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00:01 Now once again it's my uh joy and privilege uh to be standing here sharing with you from the word of God. Uh we
00:08 have just uh started a a short series on the book of Nehemiah. And last early
00:14 last month our young preacher uh Samuel kicked off the series with uh chapter 1
00:19 and two weeks ago Dr. Peter preached from chapter 2.
00:25 This morning, Arnold is supposed to uh preach uh to take us through chapters three and four, and I'm supposed to do
00:32 uh chapters five and six next Sunday. But I had to do a swap with him because uh Levi and I will be leaving for uh
00:39 Dublin, Ireland uh next Wednesday to attend our son's uh graduation ceremony.
00:46 As a result, we will do chapters five and six first and then chapters three
00:51 and four a week from now, which I hope will not be too confusing.
00:57 I think shouldn't be because uh if you are a Star Wars fan, you watch episodes 4, 5, 6 before you watch episodes 1 to
01:03 three. They all Okay. Now, the the title of today's sermon is
01:09 fearing God in a fallen world based on Nehemiah uh chapters uh 5 and 6. Uh this
01:15 is a lot of grounds to cover 38 verses in all. Now to be sure we don't have the
01:21 time to go through uh the text in detail. It's impossible to dwell on uh every verse uh to any degree of depth.
01:29 What we'll do is we will first see what is happening in the narrative during
01:34 this phase of the building of the Jerusalem wall. We will also uh touch a
01:40 little bit on uh on history and archaeology along the way in order to make the text more real. And we will do
01:46 all this in the first uh part of the sermon leaving enough time uh to also
01:51 examine uh what is beneath the surface and to appreciate some what I'll call
01:57 broad strokes uh painted across these two chapters that are not so apparent to your eyes. At the end of sermon, I will
02:04 present you some uh maybe four points of practical lessons so that you can take them home. Now, the account of um
02:12 Nehemiah building the Jerusalem wall took place uh 2,400 years ago. Uh but
02:18 you'll be surprised that um the text is can be still as fresh and relevant to us
02:24 even today. Shall we begin with a word of prayer?
02:30 Our father in heaven, it is our earnest desire that your spirit will come and
02:35 illumine our hearts and minds so that the text before us will come alive this
02:41 morning. So that your word will impact us deeply
02:46 and will cause us to follow your son Jesus with full commitment as he leads
02:53 us all the way. For we ask this in his name. Amen.
02:60 As I mentioned a minute ago, u my wife and I um will be uh traveling to Dublin,
03:07 Ireland in a few days time to attend uh Jeremy's uh graduation ceremony.
03:15 Thank you for your congratulation. Okay.
03:23 Now, as an introduction to the to the sermon, let me tell you a little bit more about what's happening on the uh on
03:29 the home front. Our son left home uh for Ireland uh 3 years ago in August 2016 to
03:37 pursue a degree in accounting and finance. And in a blink of an eye,
03:42 literally just like that, three years have flown by and he graduated in the
03:47 middle of this year and has just started work in Dublin. I told him, you know, 3 years ago you
03:54 left us as a boy, but now you're a man,
04:02 even though I still call him boy. I think if I'm 80 and he's 42, I'll
04:08 still call him boy. Our daughter left home one year later uh in August 2017
04:16 and Melody had just finished at that time two and a half years of medicine at IMU in Bukij Jalil and she left for UK
04:24 to continue her studies for three more years and she's now doing her final year
04:29 in the city of Exerta in England and can you guess what I call my daughter? and
04:36 girl. Of course, I'll explain why I do so later uh
04:42 instead of calling them by their names. Now, ever since they both left home, my
04:47 wife and I found ourselves uh in in a new phase of life in our so-called
04:52 emptiness or shall I say we are two old love birds in an emptiness nest.
04:60 In the past, all our energies were directed at the kids. But now we have to
05:06 channel our attention to each other and that takes a bit of uh getting used to.
05:13 I look at my wife and she looks at me what to talk about
05:19 now. I'm sure many of you have similar experiences going through a new phase of life with
05:25 the kids uh having left home to build a future of their own.
05:30 Now the children on the other hand they are also going through a new phase of life as they transition into young
05:38 working adults. We harbored a kind of mixed feeling when
05:44 they left us one by one. Needless to say uh we knew that we were going to miss
05:49 them very much and therefore we were very sad to see them go because they always been a very big part of our lives
05:55 and their their absence is something that we have to get accustomed to. Some parents are also worried if their
06:03 children can take care of themselves. But my wife and I, we had no such worries because we we train our children
06:11 to be independent, you know, to be able to take care of themselves. And we also not worried uh if they would uh succeed
06:19 or not in their academic pursuits because uh through their growing years, we instilled in them the values of hard
06:26 work and responsibility. In fact, I'm proud to tell you that uh Jeremy graduated with a first class
06:33 honors. Thank you again.
