Nehemiah Leadership – 2
Handing with crisis and prosperity
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Lecture -2
- Leader’s Management and Plans for Finance (chapter 5:1 – 13 )
To obtain necessary funds is the duty that leader is not able to avoid.
Without money, nothing can be done. With reasonable cash flow, any plan that is wise, faithful, intelligent, and realistic can become a reality.
Even Jesus said the following about the importance of financial planning.
Luke 14:28-30 says, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'”
Nehemiah tells us about the financial problem and his solutions he had in chapter 5.
There was a strike amongst the laborers working on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
They did not picket in front of a supermarket and interfered with traffic, but they stopped working and started .
Nehemiah 5:1 says, “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers.”
As all great leaders do, Nehemiah listened to their complaints and he thought about what is a financial problems?.
There are 3 reasons.
- S due to not enough foods in drought (5:3)
- E – the tax authorities were imposing even more to the people for their individual gains (5:4).
- Children were being sold as slaves because of unreasonable high (5:5)
- Righteous Anger
After looked around these situations, and when he heard their cries, he got .
You must show sympathy sometimes, but not always.
It is to say that anger can sometimes be the best .
Let’s look at how Nehemiah responds to the laborers who stopped working in complaints. Nehemiah 5:6 says, “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.”
Why did he get angry when he heard their cries?
Should he not be showing any sympathy towards the people?
Nehemiah was angry because the people forgot about the of .
You must read scripture as I mentioned.
Exodus 22:25 says, “”If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.
* Deuteronomy 23:19-23 says, “Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. 20You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. 22But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty. 23 Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the LORD your God with your own mouth.”
* Leviticus 25:35-40 says, “” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. 26If, however, a man has no one to redeem it for him but he himself prospers and acquires sufficient means to redeem it, 27he is to determine the value for the years since he sold it and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it; he can then go back to his own property. 28But if he does not acquire the means to repay him, what he sold will remain in the possession of the buyer until the Year of Jubilee. It will be returned in the Jubilee, and he can then go back to his property. ” ‘If a man sells a house in a walled city, he retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time he may redeem it. 30If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and his descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee.”
Nehemiah was angry because the people knew what they must do, but they neglected to abide by it. It was natural that he got angry.
It was a anger.
If you are comfortable when God’s plan is being ridiculed and ignored, then there is something wrong with you.
If you feel okay with people being verbally abusive and living immorally and ignoring direct advice of the Bible, then there is something wrong with you.
- Overcoming the problems (5:7-9).
Let’s look at verse 7. ” I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials.
I told them, “You are charging usury from your own countrymen!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them “
Why did he speak to the ruling class?
They were the wealthy and they were the ones plundering from the poor.
There were the source of .
We must focus on the fact that Nehemiah went to the of the problem after got angry.
He gathered those people and listed the things they did.
He pointed out three things.
1). It is not righteous to charge when lending money to fellow Jews (verse 7)
2).It is not righteous to your fellow Jews (verse 8)
3).These is not right either: You are not any different from the Gentiles; (verse 9)
What did they do when Nehemiah reprimanded the ruling class?
Verse 8 says, “they kept quiet…“
It was a response when they their wrong
But the great leaders do not at rebuke.
Nehemiah suggested certain measures to correct the situation
- Take your hands off the (5:10). “Let the exacting of usury stop !”
- Establish to resolve the problem as soon as possible (5:11).
Nehemiah says to the creditors, “Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards,
olive groves, and houses, and also the usury you are charging them the hundredth part
of the money, grain, new wine, and oil “
He wanted to take care of the problem of finances as soon as possible.
- This plan for correction is to be made in the form of with God. (5:12)
I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they
had promised. When they make it official, it is the most effective.
- Understand the of your oath to God (5:13)
Let’s read all together 5;13
“I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “In this way may God shake out of his
house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a
man be shaken out and emptied!
At this the whole assembly said, “Amen,” and praised the LORD.
And the people did as they had promised.” Amen !!
When the Jews understood the words of God, they were able to praise the Lord.
Shalom came to them as a result of God’s grace and Nehemiah’s leadership.
There is not a single mention of rebuilding the walls in Nehemiah 5:1-13.
