Nehemiah 13:1-3
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THIS last chapter of Nehemiah comes as surprise in the light of all the contents of the rest of the book. The book has been concerned with the revival of religion in Israel, and this has centred around the building of the walls of the city of Jerusalem, and the revitalisation of the people as the people of God. We have seen a time of great spiritual advance and blessing from God. Now in this last chapter we find spiritual declension had crept in and spoilt things. It is for this reason that the chapter is so important.

Nehemiah had been recalled by Artaxerxes, king of Babylon. Nehemiah must have become a person of some importance to Artaxerxes, and in the government of Babylon. We are told the precise time when he was recalled - the 32nd year of the reign of Artaxerxes, but we are not told how long Nehemiah was away from Jerusalem. It seems to have been some time, and was probably a number of years, at least two or more. Nehemiah�s heart was still in Jerusalem and with his own people, and he asks permission to return, which is granted. When Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem he finds thing have deteriorated sadly, and the spiritual life of the people had declined, and the world had crept into the life of God�s people, and they had begun to forsake God again.

The chapter calls to our attention how easy it is for God�s people to lose their love of God, and the spiritual state of God�s people to decline. In Nehemiah�s day God�s people were to be found in the Jewish nation, today God�s people are to be found in the church of God, and it is the state of the church of God which mirrors the state of the spiritual life of God�s people. I am not talking about any particular denomination. What is important is for all God�s people to look at the particular fellowship to which they belong, and relate the message of this last chapter of Nehemiah to that fellowship.

The devil never rests in his work of seeking to pervert the work of God, and cause God�s people to depart from the Lord. In every fellowship there are different levels of spiritual life, and there are members of the congregation who are not yet true members of the church of God by new birth through saving faith in Christ. Although the believer in Christ is a new creation and made new in Christ, so that sin does not reign in them, and they are created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness, the mortal body, the flesh, is still unchanged and fallen, with all the propensities for sin still there. The devil knows this, and is constantly seeking to stimulate our corrupt affections resident in our mortal bodies, in order to cause God�s people to sin, and bring about a decline in love for God, and service for God.

This last chapter of Nehemiah shows us how easily spiritual decline can happen, and even the best of us to be caught up in the decline so that our spiritual life is diminished. It is only too easy for the world to creep into the life of the church and cause such spiritual decline. It is also easy for standards to be effected so that we accept such decline as normal and even good. For those who are concerned about spiritual decline, a lethargy can creep into our lives so that we feel that nothing can be done to halt the decline, and so the decline is given freedom to increase.

All this calls us to be vigilant and ever watchful, so that spiritual decline may be held at bay, and if it has crept into our fellowships, that we may seek the Lord that the decline might be halted and reversed. These opening three verses of this last chapter of Nehemiah bring before us two important things which help to maintain spiritual life and purity, and keep spiritual decline at bay, and help God�s people to grow spiritually and in their love for God.

In these opening three verses we see God�s word, as it then was the Law of Moses, being read before the people. We read that the people heard about the way God�s people acted in the past, and so they learnt the dangers to be avoided and action to take to maintain the purity of God�s religion.

So we learn this important truth. The truth is that it is the word of God that forms and reforms the mind and thinking, and so the living, of God�s people. This is a truth which cannot be over emphasised, so let us for a moment in this sermon stop and think of what it means.

The Bible is the revelation of God to his people and to the world. It is God speaking to us and revealing himself and his ways to us. When we turn to the Bible we are listening to God, and seeking to come into the presence of God, so that God may fill our lives. The world is all around us, but the Bible is the door through which we come into the presence of God, and dwell in the heavenly realm. The advice of the world is always near us. It is only when we come to the Bible and address its contents that the advice of God can be received by us.

In our modern culture we need to ask what our attitude to the Bible is. It is here that the greatest decline of spirituality in the church can be traced. For a very long time the attitude of people to the Bible has changed. From being the book of God, where God has given an unerring word of truth, we have been mind washed to accept that the Bible only contains the truth, and that much of it is only human fallible utterance.

