Mike Bickle emphasizes Nehemiah as a model of spiritual reformation, highlighting the importance of young leaders in reviving the church and reforming society. He discusses the challenges of standing for unpopular truths and the necessity of personal reformation before societal change can occur. Bickle outlines four key commandments from Nehemiah that are essential for reformers: maintaining godly family standards, honoring sacred time with God, supporting worship ministries, and avoiding unholy alliances. He stresses that true reformers must embody these principles and actively promote them within their communities. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a renewed commitment to these truths as a foundation for societal transformation.

Thank you, Misty. Turn to Nehemiah chapter 10. Father, we come to you now in the name of Jesus, and we ask you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We ask you for a spirit of might to touch us, for impartation, as we hear your word and speak your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Tonight I want to talk about Nehemiah, who is the premier model of a reformer of society or of a city or of a nation. And that's what God is raising up young leaders for in this hour, older leaders as well, but the Lord is putting His hand on young people all across our nation and the nations of the earth, marking them that they would be messengers. They would be those that would be involved in reforming, reviving the church and reforming society. In our paragraph A here in the notes, in our 40-day fast, that's what we're praying for, young leaders to come forth. Now there's many dynamics involved in leadership, but I'm going to only focus on one, very important one. The one I think is the most challenging, the most challenging aspect of the many facets of leadership, and that is to be a faithful witness to unpopular truths. Many leaders can build infrastructure or they know how to plan or they can motivate, but to take a stand for truths that are costly and unpopular, I believe is the most challenging and the most neglected part of biblical leadership. Nehemiah is a premier example of a man who took a stand, a reformer. He reformed the church in his day, as he would, as we would understand it, and society as well. And incidentally, in the first great awakening in the 1700s, men like Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley and George Whitefield, they were also not just revivalists that led people to the Lord and renewed the church, they were social reformers. Then in the second great awakening, maybe, you know, nearly a hundred years later, guys like Charles Fiddy and D.O. Moody and others, these revivalists who led many to the Lord were also reformers of society. And so when we look back at church history, revivalists, those messengers that bring the Word of the Lord in power that lead many to Jesus are also often used by God to reform aspects of society. And Nehemiah is a premier example of that. Paragraph B, now the Scripture describes, prophetically I'm talking about, the prophetic Scriptures, dynamic advancements of the kingdom of God that will bring transformation to society the closer we get to the coming of the Lord. Now that confuses some people, because they say, now wait, now if the Lord's coming, there's going to be great trouble. That's right. But as the Lord comes, there's going to be great breakthroughs as well. Well, which is it? Is it going to get better or is it going to get worse? And the answer is both. There will be geographic regions where righteousness will increase in those geographic regions and the lives of people also in the structures of society. There will be other geographic regions where it will get darker and darker. So the areas that speak the truth and accept the truth and are involved in continual prayer, they will be breakthroughs in society in those areas. Now the exciting thing is the breakthroughs that happen, I'm talking about in society, those breakthroughs will have continuity to the age to come. Meaning, if we change the abortion laws in our city, state, or nation, when the Lord returns, those laws don't have to be changed. They will be upheld through the great shakening. Because as we get closer to the Lord's return, the great revival and a great shaking will happen and there will be great advancements of victory in society and great defeats where darkness and strongholds take place as well. But the work that we do, it doesn't disappear. Like some say, well, if we do all this hard work and trouble's coming, all the work will disappear. No, it will last through the shaking. Hebrews chapter 12 talks about Jesus will shake everything that can be shaken, but the things that remain, there will be things that remain through the shaking. They will be built on the Word of God and mature in righteousness. And that's part of the, those are talking about the breakthroughs that happen between now and then. They will be sustained and they will actually carry over to the age to come. Now that throws some people off. They think if you believe in what the Bible says about the end times, you got to give up on society. Absolutely not. We work harder in society because when Jesus comes, he's not coming to end the world. He's not coming to end the world. He's coming to bring the end of the age, the age, this evil age is one of the aspects is Satan will no longer be involved in the governments of the earth after this age. So the end of this age means Satan will not be involved in world government anymore. That's the end of the age. That's not the end of the world. He's not coming to bring the end of the world. I always get, uh, I, I, uh, when I talk to people, other leaders about the end times, they almost always assume everything will get worse and the end of the world's coming. So why not? Why even bother? I go, no, it's just opposite. The end of the age is coming. The devil's going to be thrown out into prison. He won't be involved in any of the governments anymore. And Jesus's return will complete the reformation that is building in momentum in the time and the decades leading up to his return. So yes, there will be greater darkness, but there will be greater light. The wheat and the tears will mature together. It says in Matthew chapter 13, verse 30, but these breakthroughs will only happen in areas where the truth is proclaimed. The truth is accepted. I mean, by people, they walk it out and it's bathed in continual