But it's a separation as we see
in verse 31. It's a separation to gather these
people to God and to gather them in a place of rest. And if the
people of the land bring anywhere or victuals on the Sabbath day
to sell, we will not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on the
holy day that we We would have that day as separate, and we
know from Hebrews that that's Sabbath. The Lord Jesus is our
Sabbath, and there's a rest for the people of God. They are surrounded
by their enemies. They are in a place where they
themselves feel distressed, but it's a Sabbath. It's a rest that
only the Lord can bring to His people. And then as a farmer,
I love the last bit of verse 31. I don't know anywhere in
all of the scriptures that ever records the people of Israel
doing this. Not only did they rest on the
seventh day, they rested on their festival days. What a great blessing
it is that God says you can work for six days and you can have
a day of rest. And then after six years of that,
You actually rest again. What a remarkable thing God has
put into their life, into their calendar. Imagine, Norm, a whole
year off. Death. Don't lift a finger. What a remarkable thing. What
a beautiful, beautiful picture of the Sabbath rest. What a beautiful
picture of God's promise to provide. What a beautiful, beautiful picture
of the Sabbath rest that God's children enter into by faith
and will enter into by faith and by experience when we leave
this world as His children. And not only that, Just imagine
if you've been like me in debt almost all my adult life. Every
seven years all your debts are gone. All your debts are gone. What a beautiful picture. What
a beautiful picture of redemption, isn't it? That we have sold ourselves
by our sin into debt. A debt that we can't pay. A debt that after those times
of work we can't pay. And yet God, what a great picture
of redemption. The debt is cancelled, and it's
a continuous cancelling throughout the history of Israel. Debts
were cancelled, you had your land back at the end of that
7 times 70 years, the land remained with your family. And we are
debtors, and that debt is paid by the Lord Jesus perfectly and
completely. And so the service that they
talk about in verse 32 is a service of joy, isn't it? A service of
delight. It's not a burdensome thing,
serving the Lord. We made ordinance for us to charge
ourselves yearly with a third part of a shekel for the service
of the house of our God. It's good to remember that in
the previous chapter 9 verse 37, these people were crying
out. in their poverty and in their
distress. And here they're saying, we will
cancel the debts, we'll have every seven year off, and we'll
give a third part of the shekel for the service of the house
of our God. And then they offer, they show
where this money's going. They're going to provide the
showbread. Isn't it just lovely? They need,
by the grace of God, to be given the fruits of the land, and the
fruits of the land center on the temple, and listen to it,
a continual meat offering, and for a continual burnt offering. You see, we need... My wife is in Queensland. We need continual meat offering.
And we need continual bird offering. because our sins are continual. Hebrews 7 outlines some of this
so beautifully, we might turn there and keep your fingers in
Hebrews and we'll go and look again and again at these shadows
made reality. Hebrews 7, 19 says, for the law
made nothing perfect. but the bringing in of a better
hope nearby, which we draw nigh unto God. These offerings were
made continually. For the priests were made without
an oath, but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The
Lord swear and will not repent. Thou art, the Lord Jesus, a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. By so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament, and they truly were many priests, because
they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this
man, because he continueth forever, has an unchangeable priesthood,
this offering that these men made, this offering that they
were going to make in that physical temple, were all just shadows
of this remarkable offering. Isn't it amazing to think that
right now, as we sit here, the Lord Jesus is offering that continuous
offering, that prayer in Heaven. What's he doing? What's he doing
at the moment? He delivered him. He spared not
his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any
charge to God, anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh. He's making and He continues
to make intercession for us. We need a continuing, continuous
offering. a burnt offering and a meat offering,
a sacrifice. We need a sacrifice. So here
we see a separation, a Sabbath rest, a cancellation of debts,
a service, a sacrifice. The sacrifice of the new moons,
the set feast, verse 33, and for the holy things and for the
sin offerings to make an atonement for Israel, an atonement just
for that nation, Israel. What a great atoning sacrifice
the Lord Jesus is. And we cast lots among the priests,
the Levites and the people for the wood offering, to bring it
into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at
the times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the
Lord our God, as it is written, to keep this altar burning perpetually. This continual meat offering,
this continual burnt offering needs this continual supply of
wood. These people promised and covenanted
to care for the house of God. and to keep the priesthood in
its activities. See they are making a promise
that they will protect and they will nurture and they will care
for the priests and allow the priests to continue to do their
work. That they would serve in the
house of our God. And they were to bring the firstfruits
of the ground and the firstfruits of all the fruit trees year by
year into the house of the Lord. See the firstfruits like the
firstborn, like the firstlings of the cattle. are all just pictures
of the Lord Jesus, who is the first and the last. He is the
firstborn, says Colossians 1.18, the firstborn from among the
dead. He's the firstborn who has the
right of inheritance. He's the firstborn who receives
that double portion He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the First and He is the
Last. All of these fruits, all of these
first born, all of them picture the Lord Jesus. And of course
it's a hearkening back to those remarkable events in Exodus. You know the story well, and
it's good to be reminded, isn't it, that on that great day, that