This is because the had stopped.
No one could rebuild during the spiritual battle.
It seems like stoppage caused by famine, starvation, and finances, but it was a spiritual
warfare.
We must look at this as a spiritual rather than overcoming financial woes.
- Handling Crisis and Prosperity (5:14-19)
And then, I would like to handle the topic of crisis and prosperity.
Thomas Carlyle said, “Crisis is a difficult opponent to overcome for any humans.
But if there are 100 who can endure through crisis, there is only who can endure
through prosperity.”
We remember Asaph’s poem that is shown psalm 75:5-7.
5 Do not lift your horns against heaven; do not speak with outstretched neck.’ ”
6 No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man.
7 But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.
Don’t be arrogant.
Remember that your success did not come from .
It came from and his sovereign hands.
You are just a recipient of God’s mercy.
God took Joseph out of Egyptian prison and made him the prime minister of Egypt.
God took Daniel who was in the infantry in Babylon and made him the king’s right hand
man in one night.
God knew that Joseph, Daniel were able to sudden crisis and prosperity.
Nehemiah was the same way.
Nehemiah shows the biblical attitudes towards promotion.
He was the same in times and times. Because he was a capable leader.
Nehemiah verse 14, says
“when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, …………. neither I nor
my brothers ate the food allotted(활당하다)to the governor.”
In other words, He was a leader.
When He promoted, there were 4 changes caused
All four changes are shown in 5:14-18.
- Promotions accompanied p .(5:14)
He never used his privilege for food as the governor for his p purpose.
He was given food to carry out his official duties as governor, but he never used
it for personal reasons.
Despite the fact that he could take as much food as he could, he never lost control.
The private life of a leader is always under attack by S .
Those who promoted have always been given more private freedom, and they end up
corrupting themselves in this freedom.
Promotion always brings privileges, but Nehemiah should never be .
- Promotions one’s belief system (5:15)
5:15 talks about three sins the previous governor committed.
First was that they placed a heavy burden on the people, meaning excessive taxation.
Second, they took bribes.
Third, they promoted their assistants to high places.
When promoted, you must not only your privileges, but you must also face with
the pressure of previous policies.
Nehemiah did not follow the old policies.
The answer is in the latter part of verse 15, “I did not act like that.”
We can see his purity from this statement.
“I don’t know what they did previously, but I am not going to tolerate unreasonable
policies.”
- Promotion comes with and . (5:17-18)
5:17-18 says
“Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those
who came to us from the surrounding nations.
18Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and
every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.
He fed thousands of people every month.
Like this, Nehemiah was a well known person.
He was a politician of great stature and was very popular among the people.
High officials were often invited over to his dinner table, but he never lose his sight on
the plan or the .
He did not lose sight of what he needed to do.
As we see 1 King chapter 10, Solomon was not as successful in this regard.
He became the wealthiest person in history.
According to the Bible 1 King 10, silver was as common as rocks in Jerusalem during his reign.
But he was not able to manage his responsibilities;
He lost sight of what was really important and urgent.
- Frederick Owen wrote book of Abraham to the Middle-East Crisis
Let’s listen to the analysis of his tragedy.
“Solomon’s glasses were all made of gold and so was his furniture.
The shields used by his bodyguards were made of gold and his throne was decorated
with gold and ivory.
Solomon moved too fast and too far ahead like other absolute rulers.
He ultimately became corrupted and ended up ineffective.
Why did he go that far?
He was not able to manage his prosperity and forgot about his roles and missions.
- Promotions those who around you.
Your promotion influences those who is around you.
Nehemiah’s prosperity influenced the of others .
To lead is to focus on human.
Strong leaders often make the mistake of abusing others in pursuit of their goals.
But Nehemiah was sensitive to the and needs of the people.
Nehemiah saw that the people were burdened by excessive taxes, and said,
‘Let’s not go too fast. Let’s take one problem at a time and go together.’
We know that work of rebuilding wall of Jerusalem is the great thing.
But they finished in days.
One leader”(Sanders, Spiritual Leadership, p.64) said,
“The proof of our strength is not in whether we are further ahead than anyone else, but
in our ability to walk with our brothers.”