prayer. Those geographic areas, if that does not happen, darkness will increase. And so the balance of the nations is in the hands of the prayer movement. It's in the hands of the prophetic church. Paragraph D, Nehemiah 13, which is the passage that I want to focus your attention on, and we'll spend a little bit of time on that at the end. In Nehemiah 13, it's a blueprint of the truths. There's four main truths, four main commandments that Nehemiah focuses on. And these are not just commandments that bring transformation to society. They are the commandments that prepare the reformers, that transform the reformers, the vessels that are going to bring transformation to the areas of society. They transform the heart of the reformer. These four commandments are critical. When I'm thinking of the IHOPU students that are out in the northeast, in Boston and those in the area around, and we're believing that God will raise up young reformers. These young reformers must lay hold of these four commandments in their own personal lives, and they must proclaim them to other believers. And I mean proclaim them with authority and clarity. We'll look at those in just a moment. Paragraph D, continue on it. Reformation in society always begins with reformation in the church, and reformation in the church always begins with reformation of individuals. The reformers get reformed first. Then the church is reformed, and then society is reformed. It's not like we wait one for the other. They can all happen simultaneously. We only have the authority to release to others or to release into society truth that we are walking in in our private life. We can't release something to society or to the church or to others that we don't walk in in our own lives. We can't bind in prayer. We can't use prayer to bind the work of darkness if we're bound by that very work in our own life. And that's what Nehemiah is focusing on. Roman numeral two, the context to his reforms. There's a storyline of which his reformation of Israel is in context to a larger story. Paragraph eight, Jeremiah prophesied that the nation of Israel was going to go into captivity for 70 years. I mean, what a unpopular prophecy. He says, we're going to go to Babylon for 70 years of slave camps, of work camps, prison camps. Now, the nation of Babylon, as you know, is the modern-day nation of Iraq. And these guys, the leaders of Israel, were going, now what do you say? He goes, the Babylonian army, they're going to march. It was about a five-month march, 700 miles. They're going to come to our nation. They're going to put us in chains and walk us five months, 700 miles, back to their slave camps, and we're going to be there 70 years. That was such an unpopular prophecy. They threw Jeremiah in prison. They really did. They said, this is horrifying, but you cannot imprison the word of God, the prophetic word. But he said, don't worry, we're going to come back out after 70 years. Now, that's bad news on the front end, but at the 70-year mark, they were in these prison camps. They said, hey, the 70 years is up. God has a plan to bring us back to restore the land again. Now, Isaiah, he prophesies about the same thing. He says that when God brings you back, Isaiah 44, 28, when God brings you up, he's going to, here's the point. He wants you to build the city of Jerusalem, and he wants you to build the temple. He wants you to build the worship center. But it's more than just build the building that will house the worship center. It's to mobilize the people to build infrastructures to where worship is going on night and day that connects with the worship movement around the throne in Revelation 4 and 5. So Isaiah was making it clear, when the 70 years is up, and you walk 500 miles back to Israel, and the city of Jerusalem was decimated, and the temple was decimated. Now, the temple was a very large building. I mean, this is not the exact comparison, but think of the municipal auditorium downtown. It is a big building, and when these 50,000 Jews were released from Babylon, they walked five months. They finally get home. The city is a heap of rubble. The temple is just rocks and stones, and the whole city is decimated. They have so much work to do, and they have enemies all around because the other nations moved in and took the land. So they got to build the city. They got to build this massive temple stone by stone. It's a heap of rubble, and they've got to fight off the enemies. They've got to grow the crops, and the agricultural systems have got to be built, the economic systems. It is so much work that many of in the process just gave up and quit, and God would raise up prophets to stir them up and say, don't quit, and Nehemiah is one of the premier leaders that God used to bring reformation in this context of just disarray in the land of Israel. Now, God told him to go back and build, told the children of Israel, go build the temple. Paragraph B. Now, most of you know this, but from God's point of view, the temple is the house of prayer. The temple was, the important part of the temple was not that it was a beautiful structure. The part of the temple is what happened inside the structure, and God said, it is the house of prayer. Now, it wasn't just the house of prayer in that day. It's the house of prayer, the worship around the throne in Revelation 4, around God's throne, that's the house of prayer. When the people worship on the earth, that's the house of prayer. When Jesus builds his temple at the second coming, the millennial temple, that's the house of prayer, and all three of them are connected in God's purposes. When we build and mobilize night and day prayer and worship in every ministry, this is true throughout history, we're connected to the eternal house of prayer, and we're connected to the future, to the millennial house of prayer. It's all one reality with a continuum together. Some people, when they say, hey, I want to be a part of this IHOP thing, what they're thinking is, I want to be a part of good music, I want a popular worship band, and I want to be in a place where I feel renewed, and that's good. I like popular worship bands. I like good music. I like people getting renewed in worship, but the worship movement is a far bigger reality. We're connected to the worship movement around the throne, and we're connected to the worship movement of Jesus at his second coming that will fill the earth from Jerusalem. There is a divine connectedness to all of these realities. That's