As the book of Ezra describes
the great work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, the
book of Nehemiah describes the rebuilding of the walls that
had been laid flat, broken down. Nehemiah really is just a continuation
of the book of Ezra. The theme in both books is restoration,
the restoration of God's people and the restoration of God's
worship. And these two things always go hand in hand. Whenever
God's worship is reestablished, God's people are revived, restored,
and refreshed. And whenever God's people experience
the hand of his grace in restoring our souls from our languishing,
whenever God visits his people in reviving mercy, his worship
is restored. We see this clearly in David's
Psalm of Penitence. You don't need to turn there,
but you can look at it later, in Psalm 51, as David has been turned
to the Lord, and he confesses his sin and seeks God's mercy
and begs of him that he would restore to him the blessed joy
of his salvation. He concludes the psalm with these
words, Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls
of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole
burnt offering. then shall they offer bullocks
upon thine altar." As the temple of God speaks of God's salvation,
speaks of God's people and the complete salvation of our souls
in Christ, represented both in the building of the temple itself
and in the furnishings of the temple, particularly in the mercy
seat, the place of sacrifice, representing the blood and righteousness
of Christ by which alone we draw near to God. The cities, walls,
the walls of Jerusalem also portray that great salvation. The walls
having this distinction, the walls imply security and the
walls are a mark of separation. And that which separates us from
the people of the world, that which separates God's people
from other people is God's grace and God's grace alone. Would
to God we would ever remember this. The Lord says, I put a
difference between Israel and the nations of the world. And
Paul says, who maketh thee to differ from another? What hast
thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? That which
separates us from others is God's salvation. It is not the peculiarity
of our dress, the peculiarity of our lifestyle, or the oddity
of our speech. And so many times, especially
with young believers, they suddenly begin to talk different than
others. They want to act spiritual and
act pious, and so they use words and phrases that would indicate
that they're really spiritual people. But really what it does
is just indicates that they're odd. And it's not our oddity
that distinguishes us. Rather, it is God's grace, his
sovereign choice of us. We are His because He chose us. His blessed redemption. We are
His because He bought us with the blood of His Son. His almighty
effectual grace. We are His because He called
us out of darkness into His marvelous light and His preserving power
and grace. We are His and we continue in
the faith, distinct from others only because We are kept by the
power of God's grace. Now, in this book of Nehemiah,
four times Sanbalat, Tobiah, and Geshem, the leaders of those
who conspired against Ezra, Nehemiah, and Judah, sent word to Nehemiah. They sent word to him to leave
off the work of building the walls of Jerusalem and come down
and meet them. Now, their pretense was that
they wanted to meet with Nehemiah and work out a plan whereby they
could work together in the cause of God. These folks who had no
interest in the things of God, these folks who had embraced
the idolatry of the land and were opposed to the building
of the walls and the building of the temple. They said, Nehemiah,
you come down and meet us down in this village and we'll work
out a plan where we can work together. They sent the message
four times. And Nehemiah sent the same reply four times. Look
at verse 3. Nehemiah 6 verse 3, And I sent
messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease whilst
I leave it and come down to you? Now, children of God, hear me. I want you to be convinced in
your heart by God Almighty that this is so. We are engaged in
the building of God's kingdom. We are engaged in the furtherance
of the gospel. We are engaged in establishing
the worship of our God and the gathering of his people. And
we are doing a great work, a great work, a work incomparable to
any work performed by men on this earth. And when I say we,
I don't mean just you and me in this assembly here. I mean
we who are God's people laboring together in the cause of Christ.
We are doing a great work, and we must not leave off that work
for any purpose. We must not leave off that work
for any pretense. We must not be compelled by persecution
or coerced by compromise or pressed by the opinions of men to leave
what God has given us to do. This alone is significant. Like Nehemiah, our concern in
this world is the work to which we have been called by our God.
