Nehemiah 9:26
Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.
Nehemiah 9:26 belongs to a chapter recounting Israel's sin, set at the time when the people needed God's law explained clearly so they could understand it. Before the rebellion it describes, God had shown great goodness and care, subduing the Canaanites before them and giving them strong cities and a fat land with houses full of goods, wells, vineyards, oliveyards and fruit trees, so that they ate and were filled and delighted themselves in His great goodness. Through the wilderness Christ Himself, enshrouded in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, as Redeemer, Protector and wonder-working God led them, protected them and worked wonders in their behalf.
They repaid that goodness with disobedience and rebellion, which was resistance to His plain requirements, with rebellious wills and evil passions at war against them. They cast His law behind their backs and rejected it, and slew His prophets who testified and warned against them to turn them back to Him. They lived not to please God and do His will but to please themselves, and so wrought great provocations and grave offenses. Their evildoings were the cause of their calamities, for their disobedience and rebellion separated them from God, and because He would not serve with their sins He delivered them and permitted them to be brought under the control of heathen nations and into the hand of enemies who vexed them and had dominion over them.
The pattern continued in a cycle where in the time of trouble when they cried to Him He heard them from heaven and according to His manifold mercies gave them saviours who saved them out of the hand of their enemies, but after they had rest they did evil again before Him and were left in the hands of their enemies. Had they heeded the word of the Lord and respected His warnings they would have been saved from the sorrows and disasters which came upon them. Miracles wrought in their behalf did not save them because they were unwilling to obey His will and walk in obedience to it. When He came in person to their children He found them filled with the same rebellious spirit.
The sins were confessed by Ezra and Nehemiah as their own as well as the people's, and the people later acknowledged the justice of God's punishment and entered a covenant to obey His law. The verse is a lesson and warning for God's people in the present not to follow Israel's course, repeat its rebellion, or take sides against God. Every soul now is to be careful not to do as Israel did, for many without knowing it are taking sides today, and those given great light and wonderful opportunities risk having it said of them that they have not the love of God in them, while their wrongdoing offends Him. The same pattern is applied to Seventh-day Adventists: though God gave them precious truth and favor they failed to honor Him, yet He did not wholly forsake them and heaven stood ready to support the united work of medical ministry and preaching; had they done His will the final message would have been gloriously proclaimed, and the righteous dead would have been raised at the last trumpet to go with Christ to the homes He has prepared.