In his sermon 'The Power of the Word,' Jason Dohm explores Nehemiah 13:1-3, emphasizing the impact of hearing and responding to God's Word. He highlights the repeated theme of public readings from the book of Moses and the people's subsequent actions to obey, stressing the sanctifying power of God's Word. Dohm examines the timeline complexities in Nehemiah and how a long period passed between chapters 12 and 13. He discusses the holiness of God, the exclusion of Ammonites and Moabites from the assembly, and the importance of approaching the Word with a heart of obedience. The sermon underscores the vital role of Scripture in sanctification, the significance of God's holiness, and the distinction between God's treatment of friends and enemies. The transformative power of the Word is likened to a mirror reflecting one's true self, urging believers to be doers, not just hearers, of the Word. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deep relationship with Scripture and highlights the promise of friendship with God through faith, as exemplified by Abraham.

I'm turning your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 13. Our sermon text will be verses one through three. On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of all the people and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. So it was when they had heard the law that they had separated all the mixed multitude from Israel.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this text. We pray that now you would prepare our ears and our eyes to see and hear, and that you would Teach us and instruct us from Your Word. Thank you for the sermon that's been prepared. In Christ's name, Amen.

The title of the sermon this morning is The Power of the Word. We're seeing something in our text in the sermon today that we've been seeing repeatedly in the book of Nehemiah which is responding to hearing. The people are putting themselves in a position where they're hearing the Word of God read and so they're hearing it, but not just hearing it, they're also responding to the Word of God. They're receiving it as the words of God and then they're taking action on it. In chapter 10 we saw the people enter into a covenant together to walk in the ways of God.

And last week, in last week's text, we saw them putting their feet in motion and doing very specific and practical things in order to obey the things that they promised that they would obey. So they promised in chapter 10, they entered into a covenant that they would provide for the priests and the Levites. And then Last week in the text we saw very practical things being done. They were actually putting men in place to gather in the first fruits and the tithes and offerings that would be the provision for them. So they're doing the things, putting the things in place that would need to be in place for them to keep their promise.

We saw that they didn't invent something new, but they went back to the old paths. They actually began to do again what David had commanded to be done during the time of Asaph, which was to put in place gatekeepers and singers. These are all Levites and to provide for them with daily provision. This week we have another public reading of the Word of God, and we have another great result from the public reading of the Word of God. This is a very encouraging text to be sure.

As we come to the text, let's come to the text with prayer. Oh God, I pray that you would bring your word, the word of God, to bear on our hearts. As we see in the text, so may it be among us that we would hear the Word and we would receive them as your words to your people. Not just any words, but authoritative words that we ought to be happily under the authority of, and not just to hear them but to obey them. Make us an obedient people.

Make us a people who love your Word, who feed upon your Word, and are strengthened in every encounter with it. Thank you for the gift of your Word. You didn't have to give it to us, but you did. And how we benefit every day from knowing what your thoughts and ways are. Come and wash us with this word of yours.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So the structure of our time this morning is going to be beginning with a note about the timeline. Timeline can be confusing. And then just considering three things from the text.

So we have a really simple outline this morning. So first, a note about the timeline. If you're taking notes on the handout, it's note and timeline. We can see on that day, these are the opening words of the text, and get really confused, because that makes it sound like what's happening in our text today is happening on the day that the wall is dedicated, on the same day. And if you understand it that way, when you get a few verses later, you get all muddled up and it begins to fall apart, none of it makes sense.

So Actually, a very long time, more than a decade, has passed between the end of 12 and the beginning of 13. I know it doesn't read that way. We're going to talk about why it is that. But a long time has passed between our last text and this text. The problem is that you don't speak Hebrew.

And I don't either. And the Hebrew phrase that's translated here, and not inappropriately so, but it's translated on that day, is an indefinite phrase, meaning that it can mean the same day but it doesn't have to. It's not required that the events at the end of chapter 12 happen on the same day or right before this. The phrase doesn't require that. In this case, it's simply a transitional phrase to take us from a text that has one point to a text that has another point.

