Good evening. The wonderful speaker for this evening had to cancel and I wasn't busy so they had me come instead. So hopefully you all will bear with me. This evening we're going to be looking at Nehemiah chapters 9 and 10, so if you have your Bibles with you. If you'll turn there to Nehemiah chapter 9, we will read those two chapters. It's a little bit of a lengthy section, but I believe y'all have been dealing with lengthy sections each time, so you'll be familiar with it. But we'll begin in chapter 9 at verse 1 and just read through the end of chapter 10. But before we read God's Word, let's come before Him in prayer. Our great God and Father in heaven, we give Thee thanks tonight for Thy Word. Lord, Thou art the God who dwells in light that is inaccessible, the God of such radiant holiness that not even the angels who encircle Thy throne are able to look upon Thee. And yet Thou, O Lord, hast revealed Thyself to Thy people, Thou hast spoken, and Thou hast caused that speaking to be written down so that even tonight we're able to read Your very Word upon the page of a book. We give Thee thanks, O Lord, for Thy Word, and we pray that even tonight as we read it that You would bless it, Lord, You've promised in Your Word that when that Word goes forth out of Thy mouth that it shall not return unto Thee void, but that it shall certainly accomplish the purposes that Thou hast intended. O Lord, realize that promise in our midst even tonight. Make Thy Word powerful, and in it exalt the name of the risen Lord Jesus, we ask. For we pray it in His name. Amen. Nehemiah chapter 9, beginning at verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord. Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month, the children of Israel were assembled together with fasting and with sackcloths and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day, and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua and Benai, Cadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunai, Sherabiah, Benai, and Canani, and cried with a loud voice unto the Lord their God. Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Cadmiel, Benai, Hashabniah, Sherabiah, Hadijah, Shebaniah, and Petahiah said, Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever, and blessed be thy glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone. Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein. and thou preservest them all, and the host of heaven worshipeth thee. Thou art the Lord the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham, and foundest his heart faithful before thee. and made us to covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and has performed thy words, for thou art righteous, and didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea, and showest signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land, for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land. And their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps as a stone into the mighty waters. Moreover thou leadest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them precepts, statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses Thy servant, and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promised them that they should go in to possess the land which Thou hast sworn to give them. but they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt and had wrought great provocations, yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way, neither the pillar of fire by night to show them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing, their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Moreover, thou gavest them kingdoms and nations, and didst divide them into corners, so they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan. Their children also multiplied as thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land concerning which thou hast promised to their fathers that they should go in to possess it. So the children went in and possessed the land. And thou subduest before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands with their kings and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards and olive yards, and fruit trees in abundance. So they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in Thy great goodness. Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against thee and cast thy law behind their backs and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee. And they wrought great provocations. Therefore thou deliverest them into the hand of their enemies who vexed them. And in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, Thou heardest them from heaven, and according to Thy manifold mercies Thou gavest them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies. But after they had rest, they did evil again before Thee. Therefore leftest Thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them. Yet when they returned and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven, and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies, and testified against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law. Yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. And withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear. Yet many years didst thou forbear them and testify against them by thy spirit and thy prophets, yet would they not give ear. Therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands. Nevertheless, for thy great mercy's sake, thou didst not utterly consume them nor forsake them, for thou art a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God who keep His covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before Thee that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all Thy people. since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day. Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us, for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly. Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them. for they have not served thee in their kingdom. And in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turn they from their wicked works. Behold, we are servants this day. And for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it. And it yielded much increase unto the kings whom thou has set over us because of our sins. Also, they have dominion over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure. And we are in great distress. And because of all this, we make a sure covenant and write it. And our princes, Levites and priests seal unto it. Now those that sealed were Nehemiah the Tershithah, the son of Hekeliah and Zedekiah, Sariah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pasher, Amariah, Malkijah, Hathush, Shebaniah, Malak, Haram, Meriboth, Abadiah, Daniel, Ginnathon, Baruch, Meshulam, Abijah, Majemen, Meazah, Bilgaiah, Shemiah, these were the priests. and the Levites, both Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Benui of the sons of Hinnadad, Kadmiel, and their brethren, Shebaniah, Hadijah, Kalita, Peleah, Hanan, Micah, Rahab, Hashebiah, Zechar, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, Hadijah, Benai, Beniu, the chief of the people, Perush, Pahathmoab, Eleum, Zathu, Bena, Buna, Asgad, Babaya, Adonijah, Bigvea, Aden, Eder, Hiskijah, Ezer, Hadijah, Heshum, Beziah, Harif, Anatof, Nebaiah, Magpiyash, Hashulam, Hezer, Ms. Shezabel, Zadok, Jadua, Pelletiah, Hanan, Aniah, Hosea, Hananiah, Hashub, Holahesh, Pelehu, Shobek, Rahum, Heshabna, Messiah, and Ahijah, Hanan, Anan, Malik, Haram, Bayana. And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the nethanim, and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands under the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone having knowledge and having understanding, they claimed to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and into an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God. and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and His judgments and His statutes, and that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the Sabbath or on the holy day, and that we would leave the seventh year in the exaction of every debt. Also, we made ordinances for us to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God, for the showbread, and for the continual meat offering, and for the continual burnt offering of the Sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offerings, to make an atonement for Israel and for all the work of the house of our God. And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the Lord our God as it is written in the law. and to bring the firstfruits of our ground, and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year unto the house of the Lord. Also the firstborn of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, and to the priests that minister in the house of our God. and that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine, and of oil unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage. And the priest, the son of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites take tithes. And the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes into the house of our God, to the chambers, into the treasure house. For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers. And we will not forsake the house of our God. Amen. Now I'm going to begin our time together this evening with a little bit of a confession. Next month, I will turn 40 years old. It hurts a little bit to say it publicly, but I'll be turning 40 next month. And yet still, even when appropriate occasion presents itself, I still call my father and ask his advice. There's a question I have, a decision I'm facing. I'll call my father and ask him for advice. A nearly 40-year-old man calling dad to ask for his input. Well, why do you think that I would do that? Well, I do it because of the sort of man that he is. Throughout my life, my father has shown me, both with his words, with his actions, he's shown me that he loves me. He's shown me that my questions aren't burdens. He's shown me that I don't have to be embarrassed or ashamed about messes that I might have made for myself along the way. He's shown that he won't scorn me, he won't laugh at my questions. Sometimes he does laugh at my questions, that's good in its place as well. But time and again he's shown me with his words, with his actions, that that's just the sort of man who he is. In our passage before us this evening, the Scriptures are showing us something similar, and yet something infinitely more glorious about the living God. It's a reminder to us of who He is, of what He does because of who He is, and it challenges us, in light of all of that, to act rightly before Him. As we find in Nehemiah chapter 9 and 10, because of God's relentless faithfulness, His people must repent before Him and seek after lives of obedience. Now, as all of you Bible scholars will know, Nehemiah chapter 9 comes immediately after Nehemiah chapter 8. intense biblical insight for you to get us rolling. I believe that all of you heard this morning from Dr. Barrett about what occurred in Nehemiah chapter 8. It was a time of great revival. It was a day of real spiritual power, a day of rejoicing. And in the closing verse of chapter 8, the scriptures tell us that this time of rejoicing, the time of worship, it had concluded on the 8th day of the month. And then in the opening verse of chapter 9, we're told that the events reported here occurred on the 24th day of the month. So the events we read described here They occur just a little bit more than two weeks after the time of spiritual power in Nehemiah chapter 8. The people, as we meet them here in chapter 9, are a little bit more than two weeks removed from revival. And that in itself shows us something significant. In the lives of God's people, there are times of great spiritual refreshment. Sometimes people refer to them as mountaintop experiences. Times when you can palpably sense the Spirit's presence with you. Times of spiritual