Jehovah said to Moses, All native-born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. From Joshua son of Nun until the time of Nehemiah, this had not been done. In this chapter, Nehemiah leads the Israelites in celebrating the Festival of Tabernacles, commemorating God's grace. Let’s examine how Pastor Liu dissects Nehemiah’s leadership in restoring a God-centered life for the Israelites, the benefits it brought, and the revelations it offers us today.
Questions for Reflection:
Verse 9: The people wept when they heard the words of the Law. What did Nehemiah say and do to bring great joy to the people?
Verse 17: The people made booths and lived in them, and there was great rejoicing again. Why does celebrating the Festival of Tabernacles bring such results?
Do brothers and sisters center their lives on God in their daily affairs? Please provide examples.
The Effect of One's Life is Inseparable from Inner Feelings
Is reading the Law the ultimate goal? No, the goal is to live a joyful life. Is restoring a God-centered life the ultimate goal? No, the goal is for us to gain life! There is an old saying, Better to cry in a BMW than to laugh on a bicycle. This is very foolish. My personal research indicates that the effect of one's life is inseparable from one’s inner feelings.
If you feel good inside, it doesn’t matter what you have or don’t have. You are joyful every day, and that is a joyful life. Of course, I prefer a joyful life to a sorrowful one. Some of our brothers and sisters had their heads bloodied and bruised in the world. It's not that they had no money, but they lived hard lives. After coming to the church, their bitter faces turned into sunflower faces. What we need most in life is inner joy, and this joy comes from God! Joy from man does not last long, but joy from God will transform into strength in our hearts!
Living Out the Essence of Life: Joy
A joyful life cannot be found in this world. Only in a God-centered life can there be joy. Therefore, God wants us to restore a God-centered life, not to sweat and toil reading the Law. If reading the Law traps us in religious rules, we are no different from the people of the world. God's intention is not for us to obey the law, but to live out the essence of life, which is joy! This chapter repeatedly mentions joy and rejoicing.
From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great. (Nehemiah 8:17)
Joy is a feeling that comes from God. When you read God's word, and it enters you, you have great joy inside. This is a very wonderful thing! If someone reads God's word and receives sorrow, you are in trouble! When the Israelites received God's word and were sorrowful, the leaders said to them, Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have harvested the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose, for the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. (Deuteronomy 16:13-15)
The essence of the Festival of Tabernacles is joy! Why do people have to live in booths to be joyful?
Living to Gratify the Flesh is Not Joyful; Living to Gratify the Soul is Joyful
Let me tell you a short story: Lot lived in a brick house in Sodom, while Abraham had been living in tents in the wilderness since God called him. Everyone knows that brick houses have complete facilities and are certainly more comfortable to live in. But why did Abraham choose to live in a tent? Because living in a tent is more joyful than living in a brick house, living in a small house is more joyful than living in a big house. I estimate that the most unhappy place is the Forbidden City, because labor and worry follow you.
Simple living is joyful; complex living is not. Living to gratify the flesh is not joyful; living to gratify the soul is joyful. Living in a tent is actually not gratifying the flesh, but gratifying the soul. When we transform from carnal people to spiritual people, we will be joyful. Now, many people feel distressed when they see that their houses are smaller and more dilapidated than others' houses. They force themselves to work hard, but during the Festival of Tabernacles and on the Sabbath, they are still working to earn money. The Chinese are the most hardworking people in the world, wishing they didn't have to rest all year round. A neighbor of mine only rests for two days a year: the first and second days of the Lunar New Year. The rest of the time is all work. Later, I saw several more wrinkles added to his bitter face.
Everyone needs to understand that God's intention is for us to become spiritual people. Spiritual people do not gratify the things of the flesh. Gratifying the things of the flesh cannot gratify the things of the spirit. These two cannot be gratified at the same time! If they are gratified at the same time, the result will be like the history of the Israelites, going up and down, sometimes prosperous, sometimes declining. This is not a good thing.
Everyone should know that people's troubles are connected to the things of the flesh. Even if you have joy, it will disappear in an instant, because it is not joy from Jehovah. You will find that some women in the world take crazy shopping as joy. There is an advertising picture of a girl with shopping bags in both hands, dancing wildly. Actually, they want to deceive you of your money. Your money is taken away by others, and you are joyful for a short while. After waking up, you find that you don't have enough money to live on, and then you start to worry.
When You are Troubled, Read God's Word
Today I want to tell you: When you are troubled, when you are not joyful, when you are wronged, when you are struggling in your heart, come and read God's word! Soon you will wake up and realize that you don't have to work so hard. You will find that you must guard your heart as you guard the pupil of your eye, more than guarding everything else! The author of this chapter wants to emphasize that living a God-centered life is very joyful. Life is unsatisfactory eight or nine times out of ten, but if people live the wrong way, they cannot live well. Living according to God's word is definitely right. There are less than one percent of the dissatisfactions in life. Restoring a God-centered life is a proven path. Joy follows you; joy is given down from God.
For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. (Deuteronomy 16:15)
The more people are willing to live a God-centered life, the more blessed they will be, the more blessed they will be, the richer they will be, the more willing they will be to live a God-centered life, and the more joyful they will be.
