That the Word of the Lord Might be Fulfilled… | Sunday, May 22, 2022
May 20, 2022 · Pastor Miles DeBenedictis
In this teaching
Pastor Miles introduces a summer study in the book of Nehemiah by tracing the "deuteronomic principle"—God's conditional framework of blessing and cursing—through Israel's history of faithfulness, idolatry, exile, and return. He shows how Nehemiah's distress over ruined Jerusalem and his response of weeping, fasting, prayer, and confession model how God's people should respond to chaotic and distressing times today.
- Deuteronomy is the primer for the entire Old Testament, teaching the "deuteronomic principle": if Israel obeys God they are blessed, if they disobey they are cursed and exiled.
- Israel's history (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) repeatedly shows them serving God under godly leaders, then drifting into idolatry, leading to bondage and exile.
- The northern kingdom fell to Assyria (722 BC) and Judah to Babylon (586 BC), but God raised up Cyrus—named 200 years earlier by Isaiah—to release the exiles, as Ezra and Nehemiah record.
- The temple was rebuilt but Jerusalem's walls lay in ruins for decades; news of this distress is what confronts Nehemiah in chapter 1.
- We live in distressing, chaotic times much like Nehemiah's, and the book offers insight on how the people of God should respond.
- Before any practical work could succeed, Nehemiah stopped, wept, fasted, prayed, and confessed his people's sin as his own—recognizing he might be placed "for such a time as this."
Readable is a lightly edited reading copy; Verbatim stays close to the spoken words. The audio and video are the record of what was said.
Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God... that the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God... But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God... that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. (, 15)
How God's people should respond when their nation lies in distress, reproach, and ruin.
From Deuteronomy to Nehemiah
For most of the last two years our studies have been in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. We've taken some detours along the way—most recently through Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in , 6, and 7—but each time we've returned to Deuteronomy, slowly working our way to chapter 16, where we left off about a month ago. Now we're going to take another detour through this summer into the book of Nehemiah.
When we began our study in Deuteronomy back in January of 2020—which seems like a lifetime ago—I shared that Deuteronomy is something of a primer to everything in the Old Testament. The Torah, also called the Pentateuch, is the first five books of the Bible, and Deuteronomy is the fifth and last. Everything that follows reaches back to the teaching of Moses in Deuteronomy.
The Deuteronomic Principle
The historic books—Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles—play upon the teachings of Moses found in Deuteronomy. And the prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets—preach to the people of their day using Deuteronomy. All of the Old Testament dealing with Israel's life in the land, their exile, and their return falls under what scholars call the deuteronomic literature, governed by the deuteronomic principle.
What is that principle? It's a conditional framework of blessing—God's algorithm for blessing, the "if this, then that" of how God will bless His people. If the children of Israel are faithful to God and keep His commandments, they reap long life and blessing in the promised land. But if they are unfaithful and disobey, they experience the curses of disobedience.
This is summed up at the end of Moses's teaching in . The first fourteen verses promise blessing: blessed in the city, blessed in the country, blessed in the fruit of the body and the produce of the ground, with enemies defeated before them—"if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways." But beginning at verse 15, Moses turns to the curses: cursed in the city, cursed in the country, cursed in basket and kneading bowl, with confusion and rebuke "until you are destroyed... because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me."
The Pattern Played Out in Israel's History
Following Deuteronomy, the historic books let us watch this play out. For a time Israel is faithful—when they have good and godly leaders. Then, after their leaders are gone, the people drift, spiral into idolatry, and fall under bondage to their enemies. When faithful, the nation flourishes; when unfaithful, it slides toward defeat, destruction, and bondage.
That's where the prophets come in. As Israel slides downward, the prophets arrive to call the people and their leaders back to faith and faithfulness. They use Deuteronomy as their playbook. In many ways the prophets were experts in Deuteronomy who looked at the sinful conditions of their day and simply prophesied what would happen based on .
So Deuteronomy is a key for understanding the Old Testament. Last summer we detoured from Deuteronomy to study Esther, which seemed like just the right book for just the right time—for us as a church, as a people, and as a nation. This summer we detour again to Nehemiah, a book that is close to Esther both in the Bible and on the historical timeline. Like Esther, Nehemiah is "for such a time as this."
Building the Historical Context
It's hard to jump into Nehemiah without context, so let me build some. We need to go back to , where Moses begins his message to the children of Israel as they prepare to enter the land:
Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in to possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you. ()
He continues:
Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen... and teach them to your children and your grandchildren. ()
Then in verses 23 and following, Moses warns that if they grow old in the land, act corruptly, and make carved images, "you will soon utterly perish from the land." The LORD will scatter them among the peoples, where they will serve gods of wood and stone. "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul... for the LORD your God is a merciful God."
