The Making of a Pearl

Can you see Nehemiah here? As soon as he gets back into town, he finds out what's happening. He throws all of Tobiah's clothes. He just hauls all of it out, and then he ceremonially fumigates the rooms, as one author said. He didn't even want the smell of Tobiah hanging around.

No lollygagging around here. No dialogue, no maneuvering to make sure that Tobiah had some other place to live. No, there was sin in the camp, and there was a sinner in the temple, and he dealt with both, immediately.

He dealt with compromise, immediately. Do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions as a Christian? Faith seems flat, the Bible is boring, and you wonder what happened to your burning passion.

Well, sometimes finding that fire again means being uncomfortable. It's called revival, and the Bible has a fascinating story on how it works. It's the story in the book of Nehemiah. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen brings his study through this book to a close.

You'll discover how God turns everyday struggles and pressures into life-changing spiritual growth. Stick around to learn more. Someone, a few days ago, sent me this. At the top are big letters that read the word resignation.

And this person says some interesting things. I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a six-year-old again. I want to go to a McDonald's and think that it's a four-star restaurant.

I want to see who can blow the biggest bubble. I want to think M&M's are better than money because you can eat them. I want to drink Kool-Aid and eat lemon heads with all my friends. I don't want to change clothes because they got a little dirty, and I want to enjoy every day like it's summer vacation. I want to return to a time when life was simple.

All you knew was to be happy because you were unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to be excited about little things again, like my new Hot Wheel or jump rope. I want to live a simple life again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, paperwork, cleaning, children, chores, depressing news, illness and loss.

I want to be in the roller derby. I want to believe the Three Stooges are real. So here's my checkbook, my car keys, my credit card bills, and my 401k statements, my pager, my cell phone, my Palm Pilot. Okay, I'll keep that.

My fax machine, and not least of all, my mortgage book. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this any further, you're going to have to catch me first because tag, you're it, and you've got cooties. So see you later, alligator. After a while. Well, I want to live simple again too, don't you? When the water's calm and the breeze is pleasant, you know as well as I do that life isn't like that. The older you get, the more complicated it seems, the better life can become.

It isn't simple. In fact, our Lord, speaking to a group of grownups obviously said that each day has enough trouble. A man who lived anything but a simple life, Dr. Sumi was his name. I used to have the privilege as a student at Dallas Seminary to sit in chapel where he would lead and worship. He had pastored for decades and had come to the seminary, returned there to lead us as the chaplain. And I didn't know him closely but I admired him at a distance.

He would walk across the parking lot twice a day on his way to dialysis. We knew he suffered greatly but had a great bearing about him. He wrote these interesting words. He said, life on earth would not be worth much if every source of pressure and tribulation were removed.

Yet most of us rebel against the things that irritate us and count as heavy loss, what ought to be rich gain. We are told that the oyster is wiser, that when an irritating object like a bit of sand gets under the mantle of his shell, he begins covering it with the most precious part of his being. He fashions a pearl.

The irritation that it was causing is stopped by encrusting it with the pearly formation of his own being. Imagine that though, a pearl is simply a victory over tribulation. We come today to the final chapter in the memoirs of Nehemiah, a man who has grown older, wiser, but a man in whose life pressure and tribulation seems to increase.

He is now about 70 years of age, and if you turn to chapter 13, as we'll study in a moment, I think it's incredibly significant that God would choose to end such a dynamic book like this one, with Nehemiah handling pressure and struggling with tribulation. But that's reality, isn't it? This book so wonderfully illustrates the believer's life. It isn't necessarily happily ever after, at least not here on earth.

Here on earth, it is never comfortable when you choose to carry a cross. Godly living, we learn from Nehemiah, is not simply gaining victory over a series of problems and then moving on to new problems. Sometimes it is battling those issues over and over again, and they become more complicated and intense and difficult as time goes on. If there was ever a time when 70 year old Nehemiah would be resigning from battle, it would be now. If there was ever a time when he would walk away from struggles, it would be now. In this last chapter of his memoirs, if there would ever be a time when he would become disillusioned with the ongoing pressures and tribulations of life, it would be now.

You could almost hear him saying, I am going to resign, I want life back like it was when I was six. And yet he will in this chapter reveal his greatest faith yet as he endures, I believe, his greatest challenges yet. Before we take one last look at this man's personal diary, I want to make two observations that come directly out of his personal experience. Number one, your greatest test of faith is always the next one. Your greatest display of character has yet to happen.

