The Discipline of Reformation

    This weekend being Thanksgiving, you might have rekindled some old friendships over the turkey or at a get-together. Isn't that one of the joys of this time of year: reuniting with friends and family you haven't seen in far too long?

    Many times, you and I promise our friends that this time, we'll stay in touch. We're so energized by seeing them that we wonder how we ever let our friendships slide in the first place -- and we promise not to let it happen again.

    But then you get back home, and get back to work, and get back into the busy-ness of everyday life. And just that quickly, you neglect to e-mail your old friend. The fervor fades, and the lines of communication stay cold for another few years.

    The reality is that spiritual revival is the same way: if you and I aren't disciplined to walk with the Lord after the feeling of fervor fades, we quickly will lapse into the neglect of the things of God. That's why, as Nehemiah teaches you and me this morning, holy discipline is necessary if you and I are to grow steadily in the likeness of our Lord Jesus.

    Our sermon text this morning confronts you and me with a harsh reality: we, as sinners, can lapse back into sin even after a great reviving work of God.

       Revival, Nehemiah 13 instructs us, involves more than simply passionate emotions toward Christ. In fact, it demands discipline, because as frail and sinful beings, you and I can fall back into evil patterns in a moment.
    The Lord had worked mightily in Nehemiah and, subsequently, in His people to move them to rebuild the crumbled wall of Jerusalem. He had convicted them of spiritual coldness, laziness and worldliness, and He had enabled them to look past distractions and to do His work in His holy city. The picture of Jerusalem at the end of chapter 12 was one of abundant spiritual vitality. God's people were walking, finally, after His own heart!

Yet time passed, Nehemiah went back to King Artaxerxes' court to resume his post, and in chapter 13 we find God's people reverting to their comfortable, sinful habits. For one, they had engaged in sinful alliances at every level. The people had taken foreign wives, particularly the women of Moab. While Ruth the Moabitess stands out as a glorious convert to Christ, her countrymen clearly hated the Lord and His people. Nehemiah even mentions the efforts of the Moabites to hire Balaam to curse Israel (as recorded in the Book of Numbers), which Balaam couldn't do because God had blessed His people with an unalterable blessing. In marrying heathen and enemy women, God's people had attached themselves to unbelievers at the deepest level. As a result, their devotion to God became watered down. Their children couldn't speak the Hebrew tongue -- an imposing obstacle to teaching a faith that depended so much on communicating the revealed Word of God to their youth. The bitter fruit of Solomon's worldly marriages -- a shattered Israel -- should have served as a warning to them, but apparently they were determined to sin against the Lord.

    Even Eliashib, the high priest, engaged in such evil alliances. He allowed Tobiah, who had a "religious" name and the outward markings of religiosity, but truly was the enemy of Nehemiah -- to use part of God's house as his base of self-aggrandizing operations. His grandson married a descendant of Nehemiah's other chief enemy, Sanballat. At the highest level, God's people were blending in with the unbelieving world.

    In the same vein, you and I can adopt sinful alliances with the world even after a time of revival. St. Paul says you must not marry, or allow your children to marry, non-Christians; such a union is too vital and consequential to allow Satan a foot in the door. Yet how often do your children choose a mate based not on whether or not that person makes them a better Christian but rather on external factors such as shared hobbies and good looks?

    You and I also can go from having non-Christian friends to whom we witness to allowing them to witness to us their pagan ways. You easily can adopt their ways of thinking about absolute truth (they say there is none), about Christ (he was a nice man -- but not God) and about issues of holy living (they see no need for holiness before God).

    You and I must be in the world. We never can be of the world!

    God's people also neglected His temple, as evidenced by the Levites and singers having to move to the countryside to make a living. They weren't giving as they should; the priests and Levites were neglecting their duties and thus breaking their covenant before God; and the sacrificial offerings became a trickle. It's no surprise they began to marry pagans: they clearly didn't give attention to the entirety of the law as they should have done.

This church could be packed out after a time of revival. I hope and pray it will be! After September 11, that day of great reckoning with sin and with eternity, you couldn't hardly find a place in churches across America. You even might have been one who started back to church at that time in your life.

