COMPROMISES & CONSEQUENCES
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 21, 2024 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: February 21, 2024 from Nehemiah 13:4-14
Theme: When we forge a compromise with ungodliness, we end up bringing about harmful consequences to the work of God.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Among the stories of the good kings of Judah, one of the saddest stories was that of King Jehoshaphat. He was a good and God-fearing king in almost every way. But he had a tragic habit of compromising with the wicked kings of the northern kingdom of Israel. And his compromises always ended up bringing about undesirable consequences—and harming the work that God was wanting to do through him.
In 1 Kings 22, we’re told the sad story of how Jehoshaphat had aligned himself with wicked King Ahab. Ahab had decided to make a raid on a neighboring land and take it for himself. And so he asked Jehoshaphat if he would fight this battle with him; and Jehoshaphat—without first consulting with the Lord—said, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses” (v. 4). This resulted in a dreadful disaster. King Ahab was killed; and Jehoshaphat barely escaped with his life. It should have been a lesson learned.
But it wasn’t. Later on, Jehoshaphat aligned himself with Ahab’s wicked son King Ahaziah. They went into business together; with Jehoshaphat building a fleet of ships to go with the merchants of Ahaziah to the land of Ophir to obtain gold. But in 2 Chronicles 20, we’re told that his ships were wrecked and he lost his fleet. As a prophet of the Lord told him in verse 37, “Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah, the LORD has destroyed your works.” It was another opportunity for the lesson to be learned.
But it still wasn’t. A little later on, Ahaziah’s wicked son King Jehoram sought to go to war against the neighboring land of Moab. In 2 Kings 3, Jehoram asked Jehoshaphat if he would go with him in the battle; and Jehoshaphat—again without consulting the Lord—recklessly said, “I will go up; I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses” (v. 7). That too turned into a shameful disaster; and though he escaped with his life, Jehoshaphat went home in dishonor.
Jehoshaphat was a truly good and godly man. But he had no business aligning himself with ungodly people. He should have kept himself separate from them. But his story illustrates to us that compromise is the great enemy of holy separation. Whenever we fall into the dangerous belief that ‘being civil’ toward the wicked somehow requires that we ‘become partners’ with them, we end up bringing dishonor to our Lord, harm to His cause, and loss to ourselves.
This is a lesson that we find from Nehemiah 13:4-14. It tells us the story of how one of the leaders in Nehemiah’s day entered into a dreadful compromise with the enemy of God’s people; and it resulted in the servants of God suffering loss. It teaches us the very important lesson that when we forge a compromise with ungodliness, we end up bringing about harmful consequences to the work of God. We truly must keep separate!
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Now; it would be good to remember the larger context of this passage. It’s in Chapter 13—which we’ve already learned is a chapter about personal reform in the behavior and daily conduct of God’s people. The Book of Nehemiah itself is a book about how the chosen people of God must establish a ‘wall of separation’ from the ungodly people around them. They must—as is often said—live ‘in the world’, but as people who are ‘not of the world’. And this necessarily must involve a personal separation from the sinful practices of this world, and from any compromising alliances with those who practice them.
As we learned in our last study, this important chapter began with a commitment that the people of Jerusalem had made several years prior. It occurred at a time when Nehemiah had been serving his first term as governor over the city—and at the time when the entire city of Jerusalem celebrated and worshiped God for the completion of the wall. Verses 1-3 told us;
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, 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. So it was, when they had heard the Law, that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel (Nehemiah 13:1-3).
At a time of great reform for the people—right on the heels of revival—the people realized that God, in His word, commanded that they keep themselves separate from the wicked people groups who had formerly attacked them. To some degree, they found that they had disobeyed God’s command by allowing these people groups to become a part of the mixed multitude that had followed along with them. And so, the chosen people of God obediently removed the Ammonites and the Moabites from out of their holy assembly; and carefully made a distinction between themselves and the Gentile nations. They not only built a wall of separation from ungodly nations, but they also put that separation into practical action.
