Will turn with me to Nehemiah, and we come to the last portion of chapter 6. Nehemiah, the last portion of chapter 6. God had done an amazing work through Nehemiah and the Jewish people that had returned to the nation of Israel, to the city of Jerusalem. In the space of 52 days, they rebuilt the walls. That’s less than two months.
And when Nehemiah got there, the rubble was so great, if you remember when we began the study, he couldn’t even walk around the walls completely. There was places where he had to get off the donkey he was riding on, because the donkey could go no further. And then he had to find another way around the rubble, because it was so great.
And in the space of 52 days, God, through the hands of the people that returned, and these were not masons and carpenters, and didn’t have modern tools and equipment, they just had a will to see Jerusalem’s walls rebuilt, and God’s city once again established. And Nehemiah had led them in this. As we’ve been studying, there have been many trials that he’s faced along the way.
Persecution from without, persecution from within. We’ve seen that he’s been challenged, he’s been accused wrongly by his persecutors. And Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem have been the main ones leading the charge.
Tobiah, one of the men, is a Moabite. The Moabite, an Ammonite rather, I’m sorry, he’s an Ammonite. They are the cousins of the Moabites.
Ammon was the other son of Lot, Moab was one son. Neither one of them had love for Israel, even though Lot, their ancestor, had been the nephew of Abraham. Tobiah, being an Ammonite, did not want the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt.
And he listened to Sanballat, and he was Sanballat’s servant, and did everything that Sanballat required him to do to try and discourage the building. But I want you to see, simply because a work is accomplished, doesn’t mean that Satan doesn’t stop trying to attack and cause problems. So I want you to read with me beginning at verse 15 of chapter 6 this morning.
So the wall was finished in the 25th day of the month, Elul, in 52 days. And it came to pass that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the brethren that were about us saw these things, there was much cast down in their own eyes, for they perceived that this work was wrought of God. Moreover, in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came unto them. For there were many in Judah sworn unto him, because he was the son-in-law of Zechariah, the son of Arah, and his son, Johanan, had taken the daughter of Meshulam, the son of Berechiah. Also there was reported this good deeds before me, and uttered my words to him, and Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear. Now it came to pass when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters, and the singers, and the Levites were appointed, that I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah, the ruler of the palace, charge over Jerusalem, for there was a faithful man, and feared God above many. And I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot while they stand by. Let them shut the doors, and bear them, and appoint watchers in the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over and against his house. Now the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not built. Nehemiah 6:18-7:4
Father, I pray that you would just speak to us through your word this morning. Lord, help us to see that simply because the task before us is completed, does not mean that we are to stop. We are to be, as Paul tells us, walking circumspectly every day, being aware of how the enemy would try to discourage and undermine, and destroy that which we have done and accomplished.
Lord, help us to realize that there is always more to do. And help us to always be mindful and watchful, and seek to be directed by you in how we are to do it. Speak to us through your word this morning, we pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen. A great work had been accomplished. God had done a miraculous thing, and even the enemies of Nehemiah acknowledged that this could have only been done by the power of God.
But then they sought to how can we undermine it now. And they had a man by the name of Tobiah. I want you to understand what had happened here.
Tobiah, and it gives a list of the house of Tobiah, some of the wife of Tobiah, and who she was, and why he had married her. And why did God put that in there? Well, because you need to understand, Tobiah, as I mentioned, was an Ammonite. But his wife was an Israelite.
And his wife came from a family of the leaders of Israel, that had come back into the land. Her house was a house that Nehemiah should have been able to look to for support and encouragement. Because they were leaders, or so supposed to be leaders.
But instead, because of this relationship of their daughter to Tobiah, and that he had married this woman, they saw that he was the son-in-law of the leaders that were trying to undermine and destroy what Israel was doing. And as they saw that he was the son-in-law and had relations there, related to them, they in turn developed a relationship with him because he was their son-in-law, rather. And they began to share things with him.
