Unfinished Restoratioin

13th Chapter of Nehemiah Page 480

In this series we have seen cycles of ruin, return to God, renewal, and regression as God’s people have moved from exile, be set free by God for the purpose of restoring worship of God by God’s people for God’s glory and their joy.

In these cycles we are reminded of the fundamental truth that our efforts are never enough to overcome our ruins.

Nehemiah (a man of great influence) hearing of the Ruined City.

He responds with mourning, prayer, planning, and petitions the king to be commissioned on a mission to rebuild what has be left unfinished.

The wall goes up, but the people still crave a deep peace that can only come from communion with God.

Then in chapter 12 they dedicated the wall

Today we come to the final episode in the book of Nehemiah.

It is a sad chapter

because the people fail to keep their covenant with God.

But also an important one.

Without this chapter, we would be entirely misled about God's work of renewal—

how it works,

how it is maintained,

where it is found.

Without this chapter, we would be decimated by failures of our own

because we would fail to look to God for his ongoing renewal.

To understand this episode, we need to grasp the timeline.

Nehemiah, you might remember, had been installed as the governor of Jerusalem.

But Nehemiah had another job as a key official to the Persian King Artaxerxes.

Nehemiah's journey to and work in Jerusalem was made possible by the king's radical generosity—for twelve years, Artaxerxes allowed Nehemiah to serve as Jerusalem's governor

Nehemiah 5:14 “Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor.”

The book of Nehemiah does not detail those twelve years—

it instead focuses on the initial rebuilding of the city's walls and the reviving of God's people.

But the time came for Nehemiah to return to Persia.

So Nehemiah went back to King Artaxerxes in Persia and left the people in Jerusalem with the local leadership.

Nehemiah 13:6–7 “While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after some time I asked leave of the king and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.”

After some time—we don't know how long, but it must've been a few years at least—Nehemiah asked for a leave of the king who allowed him to go back to Jerusalem (6-7).

His heart was in Jerusalem.

He longed to get back to the holy city, the place he'd spent twelve important hears.

Graciously, the king granted his request, and sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem once again.

So Nehemiah went back to the holy city for one last hurrah.

The covenant Nehemiah had signed with over eighty others looms over this passage (Nehemiah 10).

Years earlier, they had all said they would not marry unbelieving people, would keep the Sabbath, and would tithe and give other support to the temple worship.

One can imagine Nehemiah anticipating these practices and that holy society during his eight-month journey from Persia to Jerusalem.

But when Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, his hopes were dashed because the people were in spiritual disarray.

They'd broken every vow of that signed covenant,

so Nehemiah immediately went to work.

He presents in this episode as an old and mature man walking in close step with God,

humbling committing his work to God while helping to (again) renew the people of God.

They had broken all three vows they'd made to God, so Nehemiah set out to correct each problem in the people.

The Real Problem Is Our Hearts.

Rather, his experience is telling the truth about the human condition.

Apparently, the disaster of the exile did not accomplish the transformation of the human heart.

Even grave consequences don’t bring about the deep level of healing required to change the human disposition.

Israel’s problem before the exile was a hard heart that resulted in rebellion against the terms of their covenant with God.

And Israel’s problem after the exile…well, it’s exactly the same.”

Nehemiah 13:7–14 “7 and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. 8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. 9 Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense. 10 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field. 11 So I confronted the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their stations. 12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses. “13 And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah of the Levites, and as their assistant Hanan the son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers. 14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.”

Worship Forsaken

The temple is defiled and it’s not functioning as a place where worship is facilitated.

There is no one intentionally engaged in preparing and facilitating worship.

The temple workers aren’t there because they haven’t been paid!

The store house was filled with the evil guys stuff.

Imagine showing up to work each day and seeing Tobaih hanging around the building and trying to have a joyful attitude of worship with one of the biggest rooms in the joint reserved for the biggest opponent of the mission of God’s people

and critic of all you’ve been working towards

AND then you don’t get paid because there is no money or provision in the treasury.

I think even with a strong sense of calling after a season you’d tap out and say,

I’m just going farming from here on out.