And a good way to think of it would be on a day or a day came when. It's a transitional phrase that takes us into a new series of events. Here are the definite time markers. So I've said the beginning of chapter 13, the beginning of verse 1, is an indefinite marker, meaning it doesn't require that it be on exactly the same day. Here are the definite time markers in chapter 13.

Look at verse 4. Verse 4 begins, now before this, and then it continues on with a sequence of events. So verse 4 begins a section where everything in that section happens before what we're studying today in verses 1 through 3. And it's that Eliashib, the high priest, gives Tobiah, who is an Ammonite, a room in the temple and that's a big problem that has to be fixed. And then look at verse 6.

Look at the first part of verse 6. Which says, But during all this, during the time where Elijah the high priest was giving away temple space to an Ammonite, But during all this, I, Nehemiah, was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I had returned to the king." So Nehemiah says, this bad thing happened and I wasn't there because I was out of town. I had to leave in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes. We learned in chapter 1, when Nehemiah begins, that the coming of Nehemiah to Jerusalem the first time is in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. And then we're seeing in verse 6, he has to go back in the thirty-second year.

So that is a twelve year time span that is Nehemiah's first term as governor. And then he has to go back. He's gone for a certain period of time. It has to at least be a year. It's five months back and then it's five months back again to Jerusalem.

If he's there any time at all, it's a year. It's probably two or three, maybe more years. We don't know from the text, but it's got to be at least one. And so, everything in our text, here's the point that I'm belaboring. Everything in our text in verses 1-3 happens after Nehemiah comes back.

So it's probably something like 15 years after the end of chapter 12. So it doesn't read that way, but when you start to look at the timeline and you know that it's after a 12 year stint as governor, then you know it's a long time later. We're fast forwarding in time to when Nehemiah has come back. So that's the timeline. A long time has passed.

Consideration number one. I want us to consider three points from the text. They're very straightforward. Number one, consider the sanctifying effect of the Word of God. If you are taking notes on the handout, it is sanctifying and Word.

Consider the sanctifying effect of the Word of God. This is the people growing in obedience because they're hearing the Word of God. They're being sanctified. They're making progress in the faith. They're hearing and then doing.

So they're growing in obedience. These actions that we have in our text, they hear and then there are actions that are taken. These actions hadn't been taken and wouldn't have been taken without hearing the word. Look at verse 3 again. So it was, when they had heard the law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel.

So that hadn't been done, obviously, because there is a mixed multitude and they're not separated. It hadn't been done. And the way the text reads, it's reasonable to say it wouldn't have been done. If they don't have a collision with the Word of God, then they don't do this. That's what verse 3 means.

And it's good to put yourself on a collision course with truth. We need to be on a collision course with truth. So we're not just left doing the same old things day after day and stuck in patterns that are wrong, patterns that are bad, patterns that are sinful, but that the Word of God would come, show us what we are, and confront us in it, so that we would become something different, so that we would grow in obedience. That's what's happening in the text. They're growing in obedience because they're having a collision with the Word of God and what a blessing it is When we collide.

Now consider the pattern that we've seen in Nehemiah. In chapter 8, Ezra reads a long time publicly from a platform the Word of God. And what do they have to do after that? They have to restrain the people from weeping. The public, just the raw, unadorned reading of the Word of God brings the people to weeping.

And then later in that same chapter, flip back to Nehemiah chapter 8, there's the public reading that Ezra does, but then later in the chapter, on a separate occasion, Very close in time, but a separate occasion. We see this in Nehemiah chapter 8, look at verses 14 and 15. And they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches and branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written. It's just like this text. They read, they found something in the Word of God either that they didn't know or that they had forgotten, and they do something about it.