They began to share what they were seeing within the city. Now, it’s also interesting at the last portion of this, as they have completed the walls, they’ve done the gates, they’ve set up everything, everything is ready and to be secured, but the people don’t know how to secure it. And Nehemiah goes about and tells them what they need to do.
He says, The gates are supposed to be closed until the sun is up and the day is warm, and then they’re open. Why? Why would you do that? Because at night is when your enemies would come about stealthily and try to sneak in and try to do that which was evil while you were unaware and sleeping. And so he said, And as you just wake up in the morning, you’re not prepared if they should come in at that time.
We saw something like that happen in Israel earlier this year, or two years ago, I guess it is already, on October 7th when Hamas attacked the kibbutzes and all of the military bases because they weren’t expecting it. It was early in the morning. Everybody wasn’t up yet.
Those that were up were in no condition to defend themselves because they’d been up all night. And we see that they literally came in and slaughtered over 1,200 people because they weren’t prepared. Nehemiah is telling the people, You can’t let that happen.
You need to be prepared. The walls are up, the gates are there, but you need to use them. And you need to keep your enemy out.
But all of a sudden, Nehemiah finds out the enemy is within. The daughter-in-law of some of the rulers is in their houses. And the son-in-law is in the enemy’s camp.
And the family of this young woman who is married to Tobiah are sending letters to Tobiah. And remember who Tobiah is. He’s not just somebody that has come from Babylon.
He’s not just somebody that is there that’s a pagan. He’s not just another one of the soldiers. No, he is the servant of Sennacherib.
He’s the servant of the one who is seeking to undermine and destroy all that they are doing. If you go back and read way back in chapter 2, when they first began this conquest, we see that it says here that already Tobiah had come against, in verse 19 it says, but Sanballat, and he was a servant of Sanballat, not Sennacherib. Sennacherib was the one who was coming and attacking the governor of the area.
But Sanballat, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem, the Arabian, heard it. And they laughed. Now they’re not laughing because they see that God had done it, but Tobiah still hasn’t changed his view of God.
And he still hasn’t changed his view that he wants to destroy that which God has built. And so there’s letters going back and forth to try and see how can we undermine this. And part of it is, what’s their plan on guarding and protecting the gates? And you’ve got to believe that everything that they heard, they told.
And they were in a position, the parents of this young warrior, the father, was a noble and in a position in leadership in the city of Jerusalem, and yet he was doing that which was treasonous to his own community. As Nehemiah finds this out, Nehemiah is going to take some steps. We’re going to look at the first step he takes, and that is he takes charge of who’s going to be in charge of the city from now on.
It’s not going to be the nobles that are there. It’s not going to be those that came back from Babylon that had left and they held the position of being nobles in the land of Israel, but rather he’s going to handpick his people that he knows he can trust. He handpicks his brother because he knows his brother is loyal to him.
His brother won’t be writing letters to Baia or any other enemy. And he also picks another man. And that man, as we see here, was a very loyal person.
It says here that he picked Hanani, his brother, and now it came to pass that they were entrusted and the other man had been a leader in the area, but had been a trustworthy man. And these men were the men that Nehemiah trusted, those that he knew were on his side and of the Lord. And as he puts his trust in them, the first thing he tells them is that they need to establish a way and means by which the people know how to protect themselves and they need to be the ones in charge of doing it so that the enemy doesn’t find out.
I want you to know that when you think you’re the safest, it’s oftentimes when you can be at the greatest danger because you’re not preparing and being aware. And oftentimes when things have gone the best and we’ve got a tremendous victory in the Lord, that is when Satan will try to attack and undermine everything that you’ve done. He’s getting his troops ready by finding out what’s happening on the inside of the city.
But Nehemiah is doing that by looking to those that are faithful to him. The next thing that Nehemiah does, other than picking these two men that he totally trusts, the second thing that he does is you find that there’s a whole list of people. And why does he do that? Because there’s a number of people that say that they are Jews that have the right to be in the city, that have a right to be given responsibilities, that have a right to live there, and the houses are tore down, they haven’t been built up, so he needs to re-inhabit the city.
