Catch My Drift
Text: Nehemiah 13
Proposition: Drift can occur relationally, morally, in faith and in integrity and those who lead or who are close ought to catch it and keep them on course.
Introduction: We were driving down the freeway and the tractor trailer in front of us ever so slowly let his rear trailer began to creep towards the edge of the lane. The tires hit the rumble strips and the vehicle quickly corrected only to begin a slow shifting towards the lane to the left. In seconds his tires were now in the passing lane and then again a quick correction and the trailer swerved as he did so. We sped up and as we passed the truck we could see the driver was trying to read a book as he held it on the steering wheel. He was drifting all over the lane and had become a moving hazard. Drift occurs in many areas of our lives … morally, relationally even spiritually. We take our eyes and minds off the essential and choose instead to let a lesser thing have our attention. I believe there is an equation that sums this up… Distraction times Duration equals Drift. Have you ever had a friend who as they were driving insisted on making eye contact with you. A little alarming and especially if you are in the back seat! That’s what distraction times duration does, it creates the opportunity for drift and disaster. This morning we are going to look at the last chapter in this series on Nehemiah as he now returns to Jerusalem after being away for a number of years. Have a look at Nehemiah 13.
I. The Power and Importance of Tobiah was a Distraction For Eliashib.
Let’s pick up the story in verse four, it really is the starting point for chapter 13:4,5, “Now before this, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah. And he had prepared for him a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests.” Eliashib was the high priest and he had used his authority to not only create a room in the Temple for their old and powerful enemy Tobiah but had all the grain, wine and incense in it taken out. We first met Tobiah back in chapter 2 as he and Sanballat resisted Nehemiah. They used slander, intimidation, corruption and then outright threat of attack to prevent the wall of Jerusalem from being rebuilt. So why on earth would Eliashib the high priest create a room in the Temple of all places for this proven enemy of Israel? I think the answer is simple… because he could and because he thought it necessary. Nehemiah, once the walls were rededicated (chap 12), had returned to Babylon to king Artaxerxes so there was none to resist Eliashib as the High Priest. Then Eliashib’s son married the daughter of Sanballat, the crony of Tobiah. It was a move that Eliashib allowed because he thought it necessary to create alliances by marriage even as king Solomon had. In short Tobiah was a distraction for the high priest, distracting him away from what he should have been doing. It was a distraction that had a duration of several years and the drift was evident in that no one saw anything wrong with it.
II. For Every Action There Is An Equal and Opposite Reaction…
Have a look at the cascading results of what this drift caused. Because Tobiah had been given the storehouse room as his personal apartment the goods in it were lost and nothing new was stored there while Tobiah lived in it. That meant that the Levites and singers and priests weren’t being cared for because there was no storehouse. Nehemiah saw that, look at verse 10, “I also realized that the portions for the Levites had not been given them; for each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field.” Because Tobiah was tolerated the Levites had no support so they went back to farming. Because the Levites and priests went to other work the Temple ceased to function. Because the Temple went into neglect the Law of Moses also went into neglect. The people began to do regular work routines on the Sabbath, buying and selling as any other day of the week. That neglect of the Law meant the people also began to define what was right in their own eyes, they began to marry the women of other nations so much so that the children in many cases no longer spoke Hebrew nor even understood it (vs 24). Distraction times Duration equals Drift and that was exactly what was happening with Israel, they were on the rumble strips heading for ruin. When there is drift, in your life or the life of a church it will take the courageous actions of the people and their leaders to catch their drift. So what does that look like?
III. To Catch the Drift… Stop Compromise and Concession in the Temple. That’s where Nehemiah began, he throws out Tobiah’s things, he cleanses and consecrates the storehouse again. Jesus did the same, twice He cleansed the Temple, correcting the drift and calling the people to see the ruin of their sin in this compromise and concession. They had begun to treat God as though He didn’t really care how they worshipped Him. They had made the Temple a place of human celebration rather than seeing it as coming into the presence of an omnipotent, all- knowing and holy God. Then Nehemiah restored the room and the Levites and singers and priests to their intended purpose. He reorganized the people to again bring their full tithe into the storehouse and not to be negligent in it. He appoints faithful men over the management of the resources. He confronts the nobles, he warns the merchants, he sharply rebukes the people for marrying foreign unbelieving women, he drives out the son of Eliashib who had married the daughter of Sanballat. There are two things that stick out in all this:
1. There is an expectation that what Nehemiah is doing is what the people should have been doing all along and now are called to recognize and uphold. In other words the people are collectively responsible for the wellbeing of not only the Temple but especially of each other. This is their land, their Jerusalem, their Temple to be cared for and their God to whom they belong. To ‘catch my drift’ is the call for each person. I believe verses 1-3 were the people’s response to all of this. Tobiah was an Ammonite and now the people saw the great danger of his presence, especially in the temple. They remember the warning and command of God to separate themselves from this group. Verse 3 spells it out, “So it was, when they had heard the Law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel.” The point is simple, you the people are responsible to lead and serve and supply and minister and to catch the drift of those about you.
2. Three times Nehemiah makes an unusual statement in 14, 22, 31. In verses 14, “Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services!” The very last thing he writes in verse 31 is “Remember me, O my God, for good!” Is it that the actions of the people are in his eyes as if they were his very own? In each case it is him praying for a forgiveness for himself that was in reality the fault of another. In a sense is the belief that if my God will forgive me then He will also forgive my people whom I am accountable for?
Nehemiah like almost every other leader in the Old Testament gives us a foreshadow of Jesus. As David portrays a steadfast heart for God so Nehemiah portrays a Jesus who in all things stands as our Head, our great Governor, the One Who constantly seeks to correct our drift with the truth of His Word and the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Jesus who cleansed the Temple is the Jesus who now cleanses this new temple, the lives of the church, the body of Christ. Jesus took our sin to death, He paid out its price with His body and blood, with His life. Our forgiveness for sin now is placed in the fact that our sin has gotten what it demands, death. It was Jesus death that secures our forgiveness, my sin became His sin and He took it to an end in the perfect plan of God for redemption.