One For Israel

Dr. Erez Soref: I'm Dr. Erez Soref. I was born and raised in the heart of Israel, but I never heard the gospel message until, on a journey abroad, my eyes were opened to the Jewish Messiah. From that point, my life has been dedicated to bringing this gospel back to my people Israel, equipping them to reach Israel and the world. Together, as Jews and Gentiles, we are one in Messiah, one for Israel.

Jerusalem is the place where God said He would put His name among His people. What does that mean? It means that His presence, His honor, and His character would be known from this city. But in Nehemiah's story, we will see a time of tension where Israelites began to dishonor God's name by going against their values as a people.

When Israel acted against their values, it wasn't just an embarrassment to them; it was dishonoring the name of God Himself. In the traditional Middle Eastern world, your name was bound up with honor. To dishonor your father's name through your actions was deeply shameful. Through their actions, Israel began dishonoring God's name and their own name as well. Today, we'll see how Nehemiah led the people of Israel when he identified spiritual compromise. And we'll challenge you with the question: What is your name? as we walk the walls with Nehemiah.

Nehemiah had come from Persia with a vision from God to lead the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. The walls were going up and work was progressing. Nehemiah had successfully repelled an attack from his enemies, but soon there was a crisis. Some of the workers on the wall came to him with a problem from within.

Many of the Jews living in Jerusalem and the surrounding area had recently returned from exile. They had come home poor and had little means to provide for themselves. As they worked on the wall, many had to borrow money from the wealthy Jewish nobles. The ones lending money were looking to their own benefit, charging high interest to their neighbors. When the poor Jews could not pay back their debt, some were forced to sell themselves or their children into slavery.

Now, of course, you would be appalled at the idea of slavery, and no one is thrilled by high interest loans either. But for Israel, exacting interest to a fellow Israelite actually went directly against God's law. In Leviticus, it says, "If your brothers become poor, you shall support him, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God." It was against their God-given identity as a people to take advantage of the poor. This went contrary to their name.

So the people brought this issue to Nehemiah. What was he supposed to do? They really needed to finish the work to accomplish God's vision. They had already slowed down while repelling their enemies' external attacks. Couldn't they just deal with this internal issue later, once the wall was done? I mean, yes, the nobles were breaking God's command, but it's not like they were breaking one of the Big Ten. It wasn't idols or murders or adultery.

As leaders running with the vision, sometimes the people's needs seem to get in the way. Some ministries or churches operate like machines, like a business or corporation. But what happens when people inside those machines are suffering spiritually or emotionally? When they're hurt or taken advantage of, do we have the time to listen, to care for the people more than we care for the program?

When we take advantage of the lowly, we are acting in opposition to God. We cannot build God's kingdom that way. Way back in Egypt, the Israelites made bricks to build Pharaoh's kingdom as slaves. Now, in Nehemiah's time, some of the Israelites building with bricks had become slaves once again. Nehemiah had a choice. Would he attempt to build God's kingdom the world's way, following in Pharaoh's footsteps on the backs of the oppressed?

No. Nehemiah made the difficult choice and stopped the work. He knew his priorities. He would not build for the vision and sacrifice his name in the process. As long as Nehemiah was leading, Israel would be known as the ones who would obey God. Spiritual compromise is more than just flirting with worldly pleasures. It's also putting worldly goals, success, and ambition above God's priorities and God's people.

When we lose God's perspective, we lose God's vision. When we lose God's point of view, we lose our view of God. So Nehemiah began to appeal to the fear of God, reverence for His name, in order to bring the people to repentance. Today, we are witnessing a spiritual awakening in Israel unlike anything we've ever seen. Hearts are being opened, lives are being transformed, and the good news of Jesus is spreading throughout Israel.

Today, we have over 700,000 Israelis subscribed to our Hebrew gospel channel, making our channel that proclaims Yeshua one of the top YouTube channels in all of Israel. God is opening hearts, but for this ministry to succeed, we need to be supported by prayer—your prayer. That's why we've created a free prayer guide to help you stand with Israel in this vital moment. This 31-day prayer guide will equip you to pray for Israel's peace, salvation, and restoration. God is doing amazing things in Israel. Join us in prayer and be part of this awakening.

