THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Nehemiah: Pattern For Solutions In Spiritually Hard Times

G. Handling Great Intrigue To Compromise With Evil

(Nehemiah 6:1-4)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

We face intrigue to compromise with evil: " . . . (P)rominent U. S. journalists as moderators and academics in a variety of fields" and "CEOs of vaccine-makers Pfizer and Moderna" lately "joined . . . (r)abbis, cardinals, imams and representatives of Christian denominations" with "the lead guitarist of Aerosmith in opening a . . . Vatican conference on COVID-19, other global health threats and how science, solidarity and spirituality can address them." (Nicole Winfield, "Vatican conference features Fauci, Francis -- and Aerosmith," Republican-American, May 7, 2021, p. 3B) "Dr. Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who leads the U. S. pandemic response, opened the meeting by saying the pandemic had confirmed to him that faith and science are constantly evolving," thus refuting "the religiously inspired resistance to taking COVID-19 vaccines that were [allegedly] indirectly developed using lines of cells derived from aborted fetuses." In unity with Dr. Fauci, "(t)he Vatican has declared that all COVID-19 vaccines are not only morally licit [lawful], but that people have a moral responsibility to get the jabs to protect others," Ibid.

However, the effort of this conference fosters evil: (1) 86 women from 25 countries, including doctors, nurses and bioethicists, signed the statement, "The Voice of Women in Defense of Unborn Babies and in Opposition to Abortion-tainted Vaccines," asserting that (a) though "some will claim . . . using an abortion-tainted vaccine is morally licit because the cooperation in evil is 'remote'" (Ibid., citing Society of Saint Pius X, "Is it Morally Permissible to Receive the Covid-19 Vaccine," Society of Saint Pius X, December 4, 2020), " . . . vaccine manufacturers have a strong incentive to create new lines to match the old ones -- choosing to experiment with aborted babies of the same sex and roughly the same age. (Ibid., citing Christine Beiswanger PhD, "A Brief History of IMR-90," Coriell Institute for Medical Research, 2004) This has occurred multiple times in past decades, with the most recent aborted fetal cell line developed in 2015." (Ibid., citing Carol Szczepaniak, "The Ethics of the Walvax-2 Cell Strain," Nebraska Coalition For Ethical Research, March 14, 2016) Also, (b) "The vaccine candidates that are reported to use aborted fetal cells 'only during testing,'" the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, "made use of the . . . Human Embryonic Kidney-293 cells as an integral part of the development of their mRNA candidate (Ibid., citing Daniel Wrapp, et al., "Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion confirmation," Science Magazine, March 13, 2020) and used them again to confirm the efficacy of the mRNA, sometimes through more than one type of confirmatory test. (Ibid., citing "Guidance on Getting the COVID-10 Vaccine," Children of God for Life)

(2) As for the Vatican's claim that one is morally responsible to get the vaccine shots to protect others, the signed statement noted, (a) "The vaccine candidates in question have not been rigorously tested for their efficacy in preventing infection by or transmission of SARS-CoV-2 [coronavirus] (Ibid., citing Pfizer, "A Phase 1/2/3 Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy of RNA Vaccine Candidates Against COVID-19 in Healthy Individuals," BioNTech), but instead evaluated for the reduction in symptomatic severity in those who develop 'confirmed cases' of COVID-19 . . . (b) The average survival rate from SARS-CoV-2 infection is higher than 98.3% (Ibid., citing John P A Ioannidis, "Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data," Bulletin of the World Health Organization, October 14, 2020. Article ID: BI.T.20.265892.), and this is not likely to be significantly impacted by vaccines with such poor efficacy." Also, (c) "(t)he vaccine is 5-10X more likely to produce adverse reactions than the flu vaccines, and causes 15-26X more headaches, fatigue, and dizziness according to Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data" and it "has also caused many more severe reactions and numerous deaths." (Ibid., citing Amanda Woods, "23 die in Norway after receiving Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine: officials," New York Post, January 15, 2020) (d) "The safety data that has been collected is insufficient to determine possible long-term effects," (Ibid., citing Bill Gates interview, "Vaccine Safety Compromised," BBC Breakfast, April 12, 2020)

Need: So, we ask, "How does God expect us to handle intrigue to compromise with evil?!"

I. Nehemiah faced intrigue meant to pressure him to compromise with evil, Nehemiah 6:1-2, 17-19:

A. When their enemies realized that the Hebrews' work on the Jerusalem city wall was progressively giving them more safety from attack, these foes asked Nehemiah to meet them in a village on the plain of Ono 25 miles northwest of Jerusalem supposedly to talk peace with him, Nehemiah 6:1-2a; Bib. Know. Com., O. T., p. 685.

