Facing the Future with God our Shepherd, Jeremiah 31:10-14 (New Year's Sermon)

Shiloh Lutheran Church

State College, PA

The Old Testament quotation in our gospel reading, “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18), is from Jeremiah 31. In Jeremiah, these words are surrounded by words of hope. The very next verse says “Thus says the Lord: keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord… there is hope for your future.” We’re going to look, this morning, at the passage immediately preceding the words quoted by Matthew. As we celebrate the birth of Christ and prepare to begin a new year, these words give us hope for the future.

I’ve been thinking this week about “The Sad Café,” a song by the Eagles. The song is looking back on the restaurant where they hung out in the early days, when they were idealistic and excited about life, before everything started to go sour. “O it seemed like a holy place, protected by amazing grace. We would sing right out loud the things we could not say. We thought we could change this world with words like love and freedom. We were part of the lonely crowd inside the sad café.” They thought they could change the world. But now they’ve grown wiser and more cynical. Life isn’t like they thought it would be. It hasn’t turned out the way they expected. “Now I look at the years gone by and wonder at the powers that be. I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free. Maybe the time has drawn the faces I recall, but things in this world change very slowly, if they ever change at all. No use in asking why, it just turned out that way.” So they sing about how things were in the past, when they were full of youthful idealism, before they woke up to the harshness of reality.

This is a common theme: the idealism of youth crushed by the difficulties of life. There are many songs and poems that look back on a golden age of the past, when things were less complicated than they are now, when we thought we could make a real change in the world, when life seemed exciting and exhilarating, full of possibilities. And this sort of thing can also happen in our Christian lives. “God used to bless me, but something has happened and everything is going wrong in my life. Things just aren’t the way they used to be.” Or, “I used to be much more zealous. I spent time each day in God’s Word and in prayer, and I reveled in times of worship and fellowship, but now my life has become so complicated that I just don’t have time. I’ve dried up spiritually, and I wish I could go back.” Or, “I used to have great hopes for what I could accomplish for God’s kingdom, but people are so indifferent and cold. Nothing I do or say seems to make much difference. There really doesn’t seem to be much point in the things I do.” Or, “I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 13 years old. Right now I have to make a living and support my family, and I know I’m not growing spiritually. I don’t feel good about the direction my life is going, but I don’t have time to cultivate a relationship with God.”

Over time, if we’re not careful, our spiritual lives can become focused on the past, when things seemed better, less complicated, more exciting. The people of Jeremiah’s time had every reason to focus on the past. They had a golden age to look back upon, when they were ruled by godly men, when God was at work among them, when even the surrounding nations could look at them and say, “the Living God is truly in their midst.” Things were better in the past. The nation has been in an extended period of spiritual decline. They’ve grown indifferent and have ignored the warnings of the prophets. They’ve been so determined in their idolatry that they’ve become worse than many of the surrounding nations. Now they’ve reached the point where judgment is inevitable. Soon the nation will be taken captive and deported to Babylon, 700 miles away.

But, rather than focusing on the past, Jeremiah tells them that God has good things planned for their future. Their immediate future is not the end of the story. They need to cultivate a longer-term perspective. There’s more going on than they can see at the moment. God isn’t finished with them yet, as He said two chapters earlier: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this land. For I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:10-11). God has good things planned for His people. They don’t need to live in the past.

Jeremiah is speaking to people who’ve been beaten down by life. They’re reaping the fruit of their own rebellion, it’s true. God is punishing them for their sins. But we need to consider how they got to this point. They didn’t just wake up one day and decide to walk away from the living God. They drifted away from Him in the midst of all the complications and pressures of life. At this point they’re living in darkness and confusion, and they’re angry at Jeremiah for all the horrible things he’s been saying about them. They want their lives to work out and they’re willing to try anything. But the things they’re trying lead them further and further from God.

Listen to the second part of verse 12: “They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more.” Their present condition is at the end of the verse: they’re sorrowing. Several other translations are more graphic than the NIV. The NRSV says “they shall never languish again.” Or this, in The Message: “Their lives will be like a well-watered garden, never again left to dry up.” They’re languishing. They’ve dried up. Life hasn’t been all they expected. Everything has gone wrong and they just don’t have the energy to keep trying any more. They’re like a garden that hasn’t been watered. The environment of this fallen world is destroying them; they’re being beaten by life.

There’s a character like this in the novel, The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler. Sarah and Macon had a twelve-year-old son who was murdered during a convenience store robbery. Before this, Sarah had been full of life. She enjoyed being around people, entertaining friends in their home, getting to know new acquaintances. She was outgoing and friendly. But now, everything has changed. She keeps to herself and has become a recluse. She doesn’t trust anyone any more. Here’s what she says: “Macon,... ever since Ethan died I’ve had to admit that people are basically bad. Evil, Macon. So evil that they would take a twelve-year-old boy and shoot him through the skull for no reason. I read a paper now and I despair; I’ve given up watching the news on TV. There’s so much wickedness, children setting other children on fire and grown men throwing babies out second-story windows, rape and torture and terrorism, old people beaten and robbed, men in our very own government willing to blow up the world, indifference and greed and instant anger on every street corner.... There are times when I haven’t been sure I could – I don’t want to sound melodramatic but – Macon, I haven’t been sure I could live in this kind of a world anymore” (pp. 133-34). The world hasn’t changed. The reports on the news are the same kinds of things as before, but she’s been personally touched by evil, and it’s changed her whole perception of the world. She can no longer look at life the way she used to. She’s been beaten down by life in this fallen world.

What Jeremiah offers in this situation is a vision for a different future. Yes, it’s true that things have been better in the past, but the past, even at its best, was only a dim foretaste of the future God has in store for His people. Although Jeremiah doesn’t use the word here, what he’s giving them is a vision of shalom, the Old Testament word for “peace.” This word, shalom, is one of the richest words in the Old Testament. It points to the idea of wholeness and completeness, the wholeness that results from God’s presence among His people. Shalom “is the result of God’s activity in covenant.... Shalom describes the state of fulfillment which is the result of God’s presence” (Theological Wordbook of the OT, vol. 2, p. 931). It’s the opposite of drying up and languishing. What he’s giving them in these verses, without using the word, is a vision of shalom: “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again” (NRSV). He’s giving them a vision of a different future.

Where is this experience of shalom going to come from? It’s going to come from the Lord. They’ve been looking in all the wrong places. They’ve been going after the Baals in a sense of desperation, trying to make things turn out better. They’ve been looking at the past, wishing they could go back to the way things used to be. They’ve been trying to do everything possible to improve their lives. But it’s all come to nothing, because they’re looking in the wrong places. They’ve turned away from the Living God, the only source of true shalom, and have turned to counterfeits, which lead them to one dead end after another.

It’s clear that they can’t accomplish it themselves by any amount of effort: “For the Lord will ransom Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they.” They are going to be overcome by their enemies, and they won’t have the strength to rescue themselves. Their enemies are too strong for them. Part of their problem is that they haven’t realized the desperateness of their condition. They’ve thought they could find a solution to their problems, that if they only tried a little harder or found just the right technique they’d be able to make things turn out right. The truth is that their only hope is in the Lord. He’s the only one who can bring shalom, who can rescue them from the hand of their enemies.

But if God is able to bring about this sort of change, why doesn’t He just do it? Why does He allow us to languish, like a dried up garden? Why has He allowed Israel to decline so far that the only remedy is to send them into captivity? Why does He allow bad things to happen in our lives? Why does He give us so much freedom, allowing us to destroy ourselves in turning away from Him, the source of all good? How do we reconcile God’s infinite power with the reality of pain and suffering and injustice in this world? If He’s so powerful, if He’s able to bring about shalom, why doesn’t He just do it right now? There are some answers we can give, which help to clarify things to some extent, but ultimately we are still left with an element of mystery. We don’t know why God has seen fit to order the world in this way. Job is never given a satisfactory answer to the question of why he experienced such horrible things. He is simply confronted with the reality that God is God, and he is not. He’s humbled, but not given an explanation. Paul discusses the problem of God’s sovereignty at some length in Romans 9-11, and at the end of chapter 11, when we might have expected some sort of explanation, he instead cries out in worship: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (vv. 33-36). We need to beware of allowing our present experience of sorrow to undermine our assurance of God’s power over the future. One day we will see all these things more clearly, and one day God will set all things right and will eliminate suffering. In this present world He chooses not to do so. We may not be able to fully explain why, but we know Him, and we know that He is good and wise, and that all power belongs to Him. We belong to the One who has power to accomplish His purposes, the One who’s given us a vision of a different future, a vision of a future where our mourning is turned into gladness, where God will give us comfort and joy instead of sorrow.

As we come to the end of 2013, we don’t know what this coming year has for us. Some of us may have a great year, the kind of year we’ll later look back on as one of the high points in our lives. But some of us may experience the kind of loss and pain that destroys people. We live in a fallen world, and God hasn’t seen fit to shield His people from the suffering that is part of life in this world. We don’t know what is in store for us in the coming year. God hasn’t promised us an easy time of it. Jesus and the apostles experienced trials and sorrow and difficulties, and they instructed us to expect the same. Jesus said: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Jesus is the one who has overcome the world. He is the source of shalom. He is the one who will bring about the kind of life Jeremiah describes in these verses. He is the source of our future hope. He is the one who can sustain our hope, even in this world where many peoples’ experience fits John Mellencamp’s description: “life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.” Jesus has overcome this dark, hopeless world.