But it wasn’t long before that separation was defiled again. Verses 4-9 tell us of …
1. THE COMPROMISE WITH THE UNGODLY (vv. 4-9).
Verse 4 says;
Now before this, Eliashib the priest, having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah (v. 4).
This was a compromise that was entered into—apparently—before the events of verses 1-3. A little compromise in the past—unrepented of—can easily eventuate in a larger and more damaging compromise later. And this compromise was entered into by—of all people—the high priest. His name was Eliashib.
We find Eliashib’s name mentioned in 12:10-11, in a genealogical list of the names of the high priests from the times of the first return of the people from Babylon to the time of the end of the Persian empire. And Eliashib—like King Jehoshaphat—was most likely a godly man in all other respects. After all, we’re told in Nehemiah 3:1 that Eliashib was involved in the building of the wall of Jerusalem. He even led his brother priests in the work. But somehow along the way—also like good King Jehoshaphat—he ended up entering into a compromise with the ungodly.
And notice with whom it was that he entered into this compromise. It was with none other than Tobiah the Ammonite leader who was among those who viciously opposed and ridiculed the building of the wall in the first place. In 2:1, when Nehemiah first made his way to Jerusalem, we’re told that it greatly displeased Tobiah that anyone had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel. Later, in 2:19, we find Tobiah among those who accused Nehemiah of committing an act of rebellion against the king of Persia by building the wall. In 4:3, we find Tobiah mocking the people as they built; saying—in a way that may have even been a veiled threat—“Whatever they build, if even a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall.” He may have been among those in 4:11 who threatened to come by stealth into the midst of the Jewish people, kill them, and make the work cease. In 6:1-4, Tobiah—along with Sanballat the Horonite—sought to meet with Nehemiah with pretended terms of peace; but in reality, they were planning to do him harm. And in 6:10-13, they hired a secret informer from among the Jewish people to cause fear and discouragement to Nehemiah.
This was not the kind of man with whom Eliashib should have had anything to do. And yet—before the time when the Ammonites and Moabites were separated from the assembly of the people of Israel, Eliashib entered into some kind of friendly relationship with him. (It may be that this was a problem that ran in the family. In 13:28, we find that Eliashib’s grandson had entered into a marriage with the daughter of Sanballat the Hornoite—another fierce enemy of the Jewish people.)
Now; if we put the time frame of events in order, it must be that Eliashib had this friendly relationship with Tobiah while Nehemiah was still governor of the city—but perhaps in such a way that Nehemiah didn’t know about it. Nehemiah’s first term as governor occurred in the twelve-year period between 445 to 433 B.C. Nehemiah returned for a second term of leadership over the city in 431 B.C. And so; sometime between the two-to-three-year period in which Nehemiah was gone, the high priest Eliashib took his compromise with Tobiah to a terrible level:
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. But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Then after certain days I obtained leave from the king, and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God (vv. 5-7).
Nehemiah said that he went back to the service of Artaxerxes “king of Babylon”—although he was actually the king of Persia. It sounds like Nehemiah was reporting things erroneously. Right king … but wrong empire. But he probably said this to highlight the dreadfulness of this compromise. The Persian empire had already conquered Babylon and now occupied their land; and that’s where Nehemiah went for a few years—that is, to very the land formerly known as Babylon, where the people of Judah had previously been sent for their unfaithfulness to God and for their compromises with sin. And so; what a shockingly appalling thing this was that Nehemiah discovered when he returned to Jerusalem! The temple—at this time—was in the process of being rebuilt. And yet, Eliashib had actually allowed this wicked man Tobiah—the enemy of the cause of God—to make an apartment for himself in one of the large rooms within the very courts of God’s holy house! And it wasn’t just any room, either. It was one of the large rooms that had been set aside for the necessary provisions of the priesthood in the service of God.
