Do you have a parchment roll?

 Nehemiah 7

• Summary

 After Jerusalem's city wall was completed and the temple worship organised, Nehemiah set his brother and the ruler of the palace over Jerusalem.  He asked them to ensure the city gates weren't open until the sun was hot and appoint guards as the city was large but the inhabitants few and their houses not yet rebuilt.

Nehemiah then felt led by God to take a census of all the Jews who had come to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.  The names are recorded and amount to 42,360 plus 7,337 servants and 245 singers in the temple.  Their animals are also listed and the gifts given for the work of the temple.

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• Thoughts

I was particularly struck by the words in verse 61:

'but they could not show their father's house, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel'. 

This verse is speaking of people who were recorded in the census but they could not identify their genealogy or that they were descendants of Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel.  Those who were priests were consequently regarded as 'polluted' and removed from their positions.

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'Israel' is also used to describe the people of God in all time.   Do you remember how Jesus described his disciple Nathanael as 'an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile' (John 1: 47)?  What does this mean?  It is referring to those who are Israelites in heart, and not by natural genealogy.  It is speaking of those who are in the family of God, who are saved and loved by God.

 Dear reader, do these words speak to the ache in your heart that longs to know whether you are a child of God?  Whether the Lord Jesus came and died for you?  Whether you have been and are eternally loved by God?  Are you like this hymn,

'Tis a point I long to know,
(Oft it causes anxious thought),
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?

These people in Nehemiah's day had to produce evidence of their genealogy but they couldn't. 

It reminds me of  the  parchment roll which Christian in Pilgrims Progress kept tucked inside his jacket - the roll that was given to him by Evangelist and was evidence of his call to the Celestial city.  When he arrived there he had to produce it to be allowed in. 

In contrast, Ignorance travelled by Vain-hope to the gates of the Celestial city but could not produce his roll when asked, and could not answer a word in his defence before being bound hand and foot and carried to hell.

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What did this 'roll' represent?  At the beginning Christian read in it, 'Fly from the wrath to come'.  He later spoke of it as sealed, as a comfort and as a token.  On one occasion he lost it due to carelessness and it caused him great distress.  He had to retrace his steps until he found it.  He couldn't go on without it.  

It seems to me that this 'roll' illustrates the words that the Lord speaks to us individually, to convict us, to encourage us and give us hope of our calling, comfort and assurance.  

Are you unsure if the Lord has spoken a word to you personally? Perhaps it is a Bible verse that is constantly on your mind that may disturb you - you distract yourself as much as you can but you can't get it out of your thoughts.  Or perhaps a verse which a minister takes as a text that you remember long after - it perhaps makes you anxious about your eternity, or in contrast perhaps it encourages you that there is hope for you.  They are verses which years later you still remember as being important.  

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Perhaps they are words in your Bible which you have read many times before but one day you read them and they really stand out to you, they suddenly seem full of meaning, you may feel as it were your heart soften, your eyes mist with tears - they are like living words - they become yours.  They are like your personal parchment roll - your tokens of the Lord's calling and favour towards you.  You keep them safely tucked up in your heart, and when you need encouragement you think about them again.  

Dear reader, do you and I have a 'parchment roll'?  Can you 'show your father's house', that you believe you are 'of Israel'?  Let us give thanks and praise to the Lord for his great mercy to us, for his evidences to us that we are one of his family.  And if you say you have nothing then pray to the Lord to mercifully give you a token of his love to you.  Do not give him rest until you can say he is yours and you are his.

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