    But miss one Sunday, and the next becomes easier to miss. Miss one morning devotion, and the next becomes easier to miss. Soon, you care nothing for the things of God.

    God's people thirdly fell into neglect of His Day, the Sabbath. The Sabbath was unique to Israel among all the nations of the earth: it was a day of rest, signaling His people's trust in His provision for them and giving them an opportunity to worship Him as He deserved. Yet after Nehemiah left, the residents of Judah began to trade on the Sabbath, and they allowed the merchants of Tyre into Jerusalem to sell their wares. The Jews clearly hadn't learned from God's past judgment of them, and they didn't seem to care that Satan crouched at the door, ready to distract them from the Lord by using those merchants to entice them into treating the Sabbath as any other day.

    The Sabbath still isn't just "any other day." It is a creation ordinance of God, codified for you and me in the Decalogue as binding on us still today. As one of my minister friends recently observed, God does His greatest work in you on His Day, when you're in His house, hearing His Word read and preached and worshipping Him. Satan, then, loves it when you find any reason to neglect worship and to treat Sunday as an extension of Saturday or as a preview of Monday.

    These are but three areas in which God's people, post-revival, lapsed into pre-revival rebellion against Him. Where are your vulnerable areas -- your cherished sins?

        The reality is that you and I quickly can lapse into our pre-reformation sins. That's why Nehemiah's response to the Jews' lapse is so vital for us to take to heart.

Nehemiah first clearly identified sin among God's people. You and I delight in finding creative ways to explain away our sin ("It's no big deal;" "I'm saved by grace, so who cares?") to ourselves; yet we cannot convince the Lord that sin isn't sin. You easily can become blind to your own sinful thoughts, words and deeds, having convinced yourself they're not sins at all.             

    That's why, like Nehemiah, you constantly need to be evaluating your choices and motives by the Word of God. You need to be open to rebuke by a servant of God such as Nehemiah, who sees your sin and loves you (and the Lord) enough to say something to you. You and I need to use the means of grace every day so that we avoid self-deception and "call out" the sins of our own lives.

    Nehemiah secondly confronted God's people with their sin. In fact, the term for "to rebuke" implies a lawsuit against someone for breaking covenant. It's serious business. And confrontation involves a call to repent. Now, confrontation might not seem so fun at first, regardless of whether you are the confronter or the confrontee. But rest assured the Lord uses confrontation for sin to accomplish spiritual healing in Christ in your life.

    Nehemiah thirdly cleansed God's people, both by driving out evildoers (such as Tobiah and Eliashib's grandson) and by ordering that sacrifice for sin be made for the repentant. Likewise, you and I need to keep a short record with the Lord (as Pastor Al Baker is fond of exhorting us pastors). When you're constantly monitoring your thoughts, words and deeds by God's Holy Word, you can repent of your sins that very instant and be cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Falling back into sin doesn't have to engulf you in sin and in depression, so long as you preach the Gospel to yourself daily and continually flee to Christ.

    And fourthly, Nehemiah made changes among God's people that promoted practical holiness. For instance, he drove out Tobiah and Eliashib's grandson, and demanded that those who had married heathen separate themselves from their spouses. He shut the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath and threatened those who would threaten to lure the Jews back into sin. He reorganized the priests and reappointed the sacrificial offerings. In sum, Nehemiah took tangible steps to promote Godliness in the daily activities of God's people. So must you and I take similar steps: not turning on the radio if talk radio makes you sinfully angry; taking a different route to work if you are tempted to sin at some establishment or by some person along your usual path. These changes might not seem "inspired," but as Nehemiah demonstrated, they are the mark of a Christ-like person who strives to live for his or her Redeemer.

    Emotions only get you and me so far in life. Maintaining a friendship, for instance, requires discipline and work -- strange as that might sound.

    Holy joy following revival? It's a blessing -- a true gift of God.

    Revival that endures, however, is an even-greater blessing. More than mere sentiment, continued revival requires constant vigilance, repentance and reform. It takes work: work that yields overflowing rewards.