Abuse within the Spiritual Family

Bible, turn with me to Nehemiah chapter 5. Nehemiah chapter 5, we are going to be in verses 1 through 13. Verses 1 through 13. Now we've been moving along in our study in Nehemiah. If you are keeping up with the number of messages, this is our eleventh message, and we have finished covering all the way through chapter 4. Now here in verse 5 or chapter 5, we're going to notice a big change in the message of the book, and I think I've already clued you into that. If we take a step back, we will remember that chapters 1 through 4 focus primarily on the return of God's people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.

And then in the midst of all of that activity, all of that work, we see that external opposition that they faced, starting in chapter 2 all the way to chapter 4, it's that external opposition that never does go away. Now despite the fact that they were a very small group of people, they were feeble, they faced increasing opposition, but they steadily and successfully continued in the work. They seem to just progress and progress and progress in their weakness. Now here in chapter 5, we're going to see that big change. Previously, we saw the external opposition, and now in chapter 5, we're going to be dealing with internal difficulties.

So it might do you some good to jot those phrases down. Chapters 1 through 4, external opposition, and then in chapter 5, we see internal difficulties. Don't hold your breath because guess what? We come back to external opposition in chapter 6. That's just part of the battle that they did face. Now I want to take a step back before we dive into the verses, and I want us to look at the key, I'm calling it the key to the success in their external opposition, and that was leadership. I have emphasized Nehemiah's leadership all through these chapters, and I'll continue to do that.

And I think it really was the key to their success through these chapters. Now I want to look forward, and I want to look into chapter 5, and I want to tell you that the key to handling internal difficulties successfully is leadership. It might sound redundant, it might sound like I'm being terribly repetitive, but these are things that we need to see. Nehemiah was skilled to lead God's people with the external difficulties and with the internal difficulties, the external opposition and the problems within.

Now in my study this week, I thought about one of the greatest examples that I could ever pull to run parallel with Nehemiah, and that is the Apostle Paul. Now if we zoom into the Apostle Paul, into his life, into the New Testament, we see that Paul wrote 13 letters. If you believe he wrote the book of Hebrews, then he would have written 14 letters. There's much debate as to who wrote the book of Hebrews.

Now if you look at these letters, Paul's letters in chronological order, he wrote first and second Thessalonians, he wrote first and second Corinthians, then he writes Galatians and Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and first and second Timothy, and Titus. Now why do I mention all of these books? In all but one of these books, he is writing the specific churches or the church in general, and a big part of what he is dealing with is exactly what Nehemiah faced in chapter 5, internal difficulties. Internal difficulties. That's why he was writing primarily to Timothy there in first and second Timothy.

He's there at Ephesus and he's dealing with all kinds of internal problems. And so I bring that to the forefront because I want you to see that leadership is the key in God's work in dealing with internal difficulties. I'll give you another example. We learned that in our study in the book of Revelation, studying through the seven churches there. And we saw that the Lord Jesus wrote letters through the Apostle John and he was dealing with external opposition and internal difficulties. And who did he address the letters to? The pastors, the leaders.

They were nameless and faceless, but the Lord Jesus was depending on the pastors, the messengers, to take that message and to flesh it out, whether it was encouragement or correction. Now I want to pause here and I want to talk to you just for a minute as your pastor. I want to tell you that that is exactly the problem that we have today in many churches. Many churches are not able to get through their problems because of a lack of leadership. Many churches do not have biblically called or biblically qualified or obedient elders who govern the affairs of the church. You know that I've taught through the church offices.

Deacons are to serve the church and elders are to govern the affairs of the church. Elders are the ones who preach and teach. Those are two different offices, but many churches are sick and they have internal difficulties because they don't have men of God who are able to deal with the problems at hand. Now I'm not saying that a church is going to be perfect. I've said this to you many times. There will be a day when difficulties will come our way, but the key is leadership. It's leadership and that's why we key so much on Nehemiah because he was a great man of God who was used in a great, great way.

