In Nehemiah 4, God’s people faced threats from outside their ranks. They were mocked, slandered, reviled, and even threatened with death. These are significant threats that come against those who follow Christ. In short, Satan and all those who hate God will oppose Christians.
Experiencing opposition often means you are doing important kingdom work, and from Nehemiah 4 we can see how important it is to trust God and prepare yourself for opposition.
In his sermon on February 1, Pastor Matt Patrick challenged Christians from the text to consider whether they are experiencing opposition, because any work of God worth doing will involve opposition coming your way. Enemies of God who oppose God’s people are common and real, and it is difficult to handle. But we serve the Lord who has overcome the world and who gives us life.
And while external threats are significant and real, many times it is the threat from inside that is even worse.
External enemies, those outside who oppose God’s work, are expected. But division among God’s people is far more dangerous. Imagine playing on a football team. Opposition from the other team is expected. But if your own team is divided, the game is already lost. It is the difference between having a unified offensive unit driving down the field and an offensive unit who can’t even agree on what play to run.
Internal threats are typically more dangerous. It is one thing to have an outside enemy heckling you. They were already your enemy. But when people inside are divided, the damage cuts deeper. Satan always wants to foster internal disunity among God’s people.
As J. I. Packer writes, “The evil one is a hater, a wrecker, and a destroyer, and only happy when he is ruining God’s work in individuals and communities.”
The Outcry Among God’s People (Neh. 5:1–5)
We see here a great outcry among the Jews who have returned to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. They are upset, disappointed, and frustrated by circumstances they feel powerless to change.
These people uprooted their lives and families, moving great distances to participate in rebuilding the wall. Many worked the fields. They could not run their livelihoods and rebuild the wall at the same time. This was a massive undertaking, like planting a church or starting a business from the ground up.
There are three groups described, all suffering under economic oppression.
The first group cannot collect their harvest or secure grain because their labor is consumed by the work of rebuilding the wall.
The second group faces famine. To eat at all, they have mortgaged their fields, vineyards, and homes. They are putting food on the table through debt. Imagine working hard to do good, yet having to put groceries on a credit card just to survive.
The third group is in the most desperate position. In order to pay the king’s tax, they have borrowed money and sold their children into indentured servitude, some daughters even into slavery. This is devastating.
They came to Jerusalem with grand hopes of being the generation that rebuilt the wall, and now they are selling their own children to survive. They are disillusioned, despondent, and angry.
What makes this worse is that this oppression is not coming from Persia. It is being done by their own Jewish brothers. During a famine, some have created schemes that trap the poor in cycles of debt. Their land is held by the wealthy, and their children remain in bondage year after year.
So not only do they face enemies outside the walls, but God’s own people are crushing the poor inside the community.
That feeling is not unfamiliar today.
We live in a time where many feel economically crushed. Millions of our tax dollars given to NGO and foreign governments funding our enemies. Seven billion dollars of American military equipment left behind in Afghanistan. That’s our tax dollars. Our national debt is around 38 trillion and increases by about 8 billion per day, which breaks down to $113,000 per person in the United States. And we are expected to keep paying taxes and paying into social security, a scheme which many say will be insolvent by the time we come of age to take advantage of it.
Our nation seems to be robbing the youth of their future by crushing them under the weight of foreign entanglements and ever increasing welfare programs. Our situation may not be as grave as the Jews in Israel during the time of Nehemiah, but we understand the struggles they faced. We are putting our future on credit cards and more debt. We even wonder if our children can afford homes.
But we must be clear: this is about internal threats among God’s people. We should not equate the fiscal policies of the United States with God’s covenant community. A better analogy would be if families within our own church were selling their children into servitude to other members in order to survive. And, to my knowledge, that is not happening.
Righteous Anger and Godly Action (Neh. 5:6–13)
Nehemiah’s response begins with anger.
There is a time for anger. If you are never angry at wrongdoing, sin, and injustice—biblical injustice—you will not be full of vigor and love for what is good. The same passion that drives love and joy also fuels righteous anger.
Christianity does not exist to squash righteous indignation, but to channel it toward God’s glory. Our emotional world must be shaped by Scripture. I do not trust any Christian man who refuses to be angry when he should be angry.
Nehemiah’s anger is godly because it is informed by God’s law. His response is not shaped by propaganda, pure grievance, or ideology, but by Scripture. When we love God’s law, our emotions are tuned correctly: we love what God loves and hate what God hates.
Nehemiah also shows wisdom. The text says he “took counsel.” He balances righteous anger with reflection. He does not explode in violence, nor does he suppress his anger through political maneuvering. Godliness requires properly attuned passions guided by wisdom.
If we err today, it is often because we are not angry enough about sin. We pacify ourselves with reflection while never acting.
So Nehemiah confronts the offenders, publicly and directly. Leaders are called to address injustice with God’s truth, regardless of social cost. Nehemiah is unafraid to confront the rich and powerful.
