The King's Cupbearer

The last line of verse 11, Nehemiah tells us, for I was the king's cupbearer. And that's what I've entitled this message, the king's cupbearer. Now the cupbearer was one of the most trusted servants of the king. And one of his responsibilities was he would taste the king's wine. before the king would drink it, because that's the main way they tried to poison people, poison their wine. Somebody wanted to get rid of the king, they would poison their wine, and Nehemiah would be the one who tested it. It'd be almost kind of like Russian roulette, it seems like, a life like that, to see if I'm going to be poisoned. But he was someone who was very intimate with the king. Look in chapter two. You know, several of these children of Israel became very close with the leaders. What about Mordecai and Esther in the book of Esther? What about Daniel? What about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? These people were given great positions in the Babylonian and Persian government.

But look in chapter two, and it came to pass in the month Nicen, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes, the king, that wine was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it unto the king, now had not been before time sad in his presence. I was always cheerful. I didn't act like I was upset about anything. Wherefore, the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. See what a relationship he had with him that he would notice something like this and care. He loved this man.

Then I was very sore afraid, and I said, and the king lived forever, why should not my countenance be sad when the city, the place of my father's sepulchers, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? Then the king said unto me, for what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. Before he made the request, he prayed first. That ought to teach us something, shouldn't it? He prayed first before he even made the request.

So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king, if it please the king, and if thy servant hath found favor in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me into Judah, and to the city of my father's sepulchers, that I may build it. And the king said unto me, the queen also said unto him, how long shall thy journey be? And when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me And I said him a time, moreover I said unto the king, if it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river that they may convey me over till I come unto Judah. Show them that your hand and your favor is upon this.

And a letter, verse eight, unto Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertaineth to the house and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me according to the good hand of my God upon me." So we see what a close relationship this man had with the king that he would do all of this for him.

Now, right off the bat, we see Nehemiah as a type of Christ. He left a high position of honor to go help the children of Israel and rebuild the city. Throughout this book, Nehemiah is a type of Christ. Now, if you remember the theme of Ezra was rebuilding the temple. The theme of Nehemiah is rebuilding the walls and the gates of Jerusalem. Two totally different things with two totally different functions. And we're going to see the emphasis on rebuilding the walls and the gates. Now, turn back to Nehemiah chapter 1 verse 1.

The words of Nehemiah, his name means Jehovah comforts. I always want to be comforted by the gospel. I want the Lord to speak to me. It won't really do me any good if you speak to me. It won't really do you any good if I speak to you unless the Lord is blessing the word and it is him speaking. And his name means the Lord comforts. Comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her warfare is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. It's already pardoned. She hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. I need to hear that all the time. Comfort. He was the son of Hakaliah, which means Jehovah enlightens. He gives light.

And it came to pass in the month of Shislu, in the 20th year I was in Shushan, the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem." Now, you'll remember a bunch of people left after this 70 years of captivity to go back to Jerusalem. And what's taking place now is 60 years later. That's how long ago these people had first left. And I imagine Nehemiah had never been there. And he's asking about their welfare, how they are doing, verse three, and they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach.

And that word affliction, we usually think of great trials, great heavy burdens, but do you know that word is the same word that's translated evil and wickedness? Genesis 6, 5, and God saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Wickedness and evil, the same word, that was the state of Jerusalem.

The only way a man can see that that's his state is if God, the Holy Spirit gives him a holy nature that can see. If I'm a natural man, I can't really see this. If I don't have God the Holy Spirit giving me a new heart to behold, I can't really see this. But when God gives you a heart, you see. You see this is about yourself. You don't have to be convinced of it. You know it's so.

He said in verse three, they're in great affliction and reproach. The word is disgrace. They feel disgrace because of their great affliction, their sin. And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down. And the gates thereof are burned with fire. They have no way of protection.

Walls are good. The Bible is not anti-wall. Remember when David said at the end of Psalm 51, do you remember what he said? Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Walls keep things out that are dangerous. Walls keep people in. And we hear very little positive about walls in our day. Tear down the walls and build bridges.

No doubt there's sometimes that's appropriate. I would not discount that. But it's still true that in our day, in our way of thinking, walls are out, bridges are in. Now why is that? Because there's a negative connotation with walls and a positive connotation with bridges. I want to be a bridge builder. I don't want to put a wall between people. I want to be a bridge builder. I want to connect. I want to bring people together. And I understand that, like I said, on some levels.

It's very good to be a built bridger in some levels, but men do hate walls of separation. Men hate absolutes, and they try to build bridges between the church and the world. Can't be done, but men try it. They try to build bridges between light and darkness, between truth and error, between law and gospel, between works and grace, and it can't be done. I love the way we don't build a bridge to God, we have that bridge, Christ Jesus the Lord. He is the bridge, and any other bridge will lead to destruction, Walls of separation are good. The walls of separation between the word of God and the words of men.

