Brett Cushing – Teacher

1. Nehemiah’s Return to Contamination
   1. The contrast between his departure and return
      1. Left after successful wall dedication and celebration
      2. Returns after about a year to find sacred things profaned and paganized
   2. Understanding key theological terms
      1. Sacred: things set apart and used in service to God
      2. Pagan: common, unholy, not different from anything else
      3. Consecrated: the act of setting something apart
      4. Profane: treating holy things with irreverence or contempt
   3. The contamination analogy: Chernobyl nuclear disaster
      1. Released 400 times more radioactive material than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined
      2. 120,000 people from 213 villages relocated
      3. Area uninhabitable for 20,000 years
      4. Sin creates similar contamination that causes holy God to move out
   4. Christ’s response versus human response
      1. Jesus moved into our “Chernobyl” because God so loved the world (John 1:14)
      2. Humanity chooses to remain in sin’s contamination rather than choose holy God
2. The Law Read and Briefly Obeyed (Nehemiah 13:1-3)
   1. Promising beginning with God’s Word
      1. Book of Moses read aloud
      2. Heard that no Moabite or Ammonite should enter God’s assembly
      3. Reminded that God turned Balaam’s curse into blessing
   2. Immediate obedient response
      1. They heard God’s Word
      2. They responded in obedience
      3. Contamination began almost immediately after
3. Contamination of the Temple (Nehemiah 13:4-14)
   1. The failure of witness to the world
      1. God’s people were to live under God’s rule as bright light to the world
      2. When they failed, they made God seem common and ordinary
      3. “Wizard of Oz effect” – making the awesome God appear as ordinary man behind curtain
   2. Tobiah’s contaminating presence
      1. Foreign Ammonite official and adversary of Nehemiah
      2. Exploited relationship with priest Eliashib
      3. Given access to sacred places for storing tithes
      4. Evil one now residing where sacred things should be stored
   3. Impact on worship and the Levites
      1. Levites unable to perform worship services (verse 10)
      2. Forced to leave temple work for common labor
      3. Worship declining as evil one intended
   4. Nehemiah’s cleansing response
      1. Called Eliashib’s action “evil” (verse 7)
      2. Threw out all of Tobiah’s belongings
      3. Purified and reconsecrated the priests
      4. Parallel to Jesus cleansing the temple
   5. Nehemiah’s intercessory prayer (verse 14)
      1. “Remember me for this, my God”
