President Nixon talking with astronauts of Apollo 11 on the moonForty eight years ago today, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the culmination of John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon before the decade was out. Outrageous! Can’t be done! It was fake!
It was no fake, but the culmination of a colossal goal, fraught with , among other things, the deaths of three astronauts, inventing technology that didn’t exist, and fighting through endless battles with committees, ne’er do wells, skeptics, a sometimes unwilling congress, and the divisive strife of an unpopular war.
To say America and the world stepped out of its comfort zone is an understatement. We transformed whole cities, built massive launch and support facilities where none existed. Consider these innovations NASA headed up:
But this is about comfort zones, and moving away from them. If we as a nation had not moved boldly out of our collective comfort zone of the early 1960’s, we might never have achieved such a remarkable achievement as walking on the moon. It’s is easy to stay in them, they are, after all, comfortable. But we were never meant to stay in our cozy comfortable corners, just as ships were not built to stay in port; they were made for bold adventure, profitable commerce, and national protection.
Have you launched your Apollo to the moon? Do you even have a goal worthy enough and so outrageous that it will fail unless God is behind it? Well then, good for you! If not, how about taking at least a “one small step” by sharing Jesus without fear to that person who’s been on your mind? After all, we weren’t left here after our being made Christians by God to stay in our comfort zones.
*Sigh* #struglife. All I want is a simple REFILL!!!!!!! Can you hear me scream? What do I haft do to get a refill of a scrip I’ve been taking for 20 years?
The website sent me circles. I realize, even though I make a living sitting on technology’s saddle, I tend to overcomplicate things. But really, a scrip refill. Worth 1o bucks for 90 days.
I send emails, call the doctor’s office, call the the “new and improved” pharma site my company uses. I just about ran out last time. So I started a month and a half this time, but a week later, no the doctor’s admin hadn’t heard anything, and the pharma site, Caremark, still had the “we have received your request” notice.
Yes, it’s a tempest in a teapot, it’s a first world problem, but no it’s not not, it’s heart meds. So if I want them, I better go do something about it. You don’t get what you want, you get what you inspect (follow up on).
As human nature has not changed in the 2,500 years since Nehemiah pulled his (and other people’s!) hair out about things that he thought were obvious, so must we. He returned from his year-long hiatus from Jerusalem to find the people had shrugged off their responsibilities to the Temple service, Sabbath rest, and mixed marriage.
Sometimes we need to enforce accountability, especially on ourselves.
Summary / Thoughts
Nehemiah 13:1-3
These verses probably belong in the previous chapter, but the verses and chapters are not Biblical, they were added later in the 13th and sixteenth century. (See the article by Don Stewart in the Blue Letter Bible for more.)They were reading Deut 23:3-5. (Read) There is a true paradox here, because the line of David includes a Moabite. Yes, Ruth. Her new husband, Boaz, was 11th from Abraham. Well before the curse made above. From Mat 1:1-6:
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
Perez and Zerah by Tamar
Hezron
Ram
Amminadab
Nahshon
Salmon
Boaz was the father of
Obed by Ruth
Jesse
David the king
Jews were not to marry non-Israelites, including the priests. Exo 34:16 echoed at Deut 7:3, 4:1. Having the the Moabites and Ammonites expelled would, of course, make it difficult to find a one to wed…More to the point, the people were reading and heeding. This is a perfect example for us. And it was a controversial thing to do, yet they obeyed God at the peril of being PC and bowing to please people.
Nehemiah 13:4-9
Nehemiah returned to Artaxerxes after 12 years of service. Some believe his absence from Jerusalem was around a year.Rather than nicely inviting Tobiah to make other arrangements, Nehemiah busted his sorry hide, and the horse he rode in on out of the Temple.
The (excuse me, A) spiritual parallel here is that Nehemiah treated Tobiah the same way we should treat sin. When there is sin in our Temple (1 Cor 6:19 ) toss it OUT! Questions!?
Nehemiah 13:10-14
It appears the people left in charge did not continue in their commitments with predictable results. You & I need this kind of accountability, men with men, women with women. Spending time and asking each other uncomfortable questions and being honest with each other.So reading this you might think that pledge drives are a great idea. On the other hand, many many pastors don’t speak at al about giving because they feel it will offend the “seekers.”
