“Spiritual Decay” – FBC Morning Light (10/11/2024)

The Joy of Revival in Nehemiah 12

Well, a good Friday morning to you. We're wrapping up the work week today. We're also wrapping up our reading of the Old Testament today, reading chapters 11 to 13 in the book of Nehemiah, and as we've been chronologically reading through the Bible, Nehemiah is the last book, time-wise, in the Old Testament.

So, we end Nehemiah today, and tomorrow we dive into the New Testament in the book of Matthew. But today, I want us to see the other side of spiritual experience in the Church among God's people. The last couple days, we looked at the blessings of revival, and they are indeed a blessing.

You still see some of it in chapter 12, verse 43, when they offered these great sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy. The women and the children also rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off.

I mean, it was a delightful occasion, that after a long period of struggle and loss and hardship, the Lord makes his people rejoice with great joy. Well, when those times come, worship is a joy, and sacrifice is offered without any reservation whatsoever.

Signs of Spiritual Decay in God's People

But those times, unfortunately, don't always last, because the wicked one is always on the move. He's always eager to throw God's people into a tizzy. When you get to chapter 13, you discover a time of spiritual decay.

There are several indicators or expressions of that spiritual decay that are brought out here, and I want to kind of contemporize them a little bit. One of them is that the people had—well, there's one particular individual, Eliashib the priest, who had authority over the temple.

He cleared out a storeroom and made room for Tobiah. Remember Tobiah? He was in Sanballat and Tobiah. Tobiah was one of the guys who opposed the rebuilding of the wall and mocked God's people in it all.

Here, he's been given a place in the temple. In times of spiritual decay, what can happen is that those who are the enemies of God's people find a place of tolerance in the church. That should not be.

It should not be, but oftentimes it is. Another thing you see in verses 10 to 14 of chapter 13 is that the care of God's servants through financial support is neglected. I've seen this through the years of ministry.

People think that, for one reason or another, they don't agree with some decision the church has made under the pastor's leadership, and so they just quit giving. I'm not going to give, and we'll starve the guy out.

Sometimes it works. You've got to eat, so sometimes it works. Starve the guy out. What kind of spirit is that? Is that a spirit of godliness that comes to such a conclusion? I think not. In times of spiritual decay, another thing that occurs is the desecration of the Lord's Day, and it's tolerated.

You see this in verses 15 to 22. On the Sabbath day, there was to be no buying and selling. Everybody was to rest, close their shops and businesses, but there were people who were buying and selling and desecrating the Lord's Day.

Many people today, I'm afraid it's a sad commentary on the state of the church today, but so many professing believers, they don't have any sense of honoring the Lord's Day, keeping it holy, and setting it apart.

They'll maybe come to church half the time, and if they do, they get in and they get out, so they can get on with their football games or whatever else they're going to do that day, and it's really just all about them.

That indicates spiritual decay. That's not the characteristic of God's people in a time of revival. Then the consecration of the ministry is desecrated. You see this in verses 28 and 29, where it says, one of the sons of Joah to the son of Elijah, the high priest, was son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite.

Again, there's another one of the opponents of God's people who wanted to stop the rebuilding of the walls, Sanballat, and here one of the priests gave his daughter to Sanballat's son. What is this? I'm sorry, it was the son of the high priest that married the daughter of Sanballat.

Whatever the case, this was a desecration of the ministry, and you see the same thing going on in our day, where there are churches that are consecrating to the ministry guys and women who are actively homosexual, living a homosexual lifestyle, even married to a same-sex partner.

What in the world does this do to the ministry? In between all of that, in verses 23 through 29, another way that spiritual decay is indicated is by the accepting of marriage with unbelievers as if it is no big deal.

All of these things are indicators of spiritual decay and decline. What a sad commentary when you realize that just prior to this decay, you read about the glories and the joys of revival that had been brought upon this land.

A Prayer for Revival and Holiness

Let's pray and ask God to give us revival in our churches, and to deliver us from this decay that will destroy our churches. So Father, as we gather together on this coming Lord's Day as your people, may those services be marked by joy and gladness, and may you eradicate from our presence any spiritual decay that would rob us of joy and rob us of your blessing.

We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.