So he needs to have these people come back encouraging them to come back, but he also needs to know that they have the right to come back. Because he doesn’t want to inhabit a city with people who have no right to be there, because if they have no right to be there, often times they won’t have any desire to be useful once they are there. And so he asks them to bring the credentials that shows who you are.
Are you really who you say you are? Are you of a Jewish descent? Did you really go into captivity as your family says they did? And did you come out of Babylon as you said you did, of Jewish heritage and have a right to live in Jerusalem? Why would he do that? Well, there were already those that were claiming to be priests that weren’t priests. They were saying, well, look at my name. My name says I’m a priest.
But do you have the heritage of a priest? Are you of the descendant of Aaron? Are you a descendant of Levi? Do you have the right? Do you have the authority to do that? Simply because you have taken a name doesn’t give you that authority. And so what they did is, he began to demand that they would come and show them, and then he put down a list of credentials of these people and their heritage. And so he lists a whole second list of people, and we find that this list is very similar to a list that Ezra did when he came, and you’ll find in the book of Ezra, many of the same people are listed there.
Ezra did a very similar thing when he came back to rebuild the temple. He didn’t want just anybody rebuilding the temple. He wanted only those who truly were there and being led by God to be rebuilding the temple.
Likewise, Nehemiah, when he wants to inhabit Jerusalem, he wants to make sure who’s inhabiting it. Especially after he finds out that there’s been marriages between the nobles and the wealthy and the pagans that are out to destroy them, and then they’re trying to undermine and destroy them. It’s interesting, as you look at this, God puts a great value on marriage and what is to be the center of the home and the value of the home.
This is part of why. If you have someone that’s going to marry someone, and they say, well, I’m a Christian, but they’re really not a Christian, and their full intent is to bring destruction to that relationship, that they can be exalted. This is like what was happening here amongst Tobiah.
He married, and I don’t know his motive for marrying. Maybe he lusted after this girl. Maybe he desired her.
Maybe he loved her. I don’t know, but all I know is she shouldn’t have married him because he was from the enemy’s camp. The Apostle Paul tells us that we’re not to be unequally yoked.
This stood for this situation here in Israel. As the people are coming back to Israel, they’re not to unequally yoke themselves with the pagans of the land. When they first came out of Egypt and came into the land of Israel, they were not to unequally yoke themselves with the pagans of the land.
And we see that they were to drive out the pagans from their midst instead of bringing them in to have fellowship with them. Why? Because these people didn’t believe what they believed. They served different gods.
They worshipped differently. They didn’t want to worship God. They didn’t want God’s purposes to be fulfilled.
So why would you fellowship with those that are your enemy? But yet that’s exactly what we see happening here. Oftentimes in the church today, when it comes for young people and they’re being instructed, this is an area that is often totally neglected. And instead, churches fall into the same patterns that the world falls into.
Instead of encouraging young people to seek God, to bring them into a relationship with those that are like-minded, that they will be equally yoked, oftentimes people get excited because somebody brings an unbeliever to church and says, this is my boyfriend or this is my girlfriend. They don’t believe Jesus, but I trust that God’s going to save them. And I want to tell you, there’s no guarantee that they will.
The only guarantee that Nehemiah had that the walls were going to get built and that the gates were going to get done was that he did it God’s way. The only guarantee that Nehemiah had that the city was going to be populated, that the houses were going to be rebuilt, was going to be done God’s way. The only way that Nehemiah was assured that the people would have the right direction, the right understanding and the right heart, was that they would begin to see and do it God’s way as he instructed and showed them.
And later on, we’re going to see, read the scriptures to them about the importance of doing it God’s way. Now today, many people in the church don’t put any significance and importance on doing it in God’s way. But what is the latest techniques of man? And how can we build our church or fellowship? How can I make my home a stronger home? And I’ll do it the world’s way instead of God’s way.
