In the sermon 'Forsaking the House of God,' Jason Dohm explores Nehemiah 13:10-14, where Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to find the temple neglected and the Levites and singers returning to their fields due to a lack of provisions. Nehemiah responds with righteous anger, rebuking the leaders for forsaking God's house and reappointing the Levites and singers to their duties. The sermon challenges listeners to examine their own hearts for righteous anger against sin and urges them to guard against compromise and partial obedience. Dohm draws parallels between Nehemiah's actions and Jesus' zeal for the temple, emphasizing the importance of faithfulness and the dangers of allowing sin to spread unchecked. The sermon also highlights the need for repentance and the importance of appointing faithful leaders, as illustrated by Nehemiah's actions and biblical principles found in Acts and Paul's letters. The sermon concludes with a call to live in alignment with God's word and to rely on the cleansing blood of Jesus for forgiveness and righteousness.

I'll be reading the sermon text at Nehemiah 13, verses 10 through 14. Follow along with me. I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them, For each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. 22 So I contended with the rulers and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? 23 And I gathered them together and set them in their place.

24 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse. 34 And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe and of the Levites Padaiah. 35 And next to them was Hanan the son of Zikor, the son of Mataniah. For they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for its services.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that You will grant us eyes to see, ears to hear what You have for us here in Your holy and infallible Word. We pray that You will give utterance to Jason, that he will rightly divide this Word, and that you will help us as a people to correct, to adjust our lives to your Word, not the opposite. May we live our lives in submission to your Word. And may the time that we have now play a part in that in Christ's name.

Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is Forsaking the House of God. It comes right out of the text. And we find our sorrow that this is what the people have done. They have forsaken God's house.

And Nehemiah returns to set these things straight. In last week's text, We saw that after 12 years as governor, Nehemiah had returned leaving Jerusalem and going back to King Art-Exerxes for some undetermined period of time. We don't know how long it was, but we know that he had to go back. And then we know that he returned again to Jerusalem and that while the cat was away, the mice did play. And some bad things happened while the governor Nehemiah was away.

Eliashib the high priest who was closely allied with Tobiah the Ammonite had actually cleared out a store room in the temple and made it available for Tobiah the Ammonite to use when he was in Jerusalem. And Nehemiah returns and he finds this and he is not happy. And he begins to throw the household goods of Tobiah out of this temple store room. The challenge to us from this text was, is there any righteous anger bubbling up in these hearts of ours? We see it bubbling up in the heart of Nehemiah.

There's righteous anger that is bubbling up and overflowing in his heart, and he's flinging the household goods of a man out of the temple, and so he should do. That's what Jesus Christ did when he came to the temple. We saw from the gospels that zeal for His Father's house ate Jesus up. And it made Him shaking mad just like it made Nehemiah. So in that sense, Nehemiah was being Christ-like long before Christ.

And we have to ask ourselves, are we like that in any way? Have we become so comfortable with the compromise in our hearts that we're never shaking mad about our own sin. Oh, it's easy enough to get shaking mad about the things out there. And that is the primary application from last week's text. But if you start there, if you don't start in your own heart and say, what compromises have I made with my sin, and is there any righteous anger bubbling up about that?" And we've not started in the right place.

I think last week's text was very, very valuable in that way. This week we're right on the heels of that chronologically, meaning this happens right after the events of last week's text. In verse 10, the beginning of our text, we read, I also realized, So Nehemiah discovered right on the heels of this something else that's not good, something else that needs to be set right. As a side note, I'm surprised about this sermon. I expected, normally I have in my mind what the sermon is going to be when I start writing, sort of the direction it's going to go.

My expectation was that this would be a pay me sermon. Like the Levites need to be paid, they need to be set aside so they can focus on, and I'm in a way that, so it's really important that you pay me. And of course the applications go beyond that, but I thought this would sort of be the thrust and that I would spend a lot of time making connections to the New Testament, which it's easy to do in a number of places in our text, but this sermon has not ended up being that at all. There were so many things that are so much closer to the text than that, that this is all you're going to get of, you know, Pay Jason. We're going to go to the text.

