An Internal Threat (Part 2 of 2)

While rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, Nehemiah learned that there was corruption inside the walls.

Today on Truth for Life, we'll see what it took for him to effectively confront the internal threat and to do it without condemnation. Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses of Nehemiah chapter 5. How did Nehemiah deal with the problem?

How was the problem solved? Well, look, verse 6 tells us his immediate reaction is, he was really angry. I was really angry.

If you want a subtitle, call it righteous indignation. Righteous indignation is followed by careful contemplation. Verse 7, I pondered them in my mind. Pondered what? What does them refer to?

Them refers to the charges he's mentioned in verse 6. There were charges brought, and he pondered the charges. His concern was both controlled and it was constructive. He doesn't launch into a speech that he's going to later regret. Righteous indignation, careful contemplation, and then direct confrontation. I pondered them in my mind, and then… then he goes straight at it.

There's something very refreshing about this. Then I accused the nobles and the officials. Well, people say, well, you shouldn't… if you're a nice leader, you shouldn't be accusatory. I mean, if you're going to be a nice man and lead God's people, then you can't go around accusing people.

Well, you shouldn't make it the hallmark of your life, but there will be times when you must, unless you're just a coward. Unless you just want to do what everybody else does, and that is deal in the realm of political innuendo and maneuverings and send little signals here and there and round and about in the hope that George, who is over in the far left-hand corner, will get the signal as a result of having passed it down through section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, because you don't have the guts to go to section 6 yourself and say, Hey, George, you had a big problem, son. Think how much confusion is caused in the work of the people of God, because the people of God are unprepared to respond in righteous indignation, careful contemplation, and direct confrontation. They go and they tell fifty other people about the problem rather than addressing the problem at its source. And they often justify it by saying, Well, I don't want to harm the guy, or I don't want to hurt her. So I'm not going to say it to her face. I'll just say it to fifty other people, and then they can hurt her. Do you know the hurt that's caused by that kind of stuff?

It's far greater than ever going straight at it. You're a leader, you got a problem in your office, got a situation in your school, got a sales team, and one guy's driving everybody nuts. Tomorrow morning, first thing, grab a hold of him, sit him down. Think about it this afternoon and tonight, and tomorrow morning, sit him down, tell him straight to his face.

I dare you. Okay, now look at this. What has he accused them of? I told them, You are exacting usury. That means that they are charging exorbitant levels of interest. To charge interest was wrong.

To charge it at this unbelievable level was really wrong. They were treating their fellow Jews the way that harsh pawnbrokers or really bad little bankers would treat them. You notice I said not as bankers would treat them, but as really bad little bankers would treat them.

That's a very important distinction, especially for all who are bankers here this morning. What they were doing was they were lending only with the best of cover for themselves and with the worst of motives. Now, some people would call this skill. Some people would commend this. Great segments of our society, frankly, uphold this.

Young men are going to school to learn this. How to offer cash with the best of cover and the worst of motives to make the largest profit in the shortest time. Now, you see, the fact that they had legitimacy from what was going on around them did not legitimize what they were doing. Because in hard times, legal rights to say nothing of wrongs can deal mortal blows to people. Presumably, these characters were sitting around congratulating themselves, at least up until they got the confrontation from Nehemiah. They were sitting in those rooms in the corner of the country club that have those tables where you play cards, and they smoke cigars, and they have the CNN, the C-SPAN going all the time with the Wall Street thing coming right across the top. They're sitting in there, and they play, and they smoke, and they gamble, and every so often they look up to see how it's going, and every so often somebody goes away and makes a telephone call and comes back and smiles. And they sit to one another and say, Man, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any goods. I mean, these are difficult days for a poor old Jerusalem.

But they're not difficult days for us. Oh, no. Somebody's got to keep the economy going after all. Somebody's got to be making a buck, or a few, or a few or a lot.

Somebody's got to have enough money so when it all goes down, we'll be able to refloat it and refund it and relend it. That's what they were doing. And they were doing it to their brothers and their sisters. You see, the offense was, these folks were supposed to be a family.

