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A PEOPLE OF UNDERSTANDING Part 2 of 4 Nehemiah Chapter 9--(NKJ) To understand sin, we must see it in the light of God's character and nature. And to better understand God, we must see Him in contrast to ourselves. Let us look with the people of Nehemiah's day at the awesomeness of the God we serve. The people had gathered themselves in humility "with fasting, in sackcloth, and with dust on their heads" (v 1). The true Israelites, those who had separated themselves from foreign entanglements, stood confessing their sins and listening to the reading from the Book of the Law. The reading was followed by a rehearsal of God's gracious dealings with His people. God's name is blessed, glorious and exalted (v 5). He alone is the Lord. He is the Creator, and He preserves that which He has created. The host of heaven worship Him. (v 6). He is the Lord, the One who chose Abram, a man, brought him out of a land of idolatry, and changed his name from Abram to Abraham, thereby intertwining His own Name with that of the man he had chosen. He is the Lord who tests his chosen vessels to see if their hearts are faithful, and He is a covenant-making God who apportions the land unto His own. As a righteous God, He is faithful to perform all that He has said (v 7-8). Ours is a seeing and hearing God, the One who performs signs and wonders against the wicked and the proud whose heart He also knows and so makes a Name for Himself (v 10). He is a way-making God who destroys the persecutors of His people (v 11). He leads and gives warmth in the night and provides light by which those who follow Him may find their way (v 12). He came down to speak and to make known His laws, proving Himself a commanding God through the leadership of Moses (v 13-14). He is a God who provides both physical and heavenly bread and who meets natural and spiritual thirst: "You... brought them water out of the rock for their thirst." He is a God whose blessings — though promised — must be possessed (v 15). Faced with a proud, stubborn, disobedient, rebellious, and mutinous people, He remained the same: "But You are God," pardoning, gracious, merciful, and long-suffering, an abundantly-kind God (v 18). Even when those He had delivered attributed to a self-appointed idol the deeds He had done, He remained faithful. Refusing to "forsake them in the wilderness," He continued to lead them with His light by night and by day (v 19). From His Spirit He instructed them as He supplied their needs: "Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, So that they lacked nothing..." (v 20-21). So great was His care that in spite of the years of wilderness-walking, "Their feet did not swell" (v 21). This great Potentate empowered them to possess "kingdoms and nations" previously ruled by the heathen. Land after land became theirs as He led them in multiplied triumphs (v 22). Increased by His Hand to be as innumerable as the stars, they finally took possession of the land He had promised to their fathers (v 23). "You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land" (v 24). As Creator, He had given man a will, so He left with them the choice of how to deal with the inhabitants of the lands they conquered (v 24). How bountiful were the blessings this gracious God bestowed: He gave them cities, land, "houses full of goods, Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance," and for these things, they "delighted themselves" in His magnificent goodness (v 25). Afterwards, when they became disobedient to His Law and rebellious to the point of killing His prophets, He surrendered them into the hands of their enemies. In their distress they cried out to the God they had shunned, and in His "abundant mercies," He saved them from the hands of their oppressors (v 26-27); but the deliverances He wrought proved no guarantee of their future faithfulness and obedience. After a temporary rest, they again rebelled, forcing God to give them once more into the hands of their enemies. Again they cried to Him, and again He delivered them. How merciful this God! (v 28). Year after weary year the scenario replayed. Yet in His long-suffering, God left a remnant to whom He continued to manifest Himself as a"gracious and merciful" God (v 31). This is our God, the One who never changes. He is the ever-living, immutable Lord who still searches for a people of understanding, a remnant to whom and through whom He can show Himself mighty and majestic. -Ruth French September Newsletter 1998 | Sin - Sin - Sin | Uncovering Hidden Strongholds Pastor's Journal September 1997 | A Family That Prays Together | A People of Understanding part 2 of 4 Revised: August 29, 2007. |
Biblical Counseling for Leaders
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