What is your source of hope as you begin a new year? Are you just a naturally optimistic person, who is sure that everything will turn out right? Life could beat that out of you this year if you have nothing more than a natural bent toward optimism. Sarah, in The Accidental Tourist, was a naturally optimistic person who found that life is not what she expected, that there is real evil in the world. But Macon, her husband, who is a natural pessimist, is not any better off. He doesn’t expect things to turn out well. Sarah says to him: “‘Everything that might touch you or upset you or disrupt you, you’ve given up without a murmur and done without, said you never really wanted it anyhow’.... ‘I know you mourned [Ethan] but there’s something so what-do-you-call, so muffled about the way you experience things, I mean love or grief or anything; it’s like you’re trying to slip through life unchanged’.... ‘Sarah, I’m not muffled. I... endure. I’m trying to endure. I’m standing fast, I’m holding steady.’ ‘If you really think that,’ Sarah said, ‘then you’re fooling yourself. You’re not holding steady; you’re ossified. You’re encased. You’re like something in a capsule. You’re a dried-up kernel of a man that nothing real penetrates’” (pp. 135-36). He’s a pessimist. Maybe he has a more realistic view of the world than she had, but he’s not any better off. He’s shriveled up in his own protective shell.

What’s the problem? We weren’t created to live in a world like this. Shalom, the kind of world Jeremiah describes, is what we were created for, and it’s what our hearts long for. When we live in the past, we tend to reconstruct the experience in our memory so that it feels like, at least then, we were living in shalom. Back then, life seemed to fit us better than it does now. We look back longingly on the way things used to be. When we accept the world as it is, when we become pessimists, like Macon, we dehumanize ourselves. We become less than what God has created us to be. It’s not as painful that way, but we’re diminished in the process. And blind optimism just sets us up for disillusionment. It doesn’t enable us to live in this world as it really is.

But these aren’t our only choices. As God’s people, we can face the coming year knowing that He, our Shepherd, is with us, and that He has better things in store for us than anything this world can offer. Living in the light of eternity, in confidence that God is preparing a place of shalom for us, will equip us to face the truth about life in this fallen world. Listen to these words from C.S. Lewis: “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set out on foot to convert the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffectual in this one. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in.’ Aim at earth and you will get neither” (quoted in Patches of Godlight, by Jan Karon).

Throughout Advent we’ve been preparing ourselves to celebrate Jesus’ birth, and now in the Christmas season we’re celebrating His appearing. Why did He come? He came to deliver us from ruin. We were lost people, living without God in a world that is headed toward destruction. He came to deliver us from that. He has paid in full the penalty for our sin and rebellion and has opened the way for us to return to God. He is preparing a future of shalom for us: “For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd: their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.” All this because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and then died on the cross, rose again on the third day and is now seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us, preparing a place where we can live in shalom for eternity. Living in the light of that future hope, we experience genuine spiritual joy in this fallen world as He gives us foretastes of shalom. As Peter said to people who were suffering persecution for their faith: “even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9). Whatever else you resolve in beginning this new year, resolve to cultivate an increased awareness of our future hope, to learn to live in the light of God’s promised shalom.

A Less-than-Perfect Outcome, Nehemiah 13:1-31

Chapter 13 of Nehemiah, in many ways, is a letdown. It’s not what we’ve been hoping for. The nation has come through a difficult time. They’d been living in disgrace, in the midst of hostile enemies, with the rubble of the broken walls of Jerusalem surrounding them. Under Nehemiah’s leadership they’ve rebuilt the walls in record time. They’ve experienced revival in their midst and have committed themselves to concrete acts of obedience. They’ve come together in worship to celebrate all the great things God has done for them. In many ways, it would be more satisfying if the book ended with chapter 12. We want the story to end well, and chapter 13 makes a mess of things. We want the story to end with the nation living “victoriously ever after.”

We often hope for the same sort of thing in our spiritual lives. We pray for an experience that will push us over the edge, beyond the realm of struggle and difficulty. And there are always voices out there promising this sort of thing. One author recommends an experience that will, in one transforming moment, bring us to a place of rest: “This is the spiritual rest Paul longed for in Romans 7. It is a rest where the sinful nature no longer opposes your spiritual desires. The inner antagonism to the will of God is cleansed away. It is a blessed state of soul rest, a rest of faith, a knowable experience and life of inner spiritual leisure. It brings poise and calmness of soul and the undisturbed filling presence of the Holy Spirit.... The great spiritual struggles of your soul with the will of God are now past.... All sinful resistance, all stubborn self-will as opposed to God’s will--all is cleansed away. Your soul is at rest, delighting in the unfolding will of God” (Wesley Duewel, God’s Great Salvation, pp. 230-31). You still live in this fallen world, but your struggles with sin are over. “Your soul is at rest, delighting in the unfolding will of God.” In terms of the book of Nehemiah, once you reach chapter 12, it’s pretty smooth sailing for the rest of your life.

In my early Christian life I was very enthusiastic about C.T. Studd, the missionary pioneer who worked in China, India and Africa. Studd was converted to Christ while he was in college, and he responded by giving away a large inheritance and going to the mission field. He made incredible sacrifices and persevered against overwhelming difficulties. In the biography I read when I was a young Christian, Studd sounds like someone who’s had this experience, whose spiritual struggles are a thing of the past, whose whole Christian life is a series of glorious victories.

His mission, the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (or WEC), went through a very difficult time late in Studd’s life. The mission was plagued with disunity, dissatisfaction with his leadership, and morale in general was very low. Then, during a series of prayer meetings, the missionaries surrendered themselves completely to God and experienced revival. Here’s how Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd’s biographer and son-in-law, describes the result: “The blessing spread to the remotest station. From that time to this there has been no check on the field to the unity, love, joy in sacrifice, zeal for the souls of the people, which has laid hold of the Crusaders in the Heart of Africa. Not a murmur is heard, however short funds may be, but only expressions of praise and trust in God. It is hard to get anyone to go on furlough unless health really demands it; and when any do come, as soon as they arrive home, their first question is not, ‘How long can I rest?’ but ‘How can I help with the work here?’ and ‘How soon can I go back?’ Married couples put their work before their homes; one bridal couple, a few days after their marriage, even offered to separate and be on different stations for the time being, owing to shortage of workers” (Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd, p. 216).

That’s the kind of conclusion we hope for. Struggle in the beginning, followed by a time of crisis, then permanent victory: “All sinful resistance, all stubborn self-will as opposed to God’s will--all is cleansed away. Your soul is at rest, delighting in the unfolding will of God.” It’s the kind of conclusion we hope for in Nehemiah, so chapter 13 comes as a disappointment, a letdown. But the authors of Scripture are more honest and realistic than many Christian authors. There’s more to the story of C.T. Studd’s missionary experience. His zeal bordered on fanaticism, and he became increasingly difficult to work with over the years. He worked 18 hour days, with no days off, and expected others to do the same. If any resisted, Studd accused them of lukewarmess and compromise. He had a very low view of the African Christians, and his relationships with other missionaries steadily deteriorated in his later years. Near the end of his life, he discovered that a shot of morphine helped him to continue functioning at the same pace, despite his declining health. So, rather than live at a slower pace, he became a morphine addict. By the time of his death the mission was in shambles, and if he had lived longer it probably wouldn’t have survived his leadership (see Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, pp. 263-68).

It’s important that Nehemiah includes chapter 13. False expectations can be devastating. If we expect an experience that will take us out of the realm of struggle, we’ll usually be affected in one of two ways, depending on our personality: either we’ll be plunged into despair because the experience never comes (we may assume the fault is ours, or we may blame God and turn away from Him because He hasn’t come through); or we’ll deceive ourselves into thinking that we’ve received the experience. These are the most common effects of teachings that promise an experience that will take us out of the realm of struggle: self-deception, or depression and despair. Nehemiah 13 is important, because it reminds us that as long as we are living in this fallen world, our victories and successes will be temporary; we’re not going to be truly safe from attack until we’re in the Lord’s presence. Nehemiah 13 can help deliver us from a false, superficial triumphalism.

The first thing to notice in this chapter is that victory in the past does not insure victory in the future. The Israelites fall into sin in three general areas in this chapter: they neglect the house of God; they desecrate the Sabbath; and they begin intermarrying with unbelieving nations. These are all areas they’ve been guilty of in the past. In fact, these are the kinds of sins that got them into trouble in the first place; these are the kinds of sins that caused God to send them into captivity in Babylon. Nehemiah makes this point in rebuking them about the Sabbath: “Didn’t your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath” (v. 18). When we achieve a great victory in one area, we’ll often be tempted to become lax. We’ve learned that lesson, so now it’s time to go on to something else. But when we become lax, we’re setting ourselves up for defeat. Victory in the past does not insure victory in the future; if we become careless, there’s every likelihood that we’ll fall into the same sins that have defeated us in the past.

The second thing to notice is that strong emotions and sorrow over our sins do not insure victory in the future. In chapter 8, the people were filled with godly sorrow after listening to the reading of the Word. In chapter 9, they came into God’s presence, crying out for mercy. These are not people who are content with their sins. They’re not looking for a way to get away with persisting in sin. They’re grieved at the thought of violating the commands of their gracious and merciful God. And yet, in chapter 13 we see that they’ve fallen into sin anyway. No matter how grieved we are at our sinfulness, our feelings are eventually going to go away. It’s right to be grieved at our sins. Godly sorrow drives us into God’s presence, crying for mercy. But strong emotions won’t enable us to persevere in resisting sin in the future.