what we're a part of. What an amazing invitation of the Lord. It's a vast eternal purpose. Top of page two, paragraph D. Well, after 70 years, they finally came back to build the city and the temple. Again, not just the temple building, but to mobilize the people and build the infrastructure so the worship goes night and day. Now, there were two men that were uniquely, I mean, powerfully used in a special way, two governors. They were governors of Jerusalem and Judah. The first one was Zerubbabel, and the second one was Nehemiah. Now, Nehemiah came about 70 years after Zerubbabel. So, Zerubbabel's the first guy back, and he builds the house of prayer. Then about 70 years later, Nehemiah comes, and he builds a wall around the city so that the enemy couldn't come. The wall built around the city was the defense system, but it took him 70 years to get around to building the wall. But Nehemiah did more than build a wall. He brought reformation to the entire nation. He called the people to righteousness with an effectiveness, I mean, and with a clarity and a boldness second to nobody. I mean, he was powerfully used to bring reformation to an entire nation. Paragraph E, paragraph E here, it says in Nehemiah chapter 12, verse 47, that in the days of Zerubbabel, Nehemiah 1247, in the days of Zerubbabel, and then 70 years later in the days of Nehemiah, these two governors in this reformation period, I mean, it went on about 100 years, these two guys, look at what they did. They, through their leadership, they caused all Israel to give the portions, money. The portions means money. They gave money to the singers, and they gave money to the gatekeepers. Now, the gatekeepers were the support ministries. Using the IHOP language, we have 70 departments at IHOP. Maybe 20 or 30 departments are ministry. About 30 departments are ministry, and about 40 departments are all the support systems, you know, from the media, to the accounting, to the maintenance, to all kinds of different areas. We probably have 30 ministry departments and 40 support. The support departments are the gatekeepers, and what these two men did is they made sure that the nation had a vision for the worship ministry, and it says that Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, they caused all of Israel to give the money to the singers and to the gatekeepers, and it was enough money, a portion to live for each day, meaning it was enough to live on. Now, the part that moves me, these guys had so much vision, they insisted that the nation lay hold of the worship movement in their generation. Paragraph F, well, after the walls are built, Nehemiah built the walls around the city. Again, he's 70 years after Zerubbabel. Then a great thing happens, that Nehemiah and Ezra, they're in the same generation working together. They call all the nation together to Jerusalem, and they get all the leaders together, and all the people, the family heads, and they preach the Word of God to them. This is found in Nehemiah 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Actually, it's from 8 to 12 is the whole story. It's a great national, historic national event. All the leaders gathered. They preached the Word of God. The people were moved, and then the people made a covenant. They would obey the whole of God's Word. They were so moved that they all said in covenant, we promise to obey the whole Word of God. Paragraph G, but the interesting thing is that they made this general covenant, I mean this covenant to obey the whole Word of God, they identified four specific commandments that they outlined in the covenant. So it was, we're going to obey everything, but these four commandments we are going to give particular attention to. So they actually identified in these four commandments as highlights they would give particular attention to. It's these four commandments that they do in this covenant gathering that some years later, Nehemiah in chapter 13, it's those same four commandments that Nehemiah insists on some years later. Here's the four commandments. Now as we read these commandments, we understand that there's more than meets the eye. When you just read them kind of at face value, you think, okay, because God's way is He gives a general commandment, but the implications are not immediately obvious. Many, many implications to these commandments. These are the vast implications to their life. It's not just a simple one part thing because God has more in His heart for each one of these commandments than meets the eye at a casual glance. So we're asking the Holy Spirit, what is on your heart? What is the principle? What is the spirit behind these four commandments? What do you want for this hour of history related to these four commandments? Because remember, the nation has made a covenant with God, but they identify these four in particular. Number one, they're not to marry unbelievers. But it's more than just marrying believers. It's the fullness behind this commandment is to uphold godly standards in family life. It's not just marriage, but it's all that's related to marriage and family life. I mean many of the life issues would be linked to this commandment. It's like God is saying, I have much in my heart behind this commandment. There's much more than meets the eye. You obey this and if you obey it long term, you will see there's many implications to it. But God's way is just to give the one commandment and say, come after me and obey it. And then after years go by, we go, wow, there's many implications. There's a lot of dominoes that go down after that first one goes down. Second one, they were to keep the Sabbath. Now to keep the Sabbath was to honor sacred time with God. That's the concept of the Sabbath. Now in the Old Testament, it was a day. But in the New Testament, there isn't any particular day that is set aside as the Sabbath day. But the Sabbath is a principle in God's heart where we set apart sacred time to be in the Lord's presence. The point of the Sabbath, the point of the Sabbath is that man was to rest from his labors. What does that mean to rest from our labors? There's two different definitions. One of them is wrong and one of them is right. When God says rest from your labors, what he means is he's saying, I want you to take step back from working to build your personal resource base. And I want you to take that time that you use to build your resource base, your networking, your economics, your influence. I want you to draw back