How was he able to work so successfully?
Verse 15 says, “………. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that” Amen.
Why didn’t Nehemiah follow the previous policies?
It was because his relationship with the Lord was so strong and firm,
Nehemiah was able to say,
“No matter how much I make, how privileged I am, and how deeply these former
policies have taken their roots in our society, I can’t do things like that.
The trust in my Lord is the only thing I live by.”
Let’s listen to Nehemiah’s confession. Let’s read together verse 19
“Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people”
Remember what I did for my people and bless me.
He believed it with all his heart. HALLELUJAH !!
It is painful to go downhill.
But it is even more difficult to handle well.
Crisis makes us depend on God and wait for him to intervene.
We also lean on his strong arms to receive strengths to go on.
Prosperity can cause a lot of difficult problems.
Vain pride, temptation to abuse privileges, battles against previous policies, tendencies
to overlook things of utmost importance, and tendencies to abuse those who below you.
Let’s remember the words “only one of 100 can win the test of prosperity.”
How about you?
Okay, Let’s go to topic of handling threats, conspiracy, and bad rumor.
- Handling threats, conspiracy, and rumor (6:2- 13)
- Threats (6:2-6)
Let’s look at Nehemiah 6:2-4. Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono. But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you? Four times they sent the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.”
Nehemiah is not a guy who gets scared easy.
But in verse 5, Nehemiah encounters yet another conspiracy.
“Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his
hand was an unsealed letter.”
Until the fourth time, it was a personal invitation, now it was an unsealed letter.
What does this mean?
It no longer was a personal letter.
The messenger brought the letter and showed it to everyone.
We can pay attention to the threatening words in that letter.
This was basically saying,
First, when you came to Jerusalem, you had in your heart an evil purpose.
That was not to rebuild the walls, but it was to bring people together to revolt.
Second, your ways are wicked. In your endeavor to become the king, you sent
prophets all over the place and had them proclaim, “Our king will be Nehemiah, not
Artaxerxes.”
So we will let the king know about this, so you should really consider meeting with us at Ono.
Verse 6 says “…it is reported among the nation….according to these reports you are about to become their king”
The gentiles are hearing this rumor about your ambition to become the king.
- Rumors (6:8-9)
But Nehemiah says, “…You are just making it up out of your head.” (verse 8)
Leaders should never be by the rumors.
Verse 9 says, “They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘their hands will get too
weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’ But I prayed, ‘now strengthen our
hands.'”
Everyone gets hurt by rumors at some point or the other.
But leaders must pick them up and throw them out in order to keep moving forward.
The purpose of that letter sent to Nehemiah was to spread dirty rumors, conspiracy,
and threats.
Verse 9 says, “they were all trying to frighten us.”
But Nehemiah never caved.
And we can see Shemaiah’s plot.
- Shemaiah’s Plot (6:10- 13).
Verse 10 “one day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, ‘let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you by night they are coming to kill you.'”
This was a scary thing to hear.
Shemaiah says, “Nehemiah, there are people coming at you to kill you; I want to get together and pray in the temple.”
How pious of him to say this?
He wants to pray about this together, but all that was conspiracy.
Nehemiah the leader was able to see his true intention and said in 6:11-12,
“But I said, ‘should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go’
He could not have explained better.
But verse 12 just says, “I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.”
Nehemiah the Leader who was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was strong.
They wanted to frighten him, spread bad rumors, and conspire against him in the name of prayer to lock him up in the temple, but he never wavered.
Verse 13 says, “He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.”
But Nehemiah has overcome their threats, bad rumors, conspiracy, plots.
And finally completed the great work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Amen !!
- Completing his Mission(6:15 –
Now, look at verse 15. What happened there?
“So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty two days.”
Nehemiah was under constant attacks of threats, conspiracy, and rumors,
but he finally completed the wall.
Verse 16 says, “When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” Amen ! Amen !!
Under constant attacks by his enemies and endless rumors, plot, threat, conspiracy, the wall was finally completed.
This is very important to todays’ leaders as it is impossible even today to do God’s work, to walk the path of faith, and to rebuild the walls.
