Bible Survey - Nehemiah

This morning we'll continue and go through Nehemiah. Last week we looked at Ezra. As it turns out, Ezra and Nehemiah used to be bundled in the same scroll. Some people would say it was in the same book, but I think given the type of publishing that it was and the way that they kept documents, We don't really need to argue about that. There's a clean break in content. It's clear that some new stuff is going on when you get to it.

So, one way or the other, we do have the Book of Nehemiah. The book starts off, if you look at the very first verse in Nehemiah. It says, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. And I'm glad my parents didn't name me Hakaliah. Nehemiah, I could have dealt with. Hakaliah, a little weird. But Nehemiah is the author. Does that verse leave a lot of room for argument that it isn't Nehemiah? I don't think it does. It's not vague. It's not like the book of Hebrews where there's no explicit verse that says it, written by so-and-so.

Nehemiah makes it very obvious and easy to identify that it's Nehemiah. It also makes it really easy to understand that, hey, this is different from the book of Ezra. So it starts off very cleanly and distinctly. And Ezra, as far as we can understand, ends about 444 BC. Nehemiah picks up right there and continues on. So Nehemiah is...

Dude, take your pens or pencils if you have one. It's not about the restoration of the temple. I don't know why I... Yeah, so it's more about the wall and getting Jerusalem restored. So that is wrong already, so proud of that one. It's, yeah, the wall that surrounds Jerusalem. Nehemiah is not about the restoration of the temple, it's about the restoration of the wall.

We'll go ahead and we'll dig in and zip through this outline. It's 13 chapters, so it should fill most of the hour, or 45 minutes. What do we have, 45 minutes to an hour? I can never remember, I just know I have to teach until Brian pushes the buzzer two times.

So, taking that into account, Nehemiah starts, as he writes there in the first several verses, he starts by asking travelers that have come from Jerusalem back into Persia, where he's at, and they don't have good news. They're a little sad with the state of things in Jerusalem. and probably the most cited part of Nehemiah as I was doing studies and looking at what other people cited about Nehemiah. Let's take a look at starting at verse 3. They said to me, the remnant there is in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I said, I beseech you, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you, and I and my Father's house have sinned." And he continues to the rest of the chapter, and I will stop reading at that point in time, but he reminds God of his covenant promise from Deuteronomy.

And he says, you said that if we sin, we'd be cast out. And we have been. But you also said if we repent, you'll draw us back in. Nehemiah prays corporately, even though it seems that he's by himself at this point in time. He's intercessory prayer. He's praying for the nation of Israel and says, we repent. So that hopefully God would restore Israel back to the promised land. So we start out with Nehemiah dealing with that, and then in chapter 2, Artaxerxes is the king. And in chapter 2, we find out that Nehemiah, or actually the very last verse of chapter 1, Nehemiah is a cup bearer.

And that's one of those jobs that sounds like as long as there's no poison in the cup, that's a pretty posh job. As soon as there's poison in the cup, it stops being a cool one. So Nehemiah is sad for the first time, and Artaxerxes notices that Nehemiah is handing him his cup and hasn't died yet. He's not going to die, that's the good news.

Artaxerxes asks him what's bothering him, and Nehemiah tells him that he's very concerned for his homeland, Jerusalem, the land of his fathers, and asks for permission to go back to Jerusalem. And Artaxerxes asks him how long he's going to be gone. I think that's kind of one of those funny questions, mostly because at any moment he's prepared for Nehemiah to die. You know, he's the cupbearer. His job is to die first, right?

And so, how long you're gonna be gone is one of those questions where like, well, it's not gonna matter if he gets poisoned, but Artaxerxes asks anyways. And Nehemiah tells him apparently the right answer because Artaxerxes sends him to Jerusalem with soldiers and a letter and says, go, take care of your homeland. which is obviously convenient for the story of the book, but it's actually something that Nehemiah holds on to as we read the rest of the book. Nehemiah holds on to God's provision. God has directed the steps that he's taking. My handout is nice, but I like looking at the text. The next section of the text, we see that that Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem. Ta-da!