And then we can’t figure out why there isn’t a difference in many Christians’ lives from the world. And why many young people and homes are more influenced by the world around us instead of by the scripture. Nehemiah understood the importance of doing it God’s way.
And as he’s doing it God’s way, as I mentioned, you begin to build the walls, you begin to put the protections around, and you’ll begin to have people say, why are you doing that?
And when it’s done, they’ll say, well, they did it because of God, but now we need to attack. At that point in time, we need to be more assured of the principles that are contained within God’s Word and make application of those principles in even a greater degree. If you turn with me to chapter 8, after Nehemiah goes in chapter 7 and lists all the people that are there that have come back, he lists what their possessions were, he lists what came back with them, he comes back and in chapter 8, he does an amazing thing.
And this is in response to the letters going back and forth between Tobiah and the nobles that are trying to really find out what Nehemiah is up to. Nehemiah gives them the example, close the gates, don’t let the gates be open when they’re vulnerable, and only let them be open when they’re there, and when they’re closed, he tells them for watchers to be on the wall. Now he goes and tells them, what are you supposed to do individually? He says in verse 1 of chapter 8, And all the people adhered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
Nehemiah went out and he got Ezra. Ezra had been there, Ezra had built the temple, Ezra had completed the temple building before, and then Nehemiah came and built the walls. But Ezra was sought out by Nehemiah to come before the people and to bring with him the word of God.
Why? Because the people acknowledged that Ezra had been sent by God to be the one that would prophetically fulfill the building of the temple as God had said it would be done, and that he had overseen that, and that he was a man who was following God as Nehemiah. And Nehemiah has Ezra, the priest, bring the law before the congregation, both of men and women and all that could hear, with understanding upon the last day of the seventh month. And so Ezra, the priest, who had overseen the building of the temple, is now asked by Nehemiah to bring the law to the people, because he knows that it’s not enough to have walls, that we put walls of protection, but we need to have the purpose of the walls, and the purpose of the walls is found in the word of God and what God wants us to do in keeping the world separate from the world, and it begins with our own hearts.
Because we can have a wall of protection, we can make all kinds of rules and regulations, but if you don’t have a relationship with God through His word, it’s not going to make a difference. I was reading an account and they were talking about some of the ways that Satan attacks and causes churches to fail. One is through legalism.
Legalism is you build walls, and you build these walls where you’re not going to let the world in. And so you legally establish rules and regulations, and you make your people live and adhere to all those rules and regulations and there’s no freedom in Christ. And the more you adhere to the rules and regulations, supposedly the more spiritual you are, but the emphasis isn’t placed upon the heart.
The emphasis isn’t placed upon a relationship with God, and that the reason you may build a wall is to protect you from the world, but only God can be the one that builds the wall, and only God can do the ultimate protection, and you have to walk in His power, His might, through His protection. And so you have churches that fail because they become legalistic, and there’s no spirit there. The Lord doesn’t exist there, but it’s a whole bunch of rules, regulations and laws, and they built a wall, and it’s protecting them from something, but it doesn’t protect them from their own sinful nature, and it doesn’t bring them into a relationship with God.
Nehemiah understood they needed more than a wall, they needed a relationship with God, and a relationship with God began with the teaching of the Word. And the one that could best teach the Word was Ezra, the priest. And so he called on Ezra to come and preach.
Verse 3, And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women and those that could understand, and the ears of the people were attentive unto the book of the law. I want you to see something. They wanted to hear.
They wanted to hear. Their ears were attentive unto the book of the law. They wanted to know the Word of God.
They wanted to know how to walk in God’s power. They didn’t want to be overcome and deceived by Tobiah and his crowd of nobles that were seeking to somehow undermine what was going on here. But instead, they wanted to know the God that had worked this mighty work in building a wall in 52 days.