God used three ferocious attacks to train Nehemiah:
- A few letters
- A public letter that attack his motivation and character
- Warnings that threatened him.
But nothing worked, and the wall continued to be rebuilt.
Because Nehemiah and his followers were in the of God, they could never be conquered.
The Book of Nehemiah is the letter from God that tells all the and all the people of
God not to be discouraged and to stand firm. It tells us how to win.
Winston Churchill’s speech at the Harrow School :
“Never give up! Never, Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”
Even if your reputation and good principles are on the line, never, never give up if you
are sure that you are within the will of God. Halleluja !!
next subject is leader’s priority
- Leader’s Priority
Leaders must know what is and urgent.
Billy Graham says “There are two things that are the most difficult to teach people;
It is to think and to prioritize” (Billy Graham, World Aflame, p. 22-23)
These two principles determine your effectiveness as a leader.
We know that Nehemiah thought things through before taking actions and knew what
was important and .
As we remember, Nehemiah did not take the people to Jerusalem and had them start
rebuilding the walls right away.
He thought about this for four months , and thought about this before discussing with other people.
He on this matter before God, then he went into the city and started the rebuilding process.
When faced with opposition, he did not fight back right away. He contemplated his
next move.
He spent a lot more time about what the best course of action would be.
- Thinking is difficult.
It is always more difficult to devise the than to act on it.
Leaders who start running without careful planning are bound to , and they will hurt those around them.
- Thinking includes and silence.
We often saw Nehemiah kneeling down in prayer. He prayed about important matters.
We also saw him silently and deeply about his plans.
Rushed and spontaneous decisions that always come with the last minute changes ,
and anger followers as they become concerned about possible impact on themselves.
- Thinking brings .
Leaders are able to see the plan as a whole when they take a step back and think
about it.
They can come up with contingency plans.
Jesus spoke of the wisdom to first and to plan later.
You remember that Luke 14:28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first
sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?
In order to be a respected leader, you must first become a thinking man.
How to make priority ?
see your lecturer notes from page 13 to 16 that is for your self-study.
How do you decide what’s worth your time and attention?
John Maxwell said that the following formula helped him manage himself more
effectively.
Phase 1: Based on the degree of importance, grades are given to each task.
Very Important – 5 points
Necessary – 4 points
Important – 3 points
Helpful – 2 points
Not Very Important – 1 point
Phase 2: Based on the deadline, he evaluated the urgency of each task
By this month – 5 points
By next month – 4 points
By this quarter – 3 points
By next quarter – 2 points
By the year end – 1 point
Phase 3: Multiply the points you get from Phase 1 and 2.
Example: 5 (very important) x 4 (by next month) = 20 points
After that the following standards are used to give final grades to each task.
A = 16-25: It is very important task that needs to be completed by the end of the month
B = 9-15: It is an important task that needs to be completed by the end of this quarter.
C= 1-8: It is not an urgent task that just needs to be finished by the year end.
What we need to focus on is that there are no tasks that must be completed by the end
of that day or that week. Why is that?
It is because I always try to set my schedule about a month ahead.
Leader must be able to look further ahead than anyone else within the organization.
If the leader responds spontaneously in the face of crisis, he can put himself, his
followers, and his organizations in danger.
- They start things without getting necessary advice or training, so that they never reach their potential.
If it is of value, it is preferable to do it better than everyone else.
I am just shocked whenever I see people jumping into a task without asking for any
advice or wisdom from the people who have already walked that path.
When you are advised and trained well, you can bring about a much better outcome
with the same of time invested.
Robert Zensky and Susan Shaman of UPenn studied 3200 American companies to draw
the following conclusion: 10% increase in capital expenditure will bring about 3%
improvement in productivity while 10% increase in employee training will bring about
8.5% improvement in productivity.
Therefore, if you want to use your time the best way possible, you must use yourself
the best way possible.
Find those who can help improving you or your employees.
“What’s worse than losing a well trained employee is to make them work without training them.” (Zig Ziglar)
Life management starts with awareness of time.
It also starts with realizing what decisions must be made in order to manage and use their time.
Group Discussion
- Am I not wasting my time?
- Am I getting the help in areas I need help?
