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Jexit: Judah Comes Home
Temple and City Hand In Hand
Nehemiah
We have been looking at the lives of the returned exiles.
The tribes of Judah and Benjamin who went into the Babylonian exile. And who now have returned to the land of Judah.
Just as a quick reminder of some of the key dates involved in this process … so we can keep the chronology of events in focus.
The first significant impact that the Babylonians had on Judah was in 605BC. This is when the first group of people was taken into exile. Daniel was one of those people – the book of Daniel tells us about events which took place after this time.
A very large group went to Babylon in 587BC … when the temple and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
Many of the exiles came back in 537BC … when Cyrus defeats the Babylonians became king and Persia was the new world empire. Cyrus issued a decree allowing the exiles to return.
Another group came back with Ezra in 457BC. By this time the temple had been completed, that took place in 515BC.
Nehemiah came to build the wall in 445BC.
Finally after 140 years of being in ruins the city has a wall around it.
So, when you picture this time-line your mind does tend to fill in some of the blank spaces and imagine what life would be like.
I’d always thought that the building of the wall marked the end of the building process in Jerusalem. That is how I pictured it. Maybe you did as well.
There are good reasons for thinking like this.
1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest:
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘These people say, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.”’
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 ‘Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?’
Haggai 1:1-4
The second year of Darius is 519BC.
If you are living in panelled houses it means you have a good sturdy structure built, and now you are well and truly working on decorating the inside and making it look really nice.
My thought about what was happening here is that the people are rebuilding their homes in Jerusalem, not too far from the temple, and even though the temple needed work they were neglecting their duty. But as I was reading through Nehemiah this week I discovered these thoughts about the extent of the buildings in Jerusalem isn’t really an accurate scenario.
4 Now the city (of Jerusalem) was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt.
Nehemiah 7:4
Which is a little surprising, given what we read in Haggai.
But the picture which is emerging is … yes … there are panelled homes. But there are very few residents who are actually living in Jerusalem.
So when the exiles returned they first looked at Jerusalem and realized that the efforts to build a house there would be huge. We have identified the reason for this in other sermons.
9 He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. 10 The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.
2 Kings 25:9-10
Historically Nebuchadnezzar has completely destroyed the whole city. Not just the temple and the wall. Rather than rebuild the city it seems that most people decided to rebuild in the surrounding area instead. The temple eventually gets rebuilt, but the city seems to remain in a shambles. These panelled homes then, are actually country estates.
You might remember last week we spoke about the re-building of the wall and how it was done it groups. I went back and read the chapter 3 again. When you do so, in light of the information we have from chapter 7, you see it in a new light.
When you look at a map of Judah after the exile and see where the people come from you realise many people don’t live in Jerusalem.
Jericho (3:2)
Tekoa (3:5)
Gibeon (3:7)
Zanoah (3:13)
Beth Hakkerem (3:14)
Mizpah (3:15)
Beth Zur (3:16)
Keilah (3:17-18)
Priest from surrounding districts (3:22)
Some people lived in Jerusalem
Rephaiah ruler of a half district of Jerusalem (3:8)
Jedaiah repaired opposite his home (3:10)
Shallum ruler of a half district of Jerusalem (3:12)
Benjamin, Hasshub, Ananiah repaired near their house (3:23)
A few people live in Jerusalem, but not so many.
Jerusalem is in ruins.
And Nehemiah wants t make sure that the wall is rebuilt, and also the city is rebuild.
So that raises the question, “Why is it important for the city to be rebuilt?”
The wall is not rebuilt by the residents of the city. It is rebuilt by the whole nation.
But also the city needs to be rebuilt.
But people need to be encouraged to move back to Jerusalem.
So how does this situation get resolved?
1 Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. The rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of every ten of them to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the remaining nine were to stay in their own towns. 2 The people commended all who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.
3 These are the provincial leaders who settled in Jerusalem (now some Israelites, priests, Levites, temple servants and descendants of Solomon’s servants lived in the towns of Judah, each on their own property in the various towns, 4 while other people from both Judah and Benjamin lived in Jerusalem):
Nehemiah 11:1-4
Nehemiah hasn’t just come back to rebuild the wall. He has come back to repopulate the city of Jerusalem. And he doesn’t do it in some haphazard fashion. There is a plan.
