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Weimar University

Nehemiah

Don Mackintosh

Lessons from Nehemiah 6 Part 2

So I'm joining you to turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah, the sixth chapter.

And we're going to study the whole chapter today.

And so I'll be reading the New King James Version if you're wanting to know what version I'm in.

And what I want to talk about today is 7 keys, 7 keys to advance God's cause in your life.

7 keys to advance God's cause in your life from this chapter.

So let's dive right in and ask the Lord to bless us.

Father, bless us as we open Your Word and May these keys that we discover bless us and give us more of your joy in Christ's name.

Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem, the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and there were no breaks left in it, though at that time I had not hung the doors of the gates, that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me saying, come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.

So they're asking for him to come and meet in the plain of Ono.

Now, Nehemiah and his people, according to this text, had had some great success.

The walls were rebuilt, and there were no breaks left in the walls whatsoever.

And they were experiencing success in their mission and purpose.

I think, first of all, a laser-like focus on the mission that is building the wall.

No allowance of distractions or things that would fragment his team.

You know, 1 of the biggest things when you're trying to get something done is a lot of good things take the place of great things.

A lot of things that divide and separate your team from 1 another, when actually what you're doing needs to be united together, there's an attack on that.

So this laser-like focus had led them this far.

And the same characters that we saw in chapter 4 now arise again.

So when you try to do something for God big, he's going to attack you from the north, the devil will, from the north, from the south, from the east, and the west.

Now in the past, in chapter 4, when we last saw these characters, how had Nehemiah actually related to them?

Number 3, he set up a protection plan that included priority positioning at the places where he was most needed.

I'm reviewing now, that's why I'm going so fast.

You can go back and watch the message on chapter 4, but I'm just reviewing.

So priority positioning, passionate planning, all family groups were working together because they would defend 1 another more fully in the wall if the family was at stake.

Provision of power, there were swords, there were spears, there were bows.

In our case, it would be the sword of the spirit, right?

And then he had kind of a revival and reformation team.

He had the nobles and he had the leaders and he had lay people all on a team that was working behind the scenes to keep the revival alive.

And also it was all kind of enshrouded in praise.

So this is how they had dealt with it before and so basically Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab and the rest, they had kind of given up.

But now they come with a new strategy and what's the strategy?

Come, said Samboleth and Geshem, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.

If I can't conquer by direct assault, by ridicule, these different things.

Let's try and separate the leader from his group.

Let's try and bring division between the leader and his group.

Let's try and divide the leader from the group.

Let's get him away from his protection plan.

Let's get him away from his protection plan, let's get him to get away from his mission, let's scatter his group.

But especially let's focus on Nehemiah, who's providing spiritual leadership.

Let's meet together, has a positive ring, let's meet together.

In fact, the word meet there literally means, it's the Hebrew word yad, which is the word used for marriage or engagement.

We're going to meet in the town of Oh No.

I don't know if that's what, you know, tipped Nehemiah off.

Spending time with the wrong individuals is not good.

It's wonderful to eat with your wife, but if you go 25 miles away from home and eat with another woman, that's not good.

What did he say there at the end of verse 2?

There Remains Therefore a Sabbath Rest

It would be good to spend some time in the Word tonight.

I want to study with you Hebrews chapter 3 and 4.

But I want to study Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 with you tonight.

So open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 and I'm going to title my message, There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

And the S stands for Sabbatismos, out of this verse.

And you know, when he was born, I told my wife, or actually I was teaching a Sabbath school class that was being recorded and televised, and I told them, look, if my son is born on the Sabbath, I'm going to name him Sabbatismos.

Nobody thought he was going to be born on the Sabbath.

This started a great controversy between my wife and I that went on for how many days was it?

I don't know, but they kept calling us from the hospital, what is his name?

And we were like, I said it's Sabatismo, and my wife said, it's not.

We went back and forth, and finally, we compromised.

So his name is James Madison after the president who stood for religious liberty and In keeping with the fact that the separation of church and state, which will eventually give sway to the church and state uniting, ultimately.

But I wanted him to have a name that was connected with the major issue that the Bible brings up at the end of time.

Here are they, here's the patience of saints, here they keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus.

And of course those commandments are in Revelation chapter 11, 19, found in the Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, and in the midst of those commandments is the Sabbath commandment.

And of course, that's the major issue in Revelation 13, where the beast tries to make a, have people worship him.

They wander after the beast, make an image to the beast, that's commandment number 2, take the name of the beast, that's commandment number 3, and have the mark of the beast, that's commandment number 4.

So he said, I want James Madison Sabatismo to be ready for that.

