Nehemiah 5–7

0:00 So, every once in a while, I'll get on a kick just every few years where I get all interested again in Mount Everest and what it takes to climb Mount Everest. Some of you are giggling because you know that this is a thing with me, and I have even turned some of you to having your own kicks about Everest every once in a while. Well, I guess it's a new show, or maybe it's just new to me, but I found a new show on the Discovery Channel on Amazon Prime called Everest Ultimate Survival. And it's just a series actually about people who go to Mount Everest and they sign up with one of these companies and they climb the mountain. And this whole thing is just fascinating to me, you know, partly because there are times in the show where I can say, oh, I know that place. I've been to that little tea room. You know, it's pretty cool to do that. But the show is all about the challenges of surviving a climb to Everest. Because once you get up above 8,000 meters is where there's what you call at the very top of the mountain the death zone which means that no matter what you're doing no matter if you're sleeping or resting or walking

1:02 or climbing or whatever your body above that line is literally dying your cells just can't keep up your metabolism can't keep up and you're slowly dying and so the challenge of climbing Everest is to get up into that death zone as quickly as possible take a short rest and then make a sort of just diving run for the summit and stand at the top and take a few pictures and then head down. That's what climbing Everest is all about. What's been interesting about this new show that I'm watching though, Everest Ultimate Survival, is that they make a big deal out of the fact that the hardest, most dangerous part of climbing Mount Everest is actually not getting to the summit.

1:46 That's the easy part. The hard part of climbing Everest is getting down. In fact, the vast majority of people who finally die on Mount Everest die after they have reached the summit. They die because they push too hard and they make it to the summit. And then on the way down, everything just kind of gives out and they fall down and they die. Getting to the summit, making it to what's been the goal the entire time, is not the hard part.

2:17 It's what comes after. It's coming down. Well, that's kind of where we are in the story of Nehemiah. And in this series through this Old Testament book that bears Nehemiah's name, that's the point that we've come to, this major turning point in the book, basically where the whole thing we've been aiming at from the very beginning, the building of the wall around the city of Jerusalem, is done. and yet there's a whole lot more to the story to go because there's a whole lot more work to be done even after they've reached that summit of building the wall. Let me give you a little bit of a run-up to what's going on in the book of Nehemiah.

2:51 It was written in the 5th century BC. So you're looking at something like 450 years or so before the birth of Jesus, 2,500 years ago from us. And the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they were originally one book that was stuck together. It tells one story from beginning to end. And those two books tell the story of the Israelite exiles who returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian empire that conquered them was conquered by Cyrus the Persian, right? So that's what happens in like 586 B.C. leading up to 539, right, getting closer to Jesus.

3:25 First you've got Jerusalem, it's conquered by Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian. Then Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian is conquered by Cyrus the Persian. And Cyrus the Persian says, hey, what are all you Jews doing here in Babylon? And he finds out about it and he sends them home. He says a whole bunch of you, about 43,000 of you, can actually make your way back toward Jerusalem. And so that's what they do. They set out to rebuild it. Ezra tells the story of the rebuilding of the temple. He tells the story of the reinstitution of sacrifices and temple worship.

3:57 And then Nehemiah picks that up several decades later with this project to sort of reestablish Jerusalem as the great city. And if you're going to be a great city in those days with all the armies and, you know, ragtag bands of raiders running around, you've got to have walls. You have to be able to defend yourself because the city can't be great if it can't be defended. So that's what we've been following for the last few weeks. This high official in the court of the emperor Artaxerxes now of Persia. Cyrus is long since dead. We have a new emperor, Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

4:30 And all of this high official and all of his retinue are making their way across the desert with the intent of arriving in this broken down, destroyed city of Jerusalem and rebuilding it. And along the way we've seen that they face opposition from other governors who don't really want a super strong independent Jerusalem. Why would they want that, right? Everybody's got their own power base that they want to protect. And if there's a strong Jerusalem, their power is weakened tremendously. So they don't want that. And Nehemiah faces opposition from them.

5:01 But somehow, by the grace of God, they make progress on it. The wall is going up. And in fact, in the middle of our text today, the whole thing is done. If you've got a Bible, turn over to Nehemiah. That's where we're going to be today. Nehemiah chapters 5, 6, and 7. So if you're using one of these red pew Bibles in front of you, Nehemiah chapter 5 begins on page 401. Just to say a word to those of you who might not be familiar with the Bible. Maybe you're just brand new to this whole Bible thing, Christian thing.

5:33 If you look at page 401 of that pew Bible, and you're going to want to have it open, I promise you, you'll be totally lost this morning if you don't have a Bible in front of you. Because that's what we're going to do, is look at it and talk about it. So if you get a Bible, turn to page 401, you're going to see Nehemiah up there at the top. that's the book that we're in. 66 of them make up the Bible. Nehemiah is one of them. Down on the page, you'll see a big number five and a big number six. Those are chapters. And then inside those chapters, you'll see smaller numbers, not the footnotes. Those are different, but smaller numbers at the beginning of each what we call verse. So it's not musical. It's not like it's in poetry or anything like that. It's just what we call it. And it was basically done in about a thousand AD probably. So about a thousand years ago in order to help Christians do this very thing that we're doing here. So when you hear me say something like, look down at chapter 5, verse 6, you can look down into chapter 5, find verse 6, and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. So that's kind of how it works. Anyway, I told you that the wall is going up.

