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Guest (Male): Today on Study the Word, we finish the book of Nehemiah and observe his battles with the lies and schemes of the enemies of God. Our Bible teacher Pastor Thom Keller highlights what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Join us for the next half hour as Pastor Tom shares wisdom about this and more.

Pastor Thom Keller: Hey, we're in the book of Nehemiah today, Nehemiah chapter 13. So we pick up in verse 23 of chapter 13. About the same time, I realized that some of the men of Judah had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Furthermore, half their children spoke the language of Ashdod or some other people and could not speak the language of Judah at all.

So I confronted them and called down curses on them. I beat some of them and pulled out their hair. I made them swear in the name of God that they would not let their children intermarry with the pagan people of the land. I beat some of them and pulled out their hair. It sounds pretty much like a professional wrestling match, doesn't it?

Well, here's a question that it's likely many Bible readers have never asked themselves: Was Nehemiah correct in his judging these men for what they did? And I'm not talking about how he dealt with these men yet, just simply was Nehemiah correct for condemning these men for marrying these women? Well, what did the Mosaic Law say about this? Because that is what should have been guiding Nehemiah in this setting.

Well, in Deuteronomy 7, we find seven nations that God says to never let their sons or daughters marry. Deuteronomy 7, verse 1: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you. The Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are greater and more numerous than you.

When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters, for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods, and the anger of the Lord will burn against you and he will quickly destroy you."

Now, God lists seven nations right there. But did you see who Nehemiah goes after? Nehemiah goes after the women from Ashdod, Philistia, and then he also mentioned women of Ammon and also Moab. Those are not mentioned from the list of Deuteronomy. And so a question we have to ask ourselves: Didn't Nehemiah know Israel's history?

Because their hero, King David, who would have ruled about 550 years before Nehemiah, was the great-great-grandson of Ruth, who was from where? Do you remember? Moab. That's right. So if Nehemiah would have applied history a bit more, maybe he would not have pursued this with such a vengeance. Because if you remember back when we taught on the book of Ruth, that was a long time ago, we said that the reason Boaz could marry Ruth legally is because marrying a woman from Moab was never prohibited by God in Deuteronomy chapter 7.

Barnes, a commentator, says this: "Marriages of Israelites with women of Ammon or Moab are nowhere in the law expressly forbidden, as were marriages with women of the land of Canaan." But someone might respond: But Deuteronomy 23 adds this: Deuteronomy 23:3 says no Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.

Now Deuteronomy 23 goes on and says the reason is that the people of Ammon and Moab did not give food or water to the children of Israel as they passed through their countries on their way into the promised land. But again, that's for ten generations. And yet David was only two generations away from his Moabite grandmother, Ruth. And by the way, as I looked at this, it is interesting. This was the tenth generation after that event took place. They had passed that ten-generation mark by the time of Nehemiah.

So how do we explain this one? Well, Ellicott the commentator says this: "An Amorite or Moabite shall not enter." He says according to Rashi, which was a Jewish commentator, he says, "Shall not marry an Israelitish woman." It must be remembered that the children, according to Jewish law, follow the father, not the mother. The case of Ruth therefore would not be touched by this precept.

So the point is that if a Jewish man married a non-Jewish woman, all of his children were considered legitimate Jews because the child of every Jewish father was considered to be a legitimate Jew. And yet this is not what we find Nehemiah saying. We find Nehemiah, I believe, wrongly condemning these children of Jewish men who had married non-Jewish wives.

Because it says this in verse 23: "About the same time, I realized that some of the men of Judah had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Furthermore, half their children spoke the language of Ashdod or some other people and could not speak the language of Judah at all." Now listen, and then it goes on, he cast them out.

And in the book of Ezra, we see how far Ezra the priest took this as well. Their contemporaries. Nehemiah was a political leader of Jerusalem and Ezra was a priest, with they both serving concurrently. In Ezra, the leaders tell these men to rid themselves of their wives and their children. Ezra chapter 10, verse 3: "Let us now make a covenant with our God to divorce our pagan wives and to send them away with their children.

We will follow the advice given by you and by the others who respect the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the law of God." This was beyond the law. "Get up, for it is your duty to tell us how to proceed in setting these things straight. We are behind you, so be strong and take action." So 750 years earlier, Boaz got this right concerning Ruth.

But now in their legalistic zeal to keep the law, they destroy families for the sake of legalism. And then secondarily, there is a question concerning Nehemiah's management style. A big question here. 13:25, it says this: "So I confronted them, called down curses on them. I beat some of them and pulled out their hair." Can you imagine someone trying to pull this off today?