06:39 He's not here to hear your clap. But there is one thing that was of great
06:47 concern to us and that is whether their spiritual grounding was strong enough
06:53 for them to function and to flourish as followers of Christ out in the open.
07:00 All those years in Sunday school and in youth, all those years of uh spiritual
07:05 training, will they bear fruits? Or at the very least, will our kids be able to
07:11 avoid deviating from the path of faith? And those were questions swirling in our
07:18 heads and they still do. I see the dangers on two fronts threatening to to
07:24 derail their walk with God. Dangers coming from within and dangers from
07:30 without. The dangers from within are largely posed by our fallen nature, our
07:36 propensity to sin. And scripture describes uh this using the word our flesh.
07:43 When the kids were with us, at least we were there to guide them and to nurture them spiritually. And there is the also
07:49 the local church FBC to ground them and to train them spiritually. But now that
07:54 they are on their own, how well are they going to deal with these threats from
07:60 within? The dangers coming from the outside are equally dire and worrisome. Western
08:08 societies, especially in Europe, are becoming increasingly godless and secular, besieged by all sorts of
08:15 unbiblical uh uh progressive ideas. When Jeremy first arrived at Dublin, he told me that
08:21 he stumbled upon this huge this massive street parade by LB LGBT activists
08:27 fighting for gay rights. And this is just one of the many examples I can give you. How are how are our kids going to
08:35 withstand all these assaults to their faith? And this begs the question, why then
08:42 send them overseas? Why not have them study in local universities? Well, there are several reasons and one
08:48 of them is that this is going to be their trial by fire so to speak. We are
08:54 sending them into enemy territory so to speak and this is their chance for their
09:01 faith to be authenticated to be proven true. Now in relating all this to you, in
09:08 telling you what our children uh face both internally and externally, I'm
09:13 actually painting you the overall theme behind Nehemiah chapters 5 and 6 because
09:18 chapter 5 describes threats from inside the Israelite community. Well, chapter 6
09:25 deals with threats from the outside. And we'll see how this is so as we dive into
09:30 the text shortly. Now this sharing is meant to be an introduction to the sermon but at the
09:36 same time I also want both our kids to hear this because they do listen to my sermons online uh via the FBC website.
09:45 So this is much so this as much for their ears as it is for yours. So
09:50 children if you are listening to this I think I better look at the camera
09:58 pay close attention to what your daddy is saying. Okay,
10:03 now let me uh dive into our text and we will see what's going on first in chapter 5 and then in chapter 6 and next
10:10 Sunday uh uh Arnold will describe the actual building of the wall detailed in
10:16 chapter 3. But at this point in time in chapter 5, the project was well underway. not
10:23 completely finished yet but by the end of chapter 6 the wall was fully erected
10:29 uh from uh chapter 6 verse1 15 the wall was completed on the 25th of Ilo in 52
10:36 days I is the 12th and the last month uh in the Jewish calendar
10:42 I was thinking wow they finished the wall in Jerusalem in less than two months
10:48 that was some construction as you may have noticed you know all the debris over there. We are trying to uh
10:55 extend two rooms upstairs by about 15 ft and that will take 3 months. Here they
11:00 put up the wall around the city in in 52 days. Let Arnold explain to you how they
11:06 did it. What better person to preach from uh chapter 3 than the qualified architect.
11:13 So I won't touch on the construction per se just as well because from the onset
11:19 of chapter 5 as was read to us just now the building narrative took a pause.
11:25 They didn't talk about the building of the wall in order to address a very grievious very serious problem uh
11:31 brewing amongst the Israelite. The first five verses uh describe how a sizable
11:38 segment of the population specifically the poorer ones were lamenting about their economic plight. They were
11:45 suffering severely from financial hardship and some were even starving as
11:51 hinted in verse two. And this crisis was precipitated by a famine mentioned at
11:57 the end of verse three. Many of them were impoverished farmers working the land. And as a result of the famine,
12:04 their crops failed them and they had to borrow money in order to survive. And what made it worse is that they they had
12:10 also to pay a land tax to the Persian king. And so they borrowed money from
12:16 the rich by mortgaging their lands. And when they couldn't pay back the money they borrowed, their collaterals were
12:22 seized. And with their lands taken away, they had no more uh source of income to
12:29 settle the debts. And the biggest injustice of all is that because they still couldn't settle their
12:34 debts, they were forced to give up their children as slaves to their creditors as
12:40 uh explained in verse 5. And some of these creditors then sold these kids to
12:46 Gentiles in order to recoup their losses. You can read this further down in the verse 8.
12:52 In verse six, when Nehemiah found out about the plight of these Israelites, he became very angry. He was so upset when
12:59 he heard how so many of them were crushed by debts and oppressed by slavery.
13:05 And here we need to ask what? Why was Nehemiah so infuriated by what was going
13:12 on? Why was he so angry? Is it because he had a soft spot for the
13:17 poor? he pied them or or sympathized with them. Well, that might be the case,
13:23 but it actually goes deeper. It's useful to read this portion of text in the context of God's laws in the
13:31 earlier books of the Old Testament because in Deuteronomy 15, God commanded
13:36 his people to be kind to the needy. Listen carefully. If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites, do not be
13:44 hardhead-hearted or tight-fisted toward them.