And there were rules for the family. God had laid down in his law the way that God's people were to relate to one another when it came to these financial factors. And it would seem in verse 7 that there's no reaction to his initial statement. And so he calls together a large meeting in the middle of verse 7, and in verse 8 he says, Listen, historically you will remember that our Jewish brothers were already enslaved to the Gentiles. You will remember, too, that we expended a fair amount of cash to redeem them from slavery so that they don't need to be enslaved anymore.

Now, fellas, think about it. He says, You're selling your brothers back into the same slavery from which we have liberated them, only for this cycle to repeat itself. And like the Pharisees in Mark chapter 3, they kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.

This is the eloquent sound of silence. What had they done? Well, they had violated the covenant of brotherhood which existed amongst them by enslaving their fellow Jews. Consequently, they had fractured the social harmony of relationships with one another within the group, hence the huge outcry. And thirdly, they had endangered not only the economic infrastructure, but they had endangered the complete project.

In other words, the social and economic problems made it very difficult to see how they would be able, then, to go on and successfully complete the building of the wall. Now, up until this point, Nehemiah has pointed this out without making any value judgment on it. In verse 9 he makes his judgment. So I continued, What you are doing is not right. Now, I don't have time this morning to go back through the Old Testament references in Deuteronomy and Exodus and Leviticus, etc.

You can take my word for it, and then you can go check it yourselves. Let me tell you what lay behind this statement, What you are doing is not right. God had made it clear, number one, that for the Jew it was not wrong to lend money to a non-Jew and charge interest. They were allowed to do that. You had charged interest as long as they weren't Jews. Secondly, it was not wrong to lend to a Jew within the community. Thirdly, it was wrong to demand interest from a fellow Jew. And fourthly, it was wrong to enslave a fellow Jew.

Okay? So on the strength of that, which was information those people had and knew, now my assistant, what you're doing is not right. You see, incidentally, loved ones, the place of the law of God in making those kind of statements. You see, the great problem with our culture today, or one of the great problems with it is that it is completely unacceptable for anybody to stand up and say, What you're doing is not right.

The response of that is, Hey, it might not be right for you, but it's right for me. Because right is on a sliding scale. Nobody can believe in a right right or in a true truth or in an absolute standard. And anyone who suggests such a thing, they are the enemy.

They are the enemy of all. And yet you see, it is on the basis of that absolute standard that the whole nation is established, that cultures are developed, that economic infrastructures are formed. Because you see, the ability to enjoy the freedom of a capitalistic system of finance is founded, is posited upon the notion that the law of God will have an impact in the rule of man. But as soon as you remove God's law from any structure that is created societally, then you have absolute chaos.

It will just show itself up in different ways. And so the people of God had the law of God, they chose to ignore the law of God, and so he says that what you're doing isn't right. And then he gives them a wee word of encouragement there in verse 9. He says, Listen, don't you think you should walk in the fear of our God to avoid their approach of our Gentile enemies? In other words, they're looking at us. I mean, we've been fighting off these people, the Ashtodites, the Ammonites, and all these little ites, and they're all over the place, and we're standing outside, we're doing the work of God, we are building the work. Now, he says, you're doing this to your brothers and your sisters, the people are looking over the wall going, They're no different from us.

They do the same stuff. You see, when your non-Christian clients start to confuse your activities with the activities of your non-Christian friends, you got a problem. When they come to you for tax advice prior to April 15th, and you manage to give them information that is so skirting with dishonesty that they can't believe that you're the same guy that was inviting them to an evangelistic outreach with their wives, you got a problem. Then the outside world looks on and says, The people of God have nothing to offer, because look at what they do to one another. Think about it this morning in relationship to the work of God in the continental United States. Where is all the energy expended by the church at the moment? It's expended in pointing out how bad the world is. Oh, isn't this a dreadful world? And aren't these dreadful people? And don't they think dreadful things, and don't they do dreadful things?

