The walls and gates have been finished, Nehemiah had gone back to Shushan, and when he returned he found that the Hebrews had compromised many things.

He might have said, "The reason this place has been in rubble is because of what you are doing now. We just cleaned up two generations of this mess, and now you are at it again!"

This shows that the Holy Spirit will not simply give up on us when we fall into error and when we begin to mix with the world. He can get violent!

God wants us to live a separated life. He will correct and discipline us. But don't misunderstand His personality.

People can misunderstand God's personality from two extremes. They can avoid Him because they just don't want to feel condemned for not being perfect. They feel that "God understands their weakness." Be sure that He does understand, and that He lovingly comes to correct and guide us to higher places at the same time. His correction and discipline does not come with a hand of condemnation.

You can handle the Holy Spirit's chastisement once you know the personality of God, that is not condemning but is showing you that by His power you may avoid creating new rubble in your life.

Believers can miss it by going to two extremes: Legalism/performance on the one hand, and false grace on the other. Legalism will put you under a curse, false grace will make you a slave to sin. You will be a prisoner either way. The truth is that God lives in you, Christ in you the hope of glory. Meditate on Galatians 2:20 and Romans chapter 6 until you really see, with the eyes of your heart that you are dead and Christ lives in you. This will transform your life to one of constant fellowship with the Lord, rest, peace, and the absence of fear. Faith will fill your heart as you hear God inside of you speak from the Scriptures.

God wants us to grow in holiness and sanctification.

Once you understand His grace, His mercy, His mind, and His desire to move you on further, you can accept correction with gladness.

You have no fear that if you mess up you might backslide or end up in Hell, but just a good Father trying to give His best to the child He loves. You understand that His love is intense and that His love casts out all fear. You are becoming more and more in love with Him as you understand from day to day in your walk with Him just how much more He loves you than you could ever imagine.

Ephesians chapter 3 says it well in the Amplified version.

Ephesians 3:

14 For this reason seeing the greatness of this plan by which you are built together in Christ], I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

15For Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named that Father

from Whom all fatherhood takes its title and derives its name.

16 May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].

17 May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

18 That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

19 That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

20 Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]--

You can really see and feel the difference when you encounter a believer who has this mindset.

"You brought me to you, you are recovering my personality, now you are putting me together, now Lord, in the level of my daily walk and talk, including my health, I want to possess it all, and at times there are things that would cause me suffering and sickness. We are now going to possess it all. We are going to possess the land. We want to be sanctified in You. We want nothing left of our old personality. We want Your holiness prevalent in us. We are going to reach out. We have been blessed to be a blessing. In the meantime we want to press in and have our total lives glorify you, body, soul, spirit, health, relationships, etc. The clock is ticking, we want to redeem the time, making the most of every day for your glory oh Lord. We don't want to build our mansion here on earth where moth and rust corrupts, but we want to store up treasures in Heaven.

Their prayer of contrition. Continual confession of their need for God.

Here they demonstrated a good understanding of God's character and an openness to repent and be honest.

""Now therefore, our God, The great, the mighty, and awesome God, Who keeps covenant and mercy: Do not let all the trouble seem small before You That has come upon us, Our kings and our princes, Our priests and our prophets, Our fathers and on all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day. However You are just in all that has befallen us; For You have dealt faithfully, But we have done wickedly. Neither our kings nor our princes, Our priests nor our fathers, Have kept Your law, Nor heeded Your commandments and Your testimonies, With which You testified against them. For they have not served You in their kingdom, Or in the many good things that You gave them, Or in the large and rich land which You set before them; Nor did they turn from their wicked works. "Here we are, servants today! And the land that You gave to our fathers, To eat its fruit and its bounty, Here we are, servants in it! And it yields much increase to the kings You have set over us, Because of our sins; Also they have dominion over our bodies and our cattle At their pleasure; And we are in great distress. "And because of all this, We make a sure covenant, and write it; our leaders, our Levites, and our priests seal it."" Nehemiah 9:32-38, NKJV.

God wants to make you independent, not of God or of other believers, but now dependent upon things that are not of God, idols, control, manipulation. God wants you to know who you are.

They had given place to the devil.

"nor give place to the devil" (Ephesians 4:27).

Here are the main things that Nehemiah points out in this chapter.

1. Instead of affecting the unbelievers, they allowed the world to influence them.

2. Idols, unbelief. Anything or anybody that you trust in for your basic needs in life is an idol! The big three needs are love, security, and significance.

3. Language. Don't forsake the language of the Holy Spirit.

4. Tithe. Covered below.

5. Sabbath. Covered below.

6. Allowing the enemy to influence their holy place. Our churches and fellowship groups can easily be invaded by and therefore neutralized by the enemy.

Nehemiah chapter 13

"4 Now before this, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah.

5 And he had prepared for him a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests.

6 But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Then after certain days I obtained leave from the king,

7 and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God.

8 And it grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room.

He throws out the things that Tobiah put in. Violent. We need to be violent spiritually.

9 Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense.

10 I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field.

They had stopped giving. Tithing.

Can you trust Him, the One who died for you? Will you obey His simple commands. Tithing, in my opinion, is not primarily to fund the church and its operations. That is part of it. However it is primarily to bless you, the tither. Money and the world's monetary system is basically corrupt, however we must use it while we are ambassadors here on earth. God has given us a way to bless our money, even in its corruptness. The Lord had the Israelites tithe as a way to bless the 90% that was remaining. The first fruits were sacrificed so that the remaining funds would be free from Satan. If you want your finances to be out of the hands of Satan and under the control of God, tithe, and give above your tithe. The tithe actually belongs to God, it is not giving therefore. You are only returning the tithe to God who owns it anyway. It is His. When you give above your tithe, 10%, then you are really giving.

11 So I contended with the rulers, and said, "Why is the house of God forsaken?" And I gathered them together and set them in their place.

12 Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse.

13 And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah; and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren.

14 Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services!

Sabbath forsaken. The Sabbath, the Lord's rest.

Can you trust jumping off of the cliff into His arms?

In the Old Testament the Sabbath was expressed as a day of rest, or in the case of the farm land, a year of rest. Eventually Israel went into captivity to Babylon for 70 years, the exact number of years that they had ignored the year of the Sabbath for their crops. Land needs to rest from producing crops every seven years; that is a law of nature established by God. Our bodies are made from the earth as well, therefore we need to rest physically and emotionally one out of every seven days.

In the New Testament the Sabbath is entirely different, and is not legalistic at all. While we are still to rest our bodies one out of seven days, there is more. There is a spiritual Sabbath. If you look at Hebrews chapter 3 it is clear that we are to enter into rest from the works of our flesh by faith in the Word of God. The Word says that we are able to rest because the works of God for us have already been completed from the foundation of the earth.

"For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world" (Hebrews 4:3).

"If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken" (Isaiah 58:13,14).

15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions.

16 Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

17 Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, "What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day?

18 "Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath."

19 So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day.

20 Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

21 Then I warned them, and said to them, "Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you!" From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath.

22 And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy!

23 In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people.

25 So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves.

Living Bible

"I punched a few of them and knocked them around and pulled our their hair.

They vowed before God that they would not let their children intermarry any more."

26 "Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, who was beloved of his God; and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless pagan women caused even him to sin.

27 "Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women?"

28 And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I drove him from me.

29 Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

30 Thus I cleansed them of everything pagan. I also assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each to his service"

(Nehemiah 13:4-30).

Larry Chkoreff - December, 2002

Many portions of this lesson are taken from the audio tape series by Pastor Jack Hayford, Restoring Wholeness to the Personality. Living Way Ministries, Van Nuys, CA. (800) 776-8180.

However, the author wants to point out that a great deal of the content herein has been written for a Bible class and does not necessarily represent the opinion or teachings of Pastor Jack Hayford.