No mention of the journey. Must have been boring or something. Just like we said last week, it was actually a slightly different route, but about the same distance from here to Nevada, Carson City, Nevada, by foot. So, quite a bit of a journey, and he doesn't make much mention of it.

So, there you go, four months pass, and then, so the slight irony of that is that four months pass and he doesn't say anything about it, and then you get to verse 11 and he talks about being in Jerusalem for three days. So, Nehemiah is in Jerusalem for three days, and then he goes out for a walk at night, unsupervised, he sneaks, okay? So, Abbey, if you're listening, don't sneak out like that. So Nehemiah sneaks, he goes out and he checks out and he sees how distraught or how broken down things are. He looks at the various places and in verse 16 says, the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done, nor had I as yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the rest who did the work.

Then I said to them, You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate, and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a reproach. 18 I told them how the hand of my God had been favorable to me, and also about the king's words which he had spoken to me. Then he said, Let us arise and build, so that they put their hands to do. the good work.

So Nehemiah immediately, after having been, immediately, we've already said it's been four months and three days, right? Nehemiah, when he communicates with the Jews that are there, he says, God's favor is on us. So the king's provision is there, and he knows exactly who the source is.

It's God. It's not Oh, we're so lucky. Oh man, that worked out in our favor. It's not accidental. Nehemiah sees God's hand in his provision. He also recognizes that God's using the king. Using the king is a pretty big deal. If God uses a donkey, we think that's pretty miraculous. When we talk about God using a donkey, we're like, wow, that was amazing. But God using a king is just as miraculous.

So it's a pretty big deal. The other thing that's the last part of that verse, then they said, let us arise and build. So they put their hands to the good work. Why is it significant that it's the good work? It's not bad work, yeah. It's not a bad work. But if you recognize that God's hand is behind it, then that's a cool thing to do.

How many times in your life have you been uncertain and you just go into some next decision and you don't know, and you're putting effort towards something and you don't know? That can be a big question mark. I remember I was all set in my mind to go be a worship leader, so I bought a really expensive guitar, which I'm still using here, and I was ready to go do all these things with my, I'm going to be a worship leader mindset, and the Lord just shut it down. I was prepared to do the good work, only it wasn't the good work I was called to do.

But in this case, this is the good work that they were called to do, and they could walk with confidence that the Lord had provided. So then in chapter 3, he's going to list all the gates that they rebuild and who was doing the rebuilding of the different gates.

The city had different gates that were for different purposes. For the sake of time, I'm not going to go into that. If you want to do further study on that, you can. There's all kinds of materials that are out there, including some really interesting ones that draw all kinds of references to Christ and try to make each gate you know, tie to Christ, which I don't think is really a biblical thing to do, but people have really tried to do that, so it's out there, so be careful what you find on the internet, right?

So, chapter 3, we get the gates, and so that is good, but in chapter 4, after he's outlined who has worked on the different gates, we get into the depressing part of Nehemiah. Because in verse 4-1 he says, Now it came about that when Sambalat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews. And every time we see this name of Sambalat and the rest of Nehemiah, it turns out he's not very helpful. So his efforts quickly spread, and he tells other people in verse 4-3 there, Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him, and he said, Even what they are building, if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down.

So obviously we know that's kind of snarky, and he's mocking them, but here's the kind of support they're getting from the locals. And they're not just the locals, they're the local leaders. The people that are influencing the culture around them and the Gentiles around them are incredibly negative towards them. Then let's take a look at 4.4.

This is another prayer. So, Nehemiah is honest with the Lord about how he feels about this whole thing. What's interesting, he says, don't forgive them. Now, what is the, as we know from scripture, what is the requirement for forgiveness? Is it that Nehemiah prays for us? Forgive your enemies? Okay, well, forgiving your enemies. Well, the thing is that forgiveness requires coming through whatever God has revealed up to that point in time as required. So in the case of the law, there's a whole process of what would be there.