13:49 Nehemiah therefore was very angry because they were blatantly disobeying
13:54 this commandment. They were openly sinning against God.
13:59 And he understood that it would be pointless for him to to build a wall so high or so so strong to defend the city
14:05 against enemies outside when sin was rampant inside. He was well aware that
14:12 their sins could invite God's wroth and would cause the enemies to prevail
14:17 because he remembered how uh sins of his forefathers many years ago led to the
14:24 destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
14:29 And Nehemiah's line of thought can be seen clearly in verse 9 when he chided the the nobles and officials. What
14:36 you're doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of the Lord to what? To
14:42 avoid the reproach of our gentile enemies. Now I need to go deeper. On top of this,
14:49 there was another sin they committed that God Nemiah so angry
14:54 which is charging interest on the money that the poorer Israelites had borrowed
15:01 as is as evident from verse six. And this was directly going against u um
15:09 another of law God's law in Exodus 22. If it says if you lend money to one of
15:15 my people among you who is needy do not treat it like a business deal charge no
15:23 interest. Very clear commandment in in Exodus 22.
15:29 And not only that, in Deuteronomy 23, do not charge a fellow Israelite interest
15:35 whether on money or food or anything else they may earn interest. There's another verse in Leviticus. So it's very
15:42 clear in the Old Testament. Hence, not only were they guilty of oppressing the poor Israelites, they also committed the
15:48 sin of charging them interest. Very clear.
15:54 So if you lend money to your fellow church member, don't charge interest.
15:60 I given you so many verses already. And interesting interestingly the
16:06 interest they the interest rate that the rich imposed on the poorer one poor Israelites is specified in the in verse
16:13 11. Nehemiah tells you what is the interest rate.
16:18 He says here 1%. 1% only doesn't seem like a lot but what
16:24 is not stated here is that it's actually 1% per month.
16:30 So it's actually 12% perom which is rather high even by today's standards.
16:37 Now before I go on I want to offer you some sight lessons. These are not the main lessons on the use of money or on
16:44 the issue of money. So let me off briefly offer you three basic biblical principles uh to direct our attitudes
16:51 towards uh towards money. Now this is not from the text but it is a logical extension of what we've been discussing.
16:58 Firstly from Deuteronomy 8, remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you
17:03 the ability to produce wealth. Meaning we should always be reminded that the
17:10 money we earn be it from hard work or or business or or investment don't think
17:16 for a minute that it is solely the result of your talents or or genius or
17:21 or or hard work. Ultimately it comes from God's
17:27 first principle. Secondly from uh 1 Timothy 6 for the love of money is the
17:33 root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many
17:39 griefs. So money in itself is not a bad thing. It is merely a medium for exchange and
17:48 the store of value. But the love of money, the problem here is the love of money can and lead us and and can and
17:55 often lead leads us into a path of sin as we have seen in the chapter five. And
18:00 indeed because of money many believers have strayed from God or have denied themselves the full rewards of faith.
18:09 And quickly the third principle is this and is related to our text. God is very very pleased when we use our
18:17 financial resources to help those in need. God is very very pleased and happy to
18:25 see us using our financial resources to help the needy. and he will eventually
18:31 recompense us for our efforts. And this is based on Proverbs 19.
18:37 Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord. Whoever is kind to the poor lends
18:43 to the Lord. And he will reward those he will reward them for what they have
18:49 done. So it's very timely that we have uh pastor Subra to share with us about your
18:54 generosity. And we also reminded in uh Psalm 15 partly read to us read uh
19:02 just now in the responsive reading. It says, "Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live in your holy
19:09 mountain?" The answer, "The one who lends money to the poor without interest."