So here in this second public reading of the Word of God in Nehemiah chapter 8, the law of Moses is read and they realize it's almost time for the feast of tabernacles and we weren't planning to do that so they just stop and they change trajectory. And they go and do what the Word of God has said to do. And then in chapter 9 they read from the law for a fourth of the day, and then after the reading of the law, there is this long, beautiful, public confession of sin and a reconciling with God. And then right on the heels of that is the covenant in chapter 10. They are moved to repent and to enter into a covenant to obey God.

And A big part of that is the reading of the law of God. Friends, this is a people who are being changed. They are being brought to God's thoughts and God's ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways.

Thank goodness they are, and they are brought face to face with the differences, and they change, they act. Never underestimate the power of the raw, unadorned reading of the Word of God. Never underestimate it. I love preaching. I believe in preaching.

Does that need to be said? I believe in preaching. But never underestimate the power of just raw, unadorned reading of the Word of God. It is what the people of God need to just be brought into contact again, and again, and again, and again with the ways of God, the character of God, the Word of God, by studying these words that He's given to His people. Question.

Do you want to grow in obedience? Are you discouraged at the pace? So everybody in the room is saying, yes, I want to grow in obedience. And if you're honest with yourself, probably everybody in the room is saying yes. I'm discouraged at the pace.

I am. I'm saying that. I'm discouraged at the pace of growing in obedience. If we're answering those two questions, yes and yes. Yes, I want to grow in obedience, but at the same time, yes, I'm discouraged at the pace of my growth.

Could it be that we've not given the Word of God its proper place? In John chapter 17, this is a wonderful chapter where Jesus as high priest is praying the high priestly prayer. He's praying for his people. He's praying for himself, he's praying for his disciples, his twelve disciples that are right there. And then he's praying for his people who are far off.

He's praying for us in John chapter 17 and he says this in verse 17, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. So Jesus in John chapter 17 verse 17 is calling on God the Father to sanctify His people by truth. And then he goes a step further and says, your word is truth. That is one of the key ways in which we're sanctified. We collide with the Word of God.

So an implication of John chapter 17 verse 17 is more Word, more sanctification. More Word, more growth and obedience. And the opposite would have to be true, wouldn't it? Less word, less sanctification. Less word, less growth in obedience.

Listen to what the author of Hebrews said. This is such a well-known verse, but it bears repeating now. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. For the word of God is living and powerful. The word of God is a force.

This is what the author of Hebrews is saying. It is a force for something. The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The Word of God brings us face to face with the thoughts and intents of our hearts. And it's often not pretty. And it often requires calls for change.

It's living. It's active for the believer. Because it comes with a tutor. What a great book. Do you have any other books like that that come with a tutor?

You order off of Amazon and it shows up on your front porch. It's a guy with a book. Hi, I'm here with the book and I'm here. I'll explain it to you and help you understand it, help remind you of it. That would be great.

Maybe Amazon should offer that as a service. It would be expensive. This is the power of the Word. This Word of God is a mighty weapon that we need against the world, the flesh, and the devil. If you have the world and your flesh and the devil lined up against you, you better have something to fight with.

And the Bible says it's the thing. It's living and it's active. And it's a mighty weapon to help you in our war against the world and against the flesh and against the devil. Now a warning. Turn to James chapter 1.

A warning needs to be given. Because so far, it sounds like magic. Just read the incantation and you will be a changed person. But James says that's not true. James comes and adds a dose of reality to the beautiful truths of Scripture.

There are also other things to know, other things to consider. James chapter 1, I'll be reading 22-25. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." James acknowledges what we all know, that there is actually a danger associated with hearing the word. That if you hear it and do nothing, then best case you're no better off and worst case you are worse off. You are hardened. You are self deceived. That somehow you benefited by the magic words.

There is a danger in hearing and doing nothing. The Word of God is like a mirror. It reflects you back to you. Nothing shows you what you are like, like the Word of God. Nothing confronts your sins and your frailties and your wrong thoughts like the Word of God.

It's like looking in a mirror. Oh, I didn't know I was sinful in that way. I didn't know I was weak in that way. I didn't know I was thinking wrong about this and here comes the word and it's just reflecting back at you. Welcome to you.

