Comfort Vs Fruitfulness Series

Well, today we come to the end of Nehemiah’s experience in Jerusalem. We're going to look at

chapters 11 and 12 today. There is a chapter 13. That's like the appendix. We're going to look at

that next week. But after today's experience, Nehemiah is now going to move back to Persia

sometime after this experience. I don't know exactly when. He was in Israel for twelve years.

During that time he built the walls, and then they had a time where they spent with revival

among the people, and then trying to deal with different challenges they had among the things

that were going on there. But after twelve years, he leaves. Before he leaves, somewhere before

there, we have this dedication time, this celebration in chapter 12. In chapter 11 we have a

problem he's going to solve. So that's what we're going to look at today as we examine God's

word in Nehemiah 11-12.

Now in chapter 11, we're going to look at the first two verses and then we're going to skip the

remaining part of the chapter because it’s about 500 names that I'm not going to read to you. And

then chapter 12 starts with another about 500 names and then we come to the dedication time. So

I'm going to deal with the first two verses of 11 and then the last verses of chapter 12 in order to

draw some applications, some things that we can learn from our lives as we try to understand

what God has for us today.

Now before I read these verses in chapter 11, let me point out that there's a problem that exists in

the city. They've rebuilt the walls, they've even rebuilt some of the buildings inside. But there

aren't enough people living inside of Jerusalem. Enough people that would be this whatever

number of people you’d need in order to keep the city going. And so they need more people

inside the city to live there. So they're going to solve that problem in verses 1-2 of Nehemiah 11

in a way that makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable if I were one of these people that were

going to move in.

Well, let's stand and let's read these first two verses together. And then we'll make some

comments. I think we're going to find some interesting applications for our own lives in this

passage. But let's read these first two verses together.

Nehemiah 11:1-2 reads this way. Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. And the rest

of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem the holy city of Jerusalem,

while the remaining nine were to dwell in their own towns. And the people blessed all the men

who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.

Alright. You may be seated.

So did they volunteer or were they just appointed? I'm thinking I'm feeling a little uncomfortable.

Because if I'm one of those people that was appointed, I'm saying, “I wasn't planning on moving!

You know, I got my roots here. I got my farm here, my sheep here, and whatever I got. I wasn't

planning on going somewhere else.” So I was pondering that this week. How can these people do

this and feel so good about it? How could it be such a positive experience? And then I realized

it’s because of all the things that happened in the previous chapter in chapter 10.

Now remember, as we've gone through Nehemiah, we spent about one week on every chapter

going through until we got to chapter 10. When we got to chapter 10, we slowed the whole story

down so we could get as much as we could. Because in chapter 10 we spent three weeks looking

at how people dedicated themselves to the Lord, what it means to grow up in Christ, what it

means to be converted maybe, even just this revival experience that touched them deeply.

If you remember, the first thing they did as they were coming to the Lord after they read the

scriptures, they realized they needed to separate themselves from the people in the culture. A

very important thing that we must learn how to do. We must separate our identity from the

people around in the culture to be dedicated and separated to the Lord. That was the first thing

that they did. Then next they dedicated their marriages to the Lord and marriage itself. Then last

week we looked at business and finance and money and rest, and how all of those things fit in,

and they dedicated themselves to the Lord in those areas.

By doing so, I think, essentially what they did was they pulled up the tent pegs in their lives that