Let's pray. Our God, I pray that you would make us a people whose zeal for your house eats us up every day. I pray that you would make us a people whose zeal for your house eats us up every day. I pray that you would make us a faithful people who do know something of the righteous anger against sin and not just the sin out there, but the sin in here, the sin that we've made peace with when we should have waged war against it. Thank you for how our texts and Nehemiah keep bringing us face to face with it.

And keep bringing us face to face with it. You're forcing us to look inside and deal with compromise that we've made. I pray that it would be so again today, God, bring us face to face with our own compromises with sin. Help us to stop loving it. Help us to hate it.

As you hate it, make us more like your son Jesus. We pray in His name, Amen. There's only five verses, but I'm dividing the text into four parts, believe it or not. Just how my brain works sometimes. So I'd like to begin by just looking at verse 10 and then speaking about it.

Hopefully your Bibles are open to Nehemiah chapter 13. Follow along as I read verse 10. I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them. For each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. In this isolated verse, the problem is discovered.

Nehemiah comes back and finds Tobiah the Ammonite in the temple. He deals with that and right on the heels of that he discovers something else. Having thrown Tobiah the Ammonite and his household goods out of the temple store room, Nehemiah makes Another unwelcome discovery. Welcome back, Nehemiah. It's like one thing after another.

And he discovers this. There's not the normal amount of people working in the temple. There's a scaled down workforce in the temple. There have been layoffs at the temple. And my speculative vision of how this played out is this.

So I'm giving you speculation about how this would actually go down. Nehemiah, one day after he comes back, he goes into the temple and he notices there's not the normal amount of people working here. And So he asks, and at some point someone musters up the courage to say to him that the Levites and the singers have gone back to their farms. Nehemiah says, why is that? And they said, well, the provision wasn't here for them.

And in my speculative vision, at this point, there are people probably diving behind pillars. Because we've seen, Nehemiah is volcanic. When the Lord is being dishonored, Nehemiah is volcanic. Because he loves the Lord, and he loves the Lord's people, and he loves the Lord's house, and the wrong things are happening, and he knows he has a responsibility to set these things right among the people of God. Now consider the context.

This has a long context in our study of the book of Nehemiah. In chapter 10, the people had banded together and they had entered into a covenant that they would walk in the Lord's ways. And they had entered into a covenant, part of that covenant was that they would bring the first fruits and the tithes to provide for the priests and the Levites as the law of God called for. So they weren't doing something above and beyond, but they were entering into a covenant to do what the law required, which was that the provisions for the priests and the Levites would be brought to the storehouse. And then in chapter 11, we saw this listing of people who lived in Jerusalem at that time.

And what we found was that there were 1192 priests already living in Jerusalem. And that there were 456 Levites already living in Jerusalem. But there's something interesting about the listing of the Levites in chapter 12. That they are not just lumped together under the heading of Levites. That it's the Levites and the singers who are Levites, and the gatekeepers who are Levites.

So there's a broader group of people, they're just called Levites, but then there are these particular subsets also of the Levites, the singers and the gatekeepers. That's going to be very important in a minute. So I'm just putting that out there and I'll come back to it in a minute. Then we had chapter 12 which was the dedication of the wall. And in chapter 12 they sought out the Levites from all their places.

And we read this in chapter 12 verse 29. For the singers had built themselves villages all around Jerusalem. So The singers, the subset of the Levites, were mostly sprinkled in villages all around Jerusalem. So when it comes time to dedicate the wall, and they are going to form these two large thanksgiving choirs and send them opposite ways around the wall to meet at the temple, that to pull together these two large thanksgiving choirs, they go to these villages that are surrounding Jerusalem and they bring in this subset of Levites, the singers. And then we saw this at the end of chapter 12.

And this is probably on the same page you're on. This is chapter 12 verse 44. Follow with me while I read chapter 12 verse 44. And at the same time, some were appointed over the rooms of the storehouse for the offerings, the firstfruits, and the tithes, to gather into them from the fields of the cities the portions specified by the law for the priests and Levites. For Judah rejoiced over the priests and Levites who ministered." So what we've seen, the context of our text, is that in chapter 10 they had entered into a covenant that they would do this.

They would bring the firstfruits and the tithes into the storehouse to provide for the priests and the Levites. But not only did they promise to do it in Chapter 10, they actually did it in chapter 12. We see them doing it. We see why they did it. Because they were rejoicing in the service of the priests and the Levites.