- How am I spending my time? Do I have a daily schedule set?
Priority of a Leader
1) If there are too many priorities, you become powerless.
All great leaders learn how to say no to the second best to say yes to the best.
2) If you put too much on trivial things, you end up with a huge problem.
Robert McCain said “The reason why most important goals are not met is because people spend too much time taking care of the trivial matters.”
There was a newspaper article about 300 dead whales. These whales were chasing after a school of sardines and ended up in a small bay. Frederick Brown Harris wrote the following editorial about this incident: “A small fish led the giants of the sea to death. Whales were after small gains and ended up in a tragedy. They were using their great powers for such small gains.”
Often, we see people failing miserably for something so small.
The tragic example of that is the Eastern jumbo passenger plane that crashed into the Everglades in Florida.
It was the famous flight #401 and was on its way from New York to Miami, full with vacationers. As they approached Miami International, the gauge that tells whether landing gear is functional was not lit.
While they were checking to see if the landing gear was in fact malfunctioning or it was just the light bulb issue, they were flying over the Everglades.
The pilot discovered that it was the light bulb issue and tried to replace it. It wouldn’t budge.
So the co-pilot sitting next to him got in the act and while they were wrestling with the light bulb, they didn’t realize that the plane was losing altitude.
Ultimately, the plane crashed into the wetlands, and tens of people died because of it.
While the veteran pilots were tinkering with a $0.75 light bulb, the plane crashed along with its passengers.
Let’s go to next topic, chapter 9
- Keep your priority (9:38 – 10:18)
What did Nehemiah do to keep his priority straight?
We can see what he did in Nehemiah chapter 9.
He set the priority of work and put that in .
Verse 38 says,
” in view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our
leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals on it.”
“priests are affixing their seals on it.”
The document had names of everyone who signed it (Nehemiah 10:1-27)
It was to make everyone aware of the importance of this document.
It is very important to set your priorities straight, but there aren’t many who actually do that.
Nehemiah’s followers prayed like this:
“Lord, I don’t want this to be just a bunch of meaningless words. We want this to be a
promise that can never be taken back. We confess our promise to you and will sign off
on it to prove our intention to keep this promise.”
Nehemiah chapter 10 has a few simple but life-changing principles.
First, deliberate consideration precedes an important change.
Don’t expect any changes in your life without careful consideration.
Secondly, plan that’s documented confirms a priority of a task.
If you want to set your priorities straight, make sure you write them down.
I would suggest you writing a .
If you have certain thoughts in your head, it is necessary to write them down.
I learned that notes can untangle and smooth out my .
Please read through chapter 9 and 10 after this lecture finished. Because final exam will be come out from here. Then let’s look at topic of handling problems after success.
- Handling problems after success (Nehemiah 13:7-22 )
Upon his return, Nehemiah found Tobiah residing in the court of the house of God;
You know that Tobiah interfered with Nehemiah’s effort to rebuild the wall, and was persistent with his criticism and personal attack against Nehemiah.
Nehemiah didn’t say, let’s have a to discuss or let’s about it.
He was enraged immediately, and threw out all of Tobiah’s possessions and ordered the temple of God to be cleansed.
This is the righteous anger by a leader (13:7-9).
Leaders of God should never when it comes to and righteousness. Nehemiah did not tolerate evil. He choked the life out of it.
Do you remember of Jesus’s anger ? Let me remind you again. John 2:14-16 . who can read this scripture for class ? ……………………… Thank you !
The second problem he faced was the fact that the Levites working in the temple weren’t getting paid because people had not been giving their tithe.
Nehemiah again didn’t suggest having a or about it; he rebuked the officers for not doing their job.
Third was about keeping the Sabbath holy. There were merchants coming into Jerusalem on the Sabbath.
Nehemiah was greatly disappointed about this and rebuked the nobles of Judah about how they had been desecrating the Sabbath day; then he locked the gate on the Sabbath and warned the merchants with threat of arrest unless they stopped selling merchandises on the Sabbath.
This is something he did not hesitate to do; he did it right away.
If a spiritual leader does not become outraged by and God’s name being insulted, then he/she is not a God chosen leader.
Nehemiah did all he could, then he knelt down before God and prayed.