amazing night of the Passover, where God brought judgment, He
also brought salvation. And as those people sacrificed
that lamb, and as they sheltered under that blood, and as they
sheltered inside that building of theirs, and as they prepared
themselves, They knew, they knew what God was going to do and
God was going to make a difference. God was going to make a difference
that night in the most remarkable way. The first born, the first
born of the Israelites were saved. Why were they saved? The firstborn
of the Israelites were saved because the lamb had died. And it came to pass that at midnight
the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the
firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the firstborn
of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn
of the cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night,
he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was
a great cry in Egypt for there was not a house where there was
not one dead. And the people of Israel went
out and as they looked at their son that morning as they walked
out, And there was a funeral in every house in all of Egypt. They knew one thing for sure,
didn't they? That their firstborn son, their
firstborn son was alive because the lamb Their first born son was alive
because God had made a promise and God had made a difference
and God had provided a sacrifice and atonement for them. the firstborn. All of the firstborns,
all of the firsts in all of the scriptures are just pictures. They are just pictures of that
one who is the firstborn. The firstborn from among the
dead. They are pictures of our Lord
Jesus. So we bring the first. It's another signal isn't it, that the Lord
has given the best, the Lord has given the first, the first
of his sons, the first of that fruit. And God looks upon his
people and they are to take the firstborn and say, this is God's
provision. I am to give, I am to give as
an offering the first that God gives me. It's another sign of
faith, isn't it? The very first thing that you
have longed for and looked for, you turn and then say, the Lord
has provided. The Lord has been faithful and
the Lord will continue to be faithful to us. And they're going to gather this
tithe, they're going to bring these tithes, they're going to
bring that 10% that tenth, they are going to bring it into the
house of God. And the Levites are going to
gather it and they are going to bring that tithe of the tithes
into the house of our God, into the chambers, into the treasure
house. And they'll bring it as an offering, verse 39, offering
you corn and new wine and oil unto the chambers where are the
vessels of the sanctuary and the priests that minister and
the porters and the singers. And then they make this remarkable
promise, don't they? And we will not forsake the house
of our God. Just look back with me just briefly. In verse 32 it's talked about
the service of the house of our God, that third of a shekel for
the service of the house of the God. Verse 33, for all the work
of the house of our God. And they'll bring all these lots,
they'll bring this wood, and they'll bring this wood that
allows for that continual offering, and that continual burnt offering
to go up to God as a sweet smelling savour. They'll bring it into
the house of our God. And they'll bring these first
fruits, verse 35. out of our ground and all of the trees,
and we'll bring them under the house of the Lord. And they'll
bring the firstborn of our sons, of our cattle, our herds and
our flock, and bring it into the house of our God, and administer
in the house of our God. Verse 37, and they'll bring these
things and they'll have them stored in the chambers of the
house of our God. And they'll bring, 38, they'll
bring the tithes unto the house of our God. And then all of this
in verse 39 is a promise that they will not forsake the house
of our God. It's remarkable in all the scriptures,
there is no place anywhere else in all the scriptures where this
is spoken of in the same way and so repeatedly and so repeatedly. It's beautiful isn't it? God
has a house in my father's house. are many rooms. He goes to prepare
a place for you. And if he goes to prepare a place
for you, he'll come back and take you to be with him where
he is. You see, it's the house of our
God. It's the house that He upholds. It's the house that is the place
where He is revealed. It's His house. But isn't it
a great blessing, brothers and sisters, that His house is our
house? Our God. He builds the house. He is the architect of the house.
He is the builder of the house. The house is the place where
He resides. It's the house that He provides
all the food for. It's the house where He rules
as the husband. It's the house where He is honoured. The Church of God is a spiritual
house, isn't it? And it's built of living stones. It's built on a sure foundation.
It just has one door of entrance, which is the Lord Jesus. It's
a house which is a family. They clave to their brethren. They were gathered by God to
be a family. It's a household of faith. It's a family called by the name
of the Lord Jesus. It's a place where God builds,
provides, protects. And it's a place, remarkably,
where He dwells. and He allows Himself by grace
to be worshipped by His people as He gathers them together,
as He surrounds them, as He separates them, as He provides for them,
as He reveals Himself in the Lord Jesus. And remarkably this
picture of church is the object of all of God's purposes and
work. The Church of the Living God
needs no priests, no altars, no rituals. It needs none of
the symbols of outward religion. The Church is the house of our
God only when God resides. and only when God builds, and
only where God gathers, and only where God's Son, God's Son who
is the sacrifice, God's Son who is the priest, God's Son who
is the firstborn, God's Son who is the Sabbath, God's Son is
honoured. open ye the gates, that the righteous
nation that keepeth truth may walk in." Isn't it amazing that
they finished this covenant by saying, we will not forsake the
house of our God. how easy it is for us to forsake
the house of our God, how sad it is that history again and
again shows that the only person who never forsook the house of
our God, and the only true worshipper, and the only true Sabbath, and
the only true law-keeper, and the only true one who ever made
a covenant and kept a covenant, is our great Redeemer. Our Great Firstborn. Let's pray.