The pattern is simple and direct: follow the Lord and be blessed; turn away and be exiled into slavery until you cry out to Him. As Moses closes in , he says:
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil... I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. (, 19)
Joshua, Judges, and the Drift Toward Idolatry
So what happened? After Moses's death, Joshua led the people across the Jordan on dry ground by a miracle, and they conquered and found rest in the land. But nearly as soon as they had peace, they began to drift back toward idolatry—the default in each of us.
While Joshua was still alive, he gathered the people and charged them: "Fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and truth... choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (). The people answered, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD." They reaffirmed it a second time: "No, but we will serve the LORD." Joshua said, "You are witnesses against yourselves." And they said, "We are witnesses."
But the book that follows is Judges, and now Joshua and Caleb are gone. records these sad words:
When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel... they forsook the LORD God of their fathers... and they followed other gods... and they provoked the LORD to anger. ()
This begins a storyline that continues nearly a thousand years. During the time of the judges, Israel served God only when godly judges like Barak, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson rose up. The last of these was Samuel.
Kings, the Divided Kingdom, and Exile
Samuel's sons were not good leaders, so the people demanded a king. First came Saul, which didn't work out well; then David, under whom things seemed much better; then Solomon, the son of David. Under Solomon there was peace, prosperity, and a newly constructed temple—the best of times. But the worst of times were coming.
After Solomon, his son Rehoboam came to the throne. Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived, but in Rehoboam's case the apple fell about as far from the tree as it could—wisdom did not pass down genetically. Solomon had already introduced much idolatry, and it grew worse under Rehoboam. His foolishness divided the nation into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom (Israel, or Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah), which had Jerusalem and the temple.
The northern kingdom never had a good king; all were horrible idolaters who led the people deep into idolatry. The southern kingdom did slightly better but was still carnal. This was the time of the prophets, like Isaiah. And just as God had promised in , the curses came. In the late eighth century BC (around 722 BC), the northern tribes were defeated and removed from the land by the Assyrians, becoming the lost tribes of Israel. Then in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem, and the assault continued until 586 BC, when he oversaw the destruction of the temple. Judah was exiled to Babylon for nearly seventy years.
Crying Out by the Rivers of Babylon
In Babylon they finally had idolatry "to their full," and they cried out to the Lord. says, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." The upside of their exile was that they turned away from idolatry and cried out for mercy and restoration—exactly as promised: "from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him."
God answered through an unlikely method that He had prophesied. In through 45, nearly 200 years before the events, God named the deliverer: Cyrus, the Persian king from the east. In 539 BC, Cyrus brought about the defeat of Babylon at the Battle of Opis and took over the empire, making Medo-Persia the ruling power. And Cyrus released Israel from bondage.
The book of Ezra opens with this—and it's important to mention that in a Hebrew Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah are actually one book, so Nehemiah is like a third section of Ezra:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus... so that he made a proclamation... "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem... Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem... and build the house of the LORD." ()
I have a feeling—though Scripture doesn't say so—that when Cyrus took over Babylon there was an old man in the palace named Daniel, who came and said, "I want to show you something from our ancient writings." Daniel was there when the Medo-Persians took over, and he likely showed Cyrus the writings of Jeremiah and Isaiah, which named Cyrus by name two hundred years earlier.
The Slow, Frustrated Rebuilding
Two years after Cyrus took Babylon, in 537 BC, the first wave of refugees returned to Jerusalem to begin work on the temple. Around 535 BC they laid the foundation (). It was nothing like the former glory, and those who had seen the previous temple wept. Almost immediately, the enemies of Israel came against the work, and by the decree of a later king (Artaxerxes) the building was stopped for fifteen years.
Then, around 520 BC, King Darius came along. The people in Jerusalem asked him to check the records of Cyrus, and when he found the decree, he allowed them to continue. In only four years they finished:
So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo... according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. ()
The temple was finished in the sixth year of Darius, and they celebrated the dedication with joy. It wasn't the best of times, but it wasn't the worst either—and that's where things stayed for nearly sixty years. The temple stood, but the city was still in ruins from Nebuchadnezzar's destruction in 586 BC: the walls broken down, the city collapsed.
In 458 BC, Ezra—a priest and servant of the Lord, an expert in the Scriptures—returned to Babylon and called the people still there to come home. A second wave returned with him, with a heart to rebuild the city. But the work languished for another fourteen years.
Nehemiah's Distress
That brings us to late 444 BC, where begins:
The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, "The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire." ()
That was a long path to , but the context matters. Nehemiah is in Shushan, the capital of the Medo-Persian empire. He receives word from family members that, despite a decade and a half of effort, the rebuilding is failing—walls broken, gates burned. He is filled with grief.
Why does this background matter? Because we are living in distressing times as well. Nehemiah gives us insight into how the people of God ought to respond when things are run down and in ruin, when God's people are divided and scattered. At this point, many of the Jews had stayed in Babylon and Persia; the people were divided. In a situation of ruin, chaos, disaster, and division, how shall we then live as the people of God? That's what we'll consider this summer.
