In his preface to his short essay titled, “Corrective Church Discipline,” P.H. Mell wrote of churches not obeying the regular command of the Scriptures, thus practicing irregularities, “Such irregularities have never failed to be disastrous to those who perpetrated them, and their influence upon the cause of Christ has been only evil, and that continually. One of the unhappy effects is that they are taken as precedents by those who are not well informed, and quoted as instances in Baptist usage.”¹

Thus, what Mell is saying is that what has happened traditionally is that those who depart from the standard of the Scripture in their practice has always ended in disaster, proving that it is always more risky to disobey Scripture than to obey it, no matter how difficult is that obedience. He says that what he sees happening are many coming into the church and repeating these irregularities as normal so that they become a normal practice in the church though being completely defiant to the commands of Scripture. And in his foresight, he wrote a work on corrective church discipline to try to pull the church back from this slippery slope.

The book of Nehemiah ends with the same kind of reality. In Nehemiah 13:23-25, Nehemiah records, “In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but the language of each people. And I confronted them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, ‘You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.’”

And the chapter seemed so out of place for me as I read this book again this week. I read it in one setting on Tuesday and began to be greatly encouraged. The story is of Nehemiah hearing that Jerusalem is in ruins. The city has no wall surrounding it. The temple had been rebuilt in 516 BC and now it is 445 BC and Nehemiah comes back to aid the people in rebuilding the walls.

From there, it is a story of great triumph. This ragtag group of people goes to perform this extraordinary task of rebuilding the walls. They are mocked and even have to build with swords in their hands to defend themselves from their enemies. They overcome distractions and temptations to turn away from the work and eventually rebuild the walls in 52 days. And Nehemiah gloriously tells us in 6:15-16, “So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”

So as I read it, I was so encouraged and motivated and hopeful for the kind of work we are doing. For it was a motivating story of this small group of people triumphing over their enemies and accomplishing a great work by the hand of God.

In fact, I overflowed with so much joy and passion and hope that I stopped and called Nathan Young just to read some chapters over the phone to him. Then I read the last chapter of this triumphant book, and it ends with this note of intermarriage still occurring and the disastrous effect it had so that the people of God were not even able to speak the language of Jerusalem.

And all of the sudden, this book took a much more sobering and serious turn. For I realized that Nehemiah’s work here was for much more than a wall. He was concerned with the people of God and what they looked like. So as I read those words of the children not even being able to speak the language of Jerusalem, I wrote these words:

“One generation of sin can have the effect of leaving the next generation with no connection to biblical identity, thought, and practice. We see this in an absence of church discipline so that the church is full of people whose lives look nothing like the Scripture, the absence of elders so that spiritual oversight has fallen by the wayside, the absence of expository preaching so that you can be in church for twenty years and never learn the content of Scripture, the absence of the true gospel, replacing it with a quick but false gospel so that men are added to the church and do not know Christ, the absence of teaching on the sacredness of marriage so that divorce is common because ‘God must want me to be happier than I am’, and the absence of parents understanding it is their responsibility to teach their children so that my former youth minister was pressured to resign because children of members in the church did not know the bible as well as the parents supposedly wanted them to know it, etc. The church is presently the product of leaving these things absent and adding things that are not Scriptural. We are the children of the generations that have preceded us. And we must labor in drastic measures to return, realizing the cost and how crucial are our labors, for now we see how crucial are the effects of prior generations.”

That is what led me to P. H. Mell’s essay. For it was written in 1860 and is a prophetic declaration that if we depart from the scripture in the teaching and practice of the church, then the next generation who calls themselves the Church will look nothing like the body of Christ as described in Scripture.

And so the task ahead of us is great and it is crucial. However, I think Nehemiah is a book that can encourage us in the great labors that lie ahead. For just as this book ends showing us we must be focused on building more than walls, so we this morning must make our focus on building the church to conform to the standard described in Scripture.

Therefore, let me remind you of some truths that are clear in this book.

The works of the past, though having an evil effect on the present status of the church will work together for good – for God’s glory and his people’s good

In the final chapter of Nehemiah, we read these words: “On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water; but hired Balaam against them to curse them – yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent” (Nehemiah 13:1-2 – emphasis added).

What people have done before us (and what we have done) that has been against the Scripture and against the church will be used by God to magnify his name and glorify himself through his church. The reality of Romans 8:28 is not limited here. So, this reality should drive us to repentance so that we might be the means through which God begins to use our present situation as a platform upon which he will show himself great, even as the Israelites when hearing Nehemiah repented. And this leads us to a second truth.

God honors the repentance of his people

In the beginning of the book, as Nehemiah sees that the walls are broken down, he prays to the Lord, “We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your dispersed by under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there” (1:7-9 – emphasis added).

