08 Why Make Vows You Know You’ll Break (Nehemiah 10–11)

Krisan Marotta: Hello, this is Krisan Marotta and the Wednesday in the Word podcast. Today we're looking at the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. We'll be covering chapter 10 and chapter 11. This is the eighth talk in our series on Nehemiah, and you can find links to everything mentioned in the talk by going to our website wednesdayintheword.com slash Nehemiah 8. Thank you for listening. Nehemiah Chapter 10 today. Can you believe we're almost done with this book? We are it's amazing to me. We're working our way through. Let me just review where we are. Um they have rebuilt the walls. They have celebrated uh that success, although a bigger celebration is coming up next week. And after they um built the walls, we learn that the city has been rebuilt but it's not alive, and the people long to know God, so they ask Ezra to teach them the Bible, and they have basically a weeklong um Bible study all uh every day, all day, uh, where Ezra and the various leaders teach them um the law and the Old Testament scriptures, and it as they go through that and they begin to understand that produces a great grief over their sin, but also this tremendous joy over their salvation. And so that section ends by them celebrating the Feast of the Tabernacles, realizing building booth that this earthly city is not their home, uh, their ultimate home, and even though they just rebuilt the walls. And then last week they it records their prayers, so it re- and their prayer in response to all this, the week-long of Bible teaching and then the feast, is um basically they recount the history of Israel with an emphasis on confessing their sinfulness. And that main point of that was summarized in 933, and all that has happened to us, you have been just, you have acted faithfully, what we did wrong. So God was faithful, but they were faithless. And they rightly turn to God in prayer, um, saying, We too are going to fail like all our ancestors before us. So then 9, chapter 9 ends with this statement. In view of all this, so in view of everything we just prayed about, we're making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders and our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it. And then chapter 10 starts with the list of people who signed this vow. And if you then it goes through the specifics of the vow, and then down in 929 it says, or 1029, sorry, um, all these people join with their brothers, their nobles, enter into the curse, and an oath to walk in God's law that was given to Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and do wait, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and his rules and his statutes. And then they enumerate the specific vow. When I was studying this first time, it was like, whoa! It was like running into a brick wall, because it was just so strange to me that they would go through this whole process of coming back to God, of praying this incredible prayer that says, We are faithless, but you were faithful, our fathers were faithless, but you were faithful to them, on and on and on about how sinful they are. And so what do they do? They make a vow and they promise next time we're gonna do better. And I thought, how could they do this? Why? Why could you do this? And did anybody else find this perplexing? This was like, it's I thought I would never get through this. How could you pray through this whole history of Israel with an emphasis on how sinful we are and how often we turn away and then turn around and make a vow? So that's what we're gonna talk about. Let me just um I want to compare this, because this is this is I'm taking you kind of through the journey I went through to try to figure out why they would do this. And if you skip ahead to chapter 13, you'll see by chapter 13 they break the vow. Every one of them. So they are no different than their fathers. So why would they uh why would they do this? So, first, let's look at a couple other instances of vow making in history. And I think I had you do this on your homework. Exodus 24 is the probably the most famous one. This is the golden calf incident. Um, Exodus 24, 3. When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and the laws, they responded with one voice, everything the Lord has said, we will do. So this one unanimous promise, yes, we will do it. Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in the bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it to the people, and they responded, We will do everything the Lord has said, we will obey. So they say, Yes, we will do it. They have this ceremony that's kind of a binding promise that they will do it. And they repeat their affirmation, and then, of course, in less than, what is it, three weeks, six weeks, um these people who call out with one voice commit probably one of the most um recorded, anyways, kind of spectacular instances of lawbreaking in history, and that is they make the golden calf under Aaron's acquiescence, if not his leadership. So that's in Exodus 32, verse 7. Then the Lord said to Moses, Go down because your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, interesting note of phrase there, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded then, and have made themselves an idle cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it, and have said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. And then I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are stiff-necked people, which was the phrase that was repeated in the prayer we looked at last week, about they became stiff-necked, they became arrogant. So of course, Moses goes down, finds them worshiping the golden calf, destroys it, and confronts Aaron. And Aaron basically repeats the same theme. Moses, this is 3221. Moses said to Aaron, Why did the why did these people, excuse me, what did these people do to you that you led them into such great sin? And Aaron answered, Do not be angry, my