Nehemiah 9:26-31

We often hear that the God of the Old Testament is a wrathful and tribal God, but the God of the New Testament is a God of love. By this people show criticism of the revelation of God in the Old Testament and imply that the Old Testament writers were really very ignorant of God, and this was corrected in the New Testament after the coming of Jesus.

I have always felt that such assumptions are distasteful, superficial, wrong and dishonouring to God, and this evaluation of Israel's history before us, which covers a considerable part of the Old Testament writings, reveals quite a different story. What is true is that we have revealed here a wonderful God, full of compassion and mercy.

I have given the title of 'God of Faithfulness' to this sermon, because I feel that this holds together all that I am seeing in this section of Nehemiah 9.

The first thing that claimed my attention as I read over these verses several times was the repetition of the words patience, compassion, merciful and gracious (verses 27, 30, 31). These words describing God's attitude and dealing with Israel is in the context of the way Israel's behaviour is described.

Verse 26 commences by telling us that Israel was disobedient, that they rebelled against God and put his laws behind their backs. It goes on to tell us that they killed the prophets whom God had sent to call them back into the ways of goodness and faithfulness to God. Further we are told they committed awful blasphemies, that is they turned away from God and made him out to be like the idols of the heathen all around them. Then in verse 28 we are told that as soon as God had blessed them they turned away from him again, and this was repeated time and time again. After God had compassion on them, they became arrogant and sinning against his ways and will (v.29)

This went on year after year and time and time again, yet when they called upon the Lord in their trouble, he heard their cry, and returned with blessing to them. This long-suffering is expressed in verse 30 "For many years you were patient with them.

The provocation which Israel gave to God was enormous, yet God in great long-suffering bore with it all and never forsook them completely.

The idea that God was a wrathful God with great anger raining down judgements and punishments is totally against the facts. How people can get this idea I do not know. The truth is greatly different.

What is it that we are told here. In very 27 we read that God handed them over to their enemies. Again in verse 28 we are told that God abandoned them to their enemies. Then at the end of verse 30 we read that God handed them over to the neighbouring people.

What is the truth that is revealed here? It is not of a God coming in anger and actively pouring out retribution on Israel. Rather it is of God withdrawing from his people with a grieving heart because they would not listen to him, and had ceased to love him and take any notice of him. It is a picture of God, bitterly hurt, withdrawing from a people who offended him with evil practices, and who shamed him before the heathen, and gave him a character which was like the devil. The judgement was that of leaving the people to the choice they had made, and withdrawing his protection and care for a time, but still waiting in the shadows until his people returned to him.

This is the truth, that we can't exist safely for a minute unless God in tender mercy upholds us with his love and grace, and when we turn from God in evil ways, we are wandering into great danger. It was not God who oppressed the Israelites, but the other nations who were their enemies. Israel had made themselves vulnerable to their enemies by forsaking God who was their wall of defence against their enemies. What Israel could not get into their heads was that if they would not have God to rule over them in love, then they would be ruled over by someone who was a tyrant. The world goes away from God, and finds itself under the tyrant Satan. Freedom is illusory in this world. We can make our free choices but apart from the grace of God those choices will lead us into slavery to Satan.

What do we read here about the action of God towards his people Israel. As soon as they cried to the Lord in their trouble he heard them (v.27), and returned to them with compassion, and saved them from their oppressors. This is repeated time and time again (v.28, 31). God was waiting, like the father of the prodigal son, to welcome and embrace them, and restore them.

But what was behind the fact that God sent his prophets to call Israel back to him, and the fact that he abandoned them to their enemies. Was it just to punish them for their evil actions. I don't believe it was that at all. God had in mind his purposes of grace to redeem the world through our Lord Jesus Christ. Ever since sin entered the world, God had planned to redeem sinners, and save them from death and hell. The choosing of Israel for special attention was to achieve this purpose. Israel was no better than any other nation. God chose them so that he could preserve a human line from which he would cause the Messiah, the Christ, the Redeemer, to be born and bring salvation freely to sinners. In all the acts of judgement and giving over Israel to their enemies, this was behind all his action. He was preserving the line from which the Saviour would be born.

God was acting in faithfulness according to his promise to bring in everlasting redemption. Even though he was greatly provoked; even though he was slighted and shamed by his people; even though he had every cause to say 'enough is enough, I will make an end', God never abandoned his purpose of redemption, and never failed to keep his promise of salvation for the world. The love of God in the Old Testament is why we see the love of God perfectly portrayed in Christ.

It is true that God's action in handing over his people to their enemies - that is withdrawing his protection and defence so that Israel was vulnerable to the strength of their enemies - was judgement, but it was not simply retribution, if it was this at all. Rather it was action of grace and love.

Israel was destroying themselves by their evil ways. They were on the broad road which leads to destruction. God could not let them or the world go on to everlasting perdition without doing what was necessary to provide salvation. In love he determined to provide the Saviour, and so he worked to keep Israel from final loss, so that salvation could be achieved for them and the world.

Israel did everything to destroy redemption. God's acts in handing them over to their enemies were not acts of a wrathful God, delighting in the pain of his creatures, but a God of love yearning over his wayward children, determined never to let them go.

How often have I felt that God was delighting in giving me pain, and accusing him of not caring for my suffering. As I look back I am ashamed of such an attitude, for I have learnt in retrospect that God's acts, which seemed as if he had forsaken me, and was delighting to punish me, were all demonstrations of his love, so that I may be kept in his love forever, and grow in the joy of heavenly blessings.

There is one factor that seems to be always forgotten by those who speak of God in the Old Testament being a wrathful God, and that is the constant speaking to Israel by God through the prophets.

Nehemiah evaluating this action of God here shows us that he saw this action of God in sending prophets as an act of grace, to call his people from their sins to his saving love.

It is true that the words of the prophets in much of their writings hold terrible threatenings, and dire actions against sinful people, but such words are not what we often suppose in our superficial understanding. We have no conception of the evil of sin as it is in the pure eye of God. We have no appreciation of how offensive and alien is sin to God's holiness, and that it cannot be allowed to remain, and must be finally judged and put away. We can't appreciate the fact that it must be true that if we will not let go our sins, and turn to receive his grace, then we leave no alternative but to suffer eternal death, because we are holding on to what can't be allowed to stand in God's realm and authority.

The prophets words had to convey this truth, and had to make it plain. This was an act of love because we are so blind and stubborn. We need to have it told to us in the plainest of terms what is the end of unrighteousness, but this was never told without grace and redemption also being offered, and people called to receive this gift of saving love. The prophet Isaiah has many severe words concerning God's attitude to sin, and judgement on sinners, but also it is a book in the Bible which shows God's saving love, and the wonder of Jesus the redeemer provided in God's love, in a marvellous way.

There is no book in the Old Testament that has not got in it the call of God's grace, and the offer of salvation given. Further, the New Testament has equally strong language which warns concerning the wages of sin, and the reality that sin must be blotted out and God's creation purged of its evil.

What shall we say to all that we have considered in these verses we have been looking at. Isn't it this that Nehemiah had a truer view of God's actions in the Old Testament than we have so often, and that the view he presents here is one of great comfort, as well as one of correction.