This program is brought to you by Israel Restoration Ministries.
What are you doing Sunday nights? Come join Friendship with God radio Bible teacher Tom Cantor of the Friendship with God Fellowship Church every Sunday night at 5:30 p.m. at The Vine at 9336 Abraham Way, Santee, California. Watch and listen live around the world to Tom Cantor Sunday evening on youtube.com by searching for Friendship with God Fellowship or by going to our homepage at friendshipwithgod.org.
That’s friendshipwithgod.org.
Welcome to Friendship with God with our Bible teacher, Tom Cantor. Today’s message and previous messages can be listened to or downloaded for free at friendshipwithgod.org.
God has a way to remodel our mind. God has a way to change our interests. God has a way to reform our point of view, and that way is Deuteronomy 8.3, Deuteronomy 8.3, man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
God’s way to remodel, to change, to reform our thinking is in this book. This book is it. God has taken this book, he’s given to us, he says, now listen, these are my words.
These are the words that came right out of my mouth. The Bible is able to humble us. Our greatest enemy is pride, and the Bible is able to humble us.
There was one man in Israel’s history that was in the greatest danger of losing humility and becoming proud. There was one man in Israel’s history who was in the greatest jeopardy of thinking that I’m really something. And that one person was the king of Israel.
The king of Israel was in the greatest danger of becoming a proud man. And God said, I got a sure fire way to keep the king of Israel humble and in a state of giving his body as a living sacrifice to me. And that sure fire way is found in Deuteronomy 17, 14.
Deuteronomy 17, 14. When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me. Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose.
One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses, for as much as the Lord hath said unto you, ye shall not henceforth return no more that way.
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. It shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the Priests of Levi’s.
Let me read that again. He shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the Priests of Levi’s. And it, the written copy, it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand, to the left, to the end, that he may prolong his days in the kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
What’s that saying? That’s saying that if a new king just became king and he says to God, what should I do as a king? What should my daily schedule be as a king?
God told him exactly what he should do in these verses in Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20, just read them, where God said the king should have the priests, get the priests, get the Levites, bring you a copy of the word of God. Bring you a copy. Number one, bring you a copy of the word of God.
And then king, you get a scroll, an empty scroll, nothing written on that scroll, and an ink pen, and you copy the words of this book on your own personal scroll. And as the king did that, the priests, the Levites, they’re going to be right there, king, and they’re going to come and check each portion that you write. They’re going to check it against the original, and those Levite priests are going to check to make sure that the copy you made is perfect.
And if it’s not perfect, if there’s one error that you made in copying that, no erasers allowed, king. Into the fire goes that copy, start over again. And so the king would have to sit there and draw every Hebrew letter, every Hebrew word, Jots and Tittles, perfect.
And it took a lot of time for the king, but this is what the king was to do. Copy perfectly the word of God in his own personal scroll, and the king would say, that’s my scroll. And then as the king got a perfect copy, the king was to have that perfect copy by him with him all the days of his life.
Why? Why can’t the king just carry a copy of the Bible that he could get from the Levites, was copied by somebody else, some scribe? Why does he have to make and use the copy in his own handwriting?
Because that copy that the king had is going to be in his own handwriting, and that was going to be his own work. And when the king looked at that copy, the king would see his own handwriting, and the king would say, I remember copying that, I copied that, it’s in my own handwriting, and that makes the words of God a part of me, copied by me, this copy is a part of me. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine today what that would mean for us if we did that? If we did what God told the king to do in Deuteronomy 17? None of us have done that.
Each one of us has a Bible with you right now, we’re in the pew, it was copied by some printing press somewhere. None of us have a copy of the Bible sitting in front of us that we copied? What would that be like?
If each of us today had in our lap a copy of the Bible that we copied in our own handwriting? That would completely transform how we looked at the Bible. When we opened a page of the Bible and saw our own handwriting, we would say, I remember when I copied that, that page, I worked on every word, I recognized my own handwriting on that page.