6:31 In fact, if you look at chapter 6, verse 15, this is your chance to practice here. Chapter 6, verse 15, you can see it there. It's just said, so the wall was finished. There it is. On the 25th day of the month of Elul, and we did it in 52 days, built an entire city wall in just a little less than two months. Okay, well that's been the goal of the whole book, right? Let's get the wall built. Let's get Jerusalem defensible so that she can become the great city of the king one more time. So why then, if you keep turning the page, do we have like seven and a half more chapters to go after the summit has been reached.

7:15 Well, it's because the goal here, even if not much has been said about it yet, the goal here of both God and therefore Nehemiah has never been just to rebuild a wall. It's been to reestablish a nation. It's to rebuild what had been destroyed by the Israelites centuries of sin. Nehemiah wants to pull together again a people in covenant with God who are going to be a light to the nations centered right here in this great city of Jerusalem.

7:50 That's what he wants to do. And of course, in the Bible, especially when it's a story about a hero of the faith like Nehemiah, stories like that are supposed to come to a happy ending, right? In the new covenant people that Nehemiah is trying to build, they're going to be reestablished at the end of the book, right? The Israelites, heroes of the Bible, they're going to win, right? The covenant's going to be reestablished. The people are going to be rebuilt, right?

8:22 Well, what happens? Well, the answer to that actually isn't going to come until the next couple of weeks. And I think it might not be exactly what you expect. But our text today, Nehemiah 5 through 7, at least begins to make a decisive turn in that direction. So these chapters here, if you look over them, 5, 6, and 7, they form a really major turning point in the book. For the first five and a half chapters, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then half of 6, the whole focus of the book has been on rebuilding the wall.

8:53 That's been the whole thing. The opposition that they faced, the tactics that they had to use to do it, the people who did it. It's been about building the wall. But once that's done, in the middle of chapter 6, the focus changes. I mean, the wall's done now, so we're not just building a wall. Now we're trying to establish a people. And what begins to happen for the rest of the book is that things start to be defined. Like, who's in and who's out? Who's a part of the people and who's not? Who are the leaders going to be? Who are the priests? How do we figure out who the leaders are and the priests? That's the kind of thing that's going on. You start to get questions like, how are these people going to live together?

9:27 And then closer to the end of the book, you even get an attempt to reestablish a new covenant with God that was going to replace the old covenant that was broken. So between 5 and 7, what we're looking at today, this hinge point, we move from walls to people. That's what we're going to see today. Now, we're going to read sections of this. We're not going to read the whole thing today. But we are going to read most of it as we go. But I do want you to just let your eyes fall over it and let's get a handle on what's happening here. So if you look at chapter 5, you can even look at the sort of subtitles on it.

10:00 Nehemiah stops oppression of the poor, Nehemiah's generosity. That's accurate. That's what's going on there. In chapter 5, there's a break in the story about the wall. Maybe a chronological break, at least in part of it. But that's not really all that important. But basically, chapter 5 tells about the Israelites' own sins against one another. And Nehemiah's attempts to put an end to it. And then at the end of the chapter, he holds himself up as an example of how to live instead of the way the Israelites are living. That's what's going on in five. In chapter six, you can see that there, conspiracy against Nehemiah, and then the wall being finished. What you've got there in chapter six is a series of stories, essentially about various attempts to undermine Nehemiah, to put a stop to his work, to discredit him, and make the people turn on him. That's what's going on in chapter six, and you get to see Nehemiah dealing with all of that. And then seven, mostly, is a gigantic list of all those who first came back from Babylon to Jerusalem back in Ezra's day.

11:00 So this list actually comes from 539-ish B.C. We're now in about 445 B.C. And so you're looking at about 100 years almost. This list is 100 years old. So that's what's going on, 5, 6, and 7. And the main idea of the whole thing as we start to make this turn from walls to people is this. God is in the business both then and now. God is in the business of building not church buildings, not ministries, and not names, but a people for his own glory.

11:35 God is in the business of building not church buildings, not ministries, not names. He's in the business of building a people for his own glory. In these three chapters, each one of them tells us something about the character of that people that God is building. So here are the three points of the sermon. Three things that ought to mark the people of God. And it should have marked the people of God in the old covenant. It should mark the people of God right here, right now at Third Avenue Baptist Church under the new covenant. So number one, chapter five, we should be a people who look out for each other.

12:07 A people who look out for each other. Number two, a people who face down fear. A people who face down fear. And then number three, about chapter seven, a people who, above all, exist to worship. So those three things, looking at five, then six, then seven. A people who look out for one another, a people who face down fear, and a people who, above all, exist to worship. And what I hope you'll see this morning is that the thing is, that was true for Israel. That's what was expected of them as the people of God, as a community of God.

12:42 But it's also true for us. And I hope what we'll learn today is that those things that were to characterize the old covenant people of God are to characterize us as well. But here's the thing. I do not want you to think that Nehemiah or this sermon are just a kind of fable, a morality play for us to emulate. They did this, so you do that. There is some of that. There's a lot of that in the Bible, and you're going to see some of it today. But I want you to see also that here at this hinge point, there are important things in this story beginning to happen in the grand biblical drama.

13:17 Things have been pretty quiet for about a hundred years now since the people came back from exile. Not much has happened. But here in Nehemiah chapters 5 through 7 and then definitely in 8 through 10, the machinery of the biblical storyline and drama is starting to crank again. And I want you to see the beginnings of it in our text today. I think you will. So let's start looking at it. Chapter 5 and point number 1. God is building a people who look out for each other. God is building a people who look out for each other.

