Confronting Carnal Leaders
Spiritual leaders are to
courageously confront sinful behavior
when fellow leaders are causing
God's people to stumble.
Here's Gene:
At some point in time,
Nehemiah actually returned to Sousa
where you remember he was serving
as cupbearer to the King Artaxerxes.
And he was gone for two years.
And after those two years,
he actually returned to Jerusalem.
And wow. He saw a very disappointing,
discouraging situation. Because things
had changed dramatically in the way
people were responding to the will of God.
Many of the children of Israel
had violated the very vows
that they actually had made in writing
and put in writing.
They were no longer bringing their tithes
and their offerings into the storehouse.
And Nehemiah describes how all of this happened.
Picking up first of all with the
tithing violations in Nehemiah chapter 13,
the latter part of verse 7:
Then I discovered the evil that Eliashib
had done on behalf of Tobiah
by providing him a room in the
courts of God's house. ...
And Eliashib was actually the high priest.
And he was related to Tobiah.
We're not quite sure.
Tobiah was a Samaritan but there was
an interrelationship. Because the Samaritans
obviously were half breeds in the sense
that they were Jewish
and also they were pagan.
They were really not Jewish,
and so there was a mixture.
So there was a relationship there
between the high priest and this man Tobiah.
Who was a very evil guy.
Who really tried to discourage Nehemiah
in the whole building process.
But notice:
...I was greatly displeased...
I mean, that's sort of a euphemism.
...I was greatly displeased and I threw all
of Tobiah's household possessions
out of the room. ...
I mean, he's mad.
...I ordered that the rooms be purified...
Literally Hebrew, fumigated.
That's funny, kind of.
I mean, he wanted to get rid of the stench,
as it were, from this evil guy
who had taken over
and was living in the room
where they were to bring their produce
and their tithes.
...I ordered [that] the rooms be purified,
and I had the articles of the
house of God restored there...
They had actually removed
part of the articles of God
that were associated with the temple.
...along with the grain offering
and the frankincense.
I had all of that restored.
They threw it out of the room.
He replaced what the children of Israel
were supposed to be bringing
to support the priests.
Now basically what was happening
is that no longer were they tithing.
No longer were the priests and the Levites
being taken care of.
The Levites actually had to go back
and earn a living. Working in the fields
in order to put bread on their table.
The whole thing had deteriorated in two years.
Which shows by the way, how quickly--
how quickly people can depart
from the will of God.
It's rather shocking.
And when Nehemiah found out about it,
he was really, really bent out of shape.
But it wasn't just the tithe violations.
There was the Sabbath violations.
Because they had learned from Ezra
that they were to keep the Sabbath
according to the law of God
that was given to Moses.
We read verse 15 of chapter 13:
At that time I saw people in Judah
treading wine presses on the Sabbath. ...
Which was a violation of the will of God
in the Old Testament.
...They were also bringing in stores
of grain and loading them on donkeys,
along with wine, [and] grapes, and figs.
[And] all kinds of goods were being brought
to Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.
So I warned them against selling food
on that day.
In other words, he was very disturbed.
Just like Jesus was disturbed
when Jesus came into the temple,
and they were violating the temple.
There were money changers.
They were taking advantage
of people in relationship.
And remember, Jesus overturned
the tables and drove them out.
It's almost a repeat of what Nehemiah
had to do when he got back there
to Jerusalem after having been away
for two years.
But not only tithe violations,
Sabbath violations but also
marriage violations. And we read:
In those days I also saw Jews who had
married women from Ashdod,
Ammon, and Moab. ...
And this was the downfall of Israel.
The downfall of Israel was marrying pagans.
You see that throughout the whole
Old Testament story. Where they
literally violated the will of God
in this respect.
And that always brought idolatry
into Israel. Because the women
outside of Israel--in the most part--
were pagan and worshiping idols.
And there was immorality.
And all this came into Israel.
Well they're back doing it again.
...Half of their children spoke the
language of Ashdod or of
one of the other peoples
but could not speak Hebrew.
And by the way, once they moved away
from understanding Hebrew,
then they had a difficult time
really understanding the law of God,
which was actually given in Hebrew.
So Nehemiah faced a situation here
that was very, very disturbing.
He was furious.
He got actually physical
with some of these guys.
And here are some of his final words
in dealing with these sins in
chapter 13, verse 30 and following:
So I purified them from everything foreign
and assigned specific duties to
each of the priests and Levites. ...
See, no longer were the priests and Levites
able to function because of the violation
of the tithe--laws that God had given.
...I also arranged for the donation of wood
at the appointed times and for the firstfruits.
To be brought into the storehouse
to be distributed.
This is interesting.
And I want to pull together
three prayers in relationship to
each of these situations
when he was dealing with it.
Nehemiah really took this personally.
He said: Remember me.