Care About What's Inside You, Not What's Outside You
The problem is that people do not know that celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles is a joyful life. So God deliberately made a symbolic gesture, which is to have people build a tent and live in it. To let people know: your joy in living in a tent is better than the sorrow of living in a luxury villa. Our God knows very well how people should live. God does not want us to live in tents all our lives. In fact, God allows us to live in luxury houses, but we must reflect on ourselves during the Feast of Tabernacles.
These Israelites, like us, suddenly celebrated a Feast of Tabernacles and discovered a mystery: living in a tent is more joyful than living in a luxurious house! When we live a God-centered life, it doesn't matter where our body lives, what kind of place we live in, or what kind of environment we encounter.
God's intention is to tell us: don't care too much about the outside, but care about what's inside you. The things outside you cannot give you life, but what's inside you can give you the essence of life. I am very surprised that Joshua, who was after God’s own heart, forgot to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles from his time until this day, including great figures such as David and Solomon, who did not restore such an important festival, and it was clearly written in the Book of the Law.
A God-Centered Life Avoids Many Sufferings
Nehemiah is really great, restoring the Feast of Tabernacles. It turned out that from Joshua to Nehemiah, the Israelites had been living in busyness. Busyness is an important enemy that prevents us from living a God-centered life. I encourage everyone to try to be strong and live a God-centered life. I think you will encounter challenges. When the church studies the Bible on Wednesday and Friday nights, the boss just adds a task for you. If you can't overcome it, you can only choose to be busy.
Nehemiah and the Israelites he led in that era overcame it, and it did not delay their own affairs. Let us all carefully ponder why God restored the Feast of Tabernacles in this generation, and then the Israelites rejoiced greatly?
Taking possession of the land was what Joshua did, and establishing a prosperous dynasty was what David did. Then things went from bad to worse, and the Israelites were trapped in busyness and were eventually taken captive. After being taken captive, they experienced a very painful period. Nehemiah called on the Israelites of that generation to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in unity and read the Book of the Law. They all deeply reflected: the reason why we were taken captive and lived such a hard life was because we did not live a God-centered life.
Keeping the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days without working, many people think it is impossible to do, cannot let go of the projects they are working on, and are reluctant not to make money. In fact, letting go is not a problem, because the joy from Jehovah is our strength, and God will surely bless what you do with your hands. If we let go of our God and rely on our own busyness, I think that kind of Christian may experience a period of captivity. I encourage everyone not to experience that captivity, but to start learning to live a God-centered life, so as to avoid many of the sufferings that the Israelites encountered before. The history of the Israelites is written in the Bible to warn us who come later.
We Should Have the Character of Nehemiah Inside
When we are truly willing to live this kind of life, we can actually walk through it. Let me share my own experience with you: my job is to be responsible for the entire campus network, including software and hardware. If one of them dies, Oh God, I have no way to keep the Lord's Day!
If I were like this, I would have many Lord's Days that I could not keep. I tell you, my decision is very simple: Let it die, I'll deal with it when I get back. It doesn't matter, in fact, they didn't die that much. God gave me many good people, and many problems were easily solved. I myself am very surprised that in my impression, the Lord's Day has almost never stopped for more than twenty years. Fifty-two weeks a year, twenty years is more than a thousand days, which is more than three years!
Should we have the character of Nehemiah inside: even if Joshua and David did not keep it, but in my Nehemiah's time, I want to restore the Feast of Tabernacles and restore living a God-centered life! Since the Bible says so, do it this way during the Feast of Tabernacles. I am not saying that we do it according to the real Feast of Tabernacles. We can have such a period of time to set it apart as holy, read the Bible with everyone, read the Book of the Law, and then begin to understand God's will and live a God-centered life.
When Busyness Comes to You, Block It Back
It is quite difficult for us new immigrants in Singapore: the working hours are very long, and there are many work challenges. Although there are many local Chinese, the culture is not as familiar as the locals. Every public holiday in Singapore is very important for us new immigrants. There are many clothes to wash, the house needs to be cleaned, and many things need to be done, etc.
If you use public holidays to do these things, you will never finish them, but God has restored a very wonderful thing among us, which is that we use all public holidays to fast and pray, from 10:30 am to 1:00 or 2:00 pm. Many years have passed, and I have found that our brothers and sisters have not delayed anything, and they are greatly rejoicing. God has also become the strength in our hearts, and each of us has seen God's great grace in our respective positions.
On the other hand, many churches in Singapore take public holidays to go on vacation. I believe that the joy we have gained is far greater than theirs. Regarding living a God-centered life, although we still have a lot of room for improvement, God has already done many wonderful things among us. Every time I see brothers and sisters coming to pray during those Feast of Tabernacles on local public holidays, I am particularly moved.
God has done great things among us, and He can even enable this group of people to put down their own affairs and come to the church to worship our God together. On the surface, it seems that we are taking time out, but in reality, what we are gaining is far more than what we have given. Brothers and sisters, you must know that living a God-centered life is a joyful life. We must completely resist the kind of busyness that enters our lives. If busyness comes to you, I will give you an idea, because this is how I came through it myself: When busyness comes to you, block it back! I still want to live a God-centered life, even if I die, I will not change this ambition!