They weren't grudgingly bringing the first fruits and the tithes. They were joyfully bringing it because they had been well served. And haven't we seen that in Nehemiah? These late chapters of Nehemiah have been filled up with the activities of the Levites. And we've seen them time and again doing faithfully the work that God in His Word has given them to do.

They're just faithfully doing it, and faithfully doing it, and faithfully doing it. And the people are rejoicing. They're seeing the value and the beauty and the goodness of what God has said these Levites should be doing. They are faithfully doing it. And the people say, we will gladly provide for that.

My favorite instance of this was in chapter 8. People tell Ezra, bring the book, and they bring the book and Ezra reads from the law. And in chapter 8 verse 7 we read that the Levites helped the people understand the law. And then in verse 8, the very next verse, that they gave the sense and helped them to understand the reading. These are the Levites doing what God had told them to do.

To apply themselves to learning the law, understanding the law, and then teaching the people the law. The Levites weren't all to live in Jerusalem, not at all. They were given cities throughout Israel. They were to be sprinkled throughout the people of Israel so that teachers of the law, people who understood the law, who had applied themselves to learning it, then could give a sense of it and help the people to understand it. That's what the Levites were to be among the people.

So when we read in our text about the loss of the Levites. It's not just that manual labor has been extracted from the temple. There's a lot more. The Levites were to be sprinkled among the Lord's people to help them understand the law of God. In our text today, when we look at chapter 12 verse 44, where they are bringing the first fruits and the tithes, and they are doing it because they are rejoicing in the labor of these men, our text today is a partial unraveling of this.

Now when you read through this, we wouldn't say this is a partial unraveling. You'd say this is a full unraveling. The whole thing is unraveling. But I don't think so. I've been looking at it closely and looking back at different parts of Ezra and Nehemiah, and I think it's just a partial unraveling.

Here's why I say that. When you look at the priests and the Levites, and how they are spoken of in the book of Ezra and in the book of Nehemiah, you find it in one way or the other way. Here's what I mean. It's either priests and Levites, just two big groups, mentioned together that way. Or More often than not, it's the priests and the Levites and the singers and the gatekeepers.

It's the breaking up of the Levites into these subsets. So more often than not, in Ezra And in Nehemiah, when you encounter the priests and the Levites, it's not the two big groups. Occasionally it is, but more often than not it is the priests as a group. And then the Levites are mentioned in these three groups. General Levites, Singer Levites, Gatekeeper Levites.

What does it say in our text? It says that The Levites and the singers have gone back to their fields. There is no other place in Ezra and there is no other place in Nehemiah where it mentions it like that and doesn't fill out the subsets. Here is the conclusion I draw from that. The priests and the gatekeepers are still at their posts.

The Levites have gone back. Absolutely. It is explicit in the text. The singers have gone back to their villages around Jerusalem. It's explicit in our text.

It says nothing about the priests. It says nothing about the gatekeepers. And I conclude from that that there's enough provision for them. They're still at their posts. So I don't think temple activity has ceased.

I think it's limping along. I think they are doing some things, but they are not doing other things. The temple is still running. They're still having sacrifices in the morning and the evening and on the Sabbaths. But it's running just a little differently.

I'll come back to that in a minute. Now let's look at verse 11. Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 11. So I, Nehemiah, contended with the rulers and said, why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together and set them in their place.

In this section, Nehemiah responds. In the first verse, he discovered, and in the second verse, he responds. We know Nehemiah as a man of action, don't we? And so he is here in our text. He rebukes the leaders who had not done their duty.

That is what this verse is about. He gathers the leaders together and He tells them they have not done their duty and He rebukes them and He calls them back to their duty. And he gathers the Levites and the singers and he puts them back on the job. So the second half of verse 11 is a little difficult to understand, but when you actually look at the Hebrew construction, all the commentators agree that the them is not the leaders, it's the Levites who have gone back to work in their fields. The commentators are, everyone I consulted is 100%.

This is what this means based on the Hebrew construction. So, He rebukes the leaders and He gathers the Levites and the singers and He puts them back on the job. That's what verse 11 means. And I see this so clearly connected with last week's text. Here's the connection.