So, anyway, a couple years ago I took him to get a bank account and he was in there talking very vigorously to the person.

And I went, what were you talking to them about?

He says, I was explaining what S stands for.

And that's, he was named after this text.

There remains therefore a Sabbatismo, Hebrews 4-9, for the people of God.

So some have asked the question, isn't the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath keeping fulfilled in Christ?

And also in the body of Christ, because Christ is not separated from his body.

Look at that person next to you and say, you are the body of Christ and members individually.

When I got married I sang that to my wife, how beautiful is the body of Christ.

I sounded like a cow because I got so emotional.

Okay, so let's just pray again and ask God to bless us.

Father in heaven, bless us as we look at this text.

And help me collect my thoughts that you've given me over the last few hours here that could be a blessing to us today, tonight, in Christ's name.

So, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his." Hebrews 4, 9, and 10.

So just kind of superficially, you know, you read it, there remains therefore a sabbatismos for the people of God, and you make some just preliminary observations.

Not too long before the fall of Jerusalem, was after the time of Christ.

It was written to the Hebrews and to the Shebrews.

All of them received this, but It's stipulating that there is Sabbath keeping going on for Christians after the death of Christ.

And the author of Hebrews is trying to say, look, even though your temple is going to be destroyed in AD 70, there are some things that remain.

And 1 of the things that's going to remain is not your temple, but a palace in time called the Sabbath.

And you're going to be able to enter into that Sabbatismos even though you don't have a temple.

And there's also another day in Hebrews chapter 10, and that's the Day of Atonement.

And that's still in the future, eschatologically for them as well.

So the Sabbath day and the Day of Atonement.

We're going to talk about the Sabbath day today.

We're going to look back at the context of the text.

Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 go together as a unit.

And in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1 through 6 it talks about 2 houses, Moses house and the house of Jesus Christ, the heavenly calling.

And it says that God wants us to be partaker of the heavenly calling, a part of that heavenly temple.

And in Hebrews 8, verse 1, this is the main point of the things that we've been saying.

We have a high priest that is in a heavenly sanctuary.

And so by faith we enter into that heavenly calling, verse 6 of Hebrews chapter 3.

Christ has a son over his own house, whose house we are if we hold fast to the confidence and rejoicing of hope to the end.

And Hebrews 3 and 4 is this whole idea of holding fast to the confidence that we have until the end as we look to that heavenly temple.

So now let's pick it up in Hebrews 3, verse 7.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion and the day of provocation or trial in the wilderness.

Well, your fathers tested me, tried me, saw my works for 40 years.

Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.

So I sworn my wrath, they shall not enter my what?

Rest beware brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and Departing from the living God so in other words stay faithful don't have their experience.

Put your eyes like, do like this, put your hands like this.

All right, the song goes, 12 spies went to spy in Canaan, 10 were bad, 2 were good.

What did they see when they spied in Canaan?

Some saw giants rough and tall, some saw grapes like clusters fall.

Some saw God was in it all, 10 were bad, 2 were good.

How many just want to learn that song and call it quits?

Nehemiah 10: The Goodness of God Leads us to Commitment

So, let's pray together and then we'll study.

Father in heaven, bless us today as we open your Word.

And open our hearts, give us understanding and the ability to stand under how you lead and guide us individually.

Well, we're studying a book called Nehemiah, and some of you are just joining us today for the first time.

And Nehemiah is a book that was written about the Israelites and about how they came back from being captive in Babylon.

You may have heard the story of Daniel being captive in Babylon in Daniel 1 through 6.

Some of you have been studying that this week.

But this was after they were coming back from Babylon to Jerusalem.

And this coming back was actually miraculous.

They had been in captivity 70 years and now they were coming back.

And it was only through the providence of God that they could come back.

God had moved on the heart of the king, who had given them resources to come back.

He had moved on the heart of a very important guy named Nehemiah, who actually served the king's food to him, or tasted it to make sure it was okay and tasted everything he drank and He had had a personal revival He had a personal prayer time that led to planning and the idea of going back and building the wall Now lest you think this is all made up you can go to Jerusalem today and you can actually see a section of Nehemiah's wall and you can touch it and walk on it.

Well, maybe not walk on it because they don't want it breaking down, but the wall is actually there and you can see it.

And they actually rebuilt that wall and all the gates that went into the city in just 52 days.

Everybody said God had to have helped you with that.

And there were all kinds of people that were trying to make sure it didn't happen.

Some from the outside, some from the inside.

But some had to be ignored, some had to be rebuked, and yet God led and the wall was rebuilt in just how many days?

But that wasn't the big story in Nehemiah.

The first chapters talked about a physical rebuilding of a wall and the last chapters, starting in chapter 7 and on, talk about a spiritual reviving, refocusing on mission and the message of God's people.

And this all came as a result of the public reading of God's Word in Nehemiah chapter 7.

How many of you have read God's Word and said, Oh man, I didn't see that.

I really shouldn't have been doing this or I shouldn't have been doing that.

That ever happened to anybody besides me?

So that led to a public conviction that then in Nehemiah chapter 9 led to a public confession.

And all of these things were motivated especially as we saw in Nehemiah chapter 9, by God's goodness.

He helped them get everything together, put down the attacks within, put down the attacks from without, it was miraculous.

And they realized that the goodness of God had really been active and that led them to change their mind.

The word repent means to change your mind.

And that brings us to Nehemiah chapter 10.

So I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 10.

You could say Nehemiah was a big New Start program.

You could say it was a big depression recovery program because they were coming out of depressing bondage and they were now coming back to live the life they should have been living.

And this conviction and confession and conversion and changing of their minds now was leading to a public commitment.

And we read about it actually in our scripture reading, verse 36 and 38 of chapter 9.

Here we are, servants today, and the land you, in the land that you gave to our fathers, you can almost hear the wonderment.

Here we are, we're back in the land and look there are fruits and there's bounty.

Verse 38, and because of all this we make a sure covenant and we write it our leaders and the Levites and the priests seal it.

We are coming out of depression and anxiety and out of despondency and we're coming back to serve and rejoice in your city because of your goodness.

So how was this commitment then demonstrated?

First of all, like we just saw, number 1, and we have, I think, what, 5 points here of how this was demonstrated.

Number 1, there was a public acknowledgement of God's goodness just like we saw.

You can just see them eating the figs, eating the fruit, and holding it up and saying, God, you gave this to us.

We should still be in captivity, but you gave it to us.

How many of you are aware of goodness of God in your own life today?

And everything about what God had done was unselfish.

His unselfish love had set the stage for them to learn themselves unselfishness.

You have served us, God, and we desire to serve you.

You see, the goodness of God leads us to repentance.

And by the way, the God of the Bible is totally unlike other gods.

How many of you have ever studied other gods?

The Greek gods, the Roman gods, the Greek gods.

I was just reviewing some of them recently.

God's name, the original God in Greek lore, was Chaos.

Chaos, he gave birth to Gaia, Tartarus, Urbis, Knight, and Eros.

Urbis and Knight then got together and gave birth, this is literally what they said in these sources, and millions have worshipped these gods.

Urbis and Knight gave birth to doom, death, deceit, and discord.

Now Discord, he got together as well with someone else.

I'm not making this stuff up, this is right out of, there's only 2 sources for this.

The Bible has 66 authors, they have like 2 authors for this stuff.

Here it comes up, from Discord gave birth to murder, slaughter, battle, and crime.

Oh murder, we worship you, oh slaughter, please Go to someone else's house battle and crime and then Gaia and Uranus The mother of earth Gaia Uranus of sky gave birth to the Titans.

The Titans come up and they have 50 heads and 100 hands each.

They're immoral, they're selfish, they're mean, and everything about these gods shows them coming into human history to take advantage of people to do terrible things.

How many of you are thankful for the God of the Bible?

The goodness of God, the unselfishness of God.

The Bible says that He chose you, well let me read it, these are the books they were reading that led them to make this commitment we're gonna talk about today.

I have not chosen you because you're more in number, but because the Lord loves you.

Nehemiah 11: The Goodness of God Leads to Grateful Service

Well let's just pray and ask the Lord to bless us as we open his word.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the wonderful music today and for the new life that we have among us, for the visitors and guests that have Come back and those that are visiting today bless us as we open your word now in Christ's name.

Amen So we've been in a series here at the church for those of you visiting on the book of Nehemiah And we're now in chapter 11 and Jerusalem had been a ghost town for many many years but God had put in the heart of Nehemiah to actually rebuild the wall.

The civil and spiritual laws and order had been established, But there was a big problem, and this problem is what we're going to deal with today.

The problem was everything was put in place, but there basically were no people in the city.

It's like having a school with no students.

It's like having a plane with no passengers.

And the burden then fell on Nehemiah to fill the holy city with holy people.

So let's pick up the story in Nehemiah chapter 11 and we'll look at verse 1.

Nehemiah chapter 11 and we will look there at verse 1.

Now I said that there was nobody there but the text says something a little differently.

It says, now the leaders of the people dwelt at Jerusalem.

But leaders without people to follow them, that's a big problem.

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