THE LINES OF SEPARATION

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 14, 2024 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: February 7, 2024 from Nehemiah 13:1-3

Theme: Growth in sanctification unto God requires a separation from those who practice ungodliness.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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The Book of Nehemiah is a book about separation.

It tells us the story of how the people of Israel—following their exile in Babylon—were brought back to rebuild the broken-down city wall. Literally, it’s the story of how the chosen people of God made a clear, physical distinction between themselves and the pagan nations around them. But symbolically, it illustrated to us how the people of God must make a clear spiritual distinction between themselves and the rest of the world—living ‘in’ the world, but making sure they are not ‘of’ the world.

The people of this world today don’t like that. They’re offended by it very deeply. Ungodly people were offended by it in Nehemiah’s day too. But such separation is what God—who makes us His people by grace—requires of us. As Paul put it to us in 2 Corinthians 6:16-18;

For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.”

Therefore

“Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”

“I will be a Father to you,
And you shall be My sons and daughters,
Says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:16a-18).

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; before we dive into this fascinating chapter, let’s take a few moments to review our analysis of this book as a whole. It will help us to see the hard things of this chapter in context. In fact, just consider this particular study to be an introduction to the themes we’ll be encountering in Nehemiah 13 in the studies to come.

In our journey through the Book of Nehemiah, we’ve already seen the theme of ‘separation’ unfold to us in three main divisions. The first division was laid out to us in Chapters 1-7. Those chapters tell us the story of the actual rebuilding of the wall of the city of Jerusalem. But the rebuilding of the wall was not enough. God is concerned with much more than mere brick and mortar. So; Chapters 8-10 also tell us the story of the revival of the hearts of the people. But even the transformation of their hearts was not enough. Such transformation needed to shine through in everyday practice. And so, finally, in Chapters 11-13, we find the reformation of the people’s daily life. It’s the last of the three sections that we’ve been studying lately.

And as we’ve also seen, this final section can also be broken up into three divisions. The first division is found in Chapter 11. It tells us about the reformation of the life of the people through their availability to God’s call. In it, we’re told of how the people made the sacrifice of living in the place where He was working—that is, within the very walls of the restored city of Jerusalem. The second division is found in Chapter 12. In it, we’re told about the reformation of the people in terms of their worship. They carefully followed the patterns of worship and priestly service that were established and prescribed in the holy Scriptures. And the third division is found in Chapter 13. In it, we see the story of the practical reform of the people in terms of everyday behavior.

Chapter 13 itself tells us some very hard stories of costly personal reform. In some cases, it seems that drastic and almost shocking actions needed to be taken. This chapter itself can be further divided into three main sections; and in each of the three divisions, we see Nehemiah express a prayer to God that he be remembered for the hard work he did to reform the people; and the hard decisions he had to make. There were a whole lot of people that didn’t like the things he had to do. In some cases, he may even have been threatened because of them. And it almost seems as if he resigns himself to the mercy of God in having to do them.

The first main division of this chapter is found in verses 4-14. It tells the story of how Nehemiah took some severe actions to separate the Jewish people from ungodly alliances with the ungodly people around them. It ends in verse 14 with Nehemiah praying,

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! (Nehemiah 13:14).

The second main division of this chapter is found in verses 15-22. It tells the story of how Nehemiah had to stop the people of Jerusalem from doing business on the Sabbath day; and also of how he had to drive away the people from surrounding nations that were trying to bring merchandise through the city walls on the Sabbath. He was insisting that the Jewish people under his supervision kept true to the holy commandment of God. It ends in verse 22 with Nehemiah praying,

Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy! (v. 22).

The third main division of this chapter is found in verses 23-29. It had to do with a very difficult task. Nehemiah saw that the people of Israel had severely disobeyed God and entered into marriages with the ungodly people groups of the foreign nations around them. A son of one of the high priests even participated in this sin. Nehemiah had to get very rough with many of the people who embraced this disobedient act. And this section ends in verse 29 with Nehemiah praying,

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites (v. 29).

Three times, Nehemiah prayed the prayer, “Remember me, O my God …” after having had to take these very hard and very unpopular courses of action. The first prayer was that God would remember him and not wipe out the “good deeds” he did for God’s holy cause. The Hebrew word for his “good deeds” is the word ḥeseḏ; which speaks of covenant love. The second prayer was that God would remember him, and ‘spare’ him according to the greatness of His “mercy”. And again, the Hebrew word that he used for “mercy” was ḥeseḏ; which again speaks of covenant love. It was that covenant love that motivated Nehemiah to the hard actions he took. Nehemiah’s third prayer was not that God would remember him, but rather that God would remember those who had defiled God’s covenant.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; Nehemiah prays a fourth time at the end of the closing two verses of the book. And these two verses highlight a very important lesson to us. Verses 30-31 say;

Thus I cleansed them of everything pagan. I also assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each to his service, and to bringing the wood offering and the firstfruits at appointed times.

Remember me, O my God, for good! (vv. 30-31).

These two verses give us a summary of Nehemiah’s hard actions in Chapter 13. And it’s very important to see these closing two verses—and actually, the whole of Chapter 13—in the light of something that happened earlier in Chapter 10. Chapter 10 speaks of the time of spiritual revival. It tells us that—after a very serious public prayer of repentance, the leaders of the people entered into a covenant before God. It was a covenant to

walk in God’s Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and His ordinances and statutes … (10:29).

The leaders put their seals to this covenant; and the people all gave their hardy ‘Amen!’ to it. And what was it that they specifically covenanted to do?