Eliashib the High Priest takes this holy space in the temple. Remember from last week, It's not empty rooms that are being given to Tobiah. They're occupied rooms and they're occupied with what they should be occupied with. The provisions for the priests and the Levites and the frankincense and the grain offering to be used in the worship of God, and the articles, the utensils that are to be used in the worship of God, and He takes them out of the temple and gives the space to an Ammonite. By removing these things, and especially by removing the provisions for the priests and the Levites, the High priest has declared, I don't value this." Undoubtedly, he never said that with his mouth.

He said it way more powerfully than with his mouth. He takes this holy space that is being used for holy things, and he pulls it out, and he lets an Ammonite live in there, and he might as well have screamed from the entrance of the temple, I don't value this! He declared, the high priest declared, that he didn't value this. And then, In time, others acted likewise. That's what's happening.

I think this is the flow of our text. I think that's how last week's text relates to this week's text. Elias said, through his actions, this stuff doesn't matter, and then in time, we don't know how much time passed, but in time, others acted likewise. But Nehemiah is not going to let them deflect the blame. No way Nehemiah is going to let these leaders point to Eliashib and say he started it.

He rebukes them. He calls them to their duty. It was their duty, these leaders, to make sure that the priests and the Levites of all subsets were provided for and they failed in their duty. Now look at what Nehemiah says. Why don't the Levites have their food?

That's not what he says. He says, why is the house of God forsaken? Nehemiah sees past the offense to man and says, you've dishonored God. You've forsaken his house. Do you think that the rulers immediately accepted that analysis?

You're a leader and you've kept enough provision intact. A lot of priests are working. The gatekeepers are still at their posts. Some of it's lapsed. Levites have gone to work for a living so they could feed themselves and their families.

And the singers are gone. The singers were a luxury. They've gone. We've still got our priests. We've still got our gatekeepers.

The sacrifices are still happening. And then now the governor comes and says, why have you forsaken the house of God? Do you think they immediately accepted that analysis of the situation? I don't. I bet they were shocked.

Listen to Jeremiah 17 verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You give the heart one strand of comfort, You give the heart one strand of logical explanation and the heart will make a rope out of it. It just will.

It's deceitful above all things. It's desperately wicked. We don't know our own hearts. If we are not careful, we can justify almost anything. I think The leaders would have been thinking, at least the priests and the gatekeepers have their provision or are doing their jobs.

At least the sacrifices are happening. We just can't afford it all at this time. That's the strand of comfort. That's the strand of logical explanation. During a time of economic hardship, we've seen that for sure in Nehemiah.

And singers are a luxury. They can go back to their forms. The reality is that this is just what they had entered into a covenant not to do. They were disconnected from reality. They had not seen that what they had allowed to happen was a forsaking of the house of God.

Listen to Nehemiah 10 verse 39. It's the very last verse of the covenant in Nehemiah 10. For the children of Israel and the children of Levi, shall bring the offering of the grain of the new wine and the oil to the store rooms where the articles of the sanctuary are, where the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and the singers are, and we will not neglect the house of our God. That's how they ended the covenant. We will not neglect the house of our God.

Now Nehemiah comes and he points his finger at these leaders and he says, you have forsaken the house of God. My guess is the impact was not immediately felt. The singers were dismissed and the Levites were dismissed and the priests kept doing their thing, and the gatekeepers kept doing their thing, and the temple was limping along but there was still lots of activity in the temple. So the impact wasn't immediately felt that men weren't studying the law of God so that they were ready when it was time to give the sense of it. That's not something that's lost overnight.

So they shouldn't have done it, but they did it. And then the next week it didn't seem like They were any worse off. And the next month it didn't seem like they were any less worse off. And they drifted by degrees and they never felt that they had forsaken the house of God. Brothers and sisters, we are just like this.

We make compromises, and because we have deceitful hearts that are desperately wicked too, we don't know our own hearts, we grab onto the thread, we make a rope, and we don't recognize the slide, because Disaster doesn't strike the next day. We're just like this. We make peace with things we never should make peace with, and because there's not a disaster the next day, we think all is well. All is not well. We're sliding.

We're sliding. We're sliding. We're sliding. Praise God for Nehemiah, who continues to be the one who has absolute moral clarity. They missed it.

They missed that this was that. They missed that sending the singers in the Levites home was really forsaking the house of God. But Nehemiah didn't miss it. It was instant with Nehemiah. He discovers this and he calls it exactly what it is.