For Such a Time as This
Notice that Nehemiah is in the very same city—and the same palace, the citadel in Shushan—where Esther sat as queen thirty years earlier. The book of Esther happened about thirty years before Nehemiah. If it had not been for Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai, Nehemiah likely would not have been born or come of age. Because God worked through Esther, now, thirty years later, Nehemiah is set up for such a time as this.
How do you respond when confronted with distress, reproach, and ruin in your nation and among your people? That's the question many Christians have wrestled with over the last two and a half years.
It's interesting—I taught through Nehemiah at a Scandinavian church leaders' family camp in Sweden in July of 2018. Looking back at my notes from that message on July 25, 2018, this stood out: I said that these certainly were not the worst of times. There was no imminent war, no apparent disaster on the horizon, no looming famine. We had it pretty good. But, I asked, was it really the best of times?
Here we are four years later. For Scandinavia, a war with Russia is on their doorstep—Finland and Sweden are petitioning to enter NATO as I give this message. Beyond a looming war in Europe, we are coming out of more than two years of global pandemic chaos, with the economy in shambles, teetering on the edge of recession, and potential food shortages predicted for the fall.
A Shell of Its Former Glory
The church throughout the world, especially in the West, is in some ways just like the temple during the time of Ezra—a shell of its former glory, surrounded by ruin, exposed with little defense. Only about a third of those who worshiped in the temple had returned from exile. After the pandemic, only about two-thirds of the people who attended church before have returned. It feels like the church is experiencing difficulty in a world of chaos with little defense. I don't think that's actually true, but it feels that way.
So how does someone respond to all this? Nehemiah's response in chapter 1 is instructive:
So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said: "I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant... I confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned... Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them... I will gather them from there...'" ()
He continues: "O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." Then this crucial line: "For I was the king's cupbearer."
How a Great Work of God Begins
This is so important. Every great work of God for His kingdom begins this way. Nehemiah stopped. He sat down, wept, and mourned for many days. He fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. He confessed the sin of his people as his own sin. He repented, lamented, and remembered the words of Moses from . And then he recognized that he might be just the right person, in just the right place, at just the right time—he was cupbearer to the king.
Many Christians today are trying to figure out how to respond to the chaos and ruin around us. There are all kinds of ideas about which policies to push and which politicians can fix our woes, and I'm sure some are great ideas, with many people working hard. But it's crucially important that we consider Nehemiah's response.
Don't miss this: there was a ton of work to be done in Jerusalem—real, practical problems. The city was in turmoil with no walls. But none of it would be truly addressable without the mighty hand of God. For nearly a hundred years before Nehemiah, people had been trying to restore Jerusalem and failing. You could gather all the workers and money in the world, but it wouldn't work—they had been pouring people and money into it for almost a century.
So how did Nehemiah deal with it? He stopped. He sat down, wept, and mourned for many days. He fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and confessed the sin of his people as his own.
For Such a Time as This—Today
What happened next? You'll have to come back next time, because we have no time for chapter 2 today. But these are important words for such a time as this. We live in times drastically different from Nehemiah's in many ways, yet similar in key ways.
I'm sure you look at the world and are distressed, just as Nehemiah was. Maybe you have a whole list of ideas—if only they did this, said that, fixed this problem. We could try to figure out how to fix those things. But first and foremost, the most important thing the people of God can do is to stop, confess, pray, fast, and ask God to move—and to recognize that, just like Nehemiah, you might be specially placed by the Lord for such a time as this. We need to seek the God of heaven to work mightily.
Closing Prayer
Father God, I pray that You would speak these things to our hearts, and help us to remember them and hold on to them. Lord, help us throughout this week to do what Nehemiah did—to stop, to pray, maybe even to fast, and to set aside time to focus our attention upon You. All the issues we see all around the world are not fixable without You and Your mighty hand. So God, would You work in and through Your people just as You did through ,400 years ago. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.
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I see the King of Glory coming on in the people.
Selflessness is important as we pray and seek guidance.
For most of the last two years, our studies in the Scriptures have been in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. We have certainly taken some detours along the way.
The way we have approached our study over the last month has involved going through some passages in the New Testament, particularly Jesus's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. Each time, we have returned to the book of Deuteronomy, and slowly we have worked our way up to chapter 16. I mean, we are not moving very quickly through the book of Deuteronomy. That is where we left off about a month ago.
Now, we are going to take another detour from Deuteronomy this summer, and we will be exploring the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. When we began our study in Deuteronomy back in January of 2020, which seems like a lifetime ago, I shared with the church that Deuteronomy serves as a primer for everything in the Old Testament that follows the Torah. The Torah is the first five books of the Bible, also referred to as the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy is the fifth book; it is the last book in the Torah and the last book in the Pentateuch.
Everything that follows the book of Deuteronomy looks back to it. The teachings of Moses in Deuteronomy help us understand the various events occurring among the children of Israel. The historical books of the Old Testament, such as Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, as well as 1 and 2 Chronicles, build upon the teachings found in Deuteronomy.