Nehemiah stopped the work on the wall when he realized that some of the richer Jewish nobles were taking advantage of their poor brothers. He gathered the nobles together and said to them, "You are exacting interest each from his brother. We, as far as we were 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."

The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God? Nehemiah cut right to the heart of the issue. The nobles lacked the fear of the Lord. The culture of exile was still in their hearts and minds. They were going along with the world's way of doing things rather than God's way. When we are carrying out a God-given vision, we must remember that God's work must be carried out in fear and reverence with an awareness of the One we serve.

What does it look like to lose the fear of the Lord? Excusing your compromises or the compromise of others. Allowing your tongue to go off unchecked. It's thinking of God less, and therefore we think less of God. There's a common theme repeated in the book of Judges: Israel had no king and everyone did as they saw fit. When everyone does what they see fit, we move quickly into moral decline.

Our name, our reputation, is corrupted. Nehemiah saw the seeds and the danger of this and jumped in quickly to address it. He told the nobles to return the fields, houses, and money to their brothers. Stop charging interest to fellow Israelites. Amazingly, they responded to Nehemiah's correction. They said, "We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say." The miraculous thing is that these leaders actually listened to Nehemiah and forgave the debt. Nehemiah made them take a vow before the Lord and they made things right.

Rabbi Dr. Ahron Ariel Avi: Nehemiah led the first what we call Shivat Tzion, the return to Zion. That's actually a biblical term; it's not a modern term. The people of Israel went on exile in 586 BC. Around 40 to 50 years later, they start coming back. Now, those who came back were not, unfortunately, the wealthiest and the most well-off of the Jewish people. Many of them struggled to survive, struggled to reestablish their lives back in the land of Israel, and they had to borrow money.

When you borrow money and there's interest, you can be in trouble. It's very easy to get into borrowing money; it's very difficult to get out. If it's one family or two families, okay, so the community can help them. But if it's the entire community, then the community has a problem. It's actually trapped in debt. That's what Nehemiah is trying to solve by using the biblical mechanism of debt relief.

Why do people charge interest? Because they want to use the resources they have to make more resources. So I'll lend you money, I'll lend you $100, and you pay me back $120. So I made $20. Otherwise, what reason do I have to give you money? What's called free loans or no-interest loans, they actually go against the basic trait of human nature, of the basic incentive we have to accumulate more wealth.

In that sense, it tells us something about how God views us. It's not only in this; we see it in many other parts of the Bible. Human nature goes in one direction, but the Bible challenges us to actually go, not in the other direction entirely, but to actually override our human nature and be stronger than our animal instincts to make money, to procreate, to control, to rule, to be violent. The Bible teaches us to actually overcome this.

Interest-based loans were pretty common in the ancient world, as they are common today. But what most people don't know is that even debt relief mechanisms were pretty prevalent in the ancient world. This is not a biblical invention. I'll tell you what is the biblical invention: Shmita and Jubilee, Yovel in Hebrew. It's actually part of the constitution. Every seven years, when the sun sets on the last day of the seventh year, all the debts are remitted. Injecting this into the system as a pre-planned mechanism, that's the main innovation.

The ideas of Shmita and Jubilee actually challenge the entire system. We talked about challenging the human nature. Shmita and Jubilee challenge social nature. Shmita comes from the word "lishmot," which means to let go in Hebrew. It's a sabbatical year, which means that every seventh year is a Shmita year. We don't work the land for one year, and the other one is that we remit a debt relief at the end of the year.

On top of that, there's Hakhel. After the Shmita year, we gather back as a community once every seven years to renew the covenant between us and God. There are other components that I will not go into right now. Try to imagine this in a society where 97% of the people worked in farming and agriculture. Telling the society—not a person, a society—that once every seven years you're going to leave the land fallow for a whole year and trust God that it's going to be okay, that's a huge challenge.