The third thing to notice is that strong resolutions do not insure victory in the future. One of the sins they’ve been guilty of in the past is neglecting the worship of the Temple. They’d gotten so caught up in their own lives that they’d neglected God’s house, and when they became aware of the problem, they made arrangements to remedy the situation. And they made this resolution: “we will not neglect the house of our God” (10:39). And yet, that’s the very thing that has happened in chapter 13. A large room has been given to Tobiah, which displaces much of the equipment for worship and also leaves no place for the collection of the tithes. So the Levites, who help lead worship in the Temple, find themselves without financial support and go back to their land. One step at a time, the worship of the Temple falls into decline. They’ve forgotten their resolutions.

They’ve experienced much from God. He’s come to their rescue and given them a great victory. Even their enemies have to acknowledge that God is among them. But as time passes, they lose their sense of urgency. They grow complacent and simply drift back into their old habits: they neglect corporate worship; they fall into the habit of desecrating the Sabbath; and they begin to intermarry with unbelieving nations. All the great victories they’ve experienced, all their godly sorrow, all their resolutions, have not prevented them from falling into the same sins that had gotten them into trouble in the first place.

What has gone wrong? Two things stand out, as I look at this chapter. The first is that once the crisis has passed, there’s a temptation to become complacent and to let down our guard. During the crisis, we keep a tight rein on our hearts, but once the crisis is over, we want to go back to a more normal life. We don’t want to spend so much time and effort on our relationship with God. We want to relax and take a break. But that’s exactly the thing we can’t afford to do. We take a rest in God’s presence, not from His presence. The whole point of the Sabbath was rest and spiritual refreshment, not rest from God’s presence, but rest and refreshment in His presence.

John Flavel, a 17th Century preacher, wrote a book called Keeping the Heart. His concern is that unless we keep a close watch on our hearts, we’ll tend to drift away from the Lord. Here’s how he defines keeping the heart: “By keeping the heart, understand the diligent and constant use of all holy means to preserve the soul from sin, and maintain its sweet and free communion with God” (p. 6). And then, near the end of the book, he says this: “You must learn to wield the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God) familiarly, if you would defend your heart and conquer your enemies. You must call yourself frequently to an account; examine yourself in the presence of the all seeing God; bring your conscience, as it were, to the bar of judgement.... You must exercise the utmost vigilance to discover and check the first symptoms of departure from God, the least decline of spirituality, or the least indisposition to meditation by yourself, and holy conversation and fellowship with others. These things you must undertake, in the strength of Christ, with invincible resolution in the outset. And if you thus engage in this great work, be assured you shall not spend your strength for naught; comforts which you never felt or thought of will flow in upon you from every side” (pp. 107-108). If we want to survive over the long term, after the time of crisis has passed, we need to exercise vigilance in keeping our hearts.

The second thing that’s gone wrong in Israel is that they’ve been lacking in spiritual leadership. Nehemiah has been away for some time, and it’s after his return that he begins to put things back in order: “But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king” (v. 6). It’s startling, in Scripture, to see how quickly God’s people get into trouble when there’s a lack of godly leadership. We need to pray for our leaders, especially that they will be faithful in walking with God and cultivating His presence. Our leaders don’t have to do everything well; they’re not called to meet all our “felt needs.” What matters is that they know God and seek with all their hearts to do His will. And, in addition to praying for our leaders, we need to be diligent in seeking out leaders who will help us stay on track spiritually. We’re all in need of spiritual leadership, and it’s worth expending some effort in seeking out help.

Nehemiah 13 may be a letdown; after all the hard work in the early chapters, we’ve hoped for something more permanent. Chapter 12 would have made a good conclusion. But it’s a good thing for us to have this chapter. It reminds us that as long as we’re in this fallen world, our victories and successes will be temporary. As long as we’re still living in this fallen world, we will not be safe. This chapter reminds us that no matter what we’ve experienced in the past, we need to persevere in seeking God. There is no safe place in this world. But Nehemiah 13 is not the end of the story. The victory in Nehemiah is incomplete and temporary, because we look forward to that day when we, with all of God’s people, will be gathered in His presence. On that day: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16-17). All outcomes in this world are less-than-perfect, but our citizenship is not of this world.

Ordered Celebration, Nehemiah 11:1-12:47

I became a Christian in the mid-70's in an Assembly of God church, and for a few years most of my fellowship was in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. The Pentecostal churches had been around since the beginning of the 20th century, but the Charismatic movement was relatively new and was often hostile toward older, more traditional, churches. I remember, for awhile, believing that God was doing a new thing among us, that He was sick and tired of the superficiality and lukewarmness of the traditional churches and was raising up a new people for the last days. We would have been comfortable with this promotional blurb from one church’s website: “We’re casual and relaxed. Don’t look for pews, hymns, and stained glass windows - you won’t find them. You will find a dynamic worship band, compelling dramas, and exciting multimedia. We speak in a language and operate in a format that everyday people understand.... Don’t expect church as you have known it!” They’re saying: “We’re not like other churches. We’re the real thing.”

We believed worship should be informal and spontaneous. Eugene Peterson says this about the church he attended when he was growing up: “I was reared in a tradition that scorned written and read prayers. Book prayers. Dead prayers. Reading a prayer would have been like meeting an old friend on the street, quickly leafing through a book to find an appropriate greeting suitable for the meeting and then reading, ‘Hello, old friend; it is good to see you again. How have you been? Remember me to your family. Well, I must be on my way now. Good-bye.’ And then, closing the book and going on down the street without once looking my friend in the eye. Ludicrous. The very nature of prayer required that it be spontaneous and from the heart” (Living the Message, p. 338). Rather than diligent preparation and planning for worship on Sunday morning, we believed pastors and worship leaders should just pray and trust in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

I remember being very impressed with this description of C.T. Studd, the founder of the mission, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade: “He never needed more preparation for his meetings than those early hours [in prayer]. He didn’t prepare. He talked with God, and God talked with him, and made His Word live to him. He saw Jesus. He saw men and women going in their millions to hell. And he always said that that is all the preparation a man needs for preaching the Gospel, if it be a dozen times the same day. ‘Don’t go into the study to prepare a sermon,’ he once said. ‘That is all nonsense. Go into your study to go to God and get so fiery that your tongue is like a burning coal and you’ve got to speak” (Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd, pp. 221-22). Pray, seek God, and trust Him to give you the right words to speak. God leads spontaneously and informally. Anything else is evidence that we’ve drifted away from the purity of the faith and are trusting in ourselves; that’s what I thought as a young Christian.

But I began to have doubts. For one thing, I read about other people in the history of the Church, and I learned that many committed, zealous, obviously Spirit-filled Christians did things that I had associated with spiritual deadness and compromise: they used written prayers and liturgy, and they studied diligently in preparation for preaching. And then, as I continued reading Scripture, I noticed these same things in the worship of the Bible: written prayers, liturgy, and an emphasis on diligent preparation.

This passage in Nehemiah is a good example. The walls have been completed, and the nation has gone through a period of spiritual renewal. At the beginning of chapter 11, the leaders attend to the necessity of making sure there are enough people living in Jerusalem, then, in chapter 12, they have a formal ceremony to dedicate the walls and give thanks to God. God has been gracious to them. Not too long ago they were living in disgrace, with the walls in ruin and hostile people all around them. But now, with God’s help, the walls have been completed. Even their enemies see that God is among them. He’s done great things and they want to give thanks. And they do this, not with an informal praise service, but with a highly structured, formal ceremony.

The first thing to notice is that this celebration is rooted in the past. They’re celebrating a new thing that God has done among them, but their forms of worship have been inherited from the past. The genealogies in these two chapters emphasize their continuity with the past. God is renewing His work among them, but what He’s doing is not, strictly speaking, a new thing. He’s fulfilling His promises to His people in the past. The Israelites of Nehemiah’s day are benefitting from God’s promises made to His people many centuries ago.

They’re using musical instruments “prescribed by David” (12:36). And they’re following a structure inherited from the past: “They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did also the singers and gatekeepers, according to the commands of David and his son Solomon. For long ago, in the days of David and Asaph, there had been directors for the singers and for the songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.” Their celebration is strongly rooted in the past.

Christian worship, like the worship of Israel, is inherently traditional. We’re worshiping God for things He’s done in the past, using words that we’ve inherited from the Church of the past (even if we’re not fully aware of this). God’s work of redemption didn’t begin last year, and it didn’t begin with us. We’re benefitting from God’s promises to His people in past centuries. We’re benefitting from sacrifices God’s people have made to preserve the purity of God’s Word. We’ve received an immense wealth from those who took the time to write hymns and prayers and books of instruction on various aspects of the Christian life. When we cultivate hostility toward the historic Church, we’re showing our ignorance and ingratitude. To be completely cut off from the past is to depart from Christianity. We’re not obligated to do everything just the way it’s been done in the past; the point is that we need to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to those who’ve gone before us in the Church. We will be worshiping with them in eternity, and even in this life everything we do is built on their efforts.

The second thing is that their celebration has a definite order and structure. They’re not just “winging it,” doing whatever they feel led to do at the moment. They begin with ceremonial purification: “When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall.” This is followed by a large choral procession on the walls, with two choirs leading the worshipers in opposite directions, ending finally in the Temple. The normal practice was for these choirs to sing antiphonally; verse 24 describes this process: one group “stood opposite them to give praise and thanksgiving, one section responding to the other, as prescribed by David the man of God.” The picture here is of a highly structured, planned out ceremony.