But OT giving is more structured than NT. One of the reasons is that we have the Holy Spirit living in us and giving is more a matter of the heart 2 Cor 9:6-8. Yet, we still need the gentle reminding and encouragement as Paul did the Corinthians.
Nehemiah 13:15-22
Where do you think the Jews picked up these habits? Failure to read & heed (above), acting like the locals, mostly, drifting away in relationship with God.
It takes a God-appointed leader to remind people of their responsibilities. Previously, the prophets had done this, sometimes the people would repent and turn back to God, but more often getting upset at the messenger often with dire consequences. Jeremiah 18:18 is an example of this and Moses Exo 17:4
This passage is a clear example of you get what you inspect.
Nehemiah 13:23-31
We are commanded not to be unequally yoked in marriage. 2 Cor 6:14.And Nehemiah was especially strident with this infraction, perhaps to make a point.
And it is important. Try standing on a chair and pulling someone up to you. Now find out how easy it is to be pulled off the chair.
We really don’t have it so bad, do we American Christians? Let’s spend a little more time in prayer for our friends across the ocean who pay a price for that which we don’t always treat as precious:
Aside from the Bible, the most transforming book I have ever read is Boundaries, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. You see, I was a nice guy. If you wanted something I knew was wrong or harmful, especially in my BC (before Christ) days. That behavior put me close to addiction, in jail, (overnight is still in jail) in the court system, broke, and a host of other idiotic things I still shudder over and avoid talking to my kids about.
But I couldn’t say no, it would hurt someone else (so I thought) and I really needed to be liked and accepted. I did not know what great harm those motivations caused me when exercised without wisdom or restraint. I didn’t know how to keep the bad things of my life out, and allow in the good things. In short, I had no boundaries.
Enter Cloud and Townsend. They had obviously studied me personally and intimately. They recognized the destructive patterns I had developed, and shone a light forward out of my no-boundary life, to one with healthy boundaries, allowing love and other good things to flow, while protecting myself (and others) from harmful things, manipulation, threats, physical harm, and so on. The few days needed to read and apply its Biblical principals have liberated me, and millions of others.
Walls are boundaries. But sometimes people misunderstand your intent when you build a boundary, and they feel shut out. They accuse you of building a separation between people. They accuse with charges of discrimination, elitism. Sometimes these folks are ignorant of walls, sometimes, like Sanballat, Tobiah, and their cadre, they seek to manipulate, control, abad even destroy.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Although implementing boundaries, as Nehemiah did in our study, was vastly unpopular, it was vital to maintain the integrity of the Jewish people, to allow the good in, and keep the harmful away, be that people, actions, culture, food, virtually anything.
Like the Jews, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood 1 Peter 2:7, set apart, a good definition of holiness.
Our enemies will pull us away from God, and doing God’s work. The enticement, like the ones Nehemiah received were sometimes sly, easy to say yes to, with the added power of threat and harm.
What are these enticements? There are three, given throughout the Book, in Genesis in the Garden of Eden, here in Nehemiah, and many places elsewhere. Even Jesus was tempted by Satan in the Gospels. John culminates and explains these threats in his first letter:
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” 1 John 2:16.
The open letter was not so much a public document like what we are used to, such as an open letter to a high official in a newspaper (remember them?). Letters sent to people of note were rolled in a scroll and sealed with wax or clay and imprinted with a distinctive seal, often a signet ring.
This was for privacy and respect. On the other hand, to send the same letter to the same person unsealed was an often sign of contempt. This was an occasion of the latter. Source: New Manners and Customs of the Bible Nehemiah 6:5.
The inclusion of Gashmu was not a mere aside., no ordinary bloke. He is referred to even outside the Bible as an Arabian nobleman who, like other Arabians, had the ear of the Persian kings because of their alliance dating back to 520 BC. Geshem was, in fact, the king of Kedar! Curiously, his name means “rain maker”, someone who could make things happen. This is not someone you wanted on his bad side, unless God Himself would hold it back.
