'... So did not I, because of the fear of God.'--Neh. v. 15.
I do not suppose that the ordinary Bible-reader knows very much about
Nehemiah. He is one of the neglected great men of Scripture. He was no
prophet, he had no glowing words, he had no lofty visions, he had no
special commission, he did not live in the heroic age. There was a
certain harshness and dryness; a tendency towards what, when it was
more fully developed, became Pharisaism, in the man, which somewhat
covers the essential nobleness of his character. But he was brave,
cautious, circumspect, disinterested; and he had Jerusalem in his
heart.
The words that I have read are a little fragment of his autobiography
which deal with a prosaic enough matter, but carry in them large
principles. When he was appointed governor of the little colony of
returned exiles in Palestine, he found that his predecessors, like
Turkish pashas and Chinese mandarins to-day, had been in the habit of
'squeezing' the people of their Government, and that they had
requisitioned sufficient supplies of provisions to keep the governor's
table well spread. It was the custom. Nobody would have wondered if
Nehemiah had conformed to it; but he felt that he must have his hands
clean. Why did he not do what everybody else had done in like
circumstances? His answer is beautifully simple: 'Because of the fear
of God.' His religion went down into the little duties of common life,
and imposed upon him a standard far above the maxims that were
prevalent round about him. And so, if you will take these words, and
disengage them from the small matter concerning which they were
originally spoken, I think you will find in them thoughts as to the
attitude which we should take to prevalent practices, the motive which
should impel us to a sturdy non-compliance, and the power which will
enable us to walk on a solitary road. 'So did not I, because of the
fear of God.' Now, then, these are my three points:--