The Agreement Signers Pt 1

Raul Ries: We shouldn't do anything for works. We do it out of obedience and love for God because He loves us so much. How much more shall we give to Him freely what He's given to us? Loving Him, caring for Him, learning about Him, because we only have one life to live and it will soon be past. You're going to have to give an answer to God in your own time. We're all going to have to give an answer one day to the Lord.
Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Returning to the book of Nehemiah today, Raul will encourage us to follow the returning Israelites' example of personal commitment to God. When Nehemiah called them to sign a covenant, he set a pattern for us to follow in putting actions to our words. Let's join Raul Ries in Nehemiah chapter 10 for the lesson, The Agreement Signers.
Raul Ries: Well, here we have a story of the people of God that not only got woken up by the Word of God, and then through the study of God's Word, the conviction came through the Holy Spirit, and then they began to pray and now they're saying, "We are ready to follow the Lord." I think that it's one thing to offer the Lord a passionate prayer of confession, which we saw in chapter 9, and then quite something else to live an obedient life after we say, "Amen," in our prayer. Do we really mean what we pray? Do we really mean what we read? This is important because we're living in such a time today that there are many people that go to church, they read the Bible, they pray, but at the same time, it seems that they really don't know God or His Word. It seems to me that the reading of the Word and prayer is all in vain if you're not going to obey the voice of God and the Word of God. So, Nehemiah really is going to bring to us some of the most important things in chapters 10, 11, 12, and 13. I think this is one of the great problems within the church today. As people assemble themselves together, they're not really serious about really following the Lord. There are people, like you tonight here, following the Lord and obeying God's Word. I think in these last days, there are so many distractions and attractions in the world that a lot of times we start drifting away from the true things of the Lord and we're teaching our family that it's really not important to be in the house of the Lord to hear the Word of the Lord. It happens gradually, slowly, the process comes. It's many times when people are on a boat and you're outside in the ocean, and if you don't anchor down, you start to drift from the location you were actually stationary. It's really important that we take heed to what the Bible says here. The only way to live the Christian life is by the grace of God, not by the law. The law points to the grace of God. The law condemns us. The law makes us guilty. But the grace of God, like Paul said in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, that it's not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, and not of works, lest any man should boast." And yet, how many people are dealing in their relationship with God through works? They think, "I'll go to church tonight so I can score brownie points with God," or they'll come to church just to feel good. We shouldn't do that. We shouldn't do anything for works. We do it out of obedience and love for God because He loves us so much. How much more shall we give to Him freely what He's given to us? Loving Him, caring for Him, learning about Him, because we only have one life to live and it will soon be past. You're going to have to give an answer to God in your own time. We're all going to have to give an answer one day to the Lord. As we saw here, the nation had sinned against God, but now Israel was taking new steps of dedication and obedience to their God. They were returning back to the Lord after so long being out of fellowship and not hearing the Word of the Lord and not studying God's Word and having no conviction and not spending time in prayer publicly with the congregation of the Lord. All of a sudden, they come to that place and they say, "Yes, Lord, we want to obey Your Word and we're willing to sign a covenant that we are going to follow You. We're going to walk by Your Word." It is very important to understand your own relationship with God. We need to be obedient to the things of the Lord. In this chapter now, we see the people of God were real and they had not only prayed and studied God's Word, but they were under great conviction by the Holy Spirit. In the chapter here in Nehemiah, which last time we met, we concluded in chapter 9, verse 38, in the Hebrew Bible, chapter 9:38 is the beginning of chapter 10. If you want to make a note, chapter 9, verse 38 is actually chapter 10, verse 1 in the Hebrew Bible. He says, "And because of all this, we have made a sure covenant, and we write it. Our leaders and our Levites and our priests will seal it up." So here they're ready to make a commitment to God. "Lord, here we are. We're preparing our hearts. We're preparing our life to sign the covenant with You, O Lord." And then what he does now is he gives you, in chapter 10, verses 1 through 29, a list of names of all the people and their titles who signed that covenant with God. Interesting. Now to us as Gentiles, Christians, names really mean nothing, but God's interested in every person. That's why they're here. Otherwise, He would have never written those names here. And yet He begins to write all these names here. So in chapter 10, verse 1 now, look at what he says: "And now those who placed their seal on the document were Nehemiah, the governor, the son of Helkiah and Zedekiah." So here we see that the first one to step up to be an example to the people is the leader. I wish today many of the leaders in every church would