And they wanted to know more about Him. I want you to stop and think about the last time that you saw God work mightily and do something in your life. Often times, there will become a time after a great mountaintop experience, you can find yourself in the valley.
What do we do when we get in the valley? We go to the Word of God. When we find out that there are those that would seek to undermine and destroy that which we’ve seen God build in our lives, where do we go for protection? The Word of God. And that’s exactly where Nehemiah was.
You can find yourself in the valley. What do we do when we get in the valley? We go to the Word of God. And when we find out that there are those that would seek to undermine and destroy that which we’ve seen God build in our lives, where do we go for protection? The Word of God.
And that’s exactly where Nehemiah took the people. He took them to Ezra, and Ezra read the Word of God, and they became attentive in their hearing. And then it says, And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose.
And beside him stood Mephithiah, and Shema, and Ananiah, and Uriah, and Hilkiah, and Mephithiah upon his right hand, and on his left hand, Petodiah, and Mishiel, and Melchiah, and Hashem, and Hashpedan, and Zechariah, and Mesulam. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of the people, for he was above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up.
And Ezra blessed the Lord and the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting of their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And also Jeshua, and Benny, and Cherubiah, and Jamin, and Achub, and Zachbethiah, and Hodejah, and Masiah, and Kithliah, and Azariah, and Jozebad, and Hanan, and Peliah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law.
And the people stood in their place. So they read the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. I want you to see that two things begin to happen here.
First of all, there was true worship. The people stood for the word. They wanted the word of God exalted.
So they placed Ezra above the people where he read the word, so all could hear, all could see, and the word of God stood above the people. All those that were associated with Ezra stood on his right and his left. And they acknowledged that they were in agreement, although at this particular time they didn’t speak with Ezra initially, but they were there to be used by Ezra when the time came to explain things to the people.
I want you to understand what’s all happening here. The people have been in Babylon. And when they were in Babylon, Babylon did everything they could to conform the Jewish people like they did every other people they brought to Babylon, to Babylonian customs, Babylonian religion, Babylonian diets, Babylonian everything.
We see that many of the people didn’t conform. And we have examples given of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, young noble men that withstood completely, and God raised them up in spite of their lack of confirmation to Babylon standards. But when they were in Babylon, there were things that began to happen that the people may not have understood completely the word of God.
They hadn’t had a temple to worship. They couldn’t offer sacrifice. They didn’t have the word being read to them and explained to them on a continual basis.
At that particular time, the Babylonian religions, which are still in the world today, which are occultically based. Today, if you go to Israel, there is Kabbalah, which is a Babylonian interjection into Judaism, which brings mysticism and the occult into Judaism. Many of the movie stars who claim and identify with Judaism are into Kabbalah.
They’re not into Judaism. They’re not into the Bible. They’re not into the law.
They’re not into the word of God. They’re not into following the true and the living God. But it’s what Satan does.
He combines lies and then says, I’m presenting the truth. I don’t know how many of these people have been influenced by that sort of thinking when they were in Babylon. But it’s evident when they heard the word of God, it was something that was very touching to them.
Because it touched their hearts in such a way that when the word was read, they immediately stood. And they bowed their heads and lifted their hands, acknowledging who God was. And it says that they worshipped Him.
They showed that He was worthy of praise and He was worthy of worship. He was the one who had enabled them to return according to His word. He was the one that had enabled them to rebuild the temple according to His word.
He was the one that had enabled them to rebuild the walls and establish the gates according to His word. And no man was going to prevent that from occurring. And they praised and thanked Him for it.
And then Ezra comes in and begins to read from the word of God, showing who He is, showing His power, showing His authority. And they worshipped. But having been separated so long, many of them probably didn’t fully understand.
I want to tell you, in America today, there used to be an understanding of the Bible. If you would go to churches, the Bible could be taught, and the principles of God’s word were honored. And if the church was a Bible teaching, Bible believing church, it showed that the word of God demanded that you have a relationship with God and not a religious experience.