It is the building of God's church, and we must Now, there was an
interval of about 12 years between the time that Ezra had done the
first reforms in Jerusalem and the time that Nehemiah obtained
permission from the king Artaxerxes, to whom he was cupbearer, to
go up to Jerusalem. As you read these books together, Ezra first and then Nehemiah,
and the book of Esther, They all are dealing with the same
time period, and we frequently run across the names of Artaxerxes
and Ahasuerus. But these names really are not
names at all. They are titles, and they are
used throughout these books and give a little trouble in discerning
exactly the times in which things were written. But there's no
need for the trouble. These titles are like the title of the Caesars
in Rome. You'll remember there were many
Caesars. Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, and so on. There were
many Caesars. The title Caesar was a title,
not a name, for those who ruled in Rome. And these titles of
Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus are just titles. They are titles
for the kings in Persia. And Artaxerxes, here in Nehemiah,
and Ahasuerus over in the Book of Esther, to whom Esther was
a... I'm sorry, Ahasuerus in the Book
of Esther, to whom Esther was a queen. was indeed Darius over
in the book of Daniel, who was king described in Daniel chapter
3. The Artaxerxes described in Ezra
chapter 4 was apparently Darius' son. He was one who opposed the
building of God's house and the building of the walls of Jerusalem.
But Artaxerxes here in Nehemiah and Ahasuerus in the book of
Daniel are the same man, and they were working together and
doing that which God in his providence turned their hearts to do for
the building of his kingdom. And I won't have time to deal
with it now, but as such, particularly in the second chapter of Nehemiah,
when Artaxerxes, when Darius gave command for him to go and
build the walls of Jerusalem, he is a great picture of God
our Savior. You see, Artaxerxes means the
great king, and Ahasuerus means the venerable father. This, then,
is the building of God's house. It is by the decree and the power
and the providence and the goodness and the grace of our great king,
our venerable father, the God of glory. Now, look in Nehemiah
chapter 1. Nehemiah was terribly distressed
because of the news that he had received concerning the Jews
that had gone back to Jerusalem and what had happened after the
time that Ezra had built the temple of God. In verse 3, these
fellows came and gave him horrible news. They said to me, ìThe remnant
that are left of the captivity there in the prophets are in
great affliction and reproach.î 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. This, this, this alone is the
place where you find relief from your heart's troubles. Will you
hear me? God help you to hear me. Preachers
today, sadly many just because they're
mistaken, sincere but mistaken, have the notion that somehow
preachers, pastors, are to serve as priest to God's people. I
have folks who send me notices every now and then to sell me
insurance to protect me from being sued as a counselor. And almost every time our insurance
here comes up for renewal, I get a note or a call. You really
need this insurance. And I respond always, I'm not
a counselor. I don't encourage folks to come
and bring their needs to me. I can't meet their needs. I want
to weep with you when you weep. I do. I want to rejoice with
you when you rejoice. I do. And I will give you the
best counsel I have in any circumstance in life. But if you want direction
for your life, if you want relief for your cares, if you want peace
in the midst of adversity, the one to go to is God Almighty
through Jesus Christ our Lord. And here Nehemiah spreads his
case before, look at it, the God of heaven. He who is God
in heaven can speak peace to your soul. And then the rest
of the chapter, verses 5 through 11, record this great, great
prayer of intercession to God. Nehemiah was eminently a man
of prayer. Throughout these 13 chapters,
while he's recording his work, you'll have just a one-sentence
statement where he calls on God, just a brief statement where
he just speaks to God concerning what he's doing, and thereby
demonstrating that as he worked and labored in the cause of God,
he depended entirely upon his God, sought his direction, his
care, his protection, his guidance in all things. And then Nehemiah's
heart broken before God, his soul stirred by the news of the
desolate condition of Jerusalem with its broken walls, calls
out unto God, calls out to God for help. Artaxerxes, the king,
when he brought his cup to him, saw Nehemiah so damn cast, he
said, You've never been like this before.
Over in chapter 2, he says, you've never appeared like this before.
Look at verse 2. Wherefore the king said to me,
Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing
else but sorrow of heart. Then was I very sore afraid.
I'm talking to the king now. And I said unto the king, Let
the king live 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? And then
the king asked him, he said, what do you want me to do? What's
your request? He said, I want to go back to
Jerusalem and build the walls of the city of Jerusalem. And
the king granted me according to the good hand of my God upon
me. And then down in verse 18. Nehemiah
found things in a horrible condition in Jerusalem. He gathered the
elders together and told them of the good hand of God upon
him, giving him favor from Artaxerxes. And they said, ìLet us rise up
and build.î So they strengthened their hands for the good work.