In the Old Testament law—in Numbers 18:21-32—the people of Israel were commanded to bring their offerings to the Levites; and the Levites were to give a tenth of their offerings for the provision of the priests. They were commanded to “bring all the tithes into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10). And storerooms were set aside in the temple for this very purpose. In Nehemiah 10:32-39—when the people entered into a solemn covenant before God—one of the things that they promised to do was to exact the proper tithes and offerings from the people and bring them faithfully to the storehouses. And back at the time when the people dedicated the newly-built wall, we’re told—in 12:44;
And at the same time some were appointed over the rooms of the storehouse for the offerings, the firstfruits, and the tithes, to gather into them from the fields of the cities the portions specified by the Law for the priests and Levites; for Judah rejoiced over the priests and Levites who ministered (Nehemiah 12:44).
But Eliashib—for whatever reason—allowed this ungodly Ammonite leader named Tobiah to move into one of those large rooms. It may have been a friendly, peace-making gesture on the part of the high priest. But in reality, it was allowing a proven enemy of the people of Israel to move in and set up a stronghold—displacing the holy offerings that belonged to God. What a dreadful compromise!
And as soon as he found out about it, Nehemiah took action.
And it grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense (vv. 8-9).
He chucked Tobiah’s stuff to the curb! The compromise was over! Sometimes, compromises with the ungodly develop slowly and in ways that are almost unnoticed. But once such compromises are discovered, they must be dealt with immediately—especially when they end up defiling the sacred things of God. Think of how the Lord Jesus reacted when He saw the merchandising that was going on in the temple in His day. Nehemiah’s act of throwing things out of the storeroom prefigured the holy zeal of our Lord for His Father’s house!
But there’s more. The problem didn’t end with Eliashib. As we said earlier, when we forge a compromise with ungodliness, we end up bringing about harmful consequences to the work of God. And so, we go on to read of …
2. THE CONSEQUENCE OF COMPROMISE (vv. 10-14).
The fact that the storage rooms had been misused—occupied by an ungodly man and filled with his ungodly goods—meant that those rooms couldn’t contain the needed supplies for the Levites and the priests. This harmed the work of God. Nehemiah goes on to say;
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 (v. 10).
Think of it! Eliashib’s compromise with ungodliness meant that the storerooms weren’t being used as they should have been used. And that meant that the people of Judah stopped providing for the Levites and priests as they should. And that meant that the Levites and servants of the house of God—who had been given no land of their own—had to leave their God-given responsibilities and labor out in the fields in order to survive. The compromise of Eliashib resulted in a loss to the temple and its service.
So I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them together and set them in their place. Then all Judah brought the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse (vv. 11-12).
Sadly, Eliashib the high priest had proven unfaithful in his protection of the provisions for the house of God. And so, Nehemiah put other leaders over this responsibility:
And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah; and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren (vv. 12-13).
The men identified by these names may have already proven their reliability. Shelemiah may have been the same man who is mentioned in 3:30—whose son helped build the wall. There was a man named Zadok who was one of the signatories of the covenant that was made in 10:21; and this may be the same man as Zadok the scribe. Pedaiah may have been the man mentioned in 8:4, who stood next to Ezra as the word of God was being read. And there’s a good chance that Hanan may have been one of the several men by that name who signed the covenant—in 10:10, 22, 23, or 25. Whether or not these men were the same as were mentioned elsewhere in the book though, they were nevertheless known by Nehemiah and were “considered faithful”. The important task of maintaining the necessary provisions for the servants of God’s house—and of making sure those provisions were properly distributed—was rightly entrusted to them.
The work of reversing the consequences of this terrible compromise was done. Therefore, Nehemiah could pray in verse 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! (v. 14).
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Praise God that the damaging consequences of a compromise can be restored—and the compromise itself can be reversed. But let’s learn the lesson. We must keep ourselves separate from the ungodly of this world, and we must not compromise that separateness to the harm of the work of God. We must keep ourselves holy—and thus useful to our Lord. Compromise is the great enemy of holy separation. As the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:20-21;
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:20-21).
Let’s beware of falling into the trap that King Jehoshaphat fell into … repeatedly.
AE
