Get Your Act Together

Nehemiah 13:1-31

1. Divided loyalties work their destruction.

• The People heard the Word of God, and their response was, to add to it. 13:1-3
• Who was Tobiah, and how was it that he continued to frustrate Nehemiah’s reforms? Nehemiah 4:3, 4:7, 6:1, 6:12, 6:17-19
• We need to pray for our church and the churches in our denomination that we would place people in leadership whose heart’s desire is to honor and serve God. Eliashib was no doubt a respected and capable man, but his loyalties were divided, and the result was destruction.
• Nehemiah returned and took strong action to honor God.13:8-9

2. Broken promises, broken lives.

• With Tobiah the enemy of the reforms of God living in the temple, it is not surprising that the promises made in Chapter 10 were abandoned.
• The house of God was neglected. 13:11 & 10:39
• The Sabbath laws were broken. 13:15-18 & 10:31
• The people married pagans and raised children who did not even speak their language. 13:23-24 & 10:30

3. And they lived happily ever after?

• Nehemiah came face to face with the painful reality that the work of his hands was fragile. It may not last, so he cried out to God asking three things:
• 13:14 That God would establish the work of his hands.
• 13:22 That God would take care of him not according to what he had done, but according to God’s great love.
• 13:31 Finally, “Remember me with favor, O my God.”

The chapter comes to a close, but the book that God is writing continues on, our chapters are being recorded even now, may they end as does Nehemiah’s with our eyes fixed on our God!