      2. Points to Jesus as our intercessor
      3. Jesus says “Remember my perfect life covering them”
4. The Church as Temple Today
   1. Jesus as the temple (Ephesians 2:19-22)
      1. Believers are “fellow citizens with the saints”
      2. Christ as cornerstone of the temple
      3. Whole structure grows into holy temple in the Lord
      4. Believers built together as dwelling place for God by the Spirit
   2. Application for believers today
      1. Do we make allowances and alliances with evil?
      2. Are parts of us contaminating and profaning God?
      3. Solution is not trying harder but trusting more in Jesus
      4. Jesus cleanses us permanently and perfectly
5. Contamination of the Sabbath (Nehemiah 13:15-22)
   1. Sabbath turned into marketplace (verses 15-16)
      1. People buying and selling on day set apart for God
      2. Day of grace became day of grit and grind
   2. The sacred meaning of Sabbath
      1. Day to observe and remember preciousness of relationship with God
      2. Reminder that God is over everything in our lives
      3. Day to remember God provides for all we have
      4. Reminder of our weakness and need for rest in God
      5. For Israelites: remember redemption from Egypt
      6. For us: remember salvation from sin
   3. The choice between dependence and independence
      1. Sabbath represented dependence on God
      2. Contamination showed resort to self-reliance
      3. Same choice as Adam and Eve: tree of life or tree of knowledge of good and evil
   4. God’s wrath explained (verse 18)
      1. Not God getting angry but giving people what they want
      2. Giving them His absence rather than His presence
      3. Worst experience imaginable – separation from God
      4. Jesus experienced this on the cross for us
   5. Nehemiah’s protective measures (verses 19-21)
      1. Shut doors and warned violators of arrest
      2. Levites purified themselves and guarded the Sabbath
      3. Needed guarding from outside influences and our own hearts
   6. New Testament perspective on Sabbath
      1. Early Christians moved Sabbath to Sunday (Lord’s Day)
      2. Moral principle remains: rest, remembrance, reliance on God
      3. Sunday marks Jesus’s resurrection and our true rest in Him
6. Contamination of Community Identity (Nehemiah 13:23-31)
   1. The intermarriage problem (verses 23-25)
      1. Men of Judah married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab
      2. Children spoke foreign languages, not language of Judah
      3. Nehemiah’s violent response: rebuked, cursed, beat, and pulled hair
   2. The covenant violation (Deuteronomy 7:3-4)
      1. “Do not intermarry with them”
      2. “They will turn your children away from following me”
      3. God’s concern was apostasy, not ethnicity
      4. Warning against abandoning Yahweh for other gods
   3. Understanding “unevenly yoked”
      1. Like two cattle pulling in different directions
      2. One wanting to follow Yahweh, other wanting own way
      3. Creates strain, stress, and ultimately leads to apostasy
   4. Nehemiah as “Mr. Clean”
      1. Continually cleaning contamination
      2. Threw out Tobiah’s goods
      3. Confronted Sabbath violators
      4. Used violence against intermarriage violators
7. Key Distinction: Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
   1. Nehemiah’s actions are descriptive, not prescriptive
      1. Not everything God’s people do is example to follow
      2. Too much abuse already in churches
      3. Jesus says love our enemies – that’s prescriptive
   2. Nehemiah’s approach versus Jesus’s approach
      1. Nehemiah: force, control, violence
      2. Jesus: compassion, mercy, grace
      3. Better to remember God’s true character (Exodus 34:6)
      4. Better to remember God’s forgiveness (Psalm 130:3)
   3. Contrasting prayers
      1. Nehemiah (verse 29): “Remember them… because they defiled”
      2. Jesus on cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”
8. Application: Our Identity and Community Today
   1. Questions for self-examination
      1. Do we compromise through intimate relationships with non-Christians?
      2. Do we contaminate through hatred toward others or ourselves?
      3. Do we compromise through political tribalism?
      4. Are we more like Mr. Clean (forcing righteousness) or Christ (serving on cross)?
   2. What are we “married to” that’s inconsistent with Christ?
9. Three Summary Points from Nehemiah 13
   1. Humanity needs new interior, not exterior
      1. Don’t need new wall, need new will and heart
      2. Pattern: construction to dedication to immediate decline
      3. Cycle: reform, relapse, reform, relapse
   2. Need world Savior who is God, not worldly leader who’s godly
      1. Both Nehemiah and Jesus brought cleansing
      2. Nehemiah: human force through control and condemnation
      3. Jesus: divine force through service, suffering, sacrifice
      4. Nehemiah’s effects temporary, Jesus’s effects eternal
   3. External reform versus renewed heart
      1. Can worship faithfully, believe orthodoxy, clean up behaviors
      2. Still battle deep-rooted sin continually
      3. Must live in perpetual dependency on Christ’s sufficiency
10. Final Contrasts: Mr. Clean versus the Cross
    1. Nehemiah’s methods versus Jesus’s methods
       1. Nehemiah restored priests, Jesus replaces priesthood as true high priest
       2. Nehemiah enforced Sabbath, Jesus fulfills Sabbath
       3. Nehemiah rebuked compromised community, Jesus redeems it
       4. Nehemiah fought intermarriage leading to idolatry
       5. Jesus marries unfaithful bride and makes her pure (Ephesians 5:25-27)
    2. Different prayers and perspectives
       1. Nehemiah hoped for God to gaze upon him as righteous
       2. Jesus’s intercessory prayers give us God’s gaze upon us as righteous
    3. The choice before us
       1. Aim to be like Nehemiah (Mr. Clean) attempting external force and control
       2. Point to Jesus on cross and encourage faith in compassionate Savior
       3. Jesus cleanses internally with new heart – His heart