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^“23 Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. ²⁴ Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. ²⁵ I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: ‘You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. ²⁶ Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. ²⁷ Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?’²⁸ One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.²⁹ Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.³⁰ So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. ³¹ I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the firstfruits.Remember me with favour, my God.” NIV

And so with our 107^th reading in Nehemiah we bring our look at his book to a close. Tomorrow we will take a break for one day. There will be no notes appearing, so don’t think anything has gone wrong! We will resume with another series on Monday, God-willing.

For today, note the same approach as in yesterday’s passage. The sin was different, but we see Nehemiah just the same: willing to rebuke, able to apply the Scriptures, and ready for action. (But although he is a great example in many ways, I can’t recommend his strong arm tactics as being appropriate for the average elders meeting!! Verse 25. However, what we should see reflected in his behaviour is the serious of the sin, and his burning zeal for the honour of God and the purity of the land. Also, he was concerned for its safety. He did not want them to again bring judgment down on their own heads).

I leave you with these words from Tom Hale – apposite as ever:

‘Twenty-five years earlier, Ezra had dealt with this same problem of intermarriage with non-believers (Ezra Chapters 9-10); now the problem had recurred in the current generation. Once again it was necessary to deal with the problem decisively. The kingdom of Israel had been split in two because Solomon had married pagan women (1 Kings 11:1-13). He had been a great king in many ways, but this one sin had been his – and Israel’s undoing (verse 26). Why couldn’t the Israelites learn?…One might say this whole chapter is somewhat discouraging: here Nehemiah has had to face four problems that had already been dealt with earlier. But the chapter reveals an important truth: reforms made in one generation do not necessarily continue into the next. Each generation is responsible for its own actions. And each generation needs to be converted, revived and renewed. This is the task of each new generation of Christian leaders, and to help us in this task Nehemiah has given us a powerful example of effective and godly leadership.’ ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.767.

PRAYER: Lord, please help us to serve the purpose of God in our generation.

^“15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. ¹⁶ People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. ¹⁷ I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing – desecrating the Sabbath day? ¹⁸ Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.’ ¹⁹ When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day. ²⁰ Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem. ²¹ But I warned them and said, ‘Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.’ From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath. ²² Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.” NIV

Speaking truth to powerful people can get you into a whole lot of trouble. In fact, in some circumstances, it could get you killed. It is almost always dangerous to challenge vested economic interests. But if he felt any temptation to keep quiet, Nehemiah didn’t succumb. Again, what an example he is.

• He had the courage to rebuke. He called out things that were wrong and was prepared to ‘carpet’ those in authority who were leading others astray;
• He had the ability to apply Scripture. ‘The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.’ Nehemiah forcefully reminded his people that it was sins like these which had landed them in so much trouble in the past. Surely they didn’t want to keep riding this same ghastly merry-go-round?
• He had the wisdom to act. He knew human nature well enough to realise that some people would still try to bend the ‘rules’. So he erected ‘fences’ (‘electric fences’) you might say. He made it less likely that his contemporaries would transgress. He even used the threat of arrest.

Again, in the wake of this, Nehemiah asked the Lord to ‘’Remember’’ him (22b). There are times when a leader would love to tell the whole story, and explain everything, but they can’t. In some circumstances, even if they did, they would still be misunderstood. So on occasions you just have to say, ‘Well God knows, and that is enough.’

I also find it significant that, after rebuking the sins of others, Nehemiah also asks for God’s mercy himself. He wants holiness among the people, but he is not ‘holier than thou’. Some words of a hymn come to mind:

‘And those who fain would serve him best are conscious most of sin within.’                                                     Whilst wanting less sin in the land, Nehemiah knew that he was not sinless. Where would any of us be apart from the mercy of God?

