Shenandoah Bible Baptist Church
Rebuilding the Wall 18
And Nehemiah pleased tonight, chapter 11. Nehemiah 11. And let's pray again and we will get started with our Bible study. Lord, I want to thank you for what you are doing here at Shenandoah. And Lord, I thank you for that great song. Christ is all I need. That is truly a statement right there. Lord, you are all that I need. And God, I pray that I would live that way. I would act that way. And help all of us please. As we dive into your word tonight, teach us from your scripture, please. And I want to thank you for this, that prayer time that you gave our church here just moments ago. Men and women, the Lord of God, just praying and lifting up their prayers and their requests before you. Thank you for being a God that hears us and answers our prayers. We thank you for your word that you are about to teach us. And a Holy Spirit of God, have your perfect way, please. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated tonight. Nehemiah chapter 11. I am going to take just a quick moment to remind us because it has been a while since I have used the screen. So, let me throw that up on the screen for a moment. That is our timeline. We have been going through Ezra and Nehemiah for quite some time now. And I want to remind you that that little box on the left is that is 70 years of captivity. When Nebuchadnezzar came in and conquered Jerusalem and hauled off a bunch of them, two different times he did that. And so, we have that. And then right as that box ends is when Cyrus the King of Persia, Cyrus the Great said that they could return and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. And so, at that point, we have Ezra begins with that. And so, then we have Ezra and then we know that Esther happened in there, the moments of the Esther. We have Haggai and Zachariah, those prophets during that time. We have a short break between Ezra and Nehemiah about 14 years worth. And then Nehemiah begins. I want to remind you where we are in this timeline because we're drawing to the latter part of Nehemiah. We're almost done with this book. Remember, this is the end of the Old Testament. Nehemiah is not in the middle of the Old Testament. It is physically located. But time-wise, it is the end of the Old Testament. Notice the prophet Malachi is going to be there at the latter part of the book of Nehemiah. And that is the last writing before John the Baptist comes on the scene. 400 years were told between Malachi and when John the Baptist starts saying, "Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And we have that short time in there. If you think about it, I mean, put yourselves in those shoes. If today was John the Baptist started preaching. I mean, it was like 1600s when Nehemiah, I mean, 2024, right? If John the Baptist was preaching right now, it would have been like when Jamestown and the pilgrims come. That would have been Nehemiah. It was not that far apart. So remember, Nehemiah is the end of the Old Testament, historically speaking. And so, just a reminder of that, I wanted to put that up there for us. I'll leave that up for a little while. And you can look at that. I gave you those way long time ago, like three years ago, when we started this study, and hopefully that's been a help to you. So leading up to Nehemiah 11, we have seen a revival happening on the people. Remember, they built the wall and then we saw them dealing with some enemies and then dealing with some sin. And then they had that time where they read the law and they had revival. And then in chapter 11, they sealed that seal to say, "Hey, we're people of God and we're going to follow the law," and they put their names on that seal. And that's why we have that big record of all those names in chapter 11, or excuse me, chapter 10, rather. We get into 11 and we find out that Jerusalem doesn't have very many people living in it, and they want to change that. Notice if you would, verse 1. The Bible says, "And the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem." The rest of the people also cast lots to bring one of 10 to dwell in Jerusalem, the holy city, and nine parts to dwell in other cities. And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem. Okay? Just as a reminder, if you would, go back a few chapters, go back to chapter 7, if you would. Chapter 7, let me get the actual reference here. I wrote it down. I want to make sure I got that. Look at verse 4, if you would. Go back to chapter 7, Nehemiah 7, and verse 4. We remember from chapter 7 that what the Bible says here, it says, "Now the city was large," verse 4 of chapter 7, "Now the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded." In other words, it was just open, if you will, the inside of the city was open. There was not a lot of people in that. Okay? I mean, understandably, before the city's walls were built up, I mean, why would they need to live there? Right? But now the city walls are built. Now, this would have been common in this time, this culture, this Old Testament time, that a capital city with a lot of people would have been viewed as strength, a big booming capital city. But here, the capital city, the holy city of God has few people in it, and