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Men of Compassion

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Men of Compassion

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 5

With today’s economic woes and worries, we could not have today’s study in a more appropriate setting. We have been called to be men of wisdom, commitment, sacrifice, and courage. Now God will call us to be men of compassion. Who needs your help this week?

See the need (vs. 1-6)

The problems faced by the nation to this point were external: Permission from the king to rebuild the city, and opposition from their enemies in the region. Now Nehemiah comes to the most difficult and disastrous issue of all: Internal conflict. The text begins: “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers” (v. 1).

“Outcry” translates the Hebrew word used for the cry of the Jews against their Egyptian masters during their slavery in Egypt. This is shortly before the wall was finished in August-September, near the end of the harvest. Creditors were requiring payment of capital and interest on loans. Nehemiah had asked the men to stay in Jerusalem to do the work, leaving their villages. Now an economic crisis resulted, resulting in four problems.

Food shortages: “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain” (v. 2). They had neglected their fields and crops in order to work on the walls, and now were running out of food for their families.

Debt: “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine” (v. 3). As a result, they would have no means to eat in the future. This was like eating the grain for next year’s harvest, or drinking the water needed to prime the pump.

Taxes: “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards” (v. 4). They owed Artaxerxes property taxes, perhaps as much as 40% (the rate in the Persian Empire) and had no means to pay them. So they borrowed from their fellow Jews, at exorbitant rates of interest.

Slavery: “Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others” (v. 5). This was permitted by the law, and would last six years: “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything” (Exodus 21:2). But they would have no workers for their fields or a way to be together in the meantime.

Nehemiah’s response: “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry” (v. 6). This was not the only response he could have made. He could have been frustrated with their complaint. After all, he had sacrificed everything to help them rebuild their city, and was doing what he had promised to do. While they had famine, debt, taxes, and slavery, at least they were a people again.

He could have been apathetic to their plight. None of this was his problem, or would affect him directly. His response was the opposite: “I was very angry.” The word means to feel pain and indignation in one’s very soul.

Jesus gave us the example for showing compassion with those in need. And Acts 3 is one of the greatest biblical teachings on showing compassion.

Start where the need is great; ask God to break your heart with what breaks his heart.

Get involved (vs. 7-13)

Nehemiah started with the debt problem: “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!” (v. 7c). This was forbidden by the Law: “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest” (Exodus 22:25).

Money could be loaned: “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8). But interest could not be charged. They were in direct violation of Scripture.

He then confronted the larger assembly: “So I called together a large meeting to deal with them” (v. 7d). He began with his own example: “As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles” (v. 8a). Leviticus 25 gives guidelines for purchasing those who have been sold as slaves; Nehemiah and his leadership team have been doing that for the people.

Then he confronted their actions: “Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!” (v. 8b). With this result: “They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say” (v. 8c).

Now he turned the issue to its greatest significance: the honor of their God. Verse 9: “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?” They had been delivered by the grace of God, and now were defaming his name.

They must change now: “I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them–the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil” (vs. 10-11). They had been charging one percent a month, and were to return even this amount.

With this response: “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say” (v. 12).

So Nehemiah solidified their decision: “Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “In this way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!” At this the whole assembly said, “Amen,” and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised” (vs. 12-13).

He put the officials on record (v. 12). He “shook out the folds” of his robe, a sign of rejection, and predicted that God would do the same to all who went back on their word. And the crisis was averted.

God is calling more people into public service than are answering the call.

Set the example (vs. 14-19)

Nehemiah became governor, the highest position in the land: “Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year–twelve years–neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor” (v. 14). His term lasted from 444 to 432 B.C.

This food allotment was likely used to entertain guests and foreign dignitaries, something like formal dinners in the White House today. Solomon’s daily allotment is an example: “Solomon’s daily provisions were thirty cors of fine flour and sixty cors of meal, 23 ten head of stall-fed cattle, twenty of pasture-fed cattle and a hundred sheep and goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks and choice fowl” (1 Kings 4:22-23).

However, he refused to used this position to his benefit. He did not use “the food allotted to the governor,” refusing the example of those who went before him: “But the earlier governors–those preceding me–placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that” (v. 15).

Rather, “I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land” (v. 16). Other governors loaned to the people, then took their lands when they could not repay their debts; Nehemiah refused this example.

Not only did he not take from the people; he gave to their needs personally: “Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people” (vs. 17-18).

With this prayer: “Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people” (v. 19). He prayed this seven times in the book, knowing that success is determined not by man but by God.

We cannot lead people further than we are willing to go.

Men of Courage

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Men of Courage

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 4

Every day in America: 40 Americans turn 100; 5,800 become 65; and 8,000 try to forget their 40th birthdays. The U.S. government issues 50 more pages of regulations. 20,000 write letters to the president. 13,000 get married, while 6,300 get divorced. Dogs bite 11,000 people, including 20 mail carriers. We eat 75 acres of pizza, 53 million hot dogs, 3 million gallons of ice cream, and 3,000 tons of candy. We then jog 75 million miles to burn it all off.

So it is in a “normal” day. But these days are anything but normal. Historians are already calling this financial crisis “the Great Recession.” Pre-owned home sales in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area fell 28% from a year ago; Southwest Airlines’ revenues declined in February and are doing the same in March; late mortgage payments are rising in Texas.

Things aren’t much better for pastors: Monday’s Dallas Morning News reported that “authorities charged a South Carolina pastor accused of setting fire to his own church with second-degree arson. Anderson County Fire Chief Billy Gibson said Christopher Daniels, 40, reported a fire at Blue Ridge Baptist Church in Belton when he opened the church for services Sunday morning.” Now it seems that he set the fire himself. Anything to get something moving in the church, I guess.

What makes it hard for you to follow and serve Jesus today? Is it temptation from the enemy? Hardships and fears with regard to the economy and your job? Struggles within your family?

Jesus warned us that in this world we would suffer tribulation (John 16:33). Paul said that we must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). Following Jesus is always a matter of courage; taking up our cross, getting out of the boat; standing up to the authorities. If you don’t need courage to serve Jesus today, you’re not serving Jesus fully. Here’s what to do when you need such courage this week.

Expect to be ridiculed (vs. 1-6)

The text begins: “When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble–burned as they are?” (vs. 1-2).

“Sanballat the Horonite” was probably from Beth-Horon, a town 15 miles northeast of Jerusalem. A papyri written in 407 B.C., 37 years after the event, tells us that he was the “governor of Samaria,” the region just to the north. He wanted to consolidate his power, and rightly saw the reestablishment of Jerusalem as a significant threat to his agenda.

He ridiculed the Jews in the most public manner, before his ruling cabinet. He spoke before “the army of Samaria,” marshalling them in military maneuvers as a threat to Jerusalem. He called them “feeble,” a word which means to be “withered” or “miserable.”

He claimed that they would not be able to restore their wall or offer sacrifices. They think they can “finish in a day,” before their enemies attack them. Their stones are “burned” by the Babylonians, thus missing the iron which held them together and significantly weakened in their composition.

In short, their project was doomed before it began.

He was joined by “Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side,” meaning that they were partners in leadership. Tobiah added, “What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!” (v. 3). A fox (more likely a “jackal”) weighs only a few pounds; one was likely to climb up and over any wall built in that part of the world. If even a fox could destroy their protective walls, what might an invading army do?

Nehemiah’s response was exactly the right thing to do: “Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders” (v. 4-5).

Go to God, first. Do not try to solve your problem yourself, call on your advisors, or negotiate with your enemy. If he had attacked the Samaritan governor, he would have been in violation of the law and would have brought Persian reprisal.

Tell him your specific problem. Ask him for his specific answers, protection, and help.

With this result: “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart” (v. 6).

Nehemiah later wrote that the entire project was completed in 52 days (eight weeks of six days each); this part probably took four weeks to finish. The people knew that God would be their protector and provider. But only because Nehemiah went to God first.

Ridicule is one of the enemy’s tactics against the people of God. What did Goliath do when David came to fight him? “He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!'” (1 Samuel 17:42-44).

Jesus fared no better on the cross: “The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, ‘Prophesy! Who hit you?’ And they said many other insulting things to him” (Luke 22:63-65).

So it has been for all the heroes of the faith: “Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison” (Hebrews 11:36). When we face challenges, it is human nature to wonder if the fault is ours, if we are to blame. “I am not who I think I am, or who you think I am—I am who I think that you think I am.”

Fight for the Kingdom (vs. 7-15)

Such rapid response made Jerusalem even more of a threat to their enemies, with this response: “But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it” (vs. 7-8).

Sanballat was from the north in Samaria. Tobiah was from Ammon, to the east. “The Arabs” were from the south. “The men of Ashdod” were Philistines living west of Jerusalem. They were a warlike people, well prepared for such a battle.

And so, the enemies of Jerusalem would have attacked from all sides, leaving the people nowhere to turn or run. This was the gravest threat they had faced since returning to the city 70 years earlier.

What did Nehemiah do? “But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat” (v. 9). Pray to God—first. Post a guard—day and night. Sometimes God tells us to get out of the boat, but usually presumption is a sin, like jumping from the Temple heights.

Some threats come from without, others from within: “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall'” (v. 10). The workers were growing too tired to continue the work. Their circumstances were intolerable as well; “rubbish” translates the Hebrew word for “dust,” the rubble left from the Babylonian destruction in 586 B.C.

Still others are anonymous rather than public: “Also our enemies said, ‘Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.’ Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, ‘Wherever you turn, they will attack us'” (vs. 11-12).

“Enemies” translates the Hebrew word sar, meaning those who cause harm. The enemies of the people not only threatened Nehemiah publicly, they also spread rumors and fear among the people as well. The second strategy would be even more effective than the first.

Nehemiah’s response: “Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes'” (vs. 13-14).

It must have been hard for Nehemiah to put entire families together and at risk. But he knew that the men would not abandon their families to rebuild the walls, so he did whatever was necessary.

