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).
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
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).
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).
Monday, November 11, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Citizens of Heaven, Revelation 7:2-12
All Saints Sunday
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
A friend of ours told us about dealing with her husband’s death, which was years before we met her. She was overwhelmed and couldn’t get over the sense of loss. Then one day he walked into the room and started talking to her; he assured her that he was doing well and that she was going to be OK. He said he couldn’t stay long but just wanted to check on her, and then he left. She said after that things were different for her. She still missed him, but she was able to start healing. I’ve heard similar stories from other people I trust. I can’t say what is happening in these stories, whether these people are given a vision or whether God permits the deceased person to make a brief visit. I do know that these experiences often lead to healing and a continued sense of connection with the person who died.
How should we think about those who’ve been separated from us by death? What do we do with our memories of those who’ve been part of our lives and are now no longer here? Some people seem to close a door. “They’re no longer here, so the only thing to do is forget them and get on with my life.” But when we do that, a part of us dies. Others live in the past and never move on. So, if we don’t want to live in the past and also don’t want to throw it away, what are we supposed to do with these memories?
The early Church was faced with the same problem. Not only were members of the Church dying; many were being killed by the Roman authorities. Some of the greatest leaders of the Church, those who were looked to as models of Christian discipleship, had been put to death by the government. And rather than forgetting about these people and pushing them into the past, the Church began to celebrate the days of their martyrdom; “their death-days [became] their birthdays in the Lord” (William Griffin, “All Saints,” in Epiphanies, ed. Eugene Peterson and Emilie Griffin, p. 229). There was no question about worshiping these people; the Church has been clear from the beginning that we only worship God. But those who had persevered in the faith, who had modeled Christian discipleship till the end, were worthy of honor.
This idea of honoring those who’ve gone before us is familiar in another context. In our country we celebrate Memorial Day, honoring those who’ve given their lives to preserve freedom. We don’t worship them, we give them honor and give thanks for what they’ve done. In honoring martyrs and celebrating their death-days, the Church was doing something very similar to what we do on Memorial Day. But because the Roman persecutions went on for so long and with such intensity, the calendar very quickly filled up. And the Church needed a way to honor, not only the great leaders, but all those who had persevered in the faith. All Saints’ Day was an answer to that need. On All Saints’ Day we honor all those great examples of Christian discipleship (many of whom we’ve never heard), and also those from our own families and churches who are now with the Lord. In Eastern Orthodox churches, All Saints’ Day is celebrated the Sunday after Pentecost, and in Western Churches the day is November 1st (and has been since the year 835). We’re observing it today, because this is the Sunday closest to November 1st.
The book of Revelation was written during the period when the Roman Empire was persecuting Christians. The people it was addressed to originally were living out the reality of Jesus’ words: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.... Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:18, 20). This is the kind of world we live in, a world that crucified Jesus Christ, that rejects His lordship, and that often treats His followers in the same way. Revelation 7 tells us some things we need to know, living in a world like this.
The first thing is that God is committed to His people. These verses contain two visions, and right now we’re considering the first one, the vision of the 144,000. Who are these people? The first thing to remember is that the book of Revelation is written in a style called Apocalyptic, which makes extensive use of symbolism. John isn’t talking about a literal group of 144,000, he’s using a symbolic number to say something. And despite the fact that he identifies them as “from all the tribes of Israel,” he’s not talking here about Jewish people. He’s talking about the Church. There are some clues that point in this direction: Judah (the tribe Jesus came from) is listed first, even though Judah wasn’t the oldest; and though it says “all the tribes of Israel,” not all the tribes are listed here. Dan is omitted from the list, and Joseph’s tribe is listed twice (since Manasseh was his son). The author’s priority is not to list all the tribes of Israel, but to make sure the number is right, so he feels free to omit one tribe and double up another. 144,000 is a number that stresses completeness (12, the number of tribes squared, then multiplied by 1,000).
The idea here is that all God’s people are sealed. They’re going to go through difficult times, and God seals them ahead of time to protect them. The point is this: to His people facing life in an evil world, God says: “I am with all of you until the end of the age.” The number 144,000 stresses that God will not overlook any of us. Here’s the promise in Psalm 121:7: “The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.”
