Neh No.10 Holiness in Action

Chapter 5, a passage which will challenge us regarding our own Christian lifestyle and our conduct before God and our fellow men and women. There was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren, the Jews. Some also there were that said, we have mortgaged our lands, vineyards and houses.

That we might buy corn because of the dearth. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children and lo! We bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already. Neither is it in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.

Then I consulted with myself and I rebuked the nobles and the rulers and said unto them, you exact usury, means interest, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. Also I said, it is not good that ye do, ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen, our enemies? Restore, I pray you, to them even this day their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money and of the corn, the wine and the oil that ye exact of them.

Also I shook my lap and said, so God shake out every man from his house and from his labour that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied. And all the congregation said Amen and praised the Lord, and the people did according to this promise. But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people and had taken of them bread and wine, beside forty shekels of silver, yes, even their servants bear rule over the people.

But so did not I because of the fear of God. Moreover, there were at my table an hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers beside those that came unto us from among the heathen that are about us. Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.

Amen. Now I would be grateful if you would have your Bibles open at the fifth chapter of the book of Nehemiah. And if you don't have a Bible and someone alongside you does, then I'm sure they would be quite happy to let you have a look as we refer to this passage of Scripture from time to time.

But let me lead off our meditation this morning by making this pronouncement. Holiness is not a passive quality. I mean by that that holiness is something that must be recognized.

If it exists at all in anyone's life, it is visible. It is seen in their lifestyle by the way that they behave. Holiness is not something that really has to be unearthed by some curious spectator looking on the scene.

It's rather a feature that becomes increasingly apparent as you consider the way that a man conducts his affairs on this earth. Out there in the East there is a certain type of person that is referred to as a guru. You probably know that that's a Sanskrit word, at least it has its origin in that language, and it conveys the idea of a man who's set apart, completely different from anyone else.

And generally you notice this because maybe he's got a long flowing beard or his style of attire, his dress, or where he lives. He's known to be a guru, a holy man. Well, I am making a plea, if you like, this morning for Christian gurus.

Not that I'm suggesting you should all grow beards. The ladies may have great problems. Nor am I suggesting that you change the place where you live.

Rather that we are to cultivate that holiness which is seen, illustrated so often in the Old and the New Testament. An active holiness that differentiates between the one who has belief in God and is serving the Lord, as opposed to other people. And I say that that holiness is an active thing.

Before now I've observed from the Scriptures that one of the statements that impresses me the most concerning someone as apart from our Lord Jesus Christ is tucked away in the Gospel of Mark, where there's no need for you to turn to it. You find in the sixth chapter and the twentieth verse a reference to Herod and John. And you come across this statement, Herod feared John.

And I say that that's rather a remarkable statement for these reasons. Herod was so different from John that you would feel the observation should be the other way around. Herod had armies at his command, servants who foisted attention upon him.

He had political influence. He had a wardrobe that was second to none. And when you contrast that with John, you find that John is totally different in his lifestyle.

His wardrobe, well, it's such that neither you nor I would particularly want to wear it on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening for that matter. And his menu will be rather different from the one that confronts you when you go home for your Sunday lunch. As for his influence, well, he has no armies.

On the political, on the military level, there is nothing going for him. And yet Herod feared John. Why? Well, because of the quality of John's life.

Herod, the scripture goes on to say, knew that John was a just man and a holy man. And it was the righteousness and the holiness of John which had such an effect upon Herod that he almost cringed in the presence of the Baptist. The counterfeit was brought up against the genuine and was embarrassed.

Guilt was in the presence of gold and felt cheap. There is a quality of holiness that is active, that makes an impact upon the person who is brought face to face with the holy man. And what I want to say is this, in the way of developing these opening observations, that what we require in the tabernacle fraternity, in this Christian family that meets here Sunday by Sunday and during the week, are not personalities that are charismatic in nature, not people who are necessarily informed with the intricacies of the Reformed faith.

What any local community of Christians demands and desires, if they are to be effective in the advance of the kingdom of God, is a membership that is 100% holy. There's an activity in holiness which is so necessary for someone to make an impact, for a community to make an impact upon a godless society. Now, I say that within this chapter there are certain principles which we can unearth and apply to our own hearts, to ourselves as individuals or our church as a community this morning, and we shall profit by so doing.

For Nehemiah, like our Lord Jesus Christ, who is yet to live, as far as Nehemiah was concerned, illustrates and epitomizes the holy life. And it's because of this that he's successful in the service of God. Well, let me show you four activities, if you like, four things that stem from a holy personality.

What does holiness engage in? The first observation is this, holiness promotes compassion. Holiness promotes compassion. I love the words which refer to the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels and tell us that when Jesus was confronted with a great multitude, he had compassion upon them.

Some were like sheep without a shepherd, and some had got shepherds or people who were masquerading as leaders and they were deadly in the ministry that they were exercising. When Jesus came across such deluded people or such leaderless people, then his holy heart went out in compassion. On one occasion, he spots a woman who's bereft not only of her husband but also of her son.

She's a widow, and the holiness of Jesus embraces her with a compassion, and he meets her particular need. When thousands of people have accompanied him and listened to what he has to say for hour after hour, and he realizes that they've got to go on their homeward journey with no food in their stomach, then his compassion goes out and embraces their need, and he brings their predicament to the attention of his disciples. Holiness is an active quality, and it promotes compassion.

Now, here you see it demonstrated in the life of this holy man, Nehemiah, this, if you like, Hebrew guru. In the opening verses of this chapter, we're presented with this scene. An increasing number of people have come to Jerusalem.

That is obvious. They've returned from Persia. We've already learned that in past meditations.

But the land around Jerusalem has not been worked for a long time, not to throw up the harvest that's necessary to sustain such a citizenship as there is in the holy city. And in verse 2, we're confronted with the predicament of many of the folks who've returned from the land of bondage and tyranny. We, our sons and our daughters, are many.

Therefore, we take up corn for them, that we may eat and live. And some of these people didn't have sufficient money. The third verse brings this out.

And so what do they do? Well, they have to mortgage their land. The bit of property that they own, they have to bring it onto the market so that they can get money to buy food which is in scarce supply. And on top of that, in the fourth verse, these people also are straightened because though Artaxerxes has been kindly towards Nehemiah, Palestine is still a land controlled by the Persians and a tax has to be paid.

So you've got the scene. The inhabitants in Jerusalem are under financial pressure on two fronts, one for food and two to pay the tax. And believe it or not, there are those within the redeemed community in Israel who've got money, who are able to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters, and what they do is this, they exploit the situation.

And if you read in the fifth verse, you will see that they charged interest which was extortionate. And some of their fellow Hebrews had to put their children into slavery so that they could get sufficient money to live on. Now what does a holy man do when he's confronted with the needs of the poor? He's promoted to exercise compassion towards the underprivileged.

Thus verse six, I was very angry when I heard their cry. And these words, righteous indignation, it issued from the heart of this holy man, for holiness will never retain silence. Holiness will never have discretion.

Holiness is bound to react to a situation that is manifestly unjust. Holiness, I say, is an active quality. It promotes compassion.

That's seen in the life of the holiest man of all, our Lord Jesus. It's seen in the character of a lesser man, Nehemiah. Is it seen in your life and mine? But more than this, holiness produces concern.

That's the second observation. Holiness promotes a compassion, but holiness produces a concern. Now some of you may say, well there you're juggling with words.

The two things amount to the same, but they don't. The compassion that was directed towards the people is different from the concern to which I now make reference and is discovered in the ninth verse. Why is Nehemiah so compassionate towards the people? Well, because he is concerned for the reputation of God.

Let's read that ninth verse. I said to the Hebrews, it is not good that you do ought. It is not good that ye do.

Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen, our enemies. What was at stake in the Hebrew community? Well, not just the lack of food and therefore the perpetual hunger of certain unfortunate Hebrews, but the reputation of God. You say, what do you mean? Well, you may not like this, but it remains a perennial truth that pagan people, unbelievers, deduce what God is like and the value of your religion from the lifestyle of believers themselves, of adherents.

Let's express this another way by dipping into the New Testament. Jesus was one day angry. Righteous indignation, it commanded the whole of his personality at that point.

Why is he annoyed? It's not normal to the Lord Jesus Christ to show such vehemence. Well, he's at Jerusalem. He's come into the precincts of the temple and he's confronted with a situation that astonishes him.

It's more like the Jerusalem Stock Exchange. And there's no morality, not amongst the traders and the money changers who are exploiting people, ordinary Hebrews who've come to worship God. There's a terrible racket going on.

And it's said prophetically of the Lord Jesus on this occasion, the zeal of thine house has eaten me out. What does that mean? Unscramble that language. Well, it means just this, that the casual Roman soldier going down the road outside the temple, seeing what's going on, will come to the conclusion that religion can't mean much to the Jews if they're exploiting one another in its practice.

The reputation of God was going by default at Jerusalem because of the way that the Hebrews were conducting their religious affairs. Jesus saw this and there's righteous indignation. I'll give you another example, in case it's not clear at the moment.

The Apostle Paul, you remember when he's writing to the Romans, the Roman Christians, he makes reference in the first three chapters to the fact that the Hebrew community and the Gentile community are under the judgment of God. Now why does he criticize the Jews? Well, for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is this. The way that they conduct their affairs in the Gentile world, those Jews who've been dispersed throughout the Mediterranean lands, the way that they conduct their affairs brings their religion into such an estimation on the part of the Gentiles that they deduce that anyone who lives like that has got nothing to offer to the Gentiles.

Their religion themselves, their religion itself does not seem to control the Jewish lifestyle. And the name of God, says the Apostle, the words come clearly to me now from the A.V. Versia, the name of God is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles because of you. Holiness produces a concern for the reputation of God.

Here are these Jewish people, they're back in Jerusalem, they've been joined together in the project of building the wall. That's bound them, but they're being divided because of greed, because of avarice. Now who's looking on? You remember there are members of hostile tribes.

We came across them in the first verse and the third verse of the fourth chapter of Sanballat, Tobiah. Now they are witnessing this scene, the building of the wall. That's fine, that suggests dedication and sincerity in the service of God.

But they're beginning to hear rumors of the way the Jews are treating one another, back there behind the wall. And that brings the very reputation of God into disrepute. And when a holy man is confronted with this situation, what does he do? He comes to the offending party and he says, that's not on.

No way. You cannot treat one another like this. Because God's name is tarnished by your conduct.

And he reminds the Jews in the eighth verse of the great deliverance that God wrought to their forefathers from Egypt, the way that God arranged for their emancipation, for their redemption from the land of bondage. Now says Nehemiah, can you, looking back upon such great mercy at the hands of God, treat your fellow poor Jews in such a reprehensible fashion? It's illogical. Similarly, within the redeemed community of the twentieth century, can we treat our fellow Christians in a callous, in a cruel way? Could we exploit our brother in Christ and still say the Lord's prayer? Could we ask God each day to give us our daily bread and refuse to share what we have with others if they are in need? Could we ferment division and discord within the Christian community when the Lord Jesus Christ bled on the cross of Calvary to bind us together as a family? I tell you that the world in the twentieth century judges God.

And that's rather a terrible thing for them to believe that they can do in any case. But nonetheless they do. They judge the value of the Christian faith by members of the Christian community.

Samballot and Tobiah would have been disgusted at the conduct behind the walls at Jerusalem. Nehemiah realizes this. It's not just compassion towards the ordinary folk that he has got, and it's genuine, but he has a concern for the reputation of God.

And holiness compels him to contact the Jews and to correct this contradiction in their lifestyle. Holiness, I say, my friend, is an active quality. Promotes compassion.

Produces concern. And what's more, holiness preserves a contrast. Come down to verse 15.

And here there's a personal allusion to Nehemiah's style of living and his way of conducting his office as governor of Jerusalem over against his predecessors. The former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people and had taken of them bread and wine beside forty shekels of silver. Yes, even their servants bear rule of the people.

But so did not I because of the fear of God. Yea, also I continued in the work of this wall. What have you got here? A contrast.

A contrast in the way that the former governors, the former rulers of Jerusalem, behaved themselves as opposed to the holy man, Nehemiah. To put it colloquially, Nehemiah didn't feather his own nest. No, he had every right to do.

The king had made, the emperor had made it possible for governors to make themselves rich at the expense of ordinary people. Nehemiah could have done this. Forty shekels could have been brought to him by the ordinary people.

A colossal sum of money. But Nehemiah will have none of it. Others may live like this.

Others may command their rights. But so did not I. Holiness preserves a contrast. In our series on the cults so far, and we'll have to make more comment later on as the weeks go by, we have reflected on how some of the founders of these religious deviations from the truth have enriched themselves as a result.

Brigham Young, you remember, the second president of the Mormon church, died with a fortune of 400,000 pounds, which in the late 1880s, 1890s was a colossal sum of money, left also to boot 17 wives and, what did I tell you on Thursday, 56 or 58 children. Made himself rich as a result of the teaching that he declared in the southern states of the USA. Take the Reverend Moon of the Unification Church.

