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I’m indebted to my wife, Jilly, for this ‘seed’ thought. As we were talking about chapter 13 one morning recently, she remarked on Nehemiah’s humility. He had been a strong, important leader in Jerusalem, but then resumed his servant role to the king of Persia. Of course, if you think back to the beginning of the story, there had always been an agreement that he would return, and so he did. He kept his word. But he was humble, and adaptable.

Now in truth, Nehemiah was a servant in both settings: a servant leader in Jerusalem, and a servant servant (!!) in Persia. But I’m sure we can see that while he was in Judah he had a higher profile. He was very much the ‘main man’. But when he came to the end of his mission, he was willing to retreat into the background and serve in a different way.

In life there are times and seasons. For some reading today, it maybe that you have, or have had, a senior position of power and prominence. Nothing is more certain than this: all leaders are ‘interim’. When the curtain comes down on one role, there will still be duty to be done in another. May we, by God’s grace, be found faithful wherever we are and whatever we are doing.

I heard a senior pastor say recently, ‘On my better days I remember that I am primarily a child of God who just happens to be leading a church at this moment in time.’ I thought there was helpful perspective in his comment. However, he admitted that not every day is a ‘better day.’ ‘When I forget this,’ he said, ‘I tend to measure myself by my performance, and I think I’m only as good as the last conversation I had or sermon I preached.’ His point was that, if we are not careful, our identity, as pastors, can get confused with our temporary roles. We may not always be doing what we are currently doing, but we will always be God’s children. I think, deep down, Nehemiah never forgot who he was before God.

Our true value is not in what we do, but who we are.

^“10 I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. ¹¹ So I rebuked the officials and asked them, ‘Why is the house of God neglected?’ Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts.¹² All Judah brought the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil into the storerooms. ¹³ I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites.”NIV

Because the Levites had no tribal territory of their own, it was God’s intention that they should be supported in their ministry primarily through the tithes and offerings of the people (see Numbers 18:21-24). Here was something else which had gone awry in the land. Because the Levites were not being properly compensated they had been forced to earn their bread elsewhere, and there was hardly anyone to serve in the temple. Again we see that when Nehemiah became aware of the issue, he took decisive action to restore things to normalcy. At times leadership demands tact, sensitivity and diplomacy; and it often requires careful thought and consideration. But there are moments when a leader can see something is so obviously wrong it just requires immediate action. Nehemiah is the embodiment of such decisiveness.

We see in verse 13 that, in the appointment of people to leadership positions, good character is of the utmost importance. This is still relevant today. Someone said, ‘Character is what you are in the dark.’ The Bible seems even more interested in a person’s character than their abilities. To have appropriate gifts and talents is important, but it is not all-important.

^“6 But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission ⁷ and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. ⁸ I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. ⁹ I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.”NIV

The influence of certain people can be so great that by their very presence they restrain evil. Nehemiah was ‘salt’ and ‘light’ in Jerusalem. The issue we looked at yesterday, with Tobiah being given a room in the temple, would not have happened if Nehemiah had still been around. That seems to be the inference. Upon his return he took decisive action to restore the room to it’s proper use. He didn’t tone down his message, but was prepared to label Eliashib’s actions correctly as ‘’evil’’ (7). Sometimes leaders have to do that sort of thing. There is a legitimate place for ‘tough love’. This story is reminiscent of Jesus cleansing the temple.

“Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.” NIV

Yesterday we saw how, as God’s Word was read, the people were convicted about failing to exclude ‘’from Israel all who were of foreign descent’’ (3b). This did not refer to all foreigners without exception, but just those who would not worship Israel’s God. (Ruth, the Moabitess, is an example of someone from a foreign land who joined herself to the Lord and His people, and her name is to be found in the ancestry of the Messiah, Jesus: Matthew 1:5). Let’s not forget that Jesus, before returning to heaven, told His disciples to ‘’go and make disciples of all nations’’ (Matthew 28:19).

‘See the benefit of the public reading of the word of God; when it is duly attended to it discovers to us sin and duty, good and evil, and shows us wherein we have erred. Then we profit by the discovery when by it we are wrought upon to separate ourselves from all that evil to which we had addicted ourselves.’ Matthew Henry.

In today’s verses we see one particularly grave example of such sin. The priest, Eliashib, had a close connection with Tobiah the Ammonite – one of Nehemiah’s greatest enemies (Neh.2:10). He allowed him to use a large room in the temple, and all behind Nehemiah’s back. To allow a pagan, and an enemy to boot, to enter the temple was a grievous violation of God’s law.

F.B. Meyer, in his typical fashion, wonderfully applies this saying, ‘If we have given up a chamber in our heart to any Tobiah, we must be prepared to do likewise.’

PRAYER: ‘’Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’’ (Psalm 139:23,24).

“On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God, ² because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam to call a curse down on them. (Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.) ³ When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.” NIV

‘’All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work’’ (2 Timothy 3:16,17)

When the people heard god’s Word, they allowed themselves to be ‘corrected’ by it. They repented. They took immediate steps, or so it seems, to put right what they had discovered to be wrong. So as we read and study our Bibles and listen to sermons, let us do so with a willingness to change.

‘’As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead’’ (James 2:26).