And then they taught you how to have that relationship. They taught you how to walk with God. They taught you the principles and the truth that is found in God’s word and how to walk in those principles and apply that truth on a daily basis in your life and what to do when we slip and fall and how God picks us back up, forgives us of our sins, cleanses us from our sins, and enables us to walk in His power.
But today, I fear many churches have forgotten how to teach, how to preach, how to read the word of God. And so what you have is people starved for truth. As this people hears the truth, they also need it explained.
And so the men that are standing on the left and right hand of Ezra, one of their tasks, along with those other priests, is to go out amongst the people and explain what they’ve just heard. That they can understand what it is to be a follower of the Lord. That they can understand what it is to call on His name.
That they can understand what it is to, at this time, offer a sacrifice and ultimately looking forward to the sacrifice where God would come to take away their sin. And that they can understand these things. One of the things that we need to look at today is, do we understand God’s word and do we apply God’s word to our life and do we seek to walk in righteousness and do we long to have our ears filled with His truth? Nehemiah saw the importance of that.
Verse 8, remember it said, So they read the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading. My job is to try and help you to understand the principles contained within God’s word. When God enables us to stand against the world, that’s not the end of it, to take just a stand.
There are things that we need to identify with and be against. For example, when people would come and try to destroy the sanctity of life, like for abortion, we should stand against it and we should stand for life. That’s not the end of it.
And that’s not the real purpose. The real purpose is, every man and woman is created in the image of God and every man and woman should seek to be used of God, to worship God, to praise God. And God enables us to do that through Jesus Christ our Lord and people can be delivered from the consequences of sin through the power of the blood of Christ and we need to be able to share that with people.
That they can come to an understanding of God’s word. We need to be able to explain it. If someone would come to you and say, I just heard a portion of the Bible read on the radio and I don’t understand it.
Would you be able to explain it to them? Because every one of you that’s sitting here that’s a believer in Jesus Christ today, you should be able to go into God’s word and explain what principle is God trying to teach in this particular verse? What was Jesus saying in this portion of the gospel? What was the Apostle Paul trying to tell us in this letter? When Paul is telling us to walk circumspectly, what does he mean by that? Am I to just be like this all the time? What he’s trying to tell us is that you and I are to be aware of the enemies, the tactics all around us and we are to be prepared to stand against them and we should realize the enemy’s tactics. That’s exactly what Nehemiah did. He was constantly hearing how the enemy was trying to come, Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem, were trying to come against him to destroy his work of building the wall.
And now they’re trying to come against him to destroy his work of building the houses and inhabiting the city and reestablishing Jerusalem. He’s aware of it. He knows it’s happening.
And he doesn’t just allow it to slide off, but he begins to address, how can I stop it? And the way that he can stop it is I can get the people on my side and how do I get them on my side? Through God. If I don’t teach them the Word of God, if they don’t understand the Word of God, if they don’t understand the importance of coming. And at this time, at this point in history, offering sacrifices has got it established.
If they don’t understand the significance, they’re never going to want to do it. So I need to teach them. I need to help them understand.
And that’s what he does. And he says, who better a person than Ezra? You know, one of the things that is really disturbing to me is that for a number of years, there were Bible conferences, prophecy conferences, and the purpose of it was to bring in people that had studied the Word of God, knew the prophetic Word of God and understood and looked around at the signs of the times, saw where we were on God’s timetable, begin to teach those things, and then not only that, but begin to teach us the importance of living as Christians in a world that was fast approaching the day of judgment. Today, those conferences are far and few between.
Our church used to hold a conference like that. The first one we had, we had probably, I guess in the evening sessions, over a thousand people there. The last one we had, it didn’t matter what session it was, there was about 50 people there.
The speakers were just as profound in the things they had to say. It was like the people didn’t want to come and hear. Then all of the craziness began to happen in the world with COVID and all this, and people are going, what’s this all about? But you know, if you look at what the Bible had said prophetically, we would have known immediately what it was about.
