Holy Scriptures and Israel

Guest (Male): Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus Yeshua the Messiah and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: Shabbat Shalom. Please open your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah. We are going to continue today to deal with the second half of Nehemiah chapter four, from verse 10 to the end of the chapter. Nehemiah chapter four is a chapter that deals with the enemies of the Jewish people that have existed in the land of Israel when the people of Judah returned to the land to rebuild the walls and the gates. And immediately, we discovered that Israel had enemies that sought to destroy them and to stop the work that Israel were doing in building that wall.

So let me read now Nehemiah four and verse 10. And we read, "And Judah said, 'The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall.' And our adversaries said, 'They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them and slay them and cause the work to cease.' And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, 'From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you.'"

"Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, 'Be not ye afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.' And it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work."

"And it came to pass from that time forth that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the armor, and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They which builded on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand he held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me."

"And I said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, 'The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us; our God shall fight for us.' So we labored in the work. And half of them held spears from the rising of the morning until the stars appeared. Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, 'Let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be a guard to us and labor on the day.'"

"So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing." And so I’m stopping in the reading here. Now, if we would have been there after the 70 years of the captivity in Babylon to rebuild the temple first, now the wall with Nehemiah, we would have realized the tremendous amount of pressure and difficult time that these Jewish people have had. We begin with Nehemiah, who was concerned about the situation that existed in Jerusalem.

The walls of Jerusalem were broken down, the gates were burned with fire, and the people of Judah were exposed to the enemies without. They could not enjoy safety and security because there were no walls, there were no gates. So finally, Nehemiah received the instruction and the command from Artaxerxes to go back to the land of Israel to begin to build the walls of Jerusalem. And they surely did. In chapter three of our study, they built all the walls into half of the height and they set up the gates. And immediately in chapter four, you find out that enemies begin to oppose him.

We made the application in the things of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah. You and I as believers in the Lord Yeshua the Messiah will notice this in our lives. If we're going to try to build something for the Lord, if we're going to try to live and to follow after the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, immediately you will see that we will have enemies who will oppose our walk with the Lord. And as we mentioned before, every one of us have three enemies. Number one is the old nature that we have. Number two is the world around us. And number three is Satan himself who opposes the building of the house of the Lord every time.

And if we are not going to be alert, wise, and careful, and prayerful, and watchful, we will end up being defeated in a practical way. We know that very well. How many times the people of God who are saved and are going to go to heaven as a sure thing on the basis of their faith in Yeshua the Messiah, we oftentimes live a defeated life as believers. No power to serve the Lord, no energy to minister to God's people. Why? Because we allow the enemy to discourage us and to cause us to be defeated.

And here we see this, brothers and sisters. If there is anything more practical than this, you will never find anywhere more practical reality in a life of God's people. These were Jewish people who were called to go back to the promised land, and yet enemies attacked them. Later on in chapter five, we'll find out that the enemies are from within, but in this case, it was the enemies from without. And so the first nine verses in our previous ministry meeting together, we have talked about this man by the name of Sanballat.

Notice in verse seven, it said, "And it came to pass that when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Amorites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, they were very angry." Why they were angry? Because they were jealous over the fact that the people of Israel are building the wall and the breaches are closed. And soon enough, they will not be able to attack them and defeat them. So they were angry and they made a plan.

What was their plan? Notice in verse eight, they conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder that. Nevertheless, we made our prayers unto our God and set a watch. And that's where we stopped in our previous ministry, that they made a plan. You see, you and I don't even realize how many plans the enemy of God is preparing for your life, for my life, for your family, for my family, for your spiritual welfare, for my spiritual welfare.

The enemy is preparing to attack the people of God at all times, from the day that you became a believer till the day that the Lord will take you to glory to heaven. He attacks us in every form and shape. And no wonder we can see the condition of the body of Messiah today who is in many ways defeated, discouraged, and very little spiritual power to walk for the Lord. And we don't need to speak about anybody else. We know this in our very own hearts because we know ourselves. We know our own hearts.

And yet, there is a man like Nehemiah. His name meaning "the comfort of Jehovah," whom God had raised in the midst of his own people to comfort the people of God and to minister to them so they can continue on to follow the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and to build the walls of the city of Jerusalem. And so he came and he was such an encouragement. And I mention many times, we need Nehemiahs in our meetings. We need Nehemiahs in our friendships. We need Nehemiah, whether it is a male or female brother or sister, to be men and women of God that encourage the saints of God to continue to walk with the Lord.

If you remember Deborah, she was called a mother in Israel. And you sisters have the very same responsibility to be a blessing to the people of God who are so discouraged today wherever they are, to be an encouragement to the body of Mashiach, to the body of Messiah. So in these next verses, verses 10 to 23, we can see that Judah, and especially verses 10, 11, and 12, you can see that the people of Judah began to be discouraged. Look at this. Look at verse 10. It says, "And Judah said, 'The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed and there is much rubbish, so we are not able to build the wall.'"

Immediately, there was discouragement. Wow, look at this. There's no more strength. The people who carry the burdens, in other words, they were bringing bricks and stones and sand to build the wall again, the wall of Jerusalem, they began to be discouraged. They didn't have much strength because there was a lot of labor. And brothers and sisters, I’m going to tell you, if you're going to serve our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, you're going to see how much energy it's going to sap from you. Serving the Lord and building the body of Messiah takes a lot of energy.

It takes commitment. It takes disappointments. It takes all sorts of things that one will be discouraged and at times we say, "What's the use? I don't want to go to meetings and I don't want to read my Bible and I don't want to talk to him and I don't want to talk to her and there's too much opposition. I can't take it anymore." Discouragement came. And there's so much rubbish to deal with. And rubbish, the Hebrew word is *afar*. *Afar* simply mean ground, sand. You know, God made man out of the dust of this earth.

There's a lot of sand, there's a lot of ground, there's a lot of rubbish. And to carry and to load it and to bring it to the wall area and to start to build the wall, it takes a lot of effort. And so it kind of discouraged these believers, these Jewish people at that time. And so many of them began to be discouraged. And they said, "What's the use? Should we continue on?" And notice it says in verse 11 that the plan of the Jewish enemies, the Jews' enemies, because immediately in verse 11 it says, "Our adversaries said, 'They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, we're going to slay them, and we're going to stop the work of the Lord.'"

See, the enemies were planning this. This is Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, the Ammonites, the Ashdodites, and what we really have, the ancient Samaritan, the Shomronim, who are mixed breed. They really were an enemy of our Jewish people from ages to ages since the time that the tribes of Israel have separated, the Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom. And those people opposed the Jewish people who wanted to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem. And the adversary says, "You know, they will not know until we come in the midst among them. We're going to slay them and we're going to stop the work of the Lord."

And this is exactly what they have planned. And so when you hear your enemies are going to come and you know what he's planning, and the walls are not set up, there are still cracks in the wall, there are still areas that are not completely built up, they can just go over the wall and come and destroy the people of God. The people of Judah, they had intended to slay the people of Judah. And you notice the word "adversaries." That's come from the Hebrew word *tzareinu*. There's an expression that we have in the book of Esther, *tzorer ha-Yehudim*, the enemy of the Jews.

There was a man in the time of Esther, and he was the enemies of the Jewish people, the same root word, *tzorer ha-Yehudim*, the adversary of the Jewish people. His name was Haman. He opposed the Jewish people. Twice we read about him as the enemy of the Jews in Esther chapter three and verse 10 and Esther chapter eight and verse one. Here we have an additional enemies. All of them were ready to come into the midst of the people of Israel and notice they wanted to slay them, number one.

Number two, they wanted to cause the work of the building of the walls of Jerusalem to stop. And isn't it the same thing, beloved brothers and sisters, in the life of the people of God, the body of Messiah? We also have enemies that are trying to stop us from building, from progressing, to stop us from glorifying our Lord Yeshua the Messiah in the midst of his own people. And so he's seeking to attack. He can never take the salvation of a true believer away from him, but he can sure allow us to experience lack of joy and lack of enjoyment of what Yeshua have done for us.

And why I’m saying that he can never take away the salvation of anyone who is a true believer? It's because the Lord Yeshua himself said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and I'll give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish, and no one is able to pluck them out of my hand." Once you and I become children of God, we belong to him for eternity, not because you are good, not because I'm good, not because of your work, not because of my work. It's because of the work that Yeshua have done for us on the tree.

But he sure, the enemy of the people of God, can cause us a lot of havoc in the midst of our walk with the Lord. And sometime, beloved brothers and sisters, I want to say that some of the things become like an enemy to us in our lives are things that are very fundamental. Let me give you an example. Things that become the enemies in the life of the people of God is false teachings. If somebody come and teach us false teaching, it become an animosity to the spiritual growth of the people of God.

What about worldliness? John said to us, "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, it is not of the Father. It is of the world." What about legalism? Things that are not biblical, but sound very religious, but not sound, not comes from the word of God. What about liberalism? Everything goes, as if we don't have the Bible to teach us the truth of God. What about the fact that coldness in our hearts, no affection towards the Lord?

