Well, take your Bibles if you will, turn to Nehemiah chapter 9. We're going to continue in that text. As you're turning there, I will tell you a story that I came across. From what I understand, it's a true story about a man named Roger Sims. He had completed his final tour of duty with the American military and had returned home, but there was no one there to pick him upon his return to the United States. And so he was hitchhiking to try to find a ride back home to no avail. It was not going well. No one was stopping, perhaps seeing him in his military fatigues.
People were maybe intimidated by that. Who knows? Eventually, a sleek black Cadillac passed by and he thought, "Well, this guy's never going to stop." But sure enough, the the black Cadillac pulled over and the door opened. So, he ran up and he threw his gear in and he hopped in the front seat and off they went. And the man looked at Roger and said, "Are you coming home for good?" To which Robert Roger replied, "Yes, I am." And he said, "Great. My name's Hanover." The man was 50ish years old, dressed in his a beautiful suit.
You he could tell this was a businessman of some sort. And so they began to talk about all kinds of things about life and what have you. And sure enough, Mr. Hanover owned businesses in Chicago. And Mr. Hanover said, "Are you going to Chicago?" He goes, "Well, not quite. I'm going close to Chicago, but not quite." "Well, I'll take you to your home." "Great." As they were approaching about half an hour from the from Roger's home, Roger felt this compulsion in him. He's you see Roger was a believer and thought, I I just feel like I need to share the gospel with Mr. Hanover.
And so he wrestled with this for a time and finally thought, no, I have to do this. And so he said, "Mr. Hanover, can I can I share something with you?" And he said, "Sure." And so Roger went on to share the the the gospel in its fullness to Mr. Hanover. After having shared the gospel with him, Mr. Hanover pulled over and he thought, "Oh boy, here we go. He's going to kick me out." But no, Mr. Hanover with tears streaming down his face said, "I need to receive this Jesus."
And right there at the side of the road, received Christ Jesus as Lord. From there he went on. He dropped Roger off at his home and off he went. Well, 5 years passed after that. Roger had since gotten married. He had a 2-year-old boy by this time. And he had a business meeting because he now had a business of his own. He had a business meeting in Chicago. And he pulled out a white business card that Mr. Hanover had given to him 5 years earlier. He thought, "Well, I'm going to Chicago. I should go look him up."
And so he went to Chicago and went and he sure enough he found Hanover Enterprises, went to the building and he said, "I'd like to speak to Mr. Hanover." And the receptionist said, "Well, you could speak to his wife." He thought, "Well, okay. I guess if I can't speak to him, I'll speak to his wife and maybe she can relay a message." So he spoke to Mr. Hanover's wife. You got in there and she looked at him and said, "So, you were a friend of my husband?" "Yep." "How did you know him?" Well, he said, "I know him because I had this interaction on May 7th."
He said, "I actually remember the date because it was date of it was the date of my discharge. So, remember the date, May 7th, 5 years ago. He he took me on a ride home and her head shot up." She said, "May 7th?" Hey, was there anything unique about your interaction with him? And he gulped and he thought, "Oh, do I do I tell her?" He thought, "Well, I've come this far. I might as well tell her, too." So, she said, he said, "Yes, ma'am." You see, that day I shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with your husband?
And he pulled over and he was sobbing at the side of the road and he received Christ Jesus as Lord that day. Upon telling her this, she began to sob and weep uncontrollably. This went on apparently for quite some time before she finally was able to gather herself. And I want to quote these things correctly. So she said this after getting a grip on herself. I had prayed for my husband's salvation for years.
I believed that God would save him. By this point, Roger was confused by the way she was wording things. And he she he said, "Well, where is your husband?" She said, "He's dead. He died May 7th, 5 years ago. He had dropped off Roger and between that stop and his home somewhere along the way, he'd had a car accident and died." And she said this, "He never got home. He was in a car crash that day."
You see, I thought God had not kept his promise. I stopped living for God 5 years ago because I thought that he had not kept his word. Now, sometimes there are those who will be saved and those who won't and all of those things, but we know this with certainty. Whatever God has promised in his word here, he will keep it. That is a certainty. God does not break his promises.
If it's been given by God, it's money in the bank. It's sure. And today in our text, we are going to see the faithfulness of our God even in the midst of man's failure. If you are a notetaker and you like to follow my little thing I put in the bulletin with the sermon outline, I've just given you both blanks. Man's failure, God's faithfulness. There's no mystery here if you would have gotten it as soon as we read the text anyway. But let's let's do that.