Their assumption would have been that God had led David and other leaders in prescribing the order for worship. If someone had said to them, “why don’t you just trust God to help you know what to do next,” they would have responded, “We do trust God; He’s told us how to structure our worship, and we’re following His instructions.” One question that began to bother me, as a young Christian, was this: “why do we assume that God is more likely to lead at the last minute? Isn’t it possible that He might be leading those who diligently seek His help in planning for worship? Isn’t it also possible that He’s been leading those who’ve written hymns, prayer books, and liturgies throughout the centuries? Why do we think God only leads in spontaneous ways?” If I’m leading worship and preaching next Sunday, shouldn’t I trust God to lead me as I prepare during the week? He’s given me this time; shouldn’t I make use of it? Then, having prepared diligently, I can cry out to Him for help and grace and for His anointing on the service.

The fact is that our worship is going to have a structure. Even the most spontaneously-oriented charismatic worship services I’ve attended had a structure. The question is not whether or not our worship will be structured. The question is where our structure is going to come from. Will it be something we unconsciously drift into, as we rely week by week on the inspiration of the moment? Will we get our structure from the entertainment industry? Or will we listen to the things God has done in the past and aim for a structure that honors our oneness with the historic Church and exalts the God who’s revealed Himself in Scripture? The celebration in Nehemiah 12 has a definite order and structure, and this order is rooted in the work God has been doing among His people throughout many centuries.

The third thing is that the order of worship the leaders are following provides a means for the corporate expression of joy and thanksgiving. There’s a temptation, in free churches, to associate liturgy and order with spiritual deadness. We assume that the Church was highly spontaneous in the beginning, when the Spirit was at work, but then after the people started drifting away from God they developed liturgies. Liturgy, from this perspective, is a direct fruit of spiritual decline. Order and structure are connected with spiritual deadness; live worship is “casual and relaxed.”

But this time of celebration in Nehemiah 12 is anything but dead. The people aren’t just “going through the motions.” They aren’t just rattling the words off the top of their heads while they daydream about all the things they’d rather be doing. Listen to verse 43: “And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away.” Rather than becoming a hindrance, the order of worship became a vehicle to express their joy. It enabled them to give thanks in ways they might not have considered on their own. Rather than functioning as a straitjacket, it set them free to express their joy in God’s presence.

Thomas Howard grew up in a prominent Evangelical family; his sister, Elizabeth Elliot, has written a number of influential books. In his book, Evangelical is Not Enough, he describes his experience of worshiping in the Church of England while he was a student. At first, he looked with some disdain at the Anglican Church, but later he had a change of heart. Listen to what he says about his struggle to develop a consistent prayer life: “For many years I had tried, intermittently, to gird up my loins and settle into a faithful manner of daily prayer. But two difficulties always ran my efforts onto the shoals. First, sooner or later I found that I was neglecting them because I did not feel in the mood to pray. And second, when I did address myself to prayer, I found that I ran out of things to say.... Evangelicalism had taught me the importance of prayer and had indeed taught me to pray. It had encouraged me to pray daily. But the impression I had formed was that one was more or less on one’s own here. The Holy Ghost would inspire me, and I would be able to pray” (pp. 69-71). He believed this, and he’d known people who seemed to develop a strong prayer life in this way. But it hadn’t worked for him, despite his best efforts.

Then he discovered the written prayers of Lancelot Andrewes, a 17th Century Anglican bishop who wrote, among other things, a series of daily prayers for each day of the week. So Howard began praying these each day, whether he felt like it or not. He says: “I cannot pretend that Andrewes’s order for private morning prayers has kept me steady from the moment I adopted it. But at least it has steered me away from those two sets of shoals. Like the worship at St. Andrew’s Church and Evening Prayer at the university chapel, it has taught me that one’s coming to God has nothing to do with how one feels. One simply makes the act of prayer. It is analogous to the Jews’ bringing their alms and sacrifices to the temple; you do it because that is what the people of God do. Moreover, in so doing, you discover that, far from being mere drab duty, it orders your life and undergirds it and gives it a rhythm” (p. 70). The order and structure in Nehemiah 12 provided a channel for the expression of their joy and gratitude in worship. The form wasn’t a hindrance; it freed them to worship God joyfully with an exuberance that could be heard far away.

Tradition, order and structure are not hindrances to true worship and celebration. Although Eugene Peterson grew up in a church that was hostile to written prayers, he later on made a discovery: “along the way, I began to come across books of prayers that gave me words to pray when I didn’t seem to have any of my own. I found that books of prayers sometimes primed the pump of prayer when I didn’t feel like praying. And I found that left to myself, I often prayed in a circle, too wrapped up in myself, too much confined to my immediate circumstances and feelings, and that a prayerbook was just the thing to get out of the brambles and underbrush of my ego, back out in the open country of the Kingdom, under the open skies of God. In the process of discovering, to my surprise, alive and praying friends in these books, I realized that all along the prayers that had most influenced me were written (in the Bible), and that the lively and spirited singing we did in church was, for the most part, praying from a book, the hymnbook. My world of prayer expanded” (Living the Message, p. 338).

We’re part of a Church that has been worshiping God for 21 centuries, and when we come together for worship, we join with all those in heaven and on earth that are worshiping in the name of Jesus Christ. We use contemporary elements in our worship, because God is still at work among His people and our worship needs to reflect this. But we also maintain our connection with the past; we have no right to do otherwise. There’s a great wealth of resources in the historic Church, and using them maintains a tangible connection with God’s people who’ve gone before us. God’s work didn’t begin last year, and it didn’t begin with us; we want our worship to reflect this awareness.

Our worship, like the worship of ancient Israel, needs to be strongly rooted in the past, in the apostolic tradition, which is embodied most purely in the New Testament, and then, in a secondary way, in the creeds and worship of the early Church. That’s why Scripture readings need to be a major emphasis in worship, and that’s why the pastoral prayers I write are adapted from the prayers of various people in the history of the Church. We’re not on our own; we’re worshiping as part of the body of Christ. God has done great things in His Church throughout the centuries, and He continues to be faithful in fulfilling His promises. Let’s join together in worshiping Him, not because doing so will give us goose bumps, or because we enjoy singing all the songs, but because He is worthy.

A Concrete Plan for Obedience, Nehemiah 9:38-10:39

I heard a story once about two teachers who applied for the same job. One of them had been teaching in another school district for 20 years and was sure that she deserved the job. The other had just graduated from college, so she really had no classroom experience other than what she got as a student teacher. But, after interviewing both of them, the principle decided to hire the recent graduate. The first woman, the one with teaching experience, was indignant. She stormed into the principal’s office and demanded an explanation: “What do you think you’re doing? I have 20 years of experience!” And the principle replied, “no, you don’t have 20 years of experience; you have one year of teaching experience repeated 19 times.” She hadn’t grown over the past 20 years and had continued making the same mistakes over and over. Her experience wasn’t worth much.

I’ve known many Christians who have a similar problem with repentance. They attend revival meetings or spiritual life conferences and see that something is wrong in their spiritual lives. They become convicted of their lukewarmness, or nominalism, or persistent unfaithfulness and disobedience, so they respond by crying out to God for mercy. They’re very sincere in their prayers for help, and, while they’re in that setting, they genuinely desire to follow Jesus Christ. But then they go home and, because they don’t follow up on their repentance with concrete acts of obedience, they drift back into the same habits as before. This thing that happened to them hasn’t made any discernable difference in their lives. So, the next year they attend another set of revival meetings, or another conference. They think, “maybe it didn’t take last time; I’d better try again.” So they go through the whole thing again, with the same results. Year after year, they go forward at meetings and cry out for mercy and weep, asking God to change their hearts. But it never seems to make any difference.

The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is a series of letters written by a senior demon to his nephew, giving advice on how to destroy the soul of his human victim. In one of the letters, the human victim has just had some sort of spiritual experience, so Screwtape gives this advice: “It remains to consider how we can retrieve this disaster. The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilising the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel” (pp. 60-61). As long as he doesn’t act on it, his repentance will do him no good. And, as he continues, year after year, thinking and feeling without acting, he’ll become increasingly dull and unable to act, and even unable to feel that there’s something wrong.

In chapter 9 we saw the Israelites crying out for mercy, repenting of their sins. But they’re not content with just feeling sorry for their sins and crying out for mercy. They’re determined to follow up now with a definite plan for obedience. They don’t want to get caught in the endless cycle persistent disobedience followed by shallow, inactive repentance. They recognize that repentance involves more than confession and sorrow over our sins.

Our picture of repentance tends to focus on the moment when we cry out for mercy and express sorrow for our sins. Repentance, from this perspective, is what we’re doing when we go forward in a revival meeting or when we get on our knees and ask God to forgive us and help us get our lives in order. Here’s a better description of repentance: “Repentance marks the starting-point of our journey. The Greek term metanoia... signifies primarily a ‘change of mind’. Correctly understood, repentance is not negative but positive. It means not self-pity or remorse but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity. It is to look not backward with regret but forward with hope – not downwards at our own shortcomings but upwards at God’s love. It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see. To repent is to open our eyes to the light. In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, an initial step, but a continuing state, an attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life” (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, pp. 113-14).

The Israelites realize that they’ve embarked on a journey. Their confession in chapter 9 is not an end in itself; through confession they’ve entered the right path, and now they need to walk on it. Having confessed their sins and cried out for mercy, they now take some concrete steps that will help them grow in obedience.