and be in my presence, in the word and in prayer and in my presence focusing on me. That's what it means to cease from your work means to draw back to give God attention. It's a sacred time with God. That's the right definition. The wrong definition is people think a Sabbath day means that we are to rest from our work, which means it's a day of play. It's not a day of play. That's not the spirit behind the Sabbath commandment. It's a day of attentiveness to God. Now it's okay to have recreation and to play some, but that's not what the Sabbath is about. I've heard people for years say, well, I'm on my Sabbath day. This is my Sabbath day and they pick the day. So I'm going to go out and do this and that. I'm going to go down to the, you know, to the plaza. We're going to go out shopping. It's my Sabbath day. I go, no, that's your play day. That's not your Sabbath day, your Sabbath day. You turn your phone off, you turn everything off and you lock into God. That's what a Sabbath is because they think that they're resting from work. It's a relaxation day. That's not what it is. It's the resting from building their own personal resource and to give their full attention to God. Now, the exciting thing, it's a great privilege for the IHOP staff that built into your job description. We have a thing called a sacred trust. We actually insist that you draw back from your work to give attention to God. Now your Sabbath is not entirely that, but that's part of your Sabbath life before God. There's sacred time. You don't socialize in that time. You don't build your economic base. You don't network in that time. You don't play in that time. It is a time devoted to God and God says, I want the principle of sacred time in the life of my people and if it's not in the life of my people, then there will be all kinds of other troubles that will come to their life. The nation of Israel was brought under judgment because they wouldn't keep the Sabbath, because they wouldn't have this sacred time to attend to God's presence. They were not brought under judgment because they didn't play enough on their Sabbath day. It wasn't God saying that if you don't play more and work less, I'm going to bring you under judgment. That's not what he was talking about. He was saying if you don't draw back from your work and give attention to me in a focused way, I'm going to wake you up through judgment. The third commandment, the third subject that they made particular focus on, it's an unusual one. Nehemiah, I mean what a brilliant man. Him and Ezra, they're the ones leading this process. They made a commitment to give finances to the kingdom of God, but in particular that they would fund the Levites in the temple. Now the Levites, part of the Levites were singers and part of the Levites were not singers, they were the gatekeepers. So the Levites, part of them were the singer musicians, those are Levites, but part were the gatekeepers. They were the ones that did the support ministries using our terminology is what I'm doing. They made a covenant, they made a vow, we will attend to this. Building the worship ministry in our generation with our time and our money, we will make it first priority. And then fourth, they made a command, a commitment in this special national covenant to refuse unholy alliances with unbelievers. Now we're not, it wasn't a commandment in our context where we don't relate to unbelievers because we are to relate to unbelievers and part of our, God has mandated us to go relate to them and to bring the gospel, to bring the power of the kingdom to them. This isn't talking about not evangelizing or relating to unbelievers, but this is alliances. We're talking about significant partnership with people who don't accept the leadership of Jesus in their life. In our ministry, we can bless other people and other religions. We can bless, I mean, the people in the sense of they're important people, but we cannot come into alliance with other religions in our ministry. And there's a lot of that and a big toleration movement. And the Lord says, no unholy alliances. Your ministry can only be allied with that which honors my leadership and the same in business ventures. Now it's not saying you can't work for people who aren't, uh, who are unbelievers. That's not what it's saying, but if you're going to start a business and you're the leader of it and you get to determine who the leadership is and you get to make the determination, you do it at the senior level, you make alliances at that level, significant partnership with believers. And so they vowed before God, we will make alliances with believers, these significant ones, not with unbelievers. Now these four commandments, they, we look at them and say, okay, they seem right. And Nehemiah says, no, they're not right. That's it. They are profoundly significant to the life of the reformers. The reformers need to embrace these four and the reformers need to preach these four. They need to promote it. They need to exhort and cause other people to walk in these four, because that is the makeup of the reformers. If they live in these four realities, these four commandments, and there's other things beside, but these are just the four that were highlighted in Nehemiah's day. Many other things will come into play into line. Paragraph H, why did Nehemiah define these four areas? They represent themes that are emphasized in the word and they're emphasized by their spirit, by the Holy Spirit. Paragraph I, we must insist on these four commandments in our own lives. When we're working as reformers, you want to be a reformer. You want to be a leader God raises up that he will use you to contribute to reformation in your generation. These four commands are top priority for your own life, but not only you must actually promote these truths to other people. And they're kind of, they seem kind of okay to talk about in a context like this, like, okay, I can sign off on those four doing them as a whole lot different, but telling someone else to do it brings a whole lot more trouble insisting that they do it. I'm talking about the people in your sphere of influence. Now, Nehemiah insisted on these four in his entire sphere of influence. Now, he was the governor over the city of Jerusalem and the whole region, the province of Judah, Judea. And he insisted that everybody under him buy into these four things. And I tell you, it's troublesome when you push them on other people or you proclaim them to other people, they're