Let's read it. So, we're picking this prayer up now in verse 9 of of chapter 9 in Nehemiah. I'm going to read for you down to to verse 21. Here's what we here's what we read. And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants, and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself as it is to this day.
And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land. And you cast their pursuers into the depths as a stone into mighty waters. By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Si and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant.
And you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst. And you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them. But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them. But they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.
But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they made for themselves a golden calf and said, "This is your God who brought you out of Egypt and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way in which by which they should go.
You gave your good spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your mana from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. 40 years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell. This is quite a text. We're going to we're going to come to the great faithfulness of God. I'm going to save that for the end. So, we end on good news. We're going to start by examining the failure of man listed here.
Look at what we read as we pick this up in verse 16. So this is after 9-15 where we have been given this account of God's enormous provision for them. The the immense way that he took care of them. Then we read this about mankind but they acted presumptuously. It's a fascinating word and the Hebrew word here is given 10 times in the Old Testament. Three of them are in this chapter.
We're going to come to it again next week when we come to verse 29. But we have it twice in the passage we read here. So in verse 16, they acted presumptuously. But go to verse 10. We have the same Hebrew word in verse 10 regarding Pharaoh and his servants and the people of the land. For you knew, it says in verse 10, that they acted arrogantly. It's the same Hebrew word as presumptuously. Arrogantly. That is to say, I don't need you, God. I'm good.
That's a fool who would say, "Look at all the ways God's provided for me. I don't need him. I'm better off on my own." That's presumptuous living. And then it says here that they stiffened their neck. This is a phrase used throughout the scriptures. Let me take you to another example of it. In Acts 7, in Steven's great sermon in verse 51, this great seeker friendly sermon.
I say that with tongue firmly in my cheek. This is what he says to the people who are listening to his sermon. You stiffnecked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. So they're stiff necked in Acts 7. Just as their fathers were. He's talking here about these people who were stiff necked. Well, what does it mean to be stiffnecked? If I sleep wrong, I get stiff necked.
That's a different kind of thing, though. 2 Chronicles chapter 36 gives us a helpful clue. In verse 13 of 2 Chronicles 36, we read this. He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who made him swear by his by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord. So stiffened of neck and hardened of heart are together to be hardhearted against God. We see it also in the golden calf incident.
We remember we have the golden calf incident listed for us in this passage in verse 32 of Exodus. Listen to what we read here regarding in in the golden calf account. Verse 9. The Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff necked people." Verse 30 chapter 33:3. Go to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff necked people, hard of heart.
So, they're arrogant and they're hard of heart. This is fascinating because the this is the exact descriptor of the Pharaoh under whom they wanted to get away from. Pharaoh in Exodus 7:13, we read there that he's hard-hearted. A lot of people will say, "Wow, but God made him hard-hearted." The first thing it says Pharaoh was hard-hearted. He was not otherwise soft-hearted, right?
Don't think when it said when we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it wasn't a otherwise Pharaoh would have been this really wonderful guy. No, he was already hard of heart. And it was this tyrant that they desperately sought to get out from under. And now they are being described in the exact same way. What's led them to this? All that they have seen is the kindness and provision of God. And their response is to be arrogant, stiff necked, hardhearted.
That's atrocious. And then we read that they did not obey. In fact, they refused to obey. Verse 17 says they didn't obey and they refused to obey. This was because of the hardness of their heart and the arrogance with which they lived. I know better. God said this. Yeah, but but this is really the way. We're never like that, are we? We never say, "Well, God says this, but my situation dictates that I should actually do this."
We are prone to situational theology all the time. We I know of people Bryce knows a pastor friend of ours that would at one time would have held to Orthodox Christianity and then his daughter became a lesbian and his situation now dictated the way he believed about God. And so he said, "No, no, obviously now in light of this situation, my theology has changed. We have to be very careful about that."
They they did not obey and they refused to obey and they ought not to have. They were The bottom line is this, friends, no obedience, no love for God. That that's black and white in the scriptures. Jesus said John 14:15, if you love me, you will obey me. So if we don't obey the Lord, we do not love him. Those are the words of Jesus. In second John 6, we read this.
