God Turns In Your Life Series

Text: Nehemiah 13:1-22

Theme: “God Turns and Returns”

Greetings: The Lord is good and His love endures forever.

This is one of the saddest chapters in the Bible, for it relates Israel’s prompt rebellion against God’s law. The sudden and almost unbelievable totality of the people’s rejection of God’s Word and their wholesale violation of all his commandments.

Today, I would like to meditate on three important things happening in our lives.

God turns the Curse into a Blessing – when we read the Word of God

God turns the emptiness into fullness – when we obey the Word of God

God turns the Disaster into a Prosperity – When we observe the Lord’s Day (Sabbath)

The essentials of the True Discipleship is Reading the Scriptures, Giving to the Lord, and Observing his Day. Then you can experience the blessings, fullness, and prosperity. There is a joy doing all these spiritual activities.

God turns the CURSES into BLESSINGS (Nehemiah 13:1-3).

God turns the curses into blessings when we read the WORD, when we listened to the reading of Scriptures.

Reading: We read in Nehemiah 13:1, “On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people”. On the day means on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The book of Moses was the “law”  “instruction” or “teaching.” Reading the Torah will be a blessing. “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it, and take to heart what is written in it…” (Revelation 1:3).

Meditating: Psalm 1:2 says blessed is the one who meditates the Law for day and night (Psalm 119:97-103). Joshua 1:8 says ‘meditate it always, and you will be prosperous and successful’. David says, ‘I meditate your precepts and ways of the Lord’ (Psalm 119:15). We should meditate his miracles, his wonders, and his mighty deeds. Publicly reading the word of God leads to understand the will and purpose for all.

God intervenes or Turns: Nehemiah emphasis that God blessed Israel, even though the prophet Balaam wanted to curse Israel. The only agenda of God was to bless Israel. God is able to turn any curse into a blessing. “Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel” (Numbers 24:1). He further did not curse rather blessed Israel in words but given evil counsel to have a cursed life through adultery. The Lord told that ‘Whoever curses Israel will be cursed and whoever blesses Israel shall be blessed’ (Numbers 24:9). Balaam died as a wicked man, as a cursed man. Abraham received the promise that “I will bless those who bless you, But I will curse those who curse you.”(Genesis 12:3).

There are varieties of worship in these days. One group believes Worship must be singing to the exhaustion, playing with emotions and ecstatic situations. Another group believes worship as calm, quiet, no clapping of hands. We believe and practice an acceptable worship in the sight of the Lord.

How to evaluate a worship is an acceptable pattern or not? If a worship leads a person to love God, and His word, and leads you to witness for HIM and win others for God is a true worship. If a worship leads a person to go after a singer, worship leader, a preacher and neglects the WORD of God is a false worship. Worship leads us to God and to His standards laid on the scriptures. Worship changes our attitude and our life styles. It changes our curses into a blessing and leads us to Give HIM.

2. God turns the EMPTINESS into FULLNESS (Nehemiah 13:04-14)

Giving to God is another area of concern in Christian living.

Room was Empty: Please note: “There was a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, and the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were the offerings for the support of the ministry of God”.  There was a large room but the ROOM WAS EMPTY. Hence, the Priests, the singers, the temple servants had gone to their fields and doing agricultural works. Because the people had failed to bring their tithes to the temple. The ministry is neglected, because the minsters are neglected. Nehemiah asked the people, “Why is the house of God forsaken or neglected?”  (Nehemiah 13:11).

Misuse of Room: Nehemiah 13:4-9 talks about the ‘Misuse of God’s house and its resources’. Eliashib the High priest (12:10) was in charge of the Temple and the storerooms of the house of God. He was allied to Tobiah (13:4) by friendship, and to Sanballat's by marriage (Eliashib’s grandson had married to Sanballat’s daughter – Neh. 13:28). Tobiah was an Ammonite (Nehemiah 2:10) who is unworthy to enter into the Assembly of God as per the law of the LORD (Nehemiah 13:1, Leviticus 23:3).