The Enemy Within
Nehemiah: From Rubble to Restoration • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 42:21
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He was one of the best defenders in the history of the game.
He had played for his country on the world stage,
and he had won at the highest level there is,
with one of the best soccer teams there ever was.
He was at the top of his game
in peak physical condition that the rest of us can only dream about.
Then one afternoon in August of 2001, in front of a packed stadium,
Markus Babbel suddenly could not catch his breath.
and he had to step out of the game.
Nine days later, the same thing.
For two months no one could tell him why.
And then the diagnosis came…
Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Even though he had trained his body to peak performance,
His own immune system, which was the part of his body that was supposed to defend it,
had begun to attack it as if it were a foreign invader.
And the result was that one of the world’s fittest athletes went from the world stage to a wheelchair.
Markus could no longer play.
He could not even stand.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
He could not train his way out of it.
He could not work harder and beat it.
Because the threat wasn’t from outside him,
the threat was from within.
That is exactly what now faces the people of God in Nehemiah chapter 5.
It’s not Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem that threatens God’s people.
It’s the people of God turning on the people of God!
Jew against Jew.
Brother against brother.
As the body has begun to attack itself.
And make no mistake church,
like Nehemiah, we face the same threat.
And our passage this morning shows us us how to defend against it.
To defend against the enemy within, we must:
Care about the Cry of the Crushed (vv. 1–5)
Confront the Corrupt (vv. 6–13)
Carry Compassion’s Cost (vv. 14–19)
So far in our study through the book of Nehemiah, we saw:
In chapter 1, where Nehemiah hears the wall of Jerusalem is rubble,
and it breaks his heart,
and he weeps and he prays.
In chapter 2, the good hand of his God moves a king,
and Nehemiah is commissioned to rebuild the wall,
and King Artexerxes pays the bill.
Then in chapters 3 and 4, the work continues,
stone by stone,
wall by wall,
while the people of God face hostility from an enemy outside the walls.
Then, after uniting against that threat and continuing the work,
a new hostility arises,
But this time it’s a threat from within.
Verse 1 tells us there was a great outcry.
and this isn’t the sound of grumbling or complaining,
It’s the sound of someone shrieking in pain.
And verses 1 and 2 tell us it’s the people their wives, and their sons and daughters who are the ones crying out.
And who is the cry against?
Their Jewish brothers
Then in verse 3:
There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.”
So there’s a famine.
But then it gets worse.
Look at verse 4.
And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards.
And notice that phrase in verse 5.
“Our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers.”
Are you understanding what’s happening here?
The attack is no longer coming from outside the walls from Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem.
The attack is now within the walls, and it’s coming from THE PEOPLE OF GOD!
See, the context here is that there are three problems they are facing.
Famine.
Taxes.
Slavery.
The economy is rough.
Their’s not enough food to eat.
And everyone’s been working without any Paid Time Off at all.
So they haven’t been able to work.
Grow food.
And the price of eggs have gone sky high.
Because without everyone working like before,
in the midst of a famine - there’s major inflation.
Does any of this sound familiar?
You can almost hear the outcry of the people saying:
“Nehemiah! This wall is great - but we cannot eat walls!”
“We are starving while you build!”
And to make things even worse, the Persian government has raised the taxes on the people.
They can’t afford to pay their debts.
Oh, and as we saw in the last chapter,
their is a military state of emergency where Judah is surrounded on all sides by their enemies.
This is a really tough situation.
The people don’t have any bread so they are mortgaging their fields and vineyards
and many of them have even had to sell their children to be slaves!
And in verse 5, it mentions that “some of our daughters have already been enslaved…”
which some theologians think may mean into sexual slavery…
All of this is happening during a time of crisis,
where the loan sharks who are taking advantage of them
are their own people!
Which is in complete violation of God’s law.
25 “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
36 Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
19 “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest . . . that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
The point is,
you are not to make your brother or sister a slave to debt.
You can hire him.
But you cannot take advantage of him!
Leviticus 19:18 couldn’t be any clearer on the heart behind God’s law:
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
This is what the community of God was supposed to be about.
Not vengeance.
Not grudges.
Not enslaving them for personal profit.
39 “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41 Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.
And yet…
the people were doing exact opposite of what God commanded.
They were lending to each other with interest.
They were taking each other as slaves.
They were not showing love.
And in response to this,
how does Nehemiah respond?
He responds by confronting the corruption.
To defend against the enemy within, we must:
Care about the Cry of the Crushed (vv. 1–5)
Confront the Corrupt (vv. 6–13)
Carry Compassion’s Cost (vv. 14–19)
After hearing the outcry of the people, verse 1 says:
6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.
Nehemiah’s:
feathers are rustled.
He’s got steam coming out of his ears.
He’s hot under the collar.
He’s a bent out of shape.
He has his knickers in a knot.
He’s spitting nails.
He’s mad as a hornet…
And in the Hebrew, the word there means “hot.”
It means “to burn.”
And right now, some of you are probably thinking:
“I thought God’s people aren’t supposed to get angry?”
