Nehemiah 7 (Part 1) Bible Study (Hanani & Hananiah Governors) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (9/18/26)

About what the fear of God produces, not just in a person, but in a community. Second Samuel 23 in verse three. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, 'When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, what happens? Verse four, 'He dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.' Oh, how poetic, how precious, how profound.

David reflecting on his own leadership surely and what he's observed throughout his career says, when you have somebody ruling in the fear of God, there is a manifold blessing that awaits those who are under such a rule. And he describes it here so beautifully, right? But listen, if you know somebody who fears God, you can echo these sentiments, can you not? People who genuinely walk in an awe of the Lord are delightful people. They are safe people.

They are reliable people, they are insightful people, they are trustworthy, they are selfless, they are a gift. They pour out, they invest, they sacrifice, they bring warmth to us, and not just leaders, but especially leaders. And how true is it that a person who lacks a fear of God brings the opposite effects Especially within the community of a church, they incite trouble. Most of the trouble that you bump into with people in the church is due to this single issue, they don't fear God. They think a pastor is in charge of the church, they think people are in charge of the church, they're so humanistic, they're so carnal, they're so fleshly.

And when you fear God you'll be very careful to touch the church, very careful. So, they incite trouble, they create strife, they hurt others out of selfish gain, and they are ultimately draining people. They don't make things grow, they destroy. They don't bring more warmth, they make people cringe. And Nehemiah understood what David was speaking about here.

I have to find not just people who have skill, and ability, and respect, and an impressive resume, I need people who fear God. And when you fear God like Nehemiah did, you're able to discern who else fears God. And you're able to discern, yet that person fears the Lord, but not in everything. That person fears the Lord but it's inconsistent, no, not with the men that he chose, they fear God more than others. And the fear of God is a necessary ingredient to spiritual promotion.

You can't go very far without the fear of God. You can go very far if you fear him. And the reason why it's important to establish in leadership because that outlook, that attitude, that conviction is contagious. It's inspiring. People sometimes ask, what do I look for in a local church?

And my answer is the same, look no further than the leadership because they sit in the driver's seat of that community. How do they handle God's word? How do they speak about Christ? How do they conduct themselves? Are they flipping?

Are they casual? Are they irreverent? Are they disrespectful? That's all you need to know. I'm sure there are other factors that I wanna be overly simplistic, but I think it's paramount, like Nehemiah shows us here, that for a community to be able to thrive, you need God fearing people, especially those who are in positions of authority.

There's more. Let's come back to Nehemiah seven, and let's read now again verse three. And I said to them, now he's speaking to those that he just appointed to govern the city with him, and I said to them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be open until the sun is hot, and while they are standing guard, let them shut and bar the doors, appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, some at their guard posts and some in front of their own homes. Now, the initial set of commands here are quite clear. It connects with the gatekeepers earlier.

He tells these men, Listen, you have to instruct the gatekeepers, number one, to not open the gates too early in the day. Why? He says, While the sun is hot. Because if you did it too early, there wouldn't be enough light, it would be too dim, and you wouldn't be able to identify people enough. There would be a lack of information, so to speak, due to visual obstacles.

So wait till the sun is hot, wait till you can see all things and people can't sneak things in and sneak things out. And this is really an illustration again of the need for discernment, of the need to be prayerful and aware, biblically informed to know what is right, what is wrong, what is clean, what is unclean, what is truth and what is not true. And he says the same thing later where he says, Make sure you shut the door before it gets dark. Make sure there are people there standing guard as you do it, but that's not the focus that I wanna bring to your attention. What I wanna highlight here as we look at the fifth condition necessary to maintaining God's protection, and preservation, and prosperity in our work, healthy homes.

Healthy homes. About the state of many assemblies in his day. In Jude verse four, For certain people have crenoticed. Where were the gatekeepers? Where was the church?