13:48 That's the point of chapter 5. The point of chapter 5 is that the Israelites were not doing that. Now there are times in the story back in chapters 3 and 4 when it looks like they're doing that. I mean, you got this amazing story in chapter 3, chapter 4 of the people working on the wall, right? They've got a trowel in one hand, putting mortar on the stones. And they've got a sword in the other hand to defend their brothers and sisters. And they're working side by side by side by side. Remember that? Next to him, next to him, next to him, next to him. Looks great. Looks like this amazing locked-in teamwork that's going on.

14:20 But under the surface, apparently, there was deep, deep trouble that had been born of greed and rank selfishness. Let's read about it. Chapter 5, verse 1. Now, there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. For there were those who said, with our sons and daughters we are many, so let us get grain that we may eat and keep alive. There were also those who said, we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.

14:53 And there were those who said, we have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children, and yet we're forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves. And some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it for other men have our fields and our vineyards. Nehemiah says, I was very angry when I heard their outcry. In these words, 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.

15:24 And I held a great assembly against him 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 then be sold to us. They were silent and could not find a word to say. 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? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us all abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you've been exacting from them.

16:01 And then they said, we will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say. And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, 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 all the assembly said, Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised. Okay, there are some things in this text that have been and can be confusing. You know, like you read it at first, and one of the first things that comes into your mind is, Oh, the company that made my car loan is being ungodly with that 10.9% interest rate.

16:41 I should hit them up, tell them to read Nehemiah. Is that really what it's saying, though, that any kind of interest, any kind of loan is bad? Well, we'll walk through it and see if we can tell exactly what's happening. So in chapter 5, verses 1 to 4 set the background for this whole episode. What it's doing is sort of giving you the cause that sort of set the stage for the real wickedness that's happening. And essentially in verses 2, 3, and 4, you have three sets of people who for three different reasons are being driven into abject poverty.

17:14 That's what's happening. Something is happening to them, and they're being driven by circumstances into abject poverty. So look at verse 2. In verse 2, what it looks like there is that you've got people who have no land. And because Nehemiah has called all the people from the surrounding countryside in to work on this wall, those sons of theirs and daughters of theirs that are working on the wall are not able to work and earn food. And so the people are crying out and saying, look, we are many. In other words, we need a lot of food, and we can't get it because we're working on the wall.

17:45 So, Nehemiah, let us get grain so that we may eat and keep alive. They're being driven into poverty because they can't work. In verse 3, it looks like a different situation. These people have some land, but because of the famine, they're actually having to sell off pieces of their land in order to get seed corn, for instance, to put into the land that they still own. And then that's not creating a crop one year. So they have to sell another piece of the land to get more seed crop, which isn't creating a crop. And it just goes on and on and on until little by little they're selling off or mortgaging off their land to creditors.

18:20 So that's driving them into poverty. In verse 4, you have people in a kind of similar situation, others who have land. But they're having to sell it piece by piece to pay the taxes that King Artaxerxes over in Susa of Persia is demanding from them. So you have this land, it's working, it makes enough for your family. But then, ah, you've got to pay the king his taxes. So what do you do? Well, you sell a piece of it, right, to somebody else. You get the money, you pay it to the king. Then you have less food the next year. You have, you know, the same tax. So you sell off another piece of it, and little by little by little, you're driven into abject poverty.

18:53 So it's not a good situation for any of them. And it drives them into the worst imaginable practices to try to get out of the poverty. They actually have to sell their children into slavery just for both them and their children to be able to eat. That's what's happening. So look down at verse 5, sort of the middle of that verse, kind of third line of it. You got that first sentence there, and then you have the next part. Look what they say.

19:23 Yet, we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves. And some of our daughters have already been enslaved. But there's nothing we can do about it because other men have our fields and our vineyards. So you see the situation, right? You've got these families and they're selling off their land. They have no means of income, no means of getting food. They need food, not just for themselves, but their children are literally going to starve if they don't do something to change the situation. And so what do they do?

19:58 Well, actually, if you study history, this is not an uncommon thing. And, you know, it may strike you as absolutely ridiculous and absolutely just unthinkable that you would ever sell your children into slavery. And yet throughout history, this has happened over and over and over again in civilizations around the world. Because sometimes you get to a point where the poverty is so abject, when the hunger is so deep that if you don't do something drastic, it's not just you that's going to starve. And so therefore you sell your children into poverty so you can eat. No, it's if I don't give control of my kids over to someone who's richer than I am, my children are going to starve.

20:35 So the best way to help them survive is to give them over to work for someone else who will never let them be rich and never let them be free, but at least they will let your children eat. And so that's what they do. They sell their children into slavery to the surrounding Gentile nation. So they're not going to starve to death. And maybe at least for a little while, your children aren't going to starve to death either. But here's a worse thing. It turns out that it is not the Gentiles who are forcing them to do this in the first place.

21:09 It's their own brothers. Their fellow Israelites are forcing them into this kind of poverty. Look at that first sentence of chapter 5, verse 5. They say there, now our flesh is as the flesh of our fathers, our children are as their children, and yet we are having to sell them into slavery. In other words, it's a plea about the whole nation of Israel being a family, right? They're saying to these richer brothers and sisters of theirs, these richer Israelites, look, we're a family. Our children are like your children.

