Grace Thoughts

Tim Kelley: One of the things that had taken place there is there was a lot of people that had sold their children and their family into slavery. And the Jewish businessmen who lent them this money was charging them incredible usury and interest on their loans.

And some of the people had to mortgage their lands just so they could buy food and feed their families, and so they were paying on these lands they had at these incredible rates of interest. Nehemiah came and said, "What are we doing?" First of all, it violated the law of God. God never wanted the Israelites to make that much profit off other Israelites. It was okay to charge interest, but not the type of interest they were charging. One commentator estimated to be about 20% or more interest.

They had mortgaged their lands to richer brethren and even sold their children to pay the royal tax just so they could live. Now, these were first of all, we understand, legitimate debts. Illegitimate interest rates, but legitimate debts. I mean, they borrowed money so they could survive. They borrowed money to buy food. They borrowed money on these assets they had. So, these men weren't doing anything criminal per se, outside of the fact that they violated the law and the different rates that God gave them.

So when Nehemiah came back and he saw this, this is what he said: "Return to them this very day their fields and their vineyards and their olive orchards and their homes, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them." Then they said, "We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say." And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. So he got together the rich people and the business people and the landowners, and he said, "This is what I want you to do. I want you to return everything that these people gave to you and you've been exacting from them." And they responded and said, "We will restore these. And not only that, we'll require nothing from them. We'll give it back to them."

Satan hates grace. He hates this. He hates the fact that one can labor in the field for an hour and one can labor all day and get the same pay. He hates it when we don't have to pay like he would charge us to pay.

It says in 1 Peter 5:10, "After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." He'll rebuild you. When you've been in a bad place, He says, "I'm going to rebuild you." This particular church in 1 Peter chapter five was undergoing demonic persecution. They were ravaging them with physical attacks and attacking the church and killing people and beating people. And God says, "After you've suffered a while, I will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you."

What's he mean? First of all, as we talked about earlier, He restores possessions. This is good. In 2 Timothy 1:7, He says He'll give us back a sound mind. Some of you are saying, "Hallelujah." Some of you are saying, "Does that apply for my wife or husband too? Because I'm going to give you back a sound mind because everything from me is sound." The word sound there is the word we get hygiene from, and it talks about healthy. I'm going to give you a healthy mind.

I'm going to give you a mind that thinks right. I'm going to give you a mind that thinks through the Word of God and not a mind that thinks through a wound and thinks through pain and thinks through a childhood or thinks through a temptation. I'm going to give you a mind that thinks with the promises of God and not your failures from a decade or two ago. I'm going to give you a mind that's healthy and sound and established and settled. Not something that's unsettled that was afflicted on you in your early childhood years.

I'm not going to give you a spirit of fear because I don't have fear. I remember when my wife, I've shared this story before many times, but when we found out she had cancer in 2001, it was in August. And I prayed, no one knew. And I preached on a Wednesday night very much like this, and I went back to my back office and I prayed with her. And I remember she was very upset because we were both upset. We found out that the night before and it seemed like it was very serious.

And she came and she fell in my arms and I prayed with her, a very uninspired, unpowerful prayer. But this is what I knew. She says, "I'm afraid." And I knew that God does not give a spirit of fear. I knew that if God, I didn't know what God was going to do. I didn't know if God was going to heal her or if God was going to take her home. Peace goes both ways. He can give you peace, but what does peace mean? "This is My will, you're going home," or, "This is My will, I'm going to heal you."

So she came and I prayed with her. I didn't pray for healing. I didn't even think to pray for healing. I already had probably 400 times by that time. What I prayed for is that the spirit of fear, I knew this: I knew if God was going to take her home because of His character and nature, there was going to be peace. And if God was going to heal her because of His character and nature, there was going to be peace.