Where were the leaders? How have people crept in unnoticed? They were able to slip in, they didn't seem dangerous, they didn't seem harmful, they didn't seem divisive, they didn't seem like they were bearing false doctrine, they crept in unnoticed. They had Bibles in their hands, they had a nice suit jacket on, they seemed so friendly, they were singing the songs when you were singing them, they crept in unnoticed. And what did they bring with them?

Who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality, and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see that? There are some who have come in and begin to convince other Christians within that assembly, you know, God's so merciful, he's so forgiving. Surely, he will not condemn us if we continue in sin. Surely, he understands that we are flesh.

Surely, he is lenient on these matters. Surely, his grace abounds, and they crept in unnoticed. So this has been a problem for the church from the beginning. But is there any example in the New Testament where the church succeeded in applying this principle of having their gates watched? Let me give you one.

You're there in Jude, so you don't have to turn too far. Go to Revelation and go to chapter two with me and look at what God says, look what Christ says in commending the church in Ephesus. Revelation two, and look at verse two with me, I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. Do you see that? Jesus Christ is going to criticize this church for forsaking the first love.

But before he does that, he praises them. And one of the things that he praises is that you as a church were able to distinguish and able to identify those who claim to be apostles, claim to be ministers, but were indeed false, and I love that. And I celebrate that, and I commend you for that. Why? Because the Lord wants gatekeepers in his church.

Vigilant members, loving elders, who yes are accepting to all people, but not admitting all people should they bring destructive heresies and abominable practices into the church. So what does that look like for us as a church? I'll tell you one way that we exercise this principle. If those who desire to become members pursue that, they have to sit with the elders and we have to find out what they believe. You know, there's a lot of people who criticize this concept of membership and I know some churches take it way too far.

But why we apply that is because we see in the New Testament that not anybody can just come in and out of the church. If you look at the book of Acts carefully, when certain believers would travel from one church to another, or move from one location to another, if they were believers, they needed to receive the recommendation of that church before they move on. That's what you that's what you see in the in the book of Acts, and that's the application of being gatekeepers. And so that's how we try to do it. We try to implement this by knowing those who would say, I wanna be a part of this fellowship.

Wonderful. Well, let let's let's hear what you believe. We'll tell you what we believe, and these things are secondary matters, tertiary matters. Do they touch the nerve of the gospel? Are they out of line of Orthodox Christianity?

If we wanna preserve and protect what God has built and what he wants to build, we need gatekeepers. And we'll get to that later in this study because we come now to the second thing that Nehemiah implements. Verse one again, read it with me, Now when the wall had been built and I'd set up the doors and the gatekeepers, the singers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, but highlight the singers. What what does Nehemiah show us here as he seeks to invest in this community before he moves on? What does he do in order to provide the necessary ingredients for their longevity?

He prioritizes worship. He establishes the importance of gatekeepers and from there, he reminds the people the priority of worship. Now amazingly, Nehemiah writes that he appoints singers, and this is not a new ministry that he invents. This was something that King David himself had established when he but we bring those prayers before God and we trust that he will answer those prayers. So please don't hesitate to send your request to us.

It's a delight of ours to pray on your behalf. Besides that, you know that we're here every Friday at 7PM. We're here to study the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew scriptures, and often neglected part of our Bibles, and people fail to realize that the left side of our Bibles is heavier than the right side. And so, we need the complete revelation of God's word. That's why we are taking our time going through every book revelation of God's word.

That's why we are taking our time going through every book possible, and somebody asked recently, what are you gonna do when we finish? And I I said, I don't know if I'm gonna be alive by the time we finish, to be honest. That's up to the Lord. I'm not in no rush, and if he wants us to finish, then he'll give us the grace and strength and the timing to do it, but we're going very carefully through every verse we can in the Hebrew Bible on Fridays. And as you know on Sundays, in case you don't know, we're here every Sunday at 10:30AM for for the Lord's Day service to commemorate the resurrection as the early church did, but also to go through his word again.

