Threats to Spiritual Wholeness (Part 1 of 2)

Music playing in background. Some of us are alert to things that could endanger our physical health, but how vigilant are we about our spiritual well-being? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg identifies some threats to spiritual wholeness and explains why these threats ought to be taken even more seriously than physical dangers. There's seldom a week goes by without being told by the experts of something else which poses a threat to our physical well-being. Newspapers and magazines have it on a regular basis.

There are a number of things that I've identified at the grocery store checkout that are just about definite on the front of these magazines. Some of them I'm not prepared to mention, but one of them at the moment is an overwhelming preoccupation with our physical well-being. Not that that is in itself wrong, but it is an interesting emphasis. And so it is that we discover on a regular basis something else that we shouldn't be doing, somewhere else we shouldn't be going, somewhere else we shouldn't be eating, if we want to stay alive for the next year or so at least. But for everyone who gets into it, there are more than a few who immediately employ what I call the grandfather response. Namely, well, you never met my grandfather. Because my grandfather, he didn't even like carrots, and he never ate many of them, and he certainly didn't squeeze them and drink them. In point of fact, my grandfather smoked like a chimney, my grandfather gorged himself on fatty substances, and at the same time he drank alcohol like a fish, and he lived to the ripe old age of thirty-nine.

No. And he lived to be, you know, a hundred and ten, they're always really ancient, patriarchal kind of figures, who do nothing of the things you're supposed to do, and so they thereby apparently disprove the theory. In point of fact, it's probably not wise to take the grandfather root on any of those occasions, because you are unlikely to become one such grandfather.

You're probably likely to become one dead grandfather or never even become a grandfather. Now, on a physical level, that's one thing, but when it comes to the matter of spiritual wholeness and spiritual well-being, these kind of threats to our spiritual well-being need to be taken far more seriously than any threat to physical well-being, because, in point of fact, it is a sad thing to see a healthy body with a sick soul. And that's essentially what we're dealing with in our days, of people's preoccupation with the externals.

And not that that in itself is wrong, because God has given us our bodies to take care of, but it becomes wrong when we begin to take care of the externals as if there were no internals, and as if somehow or another we were going to live forever by paying attention to our physical frame. The Bible says, no, it is far more imperative that we pay attention to our souls and to the matters of eternity, and therefore that we would take very seriously any threats to our spiritual wholeness. Nehemiah is reminding his readers in chapter 13 of four such threats. Last time, in verses 4–9, we saw and considered the threat of unhelpful associations.

And we thought about what that might mean for us as individuals in terms of business partnerships, what it means for us as churches and so on, and we sought to come to terms with it. Now, in the tenth verse through the fourteenth verse, we come to the second of these threats, which is what I've referred to as the threat of unfulfilled commitments. Now, in order to get the background to this scene, you need to turn back a page or so in your Bible to chapter 10 and verse 39. And there the people of God, the people of Israel, including the Levites, said that they were going to bring their contributions of grain and new wine and oil to the storerooms, where the articles for the sanctuary are kept and where the ministering priests and the gatekeepers and the singers stay. And they said, We will not neglect the house of our God. They recognized that worship was vitally important. They realized that God had purposed that a certain group of people would lead in that worship. And so, in order to make it possible for them to adequately prepare and to be present on the occasions of worship, they would set them free from the considerations of their daily routine and provide them with the resources necessary to be these kind of people in leading proclamation and praise. Now, that was chapter 10, and here, by the time Nehemiah comes back from his sortie in Susa, he discovers that the Levites are not where they should be, they're not doing what they're supposed to be, and indeed, they're back in their own fields, he says at the end of verse 10. Now, the reason that they'd been forced to return to their fields is because of a lack of support, because the people had failed to do what they said they would do.

And so they had gone back to work to keep themselves from starving. Now, Nehemiah is once again very straightforward in the way he responds. Throughout all of these threats, he exercises a pastoral care over the people. He does what Paul tells Timothy to do in 2 Timothy 4 and verse 2, although Nehemiah was never made privy to this instruction coming, as it did, hundreds of years after he had lived. But the instruction and the example are timeless. 2 Timothy 4.2, Paul says to Timothy as a young leader and guide and preacher and teacher of the people of God, he says, Preach the word, be prepared when you feel like it and when you don't feel like it.

That's what it means in season and out of season. When there's a great opportunity, when there's only a marginal opportunity. When you get up on the morning and you feel that you just can't wait to preach, when you get up in the morning and wish you'd never been called to preach. Preach the word, he says. Whatever else you do. And here is the way, the manner of your preaching.

You should do it correcting, rebuking, and encouraging, and do it with great patience and with careful instruction. Now, Nehemiah shows great patience, and he's very careful in the instruction that he provides, as you would note. And as you look through not only this thread but the remaining two, you will see that he brings correction for those whose thinking is wrong, he brings rebuke for those who are beginning to live comfortably with sin, and he brings encouragement to those whose spirits need lifted. Now, how does he do this?

Well, you'll notice there in verse 11. First of all, he brought them together. He called the people together. And then he put them in their places, stationed them at their posts. He chose them, according to verse 13c, or b, on the basis of trustworthiness.