And we're going to continue to see him being used in a great way. Now let me give you the title of the message. The title of the message is abuse within the spiritual family. Abuse within the spiritual family. And some of my study this week, one of the commentators I read called it a community. I like the word spiritual family. We're going to see language that speaks to that. Brothers, sisters. That's language that you use in a family. And we're going to look at verses one through 13. You see the truths that we're going to look at. The crisis among the people. That's verses one through five. Nehemiah addresses the problem.

Verses six through eleven. And then the offenders accept the solution. The offenders or the guilty accept the solution. And that's the last two verses. Verse 12 and 13. Let's dive into the verses and then we'll get started in the message. Verse one. Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against the Jewish brothers. See that family type language right there in verse one. For there were those who said we our sons and our daughters are many therefore let us get grain that we may eat and live.

And there were others who said we are more mortgaging our fields our vineyards and our houses that we might get grain because of the famine. Also there were those who said we have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and on our vineyards. And now our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers our children like their children. Yet behold we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves. And some of our daughters are forced into bondage already and we are helpless because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.

Then verse six Nehemiah says I was angry when I heard their outcry and these words and I consulted with myself and I contended with the nobles and the rulers and I said to them you are exacting nursery against each from his brother. Therefore I held a great assembly against them and I said to them we according to our ability have redeemed our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations. Now would you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us. Then they were silent and they could not find a word to say. Again I said the thing which you are doing is not good.

Should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations our enemies. And likewise I my brothers and my servants are lending them money in grain. Please let us give off or leave off this usury. Please give back to them this very day their fields their vineyards and their olive groves and their houses. Also the hundredth part of the money and of the grain and the new wine and the oil you are exacting from them. Verse 12 then they said we will give it back and we will require nothing from them. We will do exactly as you say. So I call the priests and took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.

Also shook out the front of my garment and I said thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not fulfill this promise. Even thus may he be shaken out and emptied and all of the assembly said Amen and they praise the Lord and then the people did according to this promise. So you see before you the first main truth I want us to examine tonight and that is the crisis among the people. This great crisis among the people. Now if you examine verses 1 through 5 you will see that we have the perfect storm of problems. I want you to get that language. We have the perfect storm of problems.

You can say that the stars really have aligned with several problems to form one big problem or one big crisis. Now if you do a little study and you look at the calendar you can see how some of this came about. This all takes place at the time of the year when the wall was almost finished and it was at the end of the time of the harvest. This was when the creditors would have been wanting payment on the loans that they had taken out and on top of that the work demanded that the people neglect their own crops to devote themselves to the work on the wall. And all this came together.

This perfect storm of small problems to create this major, major crisis. There are several things I want us to look at out of these verses. So I want us to look at first the outcry from the people. What do we see there in verse 1? Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. Now all of the translations whether you use the King James or a modern translation use the word cry or outcry. Now this was more than an angry complaint. It involved the emotions and it was a very obvious and outward expression of true, raw feelings. We see this type of outcry in Exodus chapter 3 verse 9.

This is when the Israelites were crying out. They were crying out to God because they were in Egyptian slavery. And this was a deep, deep problem. They were in slavery and bondage and they were being treated cruelly. That is the exact same word. So this was more than just a verbal outcry. This was an expression of a very deep hurt and a very deep problem. But I want you to notice the depth of this outcry. The depth of this outcry. This seemingly came from all the people because what does it say? There was a great outcry of the people and of their wives. So it wasn't just the men. It was the men and the women.

And then notice in the text we see that this was against their fellow Jews. What does it say? This was against their Jewish brothers. These were supposed to be family. So what do we see here? This was seemingly coming from all of the people. And then this was against brothers and sisters in Christ, if I can use that New Testament language. These were fellow Jews. So we see the outcry from the people. Then second I want you to notice the description of the crisis. This comes out of verses 2 through 5. This is rather lengthy. But here we have a great problem on multiple levels.

Here we have several problems which come together at the same time to form a major problem and a major crisis. Now I want us to examine this description and we're going to see this problem is really four sided. It is really four sided. Notice that there was a population problem. Look at verse 2. "For there were those who said, 'We, our sons and our daughters, aren't many.'" So this tells us there was a population problem. This problem came about because of two reasons. First, they had many children. The language reads "sons and daughters." This isn't a bad thing. This is a good thing. But they had a population explosion.

But also, second, it says that they remained in Jerusalem or they were congregated because of the work. Remember back in chapter 4 verse 22, they were asked to stay because the work was so important. So they were congregated and they were blessed. But this was a population problem. Then I want you to notice that there was a recent famine. We see that in verse 3. There was a recent famine. The verse reads that there was a famine, but we need to see why there was a famine. There were two reasons for this problem. First, it says that there was too much rain for the crops.

Now I've told you before, this story of Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther and Hagia are all part of the same account of God's people. So if you look in Ezra chapter 10 and then Hagia chapter 1, it mentions the fact that they had too much rain. So there was too much rain for the crops. And then second, they were not able to tend their own crops because of the work on the wall. They neglected their own fields to build the wall. So there was a recent famine. Then third, I want you to see, this is the third side of that problem. There was the tax burden. We see that in verse 4. They had to borrow money to pay taxes.

Here we see that these people were still paying taxes to who? To the Persians. All of the Persian provinces had to pay taxes to the king. Now some have speculated that this was an overtaxation, but there is no evidence for that position. This tax simply came at the wrong time. And then the fourth side of the problem was there was the most grievous, this was a slave problem. There was a slave problem. Look at verse 5. And now our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children like their children, yet behold we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves.

This might sound appalling to most of us here in this room, but in the ancient east slavery was a common, common thing. Individuals would sell themselves with their children to the service of a creditor to pay off a debt which they had incurred and they could not pay. This was called a debt of slavery. Now in the Old Testament, the Old Testament law, there were stipulations that said that debt slaves would have to be released from their duties when the debt was worked off or in the seventh year. We see that in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy chapter 15.

Also the book of Leviticus commanded that debt slaves were to be released at the year of Jubilee and we see that in Leviticus chapter 25. So what do we see here? This is a description of this terrible crisis and I said it had four sides. It was a population problem, it was a recent famine, there was a great tax burden and then there was this slavery issue. So what do we see here? This is the crisis. This is the crisis among God's people. This is the perfect storm of circumstances that brought about all of these problems, these small problems that came together to form this one major problem.

But we must see the major problem underneath all of these problems. And if you noticed it in the language, the nobles, the officials, the more wealthy of the Jews were taking advantage of the common people during their time of work and crisis. You see? And that is the serious problem that came out in this, I call it perfect storm of crisis. Now, I want you to look with me at this problem. What do we have?

Several problems come together, one major problem, it happened all at the right time, the stars just had to align, but the major problem was how the wealthy were dealing with the common, how the nobles and the officials were dealing with the poor. Now we can react to this one of two ways or we can interpret this one of two ways. First, we can say that this work, what is the work? The building of the walls, what is the work? Coming back to rebuild Jerusalem. We can say that the work of God produced the problem. Or we can say that the problem was already there, but the work of God brought that problem to the forefront.

I would have to fall in the ladder rather than the former. I do not believe that the fault can lay at the feet of the work of God because then God would be at fault. No, it was these circumstances, yes, but the work of God exposed this. I don't have a problem believing that maybe this was in the heart of those noblemen and those officials and those wealthy Jews, it could have been in their hearts when they came back from Persia. Maybe they picked that up as they were successful in a foreign land. But what do we see?

The heart of the problem was how brothers were treating brothers, how brothers were treating sisters, sisters were treating sisters. These were God's people. This was the family of God. So what do we see? We see a terrible, terrible crisis in the family of God. So let's just continue through the message. Let's notice Nehemiah addresses the problem. Nehemiah addresses the problem. We saw that in verse six. It was rather strange. He was very angry and he addresses the problem all the way down to verse 11. Now here we see the great leadership of Nehemiah on display. Now you might think that's strange. Great leadership, angry?

Does that go together? Sometimes it does. From the beginning we see that Nehemiah has never been afraid to step forward. Back when he was in Persia, he was just a cup bearer to the king. But when God had done this work, he stepped forward in prayer and then he stepped forward in confession to the Persian king. From chapter two all the way through chapter four, Nehemiah stepped forward to face that external opposition and here he steps forward to address the great problem within the family. Now three observations I want to make here. We've already seen this in verse six, but Nehemiah was very angry. Look at that language.

That I was very angry when I heard their outcry. Here we see that Nehemiah expresses a normal human emotion, but this was not sin. He did not sin in this anger. We might say it today like this. This was a righteous indignation. He had a right to be angry. The behavior of those Jews, those nobles, those noblemen, those officials, the wealthy, threatened all of the physical work in the entire family of faith. This could have destroyed all that they had come back for.

This type of societal sin and mistreatment was part of what had destroyed the nation when Jeroboam led the northern ten tribes to revolt against the rule of Rheoboam and we saw that in 1 Corinthians 12. So Nehemiah being the man of God, knowing the word of God, knew what happened when the Jews had done this before. He was very angry because all of the work that they had done so well was jeopardized right here. Second, I want you to notice that Nehemiah confronted the guilty. Verse 7, "He consulted within himself and then he contended with the nobles and the rulers and he said to them." This goes all the way down to verse 11.

So here we see that Nehemiah is calling the guilty to their sin and to repentance. We see in verse 7 that he called a great public assembly. Go back to the verse, "I consulted with myself and I contended with the nobles and the rulers and I said to them, 'You're exacting ersery that is exorbitant interest from your brothers, therefore I held a great assembly.'" So this is a public confrontation and he revealed to them that they were sinning against family because we see in verse 8, what does he do? He uses that same language from verse 1, "brothers." So he says you are sinning against your own brothers.

Now notice that he names the two grievous sins. This is part of that confrontation of the guilty. First, that strange language of exacting ersery from your brother. Let me help you with that. Simply this was loaning with interest to their brothers. Now that might not sound like such a great sin to you, but this was forbidden among the Jews according to the Old Testament law. Exodus 22 verse 25, Deuteronomy 23.19 teaches that they were not to charge their brother's interest. So they were brazenly disobeying God's word that they would have known. So they were charging interest against their brothers.

The second thing was that they were taking property in pledges. Verse 11, what do we see? "Please give back to them this very day their fields and their vineyards and olive groves and their houses." So what do we see? They were taking the property of the poor who could not pay back their loans as well as the interest that they owed on those loans. And again, this was forbidden in the Old Testament Scriptures. So Nehemiah confronted the guilty. He called them to their sin. He commanded them to repent. There was a great assembly, and then he names the specific sins that they were committing. And then third, notice Nehemiah was an example.

Look at verse 10, "And likewise I my brothers, I my servants are lending them money and grain." So that might sound like a contradiction here, and all of the translators, all of the commentators and scholars that I read seem to think that Nehemiah was not guilty of exacting or pulling interest from the loans, but he was loaning as he should be according to the Scriptures. So Nehemiah is saying, "Let go of the interest, and if you must loan to your brother, loan to your brother, not looking to take advantage of your brother." So here we see that Nehemiah addressed the problem, but he offered a solution to the problem.

He simply said to obey the Word of God and to follow his example. But I want you to notice he gives them motivation. He offered them motivation. Now, this was a two-fold motivation. First, to be obedient to God, and second, for the testimony to the nations. Go back to verse 9, "And I said, 'The thing which you are doing is not good, should you not walk in the fear of our God?'" In other words, do you not love the Lord? That is the primary motivation. And then he goes on to say, "Because the reproach of the nations are enemies," in other words, what about your witness?

