Sin and Accountability
Nehemiah • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
How do you respond to confrontation? Do you respond with humility and repentance or do you react in anger? Does the issue suddenly become the person confronting you? Do you tell him or her never to talk that way to you again?
What about the times you have had to confront others? Do you look back on that with regret, perhaps wishing you hadn’t taken that course of action?
We are human, this means confrontation will always be necessary.
Background:
A quick review of the book of Nehemiah will give us the context for all that we will cover this morning.
In , we see the wall rebuilt regardless of the problems that arise.
In , we observe how the people are rebuilt.
As we zoom in to view how the people are rebuilt we can summarize the chapters as follows:
chapter 7-Reviewing the returnees
Chapter 8-Reviewing the law during the seventh month
Chapter 9-Praising God for His Mercy and Confession of Sin
Chapter 10- this is where we will pick up this morning, swearing to keep the covenant
Chapters 11-is a list of names of all the people who will be repopulating the city.
Chapter 12-covers the dedication of the wall
Chapter 13-is the breaking of the covenant and the accountability Nehemiah brought
The Renewal of The Covenant Means Grace
The Renewal of The Covenant Means Grace
28 “The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding,
29 join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his rules and his statutes.
30 We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.
31 And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.
32 “We also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God:
33 for the showbread, the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, and the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.
34 We, the priests, the Levites, and the people, have likewise cast lots for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our fathers’ houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the Law.
35 We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord;
36 also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks;
37 and to bring the first of our dough, and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and to bring to the Levites the tithes from our ground, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor.
38 And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the storehouse.
39 For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God.”
Mercy and Grace in the Covenant renewal are seen in a few simple words...”The rest of the people…and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God.”
God does not teach His people legalism. This commitment is not a legalistic covenant. They are entering into this covenant having been mercifully redeemed and as a sign of their commitment to respond to the mercy the mercy that has been shown to them.
The three main offenses are intermarriage, keeping the Sabbath, and providing for the priests and the temple.
The first promise they make concerns intermarriage with foreigners. The issue with intermarriage is always a worship issue for God. It does not have to do with anything less than paganism. The problem with intermarriage for these people is that the people they were marrying were not laying aside their false gods and practices and embracing the God of the bible. Remember at the very beginning of this section this covenant is open to all who would separate themselves.
How can marriage be what God intended it to be if the husband and wife are not united on the most fundamental issues? How can the one flesh of achieved fully with agreement on who God is and what it means to know and worship Him?
The second issue
The Renewal of the Covenant Means Sacrifice
The Renewal of the Covenant Means Sacrifice
Notice in verse 29 they agree to take a curse upon themselves. The implication here is that if they fail to keep this covenant then they have agreed to due consequences. In addition to agreeing the the consequences or the curses, they also promise to obey to what they have promised. The people are making a promise, a commitment, a covenant between them and God to do all that had been forgotten, and agreeing to certain stipulations of consequences on their own.
The three main offenses are intermarriage, keeping the Sabbath, and providing for the priests and the temple.
The first promise they make concerns intermarriage with foreigners. The issue with intermarriage is always a worship issue for God. It does not have to do with anything less than paganism. The problem with intermarriage for these people is that the people they were marrying were not laying aside their false gods and practices and embracing the God of the bible. Remember at the very beginning of this section this covenant is open to all who would separate themselves.
How can marriage be what God intended it to be if the husband and wife are not united on the most fundamental issues? How can the one flesh of achieved fully with agreement on who God is and what it means to know and worship Him?
The second issue is the observance of the sabbath. The people don’t simple reiterate the commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. The close a loophole. It appears that people were claiming that they were not working it was the idolaters who were working, so they were not technically breaking the the Sabbath by trading with those who were doing the work.
Sabbath is an interesting subject to bring into application for us today. Let me state it this way. keeping a Sabbath is evidence of faith. Keeping the Sabbath is not about legalism. It is a declaration that you trust in God.. A man in these days could not keep the Sabbath because their would always be something he would like to be doing, especially when your food and livelihood depended on you working the land or animals. The only way for the People of God to keep the Sabbath was to rust that resting would be better than being physically productive would be. The man who kept the sabbath trusted that the best stewardship of his time was to rest, not work.
How are you at resting? Do you have periods and times set aside to rest in God. The sabbath after all was created for man not man for the Sabbath. Jesus affirmed Sabbath. Do you trust God enough to spend time resting from your work and focusing on Jesus? Sabbath rest is not College football rest, days of our lives rest, or whatever else we sit in our chair and watch while not being physically active. Sabbath is about resting in God through worship. This could mean mediating on a verse, reading the bible, spending time in prayer, singing songs, working with your kids on bible verses, reading the bible to kids and talking through it. It could mean listening to a podcast in your favorite chair. Sabbath rest is about you getting your spirit filled by connecting with Jesus.
The final sacrifice they promised to make was to support the temple. At this point in time the temple and the Priests who worked their needed supplies to ensure that the sacrifices and duties God prescribed were done. The temple and in particular the Holy of Holies is where God’s presence met with the people. The city of Jerusalem and it’s temple was the beacon of the true religion all people. Neglecting the upkeep and care of the one place the people gathered was not to be neglected.
The temple is referred to as the house of God 8 times in these verses. The temple and worship there represented and point people to God.
The sacrifices the people were committing to make focused in on on thing: The LORD. the Lord is the point of marriage. The Lord is point of sabbath rest. The Lord is the point of temple worship.
Repopulating the City
Repopulating the City
Chapters 11-12 are all about repopulating the city. It is the list of those selected and volunteering to live in the city. And if I could point out one thing about this list, so it doesn’t go by as an unimportant list in scripture.