God isn’t promising that nothing bad will happen to us. Bad things happen to us, just as they do to others. We live in a fallen world. But God promises that the things that happen won’t undermine His purposes for us. Eugene Peterson explains this very well: “The promise of [Psalm 121] – and both Hebrews and Christians have always read it this way – is not that we shall never stub our toes, but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, that is, will be able to separate us from God’s purposes in us” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 38). He says this a little later: “All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us. That is the promise of the psalm: ‘The Lord will keep you from all evil’.... The only serious mistake we can make when illness comes, when anxiety threatens, when conflict disturbs our relationship with others is to conclude that God has gotten bored in looking after us and has shifted his attention to a more exciting Christian, or that God has become disgusted with our meandering obedience and decided to let us fend for ourselves for awhile, or that God has gotten too busy fulfilling prophecy in the Middle East to take time now to sort out the complicated mess we have gotten ourselves into. That is the only serious mistake we can make. It is the mistake that Psalm 121 prevents: the mistake of supposing that God’s interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature” (A Long Obedience, pp. 38-39).
We live in a fallen world, and we are subject to the same struggles that plague everyone else here. But we have the promise that God watches over us, that He will stay with us until the end, that He will guard our souls until we see Him face to face. That’s the point in sealing the 144,000: not only will God guard our souls as we continue our journey through this life; He won’t overlook any of us (and those who’ve died are not forgotten by Him either). We could think of this vision as God’s answer to the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The second thing is this: there’s more to our lives than what we can see on the surface. We’re looking now at the second vision, the great multitude that no one can number. These are the same people as the 144,000, looked at from another perspective. The book of Revelation wasn’t written as a manual for interpreting the end times; it wasn’t given to satisfy our curiosity about events in the Middle East. It was written, initially, to Christians living under the Roman persecutions, and it has a message for all believers living in an evil world. This second vision tells us that the evil we’re experiencing is not the most significant reality in our lives. It’s not primarily about what things will be like in the future, although it does give us a glimpse into that. But, more importantly, it tells us what is true, right now, for those who worship God.
Paul says, in Ephesians 2, that God has “made us alive together with Christ... and raised us up with him in the heavenly places” (vv. 5-6). He’s saying this is true of us now, as people who belong to Jesus Christ. In Colossians 3, he says: “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (vv. 1-3). The author of Hebrews has an even more graphic description: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). As people who belong to Jesus Christ, we are, right now, part of that great multitude John describes in this second vision in Revelation 7.
Listen to Eugene Peterson again: “There’s something just beneath the surface of everything, something invisible but just as real, maybe even more real, than what we’re seeing and hearing and touching” (Leap Over a Wall, p. 38). In the midst of our lives in this world, we need to know that there is more going on than what we can see on the surface of things. Our lives are not defined by the evil of this world, even the evil of death. Our lives are defined by our identity as people who belong to the Church, and the Church includes all those in heaven and on earth who belong to Jesus Christ.
The third thing is this: the most important thing is not what we’re doing, but what God is doing. That’s what the Church is celebrating around God’s throne. Worship is not about us, but about God: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.... Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” The worship around God’s throne – and remember we are part of this right now – is not about getting something for ourselves to charge our batteries for the week. It’s about exalting God for who He is and for what He’s done. He’s the one who belongs at the center of our worship. To someone who says, “I just don’t get anything out of worship” (assuming that the worship is centered around God and His Word) the proper answer is, “what are you offering to God?” Get the focus off yourself and seek to honor and exalt Him (whether it makes you feel good or not).
We belong to the “communion of saints,” as we confess every week in the Creed. The word “saints” is often used of those who’ve led exemplary Christian lives, but in its broadest sense it simply means “holy ones,” or “those who have been set apart for God.” Paul addresses his letter to the Romans: “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints” (1:7). We belong to Jesus Christ; we’ve been set apart for His purposes. Our primary identity is that we belong to Him and are part of His body, part of which is in heaven and part of which is still on the journey here on earth. Some from our midst have taken up full-time residence in heaven even in the past year. But they are still part of the Church. We’re still united with them as part of the same body, and we look forward to the day when we’ll all be gathered before God’s throne face to face. All Saints’ Day reminds us of this truth.
In the meantime, as we continue on our journey through this life, we need to remember what it means to be God’s people, to be saints, people set apart for His purposes: God is committed to us and has promised to be with us, no matter what else is happening around us; there is more going on than is apparent on the surface of things; and the most important priority is to cultivate God’s fellowship, to make it the business of our lives to exalt Him and put Him at the center, where He belongs. Honoring those who’ve gone before us can help in this also. Listen to these words by St. Bernard of Clairvaulx: “Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company.... We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of the patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs.... In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints.” We want to join them in worship before the throne. But there’s more than this: “When we commemorate the saints we are inflamed with another yearning: that Christ our life may also appear as he appeared to them and that we may one day share in his glory” (The Liturgy of the Hours, vol. 4, pp. 1526-27). In honoring the saints who’ve gone before us, the focus is not on them, but on what God did in and through them. So, in celebrating All Saints’ Day, the main attention is not on the saints themselves, but on God: “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb.”
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