All the while, he encouraged them to trust in God and fight for each other. With this result: “When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work” (vs. 15).

Expect to be threatened if you will follow Jesus fully. But know that you fight for all of God’s people, not just yourself. Your witness and service affect the entire Kingdom. You cannot measure the future significance of present obedience.

Prepare for battle daily (vs. 16-23)

Divide the labor and protection: “From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me” (vs. 16-18).

Half protected the other half at any one time. The officers posted themselves as protection, encouraging the workers (as they would be the first to fall in battle). Those bringing bricks and mortar from the stockpiles and quarries brought their sword with them, as they were exposed to danger. The builders worked with two hands, with sword at the side.

Trumpeters stayed with Nehemiah to sound the alarm whenever necessary. Thus each did their part of the work. So it is with the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12, 14; the vine and branches, John 15).

Stay in communication with each other: “Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!'” (vs. 19-20).

We hang together or we all hang separately. Expect division within the family of God.

Be ready and diligent: “So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. At that time I also said to the people, “Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day.” Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water” (vs. 21-23).

Those living outside the city, where they would be away from the first attack, moved into Jerusalem. None ever took off their clothes, so they would be ready for battle whenever it came.

Be ready every day for spiritual warfare. God’s word tells us how in Ephesians 6. The full armor of God protests the front, not the back, since we are not to retreat from the enemy.

Thomas Merton: “I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Men of Sacrifice

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Men of Sacrifice

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 3

Did you know that deer have no gall bladders? Crocodiles can run rapidly over land but cannot change directly quickly, so if you’re chased by one it is best to run in a zig-zag pattern. Every hour, 12,500 puppies are born in the United States. The Washington Monument sinks six inches every year. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. A sneeze can travel as fast as 100 miles an hour.

Sometimes sections of the Bible look at first glance like that—facts with no apparent relevance. Genealogies, long lists of dietary laws. In this lesson we will study the list of the people who helped rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. By my count, 46 different people or groups. Eliashib rebuilt the Sheep Gate; the Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah; the west gate was rebuilt by Ralph; and so on. Useless facts? Only until we study them.

We are going to learn about men of sacrifice, men whose commitment to God was so significant that they played a part in one of the most crucial activities in all of biblical history. Without their sacrifice, the story stops here. The nation dies here. God’s redemptive plan ends here. What they did for the Kingdom, we can do for the Kingdom. Your work, your life, your place, your influence plays a role in human history. Do what God calls you to do, and your life will matter for eternity. Where on the wall has God placed you?

Work for God (v. 1)

You know the setting of Nehemiah—the nation was destroyed by Babylon (modern-day Iraq) in 586 B.C. The Persians (modern-day Iran) have overthrown the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return and rebuild their city. Nehemiah, the king’s chief counselor and most important advisor, has been called by God and permitted by the king to lead the rebuilding effort. He has surveyed the damage and assessed the issues. He has called and motivated the people to join him in this work. Without their walls, they cannot have a city or nation. With their walls, their future is secure. Now the work begins.

The first in the story: “Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the Sheep Gate. They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel” (Nehemiah 3:1).

The “Sheep Gate” was located at the northeast corner of the city. The repairs began here, and proceeded counterclockwise. We know that the Sheep Gate was located here, because it was near the Pool of Bethesda: “Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesdaa and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades” (John 5:2). Archaeologists have located this pool in the northeastern quadrant of the Old City.

The Sheep Gate was the place where the sheep entered the city to go to market. The principal function of sheep in ancient Israel was for sacrifice. These were the animals whose deaths would atone for the sins of the people and enable them to worship and serve their God. Without a gate for the sheep to come into the city, the sacrificial system could not be restored and the people could not be right with God.

“Eliashib” was the grandson of the high priest when Zerubbabel began rebuilding the city 60 years earlier. As High Priest, he was the spiritual leader of the nation. He was the only man permitted into the Holy of Holies, and that only on the Day of Atonement. If he were Catholic, he would be Pope; if he were Baptist, he would be pastor of our largest church. Yet we find him working at the wall, rebuilding the gate which would be critical to his work. Sawing lumber, driving nails, working alongside the rest of the men of the nation.

With him were “his fellow priests,” the “clergy” of the day. Their typical work was presiding over worship services, making sacrifices, leading the people spiritually. They were the staff of the church, showing up to help pave the parking lot or clean the carpets.

We might understand their interest in rebuilding the Sheep Gate, as it was vital to their work. But these men also worked to rebuild the walls “as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel.”

“The Tower of the Hundred” was named either for its height, the steps which were necessary to climb it, or a military unit stationed in the area. The “Tower of Hananel” was an adjacent military structure.

The northern side of Jerusalem was the only part of the city not naturally protected by a steep hill. These towers were vital to protecting the city from northern invaders.

This is the only part of the work specifically “dedicated” by the priests to God, both the Sheep Gate and the walls surrounding it. And so we find the priests engaged in “spiritual” work, but also in the “secular” defense of the city as well.

As you know, there is no clergy/laity distinction in the Bible. The “spiritual/secular” division so popular today comes from Greek philosophy, not biblical teaching. See all your work as “spiritual,” as vital to the Kingdom of God. You will speak to people today who will not listen to me. You will impact lives I can never touch.

You are God’s ministers, his priests, sent to rebuild your part of the wall of his Kingdom. Dedicate your life and your work to the God of the universe, for it is his.

Do what it takes

The story continues: “The men of Jericho built the adjoining section, and Zaccur son of Imri built next to them” (v. 2).

“The men of Jericho” came from the oldest city in the world. Jericho was located 15 miles to the southeast of Jerusalem. The climb takes 10 hours or more on foot, ascending 3,000 feet through some of the most difficult and dangerous terrain anywhere in the world. It is no coincidence that the man who was robbed and beaten in the Parable of the Good Samaritan was traveling this road. But these men took the risk and paid the price to do their part.

Note that they lived too far from Jerusalem to make the city an immediate refuge under threat. They did this work for the sake of the nation more than their personal safety.

Next, “the Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place” (v. 3). The “Fish Gate” was the gate through which people brought fish from Tyre and the Mediterranean coast, as well as from the Sea of Galilee. It was the chief commercial and economic entrance to the city, the Wall Street or Main Street of the day. The economic future and vitality of the city depended on the work done by these “sons of Hassenaah,” men who are otherwise unnamed and unknown to history.

“Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired the next section. Next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs, and next to him Zadok son of Baana also made repairs” (v. 4). Meremoth, the son of a priest, also worked on a second section of the wall (v. 21). Here we find another example of clergy/laity synergy.

Now the work crew becomes even more disparate, as they turned to rebuilding the western wall.

“The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors” (v. 5). Tekoa was the hometown of the prophet Amos (Amos 1:1), 12 miles south of Jerusalem. Like the builders from Jericho, these people lived too far away to use Jerusalem as an immediate refuge. They did the work out of love for their country, not personal gain. And they did so with no engagement or support from their leaders. Others from Tekoa worked on yet another section of the wall as well (v. 27).

“The Jeshanah Gate was repaired by Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place. Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah–Melatiah of Gibeon and Jadon of Meronoth–places under the authority of the governor of Trans-Euphrates” (vs. 6-7).

“Uzziel son of Harhaiah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the next section; and Hananiah, one of the perfume-makers, made repairs next to that. They restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall” (v. 8). Goldsmiths and perfume-makers were not typically given to heavy labor and construction work. But they did whatever it took.

“Rephaiah son of Hur, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section” (v. 9). Here we find a “ruler” working alongside those he ruled. And note that “Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters” (v. 12). Here we find another ruler at work with his daughters at his side. They were exposed to severe and significant danger, but served the nation they loved.

On the story goes, as builders put their shoulders to the task of rebuilding the walls of their sacred city. One group repaired not only the Valley Gate but also 500 yards of wall (v. 13). A ruler rebuilt the Dung Gate, the gate leading to the Hinnom Valley where refuse was dumped. An enemy would have been only too happy to attack the city through that valley and gate if he had not done his work well.

In verse 17 we find Levites at work, not on the Temple but on the walls of the city which would surround it. Each person did whatever it took, and the city was rebuilt, the nation saved.

I am a believer because a mechanic bought a bus with his own money and repaired it on his own time. An insurance executive gave up his Saturday mornings to knock on doors, looking for young people to ride that bus to church.

A family living down the street from that church gave up their home each Sunday morning for the youth group to use for Sunday school. A busy pastor’s wife played the organ for the church but also chose to teach 10th grade Sunday school. A busy pastor came to my home to visit my brother and me on a Tuesday evening after we began attending his church. They did whatever it takes to serve Jesus.

Conclusion

Is there anywhere God cannot send you, anyone he cannot ask you to love and serve and help, anything he cannot ask you to give or do? Find your calling, your passion, and use it to serve God, paying any price to fulfill his purpose for your life.

I recently met Terry Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. At the age of seven, he came to believe that God was calling him to play quarterback in the National Football League. He dedicated his life to that calling, giving it whatever it took.

He was allowed to play linebacker in Pop Warner football. Then in the seventh grade, he was not chosen for the school team. In eighth grade, he was not chosen for the team. Because he had a strong arm in PE, he was allowed to play linebacker on the 9th grade team. He became the B team quarterback in 10th grade, and in 11th grade, never being permitted to throw a pass. As a senior he was allowed to throw only 73 passes.

He was pressured by friends and family to go to LSU but didn’t want to go, so he purposefully flunked the ACT. And so he enrolled at Louisiana Tech, where he became the MVP of the Senior Bowl and was selected as the first choice in the draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Before he was finished, he had won four Super Bowls and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. All because he was persistent.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Terry suffers from clinical depression and ADD, and has all of his youth and adult life. He cannot treat both, so he treats the ADD and suffers from the depression. Ten years ago, after his wife left him and took their daughters, he hit rock bottom. In talking with a Christian counselor, he came to understand the gospel. On his knees in a barn, his life in turmoil and despair, he gave himself to Jesus.