Being selected or volunteering to live in the city of Jerusalem was an economical hit to a family and meant a place with less safety. Living in the city meant you could not farm and raise animals they way others could. It was a huge financial sacrifice. Living in the city also meant when trouble like invading armies came, they would be headed for where you lived. So to think that some actually volunteered for this is astonishing.
Who could we compare the group living in the city today to? Who would we bless if we looked around to speak weal of a group comparable to these people who are willingly offering to do what is less advantageous for themselves in order to pursue God’s Kingdom?
Don’t think to hard about this one, but the people we should bless and thank are those that do what we don’t want to do on a weekly basis. We should bless those who we perceive as more gifted than we.
Could this list for us include but not be limited to:
Nursery and Children’s ministry workers
The Warming Shelter Volunteers
Those who set up and tear down classrooms
Those who greet others, and make sure guests are taken care of
Who else comes to your mind?
The Dedication of the Wall
The Dedication of the Wall
A the end of Chapter 12 we read this:
27 And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres.
28 And the sons of the singers gathered together from the district surrounding Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites;
29 also from Beth-gilgal and from the region of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem.
30 And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people and the gates and the wall.
31 Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks. One went to the south on the wall to the Dung Gate.
32 And after them went Hoshaiah and half of the leaders of Judah,
33 and Azariah, Ezra, Meshullam,
34 Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah, and Jeremiah,
35 and certain of the priests’ sons with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, son of Shemaiah, son of Mattaniah, son of Micaiah, son of Zaccur, son of Asaph;
36 and his relatives, Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God. And Ezra the scribe went before them.
37 At the Fountain Gate they went up straight before them by the stairs of the city of David, at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David, to the Water Gate on the east.
38 The other choir of those who gave thanks went to the north, and I followed them with half of the people, on the wall, above the Tower of the Ovens, to the Broad Wall,
39 and above the Gate of Ephraim, and by the Gate of Yeshanah, and by the Fish Gate and the Tower of Hananel and the Tower of the Hundred, to the Sheep Gate; and they came to a halt at the Gate of the Guard.
40 So both choirs of those who gave thanks stood in the house of God, and I and half of the officials with me;
41 and the priests Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with trumpets;
42 and Maaseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, Malchijah, Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang with Jezrahiah as their leader.
43 And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.
Nehemiah 12:27-
The city would be filled with the singing of God’s people. Just as in times past when God provided miraculously for his people the people worship. The completion of the wall is no different and so they dedicate the wall. The wall that was once said to not hold up a fox, could now hold may people.
This dedication is a reminder that God can do great things through common unnamed people.
The Covenant Broken
The Covenant Broken
Nehemiah 13:1-
1 On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.
4 Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah,
5 prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.
6 While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after some time I asked leave of the king
7 and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.
9 Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense.
1 On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.
4 Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah,
5 prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.
6 While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after some time I asked leave of the king
Neh
On the outset of this final chapter we should be encouraged. We could very easily be discouraged because here we go again. The people of God are committing the same sin again, intermingling with the people of different faiths. But we should take heart. It is encouraging to know that just as sin persists in our lives, sin persisted in the lives of these people whose story is in the Bible.
Are you dealing with persistent sin in your life? Your struggle agains persistent sin is a cause for encouragement because the fact that you struggle means that God has not given you over to it. God continues to convict you, continues to show you kindness by leading you to repentance, just as he did with these Israelites.
The people abandon God…they turn to Balaam, and the intermarrying of Tobiah into the family of God comes back to haunt the people.
Tobiah through his mobster like rule turns part of the temple into his personal chambers.
And this is physical picture of a spiritual reality for us.
The temple does not refer to the church building but rather to your life, your body, spirit, and soul. Tobiah using part of the temple for himself is like us being okay with everything in our lives being used for God, yet allowing a persistent sin or issue to dirty a portion of our life.
Accountability Restores the Covenent
Accountability Restores the Covenent
Nehemiah 13:7-
7 and came to Jerusalem, and I then discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, preparing for him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.
9 Then I gave orders, and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back there the vessels of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense.
10 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field.
11 So I confronted the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their stations.
12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses.
13 And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah of the Levites, and as their assistant Hanan the son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered reliable, and their duty was to distribute to their brothers.
14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.
15 In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food.
16 Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself!
17 Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?
18 Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”
19 As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates, that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.
20 Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.
21 But I warned them and said to them, “Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.
22 Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.
23 In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people.
25 And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.
26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.
27 Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?”
28 And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me.
Fours years had passed since Nehemiah had left Jerusalem to return to his cupbearer responsibilities. And when he returned he was appalled on how the people had abandoned God for ease and comfort. It is easier to trust a person you can see, it is easier to have more money in your pocket…the crisis we see today in Christianity is a lack of faith and faithfulness because we think we know better than God.
Nehemiah is the one who brings the accountability to the people of God for leaving the covenant they made with God just a few chapters earlier. They had begun intermarrying. They were not keeping the Sabbath, and they were not taking care of the temple and the priests. And remember from earlier these all pointed to and had their center focus on the LORD. In abandoning these three things they broke their promise and the curses they agreed to were now to be carried out.
The willingly and knowingly left God. You don’t sign a document and not remember that you agreed to do so.
Starting with the leadership down to the average person Nehemiah rebuked them all. verse 11, I rebuked the officials, verse 17 I rebuked the nobles, verse 25 i rebuked them...
What is so significant about the sins they committed?
They were not leaving a legacy about the things of God.
They were not being a light to the rest of the world.
Ultimately they turned their back on God.
In what ways and in which commitments do you and i need accountability?