Lord. You know how prone these people are to evil. So he repeats this same phrase of, you know, we're gonna turn away, we're gonna going to wander. And in the prayer we looked at in chapter 9, I don't know if you notice, in 918, they recount this incidence of the golden calf, and it's kind of cast as like one of the all-time worst sins. In 918, it says, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, This is your God whom you brought up out of Egypt, when they committed awful blasphemies because of your great compassion, you did not abandon them. So it's like, even when they did the golden calf, you did not abandon them, which is an interesting, interesting kind of image of, oh, okay, even then. So we have this Old Testament example. Um consider the probably the most famous one in the New Testament of Peter's denial of Jesus. Mark 14, 27 to 29. Jesus is speaking to the disciples. Um when they had sung a hymn, I'm going to start in 1426. When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. You will all fall away, Jesus told them, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. But after I have risen I will go ahead of you into Galilee. And Peter declared, Even if all fall away, I will not. I tell you the truth, Jesus answered. Today, yes, tonight, before the rooster crows twice, you yourself will disown me three times. But Peter insisted emphatically, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you. And all the others said the same thing. So Peter's instance is recorded for us, but you note all the others said the same thing. And as you know the story, just hours later, Peter is running in terror and refuses to acknowledge that he he knew Jesus when confronted by the servant with the servant girl by the fire. So we have this Old Testament example that's recounted in our prayer. We have the New Testament example coming later of Peter, and then what are we to make of this? Why make a vow? Well, I want to take you back to Romans for those of you who are here last year, because Paul writes about the same problem. Remember in Romans 7, the one of my favorite sections, um, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And he goes through this section of I agree with the law that it is good, and yet I find I can't keep it. And I find myself doing the very thing that I don't want to do, that is breaking the law, and not doing the thing I want to do, that is keeping the law. And it kind of culminates in that section in 7.18, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. I mean, that's the problem we're looking at here. And he goes on with that um culminating in what wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death. So Paul wrote about this same problem. I want to keep the law, I desire to keep the law, I agree with God that it's good, and yet I cannot do it. Um the way we used to explain this in Sunday school when uh my husband and I used to teach when our kids were little, is we would tell the kids that their chooser was broken. So the thing inside them that made them choose to do this or not do that, or to like ice cream and not like broccoli, or whatever it was that made them choose was broken, so that when they were confronted with a choice, they would choose the wrong thing. So that even when you said, No, this time I'm going to do the right thing, your chooser was broken, so that you always missed, you missed the right thing to do. So even when we had the best of intentions, we lack this follow-through. So it's a much less sophisticated way of explaining what Paul was saying in Romans of I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. He says, Who will save me from this body of death? We used to say, How can you fix your broken chooser? If it's broken, you can't choose to fix it because the very thing that you would use to fix it is broken. So, of course, the answer, thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, is what Paul says next. Left to ourselves, we don't have the resources to make this change. We don't have the resources by ourselves apart from God to fix our broken choosers or to give ourselves the ability to do the things that we want to do. In this, as you know, God is in the process of fixing our broken choosers so that we become people who not only want to keep the law but can keep the law, and that's a lifelong process. Okay, so back to Nehemiah. They enumerate the curses and the blessings they long for, they sign the document, they seal it, they witness it, they make three specific vows about things they're going to do. And by chapter 13, after some years have passed, we find that yes, in fact, they've broken all three of them. So, why make a vow? That's what I want to look at first. I'm going to talk about why did they make a vow at all? And then we're going to look at the specifics of the vow. Why did they make a vow about these three things? So, this was the hardest thing for me. So, hopefully, I've I've come up with something that'll be of useful. If I desire to do good and I lack the ability to carry it out, are vows of any use? Um and I think the answer to that is yes and no. How do you like that? No, they won't make you keep it. So by the very fact of making a vow is not going to give you magically the ability to keep it, but I think what it can do for you is show you that you're sinful, and that's a valuable thing. If you remember from Romans 7, the passage I was just talking about, and we studied last year, the section that I quoted to you about I have the desire to do what is right, but I lack the ability, it comes in a section where Paul's answering the question, is the law sin? And he's answering the objection, if all the law does is show me that I'm sinful, isn't that a bad thing? And how could that be a bad thing? So, Paul, your gospel must be wrong. And Paul's answer is no, showing us we're sinful is a blessing because it teaches us something we must know. In 7.70 he says, this is Romans. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed, I would have not known what sin was except through the law, for I would not have known what coveting really was that the law had not said, do not covet. So his argument is the law comes along and very specifically tells me this is okay, this is not, this is the standard up here, and you're down here. And when I attempt to keep it, I learn that I'm sinful. And when I learn that I'm sinful, then I know I need a savior, and that is the first step of saving faith. If I don't get to the point of knowing I can't do it on my own, I will never get to the point of asking God to do it for me. And that's what we really need. So that's the wonderful gift. So you've probably heard the analogy of, oh, you know, it's like giving us the law is like putting a bull in a china shop. You know, the first it's a or a moose or some some big, large, clumsy animal. Well, the first time it twitches its ear or moves its tail, it's gonna break something. Um but if you didn't put him in the China China shop in the first place, he wouldn't know he was clumsy. Well, giving us the law shows us that we're clumsy in a sense. It shows us, gives us the opportunity to realize that our choosers are broken and that we need a savior so that, like Paul, we can say, Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this? So vows do the same thing. When we make a vow, it keeps us on our knees before God because we're asking him to change us. We're asking him to fix this problem. So I think there is some benefit in making a vow in that it specifically then gives us a challenge which can show us that we need God, which can keep us on our knees in prayer before him. And that's a good thing. It keeps us humble before him. So I think the first benefit of vow making is it can show us that we're sinful, and that's a wonderful gift because it keeps us focused on God is going to save me, I'm not. I think another way a vow can help us is it makes um it gives us focus or it makes it gives us something specific because when you make a vow, it's not a general, I think I'll be perfect next week, usually. It's usually about something specific. And that um that can make sin real for us. So having this vague sense that yes, I probably ought to improve in some area of my life before too much time goes by at some point doesn't really convict me of anything. Um, and that doesn't give me any reason to go to God to prayer. So if I keep my sins as vague and general and specific as possible, I can never face any of them. And I can very neatly sidestep them and maybe not make any confessions or apologies I ought to make. You know, it's easy to overlook thoughtless comments or selfishness or neglect. Uh if I keep all my sins at a distance is this theological proposition that yes, I know I'm sinful, but it doesn't really affect my life. Well, when you when you make a vow, you make a vow about something specific, then you're focused on a specific area of struggle, and that can turn you back to God. Let me give you an analogy. Um my husband used to coach our daughter's soccer team, and he was always very specific in his coaching, which of course I think he's one of the best coaches. But there was one game where they were playing and um the other team had the ball, and as they came down toward our defense with the ball, the opposing coach said, Defense, look alive! And everybody kind of went, ooh, but nothing happened. They just didn't, you know, didn't really give them anything to do. Well, of course, as soccer goes, a few minutes later our team had the ball and we're rushing toward their defense, and Dave yelled out, Defense, stay goal side of them, and halfbacks cover the gap. So immediately the fullbacks went to the goal side of the people with the ball, and the halfbacks pulled into the box. There was a specific reaction because he got very specific instructions of what they needed to do, how they should respond. And I thought, that's better coaching than look alive. You know, what are you gonna do? Go to sleep on the soccer field? I mean, you know, I mean so vows can be like that. They give us something specific to focus on. What is God doing in my life now that I should be worried about? Um so you know, knowing I'm sinful is one of kind of my basic theological planks. I confessed it, you know, 20 years ago when I became a Christian. That's enough, right? But it's easy to overlook that and think, what am what is God teaching me now? Where am I struggling now? Um remember back in Nehemiah chapter two when we talked about paying attention to what is God teaching you today? What is God doing? What people has he got in your life, what areas is he kind of rubbing you wrong or teaching you or stretching you that is training you for whatever's coming for tomorrow? Well, pay attention to where you may be struggling to. Where are um what areas might he be teaching you? So it's one thing to say, you know, Lord, I need to witness more. It's a better thing to say, Lord, help me invite my neighbor to the Christmas outreach. That's specific. That gives me something to strive for. Or, Lord, you know, I want to be a better teacher is kind of vague in general, but if I say, Lord, you know, help me spend a half hour more in preparation each week, that's specific. It helps me focus. Or, you know, Lord, I want to be a better wife is nice in general, but give me the grace to overlook my husband's forgetfulness is more specific, or give me the humility to keep bite my tongue and not say the sarcastic things that I'm tempted to say or whatever. So when you make your sins specific, it gives you something to show you you're sinful and to focus on and keeps you on your knees before God. Let me give you an example of this. Um, from this is you're probably familiar with this, Luke 18, when the certain ruler comes to Jesus and says, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit life? And um, well, this I'll just read it. Luke 18, starting in verse 18, a certain ruler asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered, No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother. And he responds, All these I have kept since I was a boy. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one thing, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. When the young man heard this, he became very sad because he was a man of great wealth. And then Jesus looked at him and said, How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven of God? Indeed, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I think there's a lot going on in that passage, but one thing that's going on is Jesus is making sin specific. I think he's going to the young man and saying, What must you do to eternal life? Here's the area this man is struggling with. He's struggling with wealth, so Jesus prods him in that area and says, Give that up. See if you can give that up. And he's making the law specific to this man in his situation. I don't think he's making a blanket statement about all wealth is ought to be given away, so much as this person was struggling in that area. And Jesus gives him a specific command which is harder to ignore and avoid, whereas you can't ignore the kind of oh, be perfect command. So when we're specific about our sins, it awakens our conscience, it keeps us focused and hopefully going back to God about them. So vows can reveal our sin to us, they can make us focused about our sin and make it real as opposed to just general. I think the last thing they can do is express our love for God. And think about the wedding vows in this situation. I mean, why would we make wedding vows? It's usually the center of a marriage ceremony is the the declaration of vows, and it's a way to say, not just I love you, but I love you, and because I love you, here's what I'm promising to do. So it's articulating or expressing the love you have for one another. And we can use vows to express our love for God the same way. You know, it's one thing to say, oh, of course I love you. It's another to say, oh, I promise to be there every morning when you wake up for the rest of your lives. You're making a specific commitment, and that's an expression of your love. So, you know, it it was popular in our culture for a while to say, oh, what difference does the marriage ceremony make? You know, it's just a piece of paper. Who needs the piece of paper? Well, the paper doesn't make any difference, but the willingness to make a vow makes a difference. Um the marriage vow, I think, is an appropriate and necessary expression of your love without that expression. The commitment has come into doubt. So when we make a vow to God, it is one way we can express to Him, I love your law, I want to be like you, I want to follow you, and as an expression of that, here's what I'm going to strive to do. And I think that's another benefit of saying, Lord, I do love you. I'm committing myself to follow you, even with the knowledge that I will probably fail, and unless you change me, I will never succeed in this. But it's still a language, vows can be a language of love. It gives us a way to articulate what's true about our deep inside. So why make a vow? It can teach you you're sinful, which is a good thing because that shows you you need a savior. It can make sin specific so it keeps you focused and in front of God, and it's a way to express your love for God. Okay, so now why would they make these specific vows? Let's look at the ones they made and talk about why they picked these. We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day, and we will forgo the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. We will also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God, and then it goes on to enumerate the other things that were required to keep the temple up and running. And if you skip down to 39, it can it he sums it up with, We will not neglect the house of our God. So the three vows they make are to not give their children in marriage to foreigners, to observe the Sabbath, and to provide for the temple. So why these things? Why would they pick, of all the things they could have made a vow about, why would they pick these three? The ban against the mixed marriage is not a racial ban, it's a religious ban. The concern here is to remain not ethnically poor pure, not like a superior race, but to remain pure in your worship of God. Because remember, in their day there was no such thing as a secular marriage. You couldn't just go to a justice of the peace and have a civil service of any kind. It didn't exist. A marriage ceremony involved a God. And it was either the God of the Bible or it was another God. But there was always a God invoked in the marriage ceremony. So when you married someone outside your religion, most likely you were bringing their God into the service and bringing that religion into your family. So when they say we aren't going to give our daughters to foreigners or vice versa, there the concern is that they not dilute their worship of God. That that's the intent. I don't think it's racial bigotry, it is concerned to maintain worship of Yahweh. And the temptation would be think about this, marriage was a great way to climb the social ladder in those days. If you could marry someone from a wealthy family, you were ensuring that your son or daughter could eat in times of famine or of drought. Um, and it would could make the difference between life and death on how well off you were. So it would be very tempting in times of you know economic distress or drought or crop failure or whatever to turn to marriage as a solution to your economic problems. It's like it's an escape. You know, if I just marry my daughter into this wealthy family, then she'll eat and I know she'll survive. Um, you know, they have enough sheep and goats or whatever to sustain them well. But there's they're recognizing the cost of that is great because the cost could be the dilution of your faith and your children's faith and their children's