On top of that, every seven cycles of Shmita, the 50th year, that's the Jubilee. All the slaves are released, no matter how long they've been in slavery. All the slaves are released—the complete liberation of everybody. And the second thing is that all the land goes back to the original owner from the beginning of the cycle. As far as we know, Shmita was practiced partially. The Bible tells us, actually, not practicing Shmita properly was one of the reasons for the destruction of the First Temple according to Jeremiah.

Jubilee, as far as we know, was barely practiced at all because it's such a huge challenge. But still, the idea can serve as a compass and give us a direction for how a rectified society should look like. The problem is that debt is addictive. It's like drugs. If you start with it, then it's very hard to get out because you need to take more and more loans to cover the previous loans, then you just sink deeper and deeper.

So taking another loan to cover the existing loans won't help much. The Bible, even though it challenges human nature, it does not violate human nature. It inspires us to overcome some of our animal instincts. What we can hope to achieve and what we can and should achieve is an economy based on trust and based on honesty. Contrary to intuitively as opposed to what many people believe, that if you cheat more, you gain more, it's the other way around.

Actually, if you look at the work of Professor Yisrael Aumann, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Israeli economist, the single most important variable determining national economic success is not the gene pool of the population, it's not the geography, it's not the climate, it's not the skin color. It's the culture. Now, to be able to innovate, you need to be able to find people you can trust and work with and to take risks.

The root cause for economic success and well-being is culture. It's the mindset which is the offspring of religion and the Bible. It's all built on the presumption of a free market of free people in a free country. A biblically inspired economy is not a fantasy.

Dr. Erez Soref: Nehemiah had stopped the building of the wall as he confronted a crisis. Some in Israel were acting against the honor of God's name. The richer nobles were taking advantage of poor fellow Israelites. Nehemiah urged them to stop charging interest and forgive the debts of the poor. And amazingly, the nobles made a vow right then that they would follow God's command and make things right. It is so rare for someone to accept correction so easily, especially if it cost them so much.

But maybe the reason that these nobles were so willing to do what was right and forgive the debts was because they saw the example of their leader, Nehemiah. Remember, Nehemiah wasn't just some local self-appointed leader. He was a high official in the Persian emperor's palace. He had been sent out to Jerusalem with official commendation. He had been appointed governor of Judea.

He had the right to free food, comfortable housing, and an allowance paid for by the people. But Nehemiah had not taken any of this. Instead, out of his own pocket, he provided food for 150 Jewish people and even some outsiders. When a man like this exhorted the nobles that they should follow God's laws and forgive debts, there wasn't an ounce of hypocrisy there.

Hypocrisy breaks the work; example builds it. The nobles were convicted because they knew that their leader didn't just say the right thing. He didn't just command the right thing. He lived it. In the same way, Yeshua taught His disciples to pray: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Yeshua tells us to forgive sins because through Him, the Father has forgiven our sins. He doesn't just tell us; He shows us. We have a physical human picture of perfect forgiveness on the cross. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Nasser: Zachariah, he was a nice person. He was a decent person. He was very smart. He was the only Christian in the whole of the school, and I hated him because I thought as a Muslim, I must be better than him. But he was better than I. We started to beat him every single day that we came to school, and we agreed on that night we needed to kill him. It was dark, it was cold, and we went ahead of him.

There were five of us. We climbed a tree and we waited there. From far away, we saw that torch coming, and the light became bigger and bigger as it approached us. The minute that he just went under the tree, we jumped at him. He was crying, he was screaming, he was shouting. We broke his arm, we broke his leg, he started to bleed. Because he started to scream and begging for help, I put my hand in his mouth so that no noise would come out of it.

Similar when you are slaughtering a sheep, he's just shivering, and the others were beating him. I felt very proud. You were actually doing something for Allah. You want to please him. And suddenly, he could no longer breathe, and we could not hear his voice. We left him in the wood between life and death. We went back, you wash yourself, and you pray. Zachariah never came back. We've never seen him again.