step up to the plate to really make a commitment for God. Why do I say that? Because there has been in the past and in the present so many leaders that have fallen into sin and have destroyed their congregations because of selfish desires, because they couldn't crucify their flesh to the cross of Jesus Christ, because they actually got out of reading and praying and really spending time in the Word as they were supposed to leading the flock of God and really feeding the flock of God. They began to get their eyes somewhere else and they became empty in their own lives and they got deceived by the devil. But yet we see here that Nehemiah is a true leader of God as he steps up to the plate to make a difference and to sign the seal of the document that is before him and saying, "I, for one, stand here before God and I am signing this document that I am going to follow the Lord." The name that he uses here for Zedekiah, this was his personal secretary for Nehemiah, the governor. He's the one that took down the notes for him. And then in chapter 10, verse 2 through 8, you have 21 names here of priests, those that had the duty over the people to lead them in worship, in the worship of God, the priests. Twenty-one names. I'm not going to read them; you can read them at home. And then in verses 9 through 13, you have another 17 names now. These names are familiar because, for example, we have Sherebiah and Hashabiah, which are also in the book of Ezra. These were from the actual place of Babylon all the way to Jerusalem. You find these names in Ezra chapter 8, 18 and 19. And at least six of these men omitted in Ezra are actually the ones that are reading the law of God in chapter 8, verse 7. So they're very important names and that's why they're here. That's why God has placed them here so that we can know who they are. Then in chapter 10, verse 14 to 27, we have now all these names here of the priests and the name of the heads of the family representing them. We go all the way down to verse 27. And then in chapter 10, 28 to 29, we have now the rest of the people pronounced. He says, "And now the rest of the people, the priests and the Levites and the gatekeepers, the singers and the Nethinim, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the land to the law of God, their wives, their sons and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding." Notice how beautiful this is. Those people that came to hear the Word of God and were touched by the Word of God and attended the prayer meeting. They came to the prayer meetings. These were the people that made a difference in the land and they made a difference with their wives and their children following them in their commitment in their covenant with God. That's why it's really important, men, that you take the leadership of your home and that you are the main leader leading spiritually speaking your wife and your children. They have got to see the headship. They have got to see you as a leader, a godly one, not one that is lording over his family, ruling with a rod of iron, but ruling in love and in grace and in mercy and being able to be open to the Holy Spirit to see how God wants to rule your family and what He wants to do with your family and how He's going to use them to bring glory and honor to His name. That's what God says here to these people.
Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Don't forget, we're here to help you grow in your personal relationship with God, and we encourage you to visit somebodylovesyou.com for a wealth of resources. You can also email your prayer requests directly to Raul at [email protected]. Now back to more with Raul Ries.
Raul Ries: What's interesting here is that we see number one is that we see these people that they were loyal to God. Number one, they were loyal to God. Notice again in verse 28, "And all those who had separated themselves from the people of the land." What did they do? They separated themselves. They were loyal to God. "Be you not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. What fellowship has light with darkness?" You see? Then secondly, we see that they loved God's Word. That's why you're here tonight. You love God's Word. As you go from here to your houses, to your jobs, wherever you go, make sure that you continue to love the Word of the Lord, spending time in your devotional time in the Word of God, in prayer, waiting upon God to speak to you, to give you direction. It's really important because if you're loyal to God and you love God's Word, thirdly, they all affirmed their allegiance to the Lord. They affirmed it. Notice again, he says, "And their wives and their sons and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding," they said, "We will do." And then in verse 29, "These joined with their brethren, their nobles and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God, to observe to do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes." Notice what he's saying here. Number one, the commandments refer to God's rules that were given. And then the actual ordinances were indicating of the judicial decisions of the Lord for the judges. And then the statutes, these were the standards of conduct that the people would have to follow. You see? As God gave to us in the book of Deuteronomy. He gave to us there in the Old Testament. So these people were saying, "You know what? If we don't keep God's commandments, if we don't keep God's ordinances, if we don't keep God's statutes, then we shall be cursed. We shall be cursed." So they understood the Word of God. They understood what Deuteronomy chapters 28, 29, and 30 said concerning obedience and the blessings of God in the first 14 verses of chapter 28. But after chapter 28, verse 15, all the way through chapter 29 and chapter 30, you have nothing but cursings and not one blessing. Why? Because God knew the hearts of the people already. He knew their hearts already just like He knows our hearts. We can make all kinds of allegiance to the Lord, we can say all kinds of things, but we need to follow up. We need to follow through. Not just words, but really do what God says in His Word. And then in chapter 10, 30 through 39, now the promises of the covenant. These are the promises. Notice that: "We would not give our daughters as wives to the people of the land, nor to take their daughters for our sons." We're not going to step out of Israel's perimeter to go out so that they can marry the Moabites, Ammonites, Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites, all these people that were in the land and they all worshipped other gods. We're not going to pollute our families. Our children are going to grow up and they're going to marry in the Lord. You see? Not outside of the Lord. That's what he's talking about here. They're making a covenant. We're not going to do that. We're going to teach our children what the Bible teaches because how many people have been hurt by being unequally yoked together in the church? Many people, many testimonies. And that's why sometimes people think we're harsh because when they come to counsel with us and they'll say, "Can you marry us?" "Sure, I'll marry you." And then we begin to find out that one of them is not a believer, the other one's a believer, and we share with them the Word of God. And then we find out that the non-believer has talked to this young girl that's in the Lord and she's compromising by sleeping with this guy. So I can't marry you. I'm sorry. I can't, in my right mind, do that and go against God's Word. So what I request is that you break up for six months and maybe to see if this guy will come to know the Lord. And if he does come to know the Lord, let's wait and see your relationship as you start getting into the Word and prayer and fellowship and begin to grow in your relationship with God so that when you're really ready to get married, you'll know what you're really doing. It's not just something of emotion or something that you're lusting after. You see? Real important. So number one, no mixed marriages to the Jews in that time. Okay? He's not talking about mixed marriages today concerning a person that's Asian or black or white or Mexican. He's not talking about that, okay? He's talking about the Jews and the heathens and their God. Secondly, verse 31: "If the peoples of the land brought wares of any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath day or on the holy day. We would forego the seventh year produce and exacting there every debt." So the second thing that he does here is we're going to keep and honor the Sabbath day. Why? Because God gave us six days to work and the seventh day is the whole day to the Lord so you can rest and be with your family and enjoy family time. In the New Testament, what is the Sabbath day? It could be Sunday, it could be Monday, depending on your work schedule. But you do need one day for yourself to rest your body and your mind to be able to function throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year. Otherwise, you'll come to a nervous breakdown. Physically it will harm you. You see, God did it right when He gave us six days and on the seventh He rested. You see? So He gave us the law how to do that. And then thirdly, verse 32: "Also we have made ordinances for ourselves to exact for ourselves yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of the Lord." What are they doing now? Thirdly, they're going to make provision in relation to the worship of the temple that we're going to give, notice, willfully, willingly, one-third of a shekel to the service of the work of the Lord. You see? They made an offering to the Lord. They didn't have to, but they wanted to be obedient to the Word of God to do what? To keep the house of the Lord up, to maintain it. You see, they would have enough to do the work of the Lord. So, number one: mixed marriages. Number two: keeping the Sabbath. And number three: providing to relate to the worship of the temple. Verse 33: "For the showbread and for the regular grain offering, for the regular burnt offerings of the Sabbath, the new moons and the set feasts, for the holy things, for the sin offerings, to make atonement for Israel and all the work of the house of our God." You see, it deals all with the house of the Lord. "And we cast lots among the priests, the Levites and the people, for bringing in the wood offerings." Notice that, the first mention here in the Bible of the wood offering here in this chapter. "Into the house of our God, according to our father's houses, at the appointed time year by year to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law." To burn the offering what? So it's a sweet-smelling aroma to the Lord when we bring it to Him. Verse 35: "And we made ordinances to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all the fruit of our trees year by year to the house of the Lord." Notice that, we don't bring our cast-offs to the house of the Lord; we bring the best. Sometimes we'll get a call and say, "Hey, why don't you come down and pick up this couch for the church?" Sure, we'll go down there, and it's a holy couch. I mean, not holy, holes all over the place. It's a cast-off. I mean, if you're going to give something to the Lord, give the best to the Lord, not the cast-offs. You see? It's really important that we learn from the Old Testament even into the New Testament that when we give to God, we give everything that we have to Him, the best, not second best, not third best, no cast-offs to the Lord. And then verse 36: "To bring the firstborn..."