I did put a new thing on the board. I guess I'm gonna be preaching a revival service at Salem, the new little pastor there. And when he called me, he said, I don't really know you, but he said, maybe if you can agree with some doctrinal things that we believe, then maybe I can come and have you preach. And I was like, well, do you know what? church I was a member of whenever I went to preach, and he goes, no, where? And I said, well, Salem Baptist Church in Grayson. He goes, really? So I'm like, I'd agree with you since I came out of that church to be the pastor. So anyway, all right. Are you ready? All right, let's turn to the book of Nehemiah. And we are, we're talking about the regathering. And so today we're going to talk just a little bit of an introduction to Nehemiah. The title of the message is, Nehemiah, Regathering for God's Glory. I want you to keep that in mind. So, regathering Israel, that's what we're talking about. That's this series that we're going over. Ezra, Nehemiah, and we're including Esther in that. So this is when the children of Israel are coming out of captivity and going back to being regathered to Jerusalem. We're coming to the third return. The first return was led by Zerubbabel, the second by Ezra, and now Nehemiah is bringing this third return. Read Nehemiah 1, 1. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah, and it came to pass in the month Chislew in the 20th year, as I was in Shushan the palace, that Hananiah, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. This is the word of God for us. It's amazing for us to think about it. This is something that God wanted us to know, and so we inspired someone to write it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word that's given to us to lead us and to guide us, to encourage and convict us. And God, it's through your word how we learn to give you glory. So I pray that you will help us see our responsibility to bring you glory through our sermon today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. So Nehemiah asks and inquires about the people that are in Jerusalem, and he gets this report back that they're in great affliction and in reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down. And this burdens the heart of Nehemiah. causes me to think about our own hearts, about how concerned we are about others. When Nehemiah thought about his people, thought about the city, he was burdened, he was broken because of the situation that was in Jerusalem. How concerned are we about the spiritual condition of others? How burdened are we about the situation of others. That's important for us to think about as we look at this message today. The burden that was on Nehemiah's heart. And do we have the same type of burden? So we remember, want to remember, why are the walls of Jerusalem broken down? Why are they in this condition? In order to remember that, we have to think about what Israel should have been. What did God call them to be? And we remember in Genesis 12, 3 where God made the promise to Abraham, in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And so God called Abraham and He called this nation that would become Israel, and through this nation, Israel, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. The blessings of God that were poured out upon Israel were to be poured out or to overflow to all nations. And so as God blessed Israel, all the nations of the world were to be blessed. The world should have been able to see The blessing of God comes upon those who faithfully follow God. But what happens? Israel doesn't faithfully follow God. Also we read in Exodus 19, 5 and 6 where it says, Now therefore if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And so Israel, not only were they supposed to be blessed and the blessings of God overflow from them to all the nations of the world, but they were to mediate God's presence to the world. They were to let the world see the presence of God in them. And then in Psalm 96.3, it says, "...declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people." David understood. This was a psalm that was written whenever the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the tabernacle. This is when David danced naked before the Lord. You know, that time frame to put you in mind. And so David understood the calling of God upon Israel was to make the glory of God known. to all the nations of the world, to all the people that are in the world. Make the wonders of God known to all people. And Spurgeon says in his commentary, Psalm 96 is evidently taken from that second song which was composed by David at the time when the ark was set in the midst of the tent which David prepared for it. And so David knew that one of the duties of the children of Israel was to make the glories of God known to all the nations of the world. So that was what Israel should have been, what had become of Israel. We know if we've studied, right? We studied the entire history beginning with Solomon. to the end of the kingdom. We know what happened. Israel had fallen into sin. Instead of walking in the steps of David, men followed in the footsteps of Jeroboam. Because of the sin that was in the nation, they could not show forth the glory of God. As a matter of fact, Alfred Eldersheim, a Jewish-born Christian scholar from the middle 1800s, closes out his Old Testament Bible history with this quote, and this is a lengthy quote, but I want to read it to you. Listen to what this Jewish Christian had to say. So the last remnant of Judah had gone from the land. The Davidic rule had passed away so far as merely earthly power was concerned. The Davidic kingdom to come would be wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man. It would reach up to heaven. It