St. Tolerant

 

 

Nehemiah. Affectionately known as the “wallbuilder” in Scripture.  He was a Jew who served as cupbearer for King Artaxerxes. (Now there’s a job! If you wanted to poison the king, you’d have to go through Nehemiah first! “Oh look, Nehemiah just keeled over, better not have that cup of wine your majesty. “)

 

Nehemiah was greatly saddened when he heard of the condition of the temple and the walls of his beloved Jerusalem. Ne 1:3 And they said to me, "The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire."

Here’s the thing about a broken down wall. When that occurs, the city is compromised. The world and the enemy can just come and go as they please.  This is one of the major lessons of the book of Nehemiah. We would do well to revisit it again in this day and age of easy believism and cheap grace in the church. Ro 6:1 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”

 

Jerusalem, represents the church here, and a broken-down wall is a picture of compromise with the world. And if it isn’t checked we become like the church at Corinth where anything goes and we will even boast of it! 1Co 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles--that a man has his father's wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

 

The church at Corinth here could be called St Tolerant, but the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul sought to straighten them out. Not that they would close their doors to sinners, but they would insist on genuine repentance, that is, a heart that sincerely desires to turn from sin and seek to live by God’s standards of righteousness as found in His Word. We read in 1Co 5:9-13, “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person.  12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person."

 

The church has walls (standards) that need to be erected and these walls are the “Thou shalt, and thou shalt nots in accordance with “thus saith the Lord,”  in His holy Word. These walls guard against the slippery slope of compromise with the world.

 

A couple of things to note in Nehemiah concerning this breach. The very first thing Nehemiah did was take on the role of intercessor and he confessed the sins of the compromising church. Ne 1:6 "please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned.  7 "We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses.

Once the sins of the church were dealt with, the rebuilding began in earnest. But the world will not be happy with a church that seeks to return to the standards of God’s Word as opposed to the standards of the world, and the rest of Nehemiah is dedicated to the struggle between the uncompromising church and a world that is angry at it.

 

Ne 4:7 Now it happened, when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed, that they became very angry,

 

In the next verse we see the strategy of the world against the church: Ne 4:8 and all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion.

Create confusion? One can almost hear them repeat the mantra of the devil: “Did God really say?”

And in the next verse we see the counter strategy of Nehemiah!  9 Nevertheless we made our prayer to our God, and because of them we set a watch against them day and night.

 

Pray! And be on guard against those who would cast doubt on the Word of God! It starts with each one of us as individuals. We all need to remove the logs in our own eyes before we attempt to remove the splinters in others. In other words, “Where are you and I compromising with the world in our own walk with the Lord?” Let’s deal with that first, just like Nehemiah did! Then and only then can the compromises be dealt with and repaired.