Furthermore, the prophets, including books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, along with the minor prophets such as Obadiah, Zechariah, and Zephaniah, all preach to the people of their day in the land of Israel using the teachings of Deuteronomy. Thus, the entirety of the Old Testament, which deals with Israel's life, their exile, and their return to the Promised Land, falls under what Bible commentators, teachers, and scholars refer to as Deuteronomic literature. This all relates to the concept known as the Deuteronomic principle.
Now, what exactly is the Deuteronomic principle? Of course, it derives its name from the word "Deuteronomy," but what is the principle itself?
The Deuteronomic principle is essentially a conditional framework of blessing. As I have described it before here at Cross Connection, it is God's algorithm for blessing. It follows the idea that if the children of Israel are faithful to God and adhere to His commandments, they will reap the benefits of long life and blessings in the Promised Land. However, if Israel is unfaithful to God and does not follow His commandments, they will experience what we might call counter-blessings, or rather, they will face the curses of disobedience and unfaithfulness.
All of this is summed up at the end of Moses's teaching in . I will read a long section of scripture today, as we will look at several lengthy passages. In , beginning at verse 1, we read: "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of the ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command a blessing on you in all your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Then the Lord will establish you as His holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways."
We see very clearly in this passage the conditional framework where God will bless His people if they keep His commandments. This is the essence of the "if-then" principle. If you obey, then you receive blessings. However, Moses continues in , and he states in verse 15, "But it shall come to pass if you do not..."
Obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all His commandments and all His statutes which I command you today. That all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city; cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of all your cattle and your offspring and your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in; cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
Now again, following Deuteronomy, the book of Deuteronomy and the rest of the historic books of the Old Testament—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and so on—we get to see all of this play out in Israel's lives and in their history. For a time, they will be faithful to the Lord when they have good and godly leaders. Basically, this is when they will be faithful to the Lord. After their leaders are gone, the children of Israel will drift. As they drift, they will go down this spiral, this cycle towards falling away from the Lord and into idolatry. Then they will come under bondage from their enemies.
When they are faithful to the Lord, the nation will flourish. When they are unfaithful, they will again go down that spiral towards defeat, destruction, and bondage to their enemies. That is where the prophets come in. The prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and so forth—come in as Israel is on this downward slide. They show up to call the people of Israel and their leaders back to faith and faithfulness to God. When the prophets show up, they basically use the book of Deuteronomy as their playbook or as their message script. They predict things largely based upon the book of Deuteronomy.
In many ways, the prophets were like experts in Deuteronomy who looked at the sinful conditions of the people of their day and then simply prophesied what was going to happen based upon reading what was in the book of Deuteronomy, especially . As I've said, Deuteronomy is a key for understanding the Old Testament. It is a primer, which is why our studies in the Old Testament have basically begun with studying Deuteronomy. For many years here at Cross Connection, we were on a journey through the New Testament, going through all of the epistles of the New.
In our study of the New Testament, we have used the Book of Acts as a timeline or primer for understanding the entirety of the New Testament. The Book of Acts serves as a history book that sets the timeline for everything that follows. Similarly, Deuteronomy acts as a key or primer that establishes the tone for everything else found in the Old Testament. For the last couple of years, we have been using Deuteronomy in this way.
Last summer, we took a detour from Deuteronomy to study the Old Testament Book of Esther. At that time, both the season we were in as a church and as a nation here in the U.S. made Esther seem like the right book for the right time. This summer, we are once again detouring from Deuteronomy to study a book that is not only close in the Bible but also close in historical context to the Book of Esther. We will be studying the Book of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is particularly relevant for the season we are in as a church at Cross Connection Church, as well as for the larger Church in the United States and the West. It resonates with us as people in this nation. I believe that Nehemiah is just the right book for just the right time. It echoes the sentiment of "for such a time as this," which we encountered in the Book of Esther last summer. For such a time as this, God has a word for us through this book.
However, it is challenging to jump into a book like Nehemiah without some context. Today, we will build some historical context to better understand what is going on, ensuring that our study of Nehemiah over the coming weeks will make more sense. To get our bearings, we need to return to the Book of Deuteronomy, specifically .
In , as Moses begins his message to the children of Israel while they prepare to enter the Promised Land, he says to the people, "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in to possess the land." Notice that he emphasizes listening to what he is going to teach them so that they would live and be able to possess the land that the Lord their God is giving to their fathers. Skipping down to verse 9, we continue to explore this important message.
Only take heed to yourself. , verse 9 states, "Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your children and to your grandchildren."
Skipping down to verse 23, it continues, "Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God."
When you have children and grandchildren, and you've grown old in the land, if you act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in the land but will be utterly destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you.
There you will serve gods, the works of men's hands—wood and stone—which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there, you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God, He will not forsake you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.