Obviously, the idea was to sabotage by threat and intimidation.
Nehemiah 6:10-14
Having been defeated in this feint, Sanballat and Tobiah, now he resorts to intimidation and deceit. Shemaiah, a priest compromised by Sanballat and Tobiah via the marriage of his oldest daughter to the son of the high priest member of the priesthood. (Neh 13:28)So what? Who cares? Had Nehemiah gone through with Shemaiah’s suggestion, Nehemiah would have violated the directive in Numbers 18:7 not to enter that part of the Temple, which was to be habited only by priests. His integrity would have been compromised in the eyes of the priests (a powerful political force) and the faithful followers of God, who took Him at His word.Noahdiah: A false prophetess. And only a false prhetess, but for hire to intimidate Nehemiah and stir up the people against him. The New Testament Book of Jude as well offers an apt description, comparing them to Baalam, the erroneous prophet! Their fate is eternal black darkness. Our response is to:“…Remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’” Jude 17-18
Know your enemy: Does this prophet/prophecy in accordance with the Bible? Has it come to pass with 100% accuracy? A no answer to either question tells us to run, don’t walk for the exits.
Nehemiah 6:15-19
The wall was completed on Sep 21, 444 BC, 52 days after it’s beginning, a powerful testament that God rebuilt this wall.Nehemiah’s enemies, proxies for Satan, like Satan, fled when resisted. James 4:7. Tobiah’s wife and daughter-in-law had influence with the influential. Nehemiah had dissent even in his own ranks!Tobiah’s wife and daughter-in-law had influence with the influential. Nehemiah had dissent even in his own ranks!
Living Our Life of Faith How, What, and Where to live in the light of faith in our Great High Priest is the theme of Hebrews 12. Our examples are Jesus, and the saints of faith before us. Our heritage and is an unshakable one, Heaven. Summary / Thoughts
Heb 12:1-3 – Jesus Our Super Model
Simply: Shed sin. Shake it off like a lizard sheds his skin, like Paul shook off the snakebite of Acts 28:2-5Compare this with the kenosis of Phillipians 2. The emptying, the deprivation Jesus went through to lay aside is Godhood, AND voluntarily put up with the hostility of which we receive only a bare fraction.
Heb 12:4-11 – The Father, our Teacher
Someone once remarked that he was glad to have been in the army, but wouldn’t want to do it again. Discipline is the same way, it’s necessary. It shows we are true sons (daughters) of God; it’s tough love in a sense. It perfects us, bringing us through the seminary of sorrow; it’s one thing to read a book about the hardships and suffering of others, it’s quite another to live it. Those in battle have a unique shared experience in having together been shot at, there is little experience more uniting than that.And, we are disciplined to enter into that pure and set aside state of holiness, since the Father, through discipline, receive His holiness
Heb 12:12-17 – Our Brothers, our object of holiness
Our response toward each other is how we live out the shaking off of sin. It says that we walk in the path of righteousness and peace. Look at Psalm 1:1-3 to see an example of this walk. What causes bitterness? Sometimes, unexpressed resentment of what another has or does, but always unvoiced. Deu 29:18 shows the root of bitterness is born out of the unbelief many had that God did not take car elf them, such that they turned to idols.
Heb 12:18-24 – Our Summit: Mt. Zion
The image is of the time Moses went to Mt Sanai to receive the Law (Exodus 19 and 20). That terrible place was a place of death to the unclean. All were stay away.Mt. Zion, on the other hand, is the object of our journey, our gathering place. But really, both are the same in that only the spotless, and sinless may approach it.
Heb 12:25-29 – Our Unshakable Inheritance
His last warning concerning the call to faith in Christ by Christ. Although we draw to Mt. Zion, only the unshakable will endure, we who have our foundations in the Rock, Jesus, will be immovable. The dross, the man-made will not endure. And yes our God is a loving God, but He is also just, and will refine out the impure, at the end of the age. See also Haggai 2:6 from which this is quoted.
Memory Verse – All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11
Application – Expect dicipline, encourage the family of God, run the whole race.
.. humble themselves and pray and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. II Chron 7:14