Now, go back for just a minute to chapter 1 again. This book
is so full of instruction for us. It begins with Nehemiahís
prayer. His great concern is for the
house of God, the people of God, and the worship of God. And he
ascribes all praise and honor and glory to God as God. Look
at verse 5. He says, I beseech thee, O Lord
God of heaven, the great and terrible God that keepeth covenant
and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. And throughout this prayer, he
describes God's people in a remarkable way. as he calls on God and urges
him to do this which is in his heart, urges him to intervene
for his people. He speaks of God's greatness
and he speaks of God's people as his needy people. There's
no greater argument. Brother Lindsey read a passage
in Isaiah the other night back in the office where the Lord
urges us to present our calls to him. present your cause to
me. And as we go to God in prayer,
let us always present our cause this way. Lord, you're the only
one who can help, and we need your help. This is what it says. Look at verse 6. Let thine ear
be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the
prayer of thy servant. I come to you, Lord, as your
servant. which I pray before thee now, day and night, for
the children of Israel thy servants. I come to you as your servant,
and I'm seeking something not for me, but for your servants,
and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned
against thee. Both I and my Father's house
have sinned." He says in verse 7, "...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.
Remember, remember, remember, I beg you, 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 ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them,
though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of
the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring
them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name. Though
God hath scattered us, all his elect through the uttermost parts
of the earth, scattered us among all the nations of the world,
because we have broken his law, because we sinned against him,
Yet the Lord God promises that he will gather his people unto
himself, that which is represented in this place where he records
his name to Jesus Christ the Lord. Look at verse 10. Now,
Nehemiah continues. These are thy servants and thy
people. I pray for you. And I pray for you just this way.
Lord, these are your people. These are your people whom thou
hast redeemed. They're your people. You've redeemed
them. Look down in verse 11, middle
of it. They are thy servants, and they desire to fear your
name. What a description of God's people. Pauline, needy, helpless,
but his people, chosen by his grace, redeemed by his blood,
redeemed by his power, called by almighty power, his servants. And now we desire to fear his
name, don't you? Desire to worship him, desire
to reverence him, desire to honor him in all things. Now look at
chapter 3. Nehemiah was sent by the king
to do the work. But neither the king, nor Nehemiah,
nor God Almighty expected that he should do this great work
alone. He was to build the walls of Jerusalem, a huge task. He did it in 52 days, 52 days. He put himself to the work, and
it was accomplished in 52 days. But the work involved all those
who feared God. Nehemiah and the people of Judah
labored side by side as laborers together with God. Now learn
this lesson. The Bible Christianity is not
a spectator sport. It is my responsibility as your
pastor to lead you, to instruct you, to guide you with knowledge
and understanding by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God.
It is my responsibility to lead you in all things as your pastor,
but the work is not my work. It's not my work. I recall, and
this has been several years ago, Brother Rex Bartley met me at
the door. I was going somewhere to preach,
and I forgot where I was going, but it was on a Saturday. He
said, I'd sure like to go down there with you, but I've got
to work tomorrow. And my response was, don't ever
apologize to me for having to work. Because if you didn't work
and pay the bills, I couldn't go. I couldn't do it. This is not my work. It's our
work. Ours. Yours, mine, and God's. And we're laborers together with
our God. I go and preach. As God opens
doors, I go and preach because you labor and send me. The messages
we send out, the tapes, They're not my tapes, they're our tapes.
The books, they're not my books, they're our books. This work
could not be done without you. And you take so much off of me,
taking care of these things, this building and my life, so
that I can give myself to the calls of Christ and the preaching
of the gospel. We are laborers together, then,
with our God. As these, Nehemiah and the remnant
of Judah, built the walls of God together, They began at the
Sheep Gate and completely enclosed the city. We read of it in this
third chapter. Now watch as you read this chapter.
We won't try to read all of it, but as you read the chapter,
here are priests and rulers and apothecaries and goldsmiths and
merchants, all of them working side by side, brothers working
together in one common cause for the glory of God. We're told
exactly who set up the various gates. Their names are given.
Who it was that fixed the bars in the gates. Who it was that
fixed the locks in the gates. Their names are given. You see,
no matter how much it seems insignificant, we do what we can do. And we're
not expected to do any more than what God gives us the opportunity
and the means and the ability to do. That's it. You and I are
not responsible for what God gives somebody else to do. We're
responsible for what he gives us to do. Individually as individual
believers and collectively as this congregation. And however
insignificant the work appears in the eyes of men or even in
our own eyes. What are you doing, Joe? I'm
putting a lock on the gate here. Well, anybody can do that. Not
on God's gate, you can't. Can you get me? What are you
doing? I'm putting a block over here,
fixing this wall. Wow. Anybody can do that. Not
in God's wall. Not in God's wall. And every
one of them, their names are recorded right here in Nehemiah
chapter 3. Recorded what they did. I couldn't
help as I read this chapter today, but to think of a passage in
Revelation 14. Listen to it. I heard a voice from heaven saying
unto me, Right blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit that they
may rest from their labors. Now listen. And their works do
follow them. Remember what Paul told the Thessalonians?