So there it is. The pattern is very simple. Moses is very direct; he is straightforward and clear to the children of Israel. If you do this and follow the Lord, then you will be blessed. But if you don't, you will be removed from the land, exiled to another land that is not your own, and you will be in slavery and bondage. You will serve all kinds of false gods until you cry out to the Lord.
As Moses closes, that is kind of the beginning of his message in Deuteronomy. But as he concludes the message in , he writes in verse 15, "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess."
But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not prolong your days in the land.
The land which you cross over the Jordan to go in to possess, I call heaven and earth as witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live. It doesn't get much clearer than that. This is the perpetual message of Moses throughout the book of Deuteronomy. If you follow the Lord faithfully and observe His commandments, then you are going to experience His blessing, and you'll have long life in the land.
However, if you turn away from Him and turn to other gods, being unfaithful to the Lord, then you will be exiled from the land. You will experience all kinds of curses that will fall upon you. This was Moses's message as the children of Israel were preparing to come into the Promised Land. This is his last word to them before he dies.
So, what happened with the children of Israel? Eventually, here at Cross Connection Church, we are going to study through the book of Joshua, which comes right after Deuteronomy. Someday, when we finish the book of Deuteronomy, we'll go right into the book of Joshua. In the book of Joshua, the story unfolds of the children of Israel coming into the Promised Land after the death of Moses. Joshua becomes the leader of the people and causes them to cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land by a miracle; they cross over on dry ground.
Eventually, they begin to conquer the land and experience peace and some measure of rest. However, nearly as soon as the people have rest and peace in the land, they begin to drift back toward idolatry, which is the default in each of us. We will find ourselves drifting toward idolatry. They begin to return to idolatry even while Joshua, their good and godly leader, was still alive.
In , he gathers all of the people of Israel together and speaks to them. He says, "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river in Egypt. Serve the Lord." Joshua continues, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
So the people answered.
And said, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord and serve other gods. For the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. He did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way in which we went, among all the people through whom we passed. The Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is God."
So they said to Moses, "We are going to serve the Lord." They affirmed that they were going to serve the Lord a second time. In , at verse 21, we read this: "And the people said to Joshua, 'No, but we will serve the Lord.'" So Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves to serve Him." They replied, "We are witnesses."
"Now therefore," he said, "put away the foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel." The people said to Joshua, "The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey."
So Israel came into the Promised Land under Joshua, and they had a desire to serve the Lord. However, they started to drift. Joshua, being a good leader, called them back to faith and faithfulness in the Lord, and they reaffirmed their commitment: "We will serve the Lord."
How did they do? Well, the book that follows Joshua is the book of Judges. Now, Joshua and Caleb, who was also a great godly leader of Israel, were gone. The children of Israel no longer had Moses or Joshua. In , we read these pretty sad words in verse 10: "When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel."
Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, the gods of the people around them. They forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, bowed down to them, and provoked the Lord to anger.
With those words in through 12, we have what is really the beginning of the storyline that continues for nearly the next thousand years for the children of Israel. During the time of the Judges, Israel would serve God only when they...
The Israelites had godly judges who rose up to lead them, individuals like Barak, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson. The last of those judges, not really mentioned in the Book of Judges but also a judge, is a man by the name of Samuel, whom you get to know in First and Second Samuel. During that time, Samuel is the leader of the people, but his sons are not good leaders. The people do not want Samuel's sons to lead over them, nor do they want Eli's sons before him.
As a result, they say that they want a king, thinking that maybe if they had a king, they would live better and serve the Lord. In First Samuel, we are introduced to the first king, King Saul, and that does not work out so well. Then they had King David, and for a time under David, things seem to be much better. After David's reign, Solomon, the son of King David, follows him. Again, for a time, things look as though they might work out. They had peace and prosperity under Solomon, and they constructed a newly built temple. It was kind of like the best of times.
However, you could be certain that the worst of times were about to come. After the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam comes to the throne to rule. Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived, but in Rehoboam's case, the apple fell about as far from the tree as it could. Wisdom did not pass down genetically from Solomon to Rehoboam. Under Rehoboam, the nation of Israel descends into idolatry. They really did under Solomon as well; Solomon introduced a lot of idolatry to the people, but it just got worse under Rehoboam. He was not a wise person or a good leader.
As it may have been the best of times under David and for a time under Solomon, under Rehoboam, it started to descend into the worst of times. It was as a result of Rehoboam's foolishness that the nation of Israel was divided into two kingdoms. From the time of Rehoboam, the nation existed as a northern kingdom of Israel, which we often find referred to in the Old Testament as Israel or the nation of Ephraim, and then the southern kingdom of Israel called Judah. Judah was the part of the nation that had Jerusalem and the temple. After the split between the north...