21:40 Our flesh and bone is your flesh and bone, and yet despite that family relationship, you're making us sell our children into slavery. It's just a horrible situation. If you look down at what Nehemiah says in verse 7, it seals the deal. These loans that some Israelites are making to fellow Israelites are forcing them into such abject poverty that they're having to sell their children into slavery. It's just an awful situation. Okay. Now, at this point, it's worth saying a little bit about exactly what economic mechanism is going on here.

22:16 Because I don't want you all on the customer service line to your credit card this afternoon. Right? So if you look down at the couple of places, there's one in verse 7 there, you're exacting interest. It shows up again down in verse 10, let us abandon this exacting of interest. That's what most of your Bibles are going to translate that as. It's not actually correct. It's a little too specific for the Hebrew words that lie behind it. The word there that's translated interest in both of those places, seven and ten, isn't the word that's used in Leviticus and Deuteronomy for interest.

22:53 There's another word where interest, in the way you think about it, is regulated in ancient Israel. This is not that word. This phrase actually just means lending loans. So it's two words that your Bible's translated, exacting interest. It's actually not that. It's just lending loans. Now, the making of loans in ancient Israel wasn't illegal. There was nothing illegal about it. There was nothing immoral about it. There are laws that regulated how those loans have to work.

23:23 So there was literally nothing illegal about what these rich Israelites were doing in lending things to their brothers and then asking for payment back. The problem seems to be that these rich Israelites had twisted loan making, totally legitimate practice. They had twisted loan making into this kind of iron-fisted, unbending system that even in the midst of a famine was destroying families. Payment was being demanded now, in full.

23:56 And if you can't make the payment, well, you know what? Sorry. You signed the contract. You said that by such and such a date in the month of Elul, you would pay me back. And that date has come and I want my money now. Oh, you don't have it? Well, I am very sorry you're going to have to sell little Juliet into slavery there. That's what they were doing. I want my money. But then there's another layer of hypocrisy in all this, too.

24:28 Look down at verse 8. This is part of what Nehemiah says to him when he finally lights him up. I said to them, he says in verse 8, we, that's me and my family, Nehemiah and my family, And as far as we're able, we're trying to buy back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, right? So every time I get word that one of our Jewish brothers has been sold to the nations because of debt, I redeemed them out of it. I buy them back and pull them back into the nation. I'm trying to do that. But look what he says next in 8. I'm trying to buy them back from the nations, but you're selling your brothers to the nations so that they may then be sold to us.

25:03 It's just this vicious cycle that's going on. These rich Israelites put these people in debt, and they demand the money, and they can't pay it. So they say, okay, sell them into slavery. So they get sold into slavery to the Gentiles. Nehemiah buys them back, and then the rich Israelites say, oh, great, another loan that we can put out, and we'll sell them back into slavery so Nehemiah can buy them back again. And it's just this money that's going back and forth and back and forth, and Nehemiah's coffers are being drained all the time as the money goes to the rich creditors and to the nations. It's just rank hypocrisy that they're doing.

25:39 And the whole thing sets Nehemiah on fire. So look at verse 6. He's furious when he figures out what's happening. And he decides there if you look in the next few verses. He calls a great assembly, meaning all the people. I'm calling them all together, and I'm going to light these jokers up. And that's what he does. You get the charge in verses 7 to 8. He just lays it bare on the table. Look, this is what you're doing. It's rank hypocrisy. He says at the end of 8 there, they had nothing to say, so they knew they were guilty.

26:13 And then in 9, he sets the hook. What you're doing is wrong. And instead of doing this, you ought to fear God. And stop making us be made fun of by the nations out there as our children keep on this merry-go-round of being sold by you and bought by me over and over again. You're turning us into a laughing stock. Fear God, he says. and do what's right and then at the end of 10 he just says look this thing is so corrupt this this whole loan lending thing you have corrupted it so badly that that we should just stop the whole system right i mean i myself am known to give out loans presumably he wasn't involved in the whole you know the whole hypocrisy of it but he says look let's just end the whole thing because this is terrible you've corrupted this entire thing that god meant for the good of his people but you've ruined it and on 11 through 13 the people agree i think it's really interesting that in 13 you get sort of two responses at the very end of that so first part of 13 he you know gives this curse on them if they're not going to do it and look at the very last two sentences

27:16 the assembly who's being oppressed say amen and they praise the lord well yes of course they do and the people did as they had promised right so they don't seem to be entirely happy with it but they do as they're promised, while the assembly, who was getting oppressed, rejoices. Okay, so what was the great failure of the Israelites here? It was that contrary to the law God had given them, they were failing to look out for one another.

27:49 Ultimately, they were failing to love. They were seeing people in abject need, even in the midst of a famine where there's no food. And instead of giving them relief, instead of loving them, instead of making a gift as the law would command under such circumstances, they were squeezing them harder. And the point is that that is not what's supposed to mark the people of God. It's not what's supposed to mark the church.

28:22 You know, sometimes you get into the Bible and you start preaching and you start teaching. And there are times when you stand up in a pulpit and you have to teach things in Scripture that aren't really, as far as you can see, aimed at any particular, like, throbbing problem in the life of your own church. And so you teach it more as inoculation against potential future problems. And, you know, as I read through Nehemiah and I see all of this happening, I think this is kind of one of those times. I mean, as far as I know, none of you are oppressing each other so badly that our children are getting sold into slavery.