faith, and that's what they're trying to avoid. So the concern with the inner marriage is to maintain the purity of their worship, to maintain their religion and not mix in other religions. So the first intent of the vow is to keep them focused on worshiping God and God alone. The Sabbath keeping is the second one, and I think there were two things that probably were in view behind this. The first, well, the essence of the Sabbath command was rest and knowing that God is God and He will provide. So that I think is ultimately what they're vowing, of recognizing God is in control and I'm not. If I'm gonna prosper, God's gonna have to be the one to prosper me. If my crops succeed, God's gonna have to be the one who brought the rain and the and the sun and whatever was needed. Um and I c they could let their fields lie fallow in the seventh year as an expression that God would provide enough for them in the sixth year so they would get through. So the temptation, like marrying up the social ladder, would be, oh, I've got to take matters into my own hands and work on the Sabbath because God might not provide for me. I have to do it. I have to I have to trust in myself and my efforts and the work of my hand, as opposed to trusting that God will do it, and as God is ultimately the one taking care of me. So keeping the Sabbath kept them focused on the fact that God is in control. I think the second thing it did is it made them different. Because if they kept the Sabbath, they didn't look like any of their neighbors. Everyone else worked every day of the week, everyone else bought and sold in the markets every day. So they for them to step out of the rat race for a day was weird. It made them different, it made them look different, they didn't act like everyone else. It radically marked their business practices so that they didn't trade or do deals in the way other their nations around them did. And that I think is another thing the Sabbath can do for them. It keeps them focused that yes, God is control, and we're different because we trust that God is in control. So it expresses their confidence that God would take care of them and it marks them as different from other cultures. They have to say no to this kind of life of maximum acquisition, of gaining the most wealth they can possibly have. They have to say, my highest goal is not, you know, trading and buying and selling everything I possibly can. If I'm going to keep the Sabbath, it means I have to put something above that. I have to value something more than wealth and prosperity. And something else is more important, you know, than an 80-hour work week. And I think that's something that can hit us today. I mean, I don't know, I don't want to get into the specifics of what can or should you do on the Sabbath. I think the main principles to remember are trusting that God is in control. But the do we look different? You know, do we act different in the business world? Do we do we uh have different attitudes in the way we dress or the way we act in the workplace? Do we laugh at the same jokes? Do we um do we are our families real priorities for us or just lip service priority? You know, when push comes to sub, do you get in the rat race just the same way everybody else? I mean, it it seems one thing this passage suggests is that we ought to be different so that we're out there in in the academic world or the business world or whatever. People would say, well, you know, great guy, but a little weird, you know, acts a little different. So the vow to intermarriage was to keep their worship focused on God and not mix in other religions. The vow to keep the Sabbath is to keep trusting God, knowing that He's in control and not them, and that they would continue to look different than their neighbors. And then the third vow is concerns what they need to make the temple flourish. And I think in a way, this is a more of a positive statement of the first two vows are I'm we're not gonna do this, we're not gonna work on the Sabbath, we're not gonna intermarry. This one is we are going to support the temple. And I think that's a statement of we're going to put God first. I'm going to make sure that whatever is needed to maintain a real and vital role for God in my life is done. And in their day and age, that was supporting their priests, teachers, and the temple. So by promising to give what their tithe, to give of their first fruits, to, you know, all the stuff about how much wood they needed and all of the specifics, was um putting God first. We're going to take care of the needs of the temple and those who serve it so that God is in our lives. Now, I don't know what does that translate into today. I don't know. It may or may not be giving to the church. I think certainly giving to the church ought to be high up there on our list, but it also may mean exercising our gifts. The idea that I'm going to step out in whatever God has called me and do it. So it's not, I would say it's more than just kind of the passive, I'm going to write a check, but the things we talked about in chapters three and four, about fixing the broken wall in front of my house, of figuring out what God has called me to do, where I can serve, and doing it, stepping out. So paying attention to the lessons God is teaching me and doing what I think he's called me to do. I think that's that is also would be part of the intent here of putting God into my life so that I'm seeking what he wants me to do and trying to serve him. So if you think about that, all three of their vows are essentially clinging to their faith. They want to preserve their worship of God, they want to remain uniquely his people, and they want to keep him at the center of their lives. And that's the intent of all three of those vows, which is another way reason I could I say it's probably was a specific expression of their love for God and their desire to follow him. Now think about how far these people have come. When we first meet them in chapter