That page is really mine. I recognize myself in my handwriting on that page. It would be nothing less than transformational in how we view the Bible.
Even though the copy might be pretty big, it would be worth it. It’d be worth it. I want to challenge you.
I want to challenge you to accomplish this goal of copying page by page the Bible, to make a copy of the Bible that you wrote out and bring that with you. And don’t think of how large the job is going to be to copy the whole Bible. Start small.
Start small. Copy just the Book of Galatians. It’s 3,084 words.
It won’t kill. It can do it. Put it in a loose leaf notebook and with a tab that says Galatians.
And then just copy the Book of Ephesians. It’s just 3,022 words. Just copy it.
Put that in the same notebook with a tab that’s labeled Ephesians. And then copy the Book of Philippians. Philippians.
It’s just 2,183 words. And put that in a notebook with a tab that reads Philippians. And then copy the Book of Galatians.
The Galatians is 1,979 words. Put that in the same notebook tab, Galatians. And that notebook, you will have copied all the prison epistles.
Mazel Tov. And wherever you go to read or study the prison epistles, use that notebook. Bring that notebook, the copy you made, just like God told the king to do.
It will transform how you see that book. You will find that the Bible from the prison epistles will become so much more personal in your life, so much more applicational in your life, so much more powerful in your life, so much more transformational in your life because you will be reading the copy of the Bible in your own handwriting. I challenge you to do it, I challenge you to do it because that’s what God told the king to do.
I would that everyone would commit today to write his own personal copy of the prison epistles in the Bible and use it. I wonder if someone would commit to doing that today, to write their own personal copy of the prison epistles. I’d like to give a prize.
I want to give a prize to the first person, not every person, the first person who comes to me and shows me that he’s copied out the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. Listen up, young people. I’ll give you better than pesos here.
I’ll give you $100. I’ll give $100 to the first person who comes to me and shows me that they’ve written the prison epistles in their own handwriting and you carry that with you. Because what’s more important is that God will give you a prize much more than $100.
The person who does that because that’s what God told their king to do. And God told the king, don’t put that on your book shelf, but keep it with you all the time. Consult it, read it, think about it, meditate on it.
Because God said that in this way, you’re going to be successful in life. This is what God told Joshua. Success.
Joshua 1, 8, Joshua 1, 8, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. God told Joshua the Bible shall not depart out of your mouth.
Keep talking about it. Don’t stop talking about the Bible. Never stop talking about the Bible.
God told Joshua, meditate on it day and night. And that means day and night. That means night and day, day and night, night and day.
All the time. And God made a promise to Joshua. He says, if you do that, Joshua, your mind is going to be renewed.
You’re going to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And Joshua, because in essence, saying, you’re going to want to do what God wants you to do. Philippians 2.13, Philippians 2.13, it’s God which worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure.
So, God told Joshua that if he meditated on the Bible day and night, that Joshua would experience the transformation from, I don’t want to do what God says to, I want to do what God says to do. And God told Joshua that if he meditated on the Word of God, that he would prosper, he’d be a success in life. Why?
Because of Psalm 1, Psalm 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly, not so, are like the chaff which the wind drieth with the wave.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. God says in Psalm 11, it’s the same thing that he’s saying in Romans 12,2, don’t be conformed to this world. The world of the ungodly, the world of sinners, the world of the scornful or the mockers.
But God said in Psalm 12, the same thing he said in Romans 12,1, be renewed in the mind by making the Bible your delight, by meditating on it day and night, which means day and night. God said in Psalm 13, the same thing he said in Romans 12,2, that to renew the mind would mean to find that perfect will of God. And that would mean that he’ll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water with a light that’s fruitful, even though it gets blasted with the desert winds of trials.
All that comes from the word of God, and that’s our challenge on this first day of the year, to not let the world squeeze us into its mold of profanity and sexual deviation. All that comes from the word of God, and that’s our challenge from this first day of the year, to make the Bible especially our own this year, with a commitment to copy part of it out in our own handwriting and use that, and meditate on a day and night and night and day. That’s a goal.
And this is exactly where the people of Israel were when they came in this last verse of Nehemiah chapter 9, which was Nehemiah 9.38, Nehemiah 9.38. Because of all this, we make a kashur covenant and write it. And our princes and Levites and Greece seal onto it.
In the Book of Nehemiah, we’ve seen how the people of Israel made the great return physically to the land of Israel. They made the great return to the city of Jerusalem. They made the great return to the place of the temple.
But there was a great stirring in the hearts of the people because they said something is greatly missing. And that was that the great people, the people of Israel had not made the great return to the God of Israel. And that is what we pray for ourselves at this time, that we’d be like these people in Nehemiah, not happy with where they were with just being in the land, with just being in Jerusalem, with just being in the temple.
But the people of Israel said something vital is missing and I must have it. And that’s what we pray for ourselves at the start of the new year that like Israel, we’d not just be happy to be in the greatest country of the earth, America. That we would not just be happy to be in America’s finest city, San Diego.
That we might not be happy just to be in church this morning, but that like Israel, we’d say something vital is missing, I must have it, I must give my body to Jesus Christ like I never have before. And this is where Israel was at the end of chapter 9. They felt that they needed to make the great return to God.
And with this great stirring going up in their hearts to do these same two things that God said to do in Romans 12.1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies, the living sacrifice unto God, wholly acceptable, which is your reasonable service. At the end of Nehemiah 9, the people were as brethren. They were thinking of all the mercies of God to them, how God held back so much judgment that they deserved.
God wanted, and they say we want to give ourselves to God. And so they made a covenant. In chapter 9, verse 38, Nehemiah, we make a sure covenant and write it.
And our princes, Levites, and priests seal it. That last word in chapter 9 of that is that word seal. They sealed it.
The word sealed is very important. It’s very important because it’s kind of a picture of a letter. You’re writing a letter.
You write a letter to someone. Maybe you write a draft first. My wife used to do that.
You write a draft. You work on the draft back and forth until you have the draft to say just what you want it to say, and you write the final version. You read it.
You’re happy with it. And you take the letter. You fold it.
You put it in an envelope. And as you put that in the envelope, you say to yourself, one last chance to take it out and change it. No, I’m done.
This is what I want to say. This is the time. And you seal it.
As a matter of fact, even though you might say, I placed it in the envelope, I haven’t sealed it yet. Still not too late. No, you seal it, you seal it.
When you finish working on it, you’re sure you got it just the way you want it, you seal it. That’s the importance of the word Nehemiah 9.38. They sealed it.
The princess Levites the priest, they wrote down the agreement, they sealed it. That’s the word that starts chapter 10. Chapter 10.
It opens in chapter 10. Now, those that sealed were. And in these first 27 verses of this chapter 10, we have a list of all those who were involved in this sealing, in this agreement before God.
And the first person in the list is none other than our author, Nehemiah himself. He’s a great leader. He’s a great leader because he stands first in line to enter into that personal commitment before God to obey God and not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of his mind.
That’s Nehemiah. He’s right there in the beginning. There are preachers who are very good preachers at telling others how they must walk with God.
But those preachers themselves are not like Nehemiah at the head of the line to offer his body as a living sacrifice to God. But Nehemiah was the first signer of this agreement to obey God and not be conformed to the world. This list is only the names of the family groups.
It was those who are representing the families. After this list is completed, we have a comprehensive statement of who else was in agreement with this covenant to obey God, not be conformed to the world. Then it’s verse 28, verse 28, and the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, Porters, singers, Nethanemes, and all that is separating themselves unto the people of the lands of the, unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, everyone having knowledge and having understanding.
Was according, it was everybody else. In verse 28, the rest of the people. There was so much unanimousness here, unanimity among the people.
It was a beautiful sight. It was a beautiful sight of the word Echad, one. There’s a oneness of the people.
The people were all united. They had one spirit, all the people. There were many, but they were like one person in their decision.