Now he travels the world, making $50,000 a speech to tell his story. When they tell him that he cannot discuss his religion, he does it anyway. His message to the men on Monday was simple: You need Jesus. You need to be saved. Then you need to find your calling, your purpose in life for God, and give it everything you have.

Nehemiah would agree. Do you?

Men of the Spirit

Written by

Men of the Spirit

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 9

Nehemiah gives us an example of a national spiritual movement, one which saved a nation on the brink of collapse. What they did, God is calling us to do.

The most important lesson I have learned in 36 years of Christian faith is that God wants an intimate relationship with me before he wants anything else from me. My first priority is to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Before he wants me to write, or teach, or preach, or do anything else, he wants me to love him. He wants me to seek him passionately and personally.

He wants the same from you. He has led me to tell two stories—our text, alongside my personal spiritual revival. Then we will see if these stories relate to your story today.

Choose to seek God

The story begins with the decision to seek God. “On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads” (v. 1).

The people have completed the Feast of Tabernacles (15th to 22nd day) and the national assembly which followed (23rd day). Now they “gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads.” Fasting was required only on the Day of Atonement, but here they entered into a fast in their desire to know God more intimately. They were “wearing sackcloth,” a dark coarse cloth made from goats’ hair, used for mourning. They had “dust on their heads,” another sign of mourning and grief.

“Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners” (v. 2a). They had intermarried with the people they found in the land, but now they returned to the purity God intended for them. “They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers” (v. 2b). This was public repentance for the national spiritual crisis before them.

“They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God” (v. 3). They stood for three hours, listening to the word of God; then they spent another three hours in confession and worship.

Here’s my story: The Ignatius House is a Jesuit Catholic retreat center on the Chattahoochee River, north of Atlanta. When I was pastor at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, our ministry staff spent two days there in a “silent retreat.”

We’d taken planning retreats before, but this was our first spiritual trip together, a program for nothing but solitude with God. From Monday noon to Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. we weren’t allowed to speak. I went to see if such a miracle could actually occur, not the least in my own life.

Our retreat director gave us a series of essays to read at various times. I’d like to read to you from the essay which he gave us at the very beginning of the retreat. It’s by Mike Yaconelli, a well-known writer and one of my favorite Christian columnists.

I lost my soul.

I mean, I didn’t know I had one.

What I really mean is, I knew I had one, but I had never come in contact with it.

I came from a tradition where souls were a theological reality, not a faith reality. Souls were for saving, not for communing. Souls were for converting and, once they were converted, they were to be left alone. Souls were too mystical, too subjective, too ambiguous, too risky, too . . . well, you know–New Age-ish.

I came from a wonderful evangelical tradition that has always lifted up the integrity of the Word of God, the significance of the Church, the centrality of salvation. But that same tradition, in the past few years, has seen an epidemic of moral failure. In a tradition that has always placed a high value on morality, moral failure has become a common occurrence. There seems to be an ever-increasing amount of defections from the faith. More and more of my friends are dropping out, giving up, or just placing their faith on the shelf for awhile.

Why?

We have lost touch with our souls. We have been nourishing our minds, our relational skills, our theological knowledge, our psychological well-being, our physiological health . . . but we have abandoned our souls.

Our souls have been lost.

Up until a few months ago, I had no idea I had lost my soul somewhere. In the busyness and clutter of my life, as I traveled all over the world serving God, I thought my soul was just fine, thank you. But my soul wasn’t fine. I spent hours every day doing God’s work, but not one second doing soul work. I was consumed by the external and oblivious to the internal. In the darkness of my soul, I was stumbling around and bumping into the symptoms of my soullessness–I was busy, superficial, friendless, afraid, and cynical—but I didn’t know where all these negative parts of my life were coming from.

What happened to him, happened to me. Has it happened to you?

Enter his presence with praise and thanksgiving

The Bible says that we “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4). How do we step into further intimacy with God? We find help in Nehemiah:

Choose to praise God (vs. 4-5).

Exalt him for who he is (v. 6) (note that God is the subject of every sentence from verse 6 to 150.

Honor him for all he has done for you (vs. 7-15)

At the retreat in Atlanta, I realized that I had lost touch with my soul, like Yaconelli. Let’s look at Nehemiah, then I’d like to tell you how the risen Christ helped me find my soul again. It’s just possible that some of you need to find yours again, too.

Confess your sins with humble honesty

From Nehemiah, we are admonished:

Admit your sins against God’s grace (vs. 16-25)

Admit your sins against God’s people (vs. 26-28)

Admit your sins against God’s word (vs. 29-31)

Yaconelli continues:

For months I’d known something was wrong with me. I was filled with longings I could not identify, yearnings I could not express, and an emptiness that seemed to be expanding. I was desperate even though I could not articulate my desperation.

I decided to spend a week at L’Arche, a community for the mentally and physically challenged in Toronto. I don’t know why, really, I just knew I needed to do something. To be honest, I expected to be inspired by Henri Nouwen and touched by the mentally and physically disabled people who lived there. . . .

Within a few days, I became aware that my whole life was consumed with doing rather than being. I knew what it meant to believe in Jesus, I did not know what it meant to be with Jesus. I knew how to talk about Jesus, I did not know how to sit still long enough to let Jesus talk to me. I found it easy to do the work of God, but I had no idea how to let God work in me. I understood soul-saving, but I was clueless about soul-making. I knew how to be busy, but I did not know how to be still. I could talk about God, I just couldn’t listen to God. I felt comfortable with God’s people, but I was uncomfortable alone with God. I was acquainted with the God “out-there,” but I was a complete stranger to the God “in-here.” I could meet God anywhere . . . except in my heart, in my soul, in my being.

I went on our retreat that week despite myself. If there was any way not to go, I would have taken it. An Easter sermon to write, Holy Week to prepare, a book due at the publishers, and I was just gone recently.

So, I brought my laptop and books, and set up shop in my room. I read Mike’s article, then put it aside and spent three hours on the Easter sermon. From the magazine cover, “Does Heaven Exist?” I was going to use the fact of Easter to prove that it does, and that it’s important. I got the first draft done Monday afternoon.

Then I decided to take a break. I walked from the lodge down to the Chattahoochee River, along the nature trail, finally arriving at the waterfall. I sat down on a deck overlooking the waterfall and stream. And in that place of quiet and rest, God spoke to me. God spoke to my soul.

He reminded me of Mike’s story, and showed me that it is mine. He reminded me that my soul is real. As real as these trees, this clear blue sky. I thought about the radio and television waves filling the air, airplanes and satellites high above, and the stars, the moon, even the Hale-Bopp comet, beyond them. Just because I happen not to see them doesn’t make them any less real.

So it is with my soul. It is real, and malnourished. I realized. In all my hustle and hurry for God, I spent far too little time with God. I know him, but I seldom feel him. I talk to him, but I seldom listen to him. I know about him, and somehow I believe that’s enough. But it’s not.

Seek his forgiving grace

More help from Nehemiah:

Admit your need of his grace (vs. 32-35).

Admit your need of his mercy (vs. 36-37).

Yaconelli continues:

It only took a few hours of silence before I began to hear my soul speaking. It only took being alone for a short period of time for me to discover that I wasn’t alone. God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear Him. But in the stillness and solitude, His whispers shouted from my soul, “Michael, I am here. I have been calling you. I have been loving you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear Me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard Me.” I heard Him, and my slumbering soul was filled with the joy of the prodigal son. My soul was awakened by a loving Father who had been looking and waiting for me.

Here’s how it happened for me. Sitting by the waterfall, I read Psalm 139:17 in a translation I had never thought about before: “How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.” To think that God’s thoughts about me are more numerous than the grains of sand, and precious. That he loves me that much.

Later, sitting on a deck overlooking the Chattahoochee, I began reading one of Henri Nouwen’s books. I was directed to Mark 1: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.” The result: “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (vs. 35, 38). Jesus found God’s word and will from time alone with him.

And to John 5: “Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does…By myself I can do nothing…for I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me” (vs. 19-20, 30).

I realized that if Jesus can do nothing without his Father, I can do even less. If Jesus needed time alone for his soul, solitude to hear God and follow God, I do even more. It dawned on me as I was sitting on that deck that spirituality is not part of my work, it is my work. Time with God is not a resource for my life, but is my life itself.

Our lives have the same purpose as Jesus’: to know the Father. To be with him. To walk with him. To learn what he is doing, and join him. To find his word and work and will together.

And then everything we do is the expression of our life with God. We still work hard; we’re still busy. The question is not “what” we do, but “why” we do it. I am to do my work with God, not for him. Out of my love for him, and his overwhelming love for me. Together.

I discovered not only that I have a soul—I am a soul.

Conclusion

“In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it” (v. 38).

May I ask you this question: Have you misplaced your soul? Is Jesus just a fact of history for you, or a real living person in your life? How long has it been since he spoke to you in his word, his creation, his church, your heart? Do you have the symptoms of soullessness? Is your life always hurried? Noisy? Frustrated by a lack of purpose? Do you have “calendar fatigue”—whenever you’re in one place, you should be in two others?

How long has it been since you made real time for Jesus in your life? When’s the last time you “got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place” where you prayed? How long since you listened to God? How long since you fed your soul? How long since you realized that you are a soul?

Mike Yaconelli’s article started all this for me. Here’s how it closes:

What does all this mean?

I don’t know . . . and to be quite blunt, that is the wrong question. I only know that at certain times in all our lives, we make an adjustment in the course of our lives. This was one of those times for me. If you were to look at a map of my life, you would not be aware of any noticeable difference other than a very slight change in direction. I can only tell you that it feels very different now. There is an anticipation, an electricity about God’s presence in my life that I have never experienced before. I can only tell you that for the first time in my life I can hear Jesus whisper to me every day, “Michael, I love you. You are beloved.” And for some strange reason, that seems to be enough.

Amen.

