Folly over the ages….

 Folly over the ages…

As I finish Nehemiah, I was struck by the events which happened in his absence….just as Moses on the mountain, coming down to see that the Israelites had built a golden calf for their worship, turning their back on God in a short amount of time…the people of Jerusalem turned their backs as well..following after things…disobeying after a great victory of building the wall and the reading of the Word by Ezra…

Fast forward to Jesus’ day…with him ransacking the temple to make the point of no sellers in the temple courts…

All three men, Moses, Nehemiah, and Jesus wanted so much that the people follow God, not economics or other gods…purity in worship of the Creator …the God of the universe who cares so much, loved them and us …went  his Son for our salvation…

How quickly we fall into old habits…forgetting the true gifts, reaching for the temporal …

Thank YOU…

 Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests. But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. 

I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense. 

I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. 

So I rebuked the officials and asked them, “Why is the house of God neglected?” Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts. In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day? Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.” Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?” 

Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.

Neh.13.4-11,Neh.13.15-18,Neh.13.26,Neh.13.27,Neh.13.29

 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ 

“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” 

But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. 

He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?” 

“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” 

Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.

Exod.32.7-11,Exod.32.19-25

 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Mark.11.15-17

 As a dog returns to its vomit,so fools repeat their folly.

Prov.26.11

On Christ the solid rock I stand…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1OjhO-SrLw&list=RDx1OjhO-SrLw&start_radio=1