You will notice that, because these men were considered trustworthy. And then in verse 14, he prayed that God would honor him for his faithful commitment to the house of God. There's a wonderful illustration here of what's involved in the leadership of God's people at every point along the way—seeking to bring the people together, seeking under God with wisdom to put them in their place, in the sense of the place of greatest usefulness for them, choosing them for positions of responsibility, not on the basis of their personality, not on the basis of familial involvement, but ultimately on the basis of trustworthiness, and then having done those three things, coming before God in prayer and asking that he would bring honor and glory as a result of the leadership's desire to do the right thing.

Now, you will notice that in doing this, Nehemiah is not seeking to curry favor. There's many a young man who starts strong, and by the time he's gone through a few cycles in leadership, he begins to let it go. The things that were vital to him he begins to grow weak on. The things with which he began and were great concerns he begins to diminish in. And I'm not talking now about the young man growing to maturity and learning the distinction between a priority and something that is a secondary issue.

I'm talking about somebody either being beaten down through the course of ministry or just losing their way. And it is a great danger. And that is one of the great benefits, you see, of a plurality of leadership. So that those who are, if you like, running at the front of the line or, if we may use a cycling analogy, who are cycling and breaking the wind, and they are there and there and there, and they are taking all the wind on their faces and making it easier for the two or three bikes that come behind.

It is vital that somebody keeps riding up to the front of that line, because the guy cannot cycle at the front all the time and take everything that comes their way. That's why God has ordained that there would be plurality in leadership, so as to safeguard any kind of unjustifiable desire for the front place and also to prevent somebody being stuck in that place in a way that would be harmful to them. Now, Nehemiah had brought others around him. He delegated it. He found that they'd kind of let him down, and so he comes back, and the question he faces is, Should I let it go? Should I let it go? That's what guys face every day in the office.

They come in. They find that the last week, when they went on a business trip, went totally south. It's now another week. It's kind of gone. Should I let it go? Well, what's the easiest thing to do? Probably let it go. What's the hardest thing to do?

Sit the people down and say, What the world's going on? And the real question is, What's the right thing to do? Not the easy thing, the hard thing, but the right thing. Nehemiah, as a principled individual, he must have asked himself, Now, what's the right thing to do here? And he says, The right thing to do is not to become a man-pleaser but to continue to please God. I can please these people by just allowing this to pass me by, or I can confront them on it. And so he says he confronts them.

Verse 10, verse 11, Why is the house of God neglected, he says? Why in the world are you doing this? It's a lesson for all who lead, being prepared to take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which come as a result of standing at the front of the line. And also, in this threat, we see a question that needs to be faced. Because the threat is unfulfilled commitment. Question. Are there any unfulfilled commitments in my life this morning?

Take a sheet of paper, put it at the top. Any unfulfilled commitments? Well, I said I'd clean my room.

I didn't clean it. That's an unfulfilled commitment. Well, I said that I would call my father, and I didn't. That's an unfulfilled commitment. I said that I would pray for my missionary family on Friday, and I haven't. That's an unfulfilled commitment. I said that I would serve the Lord in the next six months, in the final six months of the year, wholeheartedly, unmistakably, and that I would serve them by never absenting myself, apart from illness, from the opportunities of worship amongst the people of God. And I haven't done it. That's an unfulfilled commitment. I joined this church, and I committed myself unstintingly to give of my time, of my gifts, and of my resources.

And I haven't. That's an unfulfilled commitment. I made a commitment to the Lord that I would forgive people from my heart unreservedly, and I'm sitting in worship this morning, and there are at least five people of whom I can think that I have an ongoing grudge deal with. That's an unfulfilled commitment. I told my children that I would be home at least three days out of the week, and I would do their homework with them, and I haven't done it. That's an unfulfilled commitment.

Make no mistake about it, one of the greatest impediments to spiritual wholeness is when we go before God and we tell him we're going to do something, and then we flat out disregard it. Threat number one, unhelpful associations. Threat number two, unfulfilled commitments.

And threat number three, which is akin to the second, unkept promises. Go back to chapter 10 again. We'll set this in context. Chapter 10 and verse 31. When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day.

We don't need to read further than that. When the people come to town, the traders come to town on the Sabbath, we're not going to buy their stuff. And then the great crescendo statement at the end of chapter 10, we will not neglect the house of our God. They had previously said that we will carefully obey all the commands and regulations and decrees of the Lord our God.

Now, you see, this is not legalism to do this. The establishing of holy habits is not legalism. The establishing of holy habits and the establishing of kept promises is imperative to spiritual wholeness. When we married, we made a commitment to holy habits. When we married, we made a commitment to certain foundational promises. And the keeping of these promises is absolutely crucial to the well-being of the relationship which we enjoy with our spouse. Therefore, someone encouraging us to maintain such promises is in no way doing us a disservice, is in no way calling us into some kind of legalistic lifestyle, but is seeking, by their encouragement, to bring us into all the fullness and all the benefits of what that relationship might mean. In the same way, when we say that we will follow hard after Christ, when we commit ourselves to obeying fully all of his law—not so that we might be accepted by him, because we know that that could not be, but on account of the fact that we have been accepted by grace through faith and made righteous in his sight, so that our commitment to the promises are not in order to gain acceptance but are on the basis of the fact that God in his mercy has reached down to us. And some of us, frankly, are poor promise-keepers. We are great promise-makers and poor keepers. And God looks upon us this morning in his love and in his kindness, but with a searching gaze, and he says, Listen, you got any unkept promises?