And this is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment just as you've heard from the beginning so that you should walk in it. It's a commandment that if you love God, you obey him. And here they are showing their lack of love for God. Anyone can say with their lips, I love God. The proofs in the pudding. And so here they are arrogant, stiff- necked, hard of heart, lacking obedience. And look at what we read here in verse 17.
They refused to obey and and I would say these are very much tied together were not mindful of the wonders that you had performed among them but rather they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. They this is fas they were not mindful of the wonders of God. It wasn't that they forgot. They simply were not spending their time thinking on it.
This is why we must gather as the local church week after week in accordance with God's design. For that person who says, "I'm a Christian, but I don't need to go to church." You're fooling yourself. We need regular reminders of what God has done lest we cease to be mindful of it and we go in our own way. We need that. This is how God's designed it. There's no such thing as moving on from the gospel. All right, we we've been given the gospel. Let's move on to other things. Now, the gospel is everything.
We have nothing but the gospel and it's glorious. And so here we we read here that they've not been mindful of the gospel and thus they've gone their own way and they've not borne fruit in keeping with repentance. And G Jesus said in Matthew 3:8 that we must bear fruit in keeping with repentance in Acts chap 26. Listen what we read in Acts 26 when Paul is before King Agria. Listen to the these words in verses 19 and 20.
Therefore, oh king of Grippa, I was not to be disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea Judea and also to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. Jews and Gentiles both were given that message. You must repent and perform deeds in keeping with said repentance. And here in Nehemiah 9, they're not doing that.
It's a sad commentary on mankind. And then we come to the golden calf incident. Can you imagine? Listen to what we read here. This is hard to read. And I want you to hold this up as a mirror to your own soul and ask yourself, is this me? Verse 18. Even when they made for themselves a golden calf and said, "This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt and committed great blasphemies."
Really? Are you joking? God stepped in. Oh, sign upon sign. All those different signs, all those plagues that came culminating with the Passover under the blood of the lamb, they were spared. But all the firstborn throughout Egypt died. And then God led them and they came to the Red Sea and it parted. They walk on dry ground across there at God's amazing behest and they cross.
The Egyptians come, boom, down comes the water, destroys all their enemies. They're safe. And what did they contribute to that? Bop kiss. God did it all. And now they say the golden calf did it. This thing we just constructed five minutes ago. This is the God that spared me. Really? And if you think, well, I never do that. Think about all those things that you say, "Okay, now I have hope because I have this thing in my life now because of this person maybe or or this this new venture, whatever it might be. Now I'm really living."
God has made you alive when you repented and trusted Christ. And he did it at his own his own son's blood. And he miraculously revealed that to your heart. And you think that this thing over here is where you're going to find satisfaction. The hearts of people are so fickle. And it says here, we read here that they even tried to find someone back to verse 17. They appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. And you might say, "I don't remember that in the scriptures."
Go with me if you will to Numbers 14. In Numbers 14:es 2-4, all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey.
Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Nehemiah here informs us that they actually did that. They appointed a leader. And nothing came of it. Praise God. Because God obviously providentially kept leading them to the promised land. But they had chosen a leader to go back to their slavery. We were we were in tears crying out for God to save us from this tyrant. And now that he's freed us and things are just a little bit tough, I want to go back to the slavery where we were.
Oh man, I'm glad we're not like that. Go with me if you will to Galatians 4. Galatians 4, starting at verse 8. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more?
You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid that I may have labored over you in vain. You're going back to the things from which you were saved. Why would you do that? It just reminds us that those things that we're talking about here in Nehemiah are still present today. Those dangers to turn back to those weak and beggarly elements from which we were saved and spared, they are still enticing to our sinful flesh. And we often want to go back there.
That is why according to the text that Travis read for us earlier from Proverbs 4, we need to guard our hearts because they are the wellspring of life. We need to protect them with all diligence. According to Hebrews 12, we need to look to the author and finisher of our faith lest we get entangled with all that sin which so easily entangles us. We need to lay it aside. The only way to lay it aside is to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord.
But here you might say to yourself, "Well, but I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner like these people here in Nehemiah. How is it that I'm going to gain such victory and not succumb to all these different pressures?" That's a great question. The answer to that is not found in oursel. It's found in the faithfulness of God. To which we will now turn our attention. Look at these words we read in verses nine and 10 of our text. Look at the action words. By the way, when you're studying your Bible, look for the verbs. The verbs lead the text.