You might have noticed that we jumped from chapter 7, where we are told that there are few people in the city, to chapter 11 where we are told that the city is repopulated.
Between these chapters something very important has happened … we see it in chapters 8, 9, 10.
These are really important chapters as to why the city repopulated.
So let’s go back to Nehemiah 8:1-12 (read).
That is a powerful testimony to the changes which come about because of the Word of the Lord.
Ezra reads the Scripture.
Among the people are scribes and Levites who are explaining the Word.
Effectively the whole nation has been gathered together to listen to what the Word of God teaches.
As it is being read it is also being explained.
Everyone understands what the expectations of the Word are.
And they weep.
They might be weeping because they realise they have not been following the law – as Ezra reads they are struck by the Word and realise, “I have not been doing that.”
“I have been living in disobedience to God.”
Maybe they check with a Levite, “Have I understood this teaching correctly?”
The Levite would answer, “Yes”.
And the person just starts weeping because God’s Word has convicted them.
They might be weeping because as Ezra reads he gets to Deuteronomy 28:64-65 where the people hear.
64 Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods – gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.
As people hear this being read they say, “That is exactly what happened. We had a clear warning on what would happen if they did not follow God.”
Moses told the people before they went into the land of the curses and the blessings. And now they are standing as children and grand-children of those who returned from the exile.
They are weeping. Because they know they have not been listening to God and their fore-fathers deserved what God had done.
They might weep because they can see all the old habits coming up again. For a while the lessons learnt from going into exile were lessons which kept everyone focussed. But as time goes on and the initial joy of transformation falls any, to become the day to day grind of life, then the lessons can be forgotten a little.
The excitement of the return is disappearing.
Their relationship with God has become routine.
We don’t the exact circumstance that makes them weep.
But we know why they weep. They are being convicted by the Word of God.
God’s Word convicts us.
Not everyone is being convicted by the same verse.
Not everyone is being convicted at the same moment.
But, eventually, as the day unfolds, the people are so distressed by their grief that the priest need to go around and offer pastoral care to calm everyone down.
They remind people of the love of God.
They remind people of the care of God.
When the Word of God convicts we know that we are far from God.
Not because God left us, but because we left God.
And we compare ourselves to the Word and we know that there is such a disparity.
When we are confronted by God’s Word and we really listen to what that Word is saying to us … it is going to cause us to weep.
How can we … how can I … with all my short-comings and weaknesses and failures dare to stand before such a Holy God?
God knows our thoughts – how often do you find yourself being frightened by the thoughts that come into your head? And the temptations?
We think of choices and consequences.
We think of decisions and disasters.
We think of hidden truths and hurt lives.
We think of sin and suffering.
And that is just the actions that we have done to others.
What about what happens to us?
So we weep.
But we keep the weeping on context.
God’s Word is not read with the final purpose of causing us to weep.
God’s Word is read with the final purpose of bringing us to joy.
12 Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them. Nehemiah 8:12
What did they understand?
What is the cause of the joy?
1 On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. 3 They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.
Nehemiah 9:1-3
Joy comes because they understood that they are not stuck in the consequences of their sin.
Their joy of understanding the Word of the Lord lets us move from weeping to confession.
In Nehemiah 9 the Levites give an outline of the history of God’s interaction with his people.
There is a continual reminder of the calling which God has given.
He called them through Abraham.
He called them out of Egypt.
He gave them the law to direct their lives
16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.
19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness.
Nehemiah 9:16-19a
The story continues. God brought them to the promised land
He gave them a nation. He made them prosperous.
26 “But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law. They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. 27 So you delivered them into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies.
Nehemiah 9:26-27
God sent prophets to remind them. God kept warning them.
God wanted to push them back to Himself.
But no-one would listen.
36 “But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. 37 Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress.
Nehemiah 9:36-37
Notice that they are not blaming God for the distress.
They are stating a fact. “This is our fault.”