They would need to approach the Lord as God had revealed and become part of Israel. which they're not likely to do since they're pretty antagonistic. But Nehemiah is boldly stating here that he's not keen on their works and that they've demoralized the builders.

Verse 4-6, So we built the wall, and the whole wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work. So again, there's that reference to work again. And this is not promoting workaholism, but it is the idea that the Israelites were actually working, and they were devoted to it. Even though they were demoralized, they were still putting forth the effort. They were still moving forward. So they built the wall to half its height. I'm not sure if a fox could jump that high or not.

It does. I don't like PowerPoint, so I don't have any slides, and I apologize for that. But if you have seen in the main service a few times in the last month, my dad's actually had a picture of Jerusalem, and there's a wall that goes all the way around it. It doesn't circumvent it. That's the wrong word. I think the other thing, too, is he took the wall down to bedrock. Oh, OK. All right. So that it couldn't be undermined. Yeah. That's a lot of work. Is this like a mile circumference? I don't know the diameter. Take a look at that, I don't know the number right off hand. It's no small project is what it comes down to.

So the wall was joined together, and then there's this verse 7, then there's the Sanbalat and Tobiah guy. the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on and that the breaches began to be closed and they were very angry all of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it and then in verse 9 the people prayed again Nehemiah has more prayers in density than that just go right to the Lord as soon as there's a problem.

It's fantastic. There's a lesson right there. When you have adversity, pray. That sounds like an obvious thing in the church, but it is something that sometimes we forget to do. So Nehemiah, they pray, and verse 11, our enemy said, they will not know or see until we come among them, kill them, and put a stop to the work. And so what they do is they station men and what was going on with all the men working on the wall now gets split in half effort so that the other half can guard. Day and night. Guarding to prevent the people to come through. Stan? actually were there? Yes, yes we do actually as it turns out because we get later on in Chapter 7 we actually get a tally.

So all of the men together were 42,360 that were there. I don't know that all of them were building but I mean they had fields and things that they were working on that other parts talk about. But there was a good chunk of folks that were there. As big as the project was, it was also not like three guys trying to work a lot of overtime. That kind of manual labor, I bet you they were pretty well ripped. They were not a bunch of fat Jews. There was definitely a lot of energy that went into that. I can't believe I just said fat Jews on a recording. Okay, so I don't mean that in a derogatory way.

So in verse 21, so we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared. At that time I also said to the people, let each man with a servant spend the night within Jerusalem so that they may be a guard for us by night and a laborer by day. So at nighttime, if you were working all day long, sleep inside of Jerusalem so that if there is an attack, they can quickly arm themselves and fight back.

So chapter four we wind down with now there's a guard on the wall as they're building. Chapter five is a detour. It actually steps into some of the topic of what's going to come down in the later parts of the book. Chapter 5 says, Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.

For there were those who said, We our sons and our daughters are many, therefore let us get grain that we may eat and live. So there's a famine. And then in verse 3, there were others who said, We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses that we might get grain because of the famine. So there's famine and there's debt. Which, as it turns out, is kind of a bummer.

And so what they were doing is they were borrowing money from other Jews or grain or whatever else to pay their taxes. Because remember the Gentiles were still ruling over them for the most part. So they were having to pay taxes and this was a big deal.

So Nehemiah, in verse 6, "...then I was very angry when I heard their outcry, and these words I consulted with myself..." I think that's a funny thing to say. "...I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers, and said to them, you are exacting usury each from his brother. Therefore I held a great assembly against them."