The verbs and the imperatives. Imperatives are like commands. Look for those two things and they'll help you understand what the text is saying. Look at what we read here about God. You saw in verse 9 and then in later in verse 9 he heard their cry and then verse 10 and he performed signs and wonders and then later in verse 10 you knew that they had acted erodly. You made a name for yourself. God does all of this. The people are contributing nothing at this point.
It's all what God is doing including making a name for himself. God's made a name for himself. My name is nothing. We are so prone to wanting to make a name for ourselves, aren't we? I remember again, Pastor Bryce and I were in a pastor's meeting 10 years ago, maybe something like that. And a pastor sitting right over here. I remember where he was sitting. He said, "I pray regularly that God would give me a name. Lord, give me a name that I might herald you." Or whatever he said.
And Bryce and I were looking at each other like we're trying not to look too like we're trying to be soberminded and not you know but in the meeting we I we were both like what did he what you have no name except one Christian Christ follower that's the only name that matters his is the only name that matters if you're busy trying to carve out a name for yourself guess what in about 100 years no one's going to have a hot clue who you are but Jesus's name re reigns forever.
His is the only name that matters. He's made for himself a name. And look at all that he's done. You saw, you heard, you performed, you knew. This is all the work of God. Cuz our God is always at work. John 5 tells us he's always at work. He's always doing this mighty thing. And he heard them. In Exodus 23-2, we read them crying out to God. And there we read that God heard and he knew. He heard his people and he knew their plight and he provided a deliverance for them.
What is the deliverance he provided for them? Well, here we read about the Passover and the Red Sea. This is quite astonishing. Both of those things, the Passover and the Red Sea, point us to the gospel. They're all pictures of the gospel. The Passover, we have the pure spotless blood of a pure spotless lamb and you put on the doorpost and lentils of your house.
And if you are under the blood of the lamb, the angel of death will pass over. But if you are not under the blood of the lamb, you will die. The only way to be spared is by the blood of the pure lamb that points us to Christ. And in the Red Sea, God parts the waters. The enem is charging behind. The waters are parted. There's one path, a perilous path, or so it would seem. A narrow path. There's ws of water on either side. Can you imagine what that would have been like? I can't. The prince of Egypt, that old cartoon movie, tried to give a picture of it, but our minds can't even fathom that. And yet, this was the only way.
The one road to salvation was right in front of them. It was that or die. So, they took it and then their enemies were destroyed. Beautiful pictures of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Incredible. This is what our God has done in his faithfulness providing again and again. And then we read in verse 12 that by by day he led them by a pillar of cloud, by night by a pillar of fire. And then later on we read the same thing that he continued to lead them in that same way even after they failed.
Later in the text, did you read did you see that there? They he he continued verse 19 to lead them by a pillar of cloud and by a pillar of fire. Even when they were faithless, he remained faithful. This should encourage our hearts, brothers and sisters. Now, I want to pause here for a moment. I want to make sure just pastorally speaking that we don't dip into a ditch because whenever we're traveling down the path of scripture, there are sometimes ditches we can fall into and we all are guilty of it from time to time.
There's two ditches on this path that are so easy to trip us up. One's legalism, one's antinomianism. You might say, "Oo, that's a big fancy word." All right. Yeah, it's your big f You can That's your fancy word of the day. You can put that on your word of the day toilet paper or something. Legalism of course we have an understanding I think of that maybe maybe you don't is where we add to salvation that which is not necessary. God has said Jesus is the way, the truth and life. No one comes to the father except through me and all these works.
It's a worksbased righteousness. Works that the Lord has not called us to by way of salvation. No, no. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and the work of Christ alone. Period. Full stop. We need we need to add nothing to that salvation. That's legalism. So you'd see that with the Pharisees. They were heaping upon people the burdens in the New Testament that were not necessary, trying to earn their way to salvation. Antinomianism is the opposite ditch where we say, "I'm saved by grace.
Period. Now I can do whatever I want. It's all of grace and only of grace. I have no responsibility. That's the other ditch. Because guess what? God's called us to live holy. God's called us, as we've already seen, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If you were to take this text out and in isolation, apart from the context of the rest of scripture, you could make it seem that I'm just saved by grace and I can do whatever I want. God's going to remain faithful because so I can just go and live however I want.