Let’s get away from people some wicked and some apathetic and just try to provide for my family.

When Nehemiah discovers this he doesn’t call out the Levites for abandoning their post, they necessarily left to take care of their first church their family.

He calls out the leaders of the people for being faithless and selfish in their lack of giving.

In the past maybe they gave out of assumption that God would bless them superstitiously but now people held everything they were give by God and as Malachi says “rob” God by failing to give at all.

In chapter 10 they said “we’ll give and never neglect the house of the Lord”

but now they’re all about themselves.

Rebuked and recommissioned the people begin to contribute again

He sets up the finance team gets the guys back to working in/for the temple mission of renewed worship.

But in all of this Nehemiah has set up great systems and structures before.

They weren’t enough to run on autopilot by people who’s hearts aren’t actually for God.

Systems and structures are necessary but without proper heart motivations they will fail.

Strike one!

Each of us were made for the purpose of worship, we’ve been saved and made new we cannot let sin that opposed God and seeks to distract and distort our worship dwell in our hearts and lives. There are other things seeking to camp out in your heart of worship. They will compete with time energy and space and keep you from flourishing in worship. What’s taken up residence in your heart/mind that needs to be expelled? In what ways are you making accommodations for sin in your life? Nehemiah doesn’t just clean the chamber out to bring to and empty room but returns it to it’s original purpose of worship. Its not enough to just clean out what is defiling you, you have to replace it with a greater love and purpose.

Secondly

Sabbath Ignored

Nehemiah 13:15-22 | 15 In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food. 16 Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! 17 Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? 18 Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” 19 As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates, that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.20 Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. 21 But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath. 22 Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.

They chose not to trust God and ignored the sabbath.

They had resolved to keep the sabbath.

To worship and celebrate peace with God by resting from their labors.

Each week the city should be shut down gates closed for protection and commerce to pause.

The people were practicing their business on Sabbath (Cf. 10:31)

They were also allowing people from other countries to sell things in Jerusalem on Sabbath (13:16)

Nehemiah blamed the leaders (13:17)

He called it evil

Honoring the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments

Violating God’s law is evil13:19 –

Nehemiah enforced the practice of no business on the Sabbath

He commanded that the gates be shut

He posted servants (guards) at the gates to make sure that they stayed shut until the end of Sabbath

He warned those who tried to violate his command and threatened punishment if they tried it again (They decided not to come back)

He commanded the Levites to cleanse themselves (because they had allowed the Sabbath to be violated

Strike two!

Thirdly

Pagan Families

Nehemiah 13:23-29 | 23 In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. 25 And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. 27 Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?” 28 And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me.29 Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

Ezra had corrected this problem just a few years before, but here it was again!

Nehemiah discovered that some of the Jews had married foreign women,

Their shared identity is eroding as they AGAIN marry into other cultures and religions.

Things are so bad the next generation of children don’t even speak any Hebrew to be able to know and be taught God’s word.

This is a fundamental failure that prevents the endurance of flourishing.

Nehemiah was angry, this is righteous anger.

Like Jesus over turning the money changers in the temple

Nehemiah has enough and he’s not going to take it anymore.

He goes on a one-man rampage arguing the truth the “why” of purity, “even the wise King Solomon was led astray by women who didn’t love and serve God.”

Things got so heated they got in to verbal and physical altercations. Nehemiah with His old man strength takes some guys out in pretty brutal ways. This is tempting as a leader to want to start this ministry at certain points. Strike Three! Ruin!

Thes are the same sins we deal with each and every day, just in different ways

What God’s people needed wasn’t a new temple building or a new city wall.

They needed new hearts.

This is the purpose of Ezra-Nehemiah in the overarching storyline of the Bible.

The story shows that the return of many Israelites to Jerusalem was only one step toward the fulfillment of the prophetic hope of the new covenant and the kingdom of God.

The full realization of that hope came only when God himself entered personally into Israel’s story in the person of their messiah and king.

Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and through the gift of the Spirit, the story took a quantum leap forward.

But that doesn’t mean Ezra and Nehemiah shouldn’t have tried.