So, don't rest on your laurels. Past victories do not guarantee future victories for any believer. Your greatest test as a believer may be just around the corner for you. The question is, will you retreat from it and yearn and go back and pursue that ethereal, simpler world that does not exist? Or will you stay in your armor and shape even more pearls for the glory of God?

That's what happens here. Let's start with verse one. On that day, they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them.

However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. So when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel. Now, prior to this, Elias shipped the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, note this, being related to Tobiah, you recognize that name, had prepared a large room for him where formerly they put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the utensils, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, prescribed for the Levites, the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests. But during all this time, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I had gone to the king. After some time, however, I asked leave from the king, and I came to Jerusalem and learned about the evil that Elias had done for Tobiah by preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God.

Now, stop for a moment. If you put the chronological pieces together, you discover that after Nehemiah had served as governor for about 12 years, he was recalled to Babylon, and he went back and served the king again. For several years, there was some disagreement about how long, but it could have been as long as 12 years. We're not sure, but perhaps he heard that that old enemy, Tobiah, was gaining ground once again inside the temple precinct. His old enemy, verse 9 told us, had been given a suite of rooms. The Hebrew is plural. He is actually inside the temple, and Ammonite is living on temple grounds.

We don't understand the significance or the horror of that violation of the law. Verse 4 makes it worse. It tells us that he was given this suite of rooms by the high priest who was related to him, Eliashim. So you have Sanballat and Tobiah still working behind the scenes.

Their names reappear, even in this last chapter. And you have the high priest compromising in effect with the enemy and actually inviting him to stay on the temple precinct grounds. One author said that inviting Tobiah to live in the temple was like inviting a fox to live in the henhouse.

He will do damage if allowed to stay. But sometimes, my friends, that's how the enemy works, and he works that way even to today. Warren Wiersbe reminded me by saying that Satan doesn't always fight churches.

Sometimes he joins them. Nehemiah reminds me of our Lord here who brandished a whip he'll remember, and he beat all of the merchants, the Gentile merchants, off the temple grounds. They weren't supposed to be there. Look at verse 8. This was very displeasing to me, so I threw all of Tobiah's household goods out of the room. Then I gave an order, and they cleansed the rooms. And I returned there the utensils of the house of God with the grain offerings and the frankincense.

Can you see Nehemiah here? As soon as he gets back into town, he finds out what's happening. He throws all of Tobiah's clothes, his furniture, his dining room suite, his razor, his bathrobe, everything out onto the street. He just hauls all of it out, and then he ceremonially fumigates the rooms, as one author said.

He didn't even want the smell of Tobiah hanging around. Dear friends, Nehemiah handled compromise the same way he handled it in chapter 4, the same way he handled it in chapter 6. You see him handling it the same way in chapter 13. He handled compromise immediately.

He dealt with compromise immediately. No lollygagging around here, no dialogue, no maneuvering to make sure that Tobiah had some other place to live. No, there was sin in the camp, and there was a sinner in the temple, and he dealt with both immediately. We don't have a temple today, a temple precinct, a physical place where you might enter or go to worship God. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16 that you are the temple of God, you. Your body, 1 Corinthians 6 19 says, is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

May I ask you a question? Have you set up a suite of rooms inside that temple for something that does not belong inside the temple of God? Have you recently decorated a room and invited lust or pride or dishonesty to move in? I encourage you to do what Nehemiah did today, deal with it immediately. Keep the temple of God clean.

Another situation arises, not only compromise, but this persistent sin of selfishness. Look at verse 10. I also discovered that the portions of the Levites had not been given them so that the Levites and the singers who performed the service had gone away, each to his own field.

Now, stop. Can you imagine how Nehemiah must have felt here? I believe there is a volume behind the words, I also discovered. Can you imagine how discouraging if you were with us in our last study, you saw the people of Israel as they were finishing their process of revival and they all signed this declaration and part of the declaration was that we will give what needs to be given for the house of God, for the worship of God.

We will give all that we have to give. Now here, some years later, Nehemiah discovers that they have not kept their word. That discovery must have been agonizing, sort of like a teacher perhaps who discovered that a favorite student has been cheating. Like a wife whose husband has promised that he will never drink again, she discovers a bottle hidden away in his closet. Or a mom or a dad who has heard the promise of a son or daughter that they are clean only to discover drugs stashed away in a closet drawer.