^“14 Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services. ¹⁵ In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. ¹⁶ People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. ¹⁷ I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing – desecrating the Sabbath day? ¹⁸ Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.’¹⁹ When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day. ²⁰ Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem. ²¹ But I warned them and said, ‘Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.’ From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath. ²² Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love. ²³ Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. ²⁴ Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. ²⁵ I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: ‘You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. ²⁶ Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. ²⁷ Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?’²⁸ One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.²⁹ Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.³⁰ So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. ³¹ I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the first fruits. Remember me with favour, my God.” NIV

When my daughter, Christel, was younger she had some music on disc, composed and recorded by Dave Godfrey – an extremely talented children’s worker. One of those songs included the words, ‘I’m living for an audience of one. The audience is Jesus!’ I thought about that song when I read Nehemiah’s brief, pointed prayers in this chapter. We have seen from the beginning how prayer was interwoven with Nehemiah’s whole life; how he often shot up these ‘arrow prayers’ in the midst of life and its duties.

These prayers show Nehemiah as a man conscious of God; someone living out his life before God. We don’t know whether much came his way in terms of appreciation, but his main concern was to please God. It is certainly possible to receive a sense of the Lord’s affirmation; to sense His ‘smile’. This matters more than any human accolades.

Again, Matthew Henry writes so helpfully:

‘Having no recompense (it is a question whether he had thanks) from those for whom he did these good services, he looks up to God as his paymaster (v. 14): Remember me, O my God! concerning this…on every occasion he looked up to God, and committed himself and his affairs to him. 1. He here reflects with comfort and much satisfaction upon what he had done for the house of God and the offices thereof; it pleased him to think that he had been any way instrumental to revive and support religion in his country and to reform what was amiss. What kindness any show to God’s ministers, thus shall it be returned into their own bosoms, in the secret joy they shall have there, not only in having done well, but in having done good, good to many, good to souls. 2. He here refers it to God to consider him for it, not in pride, or as boasting…Observe how modest he is in his requests. He only prays, Remember me, not Reward me—Wipe not out my good deeds, not Publish them…Yet he was rewarded and his good deeds were recorded; for God does more than we are able to ask.’

PRAYER: Help us Lord, to be content to live our lives before you and seek only to please you.

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).

“⁴⁴ At that time men were appointed to be in charge of the storerooms for the contributions, firstfruits and tithes. From the fields around the towns they were to bring into the storerooms the portions required by the Law for the priests and the Levites, for Judah was pleased with the ministering priests and Levites. ⁴⁵ They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did also the musicians and gatekeepers, according to the commands of David and his son Solomon. ⁴⁶ For long ago, in the days of David and Asaph, there had been directors for the musicians and for the songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. ⁴⁷ So in the days of Zerubbabel and of Nehemiah, all Israel contributed the daily portions for the musicians and the gatekeepers. They also set aside the portion for the other Levites, and the Levites set aside the portion for the descendants of Aaron.” NIV

‘Here Nehemiah provides what seems like an odd conclusion to such a grand and joyful event; these verses seem “anti-climactic”. And yet they teach us an important truth. Great celebrations come to an end quickly; the people’s enthusiasm subsides and things get back to “normal.” But most of our lives are spent in the “normal” routines of daily living, and it is here that our spirituality is tested. Nehemiah did not want his readers to forget that…After a grand celebration it is easy to neglect one’s ongoing duties, and Nehemiah was not going to let that happen if he could help it.’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.765.

As I read Tom’s words, it caused me to reflect that it is exhilarating to be on the mount of transfiguration, but at some point we have to come down from the mountain top and minister to the demonised person in the valley. We go to the great, highly atmospheric conference or Bible week – the big Christian event – and it is all so thrilling. But then we have to come and live all that teaching out in the mundane moments of life; in the nitty-gritty of home, work, school, university, community.

Worship involves not only music, song and thanksgiving; it also entails material giving. It’s not just about praying, singing and preaching, but also giving money to the work of God. Many a believer has discovered by experience that God is ‘no man’s debtor’. But singing and dancing with hands in the air is more appealing to some than sinking their hands in their pockets.

Remember, Jesus Himself taught, ‘’It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).PRAYER: Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of giving.