Nehemiah 5: Opposition Within

Introduction & Review

REVIEW: At the end of Nehemiah chapter 4, things have gone very well for the Jews. Nehemiah has pointed the people back to the LORD every time they’ve been discouraged by the mockery and schemes and threats of their enemies.

When Sanballat’s alliance fails, even the gloomiest folks go back to working on the wall. Nehemiah keeps all the workers in the city, and he sets the pace and the example, sleeping with his work clothes on.

But chapter 5 raises such a serious problem that Nehemiah calls a halt to everything until the situation is resolved.

Chapter 4 details opposition to God’s mission from the outside. Chapter 5 reveals that there’s opposition on the inside.

This time, there are no insults, no ambushes, no armies involved. You’ll remember how Sanballat postured in front of his army so that all the Jews would hear about it.

The opposition from within was more dangerous and more subtle. In fact, the opposition probably didn’t even realize they were the opposition. Imagine finding out you’re a double agent, and it’s just as much of a surprise to you as it is to anyone.

In Nehemiah 5, the nobles and officials of Judah discover that this whole time they’ve been standing shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, they’ve actually been working for the opposition. Their canny business decisions have done more to endanger the people than anything Sanballat has done.

What we end up seeing here is a crash course in how badly sin can twist us up, and how much we need a Savior who can redeem us and teach us how to live.

Q. Why does injustice always take us by surprise?

I. Without God’s help, we will always trade one kind of injustice for another (vv1-5)

EXPLAIN: This is the eye-opening moment for Nehemiah. In 4:19, he had called the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people to rally together to defend one another and said, “Our God will fight for us.”

Now - the ppl have to cry out against the very nobles and officials they had stood with.

vv2-5 - The people narrate a terrible downward spiral. According to Ezra 1, when the exiles first returned in the days of King Cyrus, they’d come back with significant wealth. But something has changed, and the first group to speak says they won’t have enough food to keep their families alive unless Nehemiah intervenes.

The second group explains that they’ve had to mortgage their properties, and we find out why: There’s a famine.

ILLUST: This was an agrarian society - to buy grain in a famine meant taking out a loan against the only thing you had that could produce grain. And if the field isn’t producing, it’s not long before you lose the field in default.

The third group speaks up and says, “So not only are our fields not producing, and they’re mortgaged to the nobles, but then we also had to borrow money to pay the King’s property tax on those fields that we’re losing.”

Then in verse 5, they get to the worst part of all: “So our nobles, our fellow Jews, our brothers, while their kids get to be kids, we’ve run out of options - they’ve got our fields and our vineyards, we have nothing left to pay with, and nothing left to feed our kids with. So we’ve had to sell them as slaves, and this has been going long enough that some of our daughters are already enslaved.”

There’s an awful kind of irony in these verses. The Jews were returning from captivity in Babylon only to be reduced to slavery yet again, and this time by their own brothers. We find out in verse 8 that these same nobles had been part of a grand repatriation plan. When they found a Jewish slave in Babylon, or Samaria, or wherever else they found them, they redeemed them to bring them back to the Land. And now, they’re undoing it all.

They’re like Joseph’s brothers, who threw him in a pit and then enjoyed a nice picnic, then sold him to slavers and went back home.

Did they not even see it? Were they so blind to their own sin?

APPLY: I expect they were, because that’s how sin usually works. In fact, apart from God’s help, we always trade one kind of injustice for another.

Trading captivity for exploitation isn’t so odd in the annals of history. Consider the end of the Russian Empire: When the injustices of feudalism finally reached revolutionary proportions, the people overthrew the Tsar and handed power over to perhaps the most brutal ideologies ever invented. In the name of so-called justice, in Russia, and China, and elsewhere, Communist regimes murdered somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 million people in the 20th century.

A little over a hundred years earlier, the French Revolution overthrew the aristocracy in the name of reason, only to install the brutal regime of Maximilien Robespierre, which we now refer to as the Reign of Terror, a single year in which the French killed 17,000 of their own and called it Enlightened.

It turns out that it’s always easier to see injustice than it is to establish justice.

5 ways that sin blinds us to real justice:

When we’re injured, we want revenge, but we call it justice

When we’re deprived, we'll often take even from those who haven’t wronged us and claim we deserve it

When someone else has been wronged, we’ll often ignore it, and claim we have no responsibility

And when we’ve wronged someone else, we often won’t even see it as an injustice. Like the nobles of Nehemiah 5, we’ll call it good business instead of exploitation.

The most messed-up thing in all of it is that the exploited so often become the exploiters.

Because without God’s help, we always trade one kind of injustice for another. The wisest among us is doomed to be a tyrant if his wisdom is not shaped by God’s Word.

James 3:13–18 ESV

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

And this is why, in verses 6-13, Nehemiah confronts the nobles the way he does.

Look at verses 6-13, and this is our second point.