It's a forsaking of the house of God. He has absolute moral clarity just like he did in last week's text. And he fears God enough to act and set things right. So he has absolute moral clarity, and he does fear. He fears God.

So he's not afraid of these leaders. So he's not afraid of the high priest. He goes and makes it right because he fears God. May God increase his tribe among us. That he would give us absolute moral clarity and that we would fear God so much that all The other fears are just a shadow, and we go set those things right.

Let's look at verses 12 and 13. Nehemiah Chapter 13 beginning in verse 12. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain, and the new wine, and the oil to the storehouse. And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shalemiah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Padaiah. And next to him was Hanan the son of Zachar, the son of Mataniah.

For they were considered faithful, And their task was to distribute to their brethren. Here in verses 12 and 13 we have the results. So Nehemiah takes action and now we have the results. It's broad repentance. The people, all the people were going one way and it was the wrong way and now they are confronted about their sin and they turn around and they return.

They used to do it right. They used to do it well. They promised they would do it in 10. They were doing it in 12. And they were rejoicing in doing it in chapter 12, verses 44.

And now they return to that. They repent. They turn around. They go back to the old paths, the good ways. The text says, all Judah brings the tithes to the storehouse.

And Nehemiah appoints four men. He appoints a priest, a scribe, a Levite, and an assistant. When it says that Hanan was next to them, next to them is literally in the Hebrew the hand of, like the physical hand of, so that's an assistant, I believe. And they're all known men and they're all proven men. They have a reputation for faithfulness.

And so these are the men He picks out and appoints to the work. And they collect and they account for and they distribute the provisions to their brethren. This is what Nehemiah does. This is his pattern. He appoints faithful men.

Flip back to chapter 7. I just want to remind us of where we've been. And that we've seen Nehemiah appoint faithful men before. Chapter 7. I want to read verses 1-3.

Nehemiah chapter 7, verses 1-3. Then it was when the wall was built and I had hung the doors, when the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, that I gave the charge of Jerusalem to my brother Hananiah and Hananiah the leader of the citadel for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many." Nehemiah, when the Lord's people need to fill a post with a faithful man, with the man, he finds someone he knows and someone he trusts because they are proven faithful. That's what he did in chapter 7. That's what he's doing in chapter 13. That's what all godly leaders must do.

This is the pattern of Scripture for godly leaders. And we see it in full bloom in the life of Nehemiah. Consider Acts chapter 6. In Acts chapter 6, the church in Jerusalem needs men who will collect and distribute to widows. It's almost exactly like this text except for the provisions in Acts 6 are for a different group of people, but it's still the collection and handling and distribution of provisions.

Listen to what the apostles say in Acts chapter 6 verse 3. They say, Brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. When it comes time to appoint people to gather and handle and distribute resources in Acts chapter 6, they call on the congregation, the apostles call on the congregation to seek out men of good reputation. Men who have earned a name for faithfulness. And who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.

Consider what the apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 2. Paul is exhorting Timothy about the type of men that he should put into service. Listen to what he says, 2 Timothy 2.2. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." So Paul is telling Timothy to do The same thing that the apostles did in Acts chapter 6, who did the same thing that Nehemiah does in Nehemiah chapter 13. Godly leaders do this.

When it's time to fill a post, they look for someone who has a reputation, who has earned a name, who has counted, faithful, like we see in our text. When the Lord's people need to fill positions of trust, they are to look for faithfulness first. Did you hear what I said? That bears repeating. When the Lord's people, us, need to fill a position of trust, we look for faithfulness first and other things like gifting next.

Why does the train go off the tracks on this one? The Lord's people have a gifted man and they just cannot wait to put him into a position of trust. No, no! You find a faithful man and put him into the position of trust, even if he is less gifted, because that is what the Lord's people have always done when they were acting according to the mind of God. Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament.

And Depending on who you are listening to, Malachi was prophesying shortly before Ezra or during the time of Nehemiah. Definitely within a 20 year span of these events and maybe right during these events. When you read Malachi you can find so many connections with what we've been studying in both Ezra and Nehemiah so it's hard to tell but He is the last prophet of the Old Testament. And he is prophesying sometime after the captives have come back from captivity. Either during the time of Ezra or the time of Nehemiah.