This is a common theme throughout Scripture; God honors the repentance of his people. He shows them mercy when they repent. Therefore, our labors must begin with repentance for our neglect of the Scriptures in our practice. We must repent for the absence of so many commands that God has given to his church, and we must long to recover them. Therefore, let our task begin not with our pride for seeing these needs but our brokenness in having neglected them so long.

Then, we must set our minds to labor for God’s purposes and standard as revealed in his Word, and we must do this without being distracted and swayed from our labors

We must set our minds to this cause, for we learn something from a situation like the worship of the golden calf in Exodus 32, don’t we? God cares how we worship him. For as they formed the golden calf, they were trying the worship the God who delivered them out of Egypt, but they did not worship him in the manner he prescribed. And the manner in which we worship God matters to him.

So we cannot say, “Well, we are gathering with the people of God and really want to worship him, so who cares if we’re looking like the bible describes the church and are practicing exactly what it tells us.” No, we must labor to return to those standards which he gives us in his word, and we must not be swayed because we realize how important this is.

Nehemiah tells us in 2:18, “And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, ‘Let us rise up and build.’ So they strengthened their hands for the good work.” We too, because our desire is biblical and God honors the repentance of his people must feel this day that God’s hand is upon us, and we must strengthen ourselves for the good work.

And remember not to be distracted or swayed from it. We read in Nehemiah 4:1-6, “Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, ‘What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that?’ Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, ‘Yes, what they are building – if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!’

Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives … So we built the wall. And all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.”

Again, in Nehemiah 6:3-9 we read of Nehemiah not being distracted despite men’s attempts. He writes, “Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, ‘Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.’ But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?’ And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. In it was written, ‘It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning the you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’ And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together.’ Then I sent to him saying, ‘No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.’ For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.’ But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”

We must labor to obey the word without being distracted and swayed from our efforts, regardless of what might come against us.

The motivation of our labor must be that we fear God and long for his glory to be gloriously displayed through his church

We see this over and over throughout the book. In 4:14-15, Nehemiah tells his people to motivate them in the face of conflict, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.’ When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.”

Again, in Nehemiah 5:9 he tells the people who are practicing sin, “The thing you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies.” That is to say for us, “Should we not fear God and long to stop the taunts of the world that the church is hypocritical in its claim of what the bible is when compared to the church’s practice which does not conform to the word?”

We could read these themes over and over throughout this book, but we must ensure that these are our motivations as we labor, and if we every struggle to press on, remember these causes.

And finally, let me encourage you in our task with two things.

1. God especially seems to use weak people to accomplish his purposes so that he alone is honored

In chapter 4, Nehemiah and the people are mocked because they are weak and unimpressive, and yet as they finish, Nehemiah says, “So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (6:15-16).

So this morning if your struck by how weak and incompetent you are, then congratulations, you qualify to be used by God as he honors himself.

2. God will labor on behalf of his church because he is passionate about his own glory

Again, 6:15-16 is a reminder of this, but so is 4:20 as Nehemiah writes, “In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.” We can be confident about this as well as our goal is to have the church look like the Scripture, for God wants that more than we could ever desire.

So, what is it that must be our goal and vision? We must recover some things that the church has departed from in the past few generations that Mell foresaw. This is the desire that Jonathan, Nathan, and I all have. We do not want to skirt church discipline when it is needed, though it is all too casually said, “Church discipline is not practiced anymore.” For we know that it is crucial if you care for men’s souls. We want to ensure that we are practicing oversight, for we do not want to skirt the reality that we will give an account for your souls. We want church membership to be taken seriously on the front end so as to do our best to ensure that our members have truly been born again so that the church is made up of Christians. We want to ensure that all members here have a clear understanding of the gospel so that we might not share something that might reach people and yet not have the power to save. We want to prepare the parents of children so that they can carry out their responsibility of teaching them the word and leading them. We want to be responsible with whom we baptize, trying to ensure they are giving evidence of regeneration. We want to ensure all in the church are discipled for we see that as crucial in your salvation as first hearing the gospel. We want to recover the serious teaching of Scripture that the church has seemed to surrender to the seminary. And there are several other things.

As elders, we have spent time sitting and talking about these things and praying for them. And we have said to one another that there are so many things we don’t know. There are so many blind spots we probably have right now. But our heart is to make sure that our practices are biblical.

Our goal is not to be this brand of church or that, but simply for the next generation to provide a community that looks like the description of the church God has given us in his word. So, pray for us and labor alongside of us so that this dream might be a reality.

And in the end, when it seems that we have built so little, may we look back and realize that God has done much more than build some walls, he was and is building his people to look like his Son. That is our mission. May God grant us the grace to achieve it. Amen.

¹Quoted in Polity by Mark Dever (Washington, D.C.: Center for Church Reform, 2001), 410.

BUILDING MORE THAN WE CAN IMAGINE