19:18 So to continue quickly with chapter 5 um at the end of verse 7 we see how
19:24 Nehemiah's summoned all the all these nobles and officials these people with means and in a large meeting he scolded
19:31 them for their ill treatment and neglect of the poor Israelites and for their disobedience of God's commandment and
19:38 their response at the end of verse 8 was silence they had nothing to say they
19:44 offered no excuses nor any defense of the actions. So it was an indirect admission of their
19:50 guilt. Indeed, the first thing to do when we when we sin is to admit or confess our wrongdoing. Then only will
19:57 it lead to repentance. Then only will the repentance be meaningful. And further in verse 11, Nehemiah then
20:05 demanded that they return all the lands and properties that they seized from the
20:10 poor together with the accumulated interest that they collected. And although not mentioned here to al to
20:16 also return the children that they had taken as slaves to which they all agreed to do so in the
20:22 next verse we will give it back. They said we will do as you say and also in
20:28 the and and so at the end of verse 13 they carried out what they had promised
20:33 to do. They carry out what they have promised to do. And hence what started as grievious sins in in chapter 5 ended
20:41 up with full repentance. Transgressions gave way to contrition. Many wrongs were
20:48 made right. And we'll look at this theme of sin and repentance uh in in the later
20:53 part of the sermon. Now for the sake of time I will u quickly go through the rest of chapter 5 from verse 14. Here we
20:60 see Jeremiah changing his approach with his nobles and officials. Earlier he he
21:05 admonished them, he rebuked them but now he was encouraging them by sharing with them uh the way he did it. You see he
21:12 was the provin provincial governor and his position as the governor come came with all kinds of perks and privileges
21:21 but he decided to forgo all these benefits. At the end of verse 14 he said neither I nor my brothers ate the food
21:28 allotted to the governor. And later in verse uh verse 18 he gave his reasons
21:33 for denying his rights as governor. He said I never demanded the food allotted to the governor because the demands were
21:40 heavy on these people. And and fur and further up in verse 15
21:46 he also talked about how his pred predecessors you know those governors before him place a heavy burden on the
21:52 people. And so he was urging these nobles and officials to emulate him to
21:58 obey God's laws to be kind to the poor. And so you may call this leadership by
22:03 example. And this concludes our overview of chapter 5. Now to make it easier for you
22:10 to to to go through this passage later if you want to study it further, I've uh broken down the chapter into four parts,
22:16 four segments. And I should have shown you this earlier. So in summary, we saw at length the evil in their midst, how
22:23 they sin against God by oppressing the people and by charging them interest in contravention of God's laws. And next,
22:29 we see uh Nehemiah exposing them and rebuking them for their sinful ways. He
22:35 demanded corrective actions from those guilty of sin. And in the text in the third segment, uh they repented by uh by
22:43 making amendments. Uh that's the meaning of expeation. So they make amend for their sinful ways. And lastly, Nehemiah
22:51 offered them an example to follow. So we have evil, exposure, expeation and then
22:57 example. Let's now uh survey what is happening in chapter 6. Let's move on chapter six.
23:04 Now in the introduction to the sermon, I I talk about my children and how they have uh they have to face these internal
23:09 and external threats in the conduct of their faith. And similarly, Nehemiah was confronted with dangers from within. And
23:16 we have discussed that at length in chapter 5. And now in chapter 6, Nehemiah had to contend with dangers
23:22 from without threats posed by enemies from the outside. At this point in time, the the wall
23:30 around Jerusalem was almost completed. And verse one says that only the doors needed to be set in all the gates. Now
23:37 this development you know with the war almost 99% done
23:43 made three persons very disturbed and agitated. Sambalat, Tobaya and Gisham the three
23:50 enemies of the Israelites. And when they heard that the Jerusalem now had a that had a strong wall they reacted with
23:58 apprehension because they didn't want to to see their enemy the Israelites uh having a fortified city and being
24:04 strong. Now before I continue, I would like to u digress a little bit a couple of minutes
24:11 to give you some historical background on the wall of Jerusalem. Now many of you know
24:20 many of you know that um um that the city of Jerusalem today has a beautiful
24:26 wall around an area known as the old city. Now this is a satellite uh image
24:31 of the old city area. You can see the wall around this OC and the length of the total length of the wall is about 4
24:38 kilometers long. Now about 2 years ago I I led a group of uh about 30 mostly FBC members on a
24:46 pilgrimage to Israel and on the day we arrived that night itself. uh we all we
24:52 walk from a hotel and walk directly uh when you to see the wall and here you
24:58 can see uh this group of excited FBC members taking pictures. We we entered
25:04 the old city through this Damascus gate and you can see clearly the wall
25:09 standing majestically in the night. My view is that all Christians must try
25:17 to visit the Holy Land at least once in their lifetime because it is such a
25:24 spiritually refreshing journey. Those who went can testify to what I've just said.
25:32 I have been there twice so far and next year alone I'll be going twice. So I urge you to plan a trip to Israel if you
25:39 can afford it. But anyway, if you have been to Israel or if you plan to go to Israel soon, I'm
25:45 sorry to have to tell you that this wall is not Nemiah's wall.
25:53 This wall was constructed in between 1537 to 1541 AD AD by uh uh
26:03 this sultan of the Ottoman Empire known as Suliman the the manifix.
26:10 So if you go to Jerusalem, don't say, "Wow, you mean Nehemiah built
26:16 this wall." You'll sound very stupid.
26:22 Now, this diagram shows you the comparison between the present wall uh in white and Nehemiah's wall in gray.
26:32 And the so the present wall is relatively new, only about 480 years old. In contrast, Nehemiah's wall was
26:39 built 2,400 years ago, and so almost 2,000 years stand between these two
26:45 walls. Nehemiah's wall is shaped somewhat like a cup and covered a smaller area more to
26:52 the south. And this is an an artist impression of Nehemiah's wall.
27:00 Now what about this famous western wall that we often hear about and uh which
27:07 today is the holiest site to uh to the to the Jews.
27:13 Now you must understand that in the centuries after Nehemiah the city of Jerusalem grew in size rapidly
27:19 especially during the reign of King Herod and so old walls were were demolished. you know all these some many
27:25 of these most of these walls were demolished part by part to to to to give to make way for the expansion of the
27:32 city and and new walls were ere were erected and so by the time of Jesus um
27:38 this is how the wall looked like uh in in in the blue lines it's not look at if
27:45 you remember the earlier earlier diagram it's not the same as Nehemiah's wall which is more cup shape
27:51 the for comparison sake the present wall is marked in red.
27:57 But the wall at the time of Jesus marked in blue was almost com almost almost completely destroyed by the Romans in 70
28:04 AD along with the temple except for one section along the temple
28:10 mount on the west of the temple mount. That's why it's so is now called the western wall is the only part of the
28:17 wall that remained dating to the first century to the time of Jesus
28:22 and still is not Nehemiah's war. Nehemiah's wall was almost all gone.
28:29 Now a bit more on the from the trip to Israel two years ago. This is the picture we took at the Western Wall. And
28:36 here you can see a strange group of Chinese Jews from Malaysia.
28:42 wearing the kippa, the Jewish skull cap.
28:47 I show you this because a visit to the western wall is a must on a on the tour of Israel. It is customary uh to write a
28:56 prayer on a piece of paper and then to stuff it in one of the cracks in the
29:01 wall. I think President Trump did that also.
29:06 I also did the same. I took a piece of paper. I wrote a prayer and I tried to squeeze it in in
29:14 the wall. Try to squeeze it higher a bit nearer to God.
29:25 You can see Minten to my left. The boring is out there in prayer.
29:32 Now you may wonder what my prayer was. I'll tell you it's not a secret. I wrote
29:38 a prayer to God for the spiritual well-being of my children.
29:44 Now, if the Western is the only thing that remains from Jerusalem's wall in Jesus' time, the big question is, are
29:52 there any remnants of Nehemiah's wall today? For centuries, they they couldn't find
29:58 anything. So much so that there were many skeptics uh who dismissed the book
30:04 of Jeremiah as just a piece of piece of fiction. And then suddenly I want to tell you in
30:10 November 2007 a stunning announcement was made that archaeologists have had
30:15 found traces of Nehemiah's wall. And this is the news article from Associated
30:21 Press 2007. I think it's uh it's too small for me to read. I think it's no November 20 or
30:27 29th 2007. Associated Press AP. This is not your Chapalang news agency. Okay. is
30:35 the world's top news agency and they made announcement of the discovery.
30:41 I can't read read the first uh paragraph. I think I have it here. Um
30:47 a team of archaeologists in Jerusalem had uncovered what they believed to be part of a wall mentioned in the Bible's
30:53 book of Nehemiah
30:59 because they found evidence of Nehemiah's wall a little to the south of the present wall. And I'm relating all
31:05 this to you to declare to you that what is recorded in the book of Nehemiah is neither myth nor legend. It is factual
31:13 and historical. Now let's get back to chapter six. And um I know this will be a quick overview
31:20 as our focus is actually on uh on chapter 5 and we were talking about who? Sambalat, Tobaya and Gisham. The three
31:27 antagonists of uh of Nehemiah. Sambala was the governor of Samaria to
31:32 the north. Uh Tobaya was the governor of the province of Ammon to the east and
31:38 Gisham was the governor of a province to the south. And hence the Israelites were literally surrounded by enemies on three
31:45 sides. Okay, it was literally a external threat on three sides and these three
31:51 names Sambala, Tobaya and Gasham also appeared in chapter 2 and Peter mentioned it in his sermon and mentioned
31:58 again in chapter 4. And let me zoom in on this character Sambalat
32:05 in 1907 about 120 years ago.
32:10 A fifth century BC document and this document is dated 407 BC. It was
32:17 discovered in southern Egypt written by a a small Jewish community. turned out
32:22 to be a letter they sent to the governor of Judah and it was a date 25th November
32:28 407 BC about 40 years after Nehemiah's time and on the reverse side of this
32:34 document the the writer wrote that they actually had sent another letter to
32:40 Dlaya and Shelia the sons of Sambalat the governor of Samria
32:49 was mentioned Sambalat the governor of Samaria in this historical document
32:57 which is proof that Sambal existed and so we are talking about real historical
33:02 figures here and sorry for the digression again now I've also divided chapter 6 into four parts four segments
33:09 to to ease your further study of the of the passage and throughout this chapter we see the schemes of Nehemiah uh enemy
33:16 unfolding from first from in invitation to to incrimination then to intimidation
33:22 and then finally to infiltration and all this to rattle Nehemiah's confidence and
33:28 to make him stop what he was doing. So it started with uh the invitation uh
33:34 to Nehemiah to meet up and the invitation came not once but four times as mentioned here. Come let us meet
33:42 together you know over tare they've got many things to discuss with you.