Of course they do. But has the church looked in the mirror? Have the people of God considered what they do to one another? And they consider how much this army shoots its own wounded? And the outside world looks on and says, If that's the church, forget it. And that's exactly what was happening. The people of God said, You call that the work of God?

You can keep it. I have no interest in the work of God. They are doing to their brothers and their sisters, to their mothers and their fathers, what we wouldn't even do to them, and we hate their gods.

So they had a problem. And he appeals to them. He doesn't condemn them.

He says, Listen, shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God? After all, he says in verse 10, I've been lending stuff to the people. Clearly he was lending without asking for interest, otherwise he'd be a total hypocrite.

He was within the framework of the law, otherwise his righteous indignation had no basis to it at all. He says, I've lent. But you know what? He said, We're going to have to stop this exorbitant interest. We're going to have to start giving things back.

We're going to have to start thinking gifts instead of loans here. And so he gives them the instruction. Verse 11, Give back the fields, vineyards, olive groves, houses, and also this exorbitant interest that you're charging them.

Now what the hundredth part of the money means, I don't know, maybe means that this is the monthly charge on the thing which works out at a kind of annual percentage rate of twelve percent that was on top of everything. So their visa bill was clicking up by twelve percent. They couldn't get out of it. Their daughters were slaves, their sons were slaves, their house was gone, their land was gone, their vineyards were gone, and all the time they're looking into the eyes of someone who wants to say, Hey, brother.

You see, there was a classic absence of the kind of love about which we've been reading in 1 Corinthians 13, the love that always protects and always trusts and always hopes and always perseveres and never fails. People have been coming around, their own people, and saying, You know, I know you have a problem here, Mr. Mordecai. I don't like to see you in these circumstances. I know your children haven't had shoes for a while, and your son is looking a lot skinnier.

I saw him playing in a sporting event the other day, and he's really dropped a lot of weight. I'd love to be able to help you. I mean, I'd love just to be able to reach into my pocket and just write you a check or bring you a couple of bags of grain, but you know that I can do that.

I can do it for everyone. But Mr. Mordecai, you know, I don't know if you'd be willing to part with your house. I mean, I could take over your house. I noticed your daughter as I was coming in, cute girl. You don't think you would give up your daughter for a couple of bags of grain, Mr. Mordecai, do you? After all, my wife, she's been sick for some years now, and marriage is, you know, it's not the way it should be.

Let me have your daughter, Mr. Mordecai, your circumstances could change very quickly. They did it then. The church did it in slavery. The church has done it in South Africa.

The church still does it. And the cry of Nehemiah is the same cry. What you are doing is not right. Now, what about the people who are looking and saying, Well, you know what, Nehemiah? You're such a smart guy.

What are you planning on doing? He says, Well, I'll tell you about that in just a minute, but let me have your response first. Well, they say in verse 12, We'll give it back, and we won't demand anything more from them. We'll do as you say. So he gets a promise from them in verse 12. And then in the second half of verse 12, he takes an oath from them.

He's a shrewd character, Nehemiah. All the people come up and they say, We're not going to do this anymore. We're done with it. We make a promise.

Fine, says Nehemiah. Hang on there just a moment. Brings in the officials, and he says, Guys, we're going to formalize the promise that these people are making today. I'd like you all to stand up front here and look out on your brothers and sisters and say to their faces, We're not going to do this anymore. We're giving you all your stuff back. So now let's have you all up on stage and let's go. Oh, we thought maybe the cunning little guys had already thought, you know, if we say we're making a promise, promise has meant much to us in the past, we can always get out of them. So he says, No, we won't have any of that. Let's all come up on the front, and we'll do the oaths together.

All right, gentlemen, ladies, here we go. Okay, let's have the oath. So they made the oath in front of the priests and the nobles and everybody else. And then Nehemiah starts dancing around in front of them. Metaphorically, he starts to act out a symbolic curse, and he takes his robes and he starts shaking his robes all over the place.