God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and your labor
of love. He doesn't. Are you suggesting,
preacher, that believers will have a special crown, a special
place in heaven because of what they do on this earth? No, no,
no, no. I'm telling you, God doesn't
forget what's done. And we don't labor as you and
me, we labor as we. We don't labor together as big
me and little you, or big you and little me. We labor together
as we, laborers together with our God. Now that's what we're
doing, laboring for the glory of God, for the worship of our
God to build the kingdom of God. Look at verse 20, chapter 3.
I want so much for me and for you. for us to be like Barak,
the son of Zebai, who earnestly repaired the other piece from
the turning of the wall unto the door of the house of Eliashim,
the high priest. Barak, what you doing? I've got
this little section right here. This little piece of this wall,
that's what God's given me to do. And I'm going to give myself
wholly to it until it's done. He labored zealously. Children
of God, my brothers and sisters, let us lock arms and join shoulders
and join hearts constantly and labor zealously for the building
of God's kingdom. And as surely as we do, as surely
as God gives us something to do, a place of service in his
kingdom, we will meet with those who oppose us. And that's what's
described in chapters 4, 5, and 6. It's interesting. I find it
interesting anyway, maybe you will, that Nehemiah takes up
three full chapters of this short little book to talk about those
who opposed him. In Nehemiah chapters 4, 5, and
6, the descendants of the Samaritans, those who had harassed Zerubbabel,
relentlessly tried to hinder the work. At first, they mocked
the children of Judah. We look in verses 1 through 6
and say, What do these feeble Jews? That which they build,
why, if a fox goes up on it, it will fall down under them.
Hear, O our God, Nehemiah says, for we are despised. So built
we the wall, and all the wall was joined together into the
half thereof, for the people had a mind to work." When their
mockery, these Samaritans mocking them, laughing at them, who are
you? What do you think you're doing?
What makes this work so special that you can't take a little
time out for this? What makes your work so special that you
can't join with us? When their mockery didn't work,
And they couldn't stop these faithful men from serving God.
Judah's foes conspired together to fight against Jerusalem. But
Nehemiah says, we made our prayer unto God and set a watch by day
and by night. He armed the workers with a sword
and crowd. And he told them, he said, you
go work and stay at your job, stay at your post. And whenever
you hear the trumpet alarm, you pick up your sword and you go
wherever the news is and go there and defend the city and defend
the wall. That's when Sanballat and his
crowd sent messages to Nehemiah, asking to meet them in the plain
of Ono. And he replied, I'm doing a great
work. I'm not about to let you bother it. And then they accused
him. They accused him and the children
of Judah Ah, we know what you're doing. We know what you're doing. You're a bunch of ragged rebels.
And what you're doing is secretly plotting a rebellion against
the king, and we're going to write him and tell him about
it. And so Nehemiah replied to Tobiah, I love this, he said,
There are no such things done as thou sayest. but thou faintest
them out of thine own heart." I have used that verse of Scripture,
just that statement, to answer hundreds of letters. Folks write
and they say, you're all a bunch of antinomians, you this, you
that. I say, the things you say have come from your own heart.
That's it. That's it. You accuse of that
of which you are guilty. And as a last resort, one urged
Nehemiah to take refuge in the temple, for they'll come and
slay you. They're going to come to kill
you. And in verse 15 of chapter 6, Nehemiah says, So should such
a man as I flee? Should such a man as I am run
like a scared rabbit? So the war was finished in fifty
and two days. Those, you see, who oppose Christ
in the gospel, Those who oppose us as we labor for Christ, now
listen to me. I'm not talking about haughtiness.
I'm not talking about arrogance. I'm not talking about mean-spiritedness. What I'm saying is this. Those
who would use any means at their disposal to hinder the work God
has put in our hands must be utterly ignored. Utterly ignored. Don't even reply. Don't let them
bother you. Just utterly ignore them. Let
us, like Nehemiah, ever remember who has commissioned us, who's given us this little section
of his wall to build. And I'm going to tell you something.