28:54 That just doesn't seem to be a problem among us. I mean, in fact, I think that even if you sort of back away from selling children into slavery, it looks to me like you as a church are extraordinary at taking care of each other. There's not a week that goes by that I don't hear of some home group taking care of one of its own or something happening on the email list. Just story after story after story. of people looking out for one another. So as I kind of survey this congregation and this church, here's my encouragement to you as a church.

29:27 Keep doing that. Keep encouraging one another. Keep caring for one another. Even in the very physical things of life, that's what we do as a church. Do good, Paul says, especially to those who are of the household of faith. That's part of what we do. But at the same time, even as you're going about that trowel work of caring for each other, you need to have a sword in the other hand looking out for temptations to oppress your brothers and sisters because they exist.

30:00 Temptations abound to crush your brothers and sisters around you, to demand from them things that love would not demand. You know, you start thinking about it a little bit. That happens in a lot of ways. There are a lot of ways to oppress your brothers and sisters. And it's not just forcing them into poverty so they have to sell their children. I mean, sure, there may be some obvious economic ways that you're tempted to oppress your brothers and sisters. Wow, I can make a whole lot of money off that guy. If I just cut this corner, if I make that deal, I can make a whole lot of money off of him.

30:32 And I know it wouldn't be entirely fair for me to do that, or maybe it's not entirely honest. But, man, I can make a lot of money off my brother in Christ. There are obvious economic ways to do that, but there are also ways more subtle. For example, you do a nice thing for somebody. You have them over for dinner, or you send them an encouraging email, or you send them a gift, or you help them out with a ride to the airport, or whatever it is, and then you get bent when they don't do something nice back for you. But friends, Jesus has to give without expecting anything in return.

31:06 There are other ways as well. Emotionally oppressing someone. Demanding that someone give in to your position, or your perspective or your argument or we can't be friends anymore. Friends, all those things, all of those ways of oppressing one another, of using emotional and social or even economic power against your brothers and sisters, all of those things corrupt and corrode a church from within and make it brittle. And the thing is, they all have one common root, a demand that i will have what is mine you see that right that's what underlies all of this i will have what is mine and i will have it now that was the root of the problem in israel these lenders were demanding right now in full what was theirs and technically let's be honest they were right there was nothing unlawful about

32:08 the loans they probably had a contract with a due date on them and an amount so these people in Israel were they were just asking for the contract to be upheld that's all they were doing they were demanding what was rightfully theirs and it was destroying the nation so in 14 to 19 then that next section there Nehemiah shows a better way look at that with me he says moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah from the 20th year to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes the king, 12 years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them their daily ration, 40 shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people, but I didn't do so because of the fear of God. I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. Moreover, there were at my table 150 men Jews and officials besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us and what was prepared at my expense for every day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds

33:15 and every 10 days all kinds of wine in abundance yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor which is what he was because the service was too heavy on the people Remember for my good, oh my God, all that I have done for this people. You see his point there? It's exactly the same point that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 9. That he does not demand to have everything that he deserves even by right.

33:48 He bends justice in order to show mercy. You know who else didn't demand what was his by right? Your Lord, Jesus Christ. Because what was his by right was to call 72,000 angels down from heaven, to take him back to heaven in royal splendor, to be worshiped and honored for all eternity while you burned in hell.

34:22 That was his by right. and yet he didn't demand it he bent justice to show mercy you realize that's what mercy is right you realize that mercy is a bending of justice strict justice would say you get what you deserve you eat the grapes and your teeth are set on edge that's what justice says Mercy says, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to give them what they deserve.

34:55 I'm going to give them far more abundantly more than they could ever ask or imagine what they don't deserve. Friends, that's the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That even though you deserve pure, strict justice, God in Christ offers you mercy. Even though you deserve pure, strict, down-the-line justice, God gives you grace in Jesus Christ. If you're not a Christian this morning, that's the most important thing that you need to hear.

35:27 Don't demand justice from God. Don't demand from God what you deserve. Friend, you do not want that. What you need is grace. You need mercy. You need a Savior to bend justice for you. so that you can be saved. And one of you are already a Christian. I wonder if you follow your Savior's example in that. Do you often forego what is by right yours for the good of your brothers and sisters in Christ?

36:01 You should. Or do you kind of keep careful records of every little thing everybody owes you and demand payment, justice, now? Regardless of how much it'll crush somebody else. Friends, that's not how Christians live. It's not how the people of God live. Christians exist because mercy bends justice. Make sure your life reflects what's been done for you by your Savior. That's point number one.

36:33 Here's two. God's people face down fear. God's people face down fear. So in chapter six, if you'll turn over to that, What you get there, it's not really flagged very well with the subtitles or the subheadings in your Bibles. But you get three stories about Nehemiah's enemies attempting to subvert him and undermine him in the eyes of the people. So the guys that are responsible for all of this are these fellows, Sambalot and Tobiah and Geshem. We've already met these guys. They're sort of governors of surrounding areas.

37:05 Tobiah himself seems to be a Jew. Geshem is an Arab. Sambalot is probably just a Persian. But we've already met them. They have been threatening to do something since the beginning of the book, and they've never done it. Well, here they're going to try it again. So let's look at chapter 6. When Sambalat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it, although up to that time I hadn't set up the doors yet, Sambalat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together at Hakafirim in the plain of Ono.