33:49 But uh Nehemiah's answer was very blunt. What you think? I'm so free to go and
33:54 chit chat with you. Can't you see I'm busy? I got things to do. You know,
34:00 because from verse two, Nehemiah suspect that they were up to no good. Perhaps they were setting a trap for him. And
34:08 from verses 5 to 9, uh they changed the tactic to incrimination. And so this
34:13 sambal sent Nimi a letter in which he wrote, "Huh, you know what? I heard that
34:19 you are planning a rebellion and that's why you're building that wall.
34:24 You better come and meet us otherwise I'll tell the king and you'll be in big trouble."
34:29 And Nemiah kept his composure and in verse 8, he sent back his answer. You're
34:35 talking nonsense. Where got such thing? Stop telling lies. Something like that.
34:42 I'm quoting from the Malaysian English version.
34:50 But what's important is that at the end of verse 9, Nehemiah prayed
34:55 to God for strength and Dr. Peter already taken through uh taken us through the power of prayer. From verse
35:02 10, they then tried to in intimidate him. And this character called Shemaya
35:08 who was in cahoots with the enemy. He urged Nehemiah to run and hide inside the temple because his life was
35:14 supposedly in danger because there were people coming to kill him. But Nehemiah
35:19 refused in verse 11. Now this needs a little bit of explanation. Why did Nehemiah refuse?
35:27 One possibility is that by going to hiding how was he going to lead the project of building the wall?
35:34 But a better explanation is that if he were to go into hiding, it will mean that he he had no faith that God will
35:41 protect him. These are all very plausible reasons. But the real reason why he refused to hide in the temple is
35:47 that there is a specific law stated clearly in numbers uh chapters 1 3 and
35:52 18 that only permits priests to enter the the the temple
35:57 building. Only priests were allowed to enter the temple building. But because so because Nehemiah was not a priest, he
36:04 didn't want to sin by going into the sanctuary because he'll be violating God's commandments by doing so.
36:12 And the enemy's last tactic in the rest of chapter 6 is perhaps the most grievious. They had infiltrated the
36:18 ranks of the Israelites. And that's Shemiah in verse 10 was not the only one
36:23 who wasn't the only one who was colluding with the enemy. In verse 178 you can read that many were secretly
36:30 supporting Tobaya and some were even related to him by marriage. Tobaya's wife was a daughter of a prominent
36:36 Israelite. His own son also married a Israelite woman and talk about sleeping with the enemy. This is literally
36:43 happening. But the text doesn't give us any further
36:48 details as to how this infiltration caused problems for Nehemiah or what he
36:54 did to stamp out this corruption. Now we have u we have gone through two
37:00 chapters of Nehemiah and let us now dig deeper and see how and see how uh this
37:06 text can relate to us uh believers today. Now, as I promised at the beginning, we will now examine some what
37:13 I call broad strokes that are not so apparent if you just skim uh the surface
37:18 of these verses. Now, some people are fond of using uh the book of Nehemiah to
37:23 teach biblical leadership, a popular uh book for for learning biblical
37:29 leadership. Now, certainly uh Nehemiah can teach us a lot about biblical leadership.
37:35 And then there are also churches who like to uh study the book of Nehemiah before they undertake a a major uh
37:42 building project. And I'm sure the book of Nehemiah can help to direct our our our spiritual
37:49 direction when we want to build a church building or some some of some sort. And
37:54 there's nothing wrong in in studying the book of Nehemiah for these various purposes.
37:59 But you'll be really missing the point. You'll be really missing the big picture.
38:05 overlooking what is really pertinent. You'll be like you'll be like seeing a painting but instead of admiring uh uh
38:12 the art you you admiring the the the picture frame. And so what is the overarching theme
38:19 behind the book of Nehemiah? What is Nehemiah all about? And I submit to you
38:25 that together with the book of Ezra and these two books should be read together. These two books are really to me one
38:33 elaborate metaphor for our own spiritual journey on earth. It began with it
38:38 begins with Ezra chapter one when the Israelites returned uh from exile to now
38:45 uh Nehemiah chapter 6 when the wall was completed. It is one big metaphor for
38:51 our own walk with God. And let me show you how this uh this Ezra Nemiah
38:59 metaphor works. And there are four parts to this metaphor.
39:04 This is how we read the read the Bible, you know, underneath the surface. To begin with, during the Israelites years
39:11 in exile in Babylon and also later in Persia, they were held in captivity. They were held in bondage as they found
39:18 themselves in enemy territory. And this corresponds to the years before we were
39:23 saved. We were saved and and the years when we were in bondage to sin, when we
39:28 were in a sort of spiritual wilderness. And secondly, when the Israelites
39:34 finally returned to Jerusalem, which is well documented in Ezra chapter 2, they
39:39 were taken out of bondage and they came home. It is akin to the moment of our
39:45 salvation when we came home spiritually to be reconciled with God.