When there's a mob, I mean, let's face it, he's drawn. Assembled the people against the people that are lending. And they say, hey, we didn't mean to hurt anybody, and they forgive the debts, which is convenient. When a mob is angry, I guess the outcome opposite of that is maybe you forgive the debts by not being alive anymore, or other worse, bad kind of scenarios. Verse 9, and again, I said, the thing which you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies?

And so the debts are forgiven, and they move on in verse 31, the last half. So the forgiveness of the debts changed the attitude. Again, they already had the Gentiles lording things over them and making it difficult. So to have the Jews forgive their debts amongst them, one another, was a big deal.

And it could keep them focused on the one thing. One of the things I ran into as I was studying for this is people said, there's great leadership principles in Nehemiah. So you could maybe have a Nehemiah-based business book or something like that. But the truth of the matter is that there are actually some good leadership principles that go here. But Nehemiah did this with the direction of the Lord. That's probably the ultimate business principle as a believer is that you're abiding, you're praying a lot, you're seeking the Lord.

And then maybe second, I like what you have here that says, Nehemiah keeps his needs minimal so as not to exact further taxes as governor. So 14 through the end of the chapter approximately, we see that there is basically Nehemiah saying, I did whatever I could to keep my costs down so he didn't have to tax the people. Because he had the right, he was governor, he was sent there by Artaxerxes, and he had the right to tax the people and say, hey, I have needs and I have people I've got to pay that are under my direction as a steward of Artaxerxes' command. Again, he tried to keep his expenses minimal.

Verse 519, he says, Remember me, O my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people. So several times throughout the book, Nehemiah writes something like that. Remember these things about me, Lord. Instead of making a statement, let me ask a question. Why would he do that? Why would he ask the Lord to remember him for these things? What is the reflection? Is it arrogance or is it something else? Does Nehemiah think he's pretty righteous? This seems to reflect a humility, actually, despite it sounding like, hey, remember me, I've been doing all these things. He realizes that he's still a sinner. He realizes that when God looks at him, God knows his innermost being and knows his failings. but he's trying to walk obediently to the Lord's direction and provision in this.

So in chapter 6, then we see Sanballat and Tobiah again, and man, those guys are no good. They're definitely not handy to have around. The bad guys, as I will refer to them, even though maybe that's not how Nehemiah records it. But the bad guys decide they're going to send a message to Nehemiah and say, hey, will you come out of this valley so we can talk to you? But Nehemiah, being savvy, realized that they wanted to kill him. And so four times they send a messenger, and four times Nehemiah denies them. So the fifth time comes around in verse 5, 6-5 Then Sanbalat sent his servant to me in the same manner a fifth time, with an open letter in his hand.

It was written, It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. Therefore you are rebuilding the wall, and you are to be their king, according to these reports. You have also appointed prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you. A king is in Judah, and now it will be reported to the king according to these reports.

So come now, let us take counsel together." See, they're just so concerned for his safety and security. Verse 8, Then I sent a message to him, saying, Such things as you are saying have not been done, but you are inventing them in your own mind. For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking they will become discouraged with the work and it will not be done. But now, O God, strengthen my hands." Again, every time there's adversity, he prays and he focuses on the work. God has sent me to do the work, I'm going to do the work. So we see this pattern again.

10-14, we find out that Tobias and Sanballat actually have a guy inside of Israel who's taken a bribe who tries to get Nehemiah to lock himself up in the temple so that he can't encourage the workers anymore just to make sure he's safe. These guys are really insidious and they're devious and they figured out If we can use our purse strings to try to influence this, we can really prevent Israel from being strong. Of course, they fail. So in 615, we see, So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month of Elul in fifty-two days.

When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence, for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of a good work ethic. It was the Protestant work ethic, right? What does he say? He says, with the help of our God. So the nations were upset because the work was completed and they knew that God had provided for them. Now if you're from their background, that's frustrating because they have their own gods. Al? Not to be too ornery, but the words there, they perceived that this work was done by our God. Okay. Okay.