37:36 But they intended to do me harm. So I sent messengers to them, saying, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you? So they sent to me four times in the same way, and I answered them in the same way. In the same way, Sambalat, for the fifth time, sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. And it was written, it is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. That is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports, you wish to become their king. So you've also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem. There is a king in Judah.

38:08 And now the king, Artaxerxes, will hear of these reports. So now come, and let us take counsel together. And then I said to him, saying, No such things as you say have been done. You are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done. But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Now, this is the second story. When I went into the house of Shemaiah, the son of Deliah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home, he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you.

38:39 They are coming to kill you by night. But I said, should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live anyway? I will not go in. And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, oh my God, according to these things that they did.

39:10 And also the prophetess, Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid. So the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month of Elul, in 52 days. And when all of our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem. For they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Moreover, in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah. And Tobiah's letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shekinah, the son of Ara. and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Mashalam, the son of Berechiah, as his wife.

39:41 Also, they spoke of his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid. All right, three different kinds of threat here, all with this just, it's just this sinister underhandedness that leaves you kind of thinking, would you guys, Sanbalat and Tobiah and Geshem, would you guys just stop it with the cloak and dagger stuff and pull up your big boy pants and go attack them for crying out loud? enough with all of this gossip and backbiting and deceit and good gracious you're like a bunch of middle schoolers you just want them to attack but they don't so let's look at what they do instead so in one to nine six one to nine you have this almost comically inept attempt to neutralize nehemiah probably by outright assassinating it so sambalat sends this letter to nehemiah and says hey, I want you to meet me at this place called Ono.

40:36 But Nehemiah's like, Ono, Ono, we ain't doing that. I know what Ono is and I ain't going there because that's a wasteland several miles out from Jerusalem so you can off me and stick my body in a sand dune and nobody will know it for 20 years. There's no way I'm going out to Ono. So then they try the same thing again four more times. Come on, come to Ono, no, come to Ono, no. it's ridiculous come to oh no I'm gonna finish it come to oh no no come to oh no oh no that joke will never get old oh no it will not finally in verse 5 he changes the sound of a lot changes tactics sends an open letter like everyone can read this he probably sent several copies of it throughout the city open letter threatening to spread lies and rumors about it Nehemiah I know what's going on here. You're trying to set yourself up as king. So I'm going to tell Artaxerxes and he's going to get you good. But Nehemiah just bats it away. It's not true. You're just making it up

41:40 out of your head, right? You run into that in life sometimes. It's just not true. And the plot doesn't work. In 10 to 14, you got to read between the lines a little to see what's happening, but it's pretty dramatic. So there's this prophet in Jerusalem named Shemaiah, right? Apparently a pretty famous prophet. And Nehemiah gets an invitation to visit this prophet at his home who for some reason is confined to his house. It doesn't say why. It's probably not legal because Nehemiah is the guy in charge, right? So that's probably not the reason. It's disease or uncleanness or something like that. But then, even though this guy is confined to his house for some reason, weirdly, Nehemiah gets this panicked message from this prophet.

42:20 We've got to go to the temple right now. We have to close the doors. We have to barricade ourselves in the temple because tonight they're coming to kill you. That's the message Nehemiah gets. Now, a panicked, unthinking person might go, ah, yikes, yes, let's go to the temple and barricade ourselves inside. But Nehemiah stops. He's like, wait a second. First of all, how are you, Shemaiah, going to go to the temple? You're supposed to be confined to your house. And probably for you in your unclean, diseased state, whatever it is, to go into the temple is going to be sin for you.

42:54 so what are you talking about second i'm not a priest so i can't just go into the temple and shut the doors anytime i want which means that you are a prophet who's telling me to break god's law so nehemiah refuses and he sees through the ruse sambalat has hired this guy to scare nehemiah into going into the temple, which not only would have shown him to be a coward, right?

43:25 He's running from Sambalat, but it would have made him a sinner. It would have made him a lawbreaker and a hypocrite. Again, just sleazy tactics by Sambalat. Just by the way, just by the way, never, ever, ever listen to anyone, a friend, a preacher, a family member, anyone who tells you to disobey the word of God. Just don't do it. I don't care if they're on TV. I don't care if they're your best friend.

43:56 I don't care if they're your brother or your sister or your mom or what. It doesn't matter. Don't listen to anyone who tells you to violate God's law. The last ploy that we see here is in 15 to 19. And it's kind of the grossest of all because it's just this sustained scratching at Nehemiah's leadership. And it's an attempt to bring him down one gossipy scratch after another. And you get 15 and 16, which are great, right?

44:27 We finished the wall and everybody around it saw that this was the work of God. But look what was happening through the whole thing. Moreover, in those days, which means it's going on for a long time. In those days, the nobles of Judah sent letters to Tobiah and Tobiah's letters came to them. And this was so important because a lot of these nobles were bound by oath to Tobiah somehow. maybe family ties, because look at all these people that are married here. This person is married to that person, and there are all these family ties, and all of this talk is going on. Emails are flying back and forth, right? Did you hear what Nehemiah did? Can you believe he said that over and over and over for years, saying this and complaining about that and asking this other person to go complain about it, and I can't believe that's happening. And all of it, if you look at verse 19, all of it was meant ultimately to make Nehemiah afraid, to undercut him, to make him scared, to do the things

45:31 he needs to do as the leader of Jerusalem. So you see, so think about all of those things. Think about, you know, think about everything that happens in chapter 6. You see the thing that all three of these stories have in common? All three of them are about creating fear, that freezes action. They're about creating fear that freezes action. Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem want what's happening in Jerusalem under the leadership of Nehemiah to stop. And so the way they come up with to try to stop it is by creating fear that will freeze it up.