That's what you get when you read the Word of God. Welcome to you. You see yourself like you never saw yourself before. But if you don't do anything about it, it's like you've forgotten what you look like. You get no benefit for having gazed in the mirror and gazed insight into what you're like and how you need to change.

And so we must bring a heart of obedience to the Word, listening with the intent of doing. That's how you have to come to the Word of God, listening with the intent of doing something about it. And you have to keep coming. And you have to keep coming. And you have to keep coming.

And you have to keep coming. It's Psalm 1. Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming back. He brings a heart of obedience and he doesn't assume he knows it all.

He keeps coming back. He knows that the Christian life is not a life of learning something once and moving on. That we need to be reminded again and again and again about the most fundamental truths. We have to keep coming, we have to bring a heart of obedience to this word. And when we do those things, there's tremendous blessing and benefit.

It's actually the working of God in your life. This isn't disconnected from the work of the Spirit in your life at all. This is one of the key jobs of God's Holy Spirit is to take the Word and use it to help you. It's intimately connected with the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. If you want to unleash the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, pick up the Bible and come to it with a heart of obedience again and again, and the power of the Holy Spirit will be unleashed in your life.

It's one of his key jobs to help you make sense and make progress from the Word of God. That was number one. Consider the sanctifying effect of the Word of God. Number two, consider the holiness of God. If you're filling in blanks on the handout, it's holiness.

Consider the holiness of God. I want us to consider the exclusion of the Ammonites and the Moabites. They are excluded. It says that they read in the book of Moses that they should exclude them. And they realized that they hadn't been excluding them, so they act on them.

That's what our text is about. Where do you read about that, the exclusion of the Ammonites and the Moabites in the book of Moses. Deuteronomy 23. Turn to Deuteronomy 23. It helps us understand what this is all about.

It is true that You shouldn't marry outside of the faith. And so that is sort of an application of this, but that is not what verses 1 through 3 are primarily about. It is not primarily about living with and among unbelievers. Deuteronomy 23 makes that so clear. I'm going to read Deuteronomy 23 verses 1 through 8.

God says through Moses, He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD. An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, And because they hired against you Balaam, the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

Nevertheless, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian because you are an alien in his land. The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

Deuteronomy chapter 23 verses 1 through 8 is about corporate temple worship. If you interpret that any other way, it puts you in direct conflict with other places in the Old Testament. This is not about who lives within the borders of geographical Israel. This is about who comes into the temple to worship God. So if you have a physical defect, you're emasculated either by crushing or mutilation, you cannot come into the temple to worship God along with the people of God.

If you're of illegitimate birth, you were conceived before your parents married, you cannot come into the temple to worship with the people of God. If you are the descendant of an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or an Edomite, or an Egyptian, up to a certain generation, you cannot come into the temple to worship with the people of the Lord. For the Ammonites and the Moabites, it's ten generations that you are unwelcome in the temple. For Edomites and Egyptians, it's three generations because they weren't as bad to the Lord's people. This is not God being grumpy and holding a grudge.

That's not God. That's not the God of the Bible. This is a physical picture of a spiritual reality. This is ceremonial law that represents something that is really true. Like all the ceremonial law, this is ceremonial law.

This has nothing to do with us now other than illustrating truths because the ceremonial law is gone after the time of Jesus. Who are the Moabites and the Ammonites? You find their Genesis in Genesis. You find the beginning of the Moabites and the Ammonites in Genesis 19. It's one of the most defiling stories you'll ever read in the Bible.

It's about Lot and his daughters who had lost hope and thought they were so isolated that they would never have children, so they got their father drunk and they had children by him. Okay, So this is the defiling beginning of the Moabites and the Ammonites. And then in Numbers chapter 22, you read about them being threatened by this massive people, the Israelites, and they hire Balaam to curse the people and God turns it into a blessing because he loves them. So not only were they born out of defilement, Both of these nations are just born out of defilement that you can't almost even talk about. But then they just lived it out.