“Oh, God bless all these efforts. Allow me more wisdom and guidance.
Remember me for everything I have done to resolve this problem.
I am standing here alone and may all glory be to you. Amen.”
He fought hard for as a leader, but he never lost his soft heart for the Lord.
He was a leader of honesty, conviction, and commitment
Nehemiah started rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem with a prayer and he ended it with a prayer.
The confession he makes in the very last verse of the last chapter, 13:31, is Remember me with favor O my Lord. Amen! Amen !!
What about you ?
Like Nehemiah did, I had confronted with lots of threats, conspiracies, bad rumors,
plots in building this school Wycliffe in Africa, however I competed to establish school
in producing spiritual leaders in Africa .
And also I prayed to God “Remember me with favor O my God.”
Assignment /Group discussion -2
- When you start a ministry as a leader, how well do you plan and manage the financial aspect of it? How?
- What did Nehemiah do after rebuking the officials for mismanaging the finances?
Would you do the same?
- How do you handle crisis and prosperity? What’s harder to manage?
- How would you rate “Honesty” as a virtue of a leader?
- How do you handle negativity around you, i.e. threat, criticism, rumors, etc?
- What do you do when you complete your mission as planned?
- How do you prioritize the things you need to do? Have you ever been in an instance where time was wasted because you didn’t set your priorities straight?
- What are your thoughts on righteous anger of a leader, and were you ever angry for righteous reasons? If so, when?
- What is the leadership quality of Nehemiah that you want to emulate the most, and why? (2-3 pages)
- How am I spending my time? Do I have a daily schedule set?
For your self study, I gave lots of materials that I did not teach in this lecture due to time limits of recording.
So, Please read all intentionally to get a good grade of final Exam.
In order for you to submit this assignment, it may be takes time at least 5 hours.
Therefore prepare it from now on without moving to somewhere to do something.
Thank you for listening my lecture even though not so good circumstance/atmosphere.
God bless all of you ! See you next lecture.
The below is mentioned for your self-study on handling problems after success.
We can see in Nehemiah had gone back to his old place as the cupbearer of the king
in Nehemiah 13:6. We can also see what happened while he was gone.
At that time (verses 1-5) “while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king.
Some time later, I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem.”
We don’t know how long he had left Jerusalem, but four very serious problems were
waiting for him when he returned to the city.
- Problem of Compromised Relationship
In order to understand this problem, we must first understand who the characters we see in 13:5 were. According to the Bible, Tobiah was the enemy of God and was a thorn on Nehemiah’s side. Tobiah did everything he could to stop the rebuilding of the wall, and personally criticized and attacked Nehemiah. Nehemiah could not help but face him often. Nehemiah did not allow Tobiah inside the city until the Jerusalem project was finished.
Tobiah was a prototypical(전형적) secular Christian who does everything in his power to stop the work of God.
But in Nehemiah’s absence, Eliashib “provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings…”
And then, Verse 7 says, “here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God.”
It was only when Nehemiah arrived at Jerusalem that he discovered the house of God
corrupted by Tobiah and his evil plans.
Nehemiah got to the bottom of this.
Continually Verse 8 says, “I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household
goods out of the room.’
Nehemiah sent into these rooms and threw out Tobiah’s stuff.
For Tobiah to live in the house of God was like having a badger(오소리) living with the chickens.
There is no reason for Tobiah to be in the house of God. Nehemiah did not want even the scent of Tobiah around the house of God.
Again, Verse 9 says, “I gave orders to purify the rooms…“
Nehemiah did not cross his arms and said, “This is shameful; pray about what to do with his stuff!!”
He opened the door and became angry, saying “Get this trash out of here.”
He threw everything out, purified the rooms, and put the grain offerings and incense back into the room.
The reason for this reaction was his determination not to see anything unjust in a place built for the righteous things.
Leaders of God should never compromise when it comes to truth and righteousness. Nehemiah did not tolerate evil. He choked the life out of it.
Do you remember of Jesus’s anger ?
- Jesus’s Anger
John 2:14-16
“In the temple court he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money/ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables/ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here ! How dare you turn my father’s house into a market!”