they want to see that changed. So they say, one tenth of all the people of all the Jews in this region is going to, we're going to cash lots, we're going to figure out who's moving into the city, right? I feel bad for them guys that, you know, had their favorite pet cow or not, they didn't get whatever they had. Anyways, they're farm folks, right, brother, shank their gardens, right? They had their gardens already planted, and it was good, and they find out they got to move into the city, all right? I feel sorry for some of them. But anyways, it would have been a blessing to be a part of Jerusalem inside the walls. It would have been protection, and it would have been a blessing there as well. So 10% of the people they're asking to move into the city, to build up the city. Now, it says here that the rulers were there, the rulers means a head person. Who would have been the rulers? Are we talking about the chief of the tribes, the top man of the tribe of Israel? Are we talking about the heads of the long family chains, the patriarchs, who are we talking about? It doesn't specify here, but leadership among them lived in Jerusalem. So maybe they took the lead to do that first, but it says here that the rest of people dwelt in the cities around. Now, what's this mean casting lots? I want to stop there for a moment, casting lots. Notice what the Bible says here again. It says, I'm going to read the whole verse. And the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem, the rest of the people also cast lots to bring one of 10 to dwell in Jerusalem, the holy city, and nine parts were to dwell in other cities, casting lots. Doesn't that sound like gambling? They were rolling the dice? What were they doing here? They were casting lots. We actually see reference to this many times in the scriptures. We do. Now, is it okay or is it not okay? When we're talking about casting lots, the reason they would do that was there was a decision that needed to be made. Do you remember when Judas, after Judas hung himself, there was 11 men left of the disciples, and they said we need to replace him, and they had two men that were set apart, right? And they had to figure out between those two men who was going to be, and they cast lots. Remember that? The Roman soldiers, not only godly men, but we're talking about here, Roman soldiers cast lots over his garment at the cross. Remember that? We see reference of this oftentimes. I believe Jonah, when he was on the boat and they were in the storm, they cast lots to figure out whose fault it was and why the storm was going on. All right? Brother Jake, your class just went through that recently. Am I saying what's truth there? Is that right? Did they cast lots? They did. Okay. All right. Good. I wasn't just making that up. Okay. So, what does that mean? They're trying to determine a direction and they're asking God to give that direction through the casting of lots. Before we get off base here, it's not that we're going playing dice and gambling and saying, Lord, let the dice be all sevens or whatever it is. I don't know. I don't know what that means. But, you know, let it be just right. So, I'm going to tie it off my winnings at the casino or whatever. Okay. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about these were the days in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit was not given openly. Everybody will follow me now. The Holy Spirit came and went as he as he pleased. He came when a man of God removed by him and penned the scriptures. David often was filled with the Holy Spirit, but he was not always filled with the Spirit. He didn't always have the Spirit because that was a different time. Jesus hadn't died on the cross and the Spirit hadn't been given like he has in our day. That's another thing we take for granted is the Spirit of God always with us. Praise the Lord. We have power to overcome the world and overcome the wicked one because greater is he that is in you, right, than he that is in the world. In the Old Testament they didn't have that. So, here they're looking for direction and they're asking God to bless these casting of laws. Now, what does that mean exactly? Let's take our Bibles, please, for a moment and go to Proverbs 16. Proverbs 16, if you would. Okay, in Proverbs we're going to find a verse here written for casting of lots. Okay, Proverbs 16 and look at the last verse of the chapter, please, 33. Proverbs 16, 33. The Bible says here, the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Now, I didn't picture it going into a lap. I didn't see that, right, rolling the dice or whatever it is. But understand this, when we're looking up these words, the word lot, L-O-T, it's similar to a stone because the meaning of it is rough. Okay, if you want to picture it like a small pebble, but it's rough-cut stone. So, they're going to cast these stones, these pebbles, and have a determination from the Lord in casting those. Everybody follow me now? Okay, however, what's the Bible say here, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. The word disposing here means a verdict, a decision. So, they were doing this and they were calling on the Lord to provide the direction through it. Now, that's not