Nehemiah 1

Nehemiah 1:1-11

THE OF The opening chapter acquaints us with Nehemiah’s very soul. The heart of the man is here exposed and the reader is permitted his deepest thought. He inquires after the remnant left in Jerusalem and learns that they are in great affliction and reproach, the walls of the city broken down, the gates burned, and he not only sits him down to weep, but mourns for days and fasts and prays before the God of Heaven, and his prayer as reported in chapter 1, Nehemiah 1:5-11, is a model of intercession, while chapters 2 to 7 record the result of that petition before God.These seven chapters suggest three things:First, the strain of prayer and the exercise of patience. Chapters 1 and 2,“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,“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.“And 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.“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,“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:“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.“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.“Remember, I beseech Thee, the word that Thou commandedst Thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:“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.“Now these are Thy servants and Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy great power, and by Thy strong hand.“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” (Nehemiah 1:1-11).Nehemiah 2:1-20.“And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king.

Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.“Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid,“And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?“Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request?

So I prayed to the God of Heaven.“And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it.“And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.“Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah;“And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.“Then I came to the governors beyond the river, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.“When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the Children of Israel.“So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.“And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem: neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode upon.“And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire.“Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king’s pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass.“Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned.“And the rulers knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work.“Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.“Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king’s words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.“But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said.

What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?“Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of Heaven, He will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 2:1-20).“I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of Heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4). There are people who make easy work of prayer.

They either repeat what their mothers taught them in infancy, “Now I lay me down to sleep”, or else they think over what they would like to have and lightly tell God about it at night or in the morning; or else they remember the famous story of the saint who was heard to say, “Well, Lord, Pm glad we are on the same good terms! Good-night!” and the whole exercise is finished. Or perhaps, as possibly the greater multitude, forget to pray before retiring, awake in the night and remember it, and while formulating the phrases, fall to sleep again.There are people who never pray without agonizing. They hold a conviction that any appeal addressed to God must be voiced in sobs if heard in Heaven, and they take on “prayer tones” and assume sorrow, contrition, agony of soul, and such are wont to think that no one prays who does not cry aloud; but while such patented prayers produce strange and almost revolting feelings on the part of the discerning, it remains a fairly well established fact that true praying is no easy or lackadaisical task.The prayer of Jacob at Peniel was no slight mental exercise. It consisted not in framing a few petitions. It is described in the Book as a “wrestling with God” all the night through, a clinging that would not let Him go without a blessing.

Abraham in praying for Sodom, continued his petition; advanced his requests and did not let God go until the best possible proffer was secured. Moses in agony for Israel reached the point where he begged that if God would not bless them, He should blot his name out of the Book of remembrance.

In Gethsemane, Jesus remained on knees and wrestled with the Father and not only cried in agony, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”, but sweat great drops of blood.Prayer is no mere passing of time in talk; prayer is no mere opportunity of literary expression or homiletical arrangement; prayer, at its best, is an agony; prayer, at its best, utterly exhausts; prayer consumes!Christ, Himself, in teaching us how to pray, employed the illustration of the importunate widow who would not be turned aside but, prostrate before the unjust judge, kept her petitions going until he was wearied with her. Many times I have heard Dwight L: Moody pray and the memory of it will never pass from my mind. I am perfectly confident that a five-minute prayer passing Moody’s lips exhausted him more than five hours of hard physical labor would have done; more than the hour sermon that followed, for while Moody assumed no agonizing tones, prayer with him was indeed a soul exercise. He went trembling into the presence of God, as Esther approached the king. He ordered his cause before Him as one who felt that the highest human interests and holiest were at stake. He came not back until he was conscious that he had been heard and his heart’s request was fully before God.Listen to the language of Nehemiah’s prayer; “I beseech Thee, O Lord God of Heaven * * Let Thine ear now be attentive and Thine eyes open”. “I pray before Thee now, day and night” (Nehemiah 1:3; Nehemiah 1:6).

Hear his confession of sin, “Both I and my father’s house have sinned”, “Remember, I beseech Thee”, and again, “O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant”. “Grant him mercy in the sight of this man”, for he was the king’s cupbearer.But if prayer is exhausting, to wait for the answer is equally if not more so; for the man who truly prays is impatient. He yearns; he longs!