The issue is not mere complaining or some kind of proletariat revolution. It is a violation of God’s law.
Scripture is clear:
“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.” (Exodus 22:25)
“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.” (Leviticus 25:35–37)
“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.” (Deuteronomy 23:19–20)
The law applied within God’s covenant community. The violations committed by the rich and powerful were not normal economic practices. It was usury. It was sin.
As Jay Richards writes in Money, Greed, and God, “Usury isn’t charging interest on a loan to offset the risk of the loan and the cost of forgoing other uses for the money; it’s unjustly charging someone for a loan by exploiting them when they are in dire straits.”
That is exactly what is happening here.
This principle within the covenant community, about not charging interest, is not just about money, it’s also about wrongdoing and lawsuits. Jesus teaches that we should settle our differences internally. Paul teaches that we should not seek outside courts to settle our internal disputes.
Would that Christians would learn this teaching. That we should have favorable practices among the Christian community. That we should settle our matters internally as much as possible. Imagine the witness of the church if Christians behaved with charity and mercy towards one another. It is a testimony to the world. Like imagine if every Christian was able to partner with other Christians to secure interest-free loans. That would be revolutionary. But it is probably illegal given certain laws today.
These Jews who are oppressing their brothers do not fear God. How do we know this? Because they are violating God’s law. They not only do not fear God, they bring reproach on God’s people from others.
We must get clear on the Bible regarding these matters. We live in a day of economic social justice slogans. Eat the Rich, the 1%, etc. We must be careful to see the world as God’s sees it, and not see the world through socialist or even capitalistic analysis. Because we shouldn’t take our economic systems and impose them on God’s Word.
Can we deduce from biblical principles that a capitalistic system is more harmonious with God’s Word? Can we deduce that socialistic schemes are discordant with God’s Word? I believe we can, but we must be careful that we don’t read systems into the Bible.
Too many Christians today have not carefully meditated on God’s Word to understand these matters. Instead, they rely on a smattering of verses strung together to justify various systems, including expansive welfare models. Many young Christians are led astray by atheistic socialist professors in college who present select passages (supposedly “hidden” from them) about caring for the immigrant or sharing possessions, divorced from the full counsel of Scripture.
Christians we must be wise and trust the Lord. Many of us are being propagandized into outrage or disobedience about matters in our world. We must be catechized by life according to the Word and stop listening to the voices of the world which seek to make us turn away from the Word.
Nehemiah calls the offenders to repent, restore what they have taken, and fear God. He tells them to show mercy in accordance with righteousness, or bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and stop exploiting their fellow Jews. He makes them swear an oath, and they agree.
Leadership Through Sacrifice (Neh. 5:14–19)
Nehemiah says that he was entitled to a food allowance, think like a housing allowance and per diem, that has been given to him by Artaxerxes. And yet, he has not taken advantage of this because he knows the people who have joined him have not only risked everything on this great venture, but are also destitute in the land.
Like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, Nehemiah forgoes his rights for the good of others. He points forward to Christ, who emptied himself, not out of weakness, but strength, for our salvation.
Nehemiah was not motivated by grievance, resentment, or ideology. He doesn’t have a system of class consciousness and Marxism by which he is evaluating the situation. He sees the suffering of his people and he was motivated by the glory of God because God’s people were not walking in obedience to Him.
He closes with this prayer:
“Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.”
Would that all of us could write such words and genuinely aspire to please God. May we serve in the same way as Nehemiah, laying up treasure in heaven. We should strive for heavenly rewards, not because we can add anything to our salvation, which is accomplished by Jesus alone, but because we desire to please God and bring Him honor with our lives.
Summary
Nehemiah sees the suffering of his people and is enraged. He considers the matter and shows no fear in the face of the rich and powerful, who if he were to upset sufficiently, could just leave and the project would fail. He charges them according to God’s Word, not to their shame but so that they might walk in obedience to what God commanded. We should aim to live and model biblical charity like Nehemiah. Not only this we should strive to be the type of people from whom charity and generosity flow naturally.
Generosity Forges Unity
Internal threats are more dangerous than external ones. Division among God’s people is more destructive than opposition from God’s enemies.
And generosity is the antidote.
What was tearing the Jewish community apart? Economic exploitation. What restores unity? Sacrificial generosity.
We see this in Acts. The early church shared freely, and the Lord added to their number daily. Paul collected offerings to bless Christian churches elsewhere.
Generosity creates unity. Selfishness creates division.
That is why giving initiatives like 10/10 matter. They not only fund ministry, but form us into a people who live together well as the body of Christ.
When you give, you are fighting the internal threats that would divide us. You are investing in the health of God’s people.
We follow Jesus Christ, who embodied generosity by laying down his life. Our aim is to raise up men, women, and children, radically devoted to Him.
We give to glorify God, advance His kingdom, and lay up treasure in heaven. May we be able to say, like Nehemiah, “Remember me, O Lord.”
Thanks for reading! You can watch or listen to this sermon here.