like, Hey, leave me alone. And just know, I don't want to do that build the worship movement thing. And that sacred time thing, I'm not really into the sacred time thing. And Hey, my family life is my family life. We love God sort of, and, but we don't necessarily take hold of Jesus's leadership and all the issues of our family. Right. And the holy alliances. Well, I mean, you know, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. There's a tremendous neglect of these four commandments, even today among the people of God. Now the key is that we need to understand the principle behind these commandments. We need to know the spirit behind them because we don't apply them in the same way they did the old Testament, but the truths are still true. I mean, still remain valid. And God has things in his heart related to these four commandments. He wants us to receive from him. Even in these days, paragraph J well, they signed the covenant. The whole nation did all the leaders signed it. They put their seal on it. And it was a big national celebration and Nehemiah 12 verse 43, the whole nation is celebrating. It says it's so loud. They're so happy. They could hear him down the road for a long way. So after this, now Nehemiah has been in Jerusalem for 12 years because Nehemiah actually was an official of the Persian government, a Jewish man, but an official of the Persian government because the Persians took over the, the, uh, Babylonians. So it's Babylon and Persian. It's kind of all one big reality. He's a, an employee of the Persian government as a Jewish man. And he was allowed to go to Jerusalem for these 12 years to build the city. And he's this fiery man of conviction. He's a reformer, but the time is up. The whole nation is in covenant to obey the word of God, to honor the authority of the word, particularly these four issues that are all signed on the line. We're going to do them. So Nehemiah, his time is up. He goes back to his job in Persia, the capital of the capital city, and he has a sense of joy in his heart. The nation has been reformed about 10 years goes by. Now that's not a, uh, nobody knows the exact amount of time, but if you put a couple of verses together, which I'm not going to right now, it's about eight or 10 years, maybe 12, nobody knows, but I'll just say 10, just to make it easy to, to communicate this about 10 years goes by. He's in Persia and he asked the King, Hey King, can I go back to Jerusalem again and check in? I mean, so many great things. Haven't I have such good memories. I mean, the nation was on fire. The singers were in place with money. I mean, everybody was keeping the Sabbath and spending time with God's sacred time. The families were godly, the unholy alliances. There was a tr a real commitment not to cross that line. Can I go back and see what's happening? And the King artist Xerxes is his name tells a name. I, yeah, you can go back. So it's about approximately 10 years later. Again, could be a little bit less or more. He comes walking into town. Paragraph K unannounced, Hey, I'm back. Cause he didn't like send an email. So he's back and nobody's expecting him to be back. And he has the shock of his life because all four of these commandments that they were upholding when he was there, this 10 years have gone by all four of them. They have now neglected them and put them aside. And he is in pain and he boldly confronts the leaders time and time again, because this is what a reformer does. I don't mean you have to be mean about it. Boldness doesn't mean that it doesn't have kindness and humility. So boldly and clearly he confronts the leadership. He's not silent. He confronts the leadership, but he's more than that. Then he takes action. He actually does things to reverse the policies that are happening in that day. So he doesn't only say something, he actually acts in a way that reverses what the nation was doing. We'll see that in a sec, in a moment. But if you are a reformer, you must not only embrace these four commandments in your own life. You must declare them. Now, again, we're not declaring them in the same language necessarily, or the same application as they did in the old Testament. Some of the application will be similar, but there's a, the spirit behind it. That's what we're proclaiming. Because if the reformers aren't in agreement with God, how are they going to reform society? Nehemiah is not even talking about all the reforms that happened. He's talking about the leaders being reformed so that then God can use them to reform society. So paragraph L, these are the truths. Revelation, I mean, uh, Nehemiah 13 that relate to all of us because Nehemiah proclaimed these truths to his sphere of influence. And all of us have a sphere of influence. Maybe there's only one person in your sphere of influence, but you do have a sphere of influence. So we want to receive these four and we want to proclaim them in our sphere. Top of page three. Now we're going to look at these four, uh, just real quick. I'm not going to go into all the drama because there's a lot of drama in chapter 13. You really would, you would do well to study chapter 13. There's a lot of drama. There's more than meets the eye to casual reading. So the first thing he does is he confronts the ungodly alliances. Matter of fact, he, these four commandments, he confronts them in the exact reverse order that they made them 10 years earlier on that big historic day in, in Nehemiah 10. Nehemiah 13 is about 10 years later. It's his second visit back. It says in, uh, chapter 13, verse one, they read from the book of Moses or the old Testament. And it was found that they were, there was to be no Amorite or Moabite that should come into the assembly of God. They were to be separated from all the mixed multitudes of Israel. So that was the commandment that they committed themselves to. Now, as people committed to evangelism, we look at that and say, how can we evangelize? It's not a commandment not to, I mean, to avoid evangelizing. That's not what it's about. If you understand the context, these mixed multitudes, it meant mixture of faith. They would come into Israel celebrations and they didn't come as people open-hearted wanting to convert to Judaism. They were coming to convert the Jews to pagan worship. They were not coming to receive. They were coming to deceive. That's the context. And if I had 10 minutes, I could prove it to you. So don't read this and say, wow, how could we ever reach people? These