flourish and spiritual growth. Perhaps this week at camp has been one of those sorts of experiences for you, a sort of Nehemiah chapter 8 sort of time. I pray that it has been. But those times of spiritual flourishing, they're wonderful. But they have to get down and stay. They have to have effects. They ought to produce something. And in our passage this evening we're dealing with the people who just two weeks earlier had had what was undoubtedly the greatest spiritual experience of their lives. And we see here what it's taught them and what effect it has had upon them. And it ought to challenge all of us. It ought to challenge all of you, even as you kind of wind down your time here at youth camp, head back to regular life. It's realizing these things and doing these things that make the spiritual high of this week stick. And it produces change in your life as weeks and then months and then years pass on. Now, the first thing that our passage lays before us is that God is a God of relentless faithfulness. Now, we see that throughout the passage, but especially in chapter 9, verses 1 through 31. Now I won't take the time to read that entire section again, but if you recall in those verses, the first 31 verses really that we read a moment ago, the children of Israel had assembled together, a number of the Levites, the religious leaders in a sense, had stood up and they had led the people in this beautiful prayer. A prayer that really kind of rehearses all of the mighty acts of the living God. In verse 6, they praise God for His creation of all things. In verses 7 and 8, they praise God for choosing Abram, for giving him these unspeakably wonderful promises. And then beginning in verse 10, the prayer details the way in which God delivered His people out of Egyptian shackles. How he buried Pharaoh and his army in the midst of the Red Sea, even as the children of Israel had walked in dry land. He then had cared for the Israelites as they wandered through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. You all know that story. You know that the Israelites, between Egypt and the Promised Land, they rebelled. You look again at how the scriptures put it in verses 16 and 17. I begin in verse 16, it says, But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and refused to obey. Neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not." You're faced with the reality-bending majesty and love of God that they had seen in the midst of the plagues upon Egypt, that they had seen at the parting of the Red Sea. In the face of all of that, the Israelites were stubborn. They didn't want to obey the God who had loved them and who had set them free. They actually wanted to go back to their chains rather than walk in the freedom that God had won for them. But God didn't let them go. He didn't sever this rebellious nation from Himself. Why? Well, as verse 17 says, it was because God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. God would not forsake the rebels. because He is faithful. Even when the rebels were seeking to run from Him, God won't release them because He's merciful and He's faithful. God kept Israel in the deep of His hand, not because of who they were, not because of what they had done or not done, but purely and entirely because of who He is. He's faithful. And His mercy knows no bottom. And so all of the rebellions of His people, they disappear in this unending well of the mercy of the living God. Now we skipped over it a minute ago, but back up in verse 8, when the prayer had mentioned Abraham, it spoke about God making a covenant with him. God pledging that he would be God to Abraham and to his descendants after him. And that those same descendants and that same Abraham, they would be his people. God had made a covenant, he had promised. And the rebellions and the resistance of God's people cannot undo the promise of God. And so he never lets them go, even when they're the ones crying out to be released. God cares for them. And He cared for them in miraculous, sometimes even bizarre ways. You know, look at verse 21 in chapter 9. At that point, the prayer is discussing how Israel, after they'd rebelled against God at the border of the Promised Land, they were being forced to wander in the desert for 40 years. And it says this in verse 21, Yea, 40 years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing, their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Even when they were suffering the just punishment for their own rebellion, even when they're wandering in the desert because of what they had done in defiance of God, God Himself sustains them. And look what it says that He did. The entire time, for 40 years, it says, their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Their clothes didn't wear out. They didn't become tattered and worn. Their shoes never wore thin. They never became too small. For 40 years. I can't get a shirt to last a year. And these lasting for 40 years of intensive environments in the desert. Even down to the most minute details of everyday life, God was caring for them. Even in a sort of mundane miraculousness. God was caring for them. None of their needs were too small for His concern. But eventually, of course, the wilderness wanderings were over. The Israelites entered the Promised Land. This land was filled with hostile warrior nations. And against all of those nations, all of them far mightier than Israel for the most part, God fought for Israel. Look at verse 24. So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduest before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands with their kings and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would. The Israelites, they were the guys carrying the swords. But God was the one who was subduing all their enemies. He was the warrior. The Israelites were simply entering in to gather the fruit of God's victory. But even in the aftermath of those victories, even established in the land, Israel continued to rebel. God would deliver them, He would