An Inside Job
Nehemiah 5:1-19
“An Inside Job”
I’m sure many, if not all of us have seen a business or organization weaken itself from the inside out. I remember a former place of employment where there was a lot of bickering about management, gossip against one another, exploitation of some for the benefit of others. The result was lowered morale and decreased productivity. All the while the manager poked his head in the ground and pretended all was fine. I was in seminary at the time in the middle of a leadership class. So I saw the red flags waving all over the place! I cried out for vision, communication, influence and unity! This happened in a place you would expect those things to happen – a secular environment. It doesn’t and shouldn’t surprise us to see these things manifest themselves in such settings. When it emerges among God’s people, however, it is even more discouraging and frustrating. And that is what we are looking at as we come to chapter 5 of Nehemiah.
What we will see is that unlike the opposition Nehemiah faced in chapter 4, he now faces an even greater opposition. And I’ve entitled my message this morning, “An Inside Job” because the opposition came from within.
To get us back up to speed, remember that Nehemiah was in a prominent and trustworthy position to King Artaxerxes of the Persian Empire. And Nehemiah was greatly moved by an unfavorable report from his brother, Hanani, regarding the state of affairs in Jerusalem. After fasting and praying before the God of heaven, he takes it upon himself to return to Jerusalem and to lead the rebuilding of the walls. The king grants his request and even offers to help supply materials. Nehemiah then arrives in Jerusalem, takes a few days and assesses the situation, and communicates this grand vision to the people.
In chapter 3, the Jews get to work on the wall and Nehemiah records the list of people involved in the work and so indicates that all had a part to play. In chapter 4, Nehemiah id faced with opposition from the surrounding regions. He and the Jews are objects of taunting by Sanballat and Tobiah. And these guys rally up support in order to discourage the builders so that they would not be a threat to them. Nehemiah drops to his knees in prayer and lays the matter before the Lord. And then he returns to the work. And the Lord blesses their efforts! So much so that their buddies Sanballat and Tobiah turn up the heat - both quantitatively and qualitatively. Now the Arabs and Ammonites and Ashdodites all threaten violence and a surprise attack. What does Nehemiah do? Again, he leaves it in the Lord’s hands knowing that his pursuit is for God’s glory. And it’s ultimately his battle. Nehemiah gets back to work. He positions the people by their families and encourages them by saying “Our God will fight for us!” From that time on, they continued at the work with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. And now we can to chapter 5.
Please turn their in your Bibles with me – Nehemiah chapter 5. And stand as I read the chapter. READ.
My first point I want to look at is the Poor are Exploited. At the outset, I just want to be clear in saying that money itself is neutral. I know there are some that misquote Scripture and say that money is the root of all evil. But I know that all of you know your Bibles better than that. WHAT is the root of all evil?? Right, it is the love of money, not money itself.
There are those who are wealthy and righteous as well as wealthy and unrighteous. There are those who are poor and righteous as well as those who are poor and unrighteous. The material does not make them either. It’s how they view it and what they do with it. God doesn’t need our money. He wants our hearts. And where our treasure is, there is our heart – Matt. 6:21
Truth be told, everything that we possess (including our money) belongs to God. And we all nod in agreement and say ‘amen’. But do we practice what we’ve just agreed to? Do we seek God with our purchases? We should spend as though our credit cards read Jonathan/Jesus Christ. Our bank accounts Jonathan/Jesus Christ. Our investments, Jonathan/Jesus Christ. We are called to be good stewards of that which he has given us. How we handle it reveals our hearts.
And how the Jewish people handled their wealth revealed their hearts. Verse 1 tells us there was this great outcry from the people (SLOW) against their own people. And we see in the next few verses that there were different levels of poverty expressed by the words ‘there were those who said’. The first group (in verse 2) owned no land and were thus likely the first to feel the effects of the famine mentioned in verse 3. The second group owned properties and began mortgaging them in order to purchase grain. The third group not only mortgaged their fields, but were already tapped out there and were sending their sons and daughters into slavery. To whom?? to their own people. Herein lies the major problem.
Let’s think about this for a minute, shall we? We’ve already recounted what has taken place up to this point. We get caught up in the excitement of the grand vision of seeing the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt so that the people can gather and worship. The people have overcome the taunts and threats from the outside, dropped to their knees in prayer. And then we hear that the rich are disenfranchising their own people?? How disheartening is that??
We must remember, however, that slavery was permitted in the Old Testament. What is also true was that its purpose was to protect the longer-term interests of the poor. Deuteronomy 15 tells us that those who are able, are to freely give to their poorer brethren. Beyond that, every seven years there is a release of debt – both of money, possessions and slaves. And when they freed the slaves, they supplied them liberally from their flocks, threshing floors and winepresses. It was not an oppressive occasion, but rather a providing for one another.
But this was not what the wealthy Jews were doing in this case because they were exacting interest for their own gain. Nehemiah points that out in verse 7. They were exploiting them, not assisting them. And we read in Exodus 22:25, “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.” And Leviticus 25:35-37 reads, “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.”
They failed to recognize a couple of things here. First, the very words of Scripture speak against what they were doing. And Nehemiah will address that in a few verses. Second, they were on the same team! They were part of this rebuilding project, working shoulder to shoulder in their families, to see God glorified among the nations. What do you think foreigners thought as they looked in to see the Israelites, God chosen people, debilitating their own? “I thought God was on their side! I thought they were supposed to show unity!!” Their greed got in the way of their task. Their opposition was “An Inside Job.”
And we too, as the church of Jesus Christ, are on the same team to put God on display for all the world to see. Do we demonstrate unity? Can people look in and say, “Surely God is on their side! For they are working shoulder to shoulder for a common task with a common vision. They have a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.”? Or do they look in and say, “what are they doing? They’re supposed to be on the same team? They gossip about each other. They bicker and complain about their own leadership. They stab each other with their own swords.”
We want people to know that indeed God IS on our side. We are working together. Just like the rebuilding of the wall, ministry within the church involves sacrifices. We will revisit this when we look at Nehemiah’s example in a little bit. But ministry involves sacrifice of time, money, (PAUSE) preferences and styles. Now I am sure that there where different ways that the people could have pursued the goal of rebuilding the wall. But at the end of the day, they trusted and followed a guy that was on his knees before his God and who was committed to the task.
So, how did all this affect our man Nehemiah? He saw the Poor Exploited. And next we will see that Nehemiah used the Power of Exposition in his response. We will see him explain the situation and bring the Word of God to bear on a sinful people.
First we read in verse 6 that He was very angry. Here we go again. This man was a real hothead. It was just in the last chapter he was practically cursing out his enemies! Let’s talk about anger because we often view “anger” as bad. And this is probably because the vast majority of the time we see it expressed, it is negative. I want to suggest this morning, as I did briefly last week, that “anger” is neutral. Anger is not a thing whereby we say “My anger got the best of me”. It is a strong feeling.
Remember, God gets angry. And God’s anger is a just response to what is wrong and offensive. It is not sinful. We all know Jesus was filled with anger because the worship of God was perverted. And we are created in the image of God which includes righteous anger.
Dr. James Montgomery Boice adds, “There is a great difference between righteous and unrighteous anger, and we are frequently only angry in the second sense, when something is offensive to us personally. But while we need to be warned against such anger, we also need urging to be angry when righteous anger is appropriate… Nehemiah was not angry at Sanballat and Tobiah. He simply realized where they were coming from and made whatever arrangements were necessary to oppose them. Real anger should be felt for those who profess to walk by God’s standards and yet compromise those high standards by their actions.”
In our case here, Nehemiah was angry because God was offended, and it was a just response to something that was wrong. What I want you also to notice, however, is that he did not immediately react and punch out the nobles and officials in his anger. Rather he took counsel with himself. I really like that sentence. I do this quite a bit actually. Anybody else here benefit from walking away from a situation when we are angry? We know that we’re going to say or do something that will not help out if we react in the moment. We refer to it as cooling off, or going for a drive (or a ride down the Credit Line trail), a time out. Well, now we have a new way of saying it. “I need to take counsel with myself”. It sounds much more intellectual, I think.
This was a time where Nehemiah did not cease to be angry. But rather he was able to process things a bit and it allowed him to proceed with clarity. And knowing the man that Nehemiah was, I think he took counsel with Another. It’s not here in the text. But seemingly everywhere else he faces a crisis, he turns to his God in prayer.
And from what we learned in our last chapter, the next thing that Nehemiah does is he takes action. And here he confronts the wealthy nobles and officials and charges them with exacting interest from their own brethren. Unlike our present society, where many of the influential do not seemingly incur the same consequences for their actions, the wealthy and powerful here do not escape the charges of God’s appointed leader. But it would appear as though they did not repent in the initial confrontation with Nehemiah because he proceeds to hold a great assembly against them. This is Old Testament church discipline. Since they didn’t listen and repent at Nehemiah’s confrontation, he brought a few more people into the room, so to speak.
And this was huge because Nehemiah found it important enough to cease the work on the walls to address the situation. If he didn’t address the problem, several things were going to happen. First, the obvious thing is that the rich were going to continue to get richer and the poor poorer. Second, the morale of those building the wall was rapidly declining because of the oppression. Third, they were not unified in their task. Division was rapidly progressing. They were walking in disobedience to God’s Word. The enemies must have been looking on and laughing. And THE Enemy looked and laughed. Satan can and will influence those on the outside to oppose the works of God and he thrives even more when he gets an inside track! That’s why you see so many families in the church breaking up. Satan will target marriages and families and begin the division there. It isn’t long before that spills into the larger church.
Nehemiah addresses the people and informs them that he and some others had purchased back many of the Jewish brothers from slavery and that these nobles and officials were doing just the opposite. They were enslaving them all over again. They were being counterproductive in the task. And apparently at that point they were convinced and convicted of their sins. For the text says “they were silent and could not find word to say”. Matthew Henry writes, “Nehemiah knew that, if he built Jerusalem’s walls ever so high, so thick, or so strong, the city could not be safe while there were abuses. The right way to reform men’s lives, is to convince their consciences. If you walk in the fear of God, you will not be either covetous of worldly gain, or cruel toward your brethren. Nothing exposes religion more to reproach, than the worldliness and hard-heartedness of the professors of it.”
I truly think that Nehemiah was more concerned with the confession and repentance of the nobles and officials than merely making a spectacle of them. And for true revival to occur, there needs to be individual and corporate purity. The same is true to this day. I will admit that there is no formula to true revival. For that is ultimately in God’s hands. But I would suggest that our testimony in the community is more powerful and influential when we are continually dealing with sin individually and as a church body.
And as we know, repentance is not merely an acknowledging of sin, but a turning from it. As Christians, we often like to cling to 1 John 1:9 which says that when we confess our sins God will forgive us. And that’s absolutely true. But Jesus also commands us to go and sin no more.
Nehemiah calls the people to first, stop receiving interest in verse 10. Next, he takes it a step further and commands them to return all that they had mortgaged – not unlike the Jewish Year of Jubilee where every 50 years the Israelites would return all that they had acquired from their bretheren - land, slaves, houses, and so on.
Now notice that Nehemiah did not say “Try working on this, would you? See if you can get a little better with your sharing. Give them back a little more each day.” No! He says give these things back today!! Repentance and obedience are not incremental or gradual things. They are to be immediate. We don’t tell God that we will try to hate somebody a little less this week. We don’t say that we will spend a little less time in an unhealthy relationship. We’ll back off slowly. No! Jesus says, “Go and sin NO MORE!”
And look what happens when Nehemiah boldly declares hard words and the truth of Scripture. They responded in obedience. They commit to immediately restore what was gained and require nothing from them. “We will do as you say.” And just for good measure, Nehemiah communicates the seriousness of their commitment and offers an illustration of what disobedience to this oath looks like. It will incur the wrath of God. They had made a promise and commitment in the presence of God. It was something that was supposed to be taken seriously - unlike today where marriages split up very easily. And this despite the fact that the two parties agreed to high commitments before God. Whatever happened to for better or worse, richer or poorer, until death do us part – in the presence of God and witnesses? It is rather until inconvenience makes us part, or until different preferences do us part, a younger woman makes us part, or until a bit of conflict do us part.
And what about in courtrooms where everybody who takes the witness stand swears on the Bible to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God? And if everybody is telling the truth, why are they there??
Perhaps every pastor and judge should pronounce, ““So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.”
And take a look at what the Israelites did next. They worshiped. They had confessed, repented, made a commitment before God. They were cleansed and they worshiped in unity!
The concluding section of the chapter will serve as the concluding point - Personal Example of Nehemiah. You want in a leader, the same things you see in Nehemiah. You follow a leader who not only communicates vision, but also plays an active role in it. In Nehemiah’s case, you see a guy who leaves an elevated position to the king because his heart is so burdened for his God and for his people. He not only assesses the situation and communicates the vision, but he is right in the mix of builders. If you remember, at the end of chapter 4, he writes that all returned to the wall, we labored, neither I nor my brother… none of us…
And even in this chapter he lived his life an example to those who followed him. Nehemiah was governor in the land for twelve years. Though entitled to a governor’s food allowance, he denied it. Why? It wasn’t because he wasn’t entitled to it or deserving of it. Rather, it was because of the abuses of the former governors who burdened the people. He was like Paul writing to the Thessalonians in his second letter to them. He writes, “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Paul was also setting an example by to the church of what he was teaching them. You don’t work, you don’t eat. We’ll show you how.
Nehemiah was a great example of sacrifice for a cause. He placed the needs of God’s people and the task ahead of them before his own needs. We sort of know what that’s like. If we’re married, there came a day when we put the needs of our spouse before our own. Or maybe that day hasn’t come yet. When we have children, we again have to place the needs of others before our own.
In light of all of this, Nehemiah concludes with “Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.” I think in essence, what he is saying is that at the end of it all, I want you God to be pleased with my efforts. If you are not pleased, then it is all in vain.
Nehemiah was a great example of godly leadership for us today. First of all, he listened to the needs of his people in the first five verses – identifying with them and empathizing with them. He felt their hurt and was angry on their behalf and God’s behalf. Second, he then acted on his convictions and without the fear of man. He took the time to contemplate. And then he was bold in his confrontation and rebuke of the nobles and officials. He didn’t shy away from discipline because the stakes were too high. God’s reputation was on the line. Nehemiah raised the bar and held them to God’s standard – immediate repentance and obedience. And then he led them in worship. And finally, Nehemiah lived it out. He practiced what he preached. He demonstrated with his very life that he believed in the cause. God’s glory was worth any sacrifice he would make.
And the same is true today. We talked a bit about this last week. We know that the Christian life is not an easy one to live. There is opposition from those around us because we are pursuing an agenda that is distinctly contrary to the world’s agenda. We seek a life of self-sacrifice for the sake of Another. And there is opposition from the Adversary who does not want the name of God to be exalted. And we learned today, there is sometimes opposition from within. That is often the most dangerous for us to face. For the church should naturally band together when opposition comes from either the world or the devil. But when it comes as an Inside Job, then it has the potential to be devastating.
I would like us all to examine our hearts and see if there is anything that we might correct in our walk with Christ and one another. Have we victimized anyone? Have we exploited anyone’s weakness? Have we acted in divisive ways so that the opposition looks from outside and says “what are they doing?”? Let’s confess and repent of those things this morning and pursue God’s glory in unity. Let’s pray.