I mean, we as humans often think that God needs our help. I've had that problem in the past that I thought I was important to God. Well, yeah, the word help doesn't have to be interpreted that way, but it could. Just to emphasize the fact that BMI is giving credit to God. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

It sounds like they did 52 days worth of work. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they were, like for example, Nehemiah wouldn't have had them work on the Sabbath. So I don't know if it's 52 work days. It says 52 days, so I can tell you it says 52 days from when they started based on this. If you've got thousands of people working on it and they're all focused on one section, it is possible that they could make progress. But it would have been pretty intense. It is an impressive number. I certainly wouldn't downplay that.

I was going to say, it's very interesting because it's very similar today because you have this large group of people, liberals, who really keep saying about the right-wing liberals, so to speak, that, OK, let's see what your God can do. And then when something really does happen, they're all in church worshiping that God, just like when 9-11 happened. You know, all these same people that are denying that God exists and that he's not doing anything for these people, as soon as a catastrophe happens right here, when they actually completed their work, then they become believers.

Well, yeah, we're going to get into the response of Israel. Because Nehemiah, now that the wall's done, he's got the next half of the book left. where he's going to have to kick some bum and take names if you know what I mean. So, in chapter 7 there, Now when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed, then I put Hanani, my brother, and Hananiah, the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. Then he said, guard the gates, which had just worked all this effort on getting the wall and the gates all fixed. And then the next thing that they do is they actually take a census.

And so we get a long list of the people that were involved. working on the various elements and of course in 766 we see the whole assembly together was 42,360 like we mentioned earlier. So we got a bunch of folks that are there and we know how many people have returned, how many Israelites have returned from their captivity. Then in chapter 8, we're going to see a real transition for the nation of Israel, at least temporarily, as something big happens.

And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the water gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square, which was in front of the water gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand, and all the people were attentive to the book of the law."

So the people, they complete it, they know that God's provided all of the materials and provided their protection for this. they respond by going back to God. To this point in time, this is God's provision for them as a nation. So as much as we put effort today at Holly Hills to say we're under grace, these people were under the law and so they were complying with God's instruction and they were turning back to the Lord after His provision.

Is this the first five books? Is this the Torah that you're actually reading? Yeah, this would have been probably the first. It's the books of Moses, so it's going to be there. And it may have been more specifically some of the legal things rather than the creation account or Noah, although there is the covenant with Noah that they may have reiterated. But that's a long time to read and just sit and listen. But they wanted to make time to sit and listen. It makes our church services really short, right? Let's see here.

8-6 Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, while lifting up their hands. Then they bowed low and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 8-9 They read from the book from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. So, just in case you don't understand this, here, let's make sure you understand it.

How many times have you been to a religious service, we'll sadly call it a church service, where somebody speaks with authority and tells you that this is what the texts mean, and you're not really supposed to understand it, you're just supposed to take what they say as the meaning. Luckily, I've only been in one specific church service where that was the case. It made me really angry. But throughout my exposure to Christianism, I've heard of a lot of people who are so-called pastors or teachers that come out and they lord things over the people.

But this, in this case, we can see that they wanted the people to understand. You need to understand what is in your And then 9 through the rest of the chapter, verse 9, 8, 9 through the rest of the chapter, we see that they kind of consecrate this time and set it aside as a holy time because the nation has turned their hearts back to God's law. And then in 13 through 18, we see that they realize that they could participate in the Feast of Booths right then.

And my favorite thing about the Feast of Booths today is that Mike Doyle lives in a very predominantly Jewish neighborhood and his neighbors always kind of slap, they go to Home Depot and they slap together some 4x8 sheets of plywood and some 2x4s and they make a tent that they live in on their driveways or their back porches.

So that's kind of fun. When you first drive by, you're like, what on earth? Did they get a building permit for that? And the answer is no. And it's obvious that they didn't because that would never pass inspection. But the Feast of Booths is there. And so they obey God's law and they do the Feast of Booths or the tents, which was to commemorate God's provision as they traveled through the desert.