So this was a two-fold motivation to come clean and repent and to do it according to the Word of God, because they loved God and they wanted to walk with God, and they did care about their testimony among the nations. Let's move on. Notice our third main truth. Notice that the offenders accept the solution. The offenders, they do accept the solution. I want to go back and read these verses, verses 12 and 13. "Then they said, 'We will give it back, and we will require nothing from them. We will do exactly as you say.' So I called the priests and I took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.

I also shook out the front of my garment, and I said, 'Thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not fulfill this promise. Even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.' And all of the assembly said, 'Amen.'" And then it says that they praise the Lord, and then the people did according to this promise. Here we see a good thing, but from our cultural perspective, a strange thing. We must realize that from our cultural perspective this even sounds bizarre, but I want us to see two observations here. First of all, the guilty did seem to repent. Isn't that what we see there in verse 12?

"They said, 'We will do what you say we should do.'" Here it seems that God used Nehemiah to strike at their conscience. Now, I like that word conscience. I'm not sure where I'll pick that up, but it was in some of my reading this week. But we must understand what a conscience is. A conscience is that God-given tool that is based on that system of right and wrong that you have been given. And these people would have known the Old Testament Scriptures. So Nehemiah struck at their conscience according to the Word of God that they knew. And so their conscience was stricken.

And it seems that these community leaders were broken and they were willing to do all that Nehemiah had previously commanded them to do. So they seemed to repent. And then notice that Nehemiah, he called down a possible curse. This is where it really starts to sound strange. So I called the priests, this is the second part of verse 12, "And I took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise." And notice verse 13, "And I also shook out the front of my garment, and I said, 'Thus may God shake out every man from His house and from His possessions who does not fulfill this promise.

Even thus may He be shaken out and emptied.'" Here we see that Nehemiah took an oath from them before the priests who would have been the spiritual leaders of the day. He was making them give an oath before God. And not only did he take an oath, but he called these who were guilty to take an oath that they would fully repent. But notice in verse 13, Nehemiah does this strange thing. "This was nothing more than a symbolic act which was announcing a curse on all who would go back on what they said they would do.

If they disobeyed in light of what God had said, then they would receive a curse from God." So here we see that the guilty seemed to repent. But why didn't Nehemiah take their word? Why didn't he just take their word? Why the priests? Why the spiritual leaders? Why the oath? Why this seeming possible curse? Did he not trust them? Did God not trust them? I don't think either of those two were the case. I think that that was God through Nehemiah calling them to full repentance. They were a covenant people. They were not to live like the pagan people.

They were to live their lives as they related to their brothers and sisters according to the Word of God. And this was a serious work that they were involved in. And this was a serious sin that was disrupting the family. And so this was them being called to full repentance and then if they wouldn't repent they would receive an enduer. Serious ramifications. Now as we move away from the text I want us to step back and look at what we have looked at. Beginning of chapter 5 verses 1 through 13. This is abuse within the spiritual family. Abuse.

The leaders, the noblemen, the officials, those wealthy, how they related to their brothers and sisters, those that were poor. Remember that perfect storm of circumstances all came together to bring this out. And this was a horrible abuse. It was against their own brothers and sisters. Now all through this study in Nehemiah you know that I have been paralleling the church, the work of God today alongside this work. This was the center of God's activity in that day. The Jews were God's chosen people and the center of God's activity was to rebuild Israel as a nation, to rebuild Jerusalem and the worship of the one true God there.

