The Final Chapter That Isn’t the Final Chapter

Daniel Baker – Nehemiah 13 – God’s Construction Project: Ezra-Nehemiah – Dec 18, 2022

Introduction

Why we’re standing during reading of God’s Word. Part of season of thinking through elements of our Sunday service. Prophecies. Songs. Prayers. Announcements. Preaching. Lord’s Supper.

Please stand...

Reading Nehemiah 13:4–14

We love breakthroughs and revivals. Times when it seems like growth is automatic. Profits are soaring. People are coming. If it’s a spiritual revival, conversions are happening and lives are changing right before our eyes.

God is kind to bring seasons like this, where the blessings of the Christian life seem to come easily.

But like Peter, James, and John on the mount of transfiguration, eventually the glory cloud lifts. Normal life comes with a vengeance. The glories of Sunday become the challenges of Monday morning. Suddenly things aren’t so easy.

In Nehemiah 12 last week we reached the heights of Ezra-Nehemiah. Temple, walls, worship, covenant—it was all there and the people rejoiced so much “the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away” (Neh 12:43).

Now we come to THE FINAL CHAPTER. But it’s really THE FINAL CHAPTER THAT ISN’T THE FINAL CHAPTER. The FINAL CHAPTER that tells us we’re a long way from the real FINAL CHAPTER.

Our series: God’s construction project. We’ve seen the building of the 2^nd Temple—temple standing when Jesus ministered, temple till AD 70. We’ve seen Ezra rebuild the religion of the people as he called them back to the Word of God. Seen Nehemiah lead a rebuilding of the walls—and another calling back to Word of God and even renewing the covenant. All seemed to pave the way for decades or even centuries of spiritual fruitfulness.

But all this only takes us to Nehemiah 12, last week’s sermon.

God saw fit to end the story with Nehemiah 13.
In chp 13, Nehemiah the great reformer had to to check in w/ Artaxerxes (ruled Persia 464–423 BC). He’d been away 12 years, so appropriate.
After a while asked permission and returned to Jerusalem.
What he saw wasn’t pretty.
NOT just a city where grass wasn’t cut and bushes weren’t trimmed—superficial problems or signs of disrepair.
BUT a city where signs of unfaithfulness to God were everywhere.
The revival fires had long since cooled.
Normal life came with a vengeance.
God’s people crumpled.

This chapter is a call to action. A challenge to never stop working to build up the church of God.

Sermon theme: Keep building the church by (1) generous giving, (2) biblical worship, and (3) biblical marriage.

I. Keep Building the Church by Generous Giving

Two scenes the both connect to “the house of God.”

Scene 1 – “cleansed the chambers...brought back...vessels of...house of God” (v. 9).
Scene 2 – Tithes stopped and Levites had left. Nehemiah, “Why is the house of God forsaken?”

Scene 1 – Nehemiah13:4–9

Here Nehemiah confronts a foe he’s battled the entire time in Jerusalem.
“Tobiah the Ammonite” is first introduced in Nehemiah 2:10 standing alongside “Sanballat the Horonite.”
After arriving in Jerusalem the first time with resources from Artaxerxes to rebuild, Tobiah wasn’t happy:

But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel. (Neh 2:10)

In chapter 4, Tobiah mocked the walls, said they couldn’t hold up a fox.
In chapter 6, Tobiah hired people to prophesy against Nehemiah.
Tobiah’s letter-writing smear campaign to ruin Nehemiah’s reputation (6:17, 19).
So, when THIS GUY of all guys makes apartment in the temple, it’s a sign the cancer has returned and Jerusalem is sick again.
Happened while Nehemiah away.
When returned, he was “very angry” and “threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber” (13:8). A man of action. Conviction.
Cleansing the House of God – 13:9.
Sounds a lot like Jesus cleansing the temple 4 ½ centuries later.
After Jesus does it in John 2:

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:17)

Same could be said of Nehemiah: “Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17 citing Ps 69:9).

Scene 2 – 13:10–14

In the second scene, it’s about the tithes. Tithes had stopped.
Result was “Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field” (13:10).
Nehemiah’s question, “Why is the house of God forsaken?”
Remember: At this time, because the presence of God was centered in the temple, concern for “the house of God” is concern for God. Not just a building. It’s the place where God chose to place his name.
Reorganized the Levites to collect and store and then distribute the tithes.
Tithes weren’t checks and cash. They were food items. Needed storage.

Application: Hold fast to God’s vision for giving

Malachi – prophet who may have prophesied during these years of Israel’s history.

One of the reasons we think this is the closeness of the issues raised in Malachi to those raised in Ezra-Nehemiah.
On the tithe:

8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. (Mal 3:8–10)

A tithe means “a tenth,” 10%.
Is this a Christian practice or just an OT one?
With a commandment, what changes with the coming of Christ?
Does his death fulfill something that makes the commandment no longer practically applicable?
With the tithes, this was the God-given method to provide for the tabernacle and the priesthood.
They were both a sacrificial offering given to God, and they were practical provision for the Levites.
In the NT, our giving is the same thing. It’s a sacrificial offering given to God and the practical provision for the ministry of the church (Phil 4:10–18)—the facility, people, programs that generate ministry in the church.
Therefore, though NT emphasizes generous giving (2 Cor 8–9) the tithe principle seems to be applicable still.
Maybe 2023 is a year to challenge yourself and your family to tithe? Or perhaps to increase your percentage of giving?

Keep building the church by generous giving and second, with biblical worship.

II. Keep Building the Church with Biblical Worship

The second major issue is about the Sabbath. READ NEH 13:15–22.

One of the major aspects of life as a Jew.