would root in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. But as he's already said, the Davidic rules passed away. Now all over the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet it was a stillness unto God. The land was keeping long-neglected, silent Sabbath unto God ten times to fulfill threescore and ten years. It was just about seventy years after the Battle of Karchemesh which really decided the fate of Palestine and its subjection to Babylon. that, like the priest's silver trumpets that mourn in the temple, the voice of Cyrus announced the dawn of the morning after the long night of exile and summons the wanderers from all lands to the threshold of their sanctuary." Again, it's the land-keeping Sabbath. So why are they there for 70 years? The reason they went into captivity is because they refused to observe the Sabbath. And so God said, okay, if you will not allow the land to rest, as I had designed for it to land, to rest. And again, remember, there was a time frame when they were not allowed to plant the fields. They were to allow the land to rest. And then every, so every seven years that was to happen. And then on the 49th year, the land was to rest. And then the 50th year, if you remember, was to be a year of jubilee. Two years in a row, they were not to plant the fields. The land was to have this time of rest. Israel refused to follow God, and God said, okay, if you won't let the land rest the way it's supposed to, like I told you to, I'm going to let it rest, but I'm going to let it rest by removing you out of the land, sending you into captivity. Elder Shime goes on to say, again, is the land keeping Sabbath, and again, it is stillness unto God. till his voice shall awaken land and people, whose are land and people, dominion and peace, till he shall come, who is alike the golden fulfillment of all past history and prophecy, alike to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And so he says, even now the land is resting, still awaiting alike to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of the people of God of Israel. And so what do we find from that? The land is sitting in stillness. It's fulfilling the broke, forsaken Sabbaths. Until Cyrus gives that decree for Israel to go up and build a house for God, the land is sitting in silence. So that's where we're at now. The land is sitting in silence. It's just coming back. The city walls are still broken down. The temple isn't built. Ezra has gone back and reestablished the law and preaching to people to be faithful, but the walls of the city are broken down. And so we know that Cyrus, the king of Persia, gave that decree to go back. So the time for the land to sit in stillness is over, and God is calling back Israel to Jerusalem. So that's where we're at in our time frame. So Nehemiah begins this third return of God, bringing his people back to the land of promise. And in doing that, what's he doing? Well, we go all the way back to Abraham again. God is keeping his promise that he gave to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob. Remember, the land, every place where your foot treads will be yours. and in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." And so God is being faithful to that promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's keeping the promise that Israel is to make the glory of God known. And so again, God is bringing Israel back so that the people of the world will be able to see that God is at work in this people called Israel, and they're going to make His name known. This is God keeping His promises. God keeping His promise to David. 2 Samuel 7, 12, And when thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seat after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for him in my name, and I shall establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Not one of God's good promises are going to fail to Israel. So that's what we're seeing. We're seeing the faithfulness of God to His people. If we ever question the faithfulness of God, we just need to look at Israel and see God's faithfulness. If we ever doubt one of God's promises, is God really going to keep this promise that He has made? Just look to Israel. Israel had sinned tremendously, yet God was still faithful to His people. We can understand. If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself. God is always going to be faithful to His people. And so these are the things that we can learn as we look at this Old Testament history. And we're like, what does this mean? Why is this Old Testament history important to us? We live in the New Testament. Why do we need to study the Old? Well, here's why. We can see what we're called to do, and we can see the faithfulness of God. We can be confident in the faithfulness of God to His people. And so, the three regatherings. The first regathering, of course, was led by Zerubbabel. And Zerubbabel goes back to rebuild the temple. Ezra leads to teach the Torah and rebuild the community. Now, Nehemiah is going to lead to rebuild the city walls. And there's an overlap between Ezra and Nehemiah, which we'll get to in the book of Nehemiah, when they're going to lead this worship service. And that's where you're going to see that they stand, stood all day as Ezra and his co-workers read the law of God and gave them the meaning of it. If you ever want to know why do we think that what preaching is, why do we expository preach? The reason you expository preach is because of what Ezra did. They read the text and gave the meaning of the text. That's what preaching is. They stood on a pulpit of wood. They read the text, they gave the meaning of the text. And so, that's the regathering of Israel. There's some similarities. Studying this this