An employer, a manager, beating up the employees and pulling out their hair? Man, being fired would be the least of that person's problems. And there are two lessons for us here. Number one: When you study your Bible, just because a godly person does something, it doesn't mean it was a right action or it is sanctioned by God. That's really important.

The Bible paints people warts and all. They paint the good, the bad, and the ugly. So when you read your Bible, make sure that you test the decisions and the actions of every sinner and saint by the acid test of the Bible. Learn from their good examples, learn from their bad examples. Don't assume because they're godly, everything they did was right.

Second point: It is never justifiable when confronting someone to call down curses on them and beat them and pull out their hair. You will always find this to be counterproductive. It's always best, instead of going toe-to-toe with someone by way of getting into a yeah-yeah with them, to instead come alongside of them and walk arm-in-arm and talk it through. Be a person of grace.

And then Nehemiah points to a specific point in history to help support his case to not marry foreign wives. Nehemiah 13:26, he says, "Wasn't this exactly what led King Solomon of Israel into sin?" I demanded. "There was no king from any nation who could compare to him, and God loved him and made him king over all of Israel.

But even he was led into sin by his foreign wives. How could you even think of committing this sinful deed and acting unfaithfully toward God by marrying foreign women?" Now, if you're new to the Bible, King Solomon was David's son, who reigned about 500 years before Nehemiah. And Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That's right, a thousand wives and concubines.

But Solomon broke a separate law that God gave through Moses, which was specific to kings. Deuteronomy 17, verse 14 says, "You are about to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and settle there, you may think, 'We should select a king to rule over us like the other nations around us.'

If this happens, be sure to select as king the man the Lord your God chooses. You must appoint a fellow Israelite; he may not be a foreigner." And then verse 17: "The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord. He must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself."

Solomon did this, and they did turn his heart away from the Lord. 1 Kings 11:4: "As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been." And then Nehemiah, after calling down these curses on them and beating some of them and pulling out his hair, he does a recap of sorts in verse 27.

He says, "How could you even think of committing this sinful deed and acting unfaithfully toward God by marrying foreign women?" And then Nehemiah goes on to single out one young man that he appears to be especially incensed by. Verse 28: "One of the sons of Joiada, son of Eliashib the high priest, had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, so I banished him from my presence."

Now, some of the other translations are a bit more colorful here. ESV for that verse says this: "One of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I chased him from me." Hebrew for 'chase' is the word *barak*, and it means to cause to flee, to put the flight, to drive away. He literally runs after this guy and chases after him.

Now, there is a history of bad blood here in the backstory. This Joiada is son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite, who is one of Nehemiah's arch-enemies. If you've been here from the beginning, we found him back in Nehemiah chapter 4, where it says this: "Sanballat was very angry when he learned that we were rebuilding the wall. He flew into a rage and mocked the Jews."

Now Josephus, the trusted Jewish historian, says that this Joiada, the son-in-law of Sanballat, is one and the same with Manasseh (the same name), for whom his very wealthy father-in-law built a rival temple for him on Mount Gerizim in Samaria so that his son-in-law could serve as high priest in that rival temple. Now, here's an abbreviated version of a fascinating story.

After the exile, when the southern two tribes returned to Jerusalem, they refused to allow Jews from the northern ten tribes to have anything to do with them. And that's because they considered these northern ten tribes to be half-breeds. Now the story behind that is that when the northern ten tribes were taken by Assyria, they were hauled off and dispersed in Assyria, and there they intermarried with non-Jews.

Judah, the remaining two tribes, saw that and they were so incensed that they married with non-Jews that they determined they would never do that. And when they were carried off by Babylon, they stayed pure. For the most part, they stayed pure. When they were allowed then to come back to Israel, the northern ten tribes were now half-breeds.

They had a lot of non-Jewish blood in them, and so the Jews of Judah absolutely rejected them. That's a whole backstory to the woman of Samaria. So in response to being rejected, this Sanballat, who was a very wealthy and a despised Samaritan, built a rival temple in Samaria. Now, a little background to our New Testament:

If you remember Jesus and the story of the Good Samaritan, he acknowledges that they were despised. And in John chapter 4, in the story of the woman at the well, this Samaritan woman brings up this exact point. This point of contention that we find here in Nehemiah between Nehemiah and Sanballat, that being that the Samaritans have built this rival temple in Samaria.