39:51 So that is the second part of the metaphor and think of the parable of the prodigal son. And next the building of
39:58 the temple in Jerusalem recorded in Ezra uh chapters 3-6
40:04 the building of the temple in Jerusalem which is not in the book of Nemiah but in Ezra. And this is so important because the temple was the place where
40:11 the where the presence of God dwelt. So they came back to Jerusalem and God
40:16 dwelt with them. And this is symbolic of the moment at the point of salvation
40:22 when the Holy Spirit came to dwell within us. When we get saved, the Holy Spirit came
40:27 and dwell in us. When they return to Jerusalem, God came to dwell with them. Can you see the analogy? Because we must
40:34 remember that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19.
40:39 And finally, as for the building of the wall in the book of of Nehemiah, it was about fortification of the city to
40:46 protect its inhabitants from danger. So the analogy is that similarly after our conversion, after the indwelling of
40:53 the Holy Spirit, our faith needs to be fortified to be strengthened in a process known as sanctification so that
40:59 we can better deal with the dangers that threaten uh to to undermine our
41:05 righteous living. So as you can see our text in Nehemiah 5
41:10 and 6 corresponds to the to the the tail end of this extended metaphor. The
41:15 dangers Nehemiah face from inside and from the outside kind of square with the dangers that we we our faith uh face
41:23 from in internally and externally which I tried to lay out for you throughout the sermon.
41:31 Now to move on, we have spent a fair bit of time discussing the dangers the Nehemiah had to face from within and
41:36 without. Now what about us? What are the dangers
41:41 that we face both internally and externally? And here I would like to go even deeper to map it out for you in an
41:48 easy to easy to understand way. Now many years ago when I preached from um I
41:53 remember preaching from Acts chapter 4 on obstacles to growth, I showed you this diagram to illustrate our spiritual
41:59 journey. uh maybe about se 8 to 10 years ago. I'm not sure if you remember this.
42:06 It shows how as we try to to move forward with the with the Holy Spirit working in us, there are always these
42:13 three forces trying to pull us back. As we try to grow spiritually, our progress
42:19 is sometimes negated or toted by these opposing entities. And the three forces
42:25 always trying to pull us back are number one, our old self. Number two, the world
42:31 and number three, Satan. Our old self is the internal danger that
42:37 I talked about. While the world and Satan are the external dangers I talked
42:42 about. Now for the first one, our old self, we may call it our fallen sinful
42:47 nature. Now the term fallen world in the title refers not only to the fallen
42:53 world outside but also to our fallen nature inside which is supposed to have been crucified at the cross but somehow
43:01 it refuses to die and so it keeps haunting us.
43:06 As for the external force of the world it encompasses all sorts of worldly values literally all sorts as my
43:13 children are finding out now. But chief among these worldly values is the love
43:20 of money. Indeed, for the love of money, many Christians have deviated from the faith.
43:26 And I've already shared with you three biblical principles to govern our attitudes towards money. As for the last
43:32 one, for Satan, he's always trying to stumble us, constantly work at work to
43:38 to draw us away from God by tempting us and by deceiving us. And out of these
43:43 three, the last one is the most subtle. Now you have to understand that there is
43:48 no such thing as remaining in a spiritual equilibrium. You know, staying
43:54 put in one place because this is not a static but a very highly dynamic situation. Our spiritual
44:01 life is typified by this constant battles with these three forces. either
44:06 you are growing even though it's slowly or you'll be backsliding or losing
44:11 ground depending on how strong the forces are are on both sides of the equation.
44:18 Now while while meditating on these two chapters of Nehemiah I realized two things.
44:24 Firstly it seems to me that the dangers coming from within us
44:29 it seems to be more serious than those from with from without because it's far more difficult to overcome our old self
44:37 than the than world the world or Satan. I don't think any of any one of us will be uh readily uh willing to allow money
44:45 or Satan to sit on the throne of our lives. God should be sitting on the throne of our lives. But instead, we enthrone ourselves. You see, you see
44:52 what is happening. We want to run our old lives and therefore it's very hard to deal with this old self.
44:59 It follows that if we can succeed in eliminating the dangers from inside. Meaning if we can allow the Holy Spirit
45:06 to work with us to banish the old self, then it follows that the world and Satan
45:11 would find it uh much harder to have a hold on us if we uh have sufficiently uh
45:18 decreased and God has increased. Secondly, as you can see at the bottom
45:25 of the diagram, the foundation that undergurts this dynamic spiritual journey is really the fear of God. The
45:33 fear of God should be our motivation for walking in the spirit. If you recall in chapter 5:9
45:40 and when Nehemiah confronted those rich Israelites who sinned, he reprimanded them, "What you are doing is not right.
