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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The Reformation Needed in the Last Days

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this wonderful Sabbath day you've given to us.

Thank you Lord for your watch care over us.

And as we're about to start our time together this morning to study your word, we ask for your Holy Spirit to Please be with us, grace us with thy presence, O Lord.

And may you send your spirit to be our teacher and our guide, that we wouldn't use your spirit, but your spirit would use us and to illumine our minds and fill us, open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of thy word.

And Lord, please lift us up from this world even now.

Help us to put aside our distractions and help us, Lord, to focus now, we pray.

And so the message for this morning is the reformation needed in these last days.

And what we studied in Nehemiah last time was that the book of the law was found and Ezra began to read from it each day.

People were convicted of their sins, they confessed, and they came and worshipped God.

And ultimately, they came and celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, and the worship and the sanctuary services were restored in those times.

And then Nehemiah recounted to them the wonderful works and merciful dealings of God in the past and how it was their sins that brought them into captivity and brought them into calamity and how the Babylonians and the Medo-Persians and even the Greeks, they would rule over them and how they ended up in that sad, sorry state.

But they saw God's goodness towards them and they at that time, in Nehemiah's time, as Nehemiah was recounting all of this, they entered into a covenant with God again.

What was that covenant they made with God?

Well, we find it in Nehemiah 10, verses 28 to 32.

And there were a few things, pardon me, There were a few things that they covenanted with God.

First, they committed to keep the 10 Commandments again.

Secondly, no more unequally yoked marriages and relationships.

Thirdly, they committed to keep the Sabbath.

And lastly, they committed to be faithful in their tithe and offering and guess what there was a great revival amongst them as they made this commitment to God again and after this general revival in Nehemiah chapter 11 the Jerusalem is repopulated and it's just a list of names of who was in Jerusalem and who was in the surrounding towns and suburbs.

And then In Nehemiah chapter 12, they would appoint roles for the temple again.

And you find in Nehemiah chapter 12, I'm going through these, I'm just describing to you what's happening because really the meat of what we're studying this morning is found in Nehemiah 13.

But in Nehemiah chapter 12, they are assigning all the roles for the sanctuary services, the priests and the Levites.

And you'll see that they're looking at the genealogy because they're trying to determine who is a Levite, because only the Levites could serve in the sanctuary, you see.

And they had been in Babylon and Medo-Persia for a long time and so the records were really important.

They wanted to ensure that they were doing things the right way and that the blessing of God was upon them from the beginning again.

And so the wall is re-established and completed and is rededicated.

Treasurers are appointed so that the collection of tithes and offerings can be re-established because the Levites were now starting to work again.

So they needed to be supported by the ties and the offerings of the people.

And after that, Nehemiah goes back to Persia in his position as the cupbearer to the king and he begins to serve the king again.

But in Nehemiah chapter 13, Nehemiah now comes back for a second time as governor over Judea and this is the closing chapter of Nehemiah and what does he find when he comes back for this second time?

Well let's pick it up here in Nehemiah chapter 13 and starting in verse 1.

On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people and therein was found written that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God forever, because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them.

Howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing.

Now it came to pass when they had heard the law that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.

And so they find this history book and they realize that there should be this separation between the Moabites and the Ammonites with them.

And so this group, they decide to separate from the unbelievers, from what the Bible here calls them, the mixed multitude.

Now friends, what do we understand about the mixed multitude in the Bible?

Well, let's go to Numbers 11, verses 4 through 6.

And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting and the children of Israel also wept again and said who shall give us flesh to eat?

We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our soul is dried away.

There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.

Now this mixed multitude was not the mixed multitude that it's talking about in Nehemiah.

The composition of the people was not exactly the same but what they represent was exactly the same.

It's a group of people that were not Jewish or from the Israelite tribe.

When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, some Egyptians came with them as well because they looked at Egypt and it was destroyed.

Obviously, the God of the Israelites was much more far superior than the God that they were serving and so they followed but they weren't converted.

And the mixed multitude was the ones that were always complaining.

They were the ones that were just dissatisfied with the food that they were even eating.

They were dissatisfied with the little rations of water or whatever it was.

They just found places always to raise up complaint.

They were always the ones that were stirring trouble in the camp of Israel.

And Israel would follow along with this mixed multitude, you see.

Well, in Exodus 12, verse 37 and 38, and the children of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Succoth, about 600, 000 on foot that were men beside children and a mixed multitude went up also with them and flocks and herds even very much cattle.

It wasn't just the children of Israel, there were other people as well And so it was with Nehemiah's day.

There was a group of people that came with them out of Persia.

And look, it's not that we have to make the worldly people in a sense our enemies, but friends.

Let's not be their best friend and make them our counselor and our confidant.

Let's make sure we minister to them and reach out to them.

Be careful who you choose to hang out with and who you intermingle with.

God said very clearly they were not to come into the congregation of God forever.

There was a clear line of distinction that was drawn between the 2 and the groups of people there and that must be done today as well, friends.

And so the first thing that we learn here in Nehemiah chapter 13, is that we have to separate from unbelievers.

These are the lessons that we're learning in Nehemiah's day that is relevant to us as well.

I'm sure that as you open your eyes and see, these are the issues that are repeating even in our time as well.

But what else did Nehemiah find when he came back for a second time?

And before this Eliaship the priest having oversight of the chamber of the house of our God was allied unto Tobiah.

He was the 1 that was in league with Sanballat.

They were the ones that were trying to call Nehemiah out so that they could hurt him or harm him or kill him.

They were the ones that were trying to destroy and hinder the work of the wall being built to move forward.

We keep reading in verse 5, the priest of God, which was Eliashib, he had made and prepared for him a great chamber where a 4 time they laid the meat offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the corn, and new wine, and the oil which was commanded to be given to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the offerings of the priest.

You see a liarship, he went and made room for Tobiah right there next to the sanctuary in a room where they put all the tithes and the offerings which were reserved for the priests and the Levites and he had infiltrated the camp of the Jews and made it in such a way that they were now misusing the tithes and the offerings because there was no place to keep it anymore.

And I came to Jerusalem and understood of the evil that Eliaship did for Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.

Therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber.

Then I commanded and they cleansed the chambers and through the broad eye again the vessels of the house of God with the meat offering and the frankincense.

Nehemiah he hears about it and he comes and casts him out and cleans the room and puts back it for the use of the tithes and offerings for which they intended in the first place.

You know, he was doing a pretty strong work, kicking Tobiah out.

And it seemed like, wow, he was pretty violent.

But you know, friends, this is needed in this day and age.

They were profaning the temple services and the people started to see this and they began to give less and less tithe and offering.

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The Reformation Needed in the Last Days

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