Nehemiah 5: Hard Times

We have been following the story of Nehemiah, a butler to king Artaxerxes of Persia, who heard that Jerusalem was in a mess, and got permission from King Artaxerxes to go back to Jerusalem and oversee the rebuilding of its walls. After many trials and over great opposition, he organized the people, fought off their enemies, and completed the repairs of the wall. He did all of this by the end of chapter 4!

Chapter 4, would have been a good end to the book, but there are still 9 chapters to go.

By chapter 5, they were having more problems. A famine devastated the land and people were starving. 

It seems so unfair!

They had just rebuilt the wall. They scared off the enemies that surrounded them. They were well on their way to restoring the temple. They should have been experiencing God’s blessings.  Now instead, their crops were dying in the field, their animals were starving, and their children never had enough to eat.

We tend to think that hard times are an exception to life, that if we only make it through a hard patch things will be all right. But when we get through one hard patch, another one seems to be on the horizon. Troubles roll in like waves in the ocean. No sooner does one challenge pass us, then another is rolling in to take its place. When do we get to experience God’s blessings?

 Life sometimes seems like a cruel joke. You work hard to achieve something good, noble and holy. You’ve done God’s will, or at least you have tried, but you are no better off. Another trouble is always on the horizon.

I see frustrated young pastors. They go off to school and study seven years for the ministry.  Then they go to their first church and run into trouble. In a year or two or three, they drop out of the ministry. The blessings they expected were not there.  I see that in parents. They raise a child to believe in God and to be good. Then, just when they think they’ve done a good job, the child becomes a teenager, and will have nothing to do with God. Instead of a blessing we get heartache. I see it in older people. They get over one illness, just to get another.  I see it in people who take jobs, only to lose them in a month or two. Why does God allow so much trouble in our lives for so long?

We think about trouble too simplistically. Trouble is not a temporary state but the permanent condition of fallen people. Trouble persists as long as our lives persists. Buddha said, “To live is to suffer.” We are going to have problems as long as there is bread in our bodies. Trouble follows us our whole lives.

Sometimes trouble comes from our own mistakes. The Jerusalem famine might have occurred because they planted the wrong crops in the spring, or because they should have had more people farming while others were building the wall. It often takes years for us to experience the result of our wrong choices.  By then, we may have changed our ways, but the consequences still come.

More often trouble comes for no apparent reason. Famines hit even good farmers. We might lose our shirt in the stock market, even if we do everything right.  We might have a heart attack or get cancer even if we’ve taken good care of our health. We did nothing to cause it.

Don’t try to figure out why trouble comes. It comes because the world is a mess. God is in charge, but He is constantly challenging us to grow by allowing trouble. God never removes all trouble from us permanently. He depends upon trouble to keep us growing. We can either see our troubles as a doom or a challenge. That is our choice. 

The people of Jerusalem responded to this new challenge in a manner that is typical of believers today, and that was making a mess of it.

The majority of the people became so desperate that they nearly threw away their futures trying to fix it.

They mortgaged their fields and homes. If they lost their fields, what would they eat in the future? Debt is a form of slavery. We sell our future to pay for the present. Debt is also a form of gambling. We bet that we can pay off the present in the future. But who knows what tomorrow will bring? We may have prosperity or we may have ruin.

They mortgaged their sons and daughters by selling them into indentured servitude. If they lost their kids, what was the point of going on?  When we neglect our kids to make money, we are selling our kids’ happiness to provide for our wants and needs today. 

In hard times we must take stock of what is essential to us. Do we really need all these so-called “necessities?”  Can we live without our televisions and gaming systems?  Do we really need the best and the latest, or can we make do with what we have? We should not sell our children and our futures for current luxuries.

A small group of people—the rich and powerful among them--took advantage of the others. They used the famine as an opportunity to make money through usury.

“Usury” is the sin of making money off other people’s troubles by lending money at a high rate.  “Loansharking” would be a more common term. 

Go down the road in any major city and you will see usury.  It is what goes on in places that say “Payday loans,” “Quick Cash Loans,” and “Title Loans.”  Every day, you receive ads in the mail for credit cards inviting you to borrow money at a high rate of interest. These places are not selling, they are buying your future.  When you deal with them, you are selling pieces of your life. They will keep after you until you pay every last penny.

I do not believe these people are necessarily “greedy.” “Scared” would be a better word. They are concerned with storing up treasures for their future.

Making money is good, but not when we take advantage of the trouble of others, or when we mortgage our futures or our families to acquire it.

Nehemiah 5 suggest better responses to hard times. 

First, we should trust God

In verses 9-12, Nehemiah had a “sit down session” with the moneylenders about their food loans. 

"What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?”

Consider what you are doing, Nehemiah says.  You call yourselves God’s people, yet the pagans around you are showing more sense than you. Aren’t you afraid of God?  Don’t you want to please Him more than you want to make money? 

The problem here is not greed or gluttony, but trust. Either you trust God to supply your needs or you don’t. If you do, then you don’t have to break God’s rules to supply your needs. Fear Him, not the famine. God will take care of you if you put Him first.

 God has been with us in the past. He will be with us in the future. When we try to do it our own way, then we just make matters worse.

Second we should Praise God.

The second answer comes from verses12-13

 

“Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. 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.”

 

The leaders repented of their usury. But before they did what they were supposed to do, they praised God.

Praising God is how we remind ourselves that God is in charge. If we do what God wants, but we don’t praise the Lord, then all the anxieties and temptations will stay, even if the problems get better. If we don’t trust Jesus now, then what makes us think we will trust Him in the future unless we first acknowledge that He is trustworthy?

Third, we join others.

Nehemiah’s response to the famine is found in verses 14-18. He did not take advantage of people.  As governor, he was entitled to eat well. Instead, he ate like everyone else. Moreover, those who had nothing found a place at his table. At one time, he had more than a hundred and fifty people regularly dining with him.

Not only did Nehemiah love God, he also loved the people and provided for them.

Our best bank account against hard times are the people we help along the way.  When we care for others, they will care for us. 

Nehemiah curried favor with the people by refusing to put himself first, and by accepting their burdens as his own. In this way, he encouraged others to be generous

People follow their leaders. If their leaders are outgoing, generous and concerned, then they will be the same to each other. 

Our leader is Jesus. As Jesus treated others, so we should treat them. 

God upholds us in times of trouble, and we uphold each other. It’s time to lift each other up, so we can all make it together.