Here are a few commentaries on Nehemiah from Preach the Word.
The Man for the Hour - Nehemiah 1
Preparation for the Work Part 1 and Part 2 - Nehemiah 2
The final chapters of Ezra give us an excellent example of genuine confession and repentance. The Israelites had intermarried with foreigners, something they had been expressly forbidden to do. In this case, genuine confession, repentance and retribution required something extremely difficult - they had to send away their wives and children.
Wow. Those are some very serious consequences to sin. And that's one thing that this passage reminds me of. We may appear to get away with our sin for a time. These people were not immediately struck dead by lightning when they sinned. They or their wives did not die of a plague. Their wives were not barren. In fact, they obviously lived this way for some time, as they had children. Maybe they thought they got away with one. Maybe they had even convinced themselves that what they had done was not wrong because God was blessing them (with children). But you can't pull the wool over God's eyes. Delayed punishment, delayed consequences, delayed wrath, delayed justice, does not mean God condones our actions. It means we are being given a chance to repent, we are being given a chance to change, we are being given a chance to grasp onto mercy. Because eventually the time will come when we have to reap what we sow.
Sometimes the consequences are natural ones whether or not we are sorry for the sin (living in an unhappy marriage due to constant spiritual disunity because of a deliberate choice to marry an unbeliever).
Sometimes the consequences only come about when we repent and recognize what we've done and have to make things right. This was one of those times. And, in this case, they had to send away their wives and children. That is a very serious consequence indeed.
But you know what - sin always has consequences. We like to convince ourselves that it doesn't, when we're trying to rationalize doing something we know to be wrong. But it does. And God will not be mocked. Justice will be carries out. Darkness will be revealed in the Light. No matter how difficult it is.
The first two chapter of Nehemiah give us great insight into the character of this man of integrity. In his sermon Man for the Hour, David Legge says....
the reason why God turned to Nehemiah was not his position. The reason why God turned to Nehemiah to be a man for the hour, were the characteristics that we see in chapter 1 that I want to bring before you this morning. What are they? Here they are, three of them: one, Nehemiah was a man of burden, he was a man upon whom the burden that weighed heavy on God's heart weighed heavy too. Two, he was a man of prayer, he put that burden in his heart into the articulation of the language of heaven, prayer before the throne of grace. Three, he was a man of action - he wasn't just a man who knew what to do, and knew to pray about what needed done, but he was a man willing to get onto his feet and do something about it! Because of those characteristics Nehemiah became the man for the hour. (emphasis mine)
I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but I did want to acknowledge this. Nehemiah was an important person in the king's court, but that is not the reason God chose to use him. Nehemiah had a heart for what God desired, he was a man of prayer, and he was a man willing to act!
If we want to be used by God, there is the recipe right there. We need to have a burden for what God desires, we need to pray and align our will with His, and we need to be willing to step out in faith and do something about it, as He leads us to.
God uses ordinary people to extraordinary things all the time. Am I willing to be used by Him? Are you?
Tomorrow's passage: Nehemiah 3-7:3
2 comments:
You know, I really struggled with that passage about the intermarriage and those 113 men having to send their wives and children away.
I know this is the Old Testament and the Israelites were still a pseudo-theocratic nation, but this goes so against what we know about God's view of marriage, family, and redemption. I know this was punishment for sin and considering how large the remnant was in Jerusalem already, this was only a very small number of affected families, but it still seems so contrary. Not the punishment for sin part, and not the pureness of His people, but that it was marriages that suffered as a result. Like you said, they didn't die of plague, they weren't executed (as in some previous passages dealing with intermarriage we've already read), they just had to give up their families.
It just seems odd and I wonder if this would be a dangerous passage in the hands of weak Christians who might happen to be in unhappy, "unequally yoked" marriages.
I know, I had the exact same thoughts.
The NT is quite clear though that if you are married to an unbeliever, you should not divorce for that reason.
Another example though would be that if a homosexual "married" couple would become Christians, it would require them separating. Although, I don't know whether God would have ever considered them married in the first place.
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