- Financial Ruins
The second problem Nehemiah faced was that of financial nature (13:10-14).
Verse 10 starts by saying “I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them …“
This means that he was investigating things.
Leaders must always keep their eyes open. Great leaders pay attention to everything;
He is never careless. He is always listening and seeing things.
Those who were serving the temple were called the Levites and made their living with
contributions made to the temple.
Those who preside over the sacrifices made their living with a portion of tithes given to the church.
Just like today, there was selfishness around the money.
When Nehemiah came back to Jerusalem, the singers and the Levites were living outside the temple; they were supposed to live in the temple and were entitled to monthly stipend (급료, 장학금) given by the church, but no money was paid to them.
What did Nehemiah say?
He didn’t say, we should discuss this during the meeting.
Look at verse 11. “I rebuked the officials…”
Nehemiah might be losing his popularity here, but he never wavered.
He said, ‘This isn’t right; God demands tithes by law and you are not giving it”.
Nehemiah brought every official in one place and said,
“why is the house of God neglected? Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts.”
How he rebuked them is unknown, but he meant to say that the house of God was
forgotten in the lives of the people of God.
Then he came up with a plan to reform and carried it out immediately.
Then he prayed in verse 14, “Remember me for this, O my God, and do not blot (지우다.오점)out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.”
There are many instances where we need prayer. I also believe that there are many
problems in life prayer can solve.
However, prayer to avoid obeying the words of God is a spiritual escape.
You only need obedience to the word of God.
If your child is standing in the middle of the street with a truck coming straight at him,
you wouldn’t sit there and pray that God protect him.
You would risk your life to save your child.
We run into injustice in our lives.
At that time, God does not want us to kneel down and pray when things happen.
God tells us to rise up and fix the problem.
This is the truth we see in the book of Nehemiah.
- Secularized Sabbath
The third problem Nehemiah had to take on was the problem of Sabbath that had not
kept holy.
We can see that in verses 15-22. Verse 15 “in those days I saw men in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath…“
Sabbath was to keep the day of rest holy. This is the day God also took his break in
creating the universe.
10:31 talks about the people remembering the covenant with God.
“when the neighboring peoples bring merchandises or grain to sell on the Sabbath we
will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day.
Every seventh year we will forgo working the land and will cancel all debts.”
The people had promised to keep this holy.
But Nehemiah saw that the merchants were again taking the stronghold in the city.
There were selling grains on the Sabbath.
They were bringing in merchandises through the gates of the city.
Trading, spending money, and receiving goods were taking place on the Sabbath.
Nehemiah was greatly disappointed to see that. “…. I warned them against selling
food on that day. Men from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all
kind of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of
Judah..”(13:15-16)
I am not saying there is anything wrong with bringing in merchandises to sell.
No matter what it is, you should never do that on the Sabbath.
Nehemiah wasn’t passive about this problem either. He went right to it.
13:17-19 says, “I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing desecrating (신성을 모독하다 더럽히다)the Sabbath day? ……….”
Right when the sun set, he ordered to close the gates of Jerusalem before the
Sabbath.
“Close the doors; it is the Sabbath.”
See Verse 19,
” I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over.”
Nehemiah didn’t stop there. He went onto “station some of my own men at the gates
so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.”
The next 2 verses please me: verses 20-21 “once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of good spent the night outside Jerusalem. But I warned them and said, ‘Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will lay hands on you’…”
In other words, Nehemiah threatened arrests if this was done again and this was
effective. “They no longer came on the Sabbath.”
By taking immediate and powerful measures, he was able to handle the problem.
Nehemiah knew what he should become angry about.
He knew what to do about this day of holiness being ridiculed.
If you are not angry enough about the deeply rooted problem, you can’t handle it.
Anger stimulates motivation.
We must declare an all our war against the wrongs in our life because it will be 100%
effective.
Nehemiah came forward and prayed,
verse 31, “Remember me with favor, O my Lord.”
Nehemiah did all he could, then he knelt down before God and prayed.
“Oh, God bless all these efforts. Allow me more wisdom and guidance.
Remember me for everything I have done to resolve this problem.
I am standing here alone and may all glory be to you. Amen.”