The first thing is that they recognize their own weakness. They recognize their fickleness and they know that unless they do something to counteract their natural tendencies they’ll fall back into the same sins as soon as their religious fervor dies out (and their religious fervor is going to die out sooner or later, no matter what they do). So they write out a binding agreement, to commit themselves to obedience in a tangible way. They recognize that it’s going to take more than a vague idea of “getting their lives in order” to enable them to live out their repentance. They write it out: “In view of all this, [the things they’ve been saying in God’s presence in the previous chapter] we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.” In a few weeks, when the immediate sense of urgency has passed, this binding agreement will still be there, calling them to obedience.

One of the things they’re counteracting here is the tendency to compartmentalize our faith. A man I knew who worked in the business department of a mission organization told me once about the difficulty of working with his supervisor. He had known this man in church before he came to work as business manager, and when he heard who’d been hired he thought, “it will be great to work for such a wonderful, godly man.” But it hadn’t turned out that way. This business manager, when he arrived on the job, had turned out to be demanding, critical, impossible to please, and difficult to work with. He seemed like a different person from the man he’d known at church. He’d compartmentalized his life. He was gracious and kind to people on Sunday morning, but at work, even doing work that revolved around the preaching of the gospel, he functioned with a different set of assumptions. The Israelites, by writing out this binding agreement, are fighting against this tendency to compartmentalize. They’re saying, “these things need to be translated into our daily lives; here are some concrete steps of obedience we plan to take.”

The second thing is that they recognize the power of bad habits. They realize their weakness, but they also realize that their conduct in the past is going to work against them. In verses 28-29, they state in general what their intention is: “all these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God... and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our Lord.” But they don’t end with this general statement. They need to go further, because up till now they’ve allowed certain kinds of sins to flourish in the community. These bad habits that they’ve cultivated need to be addressed directly or they’ll be likely to slip back into them. So they enumerate these things in the rest of the chapter, verses 30-39. Verses 30&31 address the sins they’re going to stop committing: intermarrying with unbelieving nations and breaking the Sabbath; then, in verses 32-39, they list the things they’re going to start doing to avoid the sin of neglecting the house of God.

Our prayers of confession and repentance need to be translated into reality, and part of the process is thinking about how we’re going to resist the temptation to fall into the same sins we’ve cultivated in the past. Remember what Screwtape said: “Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.” So we address those areas where we’ve allowed the weeds of sin to grow in our lives.

It begins with the negative: there are certain things that we need to stop doing. We confess our sin and cry out to God for help, then we begin taking steps to eliminate these things from our lives. Some of this is little more than common sense. Avoid those places that tend to draw you into sin; avoid relationships that pull you away from God and into sinful behavior; get rid of anything in your house that is causing you to sin. If cable TV is part of the problem, get rid of it. If the Internet is drawing you into sin, take some concrete steps to eliminate the temptation: move the computer into a public area, or, if necessary, cancel your internet service. Sometimes we need to be severe in eliminating things from our lives that are dragging us into sin. Jesus said: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). He’s saying that we’ll often have to go to drastic lengths in our repentance. There’s too much at stake here for us to quibble with God about the things we’re not willing to give up.

But the process is not only negative. We need to eliminate certain things from our lives, but the idea is not to create a vacuum. We say “no” to certain things, to make room for other things that God wants in our lives. For example, if sporting events are causing you to neglect your spiritual life, lay them aside for a while and use the time for prayer instead. If recreation has become an idol in your life, lay some of your activities aside and spend the time helping someone in the church, or visiting people who are sick. If you’ve become captivated by the sin of greed, begin giving more money away as a spiritual discipline and an act of repentance. Turn off the TV a little earlier in the evening, so that you can get out of bed in time for prayer in the morning. The point is that we’re not just eliminating sinful habits; we’re cultivating positive obedience. We begin with the general: “we’re going to begin ordering our lives in obedience to God;” but then we go on to spell out what this means: “we’re going to stop doing these things, and here are some things we’re going to do, some concrete acts of obedience.”

The third thing is that the Israelites here recognize their need for community. By entering into this binding agreement together, they’re recognizing that this isn’t something they’re able to do on their own. We saw, in chapter 9, that their confession is corporate in the largest sense, including the whole community and stretching even into the past. In the same way, they, as a body, are entering into this agreement. This obedience that they’re agreeing to is going to be worked out in the life of the community. None of them have to figure it out on their own. They’re committing themselves to support and encourage one another in cultivating a life of obedience.

We work out the details of our repentance and discipleship in the context of the Church. The author of Hebrews says: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (10:24-25). We support one another and pray for one another and encourage one another to keep going when things are difficult. In the New Testament, the body of Christ is central to our discipleship. We live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ in the context of the Church, where we find support, encouragement, prayer, and instruction from God’s Word.

When John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “bear fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8), he was thinking of repentance as more than a momentary feeling of remorse. He was thinking of repentance in the way we read earlier: “conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity.... It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see.”

In living out our repentance, we’re conscious of our own weakness and fickleness. We realize that we’ll very quickly turn away if we try to depend on how we feel at the moment. We need to bind ourselves to obedience, like the Israelites did. We decide in advance that we’re going to gather for worship on Sunday morning, and then when we wake up and don’t feel like getting out of bed, we get up anyway. The decision has already been made, so we don’t lay in bed and deliberate about whether or not we’re going to give in to the temptation. We decide in advance that we’re going to cultivate a life of prayer and that we’re going to spend time meditating on God’s Word, and then we order our lives to make prayer and God’s Word a priority. We don’t wait until we feel like it; we make plans to bind ourselves to obedience. We do this because we’re weak, and because we know that unless we make a binding commitment in advance, we won’t follow through.

We’re also aware of the power of our bad habits, so we take account of these in planning for obedience. It’s easy to fall into a trap here. We determine that we’re going to be obedient, and we try with all our might. But we very quickly fail, so we cry out for mercy and then try again. And it doesn’t seem to matter how hard we try or how sincere we are. What we need is not a stronger effort. We need to train ourselves in obedience. We need to have a strategy for cultivating a life of obedience in the areas where we’ve failed in the past. We need a series of small steps that get us from where we are to where God is calling us to be.

And for that, we need the Church. We need the support and prayers of one another. We need fellow believers who will hold us accountable. We need the regular experience of corporate worship and prayer to nurture our faith. And we need the wisdom of the larger Church in developing a strategy for training ourselves in godliness; we can read books on Christian spirituality and prayer, or meet with a spiritual director who is able to give us guidance in cultivating a life of prayer and obedience. Or we can spend time talking to people we know who are serious about following the Lord. We need one another in this process, because we’re weak and fickle, and because it’s difficult to have a clear perspective about our own spiritual condition. We don’t want to repent of the same sins over and over for a lifetime without making any progress toward maturity, so we need to expend some effort and time in coming up with a concrete plan for cultivating a life of obedience. May God strengthen us to do this and to follow through on our plan until that day when we stand in His presence.

Crying Out for Mercy, Nehemiah 9:1-37

A friend of mine visited a church once where the congregation was given very strict instructions about how to prepare themselves for corporate worship. Most of us give very little attention to this, and then when the worship service begins our minds are occupied with everything that we’ve left undone, or the things we’re worried about in the coming week, or maybe the careless comment someone made to us just a few minutes ago. We often find it difficult to turn our hearts to worship, and yet we don’t do much to prepare ourselves. So this church gave very explicit instructions. The people were to enter the sanctuary and sit in silence, meditating on their sinfulness. This church was trying to do a good thing. It’s a good idea to give some attention to preparing our hearts for worship, but I think this approach, sitting in silence, meditating on our sinfulness, puts too much emphasis on ourselves. We need to be more absorbed with God and less focused on ourselves.

When our sinfulness becomes the main thing, the central thing about our spirituality, our emphasis has gotten off track. It’s easy to find examples of this in the history of the Church. But then, many churches react against this and go to the other extreme. They associate confession with morbid introspection, so they avoid it altogether, at least in the context of worship. They argue that Christian worship is about celebration and rejoicing, which is certainly true to a large extent. But they go even further and conclude that corporate confession has no place at all in worship. They may agree on the necessity of private confession, to obtain forgiveness, but they wouldn’t consider including confession as a part of corporate worship, because somehow this seems out of place. If it doesn’t turn people off, at least it’s likely to drag them down and depress them. Worship is a time to be celebrating the wonderful things Jesus has done, not confessing our own failure. So, there are two problems that arise when we talk about confession in the church today: 1) we think of it as primarily a private thing, to be done as the need arises in our own lives; 2) we often struggle with the seeming inconsistency between a spirit of joy and celebration, on the one hand, and the kind of morbid, introspective attitude we associate with corporate confession of sin. This passage in Nehemiah is a good one for getting a more balanced picture of corporate confession.

First, their confession grows out of worship. We saw in the last sermon that their failure is not the first thing. The starting point is not their unfaithfulness, but the faithfulness of God. They were listening to the reading of the Law, which caused them to grieve; how could they have been so unfaithful to such a gracious God? So they began weeping, and the leaders instructed them to stop. “This isn’t the time for mourning,” they said. “This is the time for celebrating the great things God has done in coming to our rescue.” So the people had given themselves to celebrating, giving thanks to God and worshiping Him.

But the point was not to lay aside the need for corporate confession. The leaders weren’t saying, “well, you know, it’s true that we’ve been guilty of sin in the past, but God has done great things for us and we’re only going to think about that from now on; we’re going to put all our stress on the positive.” The leaders weren’t saying “don’t gather to confess your sins;” they were saying, “this isn’t the right time.” But now, at the beginning of chapter 9, the right time has come. “On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads.... They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers.”