The faith of the people in the South descended rather far. It really began under Solomon, as I mentioned, when the people started to drift towards idolatry. Even though he oversaw the construction and consecration of the temple in Jerusalem, he led the people back into idolatry. This idolatry continued to increase after Solomon, especially after the split of the nation. The northern kingdom never had a good king; you can read about them in Kings and Chronicles. All of the kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, Ephraim, were horrible idolaters, leading the people deeply into idolatry.
The southern kingdom did slightly better, but they were still a pretty carnal people. This was really the time of the prophets, especially prophets like Isaiah. Isaiah was a great prophet during that period. Just as God had promised back in , if you follow, honor, obey, and serve God, then you will experience blessing. However, if you depart, dishonor, and disobey God, then you will no longer have His blessing. If you turn away from serving Him, the consequences are clear.
If you study the history of the Bible and also secular history, you will find that in the late 8th century BC, around 720 to 722 BC, the northern tribes of Israel were defeated and removed from the land by the Assyrians. The Assyrians were strong in the 8th century BC. Then, in 605 BC, after the northern ten tribes had been exiled to become the lost tribes of Israel, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked Jerusalem. This attack upon Judah continued persistently for about 20 years, culminating in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar oversaw the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Israel and Judah were effectively removed from their land for nearly 70 years, exiled in Babylon.
In Babylon, they found themselves fully immersed in idolatry. It was there, as they were oppressed and removed from their land, that they cried out to the Lord. We read in , verse one: "By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." There they were, exiled in Babylon, remembering their homeland.
Homeland and crying out to the Lord. Now, the upside of their exile to Babylon was that it was there that they basically turned away from their idolatry because they had it to their full. They cried out to the Lord for mercy and restoration.
Remember, we read back in : "But from there, as you are exiled somewhere else, from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, all these things come upon you in the latter days. When you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He has sworn to them."
So, the children of Israel, as they are exiled in Babylon by the rivers of Babylon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, sat down and wept. They remembered Zion and cried out to the Lord. In His grace, God was going to deliver them again, and He used an unlikely method, which is often the way that God operates. This method was prophesied, perhaps one of the clearest and most amazing prophecies of Scripture. You can find it in the book of Isaiah, specifically in Isaiah chapters 40 through 45.
Nearly 200 years before the time that they were in Babylon and before their deliverance from Babylon, God, through the prophet Isaiah, predicted who the deliverer would be. He would be a king from the east, and He actually named him 200 years before the man even came along. The Persian king Cyrus is mentioned in Isaiah chapters 40 through 45 as the one who would deliver them.
In 539 BC, Cyrus, the king of Persia, brought about the defeat of Babylon at the great battle of Opis. You can read about this in secular histories. He took over the empire, and now the Medo-Persian Empire was the ruling empire of the world. When Cyrus took over, he was the one who released Israel from bondage. We read about it in the book of Ezra.
It's important to mention that though we're studying through the book of Nehemiah, if you were to look at a Hebrew Bible, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are actually one book together. This is kind of like the third section of the book of Ezra, as Ezra is broken into two sections. So, Nehemiah is like the third section of it, but we are only going to be studying Nehemiah in our study.
Summer, but the Book of Ezra, Chapter 1, opens in this way, and it's amazing. It says, "Now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all of his kingdom and also put it in writing, saying: 'Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given to me, and he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is among you of all his people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is God, which is in Jerusalem. And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God, which is in Jerusalem.'"
So, in 539 BC, Cyrus takes over Babylon. They come in and take over the city; he is now the king of this great empire. I have a feeling, though we don't know for sure because it's not told to us in the Scriptures, that there was this old man in the palace there in Babylon when Cyrus took over. This old man's name was Daniel. I have a feeling that Daniel, because he was there in Babylon when Cyrus and the Medo-Persians took over, is the one who went to Cyrus and said, "I want to show you something from our ancient writings." He probably showed him the writings of Jeremiah and the writings of Isaiah and said, "Our prophet who lived a couple of hundred years ago said that you, by name, Cyrus, would be the one who would deliver our people."
So, there in , in fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecies and Isaiah's prophecies, Ezra says, "I'm releasing the children of Israel to go back to their homeland to go and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple." As you follow the history, two years later, after that, in 537 BC, Ezra led the first wave of refugees back to Babylon. You can read about that in the Book of Ezra. They go from Babylon to Jerusalem to begin construction on the temple of God. Then, a couple of years after that, right around 535 BC, tells us that they laid the foundation of the new temple at Jerusalem.
Of course, it wasn't like the previous temple, but it was a start. It was challenging for the people who had seen the former glory of the temple; they wept because they had seen the former glory, and this was nothing like that. Almost immediately after the construction of the foundation, the enemies of Israel came together to stand against the work. By the decree of another king, who came after Cyrus, a king by the name of Hazu, the work in Jerusalem was caused to stop.