And to that I say: “Where on earth, or in the Bible, did you ever get an idea like that?”
Moses got angry at the golden calf.
Paul confronted Peter.
David got upset when Goliath defied the armies of the living God.
Jeremiah burns with anger against the false shepherds and prophets who speak lies in God’s name.
And JESUS Himself got angry, when He overturned the tables in the temple after seeing God’s people being taken advantage of.
Anger itself is not sin.
It’s what we do with it that makes it righteous or unrighteous.
This is why Paul commands in Ephesians 4:26
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
That’s a present imperative in the Greek.
Which means it’s a command!
God wants certain things to anger you!
And if certain things do not anger you…
it’s not because you’re loving.
It’s because you’re indifferent.
Do you realize that the opposite of love isn’t hate;
it’s indifference?
That seems counter-intuitive, but it’s not.
Think about it.
See, if something makes me really angry, and I respond with hatred…
It’s because I still care.
I’m concerned about the person or the problem.
And yes, we can hate wrongly.
But we can also hate rightly.
Which is why we often say around here:
“We are supposed to love what God loves and hate what God hates.”
The two go hand in hand.
But indifference is something else.
Indifference is a heart that looks at evil.
That looks at injustice.
That looks at God’s name and God’s people being dragged through the mud and says:
“I don’t care.”
That’s why the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference.
It’s the shoulder shrug.
But like Nehemiah,
we can and we must respond with righteous anger.
And look at how Nehemiah does that.
He doesn’t fly off the handle into a mad rage.
What does he do?
7 I took counsel with myself…
Anger is energy.
And you can use that energy to tear down or build up.
It’s really that simple.
That’s why Paul says: “Be angry and sin not.”
It’s because we can be angry and sin not!
And Nehemiah shows us that.
He takes his anger - or energy
He slows himself down and thinks clearly about the problem.
And then comes up with a plan that he calmly implements.
7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them
He does not gossip about them.
He doesn’t go around complaining.
He goes to the source of the problem and he addresses it face-to-face.
Out in the open.
he addresses their sin and selfishness directly.
Then look at verse 8.
8 and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say.
Do you hear what he just said?
“We have been spending our own money”
“to buy our brothers out of slavery to the nations.”
“And you are selling them back into it.”
“We are pulling them out with one hand,”
“and you are shoving them under with the other!”
And the end of verse 8 says they were silent and had nothing to say.
Of course they were.
There is no good answer to that kind of wicked behavior.
Then in verse 9, Nehemiah lays out an air tight case against them.
He says “it’s not good.”
Which is an appeal to moral goodness.
Nehemiah is calling them out for falling short of God’s righteous standard.
And why are they are falling short of God’s righteous standard?
Because they are not walking in the fear of God!
Church, this right here explains the sin beneath the sin.
It’s a lack of a fear of Yahweh God!
Why do we gossip, slander, cut down, and devour one another?
Lack of fear of the Lord.
Why do we treat our spouse, children, and family members with disrespect and unrighteous anger?
Lack of fear of the Lord.
Why do we sit idly by and ignore the outcry of the needy?
Lack of fear of the Lord.
Nehemiah is saying:
The reason you should not crush your brother.
The reason you should not attack God’s people.
The reason you should not devour one another.
IS BECAUSE THEIR IS A HOLY GOD WHO SEES IT ALL!
In verse 9, Nehemiah mentions the watching nations who sees this and are mocking the God they serve.
That was the whole problem back in chapter 1.
The reproach of God.
The disgrace on God’s name.
And here it is again!
But Nehemiah is a man who is COMPLETELY CONSUMED WITH THE GLORY OF GOD!
And so once again he’s responding again with a heavy heart.
Not because the walls are broken.
But because because the people of GOD are broken!
And all of that matters because when the people of God are devouring one another,
it brings REPROACH upon God’s name!
When you start to view people and problems this way, it will COMPLETELY change your life!
It really will.
Because a lack of fear of God is the sin beneath the sin.
When God’s people do not fear Him,
the body no longer defends itself, but attacks itself.
We start attacking the music we don’t like.
The preaching that’s too long or too short.
The people who don’t do everything the way we think they should.
It’s Goldilocks syndrome…
Which is a heart that says: “I want it my way.”
It’s a heart that says:
“What can I get” instead of “what can I give?”
It’s a heart that thinks the church exists for you,
instead of you existing for the church.
But my friends, that’s NOT what it’s about!
We are a body that has been knit together by body and blood of Jesus Christ!
And when you stand at the foot of the cross
and see it’s tremendous cost,
It should bring you to your knees with a holy fear of the Lord.
After calling the people to walk in the fear of God,
Look at what Nehemiah does next.
He doesn’t just preach at them - he calls for action!
In verse 10 he calls them to abandon the practice of charging them interest immediately.
In verse 11 he tells these little Zacheus’s to return everything they’ve taken.
the money, the grain, the wine, and the oil - all of it.
Not tomorrow, not next week - TODAY!
And then, in verse 12, they agree.
“We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say."
And Nehemiah, wise as he is, does not just take their word for it.
He calls the priests and makes them swear it.
Because talk is cheap,
and a promise made before a crowd is easy to break in the dark.
In Verse 13, he shakes out the fold of his robe,
which the place a man carried everything on him,
and he says, “May God shake you out like this if you break your promise!”
He’s calling down covenant curses upon them in they fail to keep their word!
And in response to all of this, the whole assembly says: “Amen,”
the people praise God,
and the verse says, “the people did as they had promised.”
And with that,
the body stops attacking itself.
But Nehemiah is not done.
Because next he shows the people he's a man who has already been practicing what he preached.
To defend against the enemy within, we must:
Care about the Cry of the Crushed (vv. 1–5)
Confront the Corrupt (vv. 6–13)
Carry Compassion’s Cost (vv. 14–19)
In verse 14, Nehemiah tells us:
14 Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor.
Here Nehemiah is saying:
“You know all the perks that come with being the man in charge?”
“The food, the wine, the benefits?”
“I didn’t take any advantage of it for myself.”
For 12 years, Nehemiah practiced what he preached with the thing the people of God truly needed,
which was a heart of compassion for God’s people.
He didn’t sit back and watch the people work while barking orders.
He rolled up his sleeve and worked alongside the people.
Unlike the other governors before him who laid heavy burdens on the people,
Nehemiah wouldn’t dare use his position for personal power.
And why not?
Verse 15:
15 The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God.
The fear of God wasn’t just a sermon he gave,
but the mark of a life that had been rebuilt by God from the inside out.
That’s why he didn’t devour and attack the people.
That’s why he didn’t take and refuse to give.
HE FEARED GOD!
So much so that in verse 18 it says:
17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people.
Do you see what just happened?
The nobles fed on the people.
Nehemiah fed the people.
The nobles used their position to take.
Nehemiah used his position to give.
And the difference between them was not money.
The difference was a heart that feared God!
So here’s the question for us:
When you have a little power, what do you do with it?
When you have the upper hand in a relationship,
when you are the one who is owed,
when you could press your advantage and nobody could stop you,
What do you do?
Because that is the moment that tells the truth about your heart.
The nobles had the upper hand and they squeezed their hands around the throats of the people.
Nehemiah had the upper hand and he opened his hands to feed the people.
Because a man who’s heart fears God does NOT use people for his personal comfort.
He uses what God gave him to carry their burdens.
So which one are you?
Are someone who fears loss,
or someone who fears the Lord?
The chapter ends with Nehemiah pleading to God.
In verse 19, he says:
19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.
At first glance, this might seem like Nehemiah is bragging.
Like he’s handing God a receipt and saying: “Remember everything I DID God.”
Because I want you to pay me back.
But that’s not what’s happening here.
He’s showing us which audience’s applause he is living for.
Think about it:
Nehemiah has spent a fortune for twelve years to serve God’s people.
He has fed thousands of people.
He’s gone without what was rightfully his.
And He does not turn too the people and say:
“Look at everything I’ve done for you!”
“Where is my plague with my picture on the wall?”
he turns from the crowd and looks up and says: “Remember me O my God.”
Nehemiah had a holy confidence that the God who he feared sees it all
and does not forget a single thing done for His name.
That’s why Nehemiah served.
That’s why He gave up his cushy life in a comfortable palace.
It’s because he feared the Lord Who is worthy to be praised.
Does that sound familiar to you?
And by now, you should know exactly where I’m going here…
Do you know anyone who was utterly consumed with the glory of God?
Someone who heard the outcry of God’s people and left His heavenly throne to do something about it?
Like Nehemiah who heard the outcry in verse 1,
This person too heard the outcry of God’s people in slavery.
Not just to Pharoah,
But to sin, death, and hell.
But instead of ignoring those cries.
He did something about them.
If you thought it was something for Nehemiah to give up the perks of being governor,
imagine the perks that Christ had that came with being GOD!
In Philippians chapter 2, Paul ties all of this together for us, when he write:
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Church, that is why we serve like Nehemiah.
that’s why we strive to do nothing from selfish-ambition,
but in humility we count others more significant than ourselves.
Because that’s PRECISELY WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US!
And He did this, not to rebuild walls,
but to restore the human heart.
Has your heart been restored by the grace of God through simple faith in Christ Jesus?
Has it led you, like Nehemiah, to care about the unity of God’s people above your own interests?
Do you see this church as a place to serve or a place to be served?
Are you hearing the outcry of the hurting and acting to help or harm?
Or do you resort to gossip, slander, and the tearing down of the ones Christ died to save?
Beloved, this should not be so!
On the night before Jesus went to the cross.
He prayed that it wouldn’t be so, saying:
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Jesus knew the greatest challenge to the church would not be building walls,
but building up the people inside of them.
So by God’s grace,
Let us not fight one another,
but fight to preserve the unity Christ died to give us.
Let’s remember this as we go to the table.