In John 4:20, it says this: "So tell me," the woman at the well says, "so tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?" And in John 4, Jesus seems to confirm Nehemiah's position that the Samaritans had lost their way because, in response to her question, he says this in verse 22:

"You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews." And so this Sanballat built this temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. And Josephus, again, the trusted Jewish historian who lived at the time of Christ, says that this rival temple was constructed to be a nearly mirror copy of the temple in Jerusalem.

So this hatred between the Samaritans and the Jews was because every single kosher Jew knew that God had sanctioned only one temple and only one place for that temple, and that was in Jerusalem. So the faithful Jews in Jerusalem hated Sanballat for building this rival temple and for appointing his son-in-law to be high priest there.

Now, you might find this interesting. There are still Samaritans today who are still worshiping on Mount Gerizim and they are still sacrificing animals. By the fifth century AD, the Samaritans peaked at about 1.5 million people. And Samaritans still claim that a descendant of Aaron, Moses's brother, sits as high priest in their worship services.

132 generations later, they claim still a descendant of Aaron the high priest. In 2021, there are about a thousand Samaritans left. Israeli Jewish rabbis reject Samaritans today unless they first renounce Mount Gerizim as the historical Israelite temple. And maybe most surprising of all is that they still sacrifice animals.

Now you know the Jews would sacrifice animals. Sometimes when I first started studying, I thought the reason the Jews don't sacrifice animals is who would do such a barbaric thing? You know, we've grown out of that. Well, that's not true. If the Jews had their temple, they would be sacrificing animals today. They're ready to start sacrificing animals once the temple's built.

But the Samaritans never stopped because they still claim that they have their temple area. So it is this same group that has remained for over 2,500 years, this same group that Nehemiah, in closing, says of these Samaritans this in verse 29: "Remember them, O my God, for they have defiled the priesthood and the solemn vows of the priests and Levites."

And you know, this would be the Jews' position of the Samaritans today. Exactly what Nehemiah said 2,500 years ago, this would be the position of the rabbis today: They've defiled the priesthood and the solemn vows of the priests and Levites. And Jesus gave his answer to this Samaritan claim 2,000 years ago.

The woman at the well asked the same question, and Jesus responded by saying this in verse 20: "So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?" And Jesus answered by saying this:

Jesus replied, "Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when you—it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming and indeed it is here now—and here's the key—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." So how does today's lesson apply to me? Jesus said it's not where you worship that is the key. The key to worship is how do you worship.

The Jews got all caught up in this question of where to worship. But Jesus said you're making the wrong issue the issue. The right issue is how do you worship? That you must worship in spirit and in truth. And folks, if you think about it, those two are inseparable because the spirit is truth.

You can't get one without the other. Spirit and truth. In way too many churches today, the truth of God's word is disregarded and replaced by heretical teachings, messages designed to fit with our ever-changing culture. And in churches where that occurs—listen, in churches where that occurs, and this pertains to a lot of mainline churches today—if you're listening on the radio and this applies, listen closely:

This occurs in many churches today. And in churches where this occurs, that the Spirit of God cannot be present. Impossible. Cannot. Why? Because the spirit is truth. You can't get one without the other. Spirit and truth. The Apostle John addressed this, and if you are in one of those churches, if you're on the internet or you're listening on the radio, if you are in one of those churches, John tells you what to do.

2 John, verse 1: "If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don't invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement." Now that would be strong enough on its own, but look what he adds: "Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work."

If every church that got pulled into heretical teachings, if the people would follow this, within weeks that person would be standing in that pulpit speaking to no one. Because the truth is, folks, in a lot of mainline churches today—and I hate to say this, but it's true—the most liberal person in that church in many churches today is the person at the pulpit.

It's true. A lot of that's because of their training, where they've gone, what they've come to believe. If you're listening to this on the radio, if you want to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, you cannot do that because the spirit will not be present where the truth of God's word is compromised and spoken against.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you, Lord, that we can worship in spirit and in truth. We thank you for the truth of your word which leads us into that truth that then allows us to worship in spirit and in truth. And again, this message is going to go across radio stations in different parts of the country.

There are people in Lebanon listening to this right now in the morning broadcast. And listen, as God is my witness, if you are in a church where there are heretical teachings, where you know what is being spoken is not true, contrary to the critical truths of the word of God, then I encourage you to follow John's advice and depart from that place. Find a place where the word of God is taught, where it is honored, so that you can worship in spirit and in truth.

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