I was born and raised up in a very, very fanatic Muslim family. When I was a child, my father brought me to a Quran school. I was only eight years old, and my father just dropped me there. They shaved my head. We sat in a circle. The sheikh sat in the middle of this circle, and he had a very long whip. I was forced to memorize the Quran. Every mistake that you do, this whip will just come right in the middle of your head.

You are not allowed to cry, because in our culture they tell you men never cry. I was crying every single night. They told me you belong to the Islamic Ummah, and that's why you fight for it, you stay loyal to it. I started to hate people, to hate everybody who's not a Muslim. And I especially used to hate the Jews. So I was preparing myself to go and fight for Allah in the jihad.

But every night I went to bed, and when we put the light off, I did not know what would happen with me if I died. My cousin was severely sick, and the doctors said he's going to die. They gave him only a couple of days. One day came two people; they were Coptic Christians. One of them wanted to greet me, and then I saw he had a cross. Then I pulled my hand back. I said, "Well, I'm not going to touch a hand with a cross."

Then he said to me, "We hear that this child is sick. We would like to pray for him." And only out of politeness, I told them, "Okay." They started to speak to God like a person speaks to his friend. They said, "God, please heal this child." The minute that they said "Amen," this child opened his eyes for the first time in four weeks. He started to move his hands. He started to speak.

He sat down in his bed, and he started to walk. One of those two persons who prayed sat down with me and he said to me, "You know what? The real miracle is that God wants to change your heart. Do you believe that Yeshua is alive?" And I told him yes, because according to the Islamic tradition, God took him to heaven and he's alive and he will come back one day.

He said to me, "Because he's alive, you can speak to him." That changed my entire life. When I started to read the Scripture, nobody needed to convince me to love the Jewish people. The only way for Muslims to start to love the Jews is when they meet Yeshua. I loved my family, I loved my father, I loved my mother, and I loved my community.

When I decided to follow Yeshua, my grandfather and my father said to me, "You are no longer one of us." They made a funeral. They invited friends and family. They brought a coffin to the cemetery, and they said, "Our son is dead." To be declared dead with no family, I said to God, "Where are you?" I heard this voice, and this voice told me, "You know that the grave where your name is written, you know that grave is empty? And guess what? My grave is also empty."

I went to Egypt for the first time after many years, and I was in a pastoral conference. One of the Sudanese pastors came to me, an elderly man with gray hair. He started to speak to me and he asked me, "Where did you come from?" I told him my story. He started to cry. Then I asked him, "Why are you crying?" He said to me, "Do you remember me? My name is Zachariah."

Suddenly, I remembered him. The last time I saw him, it was in that dark night. I could hear suddenly the way that he was screaming, even though that was 25 years ago. Suddenly I started to see his broken arm and broken legs. I started to see the scars which I caused him. I started to be full of shame. I was a bad person. I was terrible.

Zachariah looked me straight into the eye again and he said to me, "Nasser, because you hated me so much, I was always praying for you." He opened his Bible, and the minute he opened his Bible, I saw that my name was written in the first page. I hated him and he prayed for me. On that day, God confronted me. He said to me, "Even before you started to think about Me, I was thinking about you." To love those who hate you, you need someone whose name is Yeshua.

Dr. Erez Soref: Let's be like Nehemiah. Lead by example. Let our name be known for generosity, stewardship, forgiveness, and right living, and caring for those who are vulnerable and forgotten. You can't claim God's vision while denying God's character. As Yeshua said, the world will know you as My disciples, not by your big buildings or successful organizations, but by your love for one another.

Even if you're not a leader, you have influence on someone in your life. Lead by building God's kingdom God's way. Proverbs 22:1 says, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." As Nehemiah and the people race to finish the wall, the enemy put up increasing threats and obstacles to hinder its completion. Next time, we'll see how Nehemiah's convictions and values defined how he met those challenges and finished the work. What are your values? Let's dive deeper on the next episode as we walk the walls with Nehemiah.