Their stories give us hope and inspiration to keep pointing other people to God’s grace and to keep calling them (and ourselves!) to faithfulness and devotion.

But after pondering Ezra-Nehemiah, our pointing and calling should be done with a sober awareness that our efforts will likely be compromised.

This doesn’t mean God isn’t faithful or good.

It means that we’re flawed humans whose fundamentally selfish nature can be transformed only by a generous gift of God’s grace.

We Should Accept Biblical Correction.

The signs of the people were great, the situation was grave, What does Nehemiah do?

Was he polite or did he ignore the issues, no..

Nehemiah dealt with the problem head.

Some criticize Nehemiah for not being more tactful and polite, but when God’s people are being poisoned by permissiveness, politeness may not be best.

If I saw you about to drink what I knew to be deadly poison, you wouldn’t want me politely to smile and think to myself, “I wouldn’t drink that, but I don’t want to impose my views on him. Each person has a right to his own opinions.” You’d want me to shout, “Wait! That will kill you!” And if need be, you’d want me forcibly to knock it from your hand.

That’s what Nehemiah did.

He didn’t worry about being polite or about what people would think of him.

I’m sure that he made many enemies by what he did here,

but I’m also sure that he was God’s friend.

Many no doubt grumbled about what an unloving, harsh man he was.

But Nehemiah describes what he did with the Hebrew word hesed (13:14, translated),

Nehemiah 13:14 “14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.”

which is the word used in 13:22 (and throughout the OT) for God’s loyal love for His people.

It is far more loving rudely to knock the poison out of a person’s hand than it is to smile politely and watch him drink it. In each of these situations, Nehemiah dealt with the problem head on.

Just look at some of the correction he would enact.

Nehemiah 13:8 “8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.”

Nehemiah 13:20–21 “20 Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. 21 But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.”

Nehemiah 13:25 “25 And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.”

We are called to offer biblical correction when it is needed.

Not necessarily physical , but definitely spiritual, and verbal warnings,.

Galatians 6:1 ESV / Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Matthew 18:15-17 ESV / “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 18:15 ESV / “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

2 Thessalonians 3:15 ESV / Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

Romans 16:17 ESV / I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

James 5:19 ESV / My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,

1 Timothy 5:20 ESV / As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.

Titus 3:10-11 ESV / As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

We Need A Better Builder.

We have one in Jesus who says Matt 16:18 | I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Nehemiah is a chapter in the unfolding story of God’s redemption of all creation.

Because of its chronology in redemptive history, it serves the important function of pointing us toward Christ who is yet to come,

who is the better leader,

who leads his people home from spiritual exile,

who builds a structure of living stones.

It was never meant to be about Nehemiah,

just as it was never meant to be about you and me; it’s all about Jesus.

when Nehemiah prays in 1:10 thanking God for redeeming his people,

he is referring to God’s redemption of the Israelites from Egypt,

“but that rescue pictures the greater One to come,

not through the blood of a sacrificed lamb

but through the death and resurrection of Christ, our Passover lamb.”

He calls God a “God who keeps covenant and steadfast love” with his people,

recalling to mind the covenant God made with Abraham that through Abraham’s descendants the whole world would be blessed,

a covenant promise that was fulfilled in Jesus,

by whose death all of His people are able to be saved.

Jesus Is The Cornerstone To Build Your Life Upon.

Psalm 118:22 “22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Romans 9:33 “33 as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.””

The book of Ezra-Nehemiah is not really about Ezra and Nehemiah. It’s about everyone’s need for Jesus.

The only hope we have for true, lasting renewal is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

We are called to return to Him so that He can rebuild us up to be a holy temple transforming cities for his glory.

We can’t change hearts and we can’t sustain change.

The story leads us to the one who came to be for us to be obedient where we cannot succeed and take the just punishment we cannot deserve.

Jesus calls us to return to God through his life, death and resurrection so that he can build us up and sustain us through His Spirit.

He is faithful for the unfaithful. His grace to us is greater than our sin against Him.

This is how good our God is to us!

we no longer need a temple because we are the temple

the law is written on our hearts because we have the spirit

we are also protected not by a man made wall but we are safe in the arms of God because of Christ.