In order to have a public meeting Nehemiah must have pulled his workers off the wall. In normal circumstances this would not have been remarkable, but these were not normal circumstances. Nehemiah’s one goal was to build the wall and to build it quickly before the effort could be stopped by Israel’s enemies. He had everyone working. They were working from the dawn’s first light until the stars came out. In fact, from the moment three days after he had arrived in Jerusalem, when he had begun the building, until now, there had been only one small interval in which the work had been stopped, and that was when a hostile armed attack had seemed imminent (Nehemiah 4.13-14). As soon as the threat passed, Nehemiah had the people back on the walls again.
Yet now Nehemiah stopped the work and held a public meeting. Why was this? There was a problem within now, and it was of such overriding importance that it was necessary to deal with it immediately. What good was it to build the wall, if inside the wall there were people who were exploiting one another?
We ask that question again, and we must ask it of ourselves. What good is it to build great evangelical institutions, constructing walls against the “evil” of our opposing, secular world, if within the walls the so-called people of God are indistinguishable from those without? What good is it to preserve a separate “Christian” identity if Christians behave like unbelievers? To put it in sharp terms, we need to stop calling the world to repent until we repent ourselves.
Of what should we repent? There are scores of things, but a thoughtful consideration of Nehemiah 5 suggests two of them. The nobles of Nehemiah’s day were disobeying the teachings of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Why is it that so many within the evangelical Church take the revealed law of God so casually? It is no surprise that the world does this. The world does not receive the Bible as God’s Book. But we do. We even maintain that it is inerrant “in the whole and in its parts.” How then can we take it so lightly? How can we say, as many so-called evangelicals say, “But that [specific teaching] was for that day, not today.” Or, “Well, we have to be realistic. Life just does not fit those clear-cut categories.” We play loose with the Scriptures, and we need to repent of it. We need to become people of the Book – in fact, and not just in our profession.
We should also repent of putting our personal prosperity before other people’s well-being. That is what these nobles were doing. They were enriching themselves at the expense of poor people. That is what the evangelical Church has been doing as well – or at least enriching itself while disregarding its poorer members. The only times in history in which the Church has been really godly and really strong have been times when it was out rubbing shoulders with the poor and helping them. Revival has always borne fruit among the masses. John Wesley and George Whitefield preached in the fields to common people, not in cathedrals to the privileged.
What is our problem? Is it not love of our money, the very thing that was causing the officials of Nehemiah’s day to exploit those around them? Do we not put the good life for ourselves first, at whatever cost?
The evangelical Church is not consciously exploiting other Christians or even the poor generally, though we are part of a system that makes it difficult for the poor to survive. But listen to this: “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.… We are mortgaging our … homes to get grain.… We have had to borrow money … we are powerless” (Ne.5.2-5). It is all very timely and relevant because, whether or not we exploit them, we certainly do less than we can to help out the poor.
The astonishing thing about this chapter is that Nehemiah succeeded. We know that he faced stiff opposition, because the nobles did not respond when he approached them earlier. Nevertheless, after Nehemiah had exposed the wrong being done and had challenged the offenders to return the pledged fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses, refund the interest, and stop the usury, the nobles responded, “We will give it back … we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”
Nehemiah made sure it happened. He called the priests and had the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. It was the equivalent of drafting a contract. Then he performed a symbolic act, shaking out his garments as a prophetic warning that God would “shake down” anyone who had promised to do the right thing but then later reneged on it. To exact prophetic judgment marked Nehemiah as a man who really did believe in the powers of the world to come and who was in touch with God – not only a transcendent God, but one who was immanent and close to his servants.”
That was Nehemiah’s secret, he was close to God. He had his priorities right and set a consistent example. In fact, Nehemiah did not take the perquisites that might rightly have come to him because of his office: taxes and the good life. On the contrary, he lived out of his own means and used his personal abundance to feed those who were less fortunate. Those who were associated with him followed the pattern. They gave and worked too. It was a magnificent example of servant leadership, and it was because Nehemiah feared God.
That is our pattern. It is the pattern of Jesus who “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt.20.28). If we lead that way, we will be able to say, as Nehemiah does in closing, “Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.”
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org