Or a spouse who discovers the unfaithfulness of their maid. That's how he felt. Nehemiah discovered the unfaithfulness and the dishonesty and the infidelity of the people of God that he loved so dearly. Instead of running, he buckled down for the long haul, verse 11, I reprimanded the officials and said, why is the house of God forsaken?

Then I gathered them together and restored them to their posts. All Judah then brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses. You notice Nehemiah's personal conversation with the Lord in verse 14, remember me for this, O my God, and do not blot out my loyal deeds which I have performed for the house of my God and its services.

That wasn't all that Nehemiah discovered upon his return to Jerusalem. The sin of materialism accompanied the sin of selfishness, verse 15, in those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys as well as wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads and they brought them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. You remember now ladies and gentlemen that back earlier they had also said they would keep the Sabbath day holy. So I admonished them on the day they sold food, verse 16, also men of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise and sold them to the sons of Judah on the Sabbath even in Jerusalem. Then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, what is this evil thing you are doing by profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do the same so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. And it came about that just as it grew dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors be shut and that they should not open them until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the Sabbath day. I love the way that Nehemiah not only deals with the people, but he deals with the source of temptation as well.

Look at verse 20. Once or twice the traders and merchants of every kind of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem. Okay, they couldn't get in, but they spent the night right outside the wall.

They were going to tempt the people to go outside the city and buy their wares. Verse 21, I love this. Then I warned them and said to them, why do you spend the night in front of the wall?

If you do so again, I will use force against you. Can you see this 70-year-old man putting his head over the wall and yelling, hey you guys, you can't even spend the night there. If I see you spending the night there, I will come out against you in the name of Jehovah Elohim, give you a black eye or something like that.

I love the next phrase in verse 21. From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath. We can't take that old guy.

We're going to leave and leave they did. It would mess with him. Verse 22, and I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the Sabbath day. Now that's interesting.

It would be easy to miss, but he adds to their job description. He says, I know what you guys do on Sunday through Friday around 5.30 in the afternoon, but on the beginning of the Sabbath or when the sun begins to set on Friday evening through Saturday until about 6 p.m., I'm going to add to your job description, you're going to become gatekeepers. I want you to keep those merchants from hanging around the wall. I want you to shut the gates when you see them coming. Make sure that they cannot get in. By the way, it happens to be the job description of every teacher, pastor, elder, leader, parent, right here. You're gatekeepers. Keep even the temptation away as best as you can. I don't know how many times I have heard parents say, well, we need to expose our children to the world.

That is baloney. You protect them as best you can and prepare them. You don't expose them. The world will expose itself to them without your help. You're a gatekeeper. You ought to be concerned about what comes into the home, what they watch on television, what they hear. You are a gatekeeper. They're listening to voices, and they will have to struggle with that as they choose the values of Christianity as their own.

But your job is to stay alert. Materialism and the philosophy of this world is a powerful song to our children. I recently read that we're confronted with about 2,000 commercials every day. 2,000 unconsciously filtered through billboards, radio, television, magazines, newspapers, the internet, you name it.

The biggest battle is knowing what to do with the things that you have and not wanting even more. I was reading some old notes, and there was a story about my kids, my boys who were six. They had just had their birthday, and we were in the living room, and they were counting all their loot. They had a lap full of dollar bills and quarters, and they were just counting it all sitting there on the couch, and we were just watching them. And one of my sons suddenly announced, I'm going to give all of my money to church. He's my favorite child, by the way. You know, kind of swelled up with pride.

Yeah, my son's got the picture. Maybe I can divert it to the building fund or something. Without batting an eye, his brother, who had just turned six, said, not me.

I'm going to spend all mine at the mall. He takes after his, never mind who he takes after. But I remember looking back at the other one who was now fidgeting. He had forgotten about the candy counter at the mall, and now his commitment was being sorely tested. I wish I had written down what happened next.

I don't know, but I thought, what a great illustration. Whether you are 16 or 36 or 60, you make a commitment that you will do things in the order of God's priority, and suddenly you hear another voice, and that commitment becomes a tough thing to keep. Well, we got to move here on Nehemiah deals with the sin of disobedience. Verse 23, in those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

Now remember again, back in chapter 8, 9, 10, they said, we won't do that. We'll keep the line pure as Israelites, as Jewish people of God, but here they go. As for their children, verse 24, half of them spoke in the language of Ashdod. Notice, none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, the language of his own people.

In other words, the children are learning the language of their mothers. They will pick up that tongue, and they picked up the native tongue of these foreign women, which means none of the children were being taught to read Hebrew. And if they can't read Hebrew, they can't read the law. If they can't read the law, they can't obey the law. If they can't obey the law, then they are out of the will of God. You remember all of the trouble they had earlier in chapter 8, I believe, where Ezra stood to read the law, and none of them could understand it, and so they spent hours explaining the meanings of the words.

Here in a matter of 10, 12 years, you have little kids now running around speaking in Gentile languages, and none of them know Hebrew. Look at who's in the middle of it all, verse 28, even one of the sons of Joiada. Here we go again, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat.

So I drove him away from me. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, tells us that when this grandson of Eliashib, these crooked priests, who even though they were in the highest places of spiritual leadership, did not know or follow God. When Nehemiah kicked Eliashib's grandson out of Jerusalem, this boy's name was Manasseh, he went to join Sanballat, his father-in-law, in Samaria, and there he established the rival system of worship on Mount Gerizim that persisted through the time of Jesus Christ.

This false worship system by a people known as the Samaritans. Nehemiah spotted the problem, and he dealt with both the problem and the problem maker, and he dealt with it severely. I like what one man wrote, he said, in these days when all areas of life are filled with confusion and falling into disorder, we do well to subject our souls to the studying, refreshing influence of a man like Nehemiah who was specific in his purposes toward God, and I like this phrase, and who turned wishbones into backbones. Let me tie it together with two final thoughts. Number one, God does not provide final victory over sin, but repeated victory over sin. It is the nature of the fire to go out, and so it is in our own hearts.

The ashes need to be removed continually, and the coals stoked in fresh wood added. God will give us not complete and final victory, that will come one day, for now he gives us repeated victory over sin. Second of all, temptation in the believer's life does not diminish with age, it grows more clever. So it is best to follow Nehemiah's example here. He tackles compromise immediately, he handles selfishness humbly, he attacked materialism realistically, and he dealt with disobedience severely.

James Montgomery Boice wrote in the final pages of his commentary on Nehemiah these words, these realistic words. The Christian life is hard work. Even the Bible recognizes it as hard work.

It is described as a battle, a race, a sacrifice. Bible study is hard, prayer is hard, witnessing is hard, living a holy life in the midst of temptation is extremely difficult. Jesus Christ promised his followers not a comfortable life, but a cross. In other words, you can't resign from trouble, you can't retreat to a simpler life, there's no going back.

We could best learn how to make pearls out of tribulations. Let me just read you what Nehemiah wrote in his final words in verse 31. He said, remember me, oh my God, for good.

You know what he was saying? It's another way of saying, Lord, I want you, when you think of me, to have good thoughts. I want to live in such a way that I make choices and I determine a lifestyle and I choose a path that ultimately you would be pleased with. That was his greatest passion in life, that God would be pleased with him. That's the story of a man named Nehemiah, his heart, his faith, his passion for God, but I want you to know it's been more than just a story of a man.

I believe it happens to be a demonstration of the only way to live. If you're stuck in that spiritual rut, it's time to break free. Revival isn't about external motions, but a deeper interchange that only God can ignite. Are you feeling thirsty for a deeper walk with God?

Then Wisdom International is here to help. Our website, wisdomonline.org, is filled with resources from Stephen's Bible Teaching Ministry. You'll find his articles, Bible lessons, sermons, and more, all designed to help you break free from spiritual boredom and step into the amazing life God has planned. Visit wisdomonline.org today and find the resources you need for true revival. Stephen's book, Through Nehemiah, has been available during this series at a deeply discounted rate.

Since today's the last lesson in this series, it's also the last day of this offer. This practical, pastoral book examines Nehemiah's life and you're going to want to have a copy. Call 866-48-BIBLE today or 866-482-4253. You'll also find it at wisdomonline.org. On our next broadcast, everything begins a series through a section of Acts. Join us on Wisdom for the Heart. You'll find it at wisdomonline.org.