That began a trajectory that they were happy to follow in these nations. So that when they have an opportunity to either help or harm the people of God, they harm. They just continue down the trajectory that started in Genesis 19. Question. Is it possible for an Old Testament Moabite or Ammonite to be saved by faith while an Israelite is lost in unbelief.

Is that possible? Ruth, of course it's possible that an Old Testament Moabite would be saved by faith while an Israelite, part of the right family, is lost in unbelief. Millions of Israelites were lost in unbelief. Some Moabites were saved by grace through faith. Is it possible for an Old Testament Moabite or Ammonite to be loved by God while an Israelite is hated by God?

Now don't get nervous about the language. God loved Jacob and he hated Esau. And don't think of that like human hatred. If we unpacked that you'd be comfortable with the answer. So just put that on the shelf and say, God's okay.

He doesn't hate like we hate. And He's right in His and we're wrong in ours. Yes, it's possible for an Old Testament Moabite or Ammonite to be loved by God when an Israelite is hated by God. We saw this in Ezra chapter 6 verse 21. The temple has been rebuilt and they are rejoicing and they are celebrating the Passover And in Ezra chapter 6 verse 21 we see that they eat the Passover with all, those who had come back from captivity ate the Passover with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations to seek the God of Israel.

That's not purebred Israelites for sure. And they're welcome to eat the Passover and the Passover isn't eaten in the temple. So why? If it's possible for an Old Testament Moabite or Ammonite to be saved, to be godly, to be loved by God, while an Old Testament Israelite is unsaved, ungodly, hated by God, but still welcome in the temple. Why?

It's a picture. It's ceremonial law. That God is so holy that he can't be approached by the defective, by the blemished. That's why even an emasculated Israelite, either through being crushed or being mutilated, that means Daniel. Do you know that means Daniel?

Daniel was almost certainly a eunuch. He had been mutilated. He didn't do it himself. It was done to him by a king that took him captive. Daniel would not be welcome in the temple.

He would be excluded as if he were a Moabite or an Ammonite. It's because it's a picture that the defective, the blemished, cannot approach this God. It's a picture that those born out of sin and defilement, like the Ammonites and the Moabites, who came out of the most defiling, filthy, sinful story, You can't approach God. Those who have lived out that trajectory as an enemy of God, and as an enemy of God's people, are not welcome to approach. He is holy.

That's what this text means. It's like ceremonial uncleanness. All those laws that say, if you touch a dead body, or if you do this, or If you do that, the required time has to pass, and the required cleansing has to take place, even if you are an Israelite, in good standing. You touch a dead body, and You're not welcome, even though you might be the most godly. And your brother, who is the most ungodly, but he hasn't touched the dead body, is welcomed.

It's because it's pictures. It's pictures. It's pointing. It's physical pictures of spiritual realities. And the spiritual reality is that God is holy, and He's not to be approached by the blemished, Or those who were born out of defilement.

Or those who lived out a trajectory of sinfulness. God isn't holding a grudge. He's teaching us that He's holy. It's not grudge holding at all. It's a picture.

I want you to see something wonderful. I've been trying to get here fast so we can go here. Isaiah 56. Turn to Isaiah 56. So you know the structure of Isaiah.

Isaiah 1-39, those chapters are primarily judgment. You can find some mercy there, but they're primarily judgment. It's a lot like the Old Testament. Then Isaiah 40, there's a big shift, such a big shift, that many scholars say Isaiah has two authors. That's not true.

There's one author of Isaiah and it's Isaiah. But the shift is so profound that modern scholars say the same guy can't have written these two halves. And in 40 through 66, it's so messianic. It's so full of hope. It's so full of grace and mercy that you have to notice the shift.

So this is after chapter 40. It's in the messianic portion of Isaiah. And now we're in 56, which is after what? Which is after Isaiah 53, about the suffering servant, about the atoning work of Jesus Christ. So Here's where we're situated in the book of Isaiah.