people didn't want to be reached. They were not coming to receive. They were coming to deceive and they were coming to pollute and they were coming to distort Israel's religion. And God says, don't even let them in the door. If they're unconverted is the bigger picture. If you put a few other verses together, he's talking about unconverted ones coming to their celebrations because 800 years of history is proven. When they came to the celebrations, they ended up turning the celebrations into idol worship events instead of God of Israel worship events. And God says, don't let them in. The unconverted ones, they cannot come in. Now again, in our context, we go, how's that? No, it's a different application. Now it's really talking about unholy alliances. Now the story begins to pick up here in verse four. Eliashib, he's the high priest here. It says he's the priest, but if you read three, four other places in Nehemiah, he's the high priest. He's the number one leader over the temple, the house of prayer, the temple complex, the house of prayer is under his authority. The singers and the musicians are under him. He's the main religious leader in the land. He had authority over the storerooms in the house of God or in the temple, the temple complex. He was allied with Tobiah. Now Tobiah was not an Israelite. Tobiah was an Amorite and he was forbidden to be in the temple. But what this high priest does, he lets Tobiah come into the temple. Let's read this. Verse five, and he, the high priest prepared for him a large room where previously they have stored the tithes that were commanded to give to the singers. Now during all this time, I was not in Jerusalem. Now Nehemiah says, I want to go on the record. I wasn't in town when this was happening, but I had returned to the king. I was back in Persia. Then after a little while, I came back to Jerusalem and I discovered the evil that Eliashib, the high priest, had done for Tobiah. It grieved me so bitterly, I threw all of Tobiah's household goods out of the temple, threw them out on the street. So what's happening? Now if you read the book of Nehemiah, Tobiah is the archenemy of, of Nehemiah. Sanballat and Tobiah were the guys 20 years ago they had, when they were trying to kill Nehemiah, they were trying to stop the city of Jerusalem from being reformed. They were against God in all of his laws. I mean this man Tobiah was out to kill Nehemiah 20 years earlier. Nehemiah comes in town and he goes into the house of prayer. Let's just call it, you know, he walks into the building. I don't hear the singers and musicians. What's going on? He goes into the big storehouse where all the grain was stored that would, that would be, uh, like finance would be like, uh, they gave it to the singers and musicians. It's part of their salary, so to speak. He goes into this big room and the room's empty. Didn't have any grain in it. Nobody's tithing. And it's worse than that. It's got furniture in it. Somebody's living in the storehouse and the temple complex. He goes, who's living here? They said, well, uh, uh, Tobiah, your arch enemy, the guy who hates Israel. Nehemiah goes, who? Tobiah is living in the residential suite in the temple complex. The guy who hates Israel, who let him do it? The high priest, Nehemiah verse eight. I was so grieved bitterly. I threw all the household goods out. He goes in, opens up a window, throws the couch out on the street, the tables, the computers, throws it all out, throws it all on the street. And you know, the people in the area, Oh my goodness, something's shooting out the window and they're going, that's Tobiah's stuff. Because when you go down to paragraph C, Tobiah was a very powerful businessman. Nehemiah 6, 17, that the nobles of Judah, that's the Jewish leaders. They, verse 18, made a pledge to him. This is economic pledge. He was a powerful businessman that many of the leaders in the city of Jerusalem, they were in business with him. And they were in, uh, and Nehemiah goes, what is the deal? He gets to the high priest. He goes, well, you left town. He's kind of changed his attitude. He doesn't hate Israel like he used to. And he doesn't hate the God of Israel and he's helping us financially. And the room was empty anyway because we didn't, nobody wanted to tithe anymore. The room was empty. So we let the singers go and it was an empty room and hey, he's busting us so much economically. We went ahead and put new carpet in it and let him move in. Let's go to Roman numeral four. Nehemiah chapter 13, verse 10, look at the passage. Now we're going to the next subject. So Nehemiah is thinking what a horrible first experience to walk into the temple complex, to hear no music in the hallways and to wonder what's happening and to see Tobiah. Well, Tobiah is out now. He confronted Tobiah. I mean, this Nehemiah, he is not a pushover. He is, he is pressing this thing because zeal for God's house has consumed him. He won't take no for an answer. Now I would think that an average man after working 12 years to build the people and they've made all these covenants and they've now neglected all the covenants they made. He comes back 10 years later. An average man would say, you know what? Forget those guys. I labored so hard for 12 years. I've got everybody committed. They're all signed up. They're all doing the things they said they would do. And they've all backslid. Forget it. No, he doesn't. He says, no, I'm going to start again. I mean, what an incredible man. He says, I'm not backing up. I'm going to hit, I'm going to go after this again because zeal for God's house consumed this man. God's raising up reformers who have zeal for the house of God. Verse 10, second area. And it goes back to that day, that covenant day, you know, 10 years earlier, this is one of the commandments they made, the commitments they made on that covenant, that national day of covenant, that historic day. They promised to support the singers and musicians and to support the worship ministry. He goes to verse 10, I realized that the portions, that's the finances for the Levites had not been given to him. Now remember the Levites are both the gatekeepers and the singers for each of them, the Levites and the singers who did the work in the temple, all the support ministries and all the singers and musicians. They went back to the field. They, they quit the job. There's no more money. And they went out to the farms and they worked in the fields. God called them to be singers in the