Alright, so Nehemiah chapter 9, we're making good progress here. The heading in my Bible is that people confess their sin, but as is continuing on with their response to God's law being read, they recognize that they've made mistakes and that they've not been complying with God's law. Verse 9-3, while they stood in their place, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day, and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the Lord their God." That left half the day for other things, but that's pretty monumental that people would, as a nation, gather and worship God and confess to the Lord and walk in relationship to Him.

That's pretty awesome. So in verse 5 we see the beginning of what appears to be a song that the Levites are singing or saying, and it's a worship song. It's very worshipful. We don't have a melody for it, and I don't know how it flows in the Hebrew, but it's pretty awesome that they've got this song that is reflective of the change of heart that the nation of Israel has. As a writer of songs, some of them useful, some of them not, it's one of those things where I think Someone had to craft this. Someone had to understand the message and take this and put it to music and then do something with it. And they sang this before the nation of Israel.

And that's a very memorable thing to do. That's the thing about music. How often do you hear a song and it gets stuck in your head? If it's a pop song, they have computer software, I swear, that just writes a catchy hook so it will bore itself in your head no matter how stupid the lyrics are, right? It gets stuck in your head. But music is a way to carry a message.

Music is a way to teach people something and they sing it and it becomes part of their mind and their lives. And so there's a lot of value in the nation of Israel turning their hearts back to the Lord and then taking on either poetry or song and internalizing it.

And there's a lot of power to that. And there's a lot of confession in this one as well. It's not just God's awesome. It's God's awesome and boy did we blow it. So there's some good stuff in there. I'd read it all for you because it's really cool except for that we don't have enough time. So please make a note and either today or later on this week if you have a chance, go back and read it because it's very powerful.

The result of This song or poem that is presented by the Levites in 9.38, now because of all this we are making an agreement in writing and on the sealed document are the names of our leaders, our Levites and our priests. This sealed document is sealed in the first half of chapter 10 all the way through verse 27 are the lists of the names.

And then in 28, the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, all those, they joined with their kinsmen and nobles, and they took on the curse and the oath to walk in God's law. So they renewed their vows, so to speak, kind of like we do with weddings today. They renewed their vows with God as a nation of Israel. they also promised to take care of the priests and make sure that the temple could continue running and operate as was needed.

So in chapter 11, time passes and so we see that the the city of Jerusalem was not big enough to hold all of the people that were there and so one out of every ten is selected to go live in the city. Now why do you need people living inside the city?

You have protection. That's a key detail. The Levites need to be able to run the temple. You need to have trading going on there so that, frankly, you get allies and things like that from trade. But you have a culture that's being part of there, and also the protection that comes with that.

But it's too big for all the people, so everybody else stays outside in their various other cities around Jerusalem. and one out of ten go into Jerusalem. So it's really not the protection necessarily of the people that are inside the walls, but of the temple and the things inside the temple most likely. Nine out of ten. It's all of those. And they're under more attack than those.

It's possible that they'd be attacked, but it's one of those things where the principle of protection of the temple and also to maintain the wall because that's the thing is that the walls have been torn down by the gentile cultures around them and they didn't want it built up and so it's like well now we've got to be very intentional about preserving this so it doesn't get destroyed again.

So we see that one out of ten are drawn in and then we get a listing of some of the heads of the provinces and those that are involved with Jerusalem. And then in 1120, the rest of Israel of the priests and the Levites were in all the cities of Judah, each on his own inheritance. And the Temple servants were living in Ophel, and Zihah and Gishpah were in charge of the Temple servants. So we give this long list of folks that are participating from a Levitical standpoint. And then in chapter 12, priests and Levites who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and it lists those.