If God's in this thing, All hell can't even slow its progress.
Everything's done exactly according to God's purpose. Sometimes some of you will ask
me, well, aren't you discouraged? And sometimes I get discouraged.
Sometimes I do. But I try my best not to show
it to you or even to my wife. How come? Because I don't want
to share any of it. I have no reason to be discouraged. Neither
do you. We have no reason to let our hands hang down. We have
no reason for our knees to be weak. We have every reason, zealously,
earnestly, like Barak, to give ourselves to that work God's
given us. Now in chapter 7, there were
some priests who came from Babylon under Zerubbabel. The register that was given back
in Ezra is repeated here of those priests in chapter 7. And some
of the priests couldn't find their name in the genealogy.
They were therefore, we're told, in verses 63 through 65, therefore
were they as polluted, put from the priesthood. And the Tershepha,
that is the governor, said unto them that they should not eat
of the most holy things. Nehemiah said they should not
eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with
Urim and Thummim. That's the last time the Urim
and Thummim is mentioned. The last time it's mentioned.
The Urim and Thummim were something that the priests, the high priest
in Israel, wore in his breastplate. It's ridiculous to speculate
what they were, we don't know. But the words mean lights and
perfections. It might be translated perfect
light. The Urim and Thummim stand out
here clearly as a prophecy and as a word of hope. Nehemiah says
that you shall not eat of these holy things until light and perfection
arises in that priest who alone has light and perfection. He's
talking about Jesus Christ who is light and perfection. Right
here in the most unlikely of places, suddenly the face of
our Redeemer beams forth like the noonday sun. This is just
a register of priests who could not find their names in the registry. But our hearts, oh, how our hearts
ought to thrill. We have a great high priest,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is light and perfection. And he
settles the question, who is worthy to eat the holy things?
Who's worthy to approach God Almighty? Who's worthy to enter
into the holy place? Who is worthy to take the bread
and wine? Who's worthy to worship God and
serve Him as a priest in the holy place? And the answer is,
all God's priests. All of them. All of them. Our
Lord by his own blood entered in once into the holy place and
has obtained eternal redemption for us, and we who trust him,
his one great sacrifice, come to God Almighty and have every
right to come. What right have you here, Christ
the Lord? What right do you have to eat
this bread, drink this wine? Christ the Lord. Who makes you
worthy to take your place in the waters of baptism? Christ
the Lord. Who makes you worthy to worship
God? Christ the Lord. Our worthiness
is Him. That's the reason Paul says in
1 Corinthians 11, if you eat and drink the bread and wine
of the Lord's table unworthily, you eat and drink damnation to
yourself. Well, what is that worthiness? It's faith in him.
It's seeing, David, that you need him. Trusting his blood
and his righteousness represented in the bread and in the wine.
Christ, our priest, is not our priest by genealogy from Aaron,
but he is that one who is called a priest after the order of Melchizedek,
whose genealogy was deliberately omitted from the record of Scripture,
because he stands before us as a type of Christ. Somebody asked
me the other day while I was in California, he said, Was Melchizedek
Christ or just a type of Christ? I said, Well, sometimes I read
it and say that's Christ, and sometimes I read it and say that's
a type of Christ, because I just don't know. Either way, the analogy
fits. Melchizedek was a high priest.
a great priest, one who was sent without father or without mother.
That is, there was no record of father or mother. And that
Melchizedek pictures Jesus Christ the Lord, that one through whom
alone we have access unto God. He is called our priest, Jesus
Christ the Lord, and we are made priest unto God by him. Our priesthood,
our right to priesthood, our right to the functions of priesthood
depends wholly and alone upon our union with Him by faith.
Do you believe the Son of God? Do you trust Him? Then come to
God by Him. And then there's something else. I saw this today. I read it.