They are acknowledging that the history right through has been a history of people turning away from God.
From Abraham to now the message is the same … we keep messing up.
And needs to change. We need to change.
God’s Word brings joy because it constantly reminds us of the reality that God allows us … more than that … God has put the process in place so that we can change.
That is what the message of the Gospel is all about.
God is dealing with a people who fall so far short of His requirements.
Yet God continues to show grace and love … calling a wayward people back to Himself.
God’s heart’s desire is for repentance … that people keep coming back.
You don’t need to be reading the New Testament to see the Gospel.
The whole Bible is “gospel”.
The good news that God is bringing about circumstances to bring about change in His people.
For us today this news is easier to see because Jesus has come to make the promises of the gospel really plain.
We are so blessed to live on this side of the coming of the Messiah.
To be able to look back and see all that Jesus has fulfilled.
To recognise all that Jesus has done … for each one of us.
Giving His life to pay the price.
Offering hope when there doesn’t seem to be any.
Coming to us in the darkest of places and giving light.
Jesus makes the offer.
The lost can come.
Those who are burdened can come.
The broken can come.
Enemies can come.
The price is paid. The darkness is dealt with.
That is the Gospel.
And here it is in Nehemiah.
The offer of hope to those who have become slaves.
Weeping … turned to joy … which leads to confession … which leads to change
That is how we should be living – when the Word of God convicts us and challenges us and calls us to repentance.
Weep. Joy. Confession. Change.
That is what Nehemiah chapter 10 is … a commitment to change.
28 “The rest of the people—priests, Levites, gatekeepers, musicians, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand— 29 all these now join their fellow Israelites the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our Lord.
Nehemiah 10:28-29
Then after all that has taken place … now it is time to rebuild the city.
Now we are back to chapter 11. Where we find the people enacting a plan to repopulate the city of Jerusalem.
Why now?
What has changed?
Well basically, up to this point, Jerusalem has only been home to the temple, the priests and those who serve in the temple activities.
It is a very religious place, but also very separate from the lives of the people.
There is a city around the temple, but no-one actually lives there.
Religion and daily life have become quite separate.
Nehemiah and Ezra realise this. They realise that having the rebuilt fully functioning temple is great, but it is meaningless if the significance of the temple doesn’t impact the lives of the people.
That is why Nehemiah and Ezra keep calling them back to the city and reading the Word.
Our religious life and our city life cannot be two separate lives.
Up to this point the returning exiles had missed the significance. But now they finally understood.
God is not going to have in impact in this world unless we keep making the connection between the temple and the city.
That is where this passage impacts us.
For many of us we have understood the connection between weeping … joy … confession … and change.
For most of us this is true. We know Jesus. We have been convicted by the Word. We want to live for Jesus.
That is most of us. So then we are faced with the next question.
Have we also seen the connection between the temple and the city?
In other words - “Are we Sunday Christians … or Seven-Day-A-Week Christians?”
Are we the sort of Christians that Jesus calls us to be.
We are to be like Jesus who was a seven-day-a-week Saviour.
He was constantly engaged in ministry.
Constantly interacting with people.
It is a calling.
We can’t just sit here on Sunday with all that we do, then on Monday it really doesn’t mean anything.
We need to understand that Sunday is the first day of the week.
That we come together saying God, “Here I am on the first day of the week and I am looking forward to what is ahead. I am looking forward as I seek to serve You.”
Are we these Christians?
In the world but not of the world.
A light on a hill.
Good Samaritans
Loving enemies.
Workers in the harvest.
Counting the costs
That is what we are being faced with here. It really is a question of how good we are we at bringing our “temple life” into the city?
We can’t have our “religious life” separate from “life”.
That means each one of us is called to minister … and we are all ministers.
To go day to day vocation seeking to bring the Word and share the Word.
Not because we want to cause weeping.
But because we want people to experience the joy that we have in the Lord.
There are so many people around us who are slaves … slaves to sin.
Jesus has given us all we need to pass on a message that brings freedom.
But it isn’t going to happen unless the temple and the city work together in our lives.
Prayer