For 15 years, as you go through the storyline and look at the history of this period, the work of rebuilding the temple, which Cyrus had decreed they could do, was frustrated. This continued until the time of a new king, another king by the name of Darius, who was king of Persia around 520 BC. Once again, they began the building because the people in Jerusalem asked the king to look at the records of Cyrus the Great, which stated that they could rebuild the temple. Darius looked at the records of Cyrus the Great and said, "All right, you can rebuild the temple."
With the decree of Darius, they began to rebuild once again, and in only four years, they completed the work. We read this in : "So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They built and finished the temple according to the commandment of the God of Israel and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, king of Persia."
Now, the temple was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius. The children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the descendants of the captivity celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.
It wasn't exactly the best of times, but it certainly wasn't the worst of times either. For nearly the next 60 years, the temple in Jerusalem was built, but the city was still in ruins. It was still destroyed after Nebuchadnezzar had devastated it back in 586 BC. The walls were broken down, the city was in ruin, and the temple was built, but it just kind of languished there for six decades. They had the temple, but everything was still collapsed; it certainly wasn't ideal.
In 458 BC, Ezra, the one who was a priest and servant,
Of the Lord, an expert in the Scriptures, Ezra returns to Babylon and calls upon the children of Israel who are still there. Most of them did not come back to Jerusalem. He urges them to return to the land, and some of them do. A second wave of refugees returns to Jerusalem with Ezra, with a heart to rebuild the city, around 458 BC. However, the city languishes and continues in ruin for the next 14 years.
About 14 years later, we come to a period of time around the end of the year, November-December of 444 BC. We read these words in : "The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. It came to pass in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan, in the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah. I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. They said to me, 'The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.'"
Now, all of that was a long path to get to , but I know you knew we would get there eventually. It may seem like an awful lot of extra information to reach the book of Nehemiah, but all of this is an important preface to help us understand what was going on in Jerusalem at that point in time.
As Nehemiah hears this message, he is in the capital of the Persian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, in Shushan. He receives word from family members who are trying to rebuild Jerusalem. They say, "Listen, we've been trying to do this for the last decade and a half, and it's just not working out. The walls are broken down, and the gates are burned with fire." He is distressed, as it says there was great distress and reproach because the wall was broken down. This fills Nehemiah with grief.
Why is all this important? Because I think you have noticed we are living in distressing times as well. I believe that the story of Nehemiah gives us some insight.
In times of distress, when things seem run down and in ruin, the people of God must consider how to respond. The children of Israel, at this point in time, were not united. Many of them remained in Babylon and Persia, choosing not to return to Jerusalem. This division created a situation filled with chaos, disaster, and ruin. In such circumstances, how shall we then live as the people of God? This is a question we will explore as we go through the book of Nehemiah this summer.
Nehemiah, at the moment when word reaches him in , is in the same city where Esther, whom we studied last year, had sat as queen thirty years prior. The events of the book of Esther occurred thirty years before Nehemiah's time. Not only is Nehemiah in the same city that Esther ruled over the Persian Empire, but he is also in the same palace. The text indicates that he is in the citadel in Shushan, where Esther would have been with the king as the queen of the nation.
If it had not been for Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai, Nehemiah's situation might have been very different. We do not know Nehemiah's exact age, but if he was under thirty, he would not have even been born at that time. If he was over thirty, he would not have come of age. It is evident that God worked through Esther in the book we studied last year. If you missed those studies, you can find them on our YouTube channel or our website.
Now, because of what God did through Esther and Mordecai, Nehemiah is set up for such a time as this. In , we read that he asked about the Jews who had escaped and survived the captivity concerning Jerusalem. The response he received was that the survivors left from the captivity in the province were all in great distress and reproach because the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates were burned with fire.
How do you respond when confronted with distress, reproach, and ruin in your nation and among your people? That is the question many Christians have been wrestling with over the last few years.
Two and a half years ago, I was on a teaching team discussing the book of Nehemiah. In July of 2018, I spoke at a Scandinavian church leaders' family camp in Sweden, where we were teaching through Nehemiah. I opened the teaching on Nehemiah, and I looked at my notes from that time. I taught on on July 25, 2018.
As I reviewed my notes last week, something stood out to me. Back in 2018, we weren't as engulfed in chaos as we are now. I mentioned in my message that if we look back at history, these certainly were not the worst of times. In 2018, we had it pretty good. There was no imminent war, no apparent disaster on the horizon, and no looming famine. We had it all pretty good, so we certainly wouldn't conclude that it was the worst of times. But was it really the best of times?
I posed that question in July of 2018, and now, four years later, it is interesting to reflect on that context. For those in Scandinavia, a war with Russia is now on their doorstep. Finland and Sweden are currently petitioning for entrance into NATO as I give this message. Not only is there a looming war in Europe, but we are also coming out of total global chaos after more than two years of a pandemic. The economy is in shambles and seems to be teetering on the edge of a likely reset, recession, or correction, which will be challenging for many people. Additionally, potential food shortages are being discussed by various news agencies for the fall.