prosper them, they'd be faithful to Him for a time. But then they would forget. Their hearts would grow cold. They'd rebel against God all over again. You know, verse 28 refers to how every time that Israel had rest, every time that they weren't being actually assaulted directly by enemies of one kind or another, as soon as they had any degree of peace, They would turn from God. And they would stay turned from Him until another opponent rose up to attack them again. And then, under the oppression of wicked nations, they would cry out to the God whom they had ignored, when they thought they didn't need Him. And as the end of verse 28 says, God always would hear them. And He always would deliver them again, specifically according to His mercies. And you get the sense as you read through this lengthy prayer that it's never the Israelites. The Israelites never deserve deliverance. They never deserve to be spared. Always it's the mercy of their God. You know, verse 31 really sums it up. Verse 31, we read this, "...Nevertheless, for Thy great mercy's sake, Thou didst not utterly consume them nor forsake them, for Thou art a gracious and merciful God." In all of these preceding verses, and it's a lengthy prayer, but in all of it, there's nothing commendable that Israel has done. All they've done is rebel. receive undeserved blessing, enjoy that blessing, and then rebel again. You know, Israel doesn't look good in this account. And they don't look good in the account because the account is true. Israel, many times over, should have won their own annihilation before the just God. But they didn't. They had not been consumed by divine holy wrath because of the character of the God whom they served. You know, this isn't a case of, oh, Israel was bad, but they weren't bad enough. There was enough good mixed in alongside the bad that they could at least avoid complete extinction. They got smacked around a little bit, but they weren't that bad. No, Israel survives only because of the character of God. because he loves them, and he buries them under mercy, and he never wavers from the promise that he made to Abraham. Israel remains, in spite of all of their wickedness, all of their rebellion, Israel remains because God is a God of relentless faithfulness, and not even the Israelites can run to a place that his faithfulness won't go. Now do you see the deep abiding comfort in that? If you're a Christian this evening, God has made promises to you. He's made you promises of ultimate victory. He's made you promises of limitless life in His immediate presence. And not a single one of those promises will ever fail. And it's all because of God's character. It's because He's merciful, and He's gracious, and He's faithful. It's because of Him. And it's not at all because of you. You see, one of the tricky things about great spiritual experiences, like what I hope and pray that this youth camp has been for you, one of the tricky things about these sorts of experiences is that they so easily can make us imagine that by having the experience, or by going to the camp, that there's something in you that has captured God's favor, that has made you worthy in some way. But so then when you go back to ordinary life, you stumble, or you see others stumble, it's almost as if some mystical spell has been broken. And all the good stuff from this spiritual experience has been drained away because you, who had soared so high, have now fallen. But God's love for you never has been about anything in you. It always has been about Him. About His character. Your entire Christian life is one perpetual process of receiving undeserved blessing from the living God that has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with Him. Not your deserving, but His mercy and His grace and His faithfulness. All of us harbor in our hearts a legalism that tells us that by what we do or by what we avoid doing, we earn God's favor. Or at the very least, we make ourselves more deserving of His favor than all the other people who don't do the things that we do are. We might not say that we deserve God's favor. But we believe we're more deserving of it than others because of the things that we do, or because of the things that we don't do. But brothers and sisters, that's a lie. If God has saved you, it has had nothing to do with you, and it's had everything to do with the God who is merciful and who is gracious. If you were to run through your history, And really that's what this prayer does, it runs through the history of the Israelite people. If you were to run through your history, run through the history of your family, would it be a list of accomplishments? A list of things that you've done? Your rules that you've followed? Expectations that you've met? Work that you've done? Or would it be an extended testimony that you are a rebellious sinner who has graciously come under the covering of a merciful God? That you're a sinner who, no matter what you do, God will not let you go. And we certainly see here in Nehemiah chapter 9, the path that was followed by Israel in their prayer. Not a list of their accomplishments, not a list of their duties, not a list of expectations they had met. but a list of the times that God had bestowed a grace on them that they never deserved. They are the weak people of a resplendent God who has been relentless in his faithfulness to them. And this is the faithfulness of their God. And that faithfulness, as the passage shows us, it ought to elicit certain responses from those who belong to it. As we sort of press forward in the passage, we see that because of God's relentless faithfulness, His people must repent before Him. Now, we skipped over this before, but if you look back at the first two verses of chapter 9, as Israel enters into this extended prayer, extolling the mercy of their God, they've been fasting together, they're clothed with sackcloth, they have dust, ashes on their heads, You all know what that means sackcloth ashes dust. These are signs visible signs of repentance