46:07 I mean, yeah, the assassination attempt is pretty brazen. But when that doesn't work, then we're going to tell the emperor on you. And then we're going to kill you. So quick, run to the temple. and then nobody likes you, everybody hates you. That's what they're trying to do to him. It's a campaign of gossip and trickery, of reputational sabotage and even emotional manipulation. And thank God, Nehemiah manages to see through all of it and stand firm. He manages to do what God has given him to do.

46:40 Now look, here's the thing. We as God's people here at Third Avenue have to do the exact same kind of work of facing down fear and facing down anyone who would create fear. And that's true of people outside our church, you know, like Sambalat was outside Jerusalem. But it's also true of those inside, those who are a part of it, like Shemaiah and Tobiah. Those were Israelites doing the same kind of work. I mean, again, I think that this is another place where, you know, I'm preaching more preventatively than curatively.

47:16 I don't think this kind of thing marks our church very much now at this point in its history. But friends, I've been doing this long enough, and I know hundreds enough other pastors to know that this kind of thing can start to mark a church, and it can develop very, very quickly. So brothers and sisters, be on the lookout. Travel in one hand, doing the work of the ministry, sword in the other, as you look and protect against threats. And here's the question that I want to ask you.

47:48 I want you to do some real heart searching right here. Are any of the tools in this chapter that Sambalat and Tobiah and Geshem use, are any of the tools in this chapter, tools that you have a tendency to reach for to try to get your way? Reputation, destruction. Trying to manipulate a situation so somebody you're against in the life of the church is discredited. Just clawing and talking and gossiping until someone just gives in.

48:29 Any of those tools, ones you reach for in the life of your church? In your family? Friends, that's worth giving some thought to. Look, brothers and sisters, God's people are not to be marked by that kind of spirit of fear. Much less a spirit of fear creating. But by a spirit of love and self-discipline. That's what the New Testament tells us. Let's be careful to be that kind of people.

49:02 Here's point number three, the last one. So by the end of chapter six, the wall's built. It's built by the middle of chapter six, but it's done. And you look at the beginning of verse 7, Nehemiah continues to provide this sort of steely-eyed, practical leadership there in the first few verses of that chapter. He appoints a captain of the city guard. He commands that the gates be kept closed for as long as possible during the day. So we're not going to open the gates early. Wait until the sun's burning hot in the sky. And then you can open the gates and then shut them, you know, as early in the evening as possible when the sun is gone.

49:33 Keep the city safe. So there's a lot of that going on. But now the focus has shifted. And it's not so much on the physical buildings that make up Jerusalem as it is on the people themselves, the people that are inside it. So the rest of this chapter, with all of its names and numbers and all the rest of it, this chapter is really about Nehemiah beginning the work of organizing the Israelites into the covenant people of God that they were always meant to be. He's starting that work. He's got the city, he's got the temple, and now he's going to put the people in order as the covenant people of God.

50:05 That's the point of literally everything from chapter 7, verse 5, all the way down to chapter 7, verse 73. It is organization of the people. Now, everything in this chapter is actually pretty much a word-for-word copy of Ezra 2. So you can go back to Ezra 2, and you can start to compare, and you'll see that it's almost a word-for-word copy of it. So all these names are 100 years old, right? Nehemiah pulls them out because this is the record of the people, and he's going to figure out, you know, these were the originals. Now we have these people, and who belongs in what category. He's going to organize them based on the original organization. Now, just as a kind of parenthesis, if you insist on going back to Ezra 2 and you start comparing, you're going to find some differences. The vast majority of which are in the numbers. There are differences in the various numbers. And people have looked for centuries for patterns or meaning in the differences in the numbers, but it turns out after, what, 2,500 years of looking for patterns, there just aren't any.

51:09 The differences in the numbers seem completely random. And I think the best explanation for that, as one scholar put it, is, quote, numbers were the absolute bane of the existence of copyists. Numbers were the absolute bane of the existence of copyists. And it turns out, you start looking, that's true all over ancient literature that had to be copied by hand. I mean, they're looking back and forth, right? And they're writing that number, and then they're writing that number, and they're writing that number. And if you've just got a sea of names and numbers, right, the thing that's going to throw you is the numbers. And so I think that's probably what we've got here. Anyway, chapter 7 is a list of all the Israelites who came back to Jerusalem from Babylon in 539. For the most part, honestly, it's not really that remarkable.

51:53 Most of the people here are not mentioned anywhere else. Where they are, it's usually Ezra 2. And you don't even get any interesting asides like we had in the, you know, ring around the wall that we did last week. There's nothing quite like that. There are those three things I want you to see here before we wrap up. There's three things about the way this thing is organized. First of all, I want you to notice in this list that when it comes to the people of God, they always, always know who's in and who's out.

52:25 They know who's in and they know who's out. There's a list. These are the people who are Israelites, and these are the people who aren't. In fact, if you look down at verses 61 and 62, you can see that explicitly. Chapter 7, verse 61. The following were those who came up from Telmelah, Telhashah, Sherub, Adon, and Emmer. But they couldn't prove their father's houses nor their descent, whether they belonged to Israel. They couldn't prove it, and so they wrote their names down as unproven.

