October 5–11, 2019

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

Lesson 2—”Nehemiah”

 

Sabbath afternoon

From the lesson:

Although the first two groups returned to rebuild Jerusalem and to complete part of that project by finishing the temple, the rest of the construction was abandoned as opposition from the surrounding nations arose.

Once again, the lesson starts out with an incorrect assumption about the rebuilding of the city itself. From Ezra 4, we see that they were building the temple with no mention of the city or its walls.

Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel, 2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here” (Ezra 4:1).

In fact, even though the letter to the king said they were building the wall and city, they weren’t—they were building the temple. That is what the enemies offered their help with, without any mention of the walls.

And the result of their complaint to the king was:

Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia (Ezra 4:24).

From the lesson:

Hanani reports that the situation in Jerusalem is dire. The people have not been able to rebuild Jerusalem, and the enemy had destroyed the walls of the city, leaving it defenseless and desolate.

Apparently the author is using the last few words of Ezra 4:23—“they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force of arms,” to support the statement about the destruction of the walls; but that destruction most likely happened when Jerusalem was destroyed at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity.

The enemies of Judah who were in the land when the Israelites returned to rebuild Jerusalem wrote a letter to King Artaxerxes of Persia which claimed:

…let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem; they are rebuilding the rebellious and evil city and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations (Ezra 4:12).

But their claim is almost certainly a lie to get the king’s support, as there is no record that the Jews were building anything but the temple as evidenced by:

Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia (Ezra 4:24).

In Ezra 5, only the temple is mentioned, even in the complaint to Darius. Then, in chapter 6, when Darius told the enemies to leave them alone, only the temple was mentioned, and again in chapter 7 where King Artaxerxes’ decree is recorded, again only the work on the temple is mentioned

It isn’t until in chapter 9 that we see the first mention of the wall, and even then it wasn’t in relation to the decrees or the work; rather, the mention of the wall was in Ezra’s prayer of confession. It was a plea for God to grant them the restoration of the ruins and the protection of a wall.

For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem (Ezra 9:9).

 

Nehemiah Receives Bad News

From the lesson:

It bears mention that King Artaxerxes crushed the hope of the returnees by stopping the progress of the construction after the people beyond the river complained (Ezra 4). This allowed the enemies to destroy the walls of the city (Ezra 4:23).”

Let’s read that verse:

23 Then as soon as the copy of King Artaxerxes’ document was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their colleagues, they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force of arms.

We already discussed this in the first lesson of this week. Stopping them “by force of arms” does not mean they destroyed the walls. It is simply preventing them from working on the temple which was their only purpose there at this time.

 

Nehemiah’s Prayer

Most of this part of the lesson is a beautiful praise of God by Nehemiah and a well-written reminder that while God does not forget, at times He waits for us to remind Him and claim His promises before He acts. He never forgets and He never fails to fulfill His promises to us.

The two questions from the lesson:

What are some of God’s promises that you can claim for yourself right now? 

Why is it important never to give up claiming those promises? (After all, if you do give up, what’s left?)

I would like to remind us all of some of the precious promises of God that we can claim and that we must believe are true:

For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day”(John 6:38-40).

Did you see that? Of all that come to Jesus, none will be lost but all will be raised up! And John 10:27-29 says:

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

He holds us securely and won’t let us go. It isn’t up to us to have the strength to hold onto Him! And then, Jesus says this in John 14:16, 17: 

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; hat is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever—that means He won’t leave us even when we fall! Forever means forever! Here is 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22:

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.

It is God who establishes us and makes us stand, not we ourselves and our pitiful works or strength. And the Spirit seals us, a fact which indicates a permanent promise of His presence.

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:13, 14).

Here we have the same promise of being sealed by God and having a pledge—a promise—of eternal life. Again, this is based on God and His strength and His unfailing promise, not on our weak, failing attempts at being “good enough” to stay saved.

Here is one more promise, this time from 1 Corinthians 3. The thought starts in verse 10 and builds to the promise in verse 15:

According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. 

If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Do you see that? The promise is that if our works survive the fire, or test, what we get is a reward. This is a promise to those who are already saved, and the reward is in addition to the free gift of salvation, not the salvation itself. Plus there is the wonderful promise that even if our works are done in our own strength and are burned up, we are still saved!

So yes, there are so many promises that are so clear about the certainty of our salvation and our position of safety in God’s hands. These are promises we must believe and cling to even when we see our own failings. They are based on the gift of grace from God, not on our own inherent goodness.

I would like to go on and on about these wonderful promises, but we must continue with the lesson.

 

Nehemiah Speaks Out

From the lesson:

The prayer is answered in the month of Nisan, which is roughly the month of April of 444 b.c.

In the comments on the introduction to this quarter’s lesson, we saw from history that it was in March 14, 445 BC, that the third decree was issued, the only one that ordered the rebuilding of the city and the walls.

The rest of the week’s lesson contains some good points about faith and leadership. Question 3 at the end of Friday’s lesson, however, brings up a sad point:

Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah could have accomplished anything without the help of the king. In other words, these men of God worked in cooperation with the political authorities, who were pagans, as well. What lesson can we draw from this about when and how we as a church can work with the political powers that be, whoever they are? At the same time, when doing so, why must the church be very careful?

This is, sadly, a typical misuse of the word “church”. The word is re-defined to mean the Adventist church rather than the Biblical meaning of the entire body of Christ. This is a subtle but distressing illustration of the exclusiveness of the Adventist church in their attempts to put themselves, and only themselves, in God’s plan while shutting out everyone who does not believe as they do.

This kind of exclusiveness does much harm as it keeps the members from reaching others with the gospel. It also keeps the Adventist members from being exposed to those who might show them the true, Biblical gospel that leads to salvation. †