So you've got more generations. Anybody love reading all the names? For me, that's like, ahhh. Because usually there's not a lot there. But as it turns out, and the Lord kind of exposed this to me, when I was teaching through Genesis, there's a lot of names that get mentioned in Genesis. As you look at the names, if you have time, and I recommend that it's worthwhile taking the time, look at the meanings of the names. I don't happen to have a lot of these all anglicized so that we can understand what their meaning is in English, but it's interesting the names that people had, the names that were there.

We tend to name our children along a cultural pattern. My wife Jessica has one of the most common names in the United States for a woman from the generation she was born in. Because culturally it was a popular name. Now it turns out our niece has a very common name, Isabella, because of those Twilight books. It became really popular.

So there's trends that happen in our culture, but that's not the case necessarily for the different names that we see here. There is some repetition, but there's actually value in the names. They carry a meaning with them. So the genealogies may not be a blast to read, but there's actually some interesting insights that can be drawn from there.

So, let's skip forward to 1227. Now, the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. They sought out the Levites from all their places to bring them to Jerusalem so they might celebrate the dedication with gladness, with hymns of thanksgiving, and with songs to the accompaniment of a piano.

No, not even an organ. With cymbals, harps, and lyres. So we need a drum set. Not everybody agrees with me on that. But cymbals, harps and lyres. So they brought in the priests and they brought in singers. The sons of the singers were assembled from the district around Jerusalem and from the villages of the, wow, the Antophathites. And then in verse 30, the priests and the Levites purified themselves, they also purified the people, the gates and the wall.

Now I want to take just a moment, I just talked about music and drum sets, and no one stoned me so that was good, but one of the things about the music from my own studies that I was able to find, and obviously we don't have time travel so it's hard to go back and listen to it and take recordings and share the mp3s on iTunes and all that other stuff, right?

But from what we understand, there's not a lot of complex symphonic polyphony type music. It would have been probably in unison that they would have sung. And that's something that we, I mean, we take for granted that there's folks in the church that, what doesn't matter what's on the overhead or in your hymnal, people will sing harmonies. It's just part of music as we know it today. But that's not necessarily what they had at the time. but they had a lot of singers and they gathered and it would have been loud and hopefully in tune, but it would have been loud and they would have sung in unison. So, wrapping up because I know Brian is going to ring that bell soon.

Then the leaders of Judah come up on top of the wall and they send the choirs, two different choirs to different parts of the wall and so now they're setting aside or consecrating this wall, they're dedicating it to the Lord, that God has provided the wall for Israel and then they worship Him and praise Him. And they do that for all of chapter 12. Chapter 13, on that day they read aloud from the book of Moses. You notice a pattern yet? This is a really big switch.

They had walked away from the Lord and the Lord had sent them out of Israel. and they came back and they really humbled themselves before the Lord as a nation. Sadly, that's not going to last indefinitely, but it's something where the Lord had the hearts of the people.

As a result of the law, in 13.3, so when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel. Now this makes me kind of chuckle, mostly because the foreigners had been such a pain in the behind all the way through this book. We're 13th, last chapter of the book, and they're finally like, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. A little slow, but they figure it out finally, and so they separate themselves from the foreigners who'd been so difficult. Tobiah expelled and the temple cleansed from four to nine. This is sad.

Now prior to this, Eliashib, the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, Being related to Tobiah, again, this guy's a jerk, we already know he's a problem, had prepared a large room for himself where formally they put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the utensils, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil prescribed for the Levites, the singers and the gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests. He set up his own little space inside the temple. Was that where God had assigned for the priests to live?

No. It's like, this is pretty posh, I like it, we'll take it. He didn't have to arrange anything with his real estate agent or anything because he was in charge so he could just make some kind of stupid decision and go forth with it. So Tobiah and his relative is expelled. In 10-14 we see that the tithe is restored so that the Levites can continue. Oh, I just said tithe at church. Real quick. What is the purpose of the tithe? It's to support the Levites.