52:57 Now, friends, this, this, people, you know, you can always make fun of a guy like me and you can say that that boy can find church membership in any text of the Bible. But this has implications for church membership. People sometimes read the New Testament and we'll get into a discussion about about membership and whether there should be a list of people that are the members of the church or whether it should just be anybody who shows up here on a certain day. And people will sometimes say, well, it's not they'll sometimes say, well, it's not like they kept lists. They weren't that sophisticated. They weren't that picky.

53:28 To which I reply, do you even read the Bible, bro? I mean, Nehemiah 7, Matthew 1, Mark 4, there's a literal entire book called Numbers. The Jews kept lists. They kept lists like their lives depended on it. Who was in and who was out of the community was an existential question to them. And that's true for local churches too. It's critical, in fact, to the life and existence of local churches that they be clear about who's in and who's not.

54:04 Who's representing that church and Christ through them and who's not. Which, of course, is why we put such a premium here on meaningful membership. It's why churches don't normally just say, and it's why they shouldn't say, you know what, if you just show up here, remember, there's always always all the way back to the old testament been a bright line separating who is part of the people of god from who is not i mean does that sound exclusive oh you're excluding people well yes we are we are i mean the gospel's it's you know it's a little ironic like that because it's a wide open invitation to anybody who wants to come and yet it's exclusive to those who actually do come is the gospel exclusive no not in its invitation yes in its membership second thing i want you to notice here is how exactly this list is organized you notice the groups of people that are singled out it's all in categories if you look down in it

55:07 so you got the bulk of the people in seven then you got the priests in 39 then the levites in 43 temple servants in 46, royal servants in 57. See the point? Even as they arrive here in Jerusalem, the people aren't just a mob. They're organizing, and they're organizing. You see it? Priests, temple servants, Levites. They're organizing to do the one thing they were created to do, worship the God of the universe. That's their priority. It's pretty extraordinary, right? I mean, as they're setting out to go 600 miles across the desert, they look around and say, Wait, when we get there, we're not even going to have a temple.

55:44 There's going to be no altar. There's going to be nothing. But we need to be ready. So you're the priests. You're the Levites. Good, we've got it. We've got what we need to worship the living God when we arrive and get the thing rebuilt. Right, they're setting off. They know that they exist to worship. Brothers and sisters, that's why we exist too as we come together. When you come to church on Sunday morning, even Sunday evening, it is not, it is not just for fellowship. It's not just to see each other and have a good time. It's not just to give our kids an outlet to see their friends once a week.

56:16 We gather together as an embassy of heaven to bow to our king. So I wonder if that's the heart you came with today. Maybe it was, and praise God for that. It's not always going to be like that. But if it was today, praise God. But maybe not. Maybe you didn't come in here today with a heart to honor your king. Well, you want to know what my advice to you is, if that's you? The service isn't over yet. We still have the Lord's Supper.

56:48 We're going to do a little bit more singing. So friend, if you walked in here and your heart wasn't in the place to bow to your king, use this time to do what we're here to do. Bow your knee to Jesus. Here's the last thing. Look at 61. That section where they have those people where they can't prove that they're Israelites. Well, a little further down in 63, there's another group who can't prove that they're Levites. So they think they're priests, they think they're Levites, but they look through the registry and they can't find their names.

57:19 And so they say, well, you can't be a priest. You're cut out of that because you're unclean. But then look at 65. Look at 65. They can't find their names. They're excluded from the priesthood. But the governor told them that they were not to partake of the most holy food, that is, become a priest. You can't be a priest until a priest with Urim and Tumim should arise. You know what Urim and Tumim are? Those are the two stones that the high priest alone kept in his breastplate. Kept it all in there. And when he wanted to know the word of God or the will or the mind of God, he would take out Urim and Tumim and he would cast them somehow.

57:53 We don't exactly know how. And Urim and Tumim, these two stones, would tell him what the will of God was. So do you see what he's saying? Do you see what the governor is telling them? This community is being organized together to do the thing that it exists to do. but it's incomplete. We have no high priest to stand between us and God. You see the point? You start to get a flash right there. You start to get a flash of what Nehemiah's book is doing in the canon, how it pushes the story forward.

58:25 And here it is. They don't have a high priest for all they're doing, rebuilding the temple, reestablishing the sacrifices and the temple worship, rebuilding the wall in the great city. They don't have a high priest. They're waiting and waiting and waiting for God to identify one. And you know when that happens? He doesn't. He doesn't identify one. One never shows up for 400 years until the author of Hebrews finally can write, Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.

59:04 let us now hold fast to our confession that's where the story ends finally the great high priest is here it's the high priest that they needed the one that they waited on for four centuries and here's the thing i want you to walk away with you need that high priest just as much as they did You are incomplete without him. You need Jesus, the great high priest, to stand in your place, to be the sacrifice for your sins and to bring you into your rightful place as a royal priesthood before God.

59:46 Don't leave this place this morning without coming to him in faith and receiving mercy from his hand. Let's pray. our Lord we thank you and honor you as the great high priest the one who gave his life for us the one who stands between us and God as a propitiation a sacrifice of atonement for our sins so that it would be you who died and not us so that it would be you who endured the wrath of God and not us for all eternity our Lord the Israelites longed for a high priest and we have you and we thank you for that.

1:00:28 We thank you Lord Jesus for what you have done for us and who you are for us and we pray these things in your name. Amen.