Turn to Malachi chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3. It's easy to find if you know where Matthew is. If you don't know where Matthew is, we're casting you into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Malachi chapter 3 verses 8-12.

Will a man rob God? Just stop there. Think of the insanity of robbing God. Just sink in. Let that sink in.

Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, in what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts. And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts." This is a remarkable passage. It's God rebuking the people for having robbed him.

For the insanity of having robbed him. And he doesn't stop with a rebuke. He doesn't just chastise them through the prophet and go on his way. He actually gives them a promise that if they'll turn, he'll bless them beyond measure. He didn't have to do that.

He's just calling for a tenth. He can just require it. He doesn't have to open the floodgates of heaven and pour out blessing that they won't even have enough storage to receive. But He does. Again, in Malachi 3, we see the self-deception.

God says, you've robbed me. They say, how have we robbed you? They're not even aware that they've robbed him. They have grabbed a hold of the thread and made a rope. They found a thread of comfort, found a thread of logical rationale.

And they have justified themselves because they have deceitful hearts that are wicked. And they don't even know their own hearts. This was the reality in our text. When you read that, it's not hard to think that Malachi was prophesying right now in this time. That's possible.

This was the reality in our text. They had robbed God. The people had robbed God. And this is what was being overturned and set back in order. This is the broad-based repentance that's happening in our text, where they were going the wrong way, and they were confronted, and they turned around, and they went the right way.

What we see here is related to the conference that just concluded. It was a conference on church discipline. How so? When you go upstream from the robbing of God, You find one man clearing space for an ammonite. And then you find leaders not bringing the provision and giving it to all that it should have gone to.

And then you find a whole nation robbing God. Consider what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, this famous church discipline text. 1 Corinthians 5, part of verse 6, and then the beginning of verse 7. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven.

Sin is leaven. And if you put a little leaven in a big lump, it permeates the whole lump. It doesn't stay isolated in the lump. It works. Sin's like that.

But we play with it. Do you see what's happening in this text? Eliashib to the leaders, to a nation robbing God. It permeated the whole lump. Sin is leaven, but you play with it.

And I play with it. This is why we can't afford not to deal with sin. This is why we can't let sin run in our hearts, in our lives, in our brethren. Because it's leaven. It's active.

It spreads. It won't stop until it's everywhere. Verse 14. Verse 14. Nehemiah prays.

Verse 14. Nehemiah prays, Remember me, O my God, concerning this, concerning this. And do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for its services." Nehemiah calls on God to remember him for his acts that he's doing for the house of God. In the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah prays to the Lord, calling on God to remember him, just like this, four times. It's three times in this chapter.

This is the first one in chapter 13. So we're going to hit two more. Remember me, oh my gods, in chapter 13. Four times in the book. And He calls on God to remember his enemies twice.

We'll hit one of those in this chapter too. It's still ahead of us. So he's always calling on God to remember both himself and the thing and the works that he's done by faith, and the works of His enemies. I was asking myself, where is Jesus in this text? I ask myself that every week.

How do I get to Jesus from the text? Here He is in verse 14. How so? If our Holy Father, our Holy God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, would mark our transgressions, who would stand? Who could have one of their works stand before God if He marked our transgressions.

Justice is not a scale. Justice is often represented as a scale. And what that means isn't that there's good and there's bad and you see which has more weight. When justice is represented as a scale, what does it mean? Evidence is weighed to see whether there is guilt or innocence.

It's not good or bad, it's guilt or innocence. When a matter is before a judge, he only has one question. Guilty or not guilty? So it's a fool who comes before the judge to say, I have a hundred good things, So you should clear me. If that's how you come before a righteous judge, you're going to jail.

Because that's not how justice works. It's not how justice works in man's court, and it's not how justice works in God's court. James says that if you've broken one law, you're guilty of it all. Meaning that the law hangs together as one righteous standard. And you're either guilty or you're not guilty.

When you violate one, you've violated the one righteous standard. And you stand guilty. And you're a fool if you bring a hundred things that you think are good and you think That is going to acquit you. Because that's not how justice works, in earth or in heaven. But, for those who have been saved by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, that's not their testimony.