And now look at verse 1. Thus says the Lord, Keep justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Now, what is the salvation of God and what is the righteousness of God? It's Jesus. So this is about Jesus.

Jesus is the righteousness of God revealed and the salvation of God revealed. Now I want to read verses 3-8 which talk about the time of the Messiah. Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak saying, the Lord has utterly separated me from His people. Nor let the eunuch say, here I am a dry tree. So you see the link, right?

We're back to Deuteronomy 23 where a eunuch cannot come into the temple and a foreigner, at least certain foreigners, cannot come into the temple. But this is a reversal of that. Verse 4. For thus says the Lord, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me, and hold fast my covenant, even to them I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Also, the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord to be His servants. Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and holds my covenant, even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says, yet I will gather to Him others besides those who are gathered to Him. It's a promise for the grafting in of the Gentiles, and those who were excluded from the temple can now come and offer on the altar.

It's the time of the Messiah. Paul says this in Galatians chapter 3 verses 26 through 29, for you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female.

For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then You are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Something happens to those who are in Christ. They become Abraham's seed. They stop being Ammonites and Moabites and people who were born out of defilement and people with defects and blemishes and they're seen through Christ.

This is the gospel. With the coming of Jesus we don't need the picture of excluding Ammonites and Moabites. So the picture is gone. Good, it's better to have Christ than to have that picture. As useful and good as the picture was, it's better to have Christ.

But the spiritual reality is as real as ever. So the picture is gone, but the reality is reality still and forever. Forever time past, now forever time present. You must be cleansed. You must be cleansed.

You can't bring your defects and your blemishes. They are not welcome in the presence of God. You can't bring your defiled beginnings. You can't bring your living out that trajectory. They are not welcome before a holy God.

No external righteousness, no law keeping, no church going in any amount, No birth line will allow you to approach. He's holy. Only being cleansed by the blood of his son Makes you the seed of Abraham. Makes you able to approach. Number three.

Consider how God treats his friends and his enemies. If you're filling in blanks, treats, friends, enemies. Consider how God treats his friends and his enemies. If you're filling in blanks, treats friends enemies. Consider how God treats his friends and his enemies.

First his enemies. Consider how unrelenting the judgment of God is against those who have not repented. Ten generations! Ten generations! His judgment against the unrepentant is unrelenting.

God resists his enemies in this life, and he separates them for torment in the next, for all eternity. So in this life, his enemies are resisted. We see that in our text. And in the next life, he separates them out for torment forever. In the text, he brings all the plans of his enemies to nothing.

But that's just the picture. To have God as an enemy is to be at war with one who can bring all your plans to nothing in this life. Nothing in this life. And then who casts you out from himself in the next where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. How much torment does it take to make you grind your teeth down to nothing?

This is the fate of his enemies. And it's just. Now his friends. In our text we see God fighting for His people. It's not the first time we've seen it in Nehemiah.

In Nehemiah chapter 4, they're trying to build the wall, but they've got enemies to the north, south, east, and west who have bound themselves together in a pact to militarily make them stop building the wall. So Nehemiah is organizing the people to defend themselves and he says this in Nehemiah chapter 4 verse 20, wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there, our God will fight for us." How did Nehemiah know that? Histories like this, and a hundred more like them. That's why God has given us these histories. That's why God gives us insight into him defending his people against the plots of his enemies.

Balak hires Balaam, curse them. God loves his people, so he turns it into a blessing. The reason we know about that, the reason that it's been preserved is to build our faith. So that when the time comes and a fight's about to break out with the enemies of God, we can say, when you hear the sound of the trumpet rally to us there, our God will fight for us, because we've seen a hundred times over in the Bible, God is building our faith by giving us these stories. It's so merciful.

We're not flying blind. We know that God fights for his people because he always has fought for his people. In Acts chapter 9, Saul is seething against the Lord's people and he's on the way to Damascus to physically persecute the church. He was there applauding when Stephen was martyred. Now he is headed to Damascus And Jesus comes and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. He is untouchable by Saul. And yet, when Jesus' people are persecuted, Jesus says, You are persecuting me. The enemies of His people are His own enemies. And there is a sense in which God's disposition towards a person mirrors that person's disposition towards God's people.