Nehemiah’s prayer seems to have been made in the month Chisleu, or December, and he waited until Nisan or April, before he had a chance with the king. Four months is a long time to wait when every moment is freighted with anxiety. The reports that had come to him of the condition of his loved city and its sacred temple, and of these blood relatives to whom he was bound as only a Jew is bound to his own, made every day of waiting seem like an eternity.John Knox was heard, in a secret place behind the hedge-row, to pray, “O God, give me Scotland or I die”. Three times the passer-by heard this petition, wrung from his soul, and yet even Knox’s agony never exceeded that of Nehemiah—the waiting, weeping man!Think what it would mean to you if the temple that we are now demolishing at Tenth Street had been in such state for years, and the place to which we were once wont to go and gladly worship God, and in which we once waited with such delightful songs and profitable exercise of soul, was never to rise again, and we knew that only God could call back its towers and make possible the completion of its auditorium and breathe His own Spirit, like a soul, into the same!Joseph Parker said, “Can we hear of sacred places burning without a single tear? Could we hear of St. Paul’s cathedral being burned down without feeling we had sustained an irreparable loss, and if anything happened to that grand old Abbey at Westminster, we should feel as if a sacred place was gone, a sanctuary indeed, and as if it were every Englishman’s duty to help put it up again.”When the cathedral at Rheims was destroyed, the entire Christian world revolted and grieved, and justly so; but that was a matter of pride rather than of passion.

We may be moved with the report that the mansion on the boulevard has burned, but the soul’s deeps are smitten when one stands before the smoldering ashes of his own home, the place where he has thought and wrought, hoped and helped, planned and prayed. In a great sense, such a place is an essential part of life itself, and to smite it is to smite the soul of man.To wait for the new building to come, to abide patiently until the walls rise again, and to look unto God who alone can bring order out of chaos, victory out of defeat, restoration out of despair; that is the strain for which few men are sufficient, but under which Nehemiah stood steadfastly.But the whole of exhausting is not in waiting.

Nehemiah proved sufficient for a second thing, namely, the exhausting stimulus of seeing plans perfected.There are people who imagine that all weariness is over when once a work is well begun, clearly under way, with every prospect of completion. On the contrary, the opposite is true. That is when and where the truest exhaustion takes place. Its exhilaration we grant; its stimulus is often mistaken for strength; but it is none the less consuming.Some years ago Mrs. Riley and myself sat down to think through plans for a home. Weeks we spent upon those plans, and they were weeks of pleasure.

Anticipation played conspicuous part and the enthusiasm of new thought for this convenience and that cheered and encouraged, but when the building time came, the constant watch and care-taking concern was exhausting.The members of the building committee of the First Baptist Church would bear kindred testimony. I doubt if any building the city of Minneapolis holds, had more time expended in thinking through plans than the two buildings upon the plans of which we have been engaged for years.

They have been drawn three times, and the utmost endeavor was put into every detail, and yet the actual construction itself, while stimulating, has proven also exhausting. It may be difficult for racers to wait the word “Go”, and it is; and when once the race is commenced, the very stimulus of prospective victory leads one to forget self and muscles are not conscious of the strain, but with joy yield themselves to their task. The goal, however, never fails to find an exhausted runner.But the greatest difficulty of this rebuilding is found in a third circumstance, namely, the increasing load of every conceivable opposition.This opposition took varied forms; in fact, almost every form possible to Satanic suggestion.Its first form was scorn. Sanballat and Tobiah laughed, “What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? wilt they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned”?Then, with a great guffaw they continued, “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall” (Nehemiah 4:2-3).What so hard to endure as scorn; what so difficult to bear as a laugh? It stings like a hornet! It is one of the things against which it is hard to go.

The Professor who teaches evolution also teaches his students that ridicule is an insult to science. They know its power and they also know that that subject deserves it; and on that account they wince at the very suggestion.

But, on any subject, ridicule is hard to bear. However the true builder, a leader like Nehemiah and his co-laborers go on joining wall to wall and will not be laughed out of court on a great and needful enterprise.Seeing this, Sanballat and Tobiah changed voices, and, joining with Arabians, Ammonites and Ashdodites, “they were very wroth”, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder if” (Nehemiah 4:7-8). The man who makes fun of you, when he finds his laughter ineffective, and your success assured, comes to hate, and if possible, to hurt. Human nature does not change through the coming and going of the centuries. All our enemies are of a kind; mockery at first, murder afterward. But, God’s man can commonly meet the true adversaries, Satan’s servants.A far more difficult opposition is that recorded in the fifth chapter, the opposition of one’s own.

The Jews now join their complaints with the others, and the great cry of the people and their wives against their brethren was this:“We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live.“Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.“There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards.“Yet now our flesh is the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards” (Nehemiah 5:2-5).For the moment they forgot that no man among them had sacrificed as Nehemiah had sacrificed, and, in reckoning their losses, they overlooked the circumstance that he had shaken his lap out, leaving himself nothing. That was a harder opposition than was created by Sanballat and Tobiah.The disappointment of Christ’s life was not in the fact that He faced the Cross; He came to do that.

It was not in the cruelty of the nails that crushed His tender flesh; from all eternity that had been anticipated! But, His agony was in the lifting up a heel against Him by one out of the little circle, dear to Him. Never was sarcasm reduced to such keen edge and more deeply felt than in the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ, looking into the face of Judas, said, “FRIEND, wherefore art thou come”?“FRIEND”—what that must have meant to Judas! If he knew the Scriptures, like a flash, Psalms 41:9 filled his thought. “My own familiar FRIEND, in whom I trusted, which did eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me” (Psalms 41:9).And yet again how he would recall the words of the great Zechariah (Zechariah 13:6), “And one shall say unto him, “What are these wounds in Thine hands? Then He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of My FRIENDS”.Blessed is the man, the members of whose house join with him in his enterprises; and cursed indeed is he who endures their opposition.But Satan has other methods of opposition than scorn, warfare and domestic rebellion. In the sixth chapter Sanballat tried to effect a companionship and consequent compromise with Nehemiah.

Four times over he sends requesting that they meet together for a conference and adjust their differences. The recent Convention of Baptists is now heralded as a triumph of brotherly love.

The whole session has gone by and only a single protest characterized it, and only one man voiced that complaint and the newspapers have been filled with jubilation of the reports of peace. “The fundamentalists have subsided and the path of the future is smooth!” Such is the glared acclaim; and that in the face of the fact that in the last twelve months the most flagrant denials of the faith that ever passed the lips of Baptist men, or dribbled from the pens of Baptist writers, have gone brazenly into print. The peace that comes by a compromise of principle, a conference that results to the satisfaction of God’s enemies, a conference that follows a fellowship of Satanic plans; these are, after all, the most effective hindrances to the truth of God. And it is written to the eternal credit of Nehemiah that he fell into no such trap, but declined the conference, resented the approach, rejoicing that he had escaped the pit digged for him, and recorded the fact that the wall was finished on the twentieth and fifth day of the month, being completed in fifty-two days.And this same man who had led in the building now organized to hold what he had gained, and the result was a revival.MarkTHE STABLE OF THIS REVIVALIt commenced in a careful canvass of returned captives. The seventh chapter of the Book of Nehemiah would amaze the modernist, should he read the same. That individual imagines that the social surveys of the last few years constitute a twentieth century novelty, but here three thousand years ago Nehemiah orders a census taken with a view to knowing the strength of Israel and sounding out his possible resources, the fuller carrying out of which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed. The report rendered by the commissioned workers was perfect.

He took count of the last man and of his possessions, and when it was finished, Nehemiah knew how many people he had upon whom he could depend—forty-two thousand three hundred sixty, besides seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven servants and two hundred forty-five singing men and singing women.There is a suggestion there for modernists; better count rather than estimate! My candid judgment is that the one sin that characterizes more ministers than any other is estimating versus counting.

I went into a church where the preacher had claimed a congregation of forty-four hundred, and counted exactly twenty-two hundred seats, including the choir gallery; and in another church largely over-estimated, reporting six thousand, and counted exactly thirty-two hundred including the choir. Better count than estimate. One might greatly reduce his crowd but would increase his reputation for veracity and increase his self-respect. The man who goes to battle had best not count on soldiers he does not have, and the church of God is militant and cannot win its victories with congregations that are estimated, but never existed.The relation, however, to such a careful reckoning of one’s resources to a revival is intimate and logical. I am inclined to think that of the years of my pastorate in this church, no single meeting held in it has accomplished more for it than the two years’ campaign that commenced with a most careful canvass of the membership. A canvass itself suffices to bring a conviction of responsibility to the individual, and to waken interest in the task to be undertaken by the entire people.

Nehemiah knew the principles of a revival thirty centuries ago as well as the evangelist knows them today.The second feature of this revival is significant in the last degree: The Word of God was produced and read to all the people.It was no brief reading; it went on for hours, “from morning until midday, .before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the Book of the Law” (Nehemiah 8:3).There will never be a revival of religion without a revival of Bible reading. We are publishing more Bibles than ever before in human history, but the individual is not reading the Bible as much as his father did, and the whole church of God feels the relapse.