Men of the Word

Written by

Men of the Word

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 8

Our subject during this study has been “A Culture in Crisis.” The crisis continues, as you know. GM is actively considering bankruptcy; global climate change is accelerating; the Muslim advance in Western Europe continues; the war with Radical Islam is going better in Iraq but worse in Afghanistan; political changes in Israel and Palestine have escalated tensions in the Holy Land.

What in the world is going on? What does God want us to do? I am convinced that the only answer is Awakening, and that God is marching in just this way in these very days. What does he ask of us?

Nehemiah came to the leadership of his nation in a time of similar crisis. Their capital city was in ruins, their people defenseless against their enemies. The king had refused to allow the city to be rebuilt, and Nehemiah was the only man who could change his mind and lead the effort. His wisdom, courage, and compassion led the Jewish people to reconstruct their city and resurrect their nation.

Now they have a physical nation again, but not a spiritual one. In this session we will learn the secret of renewal, spiritual movement, Awakening in our time. It starts with you, and the book you brought to Bible study today.

Value the word (Neh. 7:53-8:2)

Our text begins: “When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns (Nehemiah 7:53). “The seventh month” was our September-October. It was the New Year’s Day on the Jewish civil calendar, and the first month of the seventh year of the religious clendar.

This was the most sacred month of the Jewish year. The Feast of Trumpets was celebrated on the first day, the Day of Atonement on the tenth day, and the Feast of Tabernacles from the 15th to the 21st days, followed by a national assembly on the 22nd day.

Now, “all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel” (v. 1). “All the people assembled as one man,” as it was the seventh month. From Neh. 7 we know that this crowd numbered as many as 50,000 people. “People” occurs 13 times in this chapter, showing the collective experience and transformation of the nation upon hearing and understanding the word of God.

They gathered “in the square before the Water Gate.” This was on the east wall of the city. “Square” translates rehob, “court.” It was a large area situated between the eastern gate of the temple and the city wall, where the Water Gate had been constructed.

Through this gate, water was brought into the city; there was a large area in front of it.

“They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.” Ezra was a scribe and a priest, descended from Eleazar, Aaron’s third son. He had returned to Jerusalem from Persia in 458 B.C., 14 years before Nehemiah, also with the blessing of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7). His primary purpose was to rebuild the nation spiritually, as Nehemiah would rebuild it physically. He did this by teaching the law of God to the people of God.

Ezra 7:10 gives us the passion of his life: “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.”

Now the people told him “to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.” He had been teaching them God’s word for 14 years; during the two-month interlude while the walls were rebuilt, this ministry apparently was stopped. Now the people asked that Ezra begin teaching them again.

This reading of the complete Law every seven years was prescribed by Moses: “Moses commanded them: At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess'” (Deuteronomy 31:10-13).

This was the Pentateuch, or the Torah. At this time the Law was a massive scroll, stored by the priests for safety and brought out only for public reading. Such reading was the ministry of the priest: “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 2:7). Would that it were so today.

With this result: “So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand” (v. 2). “Men and women and all who were able to understand” includes children and youth as well.

This is an event similar to the Jewish synagogue service: the people assembled; the Torah was requested and opened; the people stood; praise was given to God; the people responded; the sermon instructed them; the Law was read and applied; and the people departed.

This movement would lead to the greatest awakening the Jewish people had experienced in generations. And it all started when they valued the word of God.

Many years ago, a shipwreck off the Japanese islands resulted in a small New Testament being washed ashore. A man walking on the beach found the tiny volume, and judged its paper just the right dimensions and weight for cigarettes. As he tore a page from the book to roll a cigarette, he would read what was printed on it. And so he came to trust in Christ, and to start a church in his village. Years later, when missionaries first visited his island, they found a thriving community of faith awaiting their arrival.

God’s word changes human hearts.

My good friend and fellow partner in the ministry, Abraham Sarker, came to the United States as a Muslim, seeking to convert college students to Islam. Before leaving for the States, he had a vision of himself in hell and then heard the words, “Read the Bible.”

He came to his assigned college campus and asked the librarian for a Bible. She didn’t know where one was, but sent him to the Baptist Student Ministries building down the street. There he was handed a copy of the New Testament translated into his native Bengali language by William Carey. Reading the Scriptures and talking with Christians on that campus, he came to faith in Christ. He eventually came to Dallas Baptist University, where he received two degrees and now serves on the board of trustees.

His father disowned him back home in Bangladesh, and put out a warrant for his arrest should he ever return. Several years ago, Abraham and his wife Aimee went back anyway, and Abraham led his father to Christ. Now his entire family has come to saving faith. I have been to Bangladesh with Abraham and have witnessed the more than 200 Muslims who have come to Christ through his ministry there. His organization, Gospel For Muslims, is one of the most effective in the world.

God’s word changes human hearts. Do you value the word of God?

Read the word

The text continues: “He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law” (v. 3). “He read it” is literally, “He read in it,” suggesting that he picked sections to read.

Ezra did this “from daybreak till noon,” from 6 a.m. to noon, six hours of continuous reading. This was not enough time for the entire Torah to be read; most likely, Ezra read from the Book of Deuteronomy, as it summarizes the law and history of the Jewish nation, and selected other sections as they supplemented it.

Two weeks later, as the people gathered to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, Ezra read the Law to them for an entire week: “Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly” (v. 18). Here he likely read the rest of the Torah to the nation.

Now “all the people listened attentively.” There is no Hebrew word for “attentive”—the text literally says, “the ears of all the people were to the book.”

How did he do this? Verse 4: “Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.”

He “stood on a high wooden platform.” Jewish rabbis typically sat to teach, while the people stood to listen. Thus Jesus “went up on a mountainside and sat down” to preach the Sermon on the Mount. But here, so many had gathered that Ezra’s voice could not reach them all if he sat while they stood. So a special platform was built for this one occasion. It was able to hold 14 people, as verses 4 and 7 indicate.

This may be the origin of the “pulpit” (as the KJV translates the word “platform”). However, it says that he “stood upon a pulpit of wood”—most preachers would be reluctant to follow this example.

Now “Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up” (v. 5). It was customary for them to stand to hear the rabbi’s teaching. Here they stood in the mere presence and reading of God’s word, as though they were standing in the very presence of God himself.

Such should always be our attitude: “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Here may have originated the liturgical practice of standing whenever the Bible is read. We have done this is some of the churches I pastured as well.

He began: “Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’ Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground” (v. 6). “Amen! Amen!” means “It is true” or “let it be.” Repetition was the Jewish way of emphasizing a statement (cf. Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8).

Then they “bowed down” in Oriental submission, “with their faces to the ground.” Muslims do this today.

When do you read the word of God? John Stott, the great British pastor and expositor, once remarked that he needs an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year in shabbath with the Father. What do you need? What’s your strategy for this week? This year?

Interpret the word

It is not enough to value and read the word—we must interpret its meaning for our lives. Verse 7: “The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there.” After Ezra read from the Law, they applied it to the lives of the people, either taking turns before the multitude or teaching in smaller groups within the large crowd.

How? “They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read” (v. 8). “Making it clear” translates pares, “to break up.” They translated and interpreted the word of God for the people of God.

This is still vital today. How do we interpret God’s word for ourselves?

Ask introductory questions: who, what, when, where, why?

Discover the meaning of the words: grammar, syntax

Learn the historical context of the text: geography, culture, economics, events

Discern the intended theological truths of the text

Apply this intended meaning to your life today.

Use good resources. Keep a journal and make an appointment to meet God in his word every day.

Apply the word

We can value, read, and interpret the Bible, but if we do not apply it to our lives, it has not completed its intended work. Here’s how the Bible was applied at this time in Israel’s history:

The people were convicted of their sins (v. 9-12). Dwight L. Moody: “Either this book will separate you from your sins, or your sins will separate you from this book.”

They gathered to learn more from God’s word (v. 13). These were the heads of the clans and tribes of Israel; they were responsible for the spiritual instruction of their families. Here Ezra taught the word to the leaders and influencers as well as to the crowds.

They applied God’s word to their time and situation (vs. 14-18) “The Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month” refers to the Feast of Tabernacles prescribed in Leviticus 23:37-43. During these seven days, the people lived in booths made of branches, usually built on the flat roofs of their houses.

They remembered their 40 years of wilderness wanderings, remembered the harvest blessings of God, and thanked him for his provision for their families and nation. So they went out to gather branches for this very purpose (vs. 15-16), and held the most joyous celebration of the feast since the time of Joshua.

All during this time, “Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly” (v. 18).

Now Ezra finished reading the Torah, as the people celebrated. They did even more than the Scriptures required.

Does this model speak to your life? Your family? Make an appointment with God, starting today. And the Awakening will come to your spirit and life.

Men Seeking God

Written by

Men Seeking God

A Study of Nehemiah

Dr. Jim Denison

Nehemiah 1:10-11

The Book of Nehemiah opens and closes with prayer. This is the first of 12 instances of prayer recorded in the Book of Nehemiah, and the most crucial. If God does not answer this prayer, the story of the Hebrew nation ends.

So far we have learned to recognize God’s holiness (v. 5), to pray with humility (v. 6a), and to confess our sin with honesty (vs. 6b-7). Nehemiah has shown us to admit our need of God’s grace (v. 8) and then claim that grace for ourselves and our nation (v. 9). Now, how does Nehemiah approach God with his need? How do we?

Remember all God has done (v. 10)

Verse 10: “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.” “Your servants and your people” echoes a common theme in the Hebrew Bible by which God claims the Jewish nation as his own.

How are they his? He “redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.” “Redeem” in the Hebrew involves the payment of a price to reclaim a slave. God did this in Egypt, and across Jewish history, including at the flooded Jordan River, at Jericho, and in delivering them from Babylon.

How has God redeemed you? Where have you seen his hand in your life? It has been well said, “All that God has done teaches us to trust him for all he will do.”

Pray for all God will do (v. 11)

First, seek his glory. Nehemiah’s request continues: “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name.”