4^th Commandment of the Decalogue:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exod 20:8–11)

Within the era of the old covenant:

Not just any which day. It was the 7^th
Meant a work stoppage. Day of rest for you, your servants, animals.
Rest was the emphasis throughout the OT.
But there is also worship (Psalm 92; Lev 23:3).
And sacrifices to be offered (Num 28:9; Lev 24:8; 1 Chr 23:31).

And God threatened specific threats if they didn’t keep it:

“But if you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.” (Jer 17:27)

In the revival of chapters 9–10 they had made great promises about the importance of the Sabbath. How they would keep it set apart.

Their intentions faded and Sabbath—sundown Friday till sundown Saturday—became a day for buying and selling like any other day.
Nehemiah’s response: Nehemiah 13:17.
“Profane” = defile, desecrate, treat something holy as if it’s vile.
They were treating this holy day of the week as if it was ordinary, common.
But notice he blames “the nobles of Judah,” ones with more influence and ability to keep or break the Sabbath.

APPLICATION: Hold fast to God’s vision for worship

The Sabbath is the commandment in the Ten Commandments that’s not like the others. It’s the Waldo Commandment.
Why? Because it’s a mix of ceremonial and moral.
Even the strictest Puritans understood.
That’s why they didn’t practice a Saturday Sabbath.
They shifted the 7^th day practice to the 1^st day of the week.
The argument for this is that the NT church gathered together on the 1^st day of the week for worship, not the 7^th day:

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1 Cor 16:2)

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. (Acts 20:7)

That tells us something in the fourth commandment is different.
But then we have the words of Paul to the Colossians:

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:16–17)

The “Sabbath” is a “shadow of the things to come.” Substance is Christ.
What are aspects of this "substance" in Christ?
THE SUBSTANCE IS THE LORD’S DAY (Rev 1:10): Day of resurrection, Day of Pentecost. We worship on Sundays, the 1st day, and not Saturdays, the 7th day. We want even the day we choose to highlight the glory of Christ.
THE SUBSTANCE IS REST: “There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb 4:9). Hebrews 4 teaches a spiritual rest in Christ and also a coming future rest. An eternal rest where Physical/spiritual rest to recharge.
THE SUBSTANCE IS REGULAR WORSHIP: 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:24–25)

Keep building the church with generous giving, biblical worship, and biblical marriage.

III. Keep Building the Church with Biblical Marriage

Third issue is once again intermarriage, marrying women who didn’t believe in God.

Israelites married women from surrounding nations: Ashdod (west, near Mediterranean), Ammon (east across Jordan), Moab (southeast, other side Dead Sea fr Jerusalem).
Issue wasn’t race. It was religion.
Issue was marrying women who didn’t believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Nehemiah scolds them for forgetting Exhibit A for why this is a bad idea: SOLOMON!!
Nehemiah 13:26.
Nehemiah knows his Bible history.
He knew 1 Kings 11 well.

1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. (1 Kgs 11:1–4)

Nehemiah’s other nemesis, “Sanballat the Horonite,” also makes an appearance here.

In the high priest’s family was someone who married Sanballat’s daughter.
The very man trying to undermine and destroy the work of God in Jerusalem—a man from the high priest’s family married his daughter.
What!?!?!
Nehemiah’s zeal was intense.
Perhaps a 50–60-yr old man, this was beyond his patience.
So, “I chased him from me” (Nehemiah 13:28).

APPLICATION – Hold fast to God’s vision for marriage

There is a God-given understanding of marriage.
One man and one woman coming together to form “one flesh” in a lifelong commitment.
This is what Jesus said was true “in the beginning.”
Matthew 19:

4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:4–6)

We are made either “male” or “female” (2 genders). And marriage is designed to bring one of each together.
You can’t fulfill the “one flesh” aspect if you don’t have two genders.
You can’t fulfill the “unity-in-diversity” if you don’t have two genders.
You can’t fulfill the blending of the husband’s responsibilities and the wife’s responsibilities if you don’t have two genders. Marriage is to be a picture of Christ and the church. That picture is lost when there aren’t two genders.
Governments can slap labels on things. That’s within their authority.
But they can’t change what is true by God’s design.
A government can say, “there’s no such thing as lions.”
From now on, the thing called a “lion” will be called a “freckle.”
Who was ever killed by a “freckle”? No one!
Changing the name of something doesn’t change what it is.
Changing the name of something doesn’t change what it is NOT also.
First thing, a man marries a woman.

And second, a Christian is to marry a Christian:

14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial [Antichrist]? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? (2 Cor 6:14–15)

And “only in the Lord”:

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. (1 Cor 7:39)

All you can do is your best here.
Some people appear to be believers but aren’t.
You can’t control what happens down the road of life.
All you can do is honestly assess the fruit and faith of a person.

Keep building the church with generous giving, biblical worship, and biblical marriage.

Conclusion

I passed over Nehemiah’s private prayers in the chapter. Four times he addresses God in urgent, personal ways. That’s how he closes the book, too. Here are three of those prayers:

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. (Neh 13:14)

Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. (Neh 13:22)

Remember me, O my God, for good. (Neh 13:31)

If God “remembers” us, it doesn’t matter if no one else does. Really. And if God doesn’t remember us, it doesn’t matter if the world sings your praises for ten thousand years.

The ultimate answer to Nehemiah’s “remember me” is what we celebrate every Christmas. When Zechariah broke out in a worshipful prophecy at the birth of John the Baptist he saw what was happening.

This was God “remembering his covenant,” remembering his mercy, remembering his people (Luke 1:72). The giving of Christ was the God of heaven remembering us!

The Christ of the manger, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and the giving of the Spirit is how God answered this prayer, “remember me, O my God.”

In Christ we are “remembered” according to God’s favor, steadfast love, for good.

We who are in Christ see our “good deeds” purified and even rewarded by the one who judges all according to their works. We can only do these good deeds in Christ. \

Prayer