It shows how little you thought of yourself as you come confessing your sin And that's what Israel is doing as verse 2 says in this prayer. They are confessing their sins and the sins of their fathers and Later when you get to verse 32, really up to the end of chapter 9, you see how the Israelites include all of their own rebellions, their own judgments in this overall confession. The Israelites here in this prayer are repenting. And all of this rehearsal of Israel's history, all the repeating of how Israel had rebelled and God had shown grace and Israel had rebelled again and God had shown grace again, all of it has been encouraging the Israelites to come in full repentance before God, even that very day. And do you see why that is? You know, certainly when you reflect on these sorts of things, when you reflect on the sinfulness of previous generations, the sinfulness of your own heart, it reminds you of a multitude of things of which you must repent. And it certainly is true. It's a method of self-examination. But there's more to it than just that. You know, think about it. As this prayer has framed it, the entire history of Israel is one long, multi-generation proof that God forgives. In the scripture, say it bluntly in verse 17, God is ready to pardon. He forgives His people. His people rebel, His people sin, His people do things that ought to bring His crushing fury down upon them through an endless eternity of torment, and the just judge of all the earth forgives them. If that weren't true, Israel wouldn't exist. The entire world wouldn't exist. And when you're dealing with a God like that, when you're dealing with a God who is that willing to forgive, then there is nothing that should hinder you from bringing the fullness of your sin before Him in repentance. You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to keep that sin tucked away. You don't have to fear that one thing that you've done. That one thing, He won't forgive that one. Let me tell you one of the saddest things I experienced as a pastor. I mentioned that I'm a professor at the seminary now. Before coming here, I pastored a church back in North Carolina. And I tell you this so that you all starting tonight while you're still young, that you can avoid this spiritual plague. When I pastored, like I said, I pastored a congregation in rural North Carolina, in many ways a very different place, and yet there's so many similarities. In North Carolina, to a large extent, being a Christian is associated and equated with societal respectability. You follow the rules. You work hard. You live an upright, respectable life. You serve at the church, help your neighbors. You care for your family. You're respectable. You've never done anything to bring too much shame on your family. That's what gives you standing before God. You've met all of the right expectations. Now, even if you've never been to North Carolina, I suspect that might sound a little familiar. But if that's what Christianity is, then what do you do with your sin? If being a Christian and being respectable go hand in hand, what do you do with all the things that you've done? And all the things that you've said? And all the things that you've thought? What do you do with all of those things that your respectability depends upon no one else knowing? but that you do know and that God knows. Well, I'll tell you what you do. You hide it. You try to ignore it. You end up like a lady in my congregation several years ago on her deathbed weeping because her whole life she had assumed that being a Christian meant being respectable. And in spite of her facade that everyone believed, she knew that on the inside she wasn't. She never had come to terms with the fact that Christianity isn't founded on respectable living. It's founded on a faithful and merciful God. Your testimony shouldn't be works that you have done, but mercies that your God has lavished upon you. And if you miss that, Repentance becomes so hard and it just gets harder with each passing year. If you think and live and act as if being a Christian is defined by spiritual accomplishments, by checking all the right boxes, not checking any of the wrong boxes. If being a Christian is defined by meeting certain expectations, it will be so unspeakably hard for you in, say, 20 years to come before the God and judge of all the earth and confess that you haven't met the standard. You have lost sight of the simple fact that God's favor rests upon His people, not because of something in them, but because of the beauty of who He is. But when you look at your life, when you look at the Scriptures, and you see that God is ready to forgive, that forgiveness flows to His people, not because they've met some standard, not because they've met some expectation, but only because God Himself is merciful. They have no fear of bringing all your sin before Him, because He's the God who forgives. It's who He is. Now if tonight there's something in your heart, something in your life, something in your past, that you just simply and perhaps irrationally don't want to admit, something you don't want to own, something that even if you said it in prayer, it would invalidate all of your claims to be a Christian. It would show that you hadn't met the expectations, that you're fake. Even that thing, God can forgive it. And not because your sin isn't actually as bad as you're making it out to be, it is that bad. But because God is gracious, and He's merciful, and He's ready to forgive, and He doesn't forgive you because of something in you, but because of something in Him. The salvation of God's people never has depended upon those people meeting some standard or expectation. It always has depended on Him. And those who come to Him, they come under the blood. The blood of Jesus washes them clean, and it covers them in the very righteousness of the eternal Son of God. You can bring before God all of your sin, even that one. Because for His people, there is never a point at which God says, that's too much. Because the