II. Without God’s Word, we will never know what justice is (vv6-13)

EXPLAIN: Nehemiah acts directly.

The charges delivered to their faces - v7 - “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.”

Exodus 22:25–27 ESV

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. 26 If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, 27 for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Your behavior is reducing the people to slavery. This isn’t a hard to figure out thing, this is exactly the situation described in the Law.

v8 - stops the work on the wall and calls everyone together, not for a trial, but to pronounce judgment.

Nehemiah 5:8 ESV

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.

Nehemiah just held the mirror up, and they know that the face they see in it is a traitor.

We find out that Nehemiah and his brothers and servants have been unwitting participants in the scheme, lending to the needy without realizing they’re needy because they’re being exploited.

He commands the nobles to stop what they’re doing, return the property and the interest they’ve been exacting from them, and

In verse 12, the nobles agree to do what Nehemiah demands, and then Nehemiah brings down the hammer.

They’re not just promising to their governor. The priests step forward so they know this is an oath to God. And like an Old Testament prophet, he shakes out his robe. “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.” Like pennies dumped out of a purse, like the land that vomited their great-grandparents out in the exile.

They took the oath, and they kept their promise. I expect they were terrified. More importantly, at least among those who were genuine believers, they were mortified to see what they had become.

APPLY: The heart of Nehemiah’s response to the nobles comes back in verse 9.

Nehemiah 5:9 ESV

9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies?

Our God, the one I said would fight for us. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God?

Everything snaps into place with those words. It points back to:

Deuteronomy 10:12–13 ESV

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?

The key to understanding justice is the character of God revealed in His Word.

Deuteronomy 32:4 ESV

4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

Without God’s Word, we can’t even know what justice is. And this is why, apart from God’s help, our attempts at establishing justice end up trading one kind of injustice for another.

So you take your idea of justice, and you take your idea of yourself, and you come back to God’s Word.

III. With Jesus Christ, we find true justice (vv14-19)

EXPLAIN: Now Nehemiah gives us a stark contrast. From 445-433 BC, he served as governor at his own expense. As cupbearer to the king, he had already made his fortune, and even though his position came with a salary and a food allowance, he took neither.

In verse 15, he says that he did it “because of the fear of God,” and his prayer in verse 19 shows that his work was dedicated to the pleasure of God.

In other words, Nehemiah was a man whose manner of life was shaped by God.

His idea of justice was defined by God’s character as found in God’s Word. Notice in verse 6,

Nehemiah 5:6 ESV

6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.

Compare what made Nehemiah angry with

Nehemiah 4:1 ESV

1 Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.

One man was angry that he might lose exploitative power over Jerusalem; the other was angry that God’s people would exploit one another.

See, the answer to the problem of injustice is found in the character of God. When we see ourselves the way we really are, with God’s Word showing us who God is, and who we are, we come back to the same place that we saw in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:3 ESV

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed - promised the favor and saving presence of God - are those who come to God knowing that their only hope is that another has paid their debts.

What we have in verses 14-19 is a man who knows the LORD. He is able to govern justly only to the extent that his soul is being conformed to God’s Word.

But Nehemiah’s understanding is limited by his location in the course of redemptive history.

The LORD has blessed you to come to His Word in its fulness, and every promise of God in the Old Testament finds its “yes” and “amen” in Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament Law is perfect -

Psalm 119:151 ESV

151 But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true.

And

Psalm 119:160 ESV

160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

But the Law does not condemn some and acquit others.

Reflecting on the purpose of the Law, the Apostle Paul says:

Romans 3:19–25 ESV

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

The LAW exposes every one of us. Just like the nobles of Nehemiah 5, when God’s Law shows us who we really are, we cannot find a word to say.

The Law says “Do not murder,” and Jesus says everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. The Law says “Do not commit adultery,” and Jesus says, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

The heart. That’s where the problem lies.

Today, we have men and women who cry out against injustice, but the substitute they put forward is broken. Their opponents wash their hands of the whole thing. But none of us can claim to be innocent before God.

There’s only one answer to the problem of injustice, and it’s not a new one. It’s a very, very old one.

A few generations before Nehemiah made his way back from exile, a prophet named Ezekiel was there in Babylon. The LORD spoke through him, gave him a foretaste of the answer to the problem:

Ezekiel 36:22–28 ESV

22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

The answer to the problem of injustice is not a new regime or a new philosophy; it’s a new heart and a new Spirit.

The problem isn’t just a bad system; it’s sin. It’s rebellion against God and self-worship. It leads to injustice because it opposes the character of the Just God!

GOSPEL::

LAW reveals God’s perfect will // Jesus perfectly fulfills His Law in our place // DIES to fulfill the demands of justice as our perfect substitute, sacrifice - FORGIVENESS OF SINS for everyone who BELIEVES // RISES conquering death // SENDS HS to bring us to new life // WE LIVE in Him

Galatians 2:19–20 ESV

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.