Well we are at the final chapter of Nehemiah and it is a pretty interesting one. Nehemiah has left the city because he promised the king he would return. While he is gone, everything he had put into place had started falling apart. God had made a rule not to allow Ammonites or Moabites into the temple due to the story in Numbers 22 about Balaam’s ass (go read it). Now God wasn’t completely prejudice against a entire people group, although He is often accused of it by detractors. He still is concerned about the individual (Ruth was a Moabite and she got her own book in the Bible), but He knew that the majority of the Ammonites and Moabites were not God-fearing.
To make matters even worse, the specific Ammonite whom they had built a tomb for in the temple was for Tobiah, who as you remember was an enemy of the reconstruction of Jerusalem and also had corrupted the nobles of Jerusalem. So this is about as big of a betrayal as can happen and has to baffle Nehemiah. On top of that they haven’t been allotting the tithes to the priests, so they had to leave the city. And they are not honoring the Sabbath, but are working instead.
I think that every single person who ministers (not necessarily in a paid position) will face this kind of let-down at some point. For some reason, probably sin, men are going to fall back into their old sinful habits (Proverbs 26:11). I think that very often that this is devastating to people who have poured so much time and effort into discipling and teaching just to see little results. It’s times like this that God’s sovereignty is important to me, because I know I can’t change hearts but I am just called to go preach the Word and make disciples. God is the one who changes hearts.
The majority of believers that I encounter, do not have radically different lives from the non-believers I encounter. I think that Nehemiah is seeing this and trying to make the people understand the eternal weight of the decisions that they are making. I know its not very acceptable to question people’s salvation today, but I think there is great value in individuals wrestling with their salvation and wondering why if they are saved, why does their life not look in the least bit like more mature believers?