determinant of whether sin can be forgiven isn't in here, and it's not here in some list of things that I've done. The determinant of whether sin can be forgiven is in the character of God himself, and he tells us in Nehemiah 9, 17 that he's ready to forgive. He's told us so. Because of God's relentless faithfulness, his people must repent before him, and they can. But that's not all the passage shows us. You've got to move into chapter 10 of Nehemiah. You see that because of God's faithfulness, His people must seek after lives of obedience. Now as you might recall, if you didn't zone out, the first 27 verses of chapter 10 are essentially a list of names. And I'm willing to wager you probably don't know many people with many of these names. The end of chapter 9, it said that Israel made a covenant with God. They had pledged to do certain things in response to His mercy, in recognition of their own sinful ways. And then in chapter 10, the chapter begins with the list of the men who signed that covenant, that pledge. And then, really starting in verse 30, the Scriptures detail for us five specific things that the Israelites covenanted to do. Now, here of course is the full orb dynamic of the Christian life. We're not saved because of anything that we have done. God loves His people, He saves His people, not because of what we have done, but because of who He is. And yet, when we are saved, We're made new creations. We're given new hearts. We're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. So when we see the grace that God has lavished on us, and when the Spirit opens our eyes to see the sin in our hearts that grieves our Lord, we want to change. We want to turn from our sin, we want to embrace righteousness, we want to live lives that are pleasing in God's sight. And that display something of the glory of God in the midst of this world. And so in response to a salvation for which we did nothing, we seek to try to do something. You know, to live holy lives. Not to sort of work toward deserving the grace that we've received. but rather to magnify the grace that has saved us. That's the impulse of the regenerate heart, to be like the God who has saved us. And in Nehemiah chapter 10, the Israelites lay out these five ways in which they'll seek after this newness of life. You know, five things that they pledged to do in order to glorify God, cultivate holiness in their own lives. Now, as you can imagine, some of these things that the Israelites list are very much tied to the particularities of their lives in a particular place at a particular point in history. But that doesn't mean that they don't apply to us this evening. There are principles here that if we think about them, they push us toward ways in which we can live lives of consecration. Principles that give us ways that we can live after the experience of camp this week so as to glorify God in our lives. So let's look at what the Israelites' covenant to do. Now the first of these sort of spiritual resolutions, if you want to think of them that way, appears in verse 30. The Israelites' covenant that they will no longer intermarry with the pagan peoples around them. Now remember the setting here that you've seen and confronted throughout the book of Nehemiah. Israel had been in exile. Nehemiah, Ezra, others had come back to Jerusalem, but they still were controlled by non-Jews. The surrounding land still was filled with non-Jews. And in that situation, some Jews had begun marrying non-Jews. It evidently was occurring with some degree of frequency. Now you can imagine the problem with that. If a Jew married a non-Jew, then the Jew was marrying someone who didn't worship and didn't serve the true and the living God. And the Israelites here in verse 30 say that that practice they will stop. And it's a principle that's repeated in the New Testament. In places like 1 Corinthians 7.39, where it said that Christian widows can remarry, but only, as the scriptures say, in the Lord. Or 2 Corinthians 6.14, where Christians are instructed not to be unequally yoked with non-believers. Christians must not marry non-Christians. It's a simple, straightforward, in many ways you would think obvious principle. And it's critical to living a godly life in response to God's saving mercy. Now here it most likely goes without saying, but it has to be said. So often the things we think don't even need to be mentioned, actually do need to be mentioned. For those of you who are not married, you must never entertain even the possibility of marrying a man or a woman who's not united to Christ by faith. Don't even allow it into the realm of what would be conceivably possible. It doesn't matter if they're a strong attraction. It doesn't matter if you're feeling desperate. It doesn't matter if that boy or that girl is otherwise good and upstanding and wonderful. If someone doesn't believe in Jesus, he or she is not a candidate for marriage. You can't marry someone who doesn't worship Jesus and not have your spiritual vitality utterly destroyed. You can't join yourself to someone who doesn't love Jesus and simultaneously claim to love Jesus yourself. Jesus tells us that no one can serve two masters, that we must choose, we must give our hearts to only one. And you can't expect to buck that truth in the most intimate human relationship you'll ever know. Your heart must belong to Jesus, not to someone who says he doesn't exist or that he can't save. And your heart can't belong to both. It can't be done. But again, that's likely, I would assume, rather obvious. But think about the principle that lies behind it. Who you marry matters, and it matters spiritually. If you're not married tonight, you have to have high standards. Ladies, you have to be looking for and insisting on a spiritual leader. a man committed to Christ whose spiritual discretion, spiritual maturity, spiritual judgment you can trust and you can follow with confidence. Not just a man who brings home a paycheck and attends church on the Lord's Day, but an actual spiritual