They don’t begin with themselves and their failures. They begin with God, celebrating who He is and what He has done for His people, which naturally leads to a greater awareness of their own sins. So, having given themselves to worship and thanksgiving, now they gather together for confession. But even now, in chapter 9, the emphasis is on worship. They’re not just confessing their sins. They spend a quarter of the day (about three hours) in reading from the Law, as we saw them doing in the last chapter. And they spend another quarter of the day “in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.” They’re gathering together to confess their sins, but the main emphasis isn’t on their failure. They’re keeping the focus on God by listening to His Word and spending time in worship and praise, as well as confession. They’re not wallowing in guilt and self-condemnation. They’re confessing and worshiping.

Second, their confession is rooted in the character of God. The central assumption of this prayer, in many ways the key verse in this chapter, is stated in verse 17: “But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” That’s what gives them the courage to approach Him confessing their sins. They know that He is gracious and compassionate. One of the things that can prevent us from confessing our sins is fear. If we expect God to be angry and unapproachable, if we think He’s just waiting to crush us, of course we won’t be eager to confess our sins.

A.W. Tozer said “Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than low or unworthy conception of God” (“God is Easy to Live With,” in The Root of the Righteous, p. 13). Thinking of God as a hard taskmaster who delights in finding fault with us twists and deforms our souls. We may confess our sins to such a God, but we never get beyond confession. We’re never sure that we’ve listed everything. There’s always a feeling that we haven’t gotten it right, that God is still holding something against us.

The Israelites, here in Nehemiah 9, are confessing their sins, but they’re not wallowing in self condemnation. They confess their sins, but they’re able to get beyond confession. They’re able to worship and give thanks, because they know that God is good. Tozer has a good definition of God’s goodness: “The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.... The goodness of God is the drive behind all the blessings He daily bestows upon us” (A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 88). God takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people. That’s the foundation for approaching Him to receive grace and mercy. We can be assured that He is waiting to receive us.

We see the same idea in Psalm 130. The psalm begins, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The psalmist is in trouble, in need of mercy. Then this: “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:3-4). We can cry out for mercy, because we know God is gracious and merciful. A little later, in verse 7, the psalmist says, “with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.” He cares about us when we are in the depths, even if we are there through our own fault. We’re often harsh with one another. We say things like, “you got yourself into this mess; it’s your job to find a way out.” But God doesn’t deal with us in this way. He lovingly comes to our rescue when we’ve gotten ourselves into trouble.

God has come to our rescue because He loves us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT). Or this, from Romans 5: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.... But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:6, 8, NLT). God didn’t provide a way of forgiveness because He made an abstract decision that this was the proper and benevolent thing to do. Have you ever been helped by people who did it coldly and distantly, out of a sense of doing “the right thing?” They may not like you very much, but they believe it’s the right, moral thing, to do. God forgives our sins because He loves us. The Israelites’ confession is rooted in the certainty that God is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” Much of the chapter is occupied with remembering, in God’s presence, all the times He’s proven this to be true. Despite their unfaithfulness, He’s been gracious and merciful again and again.

The third thing is that their confession is corporate in the largest sense. They’re confessing their sins as a body: “In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.” They’ve seen the truth about themselves, so they humble themselves before God. They’re confessing corporately; there’s no one standing outside the camp, saying, “well, I don’t need to take part in this; I’m not guilty like the rest of these people.” They’re all guilty and in need of grace. They’re not all guilty of the same sins, but they are all sinners. So they confess together as a body. It’s not just that they’re a group of individuals who are all guilty of sin; they, as a body, have sinned against God.

And because they’re confessing their sins as a body, they also confess the sins of their ancestors. They didn’t get where they are on their own. They’re guilty of sin, but they’re also suffering the consequences of the sins of their ancestors. Notice their attitude about this. There’s no sense of superiority. They’re not saying, “these people have really gotten us into a bind; it’s a shame our ancestors were such lousy people. We’ve gotten beyond that sort of thing now.” They recognize their own sinfulness and guilt, so they realize they’re not in a place to sneer at anyone else. They’re sinners themselves, but they haven’t sinned on their own. They’re part of a sinful community that stretches back in time. So, as part of that community, they confess the sins of the whole body, past and present.

Confession of sin is not morbid. It’s based on the truth of our sinfulness, but it’s also rooted in the character of God, who is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” Listen to what the psalmist says, in Psalm 32, about how he felt before he confessed his sin: “when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” He was depressed, loaded down with the weight of his guilt. And then he says, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Confession relieved him of his burden. Confession was the thing that delivered him from his morbid outlook on life. Why? Because God is ready to forgive. He is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”

When we listen to God’s Word and are convicted of our guilt, as the Israelites were, we can be assured that God is inviting us to come to Him for mercy and grace. When Satan accuses us, he says things like, “God’s never going to forgive you for this; you may as well just throw in the towel.” His accusations lead us away from God. But the conviction of the Holy Spirit always carries an invitation; it leads us to God, not away from Him. It’s holding onto our sins that gets us into trouble, trying to stay away from God, rather than confessing our guilt. Coming into His presence and admitting the truth relieves us of the burden. When the Word of God convicts us of our sin, we can know that God is waiting to grant us forgiveness: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet without sin. Let us, then, approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Rejoicing in the Lord, Nehemiah 7:1-8:18

I’ve known many people who struggle with the idea of spiritual joy. They hear that we’re supposed to rejoice in the Lord, that Christians are supposed to be joyful. But they don’t feel joyful. Often they feel guilty about their lack of joy, which, of course, only makes things worse. And it doesn’t help much when they find themselves in a worship service, singing words like, “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.” They may sing the words, just to avoid being conspicuous, but they see the contrast between the words they’re singing and the reality of their lives. Or, here’s another one, from a chorus book: “Lay down your burdens at the altar, cast all your cares upon the Lord; There’s just no reason for a heavy heart, no need to worry any more....” It sounds appealing, and they may cast their cares on the Lord and lay their burdens at the altar, but they still struggle with a heavy heart. The song doesn’t fit their experience, and no matter how desperately they cry out, asking the Lord to take away their burdens, they still feel a sense of heaviness; they still wrestle with worry and care.

This section of Nehemiah is a helpful one for thinking about spiritual joy. First, we’ll look at the passage, then I’ll say something about rejoicing in the Lord. The first thing to notice, in this passage, is how the people celebrate their success in building the wall. It’s been a difficult time. Nearly a century has passed since the exiles began to return to Jerusalem at the command of king Cyrus. Along the way, there have been numerous setbacks, both in their attempts to rebuild the temple and in the recent work of repairing the wall. During the work of building the wall, they’ve experienced opposition from their enemies and internal struggles between themselves. It’s been a difficult road, but now they’ve experienced a major victory.

The temptation is to pat themselves on the back: “it’s been a long, hard road, but we’ve managed to pull it off; we’ve done it!” They’ve been diligent and have given themselves to the work, but that’s not the thing they’re emphasizing here. The emphasis is not on their accomplishment. Their first impulse, at this point, is to gather for worship. They recognize the same thing that their enemies have seen: “they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (6:16). They recognize that they’ve experienced this victory because of God’s presence among them, so they come to Ezra wanting to worship God: “all the people gathered together into the square.... They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses” (8:1).

God has intervened on their behalf, and they want to celebrate by worshiping Him. This is a good reminder of why we gather for worship. We’re not here to get an emotional high, to have a particular kind of “worship experience.” God may stir and lift our hearts while we’re worshiping Him, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re not here to be entertained or to have our “felt needs” met. We’re here because God has done great things on our behalf and we want to give thanks to Him. We’re here because He is worthy of worship, and we want to tell Him so. We’re here, not primarily to get something for ourselves. We’re gathered together because God is worthy of worship and praise. We’re here because of who He is and what He has done. God has done great things for the nation of Israel at this point, so their first impulse is to gather together in His presence for worship.

The second thing to notice is how the people are affected by this time of worship. The central focus of their worship is God’s Word. Ezra’s not trying to create a particular kind of “mood.” He’s not concerned about making sure that they have an uplifting experience. Several years ago I looked at a church bulletin, and after looking at it I asked someone who had been there, “do they read Scripture at all during the service?” And the answer was “no.” I’ve been in lots of worship services like this, where the main thing is creating the right mood, making sure the songs all flow together to lead to an emotional high. Scripture isn’t used at all, because pausing to read it will break the mood.

Ezra isn’t trying to create the right mood. His main concern is that the people hear God’s Word and understand it. “He read from [the law]... from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand” (8:3). It’s a really remarkable thing, in this culture, that this group includes not only the men, but also the women and any children who are old enough to understand. Of course, one reason that might be given for not reading Scripture in this way is that people won’t understand it. There’s such a large cultural distance, and the vocabulary is unfamiliar; what’s the point of corporate reading of Scripture when the likelihood is that it will go right over the peoples’ heads? So they not only read, they also pause to explain the meaning: “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (8:8). Ezra wants the people to understand, so he reads Scripture to them, then he and the other Levites take time to explain what it means. His primary purpose is not to make the people feel a certain way. He wants them to know the truth that’s revealed in God’s Word.

Knowing the truth in this way, of course, has an effect on them. First, their recent success is placed in the context of God’s saving acts in the past. Their recent victory isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of this larger work that God is doing. It’s part of a long list of God’s saving acts on behalf of His people. God is faithful to His covenant. They’re reminded that it’s not all about them; they’re part of something bigger than themselves. But also, seeing that God is faithful to His covenant in this way, they become aware of their own failure and disobedience. They’re humbled, even in the midst of this great victory. Hearing the law, they’re convicted of sin, which then leads them to mourn.