Did you get that? That's a complex sentence. There is a sense in which God's disposition towards a person, what God thinks of a person, mirrors, matches that person's disposition towards God's people. Not towards God, but towards God's people. It's not enough to say that God is the enemy of those who hate him.

It extends to his people. If you say, God and I are fine, but I hate his people, you're his enemy. It is not possible to hate his people and not be his enemy. This has a broad application that includes us, that includes his people. Even his people better take note of how Jesus identifies with his people.

It should make us very sober-minded in our handling of one another. It should make us very gentle. It should make us very patient. It's not the primary application of the text. I know that, I'm not saying that.

But it's a secondary application. God loves His people, God fights for His people. And when we are thinking wrongly and we start to attack ourself in a way, His people, We should take a deep breath and consider how God loves his people. Our text tells us not just what the Ammonites and the Moabites did do, it tells us what they should have done. Verse 2 makes it clear.

They should have met them with bread and water. Not only should they have refrained from harming them, they should have met them and blessed them. That's what God expected of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Of course God saw to it that His people had bread and water through another channel. All things weren't overthrown by the fact that they didn't treat the Lord's people as they should have treated the Lord's people.

But listen to what Jesus says about the blessing of four blessing God's people. This is in Matthew chapter 10. He's sending out his disciples to preach and he says, the provision will be there. And then he says this in Matthew chapter 10 verse 42, and whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward." The tenderness and love of God for His people is so thorough going that He promises great reward to people who just give a cup of cold water. He stacked the world for the blessing of those who bless His people, so that his people will be blessed.

How many times since you've been a part of the people of God have you been blessed? Part of the reason is God promises a reward to the people who bless you. That helps. That increases the instances of it. I tell you it does.

I know it does. I'm motivated by it myself. Hopefully not solely motivated. But it's sweet to know that as we bless the Lord's people we'll be blessed. Applications 2.

Number 1. What is your relationship with the word of God? What is it? You have a relationship with the word of God, it's a sorry one or a good one or something in between, do you approach it with a heart of obedience? And do you approach it again and again?

Or is it something that you have to do so that you do do? I don't think there's anyone in the room, I hope, who's of literate age, who totally neglects the Word of God. The question is, do you bring to it a heart of obedience and do you come to it again and again? Our text is calling for those two things. Come to the Word of God with a heart of obedience and keep coming back and keep coming back.

I drown in studying the Bible. I'm drowning in it, because you pay me to do it. But I find that I rarely study it when I'm not preparing to teach this, that, or the other. I've been confronted with this text. What kind of heart are you bringing to your time with the scripture?

Number two, be a friend of God. Be a friend. You must either be friend or enemy. Be a friend. God is holy.

But he offers his friendship. That is stunning. I've been preaching a long time. Did you get that? Don't miss how stunning that is.

God is holy, Like he excludes Ammonites and Moabites to the tenth generation, God is that holy, but He offers you His friendship. Not buddyhood. We're not making this into chumminess with God where his holiness is lost, but he does offer you his friendship. I'll close with James 2.23. And the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God.

Abraham is the prototype for the believer. You can know that you can be saved by faith because Abraham was saved by faith. And he's a picture too. He's a picture of the believer. God accepted his faith and made him righteous.

Not internal righteous, but a righteousness that is imputed from the outside just like the righteousness of the New Testament believer. And he called Abraham the friend of God because those who come to him by faith are his friends. He makes them his friends. God, I thank you. I thank you for the promise in Abraham that all who believe that That trust is credited, is accounted for righteousness.

You take your enemies and make them not your slaves, although we are your slaves, we are to serve you, but you make them your friends, you make them your sons and daughters. All the glory of the work of Jesus Christ takes something that is so defiled and makes us into something that's so categorically different. Makes us reconciled. We thank you