so different necessarily from what I do. I don't cast anything, but when I'm praying, I pray in faith and I say, Lord, this seems like a great direction. You've given me wisdom. My counselor's point me in this direction. Lord, I'm heading this way, but Lord, if this is not the right direction, close the door and open a new one. I'm asking direction from the Lord. They were doing the same. They just did it in a different way. Don't look at this like gambling or a hedonistic. They were asking God to bless it and show them, allow your direction to be seen through this. And I know because of our modern and our culture and the casinos and all these things that we can easily get off base there and think something wrong, negative, but I'm not going to tell you it was always right either because we see the Roman soldiers casting lots over the garments of Jesus. I don't see where God approved of that, but He did right about it. He did put it down. Now, there are two evidences in Scripture that God did approve of this. Think about all the different times we know about like cots, lots being cast, right? Cots. I don't need an app or okay. All right. Lots being cast. Think about two times when God did approve of it. Do you remember the big city in the first city they came to once they crossed the Jordan with Joshua? What was it? Jericho. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember the man's name that took something out of Jericho and God said, don't touch it? Aiken. Remember? Because it was a picture of a big city and it was worldly and there was a lot of goods there. And excuse me, the Lord said, don't take any of it. It belongs to me. It was a picture of the tithe. The first fruits they belong to me. God said, leave them be, don't take of it. And Aiken was tempted and he took some of the wealth out of that city and he went and hid it in his tent. Remember that? And because of that AI, the next town which was much smaller and little tiny in their eyes, they were defeated by AI. You remember? 36, I think it was, men died in the battle of AI because Aiken sinned. So lest you think that your sin doesn't matter to everybody else, your sin affects this church. We have evidence of that in Scripture. It affects this church. So let's be holy people. Amen. Amen. All of us. That being said, what happened? God said, told Joshua, hey, bring the people before me, before you. And they cast lots. It doesn't say the word casting lots, but it says all the tribes were brought before Joshua and the tribe of such and such was taken. Then all the families of that tribe were brought before Joshua and such and such family was taken. What were they doing? They were casting lots and asking God to show us which one of these and they were going through their divisions. And then once the family was taken, then they took the fathers within that family unit and they cast lots and Aiken was taken. That's how they figured that out. God blessed that of showing of sin through that casting of lots. What was another time? You remember when the people wanted a king? What did they do? They brought the tribes along and they did the same thing and this tribe was taken and this family was taken and this man was taken and that's how Saul was found. Okay. And so God did bless that and approve of that for certain times. And so just want to help us tonight that we don't wonder why are God's people casting lots and should we still do that and should we rattle little animal bones or something in a jar and toss it out? No. No, we don't do that. Okay. We get direction from the Holy Spirit of God. In the Old Testament days before the Spirit was given, they did this and God blessed it in certain occasions. And so that was a decision-making thing. All right. Amen? Everybody okay? I'm not an endorsing you to go rattle something and throw it and hope for the best. All right. We don't do that. Okay. All right. So in verse two, it says, "And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem." Some volunteers said, "I'll move to Jerusalem and the people openly blessed them." That word "blessed" just means they praised them. Okay? "Blessed God" or "blessed be the Lord" just means give him praise. Okay? And so they were praising these men that were moving into the town. The Lusluk of verse three, please. Now these are the chief of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem. Chief means first. These are the first ones that came in. "But in the cities of Judah dwelt everyone in his possession in their cities to wit Israel." Okay? To wit means to namely or to list. All right? So here's men that are in their possessions. They're in their inheritance of their fathers passed down all the way from the days of Joshua when they got their land. Okay? Now it says to wit Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the Nethanims, and the children of Solomon's servants. And at Jerusalem dwelt certain of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin. And then it goes on to list them. It says of the children of Judah. And it says names, Atheia, the son of Eusiah, and Pastor John are you really going to read all these, right? They're names. Here's the men that moved into the city, right? And then it goes