Three times he said to God,
while he was dealing with this issue--
or with these issues I should say:
Remember me for this, my God,
and don't erase the good deeds
I have done for the house of my God
and for its services.
In other words, he was simply saying--
taking it so personally that he was saying
he was feeling a sense of responsibility.
That he himself was going to be
disciplined by God. In view of the fact
that all the people that he had led
to do the right things were
now doing the bad things.
You can imagine how he felt.
And you see that same feeling
in the next prayer:
Remember me for this also, my God,
and look on me with compassion in keeping
with Your abundant, faithful love.
In other words, don't discipline me
because of these people.
And by the way, many times in Israel,
those who were really following the law of God
were disciplined along with the whole nation.
For example, Daniel went into captivity
and he was a man of prayer.
A man who really kept the law of God.
We see this in Daniel.
We see this in others--Joseph.
We see this in people that
really honored the Lord.
We see it even in Nehemiah
because he was in captivity
because of the sins of the people.
And when he confessed their sins there
in chapter 1, he included himself.
And even though he was obeying God,
he was disciplined with the whole nation.
Because God dealt with them
in that situation as a whole nation.
So he's well aware of that.
And he doesn't want to be a part of that.
And he's in essence saying:
God, I did the best I could.
And now I'm trying to
straighten out this mess.
And you can imagine the pain
that he was going through.
The difficulty of having to deal
with these issues.
His final prayer was:
Remember me, my God, with favor.
Now when we segue to the
New Testament, obviously what
Nehemiah had to do is not a model.
We never see a repetition or a
justification for being physical,
for dealing with situations like this
in the way Nehemiah had to deal with it.
If he hadn't dealt with it,
it [wouldn't] have resolved the problem.
So in a sense, he was God's
representative in dealing with this issue.
Now when we move to the New Testament however,
there were situations,
where for example, Titus--who was in Crete
establishing the church--
had to deal with rebellious people
who professed to be believers.
Notice Titus 1, verse 10:
For there are also many rebellious people,
full of empty talk and deception,
especially those from Judaism.
It is necessary to silence them;
they overthrow whole households
by teaching what they shouldn't
in order to get money dishonestly.
In other words, these are people
who professed to know Christ,
have infiltrated the church.
These households are leading
whole households astray.
And so Paul said at the end of this letter
in verses 10 and 11, chapter 3. He said:
Reject a divisive person after
a first and second warning...
In other words, warn them, and warn them.
But if they will not respond,
you have to deal with that person.
Because that person, as we see here:
...knowing that such a person
is perverted and sins,
being self-condemned.
So there were situations in the
New Testament church where they had
to deal with people who were destroying
the church but professing to be believers.
But generally speaking,
we are to approach people with love.
But we're to speak the truth in love.
And here we have in Galatians 6
directions that God gave to the spiritual leaders
there in the Galatian churches.
And there were people who were
leading them astray by teaching
they had to do good works
in order to be saved.
And so notice how Paul approached that
when he wrote the book to the Galatians:
Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing,
you who are spiritual should restore
such a person with a gentle spirit...
Reflecting obviously, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
...watching out for yourselves
so you also won't be tempted.
Carry one another's burdens;
in this way you will fulfill the
law of [Jesus] Christ.
Now the fact is there are times
when we have to say:
Stop. You cannot proceed to
destroy the church of Jesus Christ.
But the approach always should be in love--
speaking the truth in love.
So that leads us to a question
for Reflection and Response.
And that is:
In carrying out leadership responsibilities,
how does living under grace in the
New Testament differ from living
under law in the Old Testament?
Well first of all, the law was very, very demanding,
and very direct in dealing with these issues.
In fact, just read through the Old Testament
in dealing with some of the
horrendous things that happened
and how they had to deal with it.
In the New Testament you see grace.
You see the fulfillment of God's grace.
We have the whole revelation of God.
But there are still times that we have to
deal with situations directly.
And I remember a man in our church,
who attended our church for a long time.
I reached out to him, reached out to him,
reached out to him.
And he was continually causing trouble.
And then one day he began to
pick on two of our elders,
who are very godly men.
And I remember meeting with this man
and these two elders.
And I said to him, I said:
I'm going to tell you something.
I've worked with these two elders for years.
And I don't know of one person in the church
that doesn't trust them and respect them.
But I looked him right in the eye and said:
I cannot think of one person
in the church who trusts you.
And he said: I guess I'm no longer welcome here.
And I said: That's right.
And he left.
And he should have left
because of his attitude and his spirit.
Now that's a very unusual situation.
I'm not that kind of person in dealing.
But once he started attacking these two men
that I knew were godly, he stepped over the line.
And I was angry--hopefully righteously so.
I didn't do what Nehemiah did.
I didn't pluck out his beard.
But the fact is, I told him that it was over.
Because we had reached out
and reached out.
But every time, he took advantage
of that situation.
But that's unusual.
Very unusual in relationship to
how people respond to confrontation.