Jesus taught us to begin our prayers, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” God acts for his glory, or he commits idolatry. Pray always that he be glorified in answering your request.

Second, pray specifically. Now Nehemiah comes to his specific request: “Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

Artaxerxes was the one man who had stopped the rebuilding project (Ezra 4:21). He alone could reverse his order—there was no higher court. If the Supreme Court were to make a ruling, only the Supreme Court could reverse it. But Nehemiah knew that the king was only a man, “this man,” and that God is the sovereign of the universe.

So Nehemiah prayed for “favor” with the king, literally “compassion” with him. He asked God to do what no human can do—change a human heart. He prayed that God would make the king favorably disposed to him. Asking God to give you favor with a person is always a good way to pray.

Third, follow unconditionally. Having asking God’s favor, Nehemiah finally states his unconditional commitment to follow wherever his God leads: “I was cupbearer to the king.”

Such a person tasted the wine before it was given to the king, ensuring that it was not poisoned. Artwork from ancient Persia pictures a cupbearer with a cup in his right hand and a leaf over his left shoulder for the king to wipe his lips with. The cupbearer would pour wine from its container into a cup, then pour some from the cup into the palm of his left hand and drink it.

In the ancient world where the throne was all-powerful and coups were common, the cupbearer was essential to the safety of the king. It would take only one person in the kitchen to poison the king’s wine. Thus Pharaoh had cupbearers (Genesis 40:2), as did Solomon (1 Kings 10:5; 2 Chrononicles 9:4).

Many cupbearers were eunuchs, as they had personal access both to the king and to his queen and family. But it was by no means true that all were. If Nehemiah were a eunuch, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to exercise leadership among the Jewish people. Deuteronomy 23:1 says, “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.” It is also likely that his opponents would have pointed out this fact in undermining his authority.

By virtue of this crucial position, Nehemiah thus had frequent personal access to the king.

What is more, the king owed his life to Nehemiah. He put his own life at risk, and would be the person most susceptible to bribery and plots against the king.

Because of his constant presence with the king, the cupbearer often became a person of unusual influence and counsel. He obviously would hear much of what the king would hear, and would serve as a source of objective wisdom. He became the king’s most trusted advisor.

Nehemiah adds this point to show us the providential nature of this episode. He was the only person on earth who could have been the human instrument of such a miracle.

But this unusual relationship was a double-edged sword for Nehemiah. At the very least, if his request is granted he will be trading the security and luxury of the greatest throne in human history for an uncertain future of risk and sacrifice. He knows that he will need to leave the king’s palace to go to Jerusalem, and must wonder if his position will still be available when he returns. Nehemiah’s request comes at personal loss.

And perhaps at the risk of his life as well. His request to leave the king could easily be seen as disloyalty to the throne, putting Jerusalem ahead of his own sovereign. It could even be interpreted as an act of intrigue, as if Nehemiah knew of a plot against the king and wanted to escape before it came to fulfillment.

If Artaxerxes viewed Nehemiah’s request with disfavor, he would likely have ordered his execution. If the king could no longer trust the cupbearer, he would have no use for him. Given his knowledge of intimate state secrets, he would become instantly a threat to the throne. If the king refused Nehemiah, he could no longer expect his loyalty and must instead assume his rebellion.

Conclusion

Prayer is not getting our will done in heaven, but in getting God’s will done on earth. But for God to do his will, he needs people willing to follow that will. He uses people to accomplish his purposes.

God granted his prayer. He changed the heart of the mightiest dictator the world had ever seen, so that the king not only granted Nehemiah’s request, he funded his project and protected him with royal edict. In 52 days, the walls were rebuilt, the gates restored, and the people rejoicing. And it all began with a man who prayed.

God is today looking for men who are willing to go wherever God leads.

Abraham followed God in rescuing Lot from Sodom and establishing the Jewish nation.

Moses followed God from the safety of the shepherd’s life to Pharaoh’s throne, the Exodus, and the wilderness.

David followed God in establishing Jerusalem; Solomon followed God in building the Temple.

The disciples followed God into their global ministries.

God is looking for people to say with Isaiah, “Here am I, Lord—send me!”

Miscellaneous Cults

Written by

Miscellaneous Cults

Dr. Jim Denison

“A cult…is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Christ Jesus” (Walter Martin, The Rise of the Cults).

Basic traits:

Authority figure

Extrabiblical text

Unorthodox theology, somewhat related to Christianity

General characteristics:

Presents a Jesus different from that of orthodox faith

Claims new truth

Offers new, non-orthodox interpretations of Scripture

Cites non-biblical authority source(s)

Rejects major tenets of orthodox Christianity

Generally develops a changing, often contradictory theology

Strong leadership, usually centered in a single person or group of persons

Almost always offers a salvation by works

Generally makes unsubstantiated prophetic claims

Hare Krishna: International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)

History

15 century A.D.: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu developed The Doctrines of Krishnaism from the Hindu sect of Vishnuism

Believed that Krishna is the chief God who manifested himself one time as Vishnu (opposite of classical Hinduism)

Teaches that every individual must go through reincarnation to rid himself of the debt of karma

Krishnaism made Hinduism appealing to the masses by personalizing god and our interaction with him

Came to America by means of Abhay Charan De Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1965

Founded ISKCON and led it until his death in 1978

Today a wealthy organization, with about 10,000 members in America

Beliefs

God: Krishna, who “creates all and enjoys all” was in the beginning

No real distinction between him and his creation

Jesus Christ is only Krishna’s son

Man: part of creation; can be absorbed into reality

Central focus: this relationship

Salvation: by self-denial and a series of works as prescribed by the cult

Eternal destiny: absorption into reality after karma is cleansed and payment made

Transcendental Meditation (The Science of Creative Intelligence)

History

Founded by Mahesh Brasad Warma, later known as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born in India around 1910)

After graduating from Allahabad University in 1942 with a physics degree, Mahesh became the disciple of the Indian religious leader Guru Dev; he taught Mahesh a meditation technique taken from the Vedas (part of the Hindu scripture)

The Maharishi founded the Spiritual Regeneration Movement in India, 1958; came to America in 1959 and set up his organization here; today several million people in the U.S. and around the world have been taught these meditation techniques

Claims

Will improve health, self-image, productivity, intelligence, and creativity

Supposed to have no religious basis or bias

In fact, has been ruled by a New Jersey federal court to be religious in nature, and thus enjoined from use in public schools (Civil Action No. 76-341)

Maharishi claims that TM will make everyone “infallible,” and derides the use of logic and rational investigation

Beliefs

God: a “supreme being,” identified with nature, who dwells in the heart of every person

Jesus Christ never suffered or could suffer; the theology of atonement is a misunderstanding of the life of Christ

Man: in his true nature, the impersonal God

Central focus: self-realization through Hindu meditation techniques

Salvation: Hindu concept of oneness with reality

Eternal destiny: oneness with reality

Children of God (the Family of Love)

History

Founded by David Brandt Berg (born Oakland, CA, Feb. 18, 1919)

His mother was a prominent evangelist, his father a minister with the Christian and Missionary Alliance

David Berg became a pastor with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, first in Arizona in 1949; left after a falling-out with the church leadership in 1950, and became embittered against all organized religion

In 1968 he and his family moved to Huntington Beach, CA and developed a small following of people, basically from the counter-culture

Convinced in 1969 that a great earthquake was imminent and California would slide into the Pacific Ocean, he and about 50 followers left California for Arizona; several years later the movement scattered across the country in small groups

Today the “Family of Love” (their current name) boast about 25,000 members including children; Berg (Moses David, Father David, or King David) lives in Europe, oversees the group, and writes letters

Beliefs

Authority source: the letters of Moses David (“MO letters”); he is the prophet for this generation, and his correspondence is the literal guide for the movement

Theology: there has never been a statement of belief issued by the Children of God; can infer from Berg’s statements:

Jesus: created by God; no “Trinity”

Revolution: the group forsakes all “for Jesus,” giving up all material possessions to the group and forsaking their allegiance to families; it advocates a revolutionary take-over of the current cultural systems

Sex: Berg maintains concubines; the top leaders have sexual affairs with the girls in the group; “all things common” (Acts 2.44) applies to wives and husbands; will use sex to entice people to join or contribute to the cult (“Flirty Fishing”)

Unity (Unity School of Christianity)

History

Founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore (Charles born 1854, St. Cloud, MN; he and Myrtle married in 1881)

Myrtle was “healed” of tuberculosis and malaria in 1886 at a lecture led by E. B. Weeks

His statement: “I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness”

Myrtle believed the statement and recited it over and over; eventually she was healed

Charles studied this and other eastern religions in detail, practiced his wife’s meditation technique, and experiencing the healing of his withered leg

Then he joined Myrtle in founding the Unity School of Christianity

Following the Fillmores’ deaths (hers 1931, his 1948), the leadership of Unity was taken over by their two sons, Lowell and Rickert, and subsequently experienced rapid growth

Today headquartered at Unity Village in Lee’s Summit, Missouri (suburb of Kansas City); claims some two million adherents worldwide

Beliefs

Claims that beliefs and belief systems are unimportant, and that their system simply works. However, it has a strong reliance on Christian Science and New Thought

God: Gnostic in general framework and method:

Separates physical from spiritual

Knowledge is secret and obtainable only by the few

Spiritual is good, physical is bad

God is impersonal; our goal is to reach oneness with him

Jesus Christ was a human being who possessed the expression or presence of God

Jesus refers to the man, Christ to the divine influence

Bible: writings of men who in a measure apprehended the divine Logos, but these writings should not be taken as final

Central focus: on prosperity and happiness

No one need be poor

Charles Fillmore’s rendering of the 23rd Psalm:

The Lord is my banker, my credit is good

He maketh me to lie down in the consciousness of omnipresent abundance;

He giveth me the key to His strongbox.

He restoreth my faith in His riches;

He guideth me in the paths of prosperity for His name’s sake.