If you looked all around the globe you could find the center of God's work right there. I've said it and I'll say it again. In our day the center of God's activity is the church. So again we're paralleling our day with their day. Now what can we learn? We must see that abuses even of this magnitude can happen within the life of the church today. You've seen some of this and you might not have realized it. I've seen it, I've witnessed it and it's heartbreaking. I want to give you three ways in which sometimes this can be seen in the life of the church. Now remember the New Testament church we're supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

Last Mother's Day we looked at what we called the reality of a relationship change. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, part of the body. These three ways where I see this abuse happen today. Sometimes we see the spiritual leaders in the life of the church abuse the people of God. Many times ministers were lured over the people. Many times ministers will demand big salaries. Many times ministers will demand more and they will give less. Many times ministers of the gospel will overlook the needy in the life of the church to do what? To placate those who come from a certain family, who have a certain job, who give a certain amount.

Now we've learned that the elders are to serve. Peter said I'm a fellow servant and a fellow elder and he says in 1 Peter he calls those elders to do what? To serve. Elders are not to lord over. Elders are to serve and some of you have seen that. Brother Keith and I know a particular minister that incurred some grievous burdens on people even causing them to uproot their families in a grievous way to leave their jobs, turn their backs on their families to do what? Just to come to be a part of his little kingdom. Same difference. Taking advantage of God's people. But you know I've seen it turned around.

I've known of churches who abuse the ministers of the gospel that God's given them. I've seen churches take advantage of God's men. I'll give you an example. I've got a friend of mine, ministers on church staff in another state and he was telling me about how his particular church had abused staff member, pastor after pastor after pastor. They had a minister on staff, pastor on staff and for over 25 years they did not compensate the man of God as they should have. You know it was swept under the rug for 25 years and 25 years later people in the church found out and they were grievously, horribly mortified.

And then in the life of that same church, minister after minister would try to lead the people of God and they would run roughshod over him. That's exactly what we have here. That goes on in the life of the church today. Brother Keith and I have seen it. You've seen it. And then the third abuse that we see sometimes, it is when God brings needy people in the life of the church and brothers and sisters will not tend to the needs of the poor around them. Is it that what we learned about in the epistle of James? What did James say? Listen, you have a faith of words. I don't care about your words. You show me your faith by what you do.

You say to your brother or sister, "Oh go be well, be well fed. God will bless you but then you won't meet their needs when they're legitimate." Now I'll say this, there are a lot of people, their needs are not legitimate. The Thessalonica church, they had a problem because some of them wouldn't work. They wouldn't take care of their own needs. But every now and then there's a need that comes along where the men and women of God need to step up and minister. And I have seen churches ignore true needs. Same thing. Selfishness, greed, hoarding and therefore abusing. Now what do we need to see?

We need to see the title of the message, abuse within the spiritual family. Now we all come from different circumstances. I didn't grow up with abuse in my family and I don't have abuse in my home. But there are some people that come from abusive, destructive family lives. But I have been in the church and have experienced abuse. And let me tell you something, it hurts. It hurts. That happened quite a few years ago in Nehemiah's day. But I thank the Lord that Nehemiah stepped up to deal with the problem. Now as I close, this is what I want to ask you to do. I want to ask you to pray for the leaders that God's given you.

Brother Keith and I fulfill the role of biblical elders here. We are here to serve you, administer to you, teach you the word and govern the affairs of the church. We don't lord over you. We never have. It's never been our style. We serve you because we love Him first and we love the church and we love you. And you pray for us that we will, now listen, be Nehemiah, men of God. And then you pray for future leaders. The day will come when we will need deacons. Men of God who serve, who take care of physical needs. And therefore, that alleviates needs that Brother Keith and I sometimes can be pulled into. But pray for deacons.

Pray for future elders. There's going to be a day when we will need other elders to come inside and come alongside to do what? To continue to lead. And pray that we would have those men. Because like I said, it all hinges on leadership. One of the men of God the other night praying, he caught my ear, he prayed that the Nola Baptist Church will be strong and faithful for generations to come. And the only way that will ever, ever happen is if we have strong leadership. Abuse within the spiritual family. Let's pray.