And I say to you this, brothers and sisters, the the totality of scripture would inform us that that person who says, "I prayed a prayer. I'm good." And the rest of their life they live in abject sin, not in any way living for the glory of God, that person is revealing that they are dead in their sins and going to hell. Because the redeemed person has a spirit of God abiding in them. Romans 8 says, "And that spirit abiding in them will drive them to holy living." Inch by inch, failure upon failure, that will come in there. No doubt.
That's why this text is encouraging. There's going to be times where we're going to make mistakes. No doubt. But the redeemed person when when they do sin is going to feel this ache of conviction that's going to lead them to long for holiness. It might be incremental. It might some people might be like this. Some people might be like this, but there's going to be this desire for more of the Lord. But God is faithful in that when they failed here and failed big, he remained faithful to them because of his covenant promises.
Going back to Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, he was going to be faithful to his people. And God does not break his promises. In fact, we read in verse 17, right at the end of that verse, God's character. You are a God ready to forgive, gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake him. That little phrase there, ready to forgive, gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.
We see that throughout the Old Testament, starting in Exodus 34, this is the name given to God in Exodus 34. And we see it echoed throughout the Old Testament. This is who he is. Abounding in steadfast love, covenantal faithfulness. This is our God. And he remains that way today. In Hebrews 13 in the New Testament, we read there in verse 5 that he will never leave nor forsake his people. Those who are his people, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, they are his people.
And we can trust him with that. Are you going to make mistakes from time to time? You shouldn't make it your aim to make mistakes. You shouldn't be content to live in sin, but will we sometimes stumble? Yeah. None of us are God. We're going to from time to time. The redeemed of the Lord can rest assured that God is faithful. And one of the ways in which God proves himself faithful to us is he makes sin known to us.
That we might repent of it, that we might turn from it, that we might live holy lives. He is so faithful that he will not allow his children to live in abject sin without making it known that they need to make it right. That's God's faithfulness. And we see it over and over throughout history. Let us not presume upon God's grace as Romans 2 speaks about, but rather let us live holy lives, but but with the comfort of knowing that when I sin, I don't have to ask God to save me again and again and again. There's a little book written years ago called Stop Asking Jesus into your heart.
There are those every time they sin, they were like, "Okay, I've lost my salvation. Now I have to ask Jesus back into my heart again." Praise God. That's not how he works. If you were truly saved, you're not going to lose your salvation because of God's covenantal faithfulness. If we confess our sins, first John tells us he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us or to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Praise God for that glorious hope that we have. This is our God. We need to look to him in the storms of life.
Oftentimes the storms that we create for ourselves because of our sin and failure, we need to look to this faithful God as an anchor for our soul. Robert Louie Stevenson was telling a story of a ship where that was caught in a storm and it looked like they were heading straight for the rocks and to their peril. And so all the passengers were told to go below deck, but one brave passenger disobeyed that. Went up and he struggled his way up to where the captain was.
And he looked in and he saw the captain there standing his post at the steering wheel slowly, inch by inch, moving the ship back out to the sea to safety. And apparently the captain looked over at him and just smiled at him. The man went back to the other passengers and he said this, "I've seen the face of the pilot." And he smiled. All is well. We have seen God revealed in his word. All is well. Brothers and sisters, Hebrews 6 tells us that the Lord God Almighty is a steadfast anchor for our soul.
Why? Because he's always faithful. He never breaks a promise. What God has said that he will do, great is his faithfulness. What amazing grace this is these people. I mean, listen, if I'm reading Nehemiah 9 and and I put myself, which I should never do, by the way, but if I put myself in God's place and I look at these people, you know what I would have done? Kabam. That's not our God. He's faithful to his promises. And he mighty in grace, immense in mercy.
We ought to live with thanksgiving because of that. We're all recipients of said grace and mercy. And let us respond by living for his glory and bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So God, we thank you so much for who you are. We pray, Father, that that though we fail, we would ever come to you in and desire to be forgiven with a longing to live holy lives pleasing to you. Thank you that you never leave nor forsake those who are truly your people. And I I pray, Father, that that we would not spurn your faithfulness, rather, that we would look at you in awe and wonder and desire in response to this great salvation to say thank you by lives of obedience and love and soft-heartedness to you.
And so lead us in that way, we pray. And we ask that we would be used of you as servants unto your name. These things we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's stand and close in song
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