on to list the children of Benjamin. Okay? And all of that. Now as we move down through this, it says verse 7, and these are the sons of Benjamin. So it lists all of Judah, then all of Benjamin. Notice verse 9 if you would. And Joel, the son of Zickri, was their overseer. And Judah of Senua was second over the city. That word overseer, it means super-intendent. Okay? Did you know that's one of the roles of the pastor, is to be a super-intendent of the church, to overseer of the assembly. That's one of the, when you see in the New Testament, when you see the different names that are given to a pastor, they're not supposed to be different kinds of pastors. Okay? When you see Bishop written in the scriptures, when you see Elder written in the scriptures, there's a few different one. Pastors is another name. Those are all name or titles given to the same role in the church, the same pastor, the same person. And they mean different things. Okay? So a pastor is a shepherd for the people's sake, right? But an overseer is to keep the assembly together, to oversee everybody together, and perhaps some different physical means and different things along the line as that as well. Elder is an authority, is an older male authority there. And so we see these things. Here overseer means super-intendent. So it could be military, it could be religious. So here we're seeing, here's a man who's an overseer. Was he the best one, or was he just given that role? We don't know it's not told us there, but here we have a few overseers. Want to move right along here. Look at verse 11, please, if you would. Saraiya, the son of Hilkiai, I'm going to mess these up, I'm sorry. But here's a one man. Look at Mr. S, say that first name, S. He's the son of H, the son of M, the son of Z, of the son of M, of the son of A. They're all, it's still talking about Mr. S at the beginning of the Saraiya, Saraiya, okay? But that's his whole lineage. And notice what it says in the end of verse 11, was the ruler of the house of God. What does that mean? Are we missing something here? Are we supposed to have the ruler of the Shenandoah? It means commander, but was it the high priest, or was it one that was set for a specific purpose to oversee certain things in the house of God? Let me remind you among our pastoral staff that we have different roles. I am the pastor of the church. I am the senior pastor, what people say. I am the overseer. I'm supposed to oversee all of it. Now, Mrs. Smith, I oversee MCA because I'm the pastor. I am the chancellor of MCA, but I cannot, with our church and the size of what we are, I cannot be boots on the ground dealing with the teachers on a day-to-day basis and everything that goes on. You know that very well, that's why I called you on you, all right? Pastor Don was not doing everything you did back in those days, right? Okay, so that's why we have Brother Jones. He is the principal, right? And so he's pastoral staff, but I've given him that role to oversee the school, okay? Brother Williams. Brother Williams does so much for our church that nobody knows. He does. He is an administrative pastor, okay? You know why the car show was a great success because he was behind the scenes and all those wheels were turning and he was there putting all in all those wheels. That's what he was doing. He was over here and he was calculating everybody and doing everything and all the information that was coming in and he was making sure the votes got placed right and all these things so that when I came, I'm up here just smiling and waving and making a fool of myself, right? And then we get to the time of voting and look, wouldn't you know, I got pictures on the screen and I know who won because Mr. Brother Williams made it happen. Now he had a crew that was helping him as well, but that's administrative part of pastoring, right? So here we have a ruler of the house of God. Maybe it wasn't the High Priest, maybe it was somebody that was set for some physical overseeing of the house of God. It doesn't elaborate here, but I'm giving you possibilities when we read these things and what possibly it could be because I know in Shenandoah that we need those different things. I would not function very well without my pastoral staff helping me. We meet weekly, the same day every week, we meet together and we talk about things and we go over it and we say, "Hey, how is this and what are we doing about that and what are we doing about the buses here and what are we doing about the school here and how we handling this and how is this cared for?" And we group together and I oversee it all. That means that God has given me the responsibility to make the final decision on certain things where we're trying to figure out things, but we have men that are set in place on purpose to work out these things and handle it right there where the rubber meets the road, if I can say it that way, all right? Moving right along, please. And if we keep going through these scriptures as they're explaining much, we see in verse 14, we see an overseer again. Here's some mighty men, look at verse 14 if you would, and their brethren, mighty men of valor, 128, and their overseer was Zabdiel, the son of one of the great men. How'd