Yea though I walk in the very shadow of debt,

I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me:

Thy silver and Thy Gold, they secure me.

Thou preparest a way for me in the presence of the collector;

Thou fillest my wallet with plenty, my measure runneth over.

Surely goodness and plenty will follow me all the days of my life;

And I shall do business in the name of the Lord forever.

Salvation: unnecessary, since there is no sin, sickness or death; no need for the death of Christ on the cross to take away sin

Eternal destiny: salvation following repeated reincarnation

David Koresh (Branch Davidians)

History

Began out of Seventh-Day Adventist movement

Founded by Benjamin Roden

Vernon Howell (David Koresh) took control after gun battle with Roden in 1987

Compound destroyed in battle with FBI agents on April 19, 1993

Beliefs: difficult to systematize, but the following seems clear:

Koresh claimed to be the Lamb of Revelation

He also saw himself as the new Cyrus (“Koresh” is “Cyrus” in Hebrew, and he named his son Cyrus). Thus he would be God’s anointed one to “subdue nations” (Isaiah 45.1)

He predicted that he would die a martyr in a gun battle with secular authorities, fulfilling seven seals of Revelation (6.1-17)

First: white horse–conqueror, evil

Second: red horse–war

Third: black horse–famine

Fourth: pale horse–death

Fifth: suffering

Sixth: catastrophes

Seventh: return of Jesus Christ

Thus he claimed that he and his followers would be resurrected to bring in the Kingdom of God

____________________

This survey follows closely the discussion of Hare Krishna, TM, Children of God and Unity in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Understanding the Cults (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers, 1982).

More Than Conquerors

Written by

More Than Conquerors

Romans 8:35-39

James C. Denison

This week a dear friend told me a story which immediately became my Easter sermon introduction. It seems that a Middle Eastern sheik grew old and temperamental. One day, on an angry whim, he condemned his longtime personal servant to death. The man was led to the execution platform, bound to the post, the hatchet raised. The sheik asked his onetime friend if he had anything to say.

The man quickly replied: “If you will spare my life for one year, I will teach your white stallion to talk. If at the end of that year I fail, you may boil me in oil.” The sheik considered the offer. He loved his white stallion above all his other possessions, wives, family, friends. So he said, “I have always wanted to talk to that horse. You seem sincere. I cannot see what I have to lose.” So he granted the man his request.

As the man walked away, a friend came up to him and said, “Are you crazy? Being boiled in oil is much worse than beheading. Do you realize what you’ve done?” The condemned man replied, “Let’s think about this for a moment. A year is a long time. The sheik once loved me–he may love me again. War may come and the sheik will forget about me. In a year the sheik may die. I may die. The horse may die. And who knows? The horse may learn to talk.”

Easter was like that for me growing up–a wonderful story I hoped was true. What do we have to lose by coming to the celebration today? Glorious music; beautiful services; no persecution for attending worship; no real down side. An annual tradition with your family and friends. And who knows? It may be true after all.

I have been sent by God today to tell you that it is true, and to show you why an empty tomb still matters. Why it matters more than any event in human history, in fact. Why it is the only hope you have for life and life eternal. Why an empty tomb makes you more than a conqueror right now. This is the best news in human history. It is a great privilege for me to share it with you today.

How we know that God loves us

We have been traveling through Romans 8 this spring, culminating on Easter Sunday with my favorite paragraph in the word of God. I first learned it in the King James Version when I was in high school. I didn’t try to memorize it–one day I realized that I could quote it. I have been quoting it ever since.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” The Greek can be translated, “What can put a space between us and the love of Christ? Now Paul gives us seven options. Remember that seven is the biblical number for completeness. The apostle’s list spans the entire spectrum of enemies which can attack us:

“Trouble” translates thlipsis, the crushing weight used to grind grain into flour; it could be rendered “pressure.” What pressure do you find yourself under today?

“Hardship” translates the Greek for “a narrow place.” What is squeezing you this morning? What problem has you trapped, stuck?

“Persecution” was the common lot for followers of Jesus in the Roman Empire.

“Famine” often resulted from persecution. Christians lost their jobs, were driven from their homes, had no relationship with their families. They could easily starve to death.

“Nakedness” points to the person who is so poor he cannot afford anything more than the most basic underwear and clothing; truly and terribly impoverished.

“Danger” means to be exposed to peril of any kind.

“Sword” refers to the dagger used by assassins, and points to sudden ambush and murder.

Granted, in this world “we face death all day long” and are considered by the world to be no better than “sheep to be slaughtered” (v. 36). We might say, “cows to be butchered.” Paul includes himself in the “we”–every believer is subject to these trials and tests.

But here’s the remarkable good news: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37).

“No” is the strongest kind of denial.

“In all these things”–not despite them but in their midst.

“More than conquerors” translates “hyper-conquerors.” The Caesars gained their power by conquering their enemies; now we conquer them.

“Through him who loved us”–past event with ongoing relevance. He loved us and loves us today. Because of his love for us, we are more than conquerors.

Now the climax: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vs. 38-39).

Ten is the other biblical number for completion. Here Paul cites every possible force which could defeat us:

“I am convinced,” absolutely persuaded.

Neither “death” in all its tortured forms; nor “life” with all its problems.

Neither “angels” who, according to Jewish legend, resented humans and their salvation; nor “demons,” fallen angels.

Neither “the present nor the future, nor any powers”–anything that can happen to us today or tomorrow.

“Neither height nor depth”–a reference to the stars at their zenith and lowest points in the sky, thus all the created universe.

“Nor anything else in all creation”–including all that exists in all the universe.

None of this can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can make God love you any more than he already does, or any less. It would not be long before Roman Christians would face the full hatred of the Empire. Their blood would stain the Colosseum’s sandy floor; they would be eaten by beasts, torn apart by wild animals, slaughtered by gladiators, used as human torches to light Nero’s garden parties at night.

Whatever part of the Roman Empire has found you today, you are more than a conqueror through him who loved us. No matter what has you worried, burdened, upset, fearful, ashamed, stressed, anxious–it cannot keep God from loving you. Nothing in all of creation can.

This is the promise we can claim today.

Why we know that God loves us

So we are promised that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. This is the only the last of the remarkable promises of Romans 8.

Here we learn that there is no condemnation for us (v. 1); we are set free from the law of sin and death (v. 2); the Spirit of God lives in us (v. 9); we are the much-loved children of God (vs. 15-17); the present sufferings cannot begin to compare with the glory to be revealed (v.18); God is redeeming all that he allows to make us more like Jesus (vs. 28-29); he spared not his only Son, for he will give us all we need (v. 32).

Now, how do we know that any of this is true? That these promises are not religious superstition and wishful thinking? Because of the fact of the resurrection. Here’s why.

Death is the great enemy. The mortality rate is still 100 percent. No human has conquered it; no one can.

Ever since Juan Ponce de Leon came to Florida seeking the fountain of youth in 1513, we’ve sought it. We spend $9.4 billion on cosmetic surgery every year, more than $6 billion on diets and diet products.

But we begin to die from the moment we are born. You and I are one day closer to death now than we have ever been. Death is the unconquerable enemy of life. No one has the power to defeat it.

No one except God. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proves that God has power over death–that he can defeat the grave, destroy its shackles, and free its prisoner.

When Jesus came out of that tomb on Easter Sunday morning, shoving aside the rock as a pebble before the Rock of Ages, he proved that God is the Lord of the universe, the One with the power over all the universe.

If he has power over death, he has power over “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.” He has power over death and life, angels and demons, the present and the future, height and depth, and all creation.

He has the power to keep his promises. Power to set us free from sin and death; power to reward present suffering with future paradise; power to redeem all he permits; power to make us more than conquerors. We know it is true because of Easter. If he could defeat the grave, he can do anything at all.

And defeat the grave he did. Easter is not something that may be true–it is an absolute fact of history. I won’t take the time to show you all the evidence in the case for Easter, but remember at least the short version:

We know Jesus existed without even opening a New Testament: from the witness of Suetonius, Mara bar Serapion, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, and Tacitus we can prove that Jesus of Nazareth lived, that he was crucified by Pontius Pilatus, and that his followers believed him to have been raised from the grave and worshiped him as God.

We have no explanation for the empty tomb except the resurrection. The Christians didn’t steal the body and then die for a lie; the authorities didn’t take it, for they would have produced it; the disciples didn’t go to the wrong tomb, for the Romans would have shown them the right tomb. And Jesus didn’t swoon on the cross, survive three days in an air-tight burial shroud, shove aside the stone, walk through locked doors, and do the greatest high jump in history at the ascension.

We have no explanation for the transformed and empowered lives of the disciples except that they met the risen Christ. When I wondered in college if it was all true, if Christianity was worth my life, it was the fact of Easter that brought me back. It is the fact of Easter that keeps me preaching this book. It is the fact of Easter that makes Christianity true and Jesus worth my life.

Conclusion

And it is the fact of Easter that proves the relevance of God’s love for you today. If he can defeat death, what can’t he do for you? What problem can’t he help you solve? What sin can’t he forgive? What burden can’t he lift? What future can’t he see? What can’t he do for you today? He promises that nothing can separate you from his love. And Easter proves that he keeps his promises.

Today is the best day of the year to give him your life. Not just your Easter Sunday or worship attendance or occasional time in Bible study and prayer. Not just your belief in him–your life entrusted to him. The Easter Christ wants to empower you, use you, guide you, bless you. He wants to make you more than a conqueror. But he can use only what you’ll give him, and bless only what you’ll put into his hands.

If your relationship with Jesus is only for Easter, you’re missing the best parts. You’re missing all he wants to do with and for and through and in and by your life. Easter proves that he is worthy of your trust and your life. Give them both to him today.

On Thursday, as I was praying about this Easter message, I sensed the Spirit’s direction to close in a very different way than I had planned.

