Nehemiah- Part 2

Scripture: "I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, "You are exacting interest, each from his brother." And I held a great assembly against them and said to them,"We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!" The were silent and could not find a word to say." Nehemiah 5:7-8

Good morning, lets take a deeper look into this scripture.  Leading up to this scripture times were hard for the Jews that were building the wall. There was a famine and hard taxes set by the king. So the Jewish people had to borrow money. Now the money collectors charged interest against their fellow Jews, which was against the law, "You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that The Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it." Deut. 23:19-20 and again in Leviticus 25:35-38 states virtually the same thing, in verse 39 it reads "If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave." At this point the wall workers were essentially on strike because of the hard times and Nehemiah had to try to solve the problem.  So he brought them to him and confronted them in their sins with the law. They were humbled and their mouths were shut. Nehemiah goes on to tell us that these men then corrected the wrong and paid back all the interest they collect.

How can we relate this to our own lives?  It is simple. Many times, fellow believers break the laws of God and by breaking these laws we are negatively affected and our work for the Lord suffers. We should attempt to do the same thing as Nehemiah. "Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."(Romans 3:19) We bring them to the law of God to show them that what they are doing is wrong and against God. Fellow believers ,when confronted by the law of God, are silenced because they cannot argue for what they have done.  Then repentance of sin must come.

Let us pray, Dear Father we thank You for sending your Son to die for our sins on the cross, Lord help show us through your law and your word that we are sinful and need to change our lifestyle. Help us show others of the faith in love of the same thing, so that we may walk better and closer to you God. Amen

David Wiggins

Youth Pastor

www.nbcornerstone.com