you like to have that title? The son of one of the great men or be his daddy. How'd you like to be his daddy, right? Here we see a valiant group of men, a bunch of soldier boys ready to take care of business here. Okay, and then we had one that was great over them, all right? So these are, again, what's the context here? We're talking about people that are moving into the city of Jerusalem. All the folks have been scattered out through among their inheritance and they're calling for 10%, one-tenth of everybody to move into the city, and these are the people that are doing that. Notice verse 16, and Shabbathiah and Jazabad of the chief of the Levites, watch this now, had the oversight of the outward business of the house of God. Outward business, what does that mean? Does Shenandoah have any outward business? Oh, you better believe it has a lot of it, right? Not every single thing that we do is spiritual, though we do spiritual things, and it's a great spiritual warfare that we're in, right? But we handle a lot of things. Did you know that somebody had to take the offering to the bank this week? Do you know that? Yeah, there's people that are assigned for that, right? There's people that do those jobs. Did you know that the light bill had to be paid? That's a big one. Amen, before you leave a room, turn the light off, because the light bill's big around here. Amen, Brother Shank? He knows it. He sees the numbers, all right? Did you know that last year that we lost power and we had some issues and we had old faulty lines, and those new poles had to go out on the gravel road here and come up the road and bring power from the road again, brand new lines, and then they went under, and it was a whole big thing, and somebody had to handle all that. That's outward business of the church, okay? So we have those things and we see that. You say, "Why do you need so many staff members?" Because it's needed, or else we wouldn't have them. Amen. All right, notice here, look at verse 17, if you would. "And Matiniah, the son of Mitzchah, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, was the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer." Wow, the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer, okay? He was the head guy here, okay? Now, this is talking about Matiniah in the beginning of verse 17, but he's the son of these other men. He lists his granddaddy, his daddy is granddaddy, and his great granddaddy. Maybe it could have skipped some generations there. Somebody help me. Who was Asaph? He's in this line. David's songwriter, okay? He was part of the Levites in the temple, and he was a musician, and he did write many of the songs, or have penned them down with the Holy Spirit, many of the Psalms here. I think 10 or 11, it might have been more than that. But in 1st Chronicles, Asaph is the chief of the Levites, I wrote this down, and leads the people in songs of thanksgiving. So here, his great grandson, or maybe as much further down the line, I'm sure, it says he's the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer. Now, I look that up, and the word thanksgiving here, it means to use the hands. So, if he comes from a line of musicians that sing songs and all that, and here's a man that's leading in a thanksgiving prayer, and he has to use his hands, what do you think he's doing? He's leading the choir or song leading, right? I know some folks along the way don't think that music's such a big deal in the church, but can I remind you that it's very biblical and it's very big deal. Music in the church stirs us, it's supposed to, not in the wrong way, in the right way, to put our mind in our heart focused in on the Lord. Amen. And here, thanksgiving in prayer is really a song service of giving praise and thanks to the Lord. Many of the songs are written in such a way of prayer, but they were music, they were songs for the Israelites. So let's just be reminded of that, and I don't know if it's right or if it's wrong, but I feel that I was led of the Spirit. There's been times when I've been in prayer meetings and the Lord just brings a song to mine and as I'm praying, I just start singing, and I'm singing the song to the Lord because why not? It's a song for him, amen? And so I see here that it kind of leans to that. Verse 18, it says, "In all the Levites in the holy city were 204 score and four, 204 score and four." How many is that? 284, right? Say, why are you pointing that out? It seems silly. They're Levites. Sounds like a very small number, 284. In fact, if you were to go back to verse 12, it gives us the number of the priests. Let's see here. It's talking about the priests in the previous verse. I'm looking for where it actually said it. I think I might have that. It says 820 and 2, okay? So here we're talking priests, 822 versus Levites, 284. Is that a big difference? Okay, so where do the priests, who comes from who? Do Levites come from priests or did priests come from Levites? Priests come from the Levites. Levite was a tribe of Israel, right? Moses and Aaron were Levites, and God took the line of Aaron out of Levite, Levi, and said he's going to be the high priest, and he's going to have a lineage, a priest. So you would think that there