45:46 Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God? Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God?" which is where the sermon
45:52 title came from. But what does it mean uh to to to fear God? To fear God, of
45:58 course, doesn't mean to be terrified of God as if he's always angry, you know, always threatening to punish us. Further
46:05 down in verse 15, Nehemiah fortunately used a different phrase synonymous to
46:10 the fear of God because when he was explaining how he refrained from uh from
46:16 uh taking food allotted to the to the governor, he said out of reverence for
46:21 God, I did not act like that. Out of reverence for God, I did not act like
46:27 that. And this is the synonym for the fear of God. Thus to fear God means to
46:32 revere him to consider him in the highest esteem to look up to him so much
46:38 and that will be our that should be our motivation for not wanting to sin and our motivation for repentance when we do
46:46 sin and this is how we dethrone the old self and when the old self is diminished
46:52 or dethroned we'll be in a stronger position to deal with the other two opposing forces working against us as I
46:59 explained a while ago And this is how we forge ahead in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And to
47:05 do this, we must learn to fear God. We must place him first above everything
47:11 else. Now to to drive this home, I promise uh
47:16 to to explain why I call my children boy and girl and not by their given by their by by their names. I explain to you why.
47:25 You see, I wanted to convey maybe in a subconscious way the idea that there
47:30 must be a hierarchy in the house. There must be a hierarchy in the house is important to me. You are a girl, you're
47:38 a boy, and I'm the man.
47:44 As a result, I thought through about this. I'm the man of the house.
47:52 I'm glad that he don't address me. Amen.
47:57 The point is I'm their father and they are my children
48:02 hierarchy. Otherwise, how to teach them and lead them in the in the in the right
48:08 path. Now years ago, I remember not so long ago, a few years ago, my kids once told
48:15 me, you know, you know, you know something,
48:20 you as a father, you must earn our respect.
48:26 Have they told you this? They might have told you this. You must earn our respect.
48:32 Well, that's true, but only to a certain extent. I'm not perfect. I have my weaknesses.
48:38 Sure, I must I must do my best to be worthy to be called a father. But I also
48:44 told them this despite my imperfection, my authority as a father is something
48:49 positional, not conditional. Is not conditioned upon your approval of
48:56 my performance. If I need your approval to earn my title as father, then you are above me.
49:09 Almighty God is holy and perfect in every way. If an imperfect earthly
49:14 father ought to be respected, how much more should God be revered because he's
49:20 far far above us? He is our creator God. He has to be he has to be esteemed and
49:27 held in all. It's only by fearing him that we can make progress in our spiritual journey. Then only will our
49:34 faith be authenticated just as how the discovery of Nehemiah's
49:40 wall in 2007 authenticated the book of Nehemiah
49:46 to be to be authenticated means to be proven true. My hope is that my faith
49:51 and your faith will be proven true over time as much as I hope that my
49:56 children's faith will be proven true as they leave overseas.
50:02 Now to conclude the sermon, uh we're running out of time. I promise to give you some practical lessons. And here I
50:08 would like to quickly run through four practical lessons from mostly from chapter 5 because as I said chapter 5 is
50:14 more important than chapter 6 because the internal threats are more serious than the external ones.
50:21 Number one, we must take sin seriously. So if you recall Nehemiah's reaction
50:27 when he found out about the sins in the midst, he didn't say, "Oh, it's okay, you know, let it go." To him, sin is
50:33 never a trivial matter. He took a strong stance against the breaking of God's commandments. And similarly, we must not
50:42 overlook or ignore or gloss over sin in our lives and also in our midst.
50:50 Secondly, we must confront sin resolutely. If you recall how Nehemiah summoned
50:56 those guilty of sin and how he he he confronted and chastised them. And so at
51:02 a at a collective level within our community of believers, we must be ready to confront sin whenever it surfaces.
51:10 Because if sin is rampant in our midst, we will be weak and vulnerable to threats from the outside. But I must
51:16 also say that when we confront sin, we must confront our own sins first and not
51:24 go around looking for other people's sins. Unless you are Nehemiah.
51:29 Next, we must confess our sins honestly. When confronted by Nehemiah with their sins, those guilty didn't give any
51:36 excuse. They acknowledge what they did was wrong. Uh albeit in silence.
51:43 Whenever we sin, we must come humbly before God and admit that we have done wrong. And lastly, we must repent of our
51:49 sins sincerely. And we saw how those guilty of sin make restitution to those
51:54 who they have wronged. Nehemiah 5 is above all a book about repentance
52:01 and repentance will open the the door or the gates of God's approval and
52:07 blessings. So four practical lessons and may I add the fifth one.
52:13 All leaders of the church must lead by example as we saw in the last part of chapter 5. And finally, in the face of
52:20 threats from uh from inside, let us live righteously. In the face of threats from
52:25 outside, let us live courageously. Above all, fear God and rever him. Let's close
52:31 in prayer. Our father in heaven, cause us to fear
52:36 you and to rever you. Grant us your strength as we live in this fallen world. as we crucify our old self, as we
52:44 deal with opposing forces from the outside, lead us all the way as the
52:49 spirit continues to work in us. in Jesus name.