To add to this, the church throughout the world, but especially here in the West, is, in some ways, just like the temple during the time of Ezra. It is a shell of its former glory, surrounded by ruin, exposed with no defense. Only about a third of the people who were part of the children of Israel and worshipped in the temple have returned to the land from exile. It sounds, in so many ways, like the day we are living in now.
We are living in a time when the church is experiencing difficulty in a world that is in chaos and turmoil. The church seems to have very little in the way of defense against the onslaught of the challenges presented by this world. It may feel like that, but I don't think that's entirely true. After the pandemic, only about two-thirds of the people who attended church before have returned. So, how does someone respond to all of this?
I believe Nehemiah's response in is instructive for us. In , he receives word about the distress occurring in Jerusalem. He writes, "So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven."
He continues, "I said, 'I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant which I pray before you now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants. I confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against you; both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.'"
Now, notice verse eight: "Remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations' (). But if you return to me and keep my commands and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.'"
Nehemiah continues, "Now these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name. Let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man."
Nehemiah notes that he was the king's cupbearer. This detail is so important because every great work begins with a heart that is burdened for the people and a prayer that seeks God's intervention.
Of God and for His kingdom, it always begins in this way: Nehemiah stopped, he sat down, he wept, he mourned. The Scriptures say for many days he fasted and he prayed before the God of heaven. Nehemiah confessed the sin of his people, but he confessed it as his own sin. He repented, he lamented, and he remembered the words of Moses from .
In his prayer, Nehemiah recognized that he might just be the right person, at just the right place, for just the right time. He says at the end of those words that I just read, "I pray that you grant to him, me, the servant of the Lord, mercy in the sight of this man, for I was cupbearer to the king."
There are a lot of Christians in our culture who are trying to figure out how to best respond to all of the chaos and the ruinous times that we are living in. There are all kinds of ideas about what kind of policies need to be pushed forward and what kind of politicians we need that will fix all the issues and woes in our own nation and throughout the world. I'm sure there are some really great ideas, and there are a lot of people working very hard to fix the situation we find ourselves in.
However, I think it is crucially important that we consider Nehemiah's response to the distressing circumstances of his time. Do not miss this: there was a ton of work that needed to be done in Jerusalem. There were numerous issues that needed to be addressed; the city was in turmoil and ruin. They had no walls around the city, and there were all kinds of problems in Nehemiah's day that needed practical solutions. Someone needed to go in and fix these issues, but none of those things were going to be truly addressable without the mighty hand of God.
For nearly a hundred years before Nehemiah's distress, people had been trying to work to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, and they had not been successful up to that point. So how do you address that major problem? Sure, you could gather all the workers you could ever find and all the money you could ever find, but it would not work. They had been giving people and money to this whole endeavor for nearly a century. So how do you deal with it? Nehemiah stopped, he sat down, he wept, and he mourned for many days.
Days he fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. He confessed the sin of his people as his own sin. Then what happened? Well, you have to come back next time because I have no time today to get into my chapter two, but that's where we're going next week.
There are important words in here and important words for such a time as this because we are living in times that are drastically different in many ways, yet similar in a number of key ways to the time that Nehemiah lived in. I am sure that you look at the world around you and feel distressed, just like Nehemiah was, by all the things that are going on.
Maybe you have a whole bunch of ideas: if they only did this, if they only said that, if they only fixed that problem. There are all kinds of issues that we could try to figure out how to fix. But first and foremost, the most important thing that we, as the people of God, can do would be to stop, confess, pray, and fast. We need to ask God to move and to recognize that, just like Nehemiah, you might be in a specially placed position by the Lord for such a time as this.
We need to stop, pray, and seek the God of heaven for Him to work mightily. So, Father God, I pray that You would speak these things to our hearts and help us to remember and hold on to them. Lord, help us throughout this week to do what Nehemiah did: to stop, to pray, maybe even to fast, and to set aside some time to focus our attention upon You.
All the issues that we see in this world are not fixable without You and Your mighty hand. So, God, would You work in and through Your people just as You did through ,400 years ago? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thanks for joining us for our broadcast today. As we close, we would love to invite you to our services at Cross Connection Church campus at 8:30 and 10:30 every Sunday. If you'd like more information about Cross Connection Church, go online at lifeinconnection.com.
Good morning, Cross Connection! How's it going? It's Pastor Garrett here. We have one announcement for you this morning: VBS is going to be from July 11th through the 15th, and today is the day you can start signing up. Parents, take note! Go to our website; you'll see the link below to sign up your kids for VBS. Again, it's from July 11th through the 15th, and it's going to be a morning VBS this year. We're really looking forward to that.
If you would like to help out at this VBS and be a leader, we would love for you to sign up again on the website at the link below. We need tons of helpers for this, and it is such a great time with the kids. We would love to see you there! Sign up again on the website; stuff starts right now. You can literally go on and sign yourself up, so we would love to get you signed up as soon as possible.
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