It's not your 10% that you give to church so that God doesn't get angry at you, right? Isn't that how we get taught in some churches? They're like, you need to give 10%. That's what God wants. The 10% was for the Levites. So if we were going to follow that in today's church, which we're not, I'm not recommending, it would be that we give 10% to pay for the elders. And then on top of that, you've got to actually offer your offering. So your 10% is just the beginning.

So they reinstantiate the tithe to make sure that the Levites are taken care of. And then in 15, we see that the Sabbath has been ignored. And so the Sabbath was ignored. They were crushing grapes for wine on the Sabbath. which is apparently, you know, I don't know why they thought that was a good idea, but they were doing it. So Nehemiah says, no crushing grapes on the Sabbath, and then he actually closes all the gates so the traders can't come in and trade on the Sabbath. And so some of the people actually spend the night out at the gate thinking, well, we'll get it in the morning. And Nehemiah says, just so you know, you're not welcome here on the Sabbath, and if you don't learn your lesson, we're going to hurl things at you from the wall so that you'll scurry off, and so the people stop coming to trade on the Sabbath. So Nehemiah restores the Sabbath, and the nation of Israel, of course, returns to taking that day of rest.

And the last section of chapter 13 here is the restoration of marriage only from those who believe in God as Jews. Why do I say those who believe in God as Jews, rather than Jews marrying Jews? You didn't have to be born a Jew. You could convert to Judaism and then you could marry inside of...

But you had to be fully committed. As a male, that meant that you volunteered to be circumcised. Yippee skippy on that one. But you committed yourself to the Lord all the way. And then you could come from the outside. It's spiritual, not just ethnic. Yeah, it's not genetic. But Nehemiah wants them to remember that marrying outside of the spiritual relationship with God was going to be a problem. So the mixed marriages are forbidden and the spiritual relationship for the husband and wife needed to be focused on the Lord together. The children needed to not be marrying inside and outside, or outside of the relationship with the Lord, because it would cause further division and further heartache. Alright, so we managed to scream through the book of Nehemiah. I didn't get into some of the other things I wanted to point out, but that's okay. Any questions, thoughts, things that you wish I had or had not said?

When Paul went out, the first thing that he always said, not first thing, but many times he said, I'm an apostle, so that was his authority. So what was it that Nehemiah really had that allowed him to assume that position of authority that his people would actually follow him? I mean, he couldn't say, I'm a cup bearer.

What he said is, he had a letter from Artaxerxes. And he said, he told them, God has provided for me. I have the King's blessing to come do this. They were already trying to work on it, but their efficiency was really bad. And he came with a fresh group of Jews with the King's blessing and humility and saying, God has done this. This is something that God is doing. I know I should wrap up. I just want to draw two things.

We have Christ and Nehemiah, and it's always a little rough where there's not an angel of the Lord reference or something to have Christ in the book. But Christ and Nehemiah both prayed many intercessory prayers. They were humble, praying individuals.

Christ was talking to his Father in a way that, sure, the rest of us wouldn't have a full understanding of without Christ in our lives. But Nehemiah prayed for the nation and put himself in their place and prayed broken-hearted prayers over and over again. Christ did the same.

The other thing is they were determined to do God's will. Nehemiah faced Gentiles and apparently some really dumb Jews who were bribed, who were trying to slow things down or break things down so that the wall was never completed. Christ was dealing with dumb Jews who didn't recognize that he was the Messiah and came in and were constantly breaking things down and trying to slow him down. But he was determined to do the will of God. Christ was determined and so was Nehemiah. And those are important principles that we see in the book relating Nehemiah and Christ.

Alright, I should close because there's folks who are ready to come in. But we'll be back again next week with Esther. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just commit these things into our hearts and minds as we study Nehemiah and see your provision and the character of the people who serve you in the Old Testament. I just ask that you would draw to our hearts and minds the truth throughout the week so that we would constantly be reminded of those things until you come. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.