They're not saying, I finally got one more good thing than the bad thing, so the scale is tipped in my favor. They're saying the blood cleanses me. The blood cleanses me. So I'm not not guilty because of all these things that I've done that I thought should be acceptable to God. That's a whole other topic.

They're not. But I lay claim to the blood of Jesus Christ because he said I could if I would repent and believe. And I'm cleansed. I'm not guilty. Though I was a law breaker not one time, but a thousand times.

I'm not guilty. And now, the things that I have done by faith to honor God are remembered. This is where Jesus is in this text. Consider the precious promise of Hebrews 6 verse 10. This just ties it all together and puts a bow on it.

This is Hebrews chapter 6 verse 10. The writer of Hebrews writes this to believers. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister." So they had been ministering to the saints. It was a labor of love. They had been doing it by faith to honor God.

And the writer of Hebrews says God won't forget that. God will remember all that. Think of how this relates. Nehemiah says, remember me, O God, for all the things I've done for your house, for your temple. The temple is just a picture.

It's just a type. It's just a representation of what it will be in the time of the Messiah, which is living stones that are being built one upon another to be a home for the high priest and the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. It's His people. The things that are done, And now in the time of the Messiah to be a blessing to His people, God is an unjust, forgetting those things. He remembers them all.

And they can stand because we've been cleansed, not by our works, but by the blood of Jesus Christ. Here's where Jesus is in the text. Applications. I'll give you five of them. Number one, partial obedience is disobedience.

We better make peace with this one. We better get this into our heads. Isn't that true with your children, parents? Partial obedience is disobedience. It doesn't count.

So they've got the priests at work, they've got the gatekeepers at work, but the Levites and the singers had to go home. That's disobedience. That's all that is. Where are we doing that? Good time to search your life.

It's a good time for me to search my life. Where are we doing that? We are called by God to attack our half measures, to wage a holy war against our half measures, our partial obedience, which is really just disobedience. I hope something pops to mind. I hope something pops to mind.

When you think, okay, where is the partial obedience in my life? Where I know I've really pulled back from what would honor the Lord and sort of done something sort of like it. It resembles it in a way. Number two. Leaders of families.

Where have we by our actions declared, I don't value this? Like Eliashib the high priest. Fathers, Where by your actions have you declared something holy of little value? Because you acted like it was of little value. Like Elias, the high priest.

And you brought leaven into your house. You better purge that leaven. Mothers, You are oikos despoteo, keepers of the home, home despots, rulers of the home. Most of the day you're in total control and charge of the home. Where have you declared by your actions, this isn't valuable and it's something that God says is holy.

You've invited leaven into the house, You better purge out that leaven. Number three. Does your giving represent obedience to and honor for the Lord? Your giving, your money. Either to here or to other places, to people who are in need.

Does the sum total of your giving represent obedience to the Lord and honor for the Lord. There's a number. Does the number represent honor? When you put it in those terms, it gets easier. Obedience to, What exactly is your requirement?

There's a number and you know it's a portion of the total number. Does that represent honor or dishonor? Number four. Back to number three, Because it is possible to rob God. And that's insanity.

Number four. Should you be called on to fill a position of trust among the Lord's people? There's some brutal applications in this text. Should you be called on or passed over to fill a position of trust among the Lord's people. Throughout all of scripture, when people are acting according to the mind of Christ and they have a position of trust to fill, they fill it with someone with an earned, a proven reputation for faithfulness.

They're counted faithful and rightfully so. They've earned a reputation for faithfulness. Should you be called on or passed over? Number five. Will God remember your good deeds or wipe them out?

This is the great gospel question. One or the other, it would either be unjust for him to forget your work and labor of love because you've been cleansed and you've lived to his honor, Like Hebrews chapter 6 verse 10 said, Or it would be completely righteous to just wipe away all those things that you thought were good, because it was never good versus bad. It was guilty versus innocent. And you're not innocent. There's so much mercy in the Lord when you think about what we deserve and what we get if we're in Christ.

Let's give thanks. God, I thank You for the mercy that there is in Christ that though if You were to mark our transgressions, no one could stand before You. One has stood in our place to bear your wrath against our sin. And there is cleansing blood that is available to everyone who repents and believes. I thank you for the glory of the Gospel.

I pray we would rejoice in it today and that we would cling to it with all of our hearts in Jesus name. Amen.