week, went back and watched the Bible Project's introduction to Ezra and Nehemiah. By the way, Ezra and Nehemiah was one book in the original writing. In the Hebrew Bible, it was one book. But anyway, there's some similarities to the accounting of the regathering. They all begin with a Persian king giving the decree, being moved by God to give the decree to go back to the land, and so send a leader back. And so whether it was Zerubbabel, whether it was Ezra, or whether it was Nehemiah, the Persian king gave them the okay to go back. The second similarity is they all faced opposition to the work of God. They all overcame it. And then all three of them sort of end in an anticlimactic way. I want us to think about this. If all three of these men faced difficulties and trials as they're doing the work of God, does that tell us anything? There will be difficulties when following God. There will be difficulties when serving God. When you're doing the work that God has called you to do, you're going to face difficulties. but then they sort of ended anticlimactically. In other words, it leaves you looking for something more. It's like it's not the ultimate end. So it causes us to think, as the children of Israel are going back to Jerusalem, and they're going to rebuild the city walls, but it's not all Completed. The wall's completed, but the work is not completed. It's let you thinking that there's something more. The regathering is not the end. The kingdom is not built. It tells us that when Jesus establishes his kingdom, that there'll be a city without walls, and all the nations of the world are coming into it, but you don't see that here in the book of Nehemiah. You don't see that as you read the end of the last prophet, Malachi. You don't see that. You don't see God's fulfillment of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His fulfillment of His promise to David. So it leaves us looking for something more. And that should cause us to understand a king's not sitting on a throne. The city needs walls. All of the nations of the world are not flocking into it. And so there's something to be looking forward to. And where does that leave us today? It leaves us to be looking for what was missing in Israel. It causes us to be looking for a king sitting on a throne. It's causing us to be looking for a city that doesn't need any walls. and looking forward to the time when all the nations of the world are gonna flock to the city to worship God. So Nehemiah, he sees this, in verse number four he says, when I heard this, I wept and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed. Nehemiah is very passionate. He's passionate about the rebuilding of Jerusalem. He's passionate about the establishment of God's people in the land, including the resumption of community life and worship. He is passionate for the honor of God's name and the welfare of God's people, which causes us to pause and think. How passionate are we for God? How passionate are we for the glory of God? You know, let's turn to the book of Psalm 96 real quick, and then we'll close. Sing unto the Lord a new song. Sing unto the Lord all the earth. Sing unto the Lord. Bless his name. Show forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. I'm just going to stop right there. What are we to be doing as the church today? We just learned that, right, in our message about the church being filled. To make His glory known among all the nations of the earth. Do we understand that just like Israel had the responsibility to make the world be able to see the glory of God, that that is our responsibility? Declare His glory among the heathens. See, that's our calling as a church. To make the glory of God known among all people. How passionate are we about that? How passionate are we to make the glory of God known to all people? Are we fulfilling that purpose? Are we making His glory known? Are you making His glory known in your life? What had to happen to the children of Israel to make them see that they needed to make His glory known amongst all the world? They had to be scattered. What happened to the early church in the book of Acts? What do we see happening to them? There they go to all the world and preach the gospel. They had to be scattered. What's it gonna take for us to see that we need to make the glory of God known? Will it require scattering? What's God going to do in us so that we will be passionate about making His glory known? We need to learn from the situation of Nehemiah and all of Israel that they were in the condition they were in because they failed to make the glory of God known. So we want to see and we want to be burdened by the fact that we need to make the glory of God known and we want to develop a passion to make the glory of God known. That's what we've been called to as a church. And so let's be inspired to make the glory of God known because is there plenty of the glory of God to tell others about? The answer to that is yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Let's just make the glory of God known. No matter whether it's telling of our salvation, or telling of the blessings of God, or telling of the hope, the glory that one day we're gonna live with Him forever. Whatever it is, make the glory of God known, and then people will see, you know what, I don't experience that glory. Maybe they'll see what they need is Christ. But Nehemiah's passionate about making the glory of God known, and that's what we're to do. So today, let's see our need to make the glory of God known among the nations. Heavenly Father, inspire our hearts to be called to do the work that you've called us to do, to make your glory known amongst all the people of the earth. In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen.