Internal Fights

A Wrong Discovered

We’re in a series going through the book of Nehemiah

Thus far we’ve seen Nehemiah receive a report on the status of Jerusalem

Being moved by it, he began to pray for the right time to ask the king for permission to go back and rebuild the walls.

When the time was right he got permission

Upon arriving in Jerusalem, he scouted out and did an assessment to see what all needed to be done.

After encountering opposition from the surrounding peoples, Nehemiah encouraged the people to keep working and to finish the wall.

Today we are in chapter 5 and see that the work came to a screeching halt.

This time the troublemakers weren’t the outsiders, but were insiders.

It was some “get rich quick” Jews taking advantage of a famine to make some easy money from their own kinsmen

The were charging high interest, taking property and even children to be slaves for payment.

In a sense they had become “Loan Sharks”

Churches goes through similar periods

We can overcome the attacks of outsiders, but then we discover that Satan is using fellow Christians to stir up discontent and discouragement.

Internal fights can sap a church of its energy, its focus, and its obedience to God’s direction for them.

The Complaints Verses 1-5

The complaints is from Jews about Jews

Their complaints deal with the way the people of God relate to one another

Two groups of people voiced their grievances

Laborers and landowners including their wives

The Laborers

All the workers had been channeled to building the wall rather than farming and that resulted in a shortage of food.

All that was aggravated by the fact that the farmers usually had large families, there was also a famine in the area, and lastly they all had to pay high taxes.

The Landowners

Were facing selling all they had to raise money for food.

Some had no choice but to pay mortgages with high interest rates.

Failure to pay meant their sons and daughters were sold into slavery to pay the debt.

They also lost their land.

In Deuteronomy 23:19-20 says, “Do not charge your brother interest on silver, food, or anything that can earn interest.  You may charge a foreigner interest, but you must not charge your brother Israelite interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you do in the land you are entering to possess.”

What was happening was a direct violation of the Mosaic law that governed the way Jewish people were to treat one another.

Apparently the rich were just getting richer and weren’t honoring the law in the process.

Nehemiah Response Verses 6-7

Once all this came to light, Nehemiah’s reaction was not irritation or impatience, but of interest and sympathy.

The complaints touched him deeply.

He took them seriously and as church leaders, we too, need not to brush aside valid complaints and constructive criticism

They can lead to greater trouble is not dealt with, like a leaky faucet.

We should act after careful consideration, like Nehemiah who seriously considered the situation.

Note also that he was extremely angry

His anger was due to his concern, or love, for his countrymen.

Yet, in his anger he was controlled and constructive.

It is not sinful for a Christian to express his anger, even Jesus got angry

We must, however, be on guard or our anger may boil over into sinful anger

What really got Nehemiah angry was the injustice of the rich Jews oppressing the poorer members of their own race.

This should tell that injustices in our age should cause to get angry.

Not to go off in violence, but seek to be constructive in solving the issue.

Confronting sins and seeking repentance and reconciliation

Nehemiah knew that the Jews were familiar with passages such as Deuteronomy 23 forbidding a Jew to charge interest.

But there were others where God commanded his people to release Jewish slaves and return property to its original owners in the Year of Jubilee.

I’m sure Nehemiah knew of other passages in which God, who has a tender love for the poor, demands that his people display compassion towards the needy.

We ought to be irate about social injustice, and even more angry that Satan enslaves sinners and blinds their minds so that they reject the teaching of the Bible and rush on towards hell (2 Cor. 4:3–4; 2 Tim. 2:26).

If Christians, who still have a sinful nature, are vexed because of the social evils which they see all around them, and at the rejection of God’s Word on every hand, how much more must God, who is holy, be displeased because of sin?

This is so relevant for us today, isn’t it?

Nehemiah’s Resolution Verses 7-13

Nehemiah reveals a model for conflict resolution:

“Separate the people from the problem.” Instead of seeing the problem as a class conflict, Nehemiah treated it as a community problem (v. 8).

“Focus on interests, not positions.” Nehemiah showed the rich that their actions were hurting the whole community (v. 9).

“Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do.” Nehemiah proposed a solution that benefited the whole community (vv. 10–12).

“Insist that the results be based on some objective standard, tradition, or authority.” Nehemiah based his solution on biblical principles (v. 13).

Separate the people from the problem

He called an assembly because this wasn’t just one or two offenders against another person, it was a transgression against God and that affected the whole assembly.

The wrongdoers had to face their sin head on and publicly

They were accused of exploiting their own countrymen and the with frustrating all his efforts to release their fellow Jews from slavery.

They couldn’t refute the charges so they said nothing.

Focus on interests, not positions

Their actions were hurting the whole assembly so it was in the open not behind closed doors

We hear a lot about transparency and this type of sin needs to be confronted in the open before all if private efforts fail to gain repentance

Churches need to be careful when confronting serious sin that harms the church’s or God’s reputation

Jesus told us to go to offender privately, then 2 or 3 others, then before the whole church to seek repentance and reconciliation.

All done bathed in prayer.

Offer a variety of possibilities before choosing the right one.

Walk in fear of God in verse 9, means an awareness of the majestic holiness of God and a realization of our own sinfulness.

Nehemiah was compassionate and generous to God’s people because he had this awe of God, whereas the rich had no respect for their fellow Jews because they had no respect for God.

Therefore they were squeezing their Jewish brothers for all they could get rather than offering interest-free loans as Nehemiah was doing.

Then he demands they pay it all back and they agree!

Insist on an objective standard or authority

The overwhelming response of the officials, ‘We will give it back … We will do as you say’, was acted on at once by Nehemiah as he summoned the priests to witness the promises of ‘the nobles and officials’ (5:12).

Nehemiah was not going to allow them to have second thoughts and then change their minds!

The solemnity of the oath was impressed on the nobles by Nehemiah’s gesture of shaking his robe, indicating that God would ‘shake out from his home and possessions each one who did not keep the oath.

Their oath was based on God’s standard

He calls down a curse on those who do not follow through on their promises, so it was serious

His shaking out the folds of my robe” was a symbolic act to announce effectively the curse on those who disobeyed, that God would take away their houses and possessions.

The unselfish leadership and courageous action of Nehemiah bore fruit: not only did the offenders do as they had promised, but they also restored unity and praised the Lord.

Nehemiah’s Model Verses 14-19

In these last few verses of the chapter we how Nehemiah’s way to living was just the opposite of those earlier in the chapter.

We see that was selfless and generous

He was entitled to levy a food allowance from the Judeans but chose to cover his entertainment expenses out of his own pocket rather than burden the people.

He apparently had been blessed by God to have enough income to do this and us his blessings for God’s glory

Whether we have much or little of material prosperity we ought to copy the example of Nehemiah and be selfless and generous.

We who have freely received the grace of God should freely share with others whatever we possess (Matt. 10:8).

We may open our homes to a brother or sister in Christ and discover that we have entertained an angel!

He was single-minded

Verse 16 he reminds us and himself that his task was to complete the walls

Nothing is accomplished in the Lord’s work without a single minded focus.

He was godly

His fear of God kept him from oppressing the people.

His awe of God was the source of his piety and the driving force behind his service for God.

Nehemiah was a man who loved God and therefore loved his neighbors as himself

Again, he was a man of prayer

He closes this account of the internal conflict with the prayer we find in verse 19

Why would Nehemiah ask God to remember for his good what he has done?

It seems that he wants the good that he has done for God’s people to be remembered because he is looking to the reward.

He is looking to the great accounting, when breathtaking pleasures and heart-filling joys will be known by those who lived for God rather than for themselves.

Here we see the source of Nehemiah’s selflessness.

Nehemiah wants to serve God and God’s people because he believes that living by faith in what he cannot see will be more rewarding than living for what he can see in this life.

Let’s pray