And if there was fear there, there was a kingdom behind that fear. And so I simply prayed in the utmost, unpowerful, unflowery, un-King James-ish prayer: "God, deliver my wife, please, from this spirit of fear. We don't want anything the devil has for us on this. We need You to reign in our lives." And she looked at me and says, "It is gone." That moment. I said, "What's gone? The tumor?" I don't know what's gone. I just know it's gone. I felt it leave.

We didn't know what was gone. All I know is that we now had peace. I didn't pray for healing, but she ended up being healed. We found out five days later the tumor was gone and the next test didn't even show the tumor. I have the medical reports. I'm not making it up. I can prove it to you. I saw the picture. It was there, it wasn't. The doctor doesn't have any explanation. It was a healing. I'll tell you right now, it happened. That's why I saved the records for you doubters out there to say it didn't happen. I show anyone. I had a reporter from the St. Pete Times when he was in there. I showed him the record. He had nothing to say. He didn't report about it.

Anyway, getting off my soapbox here. It was the spirit of fear. The spirit of fear is never from Jesus Christ. If you are inhibited or inhabited by the spirit of fear, go right to God with it and name it for what it is, and God will deliver you from it every time.

Joel 2:25 says this: "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, My great army which I have sent among you." Talking about all these different locusts and bugs and things like this. The particular word restore here is shalam, which comes from shalom, the same root word. It means where we get the covenant of peace. But what I love about this, "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust had eaten." In other words, God wants to give back the peace Satan and his army stole all the while as Nehemiah says, "Well, nothing is required of you."

One of my great thrills in Christian ministry and the role of being a pastor all these years is watching God restore people. Watching people come to the faith with a lot of baggage. And I watch them when they come to their Christian faith, they have a U-Haul full of baggage. "Wow, what's that?" "That's my luggage. That's my childhood, my marriage, my self-esteem. That's all in that U-Haul."

Then they give themselves over to the Word of God and they give themselves over to Christian fellowship and they give themselves over to prayer and hiding the Word of God in their hearts. And 10 years later you look and the back of that U-Haul went from a 24-footer to a 12-footer. 10 years after that, there's a trailer. 10 years after that, they have a little carry-on. What's happening? God's cleaning out the closets. He's restoring, giving back things that were taken from them.

Jeremiah 30:16-17, the English Standard Version says, "Therefore all who devour you will be devoured, and all your foes, every one of them, shall go back into captivity; those who plunder you shall be plundered, and all who prey on you I will make a prey. For I will restore health to you and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast. It is Zion for whom no one cares." Zion is always a picture of the local church. He says, "I will heal, declares the Lord."

The Hebrew interpretation of that verse, verse 17, is you'll be reintroduced to soundness and stability. In other words, my marriage can be restored. It can be a resting place. I talked to a young person today whose marriage is in serious trouble, not from our church. And I had just a few moments with them in a place and I just said, "Look it, there's nothing too hard for God. Anything can be bought back."

And I'll show you how by the end of the message. So possessions are restored and then rights are restored. I have a right to fellowship with God. That's restored. I can go to God and talk to Him and deburden my heart. 1 Peter 5:7, cast my cares on Him, make my requests known to Him. I don't always know His will, and everything I ask for is not necessarily going to be answered how I want it answered anyway.

But that's where I trust in His character and His nature. I have a right to fellowship with God. I have the right of being an adopted son. I have the right of seeking God boldly in prayer and come boldly before His throne of grace in 4:16 of Hebrews. I have that right.

I was restored when I was born again. I was restored. Things were brought back. Things that I lost now came back into my reach. Rights that I'd never been able to handle, rights I'd never been able to access have been given back to me because when I was born again, I was restored. And not only that, when I fell deeply, no matter what that means for you or for me, all those lost years, maybe even as a Christian, God restores me like the Prodigal Son who came back after being gone from his father. He's restored after six months of probation, after doing some spiritual jumping jacks, after making a long speech of repentance to all the servants. How did the Father restore him? Instantly. He said, "Get him a turban and get him a robe. Get him a new ring. That's my son. He was lost, now he's back. Let's celebrate."