should be more Levites than priests, don't you think? I know this is way down the line. Okay, the deacons, deacons are godly men. They're set apart of the membership of this church, okay? But there shouldn't be more deacons in the church than there are men, because the deacons are pulled out of the men, right? And so here, once again, and we talked about this many, many months or years ago, whenever we were there in Ezra and in the beginning of Nehemiah, that when they returned to the land, there were so many more priests returning than there were Levites. This church needs godly men and not just deacons. And I know that in today's culture and environment, a lot of times it's the women that are leading the way spiritually, this church needs godly men. And in here, we see that the Levites, they're not technically in this worship of the temple, the priests had a higher standing. They did a lot of the priestly duties in the part. They acted in part of the service and all these things. The Levites were more so assisting with all of that. But it is easy, even in godly work, to get bent out of shape because so and so has a higher position than me. You ever seen that? Because I've seen it. I know folks that get bent out of shape because they can't be a deacon or because they want to have a position just to have a position. Can I remind us, folks, that positions are meant for service. In Acts, we see deacons were set aside to serve tables. That means there was needs, physical needs in the church and the deacons were to take care of those things. The pastors, just like Jesus said, the first shall be last, the last shall be first, they're supposed to be servants. Jesus was the biggest servant of them all. And so just a thought there as we're going along, there's so much more to this chapter that we need to look at. But we're running out of time here. They're moving back into Jerusalem. 10% of the people are moving back into the city and we're seeing these different groups. Let us remind, be reminded of this again. It seems like that, why are we even going through this chapter? It seems like such silly stuff that happened so many years ago because it's still Scripture and God gives a Scripture and it's profitable. And when we read these things, we can make applications through them. And it's not just historical data, though that's wonderful. It is also a Scripture that is profitable to us. Amen. Think about what the Bible says in 1 Timothy, what it's profitable about, or excuse me, it's the 2 Timothy, it's profitable for doctrine, for proof, correction, and instruction and righteousness. Even the genealogies that we're going, how do I pronounce them names? We can learn things through those things. So let's just reminder, I know that it's not the most exciting chapter in all the world, but we can still learn from it. There is more to learn in this chapter and I'll just ask the Lord if we need to finish it next time, or if we'll move on. But we're winding down and we only have a couple few chapters left here in Nehemiah and that'll be all that we get to. And I had all these great pictures to show you too. I had a map that I was going to show you. Look at this. And we were going to talk about that. And then I had the temple drawing again that we're going to talk about. We've seen all this in the past, but I wanted to show you these things, but God had a stop right there tonight and that's a-okay with me. Amen? We do well when we follow the Spirit. Church, before we pray and dismiss, can I just tell you I love you? I'm just so pleased at what God has been doing through our church and watching so many of you serving Jesus just on a regular basis, doing whatever is necessary and watching you serve. It's such a joy. Just watching it at the car show and watching it at VBS and all the things you're a part of. And I just want to-it's fun, co-laboring with you, serving Christ together. Can I say that? Is that all right? Okay. It's not-it's not me and then you're serving me. Let's not think of position. It's worth doing it together. We're co-laboring for the Lord together. That's awesome. That's wonderful. And I just-I'm thankful for that. Let's pray together. Lord, I love you and I want to thank you for your Scripture tonight. Thank you for Nehemiah. Thank you for what you've taught us. I pray that Lord, you would be glorified as we study your Scripture. You would bring out the-the passage and the-and the text to us and the meaning behind it, Lord, what you want for us, the application rather than Lord, what you want for us. And I pray that we would learn we'd be students of the Bible. Lord, I thank you for a great church and a great group of people that serve you. And I pray that you would strengthen us and help us, Lord, as we move forward. Lord, we need to be in the Word of God. We need to get our stability from this anchor, from this rock Lord that you are, that the Word is, Lord, this final authority that you've given us and that we'd be grounded. No matter what we come up against, Lord, we can stay grounded in the Word. And we thank you for it. And I pray that you just bless us as we leave tonight. And God, may you be glorified in all that is done this week. In Jesus' name, amen.