Nehemiah 1:7: “We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses.”

November 3rd, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Nehemiah, a contemporary of Ezra, was born in Babylon during the captivity, so he had never been to Israel. But thirteen years after Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem, one of the men of Israel returned to Babylon, and Nehemiah asked him about the people and the city. When he found that the walls of Jerusalem had still not been rebuilt, he wept and prayed to the Lord. He not only confessed the sin of the nation of Israel, but included himself as one of the guilty. Nehemiah, having been born after the initial exile, could have been tempted to think that none of the captivity was his fault; but he was very careful to identify with his people, to confess and repent. There is no use trying to hide our sins, since they will always find us out. And to Nehemiah’s credit, he was very open about them.

A couple of Boeing employees, who worked at the factory in Washington, stole a life raft from one of the planes. They succeeded in getting the raft out of the plant and home. But they failed to take into account one important fact; all airplane rafts come with emergency locators, which are automatically activated when the raft is inflated. When they took the raft for a float on the Stillaguamish River, in northwest Washington State, they were surprised by a coast guard helicopter that had homed in on the emergency locator, which activated the moment they inflated the raft. A company spokesperson told the press, “They are no longer Boeing employees.” It is even more futile to try to hide our sin from God. It is in fact impossible since He sees them all, but we have hope because He is faithful to forgive us when we confess and repent.

“LORD, we confess our sins and turn from them back to You this day, in Jesus’ name.”

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Nehemiah 1 KJV

¹ The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, ² That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. ³And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. ⁴ And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven, ⁵ And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments: ⁶ Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷ We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses. ⁸Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations: ⁹ But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there. ¹⁰ Now these are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand. ¹¹ O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer.