Nehemiah 13:1-5
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WE return to this last chapter of Nehemiah and particularly the opening verses. In our last meditation we considered how important the Word of God, given to us in the Bible, is to the health and strength of our spiritual lives. As we meditate upon these opening verse of chapter 13 for a second time we face the other issue in these opening verses which effects our spiritual life. This is the influence of the world upon the Christian, and how the Christian reacts to this problem.

The way we live indicates the state of our spiritual lives. This is true because the pattern of our lives show what are our priorities, and what motivates our lives. The way we live indicates what we are looking for in life and what fills our thinking and feeling and desires. This fact is brought out in these opening verses of Nehemiah 13. The way we live and what occupies our time, and what we love, shows whom we serve, whether it is Christ or the world.

What are things that stand out in these five verses we are looking at with regard to the world. The first things is that at one time the Israelites excluded all Moabites and Ammonites from the assembly of God - that is they excluded these two nations from any acceptance amongst the people of God. The next thing we notice is the reason for this exclusion which was that these nations refused to help Israel but sought to harm Israel. Then we read of the deduction that the people in Nehemiah�s day drew from this, which was that they must not allow foreigners, that is those not of God�s people, to have entrance into the fellowship of Israel. Then lastly we read of how Eliashib the priest did not follow this practice of exclusion, and what the consequences were.

Let us look together at these points, and see what they are telling us and what this can teach us about the way we should act as Christians today.

THE EXCLUSION OF THE MOABITES AND AMMONITES.

This is looking back to past history. It is looking back to the book of Numbers chapter 22. The Moabites feared Israel and in their fear sought to harm Israel. They choose to seek the help of Balaam by asking Balaam to place a curse on Israel in order that Israel might be destroyed. God stepped in and prevented Balaam from cursing Israel, and saved Israel from harm.

We learn from this that deep down the world fears the people of God, and seeks to harm the church and Christians. The world is not the friend of God, and will seek to harm or subvert the cause of Christ if it can. This is what Jesus taught his disciples in John 15:18f. The world is specially active against the church when the church is advancing and growing. This is what the Moabites show us. Israel had progressed from slavery in Egypt to being a very powerful people, and by the power of God had won great victories. It was this that caused the Moabites to fear them and seek to destroy them.

The world does not like its way of life threatened, and this is what the people of God do when they are spiritual. The way of God is opposed to the world and seeks to overcome it. However, as was the case with the Israelites in Numbers 22, the people of God have no designs to harm people, or subjugate them. The opposition of the Christian to the world is always peaceful and is the action to win the world by love. The world does not understand this, because this is not the way of the world. The world does seek to dominate and subdue others by domination and coercion.

THE MOABITES REFUSED TO HELP ISRAEL.

The Israelites here in Nehemiah 13 heard how the Moabites refused to help Israel. Israel represented a totally different way of life to that of Moab, and in this we can discern the truth that the agenda of the world is totally different to the agenda of the Church of God. The agenda of the world is for itself and its pleasure. The agenda of the Christian is to serve God. The two ways of life are totally opposed and cannot be mixed or shared. By way of life here I mean that which is the motivation and philosophy of the world as compared with the motivation and philosophy of life of the Christian. It is because of this the world and the people of God can�t be mixed.

This needs to be understood and evaluated by the Christian. The way of Christ is opposed to the way of the world, and to introduce the philosophy of the world into the church will always cause problems. It is proved in practice that when the philosophy of the world is flirted with by the church, and allowed to influence the church, it is always the church which suffers, and the church is seduced from the ways of God to the ways of the world.

This sounds very discriminatory in today�s climate, but before we write off this action as wrong we need to understand what it meant and why it was engaged in.

This exclusion was not to despise the people of other nations or look down on them. Nor was it to treat these people as second class citizens or refuse to trade with them, or even employ them where it was appropriate. What this exclusion involved was that foreigners, unless they embraced the ways of Jehovah, were not allowed a place in the worship and religious life of Israel, and no advice from foreigners was allowed any influence on the religious life of the people of God.

The reason for this was straight forward and simple. The exclusion was to avoid any corruption of the ways God had given Israel by the culture of the foreign people around. This was to avoid the pure religion of Jehovah being taken over or changed by any foreign ideas or religion or Gods, and so keep the people from departing from Jehovah by embracing lower standards or embracing the religion of these other people.