two, they're brokenhearted, they're repeating the words of their enemies, they're saying, you know, ten times over, our efforts are feeble, we can't do it. Um this job is too big, they're scattered, they're broken, and now they've come through this process, so they've longed to know God, they've hungered for his words, they've understood, and now they vow to keep him there. And that, I think, is a beautiful picture of what God does for us individually in our lives. He takes us from being lost and broken and um struggling and in the depths of our sin to people who want to know him and to love him. And we see it as on a whole community level here, but I think we also see it in our own lives. Are we doing on time? Okay, let me uh make a couple observations about chapter 11. I'm not going to do a whole lot with it because it's another list of names for the most part. But I did want to make one comment about the beginning. Notice this is well 111 and 2. Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in other towns. And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. And then he goes into these are the chiefs who live in the process province and the towns and the servants, and he goes into the names. But it's an interesting little note about nobody lived in the city yet. They'd rebuilt the walls, they'd um they'd had these this Bible study, they had this prayer, but still people were living in the outlying areas, and only the leaders are living in the city. So they basically have a draft, a lottery, if you will, to conscript people to come back and live within the city itself. And then there's this little note that all the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. And that's an interesting statement to me, because why why didn't people want to live there? Well, they probably had lives established in other places, but it was dangerous to live in Jerusalem. I mean, if the king of Persia got upset and decided it was time to squash the city, the first place he's gonna come is the city of Jerusalem. So there was some danger. It's the place of all the enemies uh focused on of who's going to, you know, when they were rallying against the Jews, they all focus on we're gonna ri um come in and destroy the city again. So there was danger. But notice that some people volunteered. And I think what that shows us is God had moved some people to a point of greater trust so that they could go and face those dangers and live there knowing that God was in control. Um so they recognized what they wanted to do and or what was the right thing to do, and they volunteered to do it. And that's the promise we were talking about over the last two chapters of we are a faithless people, but we have a faithful God. We are people who are prone to wander, who are stiff-necked, but we have a God who will call us. And what we see in verse two is evidence of God at work in some people's lives. So that the promise of obedience that it would come from the inside out, and that he would make us the kind of people who not only want to do the right thing, but do the right thing, here you see people who did. They God has worked in their lives and brought them to the point that point. Now, sometimes we do what's right because we know it's the right thing to do, but we really rather would not. You know, you've probably had those moments where I know I ought to do this, it's the right thing to do, and okay, here I go, I'm gonna do it, you know. And you kind of drag your feet, and no. And it's better to do the right thing with a bad attitude than the wrong thing. But the promise is we're gonna get to the point where we will do the right thing with the right attitude. And we see that here. There are some people who were blessed because they willingly did the right thing, and that's the problem, that's the promise of God. This problem of I w have the desire to do what is right, but I lack the ability to carry it out. The promise is he will change that. He will solve that eventually. He will make us people who do the right thing from the heart from the right heart. And so, yes, there were some people who had to be coerced to come and live in the city, and I suspect that through that process, God taught them too and brought them to a place where they were would probably look back years later and were glad that they had moved into the city and that he had taught them in ways they didn't expect because they were in the city. Because we have a God who orchestrates all those details. But we also see people who were further down that road of progress who did what was right willingly. And that ought to give us hope. Because if we're not one of those people who would volunteer, you will be. God has promised you will be. One day you'll get to the point where you want to do what is right, and you can do what is right, and you do it with a cheerful heart. And so it's evidence, I think, that God has been at work in their lives. So, yes, we'll break our vows, most likely. We'll fail some of the next times, but the promise is there's a day coming when we won't. There's a day coming when we will conquer that next time, and we will joyously and easily and naturally keep the vows that we have made. Now, it may be a long road, it may be a long time from now, but it is uh it is coming. Okay, let me stop there. Um let me pray and and then have some questions and comments. Father, we come before you knowing that we are people prone to fail, people prone to be stiff-necked and to turn away to glory in our own accomplishments and and to forget the work of your hand in our lives. And we pray that you would teach us, as you taught the people of Nehemiah's day, to want to know you, to long to know you, and to um strive to keep you at the center of our lives, the center of our worship, and the center of our hearts. And we know that all these promises will come true because of the work of your son on the cross and the love and compassion you've shown for us. In Jesus' name. Amen.