I forgot the fellow's name, but I read this today. Our Lord has
provided for our fitness in the present tenses of John's epistle. First, the blood cleanses continually,
so that David, he continually makes us clean. He has cleansed
us, and yet the cleansing is a perpetual effect, so that we
are continually clean before God, clean before him. And we have continually the anointing
of the Spirit that abideth on us, so that we continually come
near to God by the Spirit of his grace, being born of his
Spirit, washed in his blood, constantly accepted. Now, chapter
8. Get through chapters 8 through
12, you'll see something about the place of preaching. The wall was built. Once the
work was completed, the temple was rebuilt. The worship of God
was reestablished. The people of God had a tremendous
hunger for the Word of God. And they set up a pulpit of wood
and said to Ezra, who probably now is an old, old man to preach
to, you come and tell us what God says in his Word. And Ezra
spent four hours You think I'm long-winded. He spent four hours,
four hours reading the Word, giving the sense, and teaching
the people to understand it. That's what preaching is. It
is taking the Book of God, reading it plainly, reading it distinctly,
giving the sense of the passage clearly, and teaching the people
to understand it. That is not preaching. That is
not true preaching, which simply comes to the book of God with
some thoughts you've gathered out of other books and find a
text and say, we'll jump from here and here we'll take off.
Preaching honors the book of God. Preaching honors it as the
authoritative word of God. And preaching gives the sense
that God intends in the text. That's what preaching is. It
is expounding the word of God with clarity, so that all who
are able to understand, and this is how it describes them, all
who are able to understand. The children down in the nursery,
they don't count. They're not able to get it yet, but everybody,
child, man or woman, who has discernment, so that they can
understand anything, is taught the word, so that they hear and
hear clearly the word of our God. When Ezra got done preaching,
Those folks who had come, heard the Word of God read, they began
to weep. They began to weep. Often we
do. When you hear the Word of God
and you sin, your unbelief is reproved and your heart breaks.
But then Ezra and Nehemiah and the Levites. Ezra and Nehemiah
and the Levites. Ezra, the preacher. Nehemiah,
the governor, and the Levites, those who offered sacrifice,
said to the people, no need to weep. There's no need to weep. God's forgiven your sin. Rejoice. Look here what God's done. And
the people went away rejoicing. Look at verse 12 of chapter 8.
And the people went their way to make great mirth, because
they had understood the words that were declared unto them.
It is written, great peace have they that love thy law. I had
a fellow sitting out on my deck one day several years ago come
to visit me. He attended one of these real
strict legalistic reformed churches. He sat down and he just kind
of hung his head between his knees and he said, Oh, Brother
Dodd, Every time I hear a pastor preach, I come to church and
I'm just so beaten down, just so beaten down. And he said it
several times. And I said, there's something
wrong. He said, what? I said, preaching of the gospel
is not just to beat you down, it's to break you and bind you
up. It's to humble you and lift you
up. It's to wound you and to heal
you. Yes, be brokenhearted over your
sin, but don't ever walk away, children of God, just weeping.
Walk away rejoicing because Christ has freed you from your sin. He has made you accepted with
the Father. He's made you worthy to worship
and serve God. When they got done, for the first
time since the days of Joshua, they kept the Feast of Tabernacles.
And then they made a renewed covenant of consecration to God.
They had been negligent, separating themselves from the people of
the land and from the gods of the land. They'd taken to them
wives who did not know God and sought to mingle with those who
opposed the Lord God. And the Lord graciously intervened,
rebuked them for their sin, and they were anew dedicated unto
God. Then the walls of the temple,
or the house of God, the walls of Jerusalem were dedicated.
And it was a joyful occasion. We're told in verse 43 of chapter
12, God had made them rejoice with great joy. The wives also
and the children rejoiced so that the joy of Jerusalem was
heard even afar off. And then the book closes with
more decline. What a sad, sad picture. The
children of Israel once more compromise and fall. And they begin to speak half
the speech of Ashdod. In all these breaches of the
law, Nehemiah contended with the Jews. No matter how noble
they were, no matter how lowly they were, he constantly dealt
with them plainly by the Word of God. Because he loved their
souls. Because he sought the glory of
God. Because he was building the walls of Zion. He was building
the walls of Zion. And while we do so, we are reminded
that in spite of all the grace and goodness of God, these folks
experienced, recorded in these chapters, how God graciously
put it in the heart of Darius, the heart of Xerxes, to send
Nehemiah and to pay his fare and to order those who were under
his command to take care of Nehemiah along the way and built the walls
of Jerusalem. Over and over and over again,
he restores the fallen. and reminds us, and I would remind
you, my brothers and sisters, you and I and our brothers and
sisters are but sinners saved by God's free grace in constant
need of blood atonement. in constant need of Christ's
righteousness, in constant need of God's Spirit. Thank God. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, what does it say? Cleanseth us from all sin. And the Spirit, the anointing
of God, abideth on you. so rejoice. Rejoice and worship
our God and put your hearts to the