And then in verse 28, it specifically says that it was not just the men. No, it was also the wives. And not just the wives, it was the sons and the daughters.
The wives thought and considered the call to give themselves to God and separate from the world of the ungodly. And the wives said, count me in. Yes, put me down as a yes.
The children, they were old enough to understand the issues. They thought and considered the call to obey God and separate from the world of the ungodly. And the sons and the daughters said, count me in, put down a yes by me.
It’s a wonderful picture of the whole family standing together with each member of the family saying yes to change their lives, husbands, wives, sons, daughters. So we have a list of all those who sealed the envelope of their lives with a letter that said that they would give their bodies to God and not be conformed to the world around them. And leading the group of signers was their leader, Nehemiah, verse 1.
And this is the rest of the list, the rest of the people. What a statement. What a statement.
And that meant that, and also there was the porters, it says the porters.
Who were the porters?
The porters were the gatekeepers. So that meant that as soon as you entered into the city, and you would be met or greeted by those who personally had signed the agreement, they might have sung you a song. They might have sat there and sang, My life, my all, I give to thee, thou Lamb of God who died for me.
Oh, may I ever faithful be my Savior and my God. I’ll live for him who died for me. How happy then my life shall be.
I’ll live for him who died for me, my Savior and my God. Those would be the porters. But they didn’t sing.
Then there’s the other group, the singers. They’re the ones who sing. Singers, boy, it makes such a difference to know that the singers are really dedicated to Jehovah Jesus.
Reminds me of an article I read last week during Christmas. It was in the Israeli newspaper during Christmas, and it was reporting how there were so many churches in New York City that didn’t have talented piano players and singers in their congregation. They hired Jewish piano players and singers to come in, and they said they paid them well.
And those piano players, they played music and they sang, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. And even though they didn’t even believe the words, Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb, veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.
It didn’t matter they sung, they got paid. Well, I’ll tell you what, in this day, the singers are included in this list here in Nehemiah’s day, there were no unbelieving paid singers in this group in verse 28. Every time you heard these singers sing, you knew that each of them had signed a promise, the promise of, like the hymn says, I surrender all.
I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed savior. I surrender all. And then in verse 28, we’re told that the Nethinemes, who are the Nethinemes?
Well, they were Egyptians, Arabs, but they worked in the Temple of Servants. They all put their hand to sign as well, I myself give myself to God. They signed that agreement.
And now in verse 28, we have a wonderful description of a group that it says in verse 28, verse 28, all they that had separate themselves from the people, the lands and to the law of God. You know what that’s a description of? Converts.
Converts. They had separated themselves from sin to God. That’s a description of every true convert to Jesus Christ.
Not just a sinner’s prayer that they say, but a life that changes from sin to live for Jesus Christ. And they separate themselves from the sin of the land. All those designed, all those people that signed are described in verse 28 as everyone having knowledge and having understanding.
Knowledge is not enough. Knowledge knows that Jesus Christ is God and Lord. But understanding is to make Jesus Christ God of my life, Lord of my life.
That’s our challenge. For the first day of this year, to follow in this chapter, as we’ve seen, those who obeyed Romans 12, 1 and 2. Romans 12, 1 and 2.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and be not conformed to this world. Let’s pray. Father, help us.
Help us, Lord, to not just say, but to do. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Tom Cantor’s messages can be listened to and downloaded for free at friendshipwithgod.org. For other free resources, email us at tomcantor at friendshipwithgod.org or call us at 800-247-3051. Join our live services on YouTube by searching Friendship with God with Tom Cantor every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
What are you doing Sunday nights? Come join Friendship with God radio Bible teacher Tom Cantor of the Friendship with God Fellowship Church every Sunday night at 5:30 p.m. at The Vine at 9-3-3-6 Abraham Way, Santee, California. Watch and listen live around the world to Tom Cantor Sunday evening on youtube.com by searching for Friendship with God Fellowship or by going to our home page at friendshipwithgod.org.
This program is brought to you by Israel Restoration Ministries.