leader. Gentlemen, you have to be working to be those spiritual leaders. You have to be taking spiritual things seriously, not the macho things of this world that the world tells us are important, but the spiritual things that are truly and eternally important. And you have to be looking for a wife who's spiritually mature, who's zealous in her love for Jesus. Who you marry matters, and it matters spiritually. Now this is a much smaller group we all here tonight, I realize, but some of you already are married. And that doesn't mean you kind of get off the hook with this particular resolution of the Israelites. If you haven't been the sort of husband that you should have been, if you haven't been the sort of wife that you should have been, you have a God who is ready to forgive and who's ready to pour out spiritual strength that can bring change and that can bring newness of life. The marriage that you have right now has enormous implications for your spiritual condition. You know that. The way that you conduct yourself in that marriage has enormous implications for your spouse's spiritual condition. And you must find in the outpoured Spirit the spiritual capacities to seek after being a spouse who glorifies the reigning Lord Jesus. Because who you marry matters. And you matter in the spiritual condition of the one who married you. Now the second spiritual resolution here comes in verse 31, where the Israelites pledge that they no longer will buy goods from pagan merchants on the Sabbath day. Now again you have to remember that at this point the Jews are surrounded by pagan people, and no matter how much the Jews might observe the Sabbath, Their pagan neighbors don't. They'll still sell all their goods. They'll still buy things on the Sabbath day. And faced with that economic situation, the Jews had begun buying from pagan merchants on the Sabbath. By doing that, they violated the fourth commandment, of course, but here they pledge that they will stop. Now, if you come from a good Sabbath-keeping background, if you don't shop on the Lord's Day, these sorts of things, it's easy to think that you sort of have this principle covered, this one's fine, we can move on to the next one. In many ways, you might. And that's wonderful. But don't let those practices become simply a matter of habit, rather than a matter of conviction. Habits can change. Convictions won't. When God's people keep the Sabbath, when they are prepared by doing so to stand out radically from the society around them, they testify to God's glory. They testify to their love for Him. They are a people set apart and they live in accordance with His Word and not in accordance with the rhythms of this world and the wicked society that surrounds. It's very easy to see, particularly Sabbath-keeping, as a habit. A habit at times devoid of real meaning or purpose, particularly in our new world. But it is a conviction of God's people, and it's something they do that sets them apart, that honors the God who has saved them. Now the third thing that the Israelites covenant to do also comes in verse 31. The Israelites, they pledged to abide by Old Testament regulations that were aimed at caring for the poor and caring for the vulnerable. We won't get into all the details, but these regulations essentially provided for the poor to have access to crops so they could feed themselves. And then also to have their debt forgiven every seven years. And the Israelites here covenant that they will abide by those regulations. Now today we don't have this sort of economic system, this sort of agricultural system, but the principle is clear. If you're a Christian, are you caring for the vulnerable? And that's not just the vulnerable halfway around the world, it's the vulnerable in our own schools, our own neighborhoods. Do you seek to help those who are in need? Are you kind to those who need compassion? Those who need concern? It's so easy to not be blatantly, explicitly cruel, but to just kind of run roughshod over the vulnerable. To be so busy, so task-oriented, so consumed with what we're doing that the needy, the struggling, they're simply forgotten. They might not be abused explicitly, but they're forgotten. And that's not how God wants His people to live. If a person is in need, in need of assistance, in need of someone to just listen to burdens instead of spit back advice immediately, if a person is just in need of a friend when he sits alone at a lunch table, Christians ought to be those to whom the vulnerable feel comfortable coming. Christians ought to be those who take the burdens of the vulnerable and lift them off Not place more upon those who already are buckling at their knees It's that true of you Can you even name in your mind a vulnerable person with whom you come in contact? Or do they just kind of fade into the periphery of a life focused on the things that you enjoy? As we said already, there are five spiritual resolutions here. We've seen three of them. The last two are very similar, so we'll kind of stick them together. First, the Israelites pledged that they'll dedicate all of their first fruits to the care, the maintenance, the upkeep of the temple. And then secondly, they pledged to provide all of the material resources that will be needed for that same upkeep. Now in both those things, The Israelites are covenanting to devote their very best, the very best of their resources to God's service. They'll take resources that they themselves likely could use and they will devote them to seeing that the work and the worship of the Lord is maintained. Is that what you do? You know, some of y'all are of different ages and maybe it applies to you or it doesn't, but if it does, do you give to the church financially? But of course it's not just about money. Do you give your time? Do you give your energy? Do you give your abilities to the work of the church? Or does the church of Christ get from you simply the time and the concern that's left over after everything else has been done? After you've tended