And why were the churches so weak in responding? Why did so many of them shut down? I even heard that there are still some churches that their basic meeting is online to this day. Why do they do that? But then I look at many of these same churches, they have no desire to promote the prophecies of the Lord. They have no desire to know the prophetic word.
They have no desire to see what God calls us in building walls to keep the world from destroying our church, and instead they invite the world in. And then they can’t figure out why there’s no power. Nehemiah and Ezra understood.
It begins in the heart. When Jesus was teaching His disciples, His disciples throughout His ministry until the end of His ministry, when Jesus really went to the cross, was buried, and rose again from the dead, and came back and commissioned them, they really didn’t fully get it because there were many times where… I remember one time Jesus was with His disciples, and He was teaching His disciples, and He was talking about how we need to walk in righteousness and holiness. And the disciples made the comment something about, well, like the Pharisees.
And Jesus said, no, not like the Pharisees. And the disciples’ response was, well, who can be more holy and righteous than the Pharisees? So what hope is there for anyone? Jesus also talked about the fact that it was easier for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. And again, the response of the disciples was, how can it be? How are you going to get a camel to go through the eye of a needle? There’s been all kinds of people that have tried to explain that away.
But I want to tell you what Jesus was showing. It’s a matter of the heart. It’s not a matter of the appearance.
It’s a matter of the ability of God to transform a man or a woman that seems impossible to be transformed, but He does it and He begins with the heart. He begins with our mind, our emotion, our will, and He transforms them from being worldly, self-centered, motivated by Satan to repent and turn and acknowledge and worship God. And that is impossible for any man to do.
But God can do it through His power and His Spirit. Nehemiah wants the people to understand where is the power coming from? Because they’re still, even with this wall, who is kidding themselves? Who are they really going to defend even though they’ve got the wall rebuilt? If an army from one of the major world powers of the time would come, it could still knock down that wall. But it could only do it if God allowed it.
And that’s what Nehemiah wants them to understand. It’s not them, it’s God. And they begin to see as they look at the Word of God, and they begin to realize we are here in the city of Jerusalem with the walls built because God called us out of Egypt, made us a nation who wasn’t a nation, brought us into it kicking and screaming with stiff-necked, hard-hearted people, brought us into this land, gave us the law, gave us the temple, gave us the worship, showed us a means, stiff-hearted, stiff-necked, hard-hearted people were taken away into Babylon and Assyria.
He brings them back and he wants them to understand, it’s your heart I’m after. I want your life. And these walls aren’t what’s important.
I’m what’s important. So when it’s explained to them, why did he give us all of this? And they’re explaining the purposes of it and the meaning of it. They’re soaking it in.
I want to tell you there’s a lot of people in churches today that don’t know the meaning and don’t know the purpose of why they’re sitting there. They think it’s to be entertained. They think it’s to have a social gathering.
They think it’s to have a potluck. No. It’s so that they can be drawn closer to God and understand Him even more.
And that they can walk with Him and be transformed every day that we won’t fail Him. That we won’t be overcome by the conspiracies that the enemies of the Lord are trying to bring against His people. But instead we’ll understand His power, His wisdom, and His righteousness.
Let’s just close in prayer. I pray that you just help us to understand why Nehemiah did the things Nehemiah did. Why did he pick the people he picked? Why did he have the gates put on? Why did he tell the people when they could open and shut the gates? Why did he call on Ezra to come and read the Word? Why did he instruct the people and encourage the people to hear the Word and have it taught to them? And they went out and explained the Word to them that they just heard.
It wasn’t enough to hear, but they needed to know. Lord, help us to be those people that want to know, that want to learn. And Lord, help us to walk circumspectly so that we may understand the adversary’s desires to assault and destroy.
But we know that You are greater than he who would desire to come against Your people. And help us to walk with You in Your power and Your might. This we ask in Jesus’ name.