Lives now in a mansion just outside New York City. A millionaire, several times over. Just bought one of the largest hotels in America.

Possibility of buying up more. And yet followers of Moon in the Unification Church, you see them in Worthing, you see them in Brighton, you see them in London, spend hour after hour selling their candles and their candy and certain books, certain literature, and that money is channeled into the Unification Church. Those dear, largely young people who've been so hoodwinked live a meager lifestyle and enrich Moon.

I'll take the founder of the Church of Scientology, Hubbard. The amount of wealth that he has, as he floats around on his yacht in the Mediterranean. These people who have used religion to benefit themselves, now they stand over in contrast against the founder of the Christian faith, the Lord Jesus, who has a holiness which preserves a contrast.

His lifestyle is compatible with what he taught. So, Nehemiah. But so did not I because of the fear of God.

The Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Thessalonica. The first letter that he sends off to them, he makes reference to the time that he spent in Thessalonica proclaiming the Gospel. And in the tenth verse of the second chapter, he says this, You are witnesses, and God also.

How wholly and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. The Apostle Paul could not be brought to task as though his lifestyle was not complementing what he preached. It dovetailed.

There was an alignment. And because of that, he had a power. Now, you see, this is very much the reason why Herod recoils in the presence of John.

John is consistent. Herod, as I argued before, was guilt. John is gold.

Bring the two together, and there's embarrassment. Similarly, Nehemiah. Why is it that these people accept what he has to say? Well, because he can point to his own life, and he does so without embarrassment.

If you feel that I am asking of you more than I am giving, then point it out to me. Charles Spurgeon, who exercised such a phenomenal ministry in London during the latter part of the last century, on one occasion was bold enough to say, Examine my life. I stand before this congregation of 5,000 people.

I have done so for 30-odd years. Now, examine my life, any particle of it, and show me where what I am teaching from this pulpit is not illustrated in my lifestyle. And you couldn't unearth scandal at the back of Spurgeon's life.

The very holiness, you see, of the man, it had its own authentication of his ministry. People came to listen to him. They saw there a contrast between him and others to whom they had listened.

Holiness is an active quality, my friend. It promotes compassion. It produces concern.

It preserves the contrast. And finally, holiness presents a consecration. It presents a consecration.

Look at the 19th verse, and you'll see what I mean. Nehemiah has assessed his own way of living in Jerusalem. And now he bursts into prayer, as you often find him doing in this little book.

And he says, Think upon me, O God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people. What does that language mean? Well, when you examine it, here is Nehemiah bringing to God the greatest tribute that Almighty God can ever receive. He's bringing him a holy life.

He's presenting his own consecration. Emblazoned upon the garment of the high priest in the Old Testament dispensation were the words, Holiness unto the Lord. Do you remember I read to you from Psalm 23 before we commenced the service, or as we were commencing the service this morning? And there you get the... Psalm 24, rather.

There you get the question asked, Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up himself unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. Listen to the Apostle Paul again as he's writing to the church at Thessalonica, the same epistle as I quoted from a moment or so ago. Chapter 4 and verse 7. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

Chapter 3 and verse 12. The Lord make you increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you. To the end he may establish your hearts, unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

Holiness promotes compassion, produces concern for the reputation of God, preserves a contrast in the lifestyle of the one who is holy over opposed to those who are unholy, and it presents a consecration. You can take it to the Lord and you can give it to him. I said at the outset of our meditation what we want in this company of people are not those with fantastic personalities, not people with influence necessarily politically in national or local government affairs, not people who are incisive in their understanding of theology and can out-Calvin John Calvin.

What we need to make an impact in this town is a family whose members are holy. Without holiness, my dear friend, you'll never see God. And I'll tell you something else, a rider that's twinned with that one.

Without holiness, you'll never work effectively for God. And Nehemiah stands out as an example, and he's pointing to an even greater one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who on one occasion challenged his adversaries, his enemies, and he said, which one of you findeth sin in me? Come and expose it. And no one took up the gauntlet because they knew it was a challenge to which they could not rise.

He was clean. He was pure. And two things followed.

He was powerful and successful. Holiness in action. May we see it more and more.

Amen. Deliver us from any mere sentimentality or any mere emotionalism. May we follow one.

May there be active holiness in our lives that is translated into compassion for others, into concern for yourself, into contrast that our lives throw up against the lives of unbelievers, and to a consecration which we can present before you. So bless us this day. Bring us back to the fellowship this evening.

And may we know even more of your presence. For Jesus' sake. Amen.