to all the things that you really care about, all the things that are pressing upon you, whatever you have left, that's what you give. Seeing that the worship and the work of the church is maintained ought to be one of the foremost concerns of the Christian life. And that's not just a matter or a point for older folks. It applies to all of us at whatever stage we find our lives. The resources that we have, our energy, our time, our efforts, where do we give them first? Are you giving yourself to the church And in that, giving yourself to the Christ who gave himself for you. Are you giving him your best? Or are you keeping that bit for yourself and giving him some that comes after? Now these are five things that the Israelites covenant to do in response to God's grace toward them. And if you think about the cumulative effect of all five things, it's profound. You know, the Israelites swearing this covenant, they would have been in an incredibly precarious position. I'm not sure if it's things that have been dwelt on much as you've gone through Nehemiah, but these Jews, they would have been quite poor. They were surrounded by pagan, sometimes very hostile nations. They still haven't really secured their presence back in Jerusalem. They're living on the very edge of sustainability. And here, they covenant to do things that will bring them further isolation and that will place greater demands on very, very limited resources. So why do you think that this would be a wise thing to do? Well, it's because of God's character. It's because He's gracious and He's faithful and He'll care for them just as He always has cared for His people in every age. Because of who God is, because of His radical, unshakable love for His people, His relentless faithfulness to them, the Israelites are emboldened to seek afterlives of obedience. They don't have to look out for themselves. God is caring for them. They're in His hand. And so whatever hardship, whatever burden, whatever ostracism, obedience to Him might bring, they can bear it. And they can bear it not because they're strong, but because God is faithful and He will bear them up. That's one of the great keys to a faithful Christian life. So often we're tempted to be unfaithful because we think that we need to take care of ourselves. that we need to look out for ourselves. We need to compromise here. We need to make this little change here or else we will incur a burden that we simply can't bear. And so in order to make it in this world, we have to compromise. But our welfare, our sustaining, it doesn't depend on us. It depends on God. And he's faithful to his people. He's faithful in such a way that we're enabled to give ourselves to seeking after obedience to Him. Now in these two chapters of Scripture, Nehemiah chapter 9, chapter 10, we see wonderful things about who God is and about how His people should live in light of all those truths. And all of it is so pertinent for you as your time here at youth camp winds toward its conclusion. Have you, this week, seen something of the glory and the grandeur, the beauty of the living God? He's glorious. He's faithful to His people. And because of that, you can bring your sin to Him, knowing that forgiveness is with Him. And you can entrust yourself to Him. You're seeking after, not what this world says that you need, but after what He says that you need. You can have holiness to God and not acceptance by this world or survival in this world. You can have holiness to God determine what you do and determine what you don't do. Because of what you have seen of God this week, I trust that you can go and live lives that are different. And different not because you're just better than those around you, but different because of who God himself is. Because of God's relentless faithfulness, his people must repent before him and seek after lives of obedience. May it be so for all of us. And in all of it, may God and God alone get all the glory. Amen. Let's pray to the Lord. Our great God in heaven, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, we come before Thee tonight confessing that Thou and Thou alone art glorious, beautiful and true. And we come confessing that Thou art indeed a God of mercy, a God of faithfulness. And we give Thee thanks that in Thy goodness, out of the mere good pleasure of Thy will, Thou hast lavished that grace and that mercy upon a sinful and rebellious people. And we give Thee thanks, O God the Father, that Thou hast been pleased in Thy grace to look upon Thy beloved Son and pour out Thy wrath upon the sin of Thy people on Him. We give Thee thanks, O God, the Son, that Thou hast been pleased to live for Thy people and to die in their place in order that they might have new life in Thee. And we praise Thee, O God, the Holy Ghost, that Thou hast been pleased to uphold the Son in all of His labors and to take that which He hath accomplished and apply it to the lives of the people upon whom Thou hast set Thy love. Lord, we confess afresh tonight that our lives, day after day, are a testimony not to our uprightness, but to Thy grace and to Thy mercy and to Thy love. We ask, O Lord, that Thou wouldst be with us through the rest of this evening and through the days and the weeks that lie ahead. We ask, O Lord, that Thou wouldst increasingly give us eyes to see Thy glory, to see Thy holiness and Thy grace and Thy mercy, And Lord, show us more of who Thou art, in order that we might come more and more to love Thee, and to seek after conformity to the Lord Jesus in all of our lives. We ask, O Lord, that Thou wouldst give the boldness to do these things. And Lord, use even us in all of the spheres in which we live and walk. Use us as testimonies to the power of the Gospel. the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the goodness of the God who has saved us. We ask, O Lord, for Thy blessing upon Thy Word, and do pray that Thou wouldst use it in the hours and days ahead to get glory to the risen Lord Jesus. For we ask it in His strong and holy name. Amen.