I had a wonderful story which I don’t get to tell today. There is no pain like that of an undelivered address–maybe next year. Instead, I feel myself under order to call you on this Easter Sunday to the highest and greatest commitment of faith I have discovered outside the pages of Scripture.

These words challenge and inspire me every time I consider them. They were sent to me years ago, and immediately arrested and captured me. They were found in the journal of a young pastor in Zimbabwe who was martyred for his faith. I have shared them often since I first received them, and have been led by the Holy Spirit to share them with you today.

Let’s make this confession ours right now:

I am part of the “Fellowship of the Unashamed.” I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I’ve stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of His. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by his presence, lean by faith, love by patience, live by prayer, and labor by power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won’t give up, shut up, let up, or slow up ’til I’ve preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go ’til He comes, give ’til I drop, preach ’til all know, and work ’til He stops.

And when He comes to get His own, He’ll have no problems recognizing me—my colors will be clear.

Amen?

Mormonism and Christianity

Written by

Mormonism and Christianity

Dr. Jim Denison

“A cult…is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Christ Jesus” (Walter Martin, The Rise of the Cults).

Basic traits:

Authority figure

Extrabiblical text

Unorthodox theology, somewhat related to Christianity

General characteristics:

Presents a Jesus different from that of orthodox faith

Claims new truth

Offers new, non-orthodox interpretations of Scripture

Cites non-biblical authority source(s)

Rejects major tenets of orthodox Christianity

Generally develops a changing, often contradictory theology

Strong leadership, usually centered in a single person or group of persons

Almost always offers a salvation by works

Generally makes unsubstantiated prophetic claims

Contemporary Mormonism–“Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”

Membership:

13 million worldwide in 20,081 wards and branches in 146 countries

4.2 million in all 50 states of America; Canada: 125,000

Missionaries: 46,025 in 95 countries

Fastest-growing “religion” in America

Has quadrupled in less than 50 years

Gained almost 315,000 converts last year

At current growth rates, would number 250 million within a century, larger than any Christian body except the Roman Catholic Church

45% of adherents live outside the U.S. today

The Mormon Church is an $8 billion-a-year corporation. $4 billion contributed by members each year; would rank 110th among the Fortune 500; one of the largest landowners in the U.S.

History of Mormonism

Founder: Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844) founded the Mormon Church. He was born December 23, 1805 in Sharon, Vermont, the fourth of 10 children to Joseph and Lucy Mac Smith. In 1817 he moved to Palmyra, NY. Most of his family soon joined the Presbyterian Church, but young Joseph remained undecided. He saw conflict and strife in all Christian denominations.

He claimed to have visions which led to the founding of the church:

First vision: 1820 (14 years old)–it was revealed to him that no Christian church was right (The Pearl of Great Price 2.18,19).

Second vision: September 21, 1823–Moroni, a heavenly messenger, revealed to him a book on golden plates; finally on September 22, 1927 he was given these plates. The book was translated by Smith and published on March 26, 1830

The church’s founding

The church began on April 6, 1830 at Fayette, New York as the “church of Christ”; the name eventually changed to the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” The group began to grow and moved to Kirtland, Ohio Expansion engendered opposition with battles fought between Mormons and non-Mormons in Missouri and Illinois.

Smith’s death

Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois with his brother Hyrum for destroying and burning printing presses and newspapers opposing his movement.

On June 27, 1844, a mob of about 200 stormed the jail and killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith; Joseph shot several of the mob members with his gun before his death. The Mormons consider him a martyr for the cause.

Brigham Young

The President of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young led the group after Smith’s death. They moved westward, and on July 24, 1847, arrived at Salt Lake Valley in Utah. This became their national headquarters

By his death in 1877, there were approximately 150,000 members. Smaller group, descended from Smith, established its headquarters in Independence, Missouri and became the “Reorganized Latter-Day Saints”

Sources of authority

The Bible: “We believe the Bible to be the Word of God in so far as it is translated correctly” (Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Article 8). However, the Book of Mormon claims that a correct translation of the Bible is impossible since the Catholic Church has corrupted it (1 Nephi 13:26b,27). Thus the church depends much more on its other books than on the biblical materials.

The Book of Mormon: “We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God” (Articles of Faith, Section Eight). Supposedly there is an account of the original inhabitants of America, to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection.

Claims that in early times America was peopled by descendants of Israel

Nephites (a race of righteous white people)

Lamanites (a race of warlike, evil, and dark-skinned people; they are supposed to be the ancestors of the Native American population of today)

Jesus appeared on this continent and founded a group

Mormon, the last leader of the Nephites, supposedly collected the record of his people, and inscribed it on golden plates. It describes reported religious practices of the ancient Americans, including that the Nephites continued their Jewish traditions on this continent, building temples to God, having spiritual revivals, and even establishing a Christian church. Mormon records a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus Christ himself among the Nephite people (3 Nephi 11). Thus the Mormon Church contends that the Book of Mormon is “another testament of Jesus Christ.”

Moroni, the last surviving Nephite (after their destruction by the Lamanites) and son of Mormon supposedly buried the plates in a hill in what later became Manchester County, New York. Joseph Smith supposedly recovered these plates in 1827 when the resurrected Moroni, appearing as an angel, told him where to dig for them; Moroni later took the plates to heaven (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith–History, 1:27-65). The inscriptions were written in a language Smith called “reformed Egyptian” which he was supposedly able to decipher miraculously; he published these inscriptions as the Book of Mormon.

Doctrine and Covenants: a record of 136 revelations concerning some of Mormonism’s distinctive doctrines, such as baptism for the dead and celestial marriage.

The Pearl of Great Price:

“Book of Moses”–roughly equivalent to the first 6 chapters of Genesis

“Book of Abraham”–translation of an Egyptian papyrus

Extract from Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible

Extracts from the History of Joseph Smith, his autobiography

The Articles of Faith

The Living Prophet

Basic beliefs

View of God/ultimate reality

Mormon statement: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost” (The Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith, 59).

Actual concept: there are many gods, and God himself was once a man; Mormon males have the possibility of attaining godhood.

Joseph Smith writes in The King Follett Discourse: “I am going to inquire after God: for I want you all to know him and be familiar with him…I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show you what kind of a being God is. God was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens…I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in the form like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form of a man.

“I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see.

“It is the first principle of the gospel to know for certainty the character of God and to know that we may converse with him as one man with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ did (pp. 8-10).”

Doctrine and Covenants (130:22): “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.”

According to Mormon Doctrine (278, 589) Jesus Christ was a preexistent spirit like the rest of us, and is the first spirit child born to the Heavenly Father and Mother. Also, God the Father in his glorified physical body had sexual intercourse with the virgin Mary, resulting in the conception of the physical Christ (Mormon Doctrine 547; Journal of Discourses 1:51; 4:218).

Doctrine and Covenants (93:21-23): “And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; and all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn. Ye were also in the beginning with the Father.”

Mormons believe Satan (Lucifer) was originally the spirit brother of Christ (The Gospel Through the Ages 15). All existence is material; material is eternal; God is therefore physical and material. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct gods (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith 370, 372)

View of mankind

Mormons believe we are preexistent souls who take our bodies at birth. We have always existed, but merely move from one existence to another. Joseph Fielding Smith says in Progress of Man: “Man is a spirit clothed with a tabernacle. The intelligent part of which was never created or made, but existed eternally–man was also in the beginning with God.”

They further believe God the Father has Eternal Wives through whom spirit children have been and continue to be born (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, 516)

Adam’s fall was necessary for the propagation of the human race (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 5:10-12); it was a “necessary, honorable act in carrying out the plan of the Almighty” (Joseph Smith–Seeker After Truth 160).

We can one day become gods ourselves in the celestial kingdom (Doctrine and Covenants 132.20)

A baptized Mormon convert has his Gentile blood purged and replaced by the blood of Abraham through the Holy Spirit. In this way he becomes the actual offspring of Abraham (History of the Church 3:380).

There are two priesthoods in the church now:

Melchizedek (highest)

Aaronic (secondary)

Every Mormon is expected to give 2 years to mission service. Women are secondary or inferior to men; blacks were considered cursed for much of Mormon history

Central focus of the Mormon Church is obedience to God by his revelation through Joseph Smith. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses: “No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the Celestial Kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith…every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, Junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansions where God and Christ are–I can not go there without his consent . . . He reigns there as supreme, a being in his sphere, capacity, calling, as God does in Heaven (6:299; 7:289).

Salvation: “We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (Mormon Articles of Faith 3). His shed blood only provides for the universal resurrection of all people and does not pay for personal sin (Third Article of Faith; Mormon Doctrine 62, 669); it atones for most personal sin, but not all.

Obedience, as judged by Joseph Smith, Jr., is essential for entrance to the celestial kingdom. Thus emphasis on obedience and works.

Godhood: The power to attain godhood and have children in heaven can only be achieved by obedience to the Mormon church and having one’s marriage sealed in a Temple ceremony by the Mormon priesthood (Journal of Discourses 11:221).

Bible: The Mormon church restored the true gospel to the earth through Joseph Smith, and the true gospel is found only in that revelation today (Mormon Doctrine 334).

Ultimate destiny: There is a general salvation for all and an individual salvation for each person. There is no such thing as hell or everlasting punishment.

At death:

Mormons go to Paradise

Non-Mormons are assigned to a temporary spirit prison-hell to wait for resurrection and judgment

Baptism for the dead allows ancestors in this prison-hell to gain exaltation.

Three levels of glory:

Celestial kingdom: reserved for the Melchizedek priesthood members who will become gods

Terrestial kingdom: for those who fail the requirements of exaltation

Telestial kingdom: for those who have no testimony of Christ

The return of Christ: will occur at Independence, Missouri during the millennium; this is often called “Zion” or “the Center Place.”

Marriage: Mormon marriage is eternal. Joseph Smith described plural marriage as “a new and everlasting covenant” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:1,4); under pressure from the United States government, Wilford Woodruff, President of the Mormon Church in 1890, affirmed that the church was no longer teaching plural marriage.