• In verse 30 of Chapter 10, they covenanted that they would not give their daughters as wives to foreign people, nor take the daughters of those foreign people for their sons. And that’s the very thing that Nehemiah had to come back and confront the people for having done in 13:23-28 … just twelve years or so after that original covenant had been made before God.
• In verse 31 of Chapter 10, they covenanted that they would not buy and sell wares or grain or do any business on the Sabbath. And that’s the very thing that Nehemiah had to confront the people for doing twelve years later in 13:15-21.
• And in verses 32-39, the people covenanted before God to bring in the tithes and firstfruits of all that God gave them, and to faithfully provide for the priests and the Levites, and to store up the offerings in the storerooms of the house of God as they had been commanded in the Scriptures to do. And their failure to do so is the very thing that Nehemiah had to confront them for doing twelve years later in 13:4-13.

Nehemiah’s first term as governor occurred between the years 445 to 433 B.C. We’re told that he had returned to his role as the king’s cupbearer for a time—so the entire time of his first term as governor was twelve years. (2:1 tells us that he left with the king’s permission in the twentieth year of the king’s reign; and 13:6 tells us that he returned to the king in the thirty-second year of his reign.) But he then returned to Jerusalem for a second term as governor around 431 B.C. And sadly—during the brief time that he was away, between his first and second terms as governor—the people had begun to slip back into the old sins that they had promised before God not to commit again.

And yet, it was those very sins that he came to help the people once again put away from themselves—to cleanse them of everything pagan, to reassign the duties of the priest and Levites, and to order that the necessary offerings be brought again to the storehouse of God.

What a lesson! How easily we fall away from our commitments to God! How quickly it can happen! And how much we need—as the old Protestant reformers used to say—to be ‘constantly reforming’!

* * * * * * * * * *

So then; with all of that background in place—and the sense of the structure of this chapter established—let’s look at the first reform that Chapter 13 describes to us. This one was not brought about by Nehemiah necessarily. It seems to have been brought about by the people themselves. It occurred back in the time of Nehemiah’s first governorship; and apparently took place immediately after the dedication of the wall that occurred in Chapter 12.

On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God … (13:1).

It was back in the day—during this great revival time—when the people of Jerusalem were paying intense heed to the word of God. The holy Scriptures were being read regularly and publicly. And along the way, the people encountered this serious command from God. It most likely was the command found in Deuteronomy 23; and it had to do with who may be permitted to enter into the holy assembly of God’s set-apart people. Moses was reporting to the people the commandments God Himself was giving them before they entered the promised land (see Deuteronomy 12:1); and he said in Deuteronomy 23:3-4;

“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you” (Deuteronomy 23:3-4).

To modern—and perhaps Scripturally-uninformed—ears, this sounds like a very harsh command. Superficially, it seems that people were being prevented from entering into the assembly of God’s people on the basis of their nation of origin. But it’s important to remember two things. First, the demands of God’s separation from other nations, in this case, were specifically directed to the Jewish people—the people that God had separated to Himself from all other people groups of the world. They are a unique people in human history in terms of the calling of God. And because the promised Redeemer was destined to be born from them as the children of Abraham, the salvation of the whole world literally depended upon the preservation of their uniqueness and separateness. And second, the history of these other two specific people groups—Ammon and Moab—had been an especially hostile one toward the unique people of Israel. This was a great tragedy; because those two people groups were related to the people of Israel—having been born from Abraham’s nephew Lot.

In the case of the first people group, God had made it clear that no Ammonite should come into the assembly of God “because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt …” In Numbers 21, we’re told the story of how the people of Israel came to the Amorite king Sihon and asked permission to pass through on their way to the promised land, saying that they would buy their food and pay for their water. But instead, the Ammorite king sent out troops to fight against the people of Israel. And in the case of the second people group, the Moabite king Balak hired the false prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel. Numbers 22-24 tell the story of how God turned Balaam’s curse into a blessing. But Numbers 25 tells of how Balaam crafted a plan for the Moabites to draw the people of Israel with them into immoral practices.

This is why Nehemiah 13:2 explains that God commanded that the Ammonite and Moabite people be excluded from the assembly of God’s people:

because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing (Nehemiah 13:2).

So; this was not a matter of separation based merely on ethnicity or nation of origin (since, as we should remember, Ruth—who was welcomed into the Jewish assembly—was herself a repentant and believing Moabitess). It was a matter of the people of God separating from out of their midst those who were hostile to God’s cause for them. As we will see later in the chapter, the most hostile enemies of the newly-restored people of Jerusalem were individuals from these very people groups—individuals such as Tobiah the Ammonite in verses 4-9, and Sanballat the Horonite in verse 28. The people of Jerusalem didn’t go out to drive these people groups out of their own land. But rather, the people of Jerusalem were required to remove these hostile peoples from themselves in obedience to God’s word—enemies who demonstrated ongoing hostile intent from their own midst. Verse 3 says;

So it was, when they had heard the Law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel (v. 3).

* * * * * * * * * *

Today, as the people of God, we aren’t required to separate ourselves from people of specific people groups or from specific nations. Instead, our Lord Jesus—who came from the Jewish people—is the Savior of all people from all nations.

But in a spiritual sense, in the assembly of those who are redeemed by Christ, we absolutely must make a distinction. We must keep ourselves from the sins of this world and from those who practice and celebrate those sins, and make sure that they are not a part of our assembly. As Paul put it in a very similar passage in 1 Corinthians 5;

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person” (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).

This is a hard thing to do in our day. The things that Nehemiah had to do were also hard in his day. But doing this is absolutely necessary for our sanctification before God. Growth in sanctification unto God truly requires a separation from the ungodly in practice.

May God help us to do this … and to do it rightly … and to do it out of love for His cause.

AE