A Great Outcry

 

Nehemiah 5:1-13

 

May 16, 2022

 

 

Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.   For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.”   There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.”   And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards.   Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.  I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them and said to them, “We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!” They were silent and could not find a word to say.   So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nation’s our enemies?   Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest.   Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.”   Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.” And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised.   I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.

 

My dad always said; “The old is forever new” and would follow up with, “We learn nothing from history, If we did it would not be repeated.”  In this great nation, God has blessed us to live in, and if you had the opportunity to travel to other nations, you know that to be true, the foundations are being destroyed.  Our children for years have been taught lies about the history of this great nation and the cost of living free, with rights to worship, speak and obey the authority of both God and man.  They are being taught good is evil, and evil is good.  And yet the Church,  and that is not some denotation, or building where a person goes to worship, it is you and me who have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We as a nation of people have as a whole never been slaves, yet to our shame, both the blacks and the Irish early in our history have.  We call that history, but many godly white men pay a great price to remove this evil from our nation.

 

Not true with the people of Israel and Judah, they had a history of rebelling against the Lord and had known the price of rebelling against God, we are as a nation heading in that direction.  Many are already enslaved to many things and to ignorance yet too oblivious to understand the price of sin against both God and others.

 

First, there was an outcry, then they caught the ear of a man who walked and talked with God, and God gave him the authority to confront the leaders of the day.  

 

The priests were not the only ones that had to agree to give back what they had taken from the under-resource of the nation, but to return the interest and what they had made off the land and the people did as they had promised.  What if we as a Church also did as we promised our Lord and others?

 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice