Tuesday Class 4/16/24
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So tonight we are going to be closing out the book of Nehemiah, with chapter 13. As a quick recap, last time we left off with Brooks telling us about the provisions being made to feed the singers, priest, and other temple attendants, and now we shift from the dialogue, to more of a narrative fashion. Picking up in 13, verse 1. General William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army, once said to a group of new officers, “I want you young men always to bear in mind that it is the nature of a fire to go out; you must keep it stirred and fed and the ashes removed.” Nehemiah discovered that the fires of devotion had gone out in Jerusalem. His first term as governor lasted for twelve years, as we read back in chapter five, after which he returned to the palace to report to the king He was gone perhaps a year; but when he returned to Jerusalem, he discovered that the situation had deteriorated dramatically, for the people were not living up to the vows they had made back in chapter 10 Nehemiah immediately began to act decisively to change the situation. It brings to mind the golden calf, back in Exodus 32, and I don’t think you have to stretch to far to see how this can apply this to the church today. in fact, we already have examples of this in the new testament. Paul would set up a church with elders, then leave, come back a year later, and it would have fallen apart, collapsed under the weight of corruption and sin. This is the basis for the whole book of Galatians. I’m sure Paul looked back at Nehemiah with empathy as he struggled to pull the work at Galatia back together. It goes to show the constant attention and upkeep that is needed by a church. So lets look at the actual problems that had snuck in while Nehemiah was gone. the Jews had willingly separated themselves from the people of the land and united with their Jewish brothers and sisters to obey the Law and walk in the way of the Lord. But apparently their separation was incomplete, or some of the people formed new alliances; for they discovered that there were Ammonites and Moabites in their congregation, and this was contrary to the Law of Moses (Deut. 23:3–4). Ironically this is brought about by Balaam attempting to curse the Israelites, which you can read about in Numbers 22. “Today the world has so infiltrated the church,” said Vance Havner, “that we are more beset by traitors within than by foes without. Satan is not fighting churches—he is joining them.” This obviously is not to say that he is helping us, but his favorite weapon now cuts from the inside, and that cuts deep. However, this wound was necessary, as we discussed more in depth back in chapter 10, as this is an important piece in restoring their relationship with God. Next up, we find Tobiah just chilling in the temple. It appears that his relative, Eliashib, not only let him in, but made ample provisions for him to stay. It was bad enough that an Ammonite was living in the temple, and that a Jewish high priest had let him in; but this intruder was using a room dedicated to God for the storing of the offerings used by the Levites. Where even a toe-hold in the temple would have been a conquest, he obtains a room the size of a small warehouse, and has it cleared for him by the religious authorities themselves. It was doubtless a special satisfaction to see his personal belongings take precedence over the very frankincense for God and the tithes for his ministers; but best of all he was at the nerve-centre of Jerusalem, ideally placed for influence. What audacity to empty a sacred chamber of that which was dedicated to God to create a warehouse for the personal possessions of any person, not to mention an enemy. He defiled the temple by his presence and robbed the servants of God at the same time. Nehemiah lost no time throwing out both the man and his furniture, rededicating the room to the Lord, and using it again for its intended purpose. Like our Lord, Nehemiah had to cleanse the temple; and it appears that he had to do it alone. For Nehemiah holiness was not negotiable. But this is not an easy thing to do. A new preacher may discover officers or leaders in the church who are not spiritual people but who are entrenched in their offices. What does he do? He knows that these leaders have relatives in the church who, like Eliashib, will cooperate with their family rather than contend for the faith. Should the preacher try to “clean house” and possibly split the church? Or should he bide his time, lovingly preach the Word, and pray for God to work? With either approach, the preacher will need courage and faith, because eventually the blessing of the Lord on the Word will arouse the opposition of the “mixed multitude” Again, Nehemiah shows his proclivity for handling difficult situations, even if that means setting himself at odds with Eliashib, as no doubt evicting his relative would have done. Not only does he kick out Tobiah, but he restores all of the temple supplies at the end of the section, making sure the temple is ready for service. (Stop and ask for commentary)
