Nehemiah 13

Rebecca had been going to church with her parents her entire life. She went to youth group every week and was even a leader in her final year at high school. The next year she moved to Dunedin for university. None of her friends from back home had come to study there, but she started making friends from the halls and her classes. She’d been meaning to find a church, but with Uni life and campus activities, and all that study … well, she hadn’t managed to get around to it. Besides, her new friends weren’t interested in that stuff. And after a hard night out Saturday, it’s hard to drag yourself out of bed on a frosty Sunday morning for anything, let alone church!

Steve had just had a life-changing experience. He had been to the awesome-est youth camp ever. For a long while he had just been cruising in his faith … it didn’t really affect the way he lived .. how he acted at school. In fact, he sometimes found himself wondering if it was all true. But one of his friends invited him to this Christian youth camp, and he decided to go. Somehow God touched him during the camp. He suddenly KNEW God was real. He KNEW he had to change things in his life, and for the first time in a long while he actually wanted to. Steve came back from the camp pumped, amping on God, wanting to make a difference with his mates. But as the weeks dragged by since the camp, he found it harder and harder to live up to the decisions he had made.

Stacey ran into her room, shut the door, flung herself on her bed and started to cry. Just when thing were going so well, it all had to change. Life wasn’t FAIR! God wasn’t FAIR! She had just got off the phone with her friend Jan – no she was more than a friend … she was her mentor, her role-model, her confidante and so much more. When Stacey thought about what she wanted to look like in two years time as a Christian she thought about Jan. Her maturity, her love for God, her ability to laugh at herself and have fun. Simply being with her inspired Stacey to follow Jesus more closely. And now she just learned that Jan was shifting down to Wellington … permanently! How would she cope?

Can you relate?

Similar situation for Judah.

For 12 years, Nehemiah had been with them. He had been their inspiration, their guide.

· He had given the poor people justice from the rich who were shafting them.

· He had called people back to following God.

· He had restored the broken down walls which had been a pile of rubble for nearly 150 years.

And you should have seen the party! People were celebrating. Food was being eaten - trumpets were blowing.

The noise control officers had to come in and tell them to turn it down .. cos for MILES around people could hear them partying. Jerusalem was now a proud, walled city.

But it was more than just a party. It was a spiritual mountain-top experience!

· The Bible was read out loud and people realised they had to get their lives back on track

· Confessed sin

· Be separate from the world around them.

Under Nehemiah’s inspiration, they committed themselves to:

· Not marrying people who come from other nations and who worship false gods (10:30)

· Making sure they obeyed God by not working on the Sabbath and by not going down to the mall shopping (10:31)

·  Making sure they kept giving a tenth of their stuff to God (10:32)

·  Looking after the Levites who were the group of people who worked in the temple and made sure it ran properly. (10:35f)

And then suddenly Nehemiah said, “I’ve got to go now”. After 12 years of being with them, their leader said:

“I have to go back to the king in Babylon”

Suddenly after their spiritual high they would be on their own.

Just like Rebecca, Steve, Stacey.

How would they cope?

Let’s go forward in time. Nehemiah came back to Jerusalem a second time. We’re not sure how long he was away but it would have been some years, but he came back:

Four attractions that may stop you lasting beyond the spiritual high:

1. The attraction of culture

There was a test conducted by a university where 10 students were placed in a room. Three lines of varying length were drawn on a card. The students were told to raise their hands when the instructor pointed to the longest line. But 9 of the students had been instructed beforehand to raise their hands when the instructor pointed to the second longest line. One student was the stooge. The usual reaction of the stooge was to put his hand up, look around, and realizing he was all alone, pull it back down. This happened 75% of the time, with students from grade school through high school. The researchers concluded that many would rather be president than be right.

Of the 18 - 25 year old  females surveyed in a recent U.S. study, ½ said they would prefer to be run over by a truck than be fat, and 2/3 said they would rather be mean or stupid. (Sources = Soul Purpose, Autumn 2003)

God told his people to be separate from the rest of the world for a reason – a lot of that world is really, really sick.

- Israelites marrying people of other nations and gods, and having kids who couldn’t even speak the Hebrew language anymore (13:23-24)

2. The attraction of convenience

-  People working on the Sabbath and buying and selling stuff (13:15-18)

New Zealand Herald   11.04.2002
By ANGELA GREGORY

Couch potatoes may have been set up for a life of slacking and snacking in front of television because they were undernourished in their mothers' wombs.

Researchers at the Liggins Institute, in Auckland, believe the "couch potato" syndrome is prompted before birth as foetuses adjust to limited nutrition from the mother.

The problem is then later exacerbated by a Western diet.

In its publication Dialogue, the Auckland University research institute reports its scientists have found under-nutrition in the womb results in offspring that are more sedentary in adult life.

The team, including Liggins research fellow Dr Mark Vickers, had shown undernourishment in the womb resulted in resistance to a hormone called leptin which played a major role in regulating appetite.

Dr Vickers said it seemed the foetus permanently adapted to limited nutrient availability to ensure its survival.

That could cause insensitivity to leptin and insulin which predisposed the adult to sedentary behaviour, overeating, and obesity.

An increasingly sedentary lifestyle is estimated to account for 8 per cent of deaths in New Zealand

Story of Rebecca: some people reckon that as many as 80% of Christian young people who leave home to go to University slide in their faith because they can’t be bothered to hook up with a new church family.

3. The attraction of cash

-          People not giving their tithe to God and because of that all the people in the temple couldn’t survive there and had to leave (13:10-11)

A person’s commitment to God can be measured by His access to their bank account.

There are two ways in which a Christian may view his money—”How much of my money shall I use for God?” or “How much of God’s money shall I use for myself?” - W. Graham Scroggie

4.The attraction of compromise

13:6-7   Some time later I asked his permission 7 and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God

- Tobiah – the enemy of God’s plans, had been invited to live inside the temple (13:7-9)!

Preparing yourself

1. Own your faith. Realise that at some point in time, some of your support may be taken away.

2. Be accountable to others

3. Pray always