And we are going through the book of Revelation, focusing on the millennial reign of Christ, such a controversy these days. And all these different ideas that are being proposed, I'm biting my tongue because there are things that are out there that I'm listening to recently that's quite disturbing about how people's eschatology is influencing their day to day living, and there's a new movement out there that's stemming from the idea that the church is gonna be the one to usher in the kingdom, and it's causing some trouble for people in their faith of how they view politics and how they view government, but that's for another time. Besides that, we have our picnic. Our picnic this Sunday, September 20, a couple days from now, as you know, we'll be celebrating after the Lord's Day, fellowshipping outside if the weather permits. If not, we have plenty of space to do in the basement and other parts of the the the building here, so we're looking forward to that.

If you wanna bring us a small side dish, you're free to do that. If you wanna bring a change of clothes just in case the weather is in our favor, you can do that as well. Become ready to just stay a little bit, after the service, and that's what I love about this church. I've been to many services at the the moment the benediction goes out, it seems like there's a competition who can get to their car the fastest as though there's a prize waiting for them in the parking lot or something. But I love how slow people are to go to their cars after the services on Sundays especially, and I hope that is a culture that remains, with us as a church.

Lastly, we've been announcing, a soon coming baptism service. We don't have a date set yet, but you've been so kind to us to inform us if, of your desire or your questions regarding water baptism. And so, we're gonna announce this a couple more times before we officially set a date, but if you desire to be water baptized, if you've hesitated for some reason, or if you question your previous experience with baptism, that's also a valid reason to be baptized again. We would love to have that conversation with you. You can always send an email to the church on the website, mbchicago.org, or you can approach any one of the elders and we'd love to spend some time with you clarifying anything on your end.

Well, that's all I have for us in terms of announcements, but I invite you now to turn with me to the book of Nehemiah. Let's go together to the book of Nehemiah. As you know, we've gathered together again to explore a marvelous book in our Bibles written by a godly man named Nehemiah. Now, I wouldn't be surprised that as returning to our Bibles, if some of you who have been carefully studying with us these past few months may be wondering what is left for us to study. And the reason why I say that is because from the very beginning of this book, the main purpose, the main focus of looking at Nehemiah's narration and his retelling of this piece of Judah's history is the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem that had been destroyed many years before his time through the Babylonian exile.

And as we saw last week in chapter six, this wonderful task that Nehemiah prayed for and and desired to get his hands on has reached its completion. The walls are rebuilt, and the enemies of Judah did not succeed in stopping the people of God from accomplishing it. And the passion of this man and all his fasting and praying has now materialized. Everything that we have studied about Nehemiah up to this point revolved around that objective, that challenging objective, that important objective, but we've seen the climax, haven't we? It's done.

It's over. The walls are resurrected, the gates are in place, the people are now secure. So what is left for Nehemiah to write about? Well as we're about to see in this new chapter, Nehemiah is not concerned merely and simply for the walls to be rebuilt. Nehemiah wanted those walls, yes to come again into existence, but also to fulfill the purpose that they were designed for.

And that was to be a shield for God's people against external threats and temptations, while also serving as a symbol of the separation that the people of God were called to unto the Lord from the nations. And that is why for the rest of this book, Nehemiah is going to shift his leadership focus from rebuilding the walls to shepherding the convictions of the people within those walls. Because you see, this godly man understood that the security of the holy city was not dependent upon any physical structure. It ultimately rested upon the obedience of God's people. Here's what we have to remember before we start reading.

The destruction of these walls to begin with did not come from anything other than the people's unrepentant ongoing rebellion against the Lord. It wasn't like Babylon just emerged from the scene as the dominating world empire and surprised Judah by besieging it and destroying it. Babylon was God's agent on the earth to discipline his people. And the manifestation of God's wrath in that setting brought down these walls because it stemmed from the people who continually rejected his patience throughout the centuries calling them to come back to himself. And so in order to avoid that fatal mistake repeating again, Nehemiah now is going to give his attention while he is in Jerusalem to facilitating and fostering the faith of