Picking back up in verse ten. “We will not forsake the house of our God,” was the final statement the Jews made in their covenant with the Lord. This meant paying the temple tax, providing wood for the altar, and bringing the required tithes and offerings to the priests and Levites. Without the faithful support of the people, the ministry at the temple would languish; and the Levites would then scatter to the villages, where they could work the land and survive. The lofty commitment not to forsake the house of the God in chapter 10 had now become hollow words. Nehemiah, faced now with the Levites’ desertion of their posts, had the insight to put the blame where it belonged: not on the absentees of verse 10 but on the officials of verse 11. Full-time servants of God cannot feed their families on rhetoric. Immediately Nehemiah reprimands the officials for allowing this situation to exist. He then restored the Levites to their posts. A committee of four reliable priests and Levites was appointed to distribute the tithes and offerings among their kinsmen. This was quite the self policing system, as they were family members making sure they had enough to eat. Nehemiah then prayed that God might remember these actions taken on behalf of his house. After he does what he can to fix the situation, he turns to God and offers an extremely passionate prayer, he seems almost at a loss, so he goes back to what he knows, further, the plea springs from humility, not self-importance, for it is an appeal for help. God’s ‘remembering’ always implies his intervention, not merely his recollection or recognition Nehemiah was in the habit of talking to God as he served Him, a good example for us to follow. He reminded God of his faithfulness and prayed that what he had done would not be blotted out. Again, Nehemiah was not pleading for blessings on the basis of personal merit, because he knew that God’s blessings come only because of God’s mercy . (Stop and ask for commentary)
Picking up in verse 15. Before the exile there was a growing impatience with the sabbath law. Amos in the 8th century BC could see the merchants chafing at the weekly shut-down of business Amos 8, and sure enough, by Jeremiah’s time they had had their way. Load after load of merchandise poured in and out of the city on the sabbath. Jeremiah’s warning of what must follow in Jeremiah 17 was clearly in Nehemiah’s mind as he saw the forbidden burdens in transit and spoke of history repeating itself. The bustling scene of verses 15 and 16 shows how rapidly the trickle which must have begun in Nehemiah’s absence had become—as such trickles do—a flood. When they signed the covenant, the Jews promised not to do business with the Gentiles on the Sabbath Day back in chapter 10, but Nehemiah found the people not only doing business on the Sabbath, but also doing their daily work and carrying unnecessary burdens. This was no issue of necessity, but that of greed. The Jewish merchants didn’t want to lose the opportunity to make money from the Gentiles, and the Gentiles were quick to make a profit from their Jewish neighbors. It was a self perpetuating problem. Nehemiah took three steps toward changing the situation. First, he rebuked the Jews who were working and selling on the Sabbath and made them stop, Then, he rebuked the nobles for allowing business on the Sabbath Day, reminding them that the nation’s violation of the Sabbath was one cause for their captivity, as we mentioned earlier. Did they want to have more wrath come on the people? His third step was a very practical one: He ordered the city gates shut on the Sabbath Day. The guards had been willing to open the gates to the Gentile merchants, possibly because they were bribed; so Nehemiah put some of his own servants on duty. He also ordered the Levites to set a good example on the Sabbath and minister to the people. After he sets all this in place, He catches some merchants spending the night right outside the wall, trying to set up some sort of anti-sabbath black market. He confronts them quite frankly and tells them exactly what will happen if they continue in their direct opposition with the sabbath laws. And it seems to do the trick. The merchants left and never came back. The efficiency with which he dealt with the issue is incredible, handling it at every level, leaving no room for error. Again we see Nehemiah’s intimacy with the work; not just telling somebody to handle it, he does it in an extremely personal fashion. And speaking personal, Nehemiah closes out this section as well with a prayer, very similar to the one we saw back in verse 14. I do not think it would be reaching to ascribe Nehemiah’s success to the time and effort he put into seeking the help and advice of God. Nehemiah is no weak leader, but at the same time, he has a heart that is tender toward God and his Word. (Stop and ask for Commentary)
Picking back up in verse 23. Both Ezra and Nehemiah had to face the grave problem of intermarriage. Men of Judah had intermarried with pagan women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab and already their children knew the languages of the pagans instead of the language of Judah. While Ezra took the drastic action of calling for divorce, Nehemiah, no less explosive than Ezra, does not force the issue. Perhaps his severe response of calling curses on the offenders, pulling their hair, and making them take an oath that they will not intermarry with pagans, could have implied that the Judeans were to send away their pagan spouses. He reminds the offenders that Solomon had sinned in the same way, leading eventually to the rupture of the kingdom. Nehemiah drives away one of the sons of Joiada, son of Eliashib the high priest and son-in-law of Sanballat. Nehemiah has no other choice because intermarriages within the family of the high priest were unacceptable to God himself. For the third time, closes the thought with a plea to God. he You may notice that we are at the end of the text, but not quite the end of our time. This is not because I ran out of material again. As we have been going through the book, myself and the others who have taught have attempted to bring out commendable aspects of Nehemiah to imitate in our personal lives. As we bring our study of the book of Nehemiah to a close, I want to mention a few things I saw that I liked about him, then turn it to the table to see what y'all were able to glean from the character of Nehemiah.
1. He knew he was called of God
When everything else fails, the call of God will give you the strength and resolution you need to get the job done. At first Moses resisted the call of God, but then he came to realize that God’s calling was the greatest assurance of success anyone can have. Knowing that God had called him was the secret of Jeremiah’s perseverance when everything around him was falling apart and his own people were against him. The worker who doesn’t have a divine calling to the work is like a house without a foundation or a ship without an anchor. Nehemiah started with a burden for Jerusalem, but the burden was not the call. He wept over the sad condition of the city, but his tears were not the call. It was as he prayed to God and sought divine help that he received a call to leave his relatively easy job and go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. Because he knew God had called him, Nehemiah could approach the king and get help; and he could also enlist the help of the Jews in Jerusalem.
2. He depended on prayer
The Book of Nehemiah starts and ends with prayer. And in between, Nehemiah often sends up quick prayers to heaven and asks for God’s help. We saw three prayers just in the last chapter. Nehemiah was the royal governor of the province, with all the authority and wealth of the king behind him; but he depended solely on God to help him finish the work.“To be a Christian without prayer,” said Martin Luther, “is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” Nehemiah faced a gigantic task, a task too big for him but not too great for God. “Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers,” said Phillips Brooks. “Pray for powers equal to your tasks.” One mark of true spiritual leaders is their honest acknowledgment of their own inadequacy and their humble trust in the power of God. We have Nehemiah’s brief spontaneous prayers recorded in the book, but behind those prayers was a life of prayer as seen in chapter 1. He certainly had a disciplined prayer life.
3. He worked hard
That seems like a trite statement, but it isn’t; for one of the secrets of Nehemiah’s success was his willingness to sacrifice and work hard. Had he stayed back in the palace, serving the Persian king, he would have enjoyed an easy life. But once he was in Jerusalem, he went to work, he kept working, and he worked hard.This is what Charles Spurgeon said to the ministerial students at his Preachers’ College in London: “Do not be afraid of hard work for Christ; a terrible reckoning awaits those who have an easy time in the ministry, but a great reward is in reserve for those who endure all things for the elect’s sake. You will not regret your poverty when Christ cometh and calleth His own servants to Him. It will be a sweet thing to have died at your post, not turning aside for wealth, or running from Dan to Beersheba to obtain a better salary, but stopping where your Lord bade you hold the fort” That”s in his book “An All Round Ministry”.“The laborer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7), so let’s be sure we are laborers and not loiterers. There is no place in the Lord’s service for lazy people who give advice while they watch other people work.
4. He had courage
This is maybe what most often comes to mind with Nehemiah, because there is no place for timidity in leadership. Once you know what God wants you to do, you must have the courage to step out and do it. You must be willing to take some risks and occasionally make some mistakes. You must be able to take criticism, be misunderstood, and even be slandered, without giving up. As Harry Truman said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Nehemiah had the courage to live in a dangerous city and confront a subtle enemy. He had the courage to deal with the traitors among his own people and to call the people back to faithfulness to the Lord. He even threw Tobiah out of the temple! While you and I as Christian workers don’t have the authority to pluck out beards or forcibly eject unwanted tenants, we need the same kind of courage Nehemiah had when he did those things. Someone has said that success is never final and failure is never fatal: It’s courage that counts. The ancient Greeks thought that courage was the “master virtue,” because without courage you could never use your other virtues. No wonder the Spanish novelist Cervantes wrote, “He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses courage loses all.”