The guys must have been looking at him and saying, What are you doing, Nehemiah? You're shaking out all this stuff, like in your turnips here, what you call them cuffs. When you go in that, there's usually a bunch of junk in there. And actually, these are pretty clean, I'm surprised.

But you go in there every so often when you're sitting in an airport, you don't know what to do, you run your finger around there and clean that stuff out. And so he's shaking all that stuff out, shakes it all out on the ground. And he says, Listen, you made a promise, you made an oath, and I'm bringing a symbolic curse in front of you today, and this is what I'm going to say. You made a promise about what you do, you covered it with an oath. May God shake you out of his house if you do not fulfill what today you have promised. And all the people said, Amen. And then they praised the Lord. But the voice of praise was silenced by internal corruption. Internal corruption had to be confronted by a divine standard. The divine standard penetrated to the very core of these people. They confessed what was wrong. They promised they would put it right. They understood the enacted curse.

The congregation looked on and said, Let it be so, and great joy filled the place. So it is with any sin in our lives. How do you deal with sin when the Word of God reveals it? Number one, you confess it. Number two, you promise that with God's help you're not going to do it again.

Number three, you go public with the issue as it is right, and you let people know, I am done with this, and I'm going on from there. And you recognize the severity of what's involved in making promises to God, lest in reneging on a promise made, he should shake us out of the robes of his blessing. And you know, that's some of us this morning. We once were glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord.

Now it's a grudge. It's a dirge. We were once effective in our witness and in our testimony. We were once happy for the people who were outside the kingdom to ask us questions. But today we cower, and we run, and we hide, because we made a promise that we refused to keep. There will never be the hallelujah in your life, in mine, in this church, or any church, until first there has been the amen.

Because it is an amen that we say to God, Let it be so. And when we bring our will in submission to his truth, then there rises in our hearts a great song of praise. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you have heard Alistair say that when it comes to studying the Bible, the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.

We want to recommend to you a book today that explores the main and plain things. It's a book called The Beauty of Divine Grace, and it helpfully unpacks the foundational truths of salvation found in the Bible, that salvation is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for God's glory alone. These truths form the very heart of our Christian faith, and this book does an excellent job of explaining each of these in a clear and relevant way, right in line with our mission. Ask for your copy of the book The Beauty of Divine Grace when you make a donation today. Keep in mind your financial support helps us distribute solid Bible teaching throughout the world through radio, online, via satellite, and various streaming channels.

You can donate by giving a one-time gift at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can arrange to set up an automatic monthly donation when you visit truthforlife.org slash truthpartner. By the way, October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and if you are in pastoral ministry, you'll find an extensive collection of messages from Alistair about how you can serve effectively in the role to which you've been called. These messages have been grouped together in what we call the Pastor's Study. In this series, Alistair draws from biblical figures, personal experience, and well-known theologians, encouraging you to depend on God for strength and victory as you preach. Our hope is that these messages will be a source of strength for you as you seek to preach the Scriptures boldly, to serve faithfully, and to lead your congregation toward spiritual maturity. Look for the Pastor's Study on our mobile app at truthforlife.org.

You can listen to all of the messages for free at your own pace. You can also purchase the Pastor's Study series on a USB drive for $5 at truthforlife.org slash store. Now here's Alistair with a closing prayer. Our God and our Father, bring your word to bear upon our lives.

It is your truth. Touch us at our point of need, we pray. Give us generous hearts. Save us from the disruptive affairs that we've considered in these moments. Thank you so much for the book of Nehemiah, for Nehemiah himself, for his fearlessness and leadership, for the example of what it means to be righteously indignant, to carefully think things out, and then to be brave enough to take on the wealthiest and most powerful for their good and for your glory. May the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of the Lord Jesus and the fellowship of the Lord Jesus be the portion of all who believe today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. The word no is a tiny but powerful word. Most of us have been using it since we were toddlers, but have we been using it correctly? Tomorrow we'll learn how and when and why to say no and to mean it. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.