When the Christian takes his Book in hand and abides with it by the hour, when the family begins the day by reading a chapter from the Book, when the, preacher turns from textual sermons and revives expository preaching, when the Sunday School ceases from lesson helps and pores over the text itself, the revival will be well on the way.There never will be strength in the church until we feed on the Bread from Heaven and on the meat of God’s Word; until we hold the milk bottle of that same Word to the lips of babes. If we would have a revival we must bring the Bible from its shelf of neglect; if we would have a revival we must exalt it against the charges of infidelity; if we would have a revival we must rescue the people themselves from indifference to this Book. We are novel readers now; we are readers of the daily newspapers; some few of the more industrious, are magazine readers; a smaller company still, are book-readers, but the Church of God waits Bible reading; and if the day of Bible study should suddenly break in upon us—and there are some signs of it— then as sure as day follows night, an unspeakable blessing immeasurable in extent, infinitely desirable in character, will fall on the sons of man.But note again, Repentance, fasting, and a fresh covenant follows (Nehemiah 8:9 to Nehemiah 12:39). Impenitent people will never become Bible students. The gormandizing crowd will never give itself to God’s Word; the pleasure-seeking will never enter into covenant with the Lord.However, if, in the wisdom of His grace, the present Bible movement voices itself in the fundamentals’ association, and the thousands of Bible conferences that have been held, in the Bible Unions of China and England, and America, shall result in earnest and sincere and increasing study of the Scriptures, we may well expect repentance to follow. Men will break with sin and will no longer make a god of their bellies, but will fast; and out of this conviction self-control will come and a fresh covenant, made in sincerity, and destined to be kept in the power of the Holy Spirit.So much for the stable features of revival, let us conclude our Book study withTHE FACTS OF RE-These are recorded in chapters 11 to 13, and the first one that we face is this: The Jerusalem dwellers were recorded as especially favored. “The rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city” (Nehemiah 11:1).It is a significant suggestion: Jerusalem, the city of the king; Jerusalem, the captial city of the land; Jerusalem, the subject of every Jew’s love, and the choice of every Jew’s living.It does make a difference where one lives.

A Minneapolis minister, returning from the Orient, a few years since, in an address before the Baptist ministers, said, “I spent some days in Jerusalem; it is a bum town!”But only the readers of the Old Testament know what the ancient Jerusalem was and what it meant to every living Jew. It was more than the capitol; it was more than the city of the king: it was more than beautiful; it was, to them, Divine!

They believed that God Himself was there; and in a sense they were correct, for He had made every pledge of His Presence in the Temple, and He performed His promise. One’s life, in no small measure, is the result of one’s location.I think I may be pardoned in passing, if I pay tribute to this city. I declare it my conviction that life has meant more to me, that the burdens have pressed less heavily upon my shoulders, that the joy of living has itself been increased, and that I hold a confidence against decrepitude and old age that would be impossible, if I lived in a city less charming than this beautiful metropolis. Life is profoundly affected by location. In the northern woods of Minnesota I stumbled suddenly and unexpectedly upon a small house. I was hungry and supposed myself beyond the pale of civilization.

Going in I was met at the door by a charming looking woman to whom I said, “I am hungry and have a party of four friends with me; would it be possible for you to give us a dinner?” She graciously answered, “It would be a delight to give you a dinner; bring your friends in.” When the dinner was over and I tried to pay her, she declined to receive anything, and it was only by leaving the money on the table that I could force it upon her. She said, “I have not seen a living face, except that of my little son, for three months; you cannot imagine the pleasure this dinner has been to me, for it has meant companionship.” I asked, “Will you tell me why you live here away from all civilization and friends?”“Yes, sir, I live here with pleasure and with joy.

In Southern Illinois I dragged a miserable existence; in these north woods my health is recovered and living is a joy.”Who will say that location has nothing to do with living. Jerusalem! Ah, that was the city coveted by every Jew, and the tenth man permitted to dwell there dwelt not only nigh to the Temple but nigh to God; and whatever else may be said of the Jew, it was the acme of his existence that he believed God and sought to live near God.You will find again that in this city special provision was made for the priests and Levites. God never forgets those He calls to be His special servants !There are special promises made to all God’s people! In fact, Dean Frost, our former great-souled co-laborer, used to say that there were thousands of promises in the Bible, and that with a solitary exception, they were all made to God’s own, and that exception was salvation proffered to the sinner. But while all God’s people are the subject of promises, the servant whose entire time is devoted to God’s work is the subject of His special promise, and the object of His constant care.

The Levite was never forgotten; the priest was never overlooked. By law the provisions made for them both were adequate.I meet a good many ministers who tell me they feel it incumbent upon them to look out for themselves, and judging by their conduct, they are keen on the job.

They hunt for positions; they seek compensation; they corral opportunities. It all raises a serious question, whether one has much to do with the subject of caring for himself if he be the true servant of God, or whether it is sufficient for him to devote himself to that service and leave the whole question of his care to Him who careth and never faileth.Finally, by the Law of the Lord certain were excluded from the city. Chapter 13.Mark who they were: Ammonites and Moabites were not to come into the congregation of God forever, and note the reason, “They met not the Children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them that he should curse them” (Nehemiah 13:2).It is a grievous thing to refuse help to God’s people in the hour of their need. It is more grievous, a thousand-fold, than the average man imagines. It is not a rejection of the people only—it is a rejection of Him. The twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is a further presentation of this subject.

The great day of Judgment has come; men are separated to the right and to the left, after the manner of sheep and goats, and the King is saying to them on His right hand,“Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:“For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in:“Naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.“Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink?“When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee?“Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.“Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:“For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink:“I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not.“Then shall they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?“Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:34-46).And yet this is not the only sin that excludes. After all, it is not sin that does exclude, save the sin of having rejected Jesus. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).