Notice that they’re having an emotional response to God’s Word. It’s not the one that people usually have in mind when they ask for a “worship experience,” but it is an emotional response to the truth revealed in Scripture. It’s not an artificially created emotional high, it’s a believing response to the truth. We need to know that the immediate result of hearing God’s Word is not always joy. When we see who God is and what He has done for us, we also see clearly our own unfaithfulness. We haven’t loved Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we haven’t loved our neighbor as ourselves; we haven’t been faithful to those two commands that Jesus said are the most important ones. Hearing the Word and understanding it leads us to see our spiritual poverty. It’s no accident that the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor in spirit,” is followed immediately by “blessed are those who mourn.” When we see the truth about God, we also see the truth about ourselves, which causes us to mourn. Our unfaithfulness to God is a source of grief.

That’s why it’s wrong to insist that everything we sing be joyful and happy. There’s a movement in the evangelical church today that says Christian worship should always be upbeat and cheerful. I’ve received promotional brochures from churches that promise things like “our informal, upbeat meetings will give you the lift you need to face the coming week.” But how can we promise that our meetings will be upbeat, when God’s desire may be to humble us and lead us to godly sorrow and repentance? The immediate result of hearing and understanding God’s Word is often sorrow, as the Israelites are experiencing in Nehemiah 8. They’ve experienced a great deliverance from God, but hearing God’s Word fills them with sorrow, because they see that they’ve been unfaithful to this great God who’s done such great things for them.

But then, the third thing to notice is how Ezra, Nehemiah and the other leaders respond to this expression of sorrow. They tell the people to stop weeping, not because weeping is inappropriate. The focus of the next chapter is public confession and repentance, so it’s not that the leaders think the people are off track. It’s that this is the time for celebrating God’s saving acts, not for mourning their own failure. God’s saving work is more fundamental than our personal failure. We haven’t been faithful, but God has. The leaders aren’t canceling their conviction of sin and repentance; they’re just postponing it for the moment. Right now, the focus needs to be on what God has done, not on what we’ve failed to do. The primary thing we need to know, when we come to worship, is that God is faithful to His Word. The primary thing is not our failure, but His saving acts to rescue us from our unfaithfulness.

Have you ever known someone who’s outlook on life was, “I’m not good at anything; I’m just a miserable sinner, and I can’t contribute anything for the good of the church”? Does someone like that make you more aware of the goodness and sufficiency of God? No. An intense awareness of our sinfulness and failure can very easily lead us to be absorbed with ourselves. Mourning our sinfulness has a place in genuine Christian spirituality, but it’s not the primary thing. Whether we’re absorbed with our own successes or our own failures, either way we’re focused on ourselves. God wants us to be absorbed with Him. So we begin, not with ourselves and our failure, but with God. We begin by worshiping Him and rejoicing in all He has done for such unworthy creatures.

This is a time of rejoicing for all that God has done, so the leaders tell them: “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). Yes, they’re unworthy, but God has intervened and come to their rescue, and He calls them to celebrate in His presence. They can rejoice in the Lord, not because they’re such wonderful, successful people; not because everything has gone well in their lives; but because God is their God and He has graciously acted on their behalf. They’re still going to experience trouble, even before this book is finished, but they can rejoice in the Lord because they’ve experienced His gracious, saving presence.

True spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving action on behalf of His people. It’s rooted in God’s saving action on behalf of people who are spiritually poor, who are guilty in God’s presence. God has come to save people who are lost, who have no hope in themselves, who won’t be helped by any amount of positive thinking. True spiritual joy is rooted in the truth of our hopeless condition apart from God; it begins with facing the truth about ourselves, which means that it begins with sorrow. It’s not an upbeat, superficial happiness. Its primary focus is not ourselves, but God. So, with that in mind, here are a few observations about rejoicing in the Lord.

1) Rejoicing in the Lord is not inconsistent with deep sorrow and suffering. Both can be present at the same time. Paul’s most joyful letter, his letter to the Philippians, was written from prison. He exhorts the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord, and yet, when he’s describing what he’s aiming for in his own spiritual life, he says this: “that I may know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection [this is the sort of thing we’re used to hearing, but listen to what he says next] and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (3:10). He describes himself and the other apostles as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Rejoicing in the Lord is not being happy with everything that’s going on in our lives. It’s rejoicing in the Lord, in who He is and what He’s done in coming to rescue us from the ruin we were in because of sin. The people in Jerusalem still mourn for their sins (as we can see by the next chapter), and they continue to experience sorrow in their daily lives. But they’ve also been reminded that the God who enabled them to build the wall is a gracious and compassionate God who will be faithful to them until the end. They’ve been lifted out of their own situation and perspective and freed to rejoice in God.

2) Rejoicing in the Lord isn’t the place where we begin. When we promise immediate happiness we’re giving people a counterfeit. By offering them an easy, upbeat spirituality, we’re cutting them off from the real thing. They can’t experience true spiritual joy, because they haven’t understood the truth. They’ve been offered a shortcut, which, in reality, is a dead-end street. The people of Jerusalem have gone through much hardship and failure up to this point. Their feelings of godly sorrow aren’t manufactured; they feel this way because they’ve seen the truth about themselves. Since true spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving actions on behalf of His people, we won’t experience it without a realization of our desperate need. We don’t begin with grasping after joy. We begin with the truth, which humbles us. And then God, in His infinite mercy and grace, leads us to rejoice.

3) True spiritual joy is a foretaste of heaven. We experience it, from time to time, with varying degrees of intensity, but in heaven we’ll experience it in its fullness. True spiritual joy is rooted in God’s saving acts, which also means that it points forward to the final fulfillment of His saving acts, when we are safely gathered together in His presence. C.S. Lewis talks about the sense of longing that we all experience, as creatures of eternity living in time. He says that many of the good things we experience give us a glimpse of the thing we long for most: “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited” (from The Weight of Glory, quoted in C.S. Lewis on Joy, compiled by Lesley Walmsley, p. 41). Our joy here is always mixed with sorrow, but it’s a foretaste of the joy we’ll experience unmixed and undiluted in that “country we have never yet visited.”

I suspect that many of those who feel guilty about not rejoicing in the Lord actually do rejoice in Him more than they think. And I suspect that many of those who are confused and upset by the fact that their experience is not “and now I am happy all the day” have experiences of joy in God’s presence, foretastes of heaven, even though, at the same time, they experience heaviness and grief and sorrow, both because of the things that happen in their lives and because of the continuing presence of sin and disobedience despite their desire to follow Jesus faithfully. The way to experience true spiritual joy, the way to rejoice in the Lord, is to persevere in cultivating His presence. As we listen attentively to His Word, worship Him intentionally (even when we don’t feel like it), He will give us foretastes of the joy of heaven. Often these foretastes will be fleeting, and often they won’t make sense, because they’ll come to us in the midst of deep sorrow, and the sorrow won’t be removed. But we’re on a journey through this life, and our destination is a place of inescapable joy: “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isaiah 35:10).

Resisting Deception, Nehemiah 6:1-19

Several years ago, I was in a small group discussion and one of the people in the group said, “well, you know, this kind of thing may work in the church, but not in the real world; in the real world you’ll get eaten alive if you try to live that way.” The idea, and I’ve heard it before, is that the Christian life is fine for people who aren’t in touch with reality. Church is great for making us feel better on Sunday morning, but on Monday we have to get back to the real world, which means living like those around us who know nothing of Jesus Christ and have no interest in following Him. If other people were nicer, or more just, or more cooperative, this whole thing might work, but in a world like this it’s unrealistic to expect people to order their lives to follow the example set by Jesus.

One assumption behind this kind of thinking is that the gospel really isn’t true. We don’t come right out and say that, of course. But when we buy into this way of thinking we’re acting as if the gospel were untrue. On Sunday morning we talk about the way we wish things were, but then on Monday we get back to the way things really are. It’s a functional unbelief. We try to hold onto the truth of the gospel with part of our minds – the religious part – but it doesn’t affect our lives in the world, because we’ve been intimidated into thinking that there’s no connection between the things we hear in God’s Word and the world we encounter when we go to work on Monday morning.

The truth, really, is just the opposite. Those who tell us so confidently about what life is like in the “real world” are the ones who are not in touch with reality. They’re living in a diminished universe, one that’s confined to their own impoverished experience. They’re blind to the whole spiritual dimension of reality. They’re blind to the presence of God in the world, the God who created and sustains all things. Things happen all around them that point to this reality, but they’re blind to what’s happening. Their perception of the “real world” is distorted. And when we, as God’s people listen and become intimidated by this sort of thing, our perception of the world also becomes distorted. We begin living in functional unbelief. We still believe, with part of our minds, in the teachings of the Church, but we live like unbelievers. Our faith has no connection with the way we order our lives.

Nehemiah is under attack, in this chapter, from the unbelieving world. We saw him, in chapter 5, dealing with an internal problem that had arisen during the building of the wall, but now we see him being attacked by the enemies of God’s people. We need to know, as God’s people, that we have a spiritual enemy who is out to destroy us. Every attempt we make to follow Jesus Christ will be met by resistance of some sort. We’re living in a fallen world, and the battle won’t be over until we’re all united together in God’s kingdom.

I’ve often quoted A.W. Tozer. He was a man who walked with God, who sought Him diligently over the course of his life and ministry, and he was very perceptive about the spiritual condition of the church. Many of the things he said about the church in the mid-twentieth century are even more true today than they were when he was writing. One prominent theme in his writing is the idea that the Fall has created a state of emergency: “In times of extraordinary crisis ordinary measures will not suffice. The world lives in such a time of crisis. Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing. We dare not settle down to try to live as if things were ‘normal.’ Nothing is normal while sin and lust and death roam the world, pouncing upon one and another till the whole population has been destroyed. To me it has always been difficult to understand those evangelical Christians who insist on living in the crisis as if no crisis existed. They say they serve the Lord, but they divide their days so as to leave plenty of time to play and loaf and enjoy the pleasures of the world as well. They are at ease while the world burns” (“We Live in a State of Emergency,” in Born After Midnight, pp. 30-31). It’s because we live in such a state of emergency that we are under constant attack from the enemy of our souls.

So Nehemiah is under attack. He’s stepped out at God’s leading, and he’s had clear evidence of God’s blessing. But, at the same time, he’s encountered one problem after another. Now the enemies of God’s people are beginning to panic. Their earlier attempts have failed, and the wall is nearly completed. The only part of the job left is putting the gates in place. So they renew their attack, but this time they focus on Nehemiah himself. If they can get at him, the whole work will suffer.

The first point is that their goal is to destroy him. They’re not just out to slow things down or stir up a bit of trouble. They want to destroy Nehemiah. First they try to lure him into a trap. They send him a message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” They’re saying, “let’s get together and talk; let’s put our differences behind us.” But they’re really not interested in having a discussion with Nehemiah. They want to get him out of Jerusalem so that they can attack and kill him. They make the same request four times, and when Nehemiah refuses to come, they finally send and open letter accusing him of rebellion against the king. An open letter would be read by others and would feed the rumors that Nehemiah is grasping after power for himself. They’re saying, “This report is going to get back to the king; you’d better come meet with us, to talk about how we’re going to deal with the situation.” They’re pretending to be his ally.

When this fails, they try something else. Nehemiah goes to visit a prophet named Shemaiah, who is “shut in at his home.” He may have been confined to his home because of an illness. Because he can’t leave his house, he sends for Nehemiah to give him a message. And the message is this: “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you – by night they are coming to kill you.” It’s not obvious in English, but the message is given in poetic form, like a prophetic oracle. He’s claiming to have a message for Nehemiah from God.

It was possible for someone in immediate danger to seek asylum at the altar, but that wouldn’t involve going inside the temple. Shemaiah wants Nehemiah to go inside the temple to hide from his enemies, something he, not being a priest, has no right to do. What’s going on here? He’s trying to frighten Nehemiah into committing a sin, which would then discredit him as a leader of God’s people: “He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.”

And then, in addition to these things, we’re told that Tobiah has formed strong connections with many in Jerusalem and through these connections is seeking to undermine Nehemiah’s leadership. Tobiah is sending letters to intimidate him, and some of the prophets, Noadiah and others, are using their prophetic office to intimidate him. Nehemiah is being attacked from every direction. It’s probably difficult, at this point, to be sure who his friends and enemies are, because his enemies are seeking to deceive him by pretending to offer him help. It’s difficult to tell the true prophets from the false ones, because all of them are claiming to speak in the name of the Lord. And the intent of all this effort is to destroy Nehemiah. They want to get rid of him. They want him out of the picture.

The second point is that these attacks are all calculated to catch him at a point of weakness. They’re all aimed at hitting him where he’s most vulnerable. The request for a meeting seems reasonable enough. Why wouldn’t Nehemiah be willing to sit down and talk? It seems unreasonable to say no to this kind of invitation. Maybe he’s missing an opportunity to win them over. Maybe if Nehemiah would just take this one step in their direction they’d get over their hostility. Maybe if he explains himself more clearly they’ll understand where he’s coming from.

We saw in the last sermon that Nehemiah has come to Jerusalem to serve. He’s not seeking to become king. Their charge is untrue, but it’s likely to hit a nerve. It’s a false charge, but Nehemiah’s strong leadership may make some wonder. It’s a dangerous rumor. And then, what about this prophet who is giving him a message in the name of the Lord? Nehemiah is intensely concerned about his relationship with God, and it’s people who care about following the Lord who are often led astray by this kind of tactic. Then there are the repeated attempts to intimidate him and undermine his leadership. Given the sheer number and variety of attacks, it’s amazing that Nehemiah keeps his perspective. In this kind of situation, we tend to get disoriented and are more easily deceived.

The third point is that despite the number and intensity of these attacks, God protects him. How does he survive? Nehemiah manages to resist each attack because: 1) he’s attentive to what is going on, and 2) his life is immersed in prayer. How does he know that Sanballat and the others are planning to harm him, that they’re not interested in meeting with him? He doesn’t tell us; he simply reports, “But they were scheming to harm me.” He’s paying attention; something about the situation doesn’t seem right. Rather than rushing off at the first request, he pauses and asks himself what is wrong with the picture.

When he goes to meet with Shemaiah, he doesn’t seem to know right away that Shemaiah is a false prophet. Some years ago, a man asked to meet with me in my office. When he arrived, he greeted me warmly and was very friendly. He assured me that he was a fellow believer and that he was speaking to me as one Christian to another. But the more he talked, the more obvious it was that there was something seriously wrong with him spiritually. I have serious doubts about whether he was a genuine believer at all. He was very friendly in the beginning, but when I refused to do what he wanted, he got mad and left and never spoke to me again. When we encounter people like this, we need to pay attention to our gut feelings. Our gut feelings may be wrong in the end, but don’t be too quick to assume that. Take some time to stop and reflect about why you feel the way you do. One commentator points out that Nehemiah’s realization that Shemaiah was a false prophet didn’t come to him immediately: “verse 12 is phrased in such a way as to suggest that he did not see this immediately but rather that the truth dawned in the midst of his dealings with him. Literally it reads: ‘Then I recognized, and behold, it was not God who had sent him’ (J.G. McConville, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, pp. 106-107).

Shemaiah is asking Nehemiah to do something he has no right to do, but his approach is subtle. The altar had been a place of asylum, and maybe Nehemiah isn’t clear on the Law at this point, or maybe he’ll think the words of a prophet carry enough authority to make an exception. After all, Nehemiah is following the Lord, and his life is in danger. Those who are trying to deceive us usually tell us part of the truth, but there’s a subtle twist; something is off, but it’s not usually obvious right away. Nehemiah sees the problem, but I suspect he also perceives something about Shemaiah. When we’re in the presence of false prophets, there’s often something intangible, something we can’t quite put our finger on, that doesn’t seem right. When we have that feeling about someone, we need to pay attention and begin asking questions. Nehemiah avoided falling into the trap because he took the time to think before he acted.

Nehemiah is able to tell that something is off spiritually, because he has cultivated a strong relationship with God through prayer. This book is filled with prayers that Nehemiah lifts to God. We saw, at the beginning of the book, that Nehemiah gave himself to prayer over an extended period before he approached the king about the problems in Jerusalem. Prayer is a significant emphasis in his daily life. When he sees that his enemies are trying to frighten him, saying “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed,” he prays “Now strengthen my hands.” He responds to difficult situations with prayer. He’s not trusting in his own resources. He realizes his own poverty; he knows his own weakness, so he cries out to God again and again for help. And one by-product of this is that he is more attentive to what is going on spiritually. He recognizes that something is not right about this man, Shemaiah. So, rather than taking the oracle at face value, Nehemiah tests it. He examines it in the light of what he knows from Scripture, and he discovers that Shemaiah is a false prophet.

We’re living in a fallen world, a world where our enemy “Like a roaring lion... prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). One of his tactics is to transform himself into an angel of light in order to deceive us. And we need to know that his goal is to destroy us. If we’re not interested in walking with God, he probably won’t give us much trouble. But if we’re seeking to follow Jesus Christ, we’ll find ourselves under attack again and again, like Nehemiah in this chapter. The attacks will often come in unexpected ways and from surprising directions. And, most of all, they’ll be calculated to catch us at a weak point; they’ll be directed to hit us where we’re most vulnerable.

We just read 1 Peter 5:8. Here’s what immediately precedes that verse: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (5:6-7). Cultivate a relationship with God; be aware of your own spiritual poverty and cry out to Him for help, knowing that He cares about you. And then this: “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” Nehemiah was able to resist deception, because he cultivated a relationship with God through prayer and because he was alert and attentive. Peter is calling us to the same thing. A.W. Tozer was right. We’re living in an emergency situation brought about by the Fall. We can’t afford to wander through life half-asleep. The enemy of our souls is seeking to destroy us. The way to survive over the long term is to realize our own weakness and know that we are going to be vulnerable to his attacks. Knowing this, we cultivate a relationship with God, who loves us and wants the best for us (whose aims are just the opposite of the devil’s).

And as we invite Him into every area of our lives, we seek to be alert to what is going on around us spiritually. There are two opposite dangers to avoid. I’ve known some people who were paranoid about the devil, who hardly seemed to talk about anything else. They blamed demons for everything that went wrong in their lives. We need to be alert, but that doesn’t mean being paranoid. At the other extreme are those who hardly seem aware that there is any danger at all. They walk through life oblivious to the reality that we’re in a spiritual war. Both extremes lead us into deception. We can be confident, knowing that God possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He has promised to protect us. We need to be watchful and alert, but not paranoid or afraid. Here it is in James: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:6b-8). Humble yourselves before God (knowing that you are helpless in yourselves), resist the devil (which involves being aware and alert to his deception) and he will flee from you; and draw near to God. Cultivate God’s presence, trust in Him, and be alert. As you do this, He’ll protect you from deception.