9/13/2011 11:54:56 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The separation promise PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Nehemiah 13:4-9
Message of the verses: “4 Before this had happened, Eliashib the priest, who had been appointed as supervisor of the storerooms of the Temple of our God and who was also a relative of Tobiah, 5 had converted a large storage room and placed it at Tobiah’s disposal. The room had previously been used for storing the grain offerings, the frankincense, various articles for the Temple, and the tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil (which were prescribed for the Levites, the singers, and the gatekeepers), as well as the offerings for the priests. 6 I was not in Jerusalem at that time, for I had returned to King Artaxerxes of Babylon in the thirty-second year of his reign, though I later asked his permission to return. 7 When I arrived back in Jerusalem, I learned about Eliashib’s evil deed in providing Tobiah with a room in the courtyards of the Temple of God. 8 I became very upset and threw all of Tobiah’s belongings out of the room. 9 Then I demanded that the rooms be purified, and I brought back the articles for God’s Temple, the grain offerings, and the frankincense.”
This is the second sub-point from Dr. Wiersbe’s for the main point that is seen above. He entitles this second sub-point “An enemy intruder,” and it covers the verses seen above. It should be noted that this begins the part of Nehemiah that shows what happens when the leader leaves his job, as Nehemiah had been governor for twelve years (Neh. 5:14) and after that he returned to Babylon to report to the king and now he is back to serve a second term as governor and finds this mess that we will discuss in this SD.
As we learned in yesterday’s SD the fact that the Ammonites or the Moabites could not to be married to Jews, but they were not to go into the temple and now we find an Ammonite (Tobiah) actually living in a room in the temple. Now I have to stop here to talk about something that is on my mind concerning this section. When one goes to the book of Ruth we find that Ruth was a Moabite and she is also found in the bloodline of the Lord Jesus Christ, which surely shows the grace of God in action. When I studied that book last summer I read about the law from the OT that spoke of not allowing an Ammonite or Moabite to worship at the temple for ten generations, (“"No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD, because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”) (Deu. 23:3-4) There were some commentators that said that it was already the tenth generation for Ruth and therefore she was allowed to go into the temple, and if she was allowed to go into the temple then I would think that others would be allowed to go into the temple, however in the case of Tobiah this should not have happened and the reason that it did was because he was actually married to one of the realities of Eliashib the high priest. Again I look at Ruth being married to Boaz, Ruth being the Moabite and Boaz the Jew. I will have to look into this further so that I can be satisfied that I understand it better, but one thing that I do know now is that the people that we are talking about in this section are not the “good guys.”
We must remember that these kind of thing can happen in the church today as perhaps one member of the church was instrumental in starting the church, yet further down the line perhaps his grand children are not strong believers or believers at all and if they have influence in the church it can cause trouble. Eliashib’s relative was privileged in being born into the family of a high priest, yet through away his life by marrying Tobiah and causing grief for the entire nation.
All of this happened when Nehemiah was away. Dr. Wiersbe writes “It doesn’t take long for the enemy to capture leadership, and too often the people will blindly follow their leaders in the path of compromise and disobedience.”
According to this passage for today’s SD it took little time for Nehemiah to correct this problem, by throwing Tobiah out of this room that was used to house some of the things that were to be sacrificed to the Lord, and to then purify the room so that it could again be used for its desired purpose. This is the sign of good leadership, leadership that does not compromise.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The thing that I want to take away from this section is “no compromising.” I do not want to be weak when it comes to the things of the Lord even if it causes me pain, and there are times when it will cause me pain.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. No compromise
2. Continue to learn contentment.
9/13/2011 12:44:56 PM
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