Apologetics and Mormonism

Prepare

Learn basic Mormon theology

Realize that Mormon language can be deceptive

Build a long-term relationship

How the person became a Mormon

What he or she thinks about the Bible

How much he or she knows about Mormonism

Point out problems with the Book of Mormon

Some 3,000 changes from the 1830 edition to the modern edition

Regarding archaeology:

No Book of Mormon cities have been located

No Book of Mormon names have been found in New World inscriptions

No genuine inscriptions have been found in Hebrew in America

No genuine inscriptions have been found in America in anything which could correspond to Joseph Smith’s “reformed Egyptian”

No ancient inscriptions of any kind in America have been found indicating that the ancient inhabitants had Hebrew or Christian beliefs

No mention of Book of Mormon persons, nations, or places has been found

No artifact of any kind which demonstrates the Book of Mormon is true has been found

No ancient copies of Book of Mormon scriptures have been found

Regarding historical inaccuracies:

1 Nephi 2.5-8 states that the river Lyman emptied into the Red Sea; no river in Arabia at all has ever emptied into the Red Sea

2 Nephi states that no more than 20 persons were left in Jerusalem in 600 B.C. to emigrate to the New World; less than 30 years later, according to 2 Nephi 5:28, they became two populated nations

Alma 7:10 says that Jesus was to be born at Jerusalem, not Bethlehem

Helamen 14:20,27 states that darkness covered the whole earth for three days, not the three hours of Mt. 27.45

Alma 46:15 indicates that believers were called “Christians” in 73 B.C.

Many Mormon scriptures, said to be in the possession of the Nephites in 600 B.C., quote passages from the Old Testament which were written years or centuries later

There are more than 400 examples of New Testament quotations in the Book of Mormon (again, supposedly possessed by the Nephites in 600 B.C.).

Point out the contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible regarding the nature of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Point out the internal conflicts within the Book of Mormon regarding the nature of God. For instance, the following passages do present a biblical picture of God: 2 Nephi 11:7; 26:12; 31:21b; Mosiah 15:2-5; Alma 11:22-29; 3 Nephi 11:27b, 36; Mormon 9:9-11, 19b; Moroni 8:18.

Then present the Christ of the Bible, and your personal witness to his life-transforming truth and power.

________________

The following resources have been helpful to this survey: The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, trans. Joseph Smith, Jr. (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981); John H. Gerstner, The Teachings of Mormonism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1960); and especially Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Understanding the Cults (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers, 1982), 83-104.

Mothers Change the World

Written by

Mothers Change the World

Luke 1:26-38

Dr. Jim Denison

If children were in charge, the world would make much more sense. My son recently sent me these actual test answers given by children:

•What happens during puberty to a boy? He leaves childhood and enters adultery.

•Where was Hadrian’s Wall built? Around Hadrian’s garden.

•Where was the American Declaration of Independence signed? At the bottom.

•Give a reason why people would want to live near power lines. You get your electricity faster.

•What is the highest frequency noise that a human can register? Mariah Carey.

•What is a vibration? There are good vibrations and bad vibrations. Good vibrations were discovered in the 1960’s.

Today is Mother’s Day. No one on earth deserves a day more than mothers.

There was a little girl who, when shown the wedding pictures of her parents, asked her father, “Daddy, is that the day you got Mom to come and work for us?”

Then there was the teacher who had just given her second-grade class a lesson on magnets. She asked a little boy, “Now, my name starts with an ‘M’ and I pick up things. What am I?” The boy replied instantly, “A mother?”

Mothers need all the encouragement they can find. That’s what Anna Jarvis thought when she decided upon her mother’s death in 1905 to make a day in her memory. She copyrighted “Mother’s Day” with the U.S. Patent Office, then wrote governors, state legislators, congressmen, even the president. Finally, in 1914 President Wilson signed a proclamation making Mother’s Day a national observance.

Upon her death in 1948, a wreath of 43 carnations was placed on Anna Jarvis’s grave, because in that year 43 countries celebrated Mother’s Day. Why carnations? Because they were her mother’s favorite flower.

Anna Jarvis had the right idea for our culture, but also for our souls. For mothers have the single greatest influence on their children’s eternal souls. That is the simple point I want to make today.

Mary and Jesus

The story of Jesus begins not with the Son of God but with his mother. Mary was a peasant teenage girl living in the remove village of Nazareth. Her hometown was so small that it is not mentioned a single time in the Old Testament. She had been promised to Joseph by her parents when she was a small girl. Now that she has reached puberty, around 13 years of age, the two had become engaged and would soon be married. She would be an eighth grader in our society.

Now the angel Gabriel appears to her: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). Luke tells us that “Mary was greatly troubled at his word and wondered what kind of greeting this might be” (v. 29). I know that you’re familiar with the story, but try to imagine it for the first time. Has an angel ever appeared to you? How might you respond?

Gabriel says to her:

Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end (vs. 30-33).

Her son would be the Promised One, the Messiah for whom the Jewish people had been waiting and praying for more than seven centuries. They taught their daughters to pray every night before going to bed that they might be chosen to become the mother of the Messiah. Now Gabriel has come to tell Mary that God has selected her.

But she doesn’t understand: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

This was a surprising fact in her day and town. Nazareth was constructed on a hillside, with a very popular trading route just below. This road was crowded with Roman soldiers, Greek merchants, and world travelers. Many of the village girls dressed and acted so as to attract the men traveling along this route, seeing them as their way out of Nazareth to the larger world. But not Mary—she kept herself pure.

Gabriel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God” (vs. 35-37).

Note Mary’s response: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” (v. 38).

In making this commitment, Mary risked her future and even her life. How would her fiancé understand this miracle? She would become pregnant, and he would know that the child was not his. He would have to assume that she had committed adultery. He could divorce her, or bring her before the village to be stoned to death. At best she would be an outcast, a single mother with no future; at worst she would die.

But Mary trusted God with her life, her child, her future. “Servant” translates the Greek word for “slave.” She gave herself completely to God as his possession. He could do with her what he wished, send her where he wanted her to go, ask of her anything he wanted. She would be his, now and for the rest of her life.

And what she was, her Son became.

He would be about his “Father’s business” at the age of 12. He would submit to John’s baptism and his Father’s call to ministry. He would touch lepers, befriend prostitutes, call tax collectors and “sinners.”

Then he would choose in the Garden of Gethsemane to die on our cross for our sins. He would be impaled with spikes through his wrists and heels, stabbed with a Roman spear, and die on a Roman cross. All this he chose to do for his Father when he said, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

What his mother was, her Son became.

A pattern across time

Is this the pattern of history?

Moses was raised in the pagan culture, traditions, and religion of Egypt. And yet because of his spiritual mother, he never forgot his God or his people, and one day led them to their Promised Land.

Samuel’s mother, Hannah, was fervent in prayer, trusting God for a son. She gave that son back to the Lord. And he became Israel’s last judge, first prophet, and great spiritual leader.

Paul said to young Timothy, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).

Is it not true that what their mothers were, their children became?

Does the pattern continue across history?

•The mother of Nero was a murderer, as was he.

•Of the 69 kings in France’s history there have been only three who were truly loved and respected by their subjects—the only ones reared by loving mothers.

•Sir Walter Scott’s mother was a woman of education and a great lover of the arts. So was he.

•The mother of George Washington was known for her integrity of character, as was her son.

•Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother

•John Newton’s mother prayed for her wayward, sinful son, until he came to the Amazing Grace of which his hymn testifies.

W. R. Wallace said, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” Was he right spiritually?

Aurelius Augustinus would have made the cover of People magazine weekly, if it had been around in 354 AD. He had two mistresses, the first when he was only sixteen. He fathered an illegitimate child, and ran from one scandal to another.

But his saintly mother Monica wouldn’t give up on her wayward son. Where he moved, she moved. While he sinned, she prayed. Finally, at 33 years of age, he came to faith in Jesus. He was ordained a priest, then a bishop; he wrote sixteen volumes of the greatest theology since Paul, and is considered the most brilliant Christian since the New Testament. To whom do we owe St. Augustine?

Susannah Wesley was the 25th child of her father and the mother of 19. She taught each of her children to recite the alphabet by his or her fifth birthday; when they turned six, she spent six hours each day teaching them Christian theology. Two of her sons, John and Charles, would in time found the denomination known as Methodist. John Wesley later said, “I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England.” To whom do we owe him?

Conclusion

Does your mother today deserve your gratitude for her spiritual influence upon your life? Not all do across Scripture and history, of course. Does yours? Have you thanked God for her? Have you thanked her?

Have you been given the privilege of being a mother? On this Mother’s Day, would you renew your commitment to the spiritual life and eternal soul of the one entrusted to you? Would you pray for him or her right now? Would you ask God’s help and wisdom in shaping the eternal clay put into your hands? Would you make that eternal soul your highest priority as a mother?

Mother Teresa was the most famous “mother” of the 20th century and one of my faith heroes as well. She began her ministry in Calcutta in 1948, working among the poorest of the poor in the city’s slums. She had only five rupees and no help. She began an open-air school for children, meeting under a locust tree. In time she began receiving volunteers and financial aid. Two years later she received permission from the Pope to begin her own order, “The Missionaries of Charity.”

Today her order helps the poorest of the poor all over Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and engage in relief work after natural catastrophes wherever they occur. The order has established 120 houses in North America, Europe and Australia, where they care for shut-ins, alcoholics, the homeless, and AIDS sufferers. More than a million “Co-Workers” have joined the Missionaries of Charity in serving Jesus “in all his distressing disguises.”

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87.

To the end of her life she maintained her simplicity and sacrifice, refusing to allow her fame and celebrity to change her commitment to Christ and his calling. On her deathbed, she was seen by a nurse holding a picture of Jesus in her tiny, shriveled hands and saying to it, “Jesus, I never refuse you anything.”

Let us pray.