We are so cold. We are so indifferent to the things of the Lord. "Oh yes, we are saved. I got my place in heaven. I'm going to be there," but never spiritual growth and never appreciation of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah. What about divisions? The body of Messiah is often being divided in so many ways because we haven't submitted to the will of the Lord and we allow ourselves to be those source of divisions among the people of God. These are some of the enemies that you and I experience today.

And what about closed Bible? You know, we go to church meeting, but we don't need a Bible. We belong to Yeshua, but we don't need a Bible. You notice that every time that we come to our meeting, we read the Bible. We open the word of God, the Tanakh, the Brit Hadashah, because the word of God is the source of instruction to the people of God. The prophets of Israel spoke about the word of God, the psalmist of Israel spoke about the word of God. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," we read in Psalm 119.

And we can just go on. It's not only persons who become as an enemies of the people of God, but certain things in our lives as I mentioned: false teaching, worldliness, legalism, liberalism, coldness, divisions, and a Bible not read and not taught. This is exactly what is endanger us today. We don't build the wall with cement and stones and sand. The house of God is a spiritual house today. And we are to build that spiritual house and to be used by the Lord for the glory of the Lord and for the blessing of the people of God.

The apostle said to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter three and verse 15, "If I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought to behave in the house of God." What is the house of God? Paul give us: "which is the church or the assembly of the living God, the ecclesia." This is the pillar and the ground of the truth. That is the house of God. And we are responsible today to participate in the building of the house of God, the ecclesia, the assembly, the believers, the body of Messiah.

And so here are those enemies coming and you see they said, "We are going to come against them." And you see they're aware of it. "We are going to slay them." This is verse 11. "And we are going to stop the work" in verse 11. Now, what's happening usually when the work is stopping? The people are scattered and there is no progress. People are not developed spiritually. There is no service among the believers. The gospel is not being preached, therefore there is not new people come to know the Lord and the growth among the people of God.

That's what happened. That was the plan of the enemies of the people of Judah in the days of Nehemiah. And that is the plan of the enemy of the people of God today in our days of age, of the ecclesia days. The enemy want to destroy the work of the Lord. And we need to be aware of it, beloved brothers and sisters. And I just wanted to mention that sometimes the enemy will try to destroy the people of God, but God has a plan and he's going to fulfill his promises to Israel the nation and to the body of Messiah as Yeshua said in Matthew 16:18, "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against the assembly, the church."

And when God said through the prophet Jeremiah about Israel that even if you can measure the heights from the heaven to earth, then I will cast Israel from being a nation. But we can't measure, and therefore God has a plan to restore Israel back to himself, even though the enemies will seek to attack. So we are moving along. The people of Judah began to be discouraged, verses 10, 11. Notice what it says in verse 12. The Jews who dwelt by the enemies, they came and they appealed to Nehemiah.

It says in verse 12, "And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by the adversary, by them, when they came, they said unto us ten times, 'From all the places whence ye shall return unto us, they will be upon us.'" Apparently, some of the Jewish community of course lived outside of Jerusalem. Judea and the area of Samaria. And so they were neighbors to Sanballat, to Tobiah, to the Arabians, to the Amorites, to the Ashdodites. And they hear them saying, "Oh, we're going to make a plan. We are going to come to destroy the people of Judah. We're going to stop their job of the building of the walls."

So they came ten times unto Nehemiah and the leaders of Judah and they said to them, "Listen, everywhere wherever you are going to live, they're going to come there and attack." And you notice that what happened usually it is like that. When the Lord raise some leaders, when the leaders are not around, then the enemy find that opportunity to attack those that are the sheep that are without a shepherd, you might say. And that's why we need to depend upon the Lord, but we should never depend only on one man.

We should all grow together and all mature so we will be alert in case some false things are coming in the midst of God's people. And that's why Nehemiah, he could not be everywhere. Imagine the walls of Jerusalem, the many gates that are there. He couldn't be everywhere standing there and observing and watching. He couldn't do so. He was one single man. But he sought to instruct the people of Israel to protect themselves and to beware of the enemy that will seek to attack. And so we read now, beloved brothers and sisters, we continue down in verses 13, 14, and 15.

Nehemiah has a plan to protect the people of Judah and to progress in the building of the walls of Jerusalem. He has his own plan. He trust the Lord, of course, but he introduced this to the people of Judah. And it's so nice to see, first of all you notice he's arranging them by their families. It says in verse 13, "Therefore set I the lower places behind the wall and on the higher places, I even set the people after their family with their swords, with their spears, and with their bows." First of all, he put them behind the wall. Not on the outside, but on the inside of the wall of Jerusalem.