house. And they're working in the fields because there was no money because the nation would not respond because the leaders did not envision the nation because the reformer Nehemiah and Ezra were not in town. I tell you where the voice of reformers are silent multitudes of even the people of God, they go back to the place of compromise. So verse 11, Nehemiah says, I contended with the leaders. I called all the leaders, all the business leaders, all the political leaders, all the leaders of the temple structures. I called them all in the room. So here's Eliashib the high priest. He's in the room. He just got word that Tobiah got kicked out and his furniture was thrown out in the street. And he knows there's going to be economic implications because Tobiah is going to cancel all the contracts now. But that's the least of the high priest is concerned. He's going to face Nehemiah because he knows Nehemiah. He worked with him in those early years and he goes, oh no, they all get in the room. Nehemiah contended with the rulers. I'm talking about the people of God, the religious leaders. I'm talking about the Jews who made covenant with God. He says, this is not okay. He confronts them. He goes, why is the house of God forsaken? Now that the building was still intact. He wasn't talking about the building. He was talking about why aren't the singers and musicians mobilized? Where is this worship movement that's connecting with the worship movement in heaven? That's connected with the worship movement at the end of the age. Where is this worship movement at? Well, they'd all gone back to the fields and Nehemiah said, in my opinion, the house of God has been forsaken and neglected because the worship movement has been, uh, let go of, they didn't make it top priority to sustain the worship movement. God wants it to be top priority that all believers sustain the worship movement that he's given that geographic area or that ministry in their generation. Now, every region of the earth has a different mandate and every generation, but this principle is timeless. He wants the people of God to make it top priority, not to build just the church building. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about mobilizing the intercessors and the worshipers to where they're engaged because that's where the government of God transforms the nation in that place. Everyone doesn't have to do 24 seven. God may give them a little here and a little there of what they're supposed to do time-wise. But whatever that assignment is, this commandment is there to be, make it a top priority to build the worship and prayer ministry of their generation. So he goes, well, the house of God's forsaken. The singers are fired. In my book, the house of God's forsaken. All the singers, they quit their sets. They quit their worship teams and they're all down the road working at Starbucks because there is no money coming in. And I tell you, if there's no money coming in, that's a problem of leadership. That's a vision problem in the kingdom of God. God is raising up reformers that will declare the vision of the worship movement and the money will follow the vision. So Nehemiah said, I gathered together all these singers and I put them back in their place because I went out to the field and said, Hey, come on back. Nehemiah, you're in town. You've been gone for 10 years. What, what are you doing? Hey, come on back. We're going to build IHOP again. The guy says, I quit my job. He goes, yeah, I've been here for a year in this farm. No, quit it. Come on. You got money. I'm going to get it. You're going to get it or you have it. I'm going to get it. I said, Oh, well, it worked last time. So they all quit their jobs and they go join back again. They all were put in their place, verse 12. And when all of Judah, the nation saw it, they were envisioned. They said, yes, this is what we're supposed to be doing. Yes, the singers are singing the worships going on the connection between the worship movement in heaven and on the earth. There's that connection it's happening. That's where the nation is transformed out of that reality. And all of Judah, the whole nation, because the nation of Israel is the nation of Judah at this time, they say, you know what? We're going to line back up like we committed 10 years ago. We're going to start giving the money in the salaries are flowing. The singers are singing. And so now Tobias kicked out and the singers, the music starts again. Things are happening. Let's go to, uh, top of page four, Roman numeral five, keeping the principle of the Sabbath. That's now he says, okay, verse 15, he's walking through the region of Judah. Judah is the whole region. He just kind of seeing what's happening. He sees the Jewish men are treading wine presses on the Sabbath. They're working to make income on the Sabbath instead of attending to the presence of God. Nehemiah goes, I don't believe this. I've only been gone 10 years or whatever. They're not even keeping the Sabbath. Their sacred time with God has been cast aside. Well, there's financial problems. We need more money. We need to network more. We got to do stuff. We got agendas. We don't have time for our sacred trust before God. So I saw the people working on the time that was set apart for God. Nehemiah, he's, he's got that feeling again. It's coming over him. Verse 16, by the way, it's the feeling that a true reformer will feel. If you are a reformer and you're in league with the spirit, maybe God's calling you, you're in league with God's heart. These four commandments will beat in your heart. Not only will you do them, you will insist on them in your ministry, in your preaching. Verse 16, the men of Tyre. Now these are guys from another nation. Now remember when Israel was in captivity for 70 years in Babylon, a lot of the other nations moved down to Israel and they filled in, you know, they took over all the land, a lot of the land. Now these guys from Tyre, they're not Jews. They live in the city of Jerusalem, but they go, hey, we're not, we don't worship the God of Israel. And they brought fish and all kinds of other goods and they sold them to the, to the Jews on the Sabbath day. Verse 17, I contended with the nobles. Here's the next week, nobles, leaders come back. We're going to have another meeting. Like, oh no, Nehemiah wants another meeting. All the leaders going, what is the deal with this man? Why won't he just chill out? Because he's consumed with zeal for God's house. He won't be quiet. I contended with the leaders, get them all back in the room. What is this evil thing you were doing? They said, well, we're not technically working. We, the men from Tyre are doing all the work. We're just walking by buying a fish sandwich. We're only buying it. We're not actually working. Now again, our application of the Sabbath in the new covenant is different, but the point was they were violating the known will of God in that generation related to their sacred time. They go, we just bought the fish sandwich. I mean, we didn't technically work. We just received it. Nehemiah says, no, no, it's not going to happen. He goes, this is an evil thing. So he commanded the gates to the city and the gates to the market. He commanded them to be shut. And if you read the whole passage, I didn't put it all in the handout. He put his leaders in place. They guarded the gates of the city. They guarded the gates of the market. Nobody could get in on the Sabbath. These big guys standing there because Nehemiah was never content just to declare it. He always had an action plan to back up what he declared. So now that the gates are shut, verse 19, these merchants from Tyre and the sellers of all these wares, they said, okay, so we're kicked out of the city on the Sabbath. So they went right outside the city and they set their tables up out there. So the Jews would kind of sneak out of the city and buy them and kind of sneak back in the city. They were looking for a loophole. So verse 20, the merchants and the sellers of all kinds of wares, they lodged outside the city, but only once or twice they tried this, only a couple of Saturdays. Happened two Saturdays in a row. Verse 21, I warned them, why do you spend your, set those tables out and spend the night right outside the gates? If you do it again, I'm going to lay my hands on you and it's not for an impartation of the joy of the Lord. I'm going to lay my hands on you. So they're going, whoa. So if you read the whole thing, they quit. So now the Sabbath is in place. Now again, God is calling all of us to honor the Sabbath principle. Not a Sabbath day on Saturday may not be a whole day. It may be a whole day, but there is dedicated, sacred time that belongs to God. You're not to network with it. You're not to build your financial base with it. You're not to socialize. You're not to play and have recreation. It is sacred to the Lord and God means it. He wants it. Now the application will be different to every person, but the principle is true. Reformers must touch this principle in their reformation. Because again, this isn't what they're telling unbelievers in society. This is the heart of the reformer we're talking about. And once their hearts are living in unity with God, then they can influence society in many different diverse ways. If their heart is connected with God. Well now we're going to the final one. Let's go Nehemiah 13 verse 23 to 25. He's still walking around town. Now I saw the Jews that married the women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. These non-Jewish tribes. He goes, wait, they made a vow 10 years ago not to do this. They were going to uphold God's standards and values in marriage and in their family life. That's the principle behind this. But half of their children, they spoke the language of Ashdod. They couldn't even speak Hebrew. Now this is why I think it's about a 10 year period because that Nehemiah has been gone. Because Nehemiah, everything's in order when he's there. So he goes. It takes him about a half a year to get back home. It's about a five, six month walk. And these Jewish men, it takes them, you know, a little while to get friendly with these unbelieving women. And then it takes them a little while to get married. Then it takes them a little while for the kids to get to an age where they don't speak Hebrew. So I'm guessing there's five or 10 years at least in that process. That's where I get this 10 year period. Here's these little six, seven year old little boys running around, Jewish boys, half Jewish. They can't speak Hebrew, which means they can't read the Hebrew Bible. They can't participate in the Hebrew worship ministry going on in the nation. And their mothers are teaching them the pagan religions. He is so upset. Verse 25, you could predict it. I contended with them. I mean, he's constantly contending. Now here's what's kind of intense. I struck them. I pulled out their hair. I made them swear by God. You will not give. He's doing this to the fathers. Now he makes them commit. Now I don't know how this happened, but I'm kind of coming to Nehemiah's. I'm on his team because I like him so much. So I picture him going to this Jewish guy and saying, your wife, it's out of the will of God. It's a godly, it's idol worship because they worship demons. Idol worship was not some kind of innocent kind of, well, they worship the stone. They worship the demons behind the stone. This was not innocent. He would go, says your wife is a demon worshiper and so are your kids. So I picture this Jewish guy kind of bumping into Nehemiah and I have the bad guy picking the fight, not Nehemiah. I got to make this verse fit somehow because I don't want some IHOPU student getting all excited about being a reformer and, you know, going and slugging Alan Hood and pulling his hair out or something to be like Nehemiah. Don't hit anybody. Well, the spirit's making me do it. He's not. It's not the Holy Spirit. Take authority, bind it. Well, let's go on to the final, just the final point here. He prays this prayer several times. I'll give you two examples. He says in verse 14, Nehemiah 13 verse 14, he goes, this is Nehemiah's motivation. This is his eternal perspective. How can a guy work for 12 years? I mean, incredible work. You know, I'll just use our context. He's been doing IHOP for 12 years. All the teams are in order. All the finances are in order. All the people are obeying God. He leaves for 10 years. Nobody is doing any of their commitments. I can just picture him having all the arguments saying, forget it. It's too much work. I'm older now. I'm worn out, but he does it. He takes the work on with zeal and confronts issue after issue, and he follows with actions to back up his words. What an incredible, energetic man. I mean, he withstands the Jewish opposition. He withstands the pagan opposition, tremendous opposition. He will not back down. That's the heart of a reformer. And he says, we get a secret peek into his heart.