Now, the particular emphasis here we need be in no doubt about. It is simply this issue of what they were going to do on the Sabbath. And they had said, We are not gonna monkey around with the Sabbath thing. But the traders had come into town, they're up to their old tricks, presumably they began to say to one another, You know, there's no reason to be so strict and particular about this. After all, God knows that we have responsibilities, the Lord knows that we have children, we have to buy them shoes, the Lord knows that it would be nice for us to have a little extension over here, and therefore, we're not concerned about acts of mercy here, we're not talking about getting animals out of ditches, we're not talking about being involved in emergency surgery, we're just talking about deciding that we are not going to worship on the Lord's Day, because we've made a commitment to working on the Lord's Day, and on Sunday evenings, that's when we do our ironing, and on Sunday evenings, that's when we do the laundry, and on Sunday evenings, that's when we do our thing.

Now, I'm not talking about single moms here, I'm just talking about people who decided that we would play around with this whole issue. Now, that's a bad move. Look at the progression in verse 15. In these days I saw men in Judah, and they were trading wine presses on the Sabbath. At the end of verse 15, he says, I warned them, again selling food on that day.

And then there were some people from Tyre who were bringing in fish—that's pretty hard to bring in fish and conceal it—and all kinds of merchandise, and they were selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. So he went to the leaders of the people of Judah, the nobles of Judah, and he said to them, what's the wicked thing you're doing? You're going to walk up to people and say, you're doing wicked things, they're not going to really like you.

People don't like that. Don't tell me I'm doing wicked things. You see, I came, I put my money in, I'm here.

Isn't that good enough for crying out loud? Now I've got to sit and find out that the Bible says I'm doing wicked things? I don't like to know I'm doing wicked things. I just want to know I'm doing good things. Just tell me about good things, good things, good things. Well, now, my says, if you're doing a lot of good things, I'll tell you good things, but in the moment I'm telling you about some things that you shouldn't be doing.

And one of them is this issue. So he rebuked them. It didn't make him popular, but he wasn't concerned about being popular. And then verse 19, he took practical action, and he stationed some people there at the gates.

He wasn't one of these kind of naïve liberal sort of individuals who said, Oh, I'm sure there are a bunch of nice people, and now that I'm back in time, telling them they won't do this anymore. He said, No, I bet they keep trying to do it, especially under cover of darkness, so I'll get some of my own boys, I'll put them down at the gates, and I'll make sure nobody comes in and nobody goes out. And furthermore, I'll pop up onto the wall, because some of these merchants and sellers have been pitching their tent outside Jerusalem in the evenings, obviously hoping for a chance to make a border crossing, or maybe to make some kind of clandestine trading. And so I'll get up on the wall, and as it says in verse 21, I warned them, and I said, Why did you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I'll come down, and I'll thump you. That's what he said.

Do this again, I'm gonna punch your nose. That doesn't go well with our caricature of the average servant of God. The average servant of God looks as though a good meal would scare him, looks as though he's never seen the sun in about forty years, he's white, somewhat emaciated, and he can't chew on hardly anything at all.

He has to suck toast for most of his days. And the people of God like those kind of people, by and large, and when someone comes out, as Nehemiah did, like a raging bull, the response is, Who in the world does this guy think he is? The answer is, he's the servant of God who will stand before God for what was going on in Jerusalem, and he'll give an answer for his leadership in Jerusalem. So if he comes in and says, Hey, it's up to you, you want to do this on the Sabbath? That's not a problem.

You want to do this in relationship to unfulfilled commitments? Hey, that's not a problem. You want to neglect the house of God?

That's not a problem. As long as I get my money, as long as I get my clothes, and as long as I can just go through life fairly okay, I don't really care. That's not leadership. That's just acquiescent hogwash. You wonder at the state of the church in America in our day? Look at the average commitment on the leadership's part.

It's committed to pleasing itself, committed to pleasing men, committed to the accolades of men, committed to being in the mainstream, committed to being prepared, thought well of by all the people around. Not any dead fish can go with a downstream flow. Only living fish can swim against the stream.

And now Meyer stands out in his day as one who would swim against the stream. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. We're going to hear more about spiritual threats tomorrow. On behalf of all of us at Truth for Life, we want to say a happy and blessed Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States. Our offices are closed today so our team can be home celebrating with their families.

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You can give a one-time gift to truthforlife.org slash donate or arrange to set up an automatic monthly donation when you visit truthforlife.org slash truthpartner. I'm Bob Lapine. Is Sunday different at your house from the other six days of the week? Tomorrow we'll find out why it should be. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.