Together with this down-grading of the Bible has come an exaltation of human thoughts as being almost as good in learning spiritual things as the Bible. We need to look at our lives and ask ourselves where we go most of all for spiritual growth and life. Is it the Bible, or is it books on the Bible, or worse still simply the spiritual utterances of human beings. It is noticeable how in the life of the church, at carol services and times of meditation and retreat, the Bible features almost second place to purely human writing. The first reading may be from the Bible, but often all the rest of the readings come from everywhere but the Bible.

The church of God needs to return to reverence of the Bible as the only true and pure Word of God, and accept it again as God�s unerring Word to us throughout the whole of the Old and the New Testament. If we don�t the church has no sure anchor, and we are left on the shifting sands of human opinion, and the unstable waves of human wisdom. If we do not believe the Bible to be the unerring word of God, then our only authority is the human mind, and there will be as many opinions as to what is God�s truth as there are minds to think.

There must be a return to the centrality of the Bible in our church worship and life. We must make the reading and the preaching of God�s Word as of utmost importance to the spiritual life of God�s people, and God�s people need to attend diligently to the reading of the Bible, and the hearing of it read in public worship. We cannot hear too much of God�s word read to us. These opening verses of Nehemiah 13 show us that it was because God�s word was read to the people, and that the people attended to the reading of God�s word that they were convicted of spiritual decline which brought a change in their lives for good.

Amongst God�s people there must be a hunger for the Word of God, and a desire to go to church regularly in order to attend to the Word of God. There must be a desire on the part of God�s people to hear God speaking to them through his word, and a desire to understand that message, and a determination to obey the word once it is understood.

There must be a change in the way Christians think today. We live in an age when we like to have things made easy for us, and if something is a little difficult to understand or accept, we turn away and complain that it is too difficult. This attitude only plays into the hands of the devil, and will only mean spiritual decline in the end.

There is no doubt that God�s way of communicating his word to his people is chiefly through preaching. Preaching is despised today, and we are told that we must find other ways to communicate the word of God. In the pursuit of this drama, visual aids, dance, discussion groups and much more has been pressed upon us, and taken up. All this is good, but this is not a substitute for preaching.

The blame for the dislike of preaching, and the distrust of preaching, in the church today, lies very much upon those who are supposed to be the preachers. Good preaching takes much effort. It requires much study and meditation upon, and struggling with, the Word of God so that the preacher understands what God is saying in his word, and modern life is so rushed that giving time to such study is elbowed out by the rush of other things that need to be done. This must be resisted, and God�s people must give time to their pastors and teachers so that this study can be done.

But this is not the things which to my mind is most seriously lacking in the church today amongst those of us who are called to be preachers and teachers. What is missing is what I would call the prophetic word. It is one thing to understand the Bible and be able to explain it, and every preachers needs to take this part of their ministry seriously, but it is quite another thing to come from the presence of God with the message from the Bible which we have been given by God at each particular time to make known to those to whom we speak. We certainly will not be able to proclaim the prophetic word of God unless we understand what the Bible is saying, but the prophetic word is not simply explaining the Bible, but being given from the Word of Godthat message which is God�s message for each occasion.

This prophetic ministry I believe to be the true ministry of the preacher and teacher. We must never come before people to preach unless we have a prophetic word. By this I mean that we come to our people with some message from the Bible impressed on our minds and hearts as the message God wants his people to hear at that occasion.

This prophetic ministry comes from much earnest communion with the Lord in private as we read the Word of God and Study it in his presence. This prophetic ministry comes when we come to the Lord as his ambassadors seeking from him his message for every time we have to preach. We should never be content to stand up and preach unless we have this assurance in our hearts that we have heard the message from our Master Christ.

This prophetic ministry can never be engaged in unless we who preach are filled with message of God�s word ourselves, and it fills our hearts with God�s glory, and is changing our lives with its power, and we are living it in our lives. We will never be prophetic preachers unless we have a passion for the glory of God and the love of God fills our heart. We will never be prophetic preachers unless the saving love of God in Christ, and all the blessings of Christ�s redemption is the foundation of our lives, the joy of our being, and the passion of our souls.

This one thing of importance for the maintenance of spiritual life has occupied more space than I expected, so the other thing mentioned here in these three opening verses of Nehemiah 13, which is the danger of the world, must be left until the next meditation.