The result of not carrying out this exclusion policy is illustrated in the case of Eliashib the priest. He became friends with Tobiah, the Ammonite. No doubt they exchanged favours, as well as talking over their different cultures. Far from Eliashib influencing Tobiah into the ways of God, it was Tobiah who seduced Eliashib to allow the temple to be used by Tobiah for his ways, and so the Temple of God was defiled.

Eliashib had become influenced by the world, and had befriended the world, and so allowed the world to infiltrate into the Temple and into his life, and so Eliashib began to serve two Gods, Jehovah and his allegiance to Tobiah and his culture.

All down Israel�s history this pattern had been illustrated, and Israel forsook Jehovah and worshipped idols, and although the mercy and patience of God was also illustrated in the long time he continued to send prophets to Israel to win them back to himself, in the end Israel refused to reform and judgement fell.

Why is this exclusion policy so important? The reason is because of the problem of the flesh and our fallen nature. Although we are a new creation in Christ, the flesh is not changed in this temporal existence, and the worldly desires of the flesh are still there, and are only to easily excited if opportunity is given.

The great difficulty is how we apply this exclusion policy in our world today and in the life of the church today. We live in a very different social and cultural situation today than was the case in Israel at the time of Nehemiah. We can�t shut ourselves off from the world in the way Israel could in those days. In spite of this the importance of separation from the world is just as vital.

We need to address this separation from the world in two directions. One is personal and the other corporate. One is in our own spiritual lives, and the other is in the corporate life of the fellowship to which we belong.

In our own spiritual lives we are called on to present our body as a living sacrifice to be holy for the Lord. It is the earthly part of us, this fallen flesh, which is meant by Paul in Romans 12:1,2. This means that we must mortify or put to death the corrupt affections of our flesh (Romans 8:13), and sanctify our bodies in service for the Lord. This is the exclusion policy which every believer needs to be engaged in.

The way this is done is twofold. Firstly, each of us knows what sinful desires of the flesh we are particularly susceptible to, and we must not allow ourselves to indulge in any activity which we know will feed these sinful propensities within us. As we are all different in this respect, what is harmless for one Christian, may be very harmful for another, and just because some course of action is alright for another Christian this does not mean it is right or appropriate for ourselves. On the other hand, just because we know something is harmful to us, we must not fall into the trap of saying others, who do not find this a problem, are living inappropriately because they live in a way we find harmful. Often the things we may find a snare to us in our spiritual life are not sinful in themselves, but only become so because of the weakness of our flesh. For example engaging in sport of one kind or another is not sinful of itself, but if it becomes so important to us, either in the practice of it or in the enjoyment of watching it, that it harms our spiritual life, or encroaches on our duty to God, then it becomes harmful and the desire for it must be put to death.

This is only a brief comment on this aspect of the Christian life, but it shows how diligent and watchful we all must be. It is not the answer, as is thought by some, to lay down rules of what is proper for a Christian to do or not to do, because we are all different, and the problem does not lie in the activities so much but in ourselves. Further to lay down rules soon turns godliness into Pharisaicallism, where we think we are holy when the outward rules are kept, and begin to condemn others for not being so outwardly holy as we are.

The second way we guard our spiritual lives is living for the Spirit of God, and following the ways of the new nature which is the new creation within us. We use the means of grace to enjoy the things of heaven, and let these fill our lives.

The church is called to be witnesses for Christ in the world. A church fellowship that is alive will be an evangelistic community seeking to spread the Gospel and win people for Christ. In the desire for the Gospel to reach the world and our churches to grow, we look for ways of reaching the world, and in this lies a danger.

Churches will adopt the ways of the world in order to influence the world, and though this may not always be bad, often it is the ways of the world which take over the life of the church, rather than the life of Christ winning the hearts of people. Our church may seem to be growing as people start joining, but in reality the growth is simply because our fellowship has become so worldly that the world identifies with this as its own, and Christ is more and more excluded.

Then we need to remember that the weapons of our warfare are spiritual and not carnal, and that our strength is not in the arm of the flesh or in the attractions of the world, but in the power of the Lord.

It is appropriate to use all modern methods of communication, and to learn from the world what avenues of communication are most effective, but we must never forget that it is by the foolishness of preaching that God has ordained that sinners should be saved. Also in all the use of means we must be sure that the whole counsel of God is proclaimed, and the Gospel is not corrupted or reduced to suit worldly opinions, for if this takes place we are not causing the church of Christ to grow, and we are displeasing the Lord, and offending the Spirit of God.