Restore Rebuild Revive - Week Eleven : 06 Apr 2011

In response to their repentance, God has rescued His people from captivity. He has united them as His beloved people, using them to restore and rebuilt His Holy Temple and city whose walls were broken down and its gates destroyed by fire in just 52 days! He has shaken their enemies to their core and washed them with His Word reviving their hearts, bodies and souls. In response they vow to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD, to not neglect the house of our God. They celebrate by pausing and purifying themselves to evidence their dedication to the Holy City- their joy in His presence is heard far away.

With such restoration, rebuilding and revival why doesn’t the book of Neh end at the dedication? Why is there a chapter 13? After such a solid dedication to NOT neglect the house of their God, why does Neh find the people neglecting the house of God?

 Naïve, ignorant, or lazy about the reality that things never stay as they are. Life is not static, it is in constant motion-three forces: Human restlessness, God- working to transform people into his image and Satan’s working to corrupting the good work that God is doing. What is restored, rebuilt and revived will not stay that way unless there is an intentional, proactive effort to protect it.

 C.S.Lewis, “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

Israel was either too casual or prideful about the reality of their restless nature caught between these two forces. So after about a ten-year absence Neh finds that Israel has broken her covenant to keep God’s law. Neh 13:4-5 records the key to Israel’s slide.

Neh 13:4-5 … Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah, prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had previously put the grain offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, …

Eliashib, appointed by Neh to gate-keep the sacred storerooms of the temple allowed Israel’s enemy, Tobiah, to move into the temple. Tobiah, related to Eliashib by marriage, had audacity-not just a toe in the temple, his belonging replacing the sacrifices of the people. Tobiah inhabits the nerve center of the community-influence and corruption

We each have a gate-keeper that unfortunately cannot always be trusted like Eliashib. Our Eliashib is our flesh. Tobiah is our sin nature, related to us, but our arch-enemy. Our sinful nature has audacity. If our flesh does not submit to the Spirit of God and allows even a toe’s bit of sin nature to move in, it will have the same audacity as Tobiah and bring all its belongings into our heart, overpowering that which God has restored, rebuilt and revived to make His name famous.

 If we are naïve, ignorant, casual about our gate-keeper, our flesh, we will, like Israel, compromise the community of God by compromising our commitments to God. What is restored and rebuilt and revived will not stay that way without proactive gate-keeping.