I want a strict wall between those two. Scripture alone, we can't build a bridge between works and grace. They're totally opposite. They can't come together. We can't build a bridge between law and gospel. We can't build a bridge between God's sovereign will and man's free will. They deny each other, they can't coexist, they can't be together. One's true, the other's not. There is no bridges to be built. I think of the doctrine of grace. There's no bridge between being dead in sins and being a little bit alive. There is no bridge.

You can't bring them together. In divine election, there's no bridge between salvation being because of God's sovereign will and not because of man's will. You can't bring those two together. When we think of the atonement of Christ, he either did it all or he did nothing at all. You can't bring them together. When Christ said it is finished, it was finished completely.

These things can't, we can't build a bridge between the two. I think of God's grace. You can't build a bridge between God's grace being saving grace or grace being an offer, but you have to take it. There's no bridge. There's no bridge between God preserving his people all the way to the end and people could lose their salvation. There is no bridge.

Nehemiah was sent to rebuild the walls and the gates of Jerusalem. They were broken down and that's why he came. Verse four. And it came to pass when I heard these words of the horrible state of Jerusalem that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Nehemiah was devastated over the condition of Jerusalem, and I couldn't help but think of the Lord weeping over Jerusalem.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathers its brood under its wings, and you would not. Now somebody says, how can you reconcile that with some of the other things you say? I don't know. I'm not going to try to.

I know that the Lord wept over Jerusalem, and Nehemiah weeps over Jerusalem, and he says in verse five, And he said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven. I love his name, Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God of heaven, the only living God. All of his name, all of his attributes come out of Jehovah, the self-existent one. Elohim, God in the plural. I love the way that's always brought out. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. That's all that's talking about when it talks about Elohim. I beseech thee, O Lord God, Jehovah Elohim of heaven. Not any earthly God. I love what David said, our God is in the heavens. He had done whatsoever he had pleased. That's the God that Nehemiah was addressing at this time. And look how he addresses him, the great and terrible God. that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments.

Now, any believer knows, I don't know how much we understand all the terms, but any believer knows God's a covenant God. There's only two covenants. The covenant of works and the covenant of grace. That's the only two covenants. God will either meet you on the covenant of works where salvation is ultimately dependent upon something you do, or the covenant of grace where salvation is dependent upon what Christ has done for you.

Now, I know which covenant I wanna be under. I don't wanna have anything to do with the covenant of works. I love what David said. He said in 2 Samuel 20, 35, although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, nothing left to me. And sure, and this is all my salvation and all my desire, though he make it not to grow.

Now, God'll meet you on the ground you want. If you want to meet on the ground of works, go for it. He'll meet you there, and it won't be good. But if you want to meet him on the ground of pure, free grace, he will meet you there. That's who God is. And Nehemiah realized that. Covenant mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments. And I love Him. I love who he is, I love how he saves, I love his attributes, I love his word, I love his people.

And observing his commandments, that's believing the gospel. The gospel's command. Nobody here has ever kept even 10 commandments, except you have in Christ. Christ kept them, you kept them. But he's talking about there in 1 John 3, verse 23, where he says, this is his commandment, that we believe on the name of his son. and love one another as he gave his commandment. Every believer actually keeps that commandment. I'm believing on his name as my only ground of acceptance and I love his people. Now look what he says in verse six.

Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open. that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I prayed before thee now, day and night. And who's he praying for? For the children of Israel, thy servants. I pray not for the world, but for them which you've given me. for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my father's house of sin."

Now, what I see in this, Nehemiah was not involved in what had gone on in Jerusalem. He wasn't even there. But yet he says, we have sinned, both I and my father's house. And what I take from that, Look in verse seven. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept thy commandments, nor thy statutes, nor thy judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses.

I think of the Lord taking my sin and calling it his own. And I understand so little about that, but I know the only way my sin can be put away is if Christ took it to himself and owned it as his own. both we, I, and my Father's house. The only way I can be saved is if Christ takes my sin and makes them His own and He confesses them before His Father. And I love the way this confession is.

Anything short of this is insincere. We've dealt very corruptly against thee. You know, every time I confess my sins, I feel hollow about it. I feel like there's just not enough depth of feeling, not enough sorrow, not enough I could go on and on and on, insufficient. The only sufficient confession of sins is the confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who truly confessed sin. He's the only one who truly had sorrow over sin. When my sin became his sin, he had the appropriate sorrow.

Me and you don't have the appropriate sorrow. Well, we'll be sorry for a little bit, but we'll forget it quick enough. And it's just not real, but that's not the way the Lord is. And I love the way Nehemiah, though he had not participated in what had gone on in Jerusalem, he wasn't even there.

Yet he talks about the sins of me and my father's, me and all of, he took these sins and owned them as his own. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses.

All we've done is sin. That's it. We haven't done anything but that. And that's the only true confession. If I hedge at that, I'm not confessing my sin. I'm trying to make some kind of excuse. But this is the true confession of sin. It's an honesty before God. And really, the only one to ever do that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Me and you haven't done it. You can put an inadequate over everything we've ever thought or done or said, but not the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he said in verse eight, remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses. Now he needed a written word. Remember the word which thou commandest, thy servant Moses. If I come into the Lord's presence, I'm gonna have to have something from his word to plea. Lord, you said this in your word. And he's talking about what is in the writings.

And I, oh, would the Lord enable me and you? I love it when David said, do as thou hast said. I hope that's my prayer. I hope that's your prayer. You said this in your word, do it. I'm trusting you to do what you said. That's faith, that's laying hold upon the promises of the Lord. And that's what he's looking for at this time. He's looking for something written.

Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses saying, if you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations, but if you turn unto me. Now, when you turn to the Lord, you're turning from something, aren't you? You're turning from any hope of salvation in yourself. That's what you're turning from. Well, I've turned from my sins. Oh, have you now? Have you now? What's going on in your heart right now?

This turning is turning from any hope of self-salvation and turning to the Lord. You always turn from something when you turn to the Lord. But if you turn unto me, and I love what Jeremiah said, turn me and I'll be turned. The psalmist said in Psalm 80, turn us again, oh Lord God of Israel, cause thy face to shine and we'll be saved. When I hear this promise, if you turn, Lord turn me, turn me. It's a scriptural desire. Both Jeremiah and the writer of Psalm 80 both said it, turn me.

But if you turn unto me and keep my commandments, which is believing the gospel, which is also I have kept his commandments and looking to Christ. I'm a law keeper. I've kept God's law perfectly. The law can't say anything against me. I have kept them in Christ and I'm believing the gospel, the command of the gospel.

But if you turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them, You believe, though there were of you cast out into the uttermost part of heaven, yet will I gather them from thence. Excuse me. If you turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though you were cast out into the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence. And we'll bring them into the place that I've chosen to set my name there. Now there's where I want to be brought.

The place where God has chosen to set his name there. You know who that is? His name is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the place I want to be in. The place where God has set his name. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That's the place I want to be found. Only in the place where God has set his name, all of his attributes, all of his character, all he is, is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's where I want to be set. I want him to set me in the place where he reveals and has placed his name. And that's exactly what Paul meant when he said, oh, that I may win Christ. and be found in him." Me too, Paul. I wanna win Christ. And be found in him, the place that God has set his name, the place of complete acceptance.

Verse 10, praying for these people, he says, now these are thy servants and thy people. whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. Now here's his next argument. They're yours. They're your people. They may be wicked. They may be far off. They may be disgraced. They're your people.

Matthew 121, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. I wanna be one of those people, don't you? I don't wanna argue against the fact that he's Only got a select people. I want to say, Lord, make me one of them. Let me be found in Christ. Let me be of that great number.

These are thy servants, thy people, whom thou has redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. Oh Lord, verse 11, I beseech thee, let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, to the prayer of thy servants. who desire to fear thy name.

That's a believer. I am painfully aware that I don't fear his name anywhere the way I ought to. But I desire to fear his name. I desire to have that fear that always is afraid to look anywhere but Christ only. This is the description of God's people. They desire to fear his name. And then he says, prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. He's talking about the king.

And then he says, for I was the king's cupbearer. Now, I thought about what a cupbearer was, essentially. A cupbearer was somebody who had a lot of responsibilities, but his main responsibility is to take the wine of the king, taste it, to see if it had poison in it, to protect the king. The Lord Jesus Christ is God the Father's cupbearer. I think of Gethsemane's garden when that cup passed before him. And unlike Nehemiah, Nehemiah didn't know what was in the cup. He knew exactly what was in the cup.

The poison of sin, the poison of being separated from God, when he drank that cup, he knew exactly what it was he was drinking. The sins included in that is the sins I've committed since I preached this sermon. the sins of this day, the sins of my youth, the sins that I've not yet committed, all the sins of all God's people, he took.

And I remember him, and obviously we don't understand this, but he knew it wasn't possible. But at the thought of drinking that cup, he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Now, he knew it wasn't possible, but the thought of drinking the content of that cup and being made sin and being separated from his father, he started sweating blood at the thought of that, sweating great drops of blood. And when the Lord gave him the grace to go through it, he said to his disciples, the cup which my father has given me to drink, Shall I not drink it? And he took the cup of that sin, that poison, willingly as the Father's cupbearer.

And the reason I'm saved, the reason God is honored and glorified, is because Jesus Christ is the cupbearer. May the Lord enable us to fall down at his feet in thankfulness for him being the cupbearer, knowing the content of what he was drinking. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for the cupbearer who drank into his own body the sins of all your elect, that you made him the cupbearer to make the way for you to be just and justify the ungodly. And Lord, we stand amazed at you giving your son for this. And we stand amazed for him willingly taking this on. And Lord, we're grateful. Create in us faith in what our cupbearer has accomplished. Bless this message for Christ's sake, in his name we pray, amen.

The King's Cupbearer

Sermon Transcript

About Todd Nibert

Comments

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

The King's Cupbearer

Sermon Transcript

About Todd Nibert

Comments

More from Todd Nibert

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Todd Nibert

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book