B. Nehemiah viewed this request as a trap meant to make it easy for his foes to assassinate him or for Jerusalem to be attacked without his leadership there, Nehemiah 6:2 Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Nehemiah 6:2.

C. Yet, the request itself was embedded in intrigue, creating a trap for Nehemiah in how he even responded to it:

1. Tobiah, one of Nehemiah's foes, had marital ties with a Hebrew family in the area. (Nehemiah 6:17-19)

2. Thus, Tobiah would pressure Nehemiah through these Hebrews to think well of him and to compromise with him and Israel's other foes to the harm of Nehemiah and the wall-building project, Neh. 6:17, 19.

3. Nehemiah could not respond to the request of his foes to meet them outside Jerusalem by charging them with wanting to kill him or to hurt the work on the wall lest doing so make Nehemiah appear to be spiteful toward Tobiah before his supporters in Jerusalem and thus hurt Nehemiah's leadership with the Hebrews!

4. Yet, Nehemiah could not compromise with such foes lest it lead to his death and hurt the work on the wall!

II. Nehemiah handled the intrigue to compromise with evil by focusing on his calling, Nehemiah 6:3-4:

A. In response to his enemies' request to meet them outside Jerusalem, Nehemiah replied that he was performing a great work in Jerusalem so that he could not meet with his foes as they requested, Nehemiah 6:3.

B. This response wisely did not charge Nehemiah's foes with bad motives lest it hurt his credibility as leader over the Hebrews in Jerusalem, but it also put Nehemiah's foes in the awkward position of being tempted to react harshly toward his reply and thus publicly expose their real, evil motives, Ibid., Bible Know. Com., O. T.

C. Nehemiah's enemies asked him four times to meet with them outside Jerusalem, hoping thereby to lure him into losing his temper with them so they might discredit him before the Hebrews in Jerusalem, Nehemiah 6:4. However, Nehemiah wisely continued to avoid their lure, staying focused on his calling to rebuild the wall.

Lesson: When facing intrigue and pressure to compromise with evil, Nehemiah overcame it by staying focused on his calling before God to keep on rebuilding Jerusalem's city wall.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-11. (2) To overcome intrigue and pressure to compromise with evil, may we stay focused on fulfilling God's assigned calling for us.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

God calls us to obey Scripture in doing every good work (2 Timothy 3:13-17), so we focus on Scripture to overcome the intrigue and pressure to compromise with evil due to the Vatican conference noted in our introduction:

(1) On Dr. Anthony Fauci's claim that "faith and science are constantly evolving," Jude 3 teaches that the body of Christian truth was given "once-for-all" (Greek term hapax, U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 832) to the saints in contrast to apostates in Jude 4 who "change" (metatithemi, Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 515) the grace of God into sinfulness. Since Exodus 21:22-23 claims that abortion kills a human being, requiring the death penalty for one guilty of causing it, and Psalm 51:5 reveals that a human being's life begins at conception because he is a sinner at that instant, abortion on demand at any trimester is murder, a non-changing truth.

(2) As for the claim that "science" is evolving, all true science agrees with unchanging Scripture truth!

(3) On the Vatican's claim that the COVID-19 vaccines were developed so removed from the cooperation in the evil of abortion that using the vaccine now is morally acceptable, Jehu's massacre of king Ahab's relatives at Jezreel around 841 B. C. was predicted by God in Hosea 1:4 to be avenged by the destruction of Jehu's lineage. (Ibid., B. K. C., O. T., p. 1380) This prediction was fulfilled 89 years later in 752 B. C., Ibid. Thus, God's statute of limitations on murder extends far beyond the reputed 50-year-old aborted fetal cell line initially used for today's vaccines. Since abortion is murder, God does not view the use of aborted fetal cell lines used today as being any more "remote" from the initial abortion "evil" than were we to use the tissue of a fetus that was aborted yesterday!

(4) On the parties in the Vatican conference, namely, prominent U. S. journalists as moderators and academics from institutions long known to present misinformation and Marxist ideology along with rabbis, cardinals, imams, representatives from Christian denominations and the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, an ecumenical gathering of many errant beliefs, Jesus in John 17:15-17 clarified that His true followers were not of the world even as He was not of it. He also asked the Father that His followers might be set apart from the world through the truth that is in God's Word!

[(5) Note: It may be impossible for us to avoid all connections to aborted fetal cell lines, for Science Magazine articles show such cell lines are used in tests in many realms, and many mutual funds invest in companies involved! Accordingly, Jesus said that we could use the coin that had Caesar's image and inscription, "Pontifex Maximus" on it (Z. P. E. B., v. One, p. 908-909), what meant "chief priest" of a Roman religion, to pay taxes to Caesar if we gave our heart's allegiance to God, Matthew 22:15-22. All decisions on such sensitive subjects, then, should honor the Lord!]

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life. May we then handle intrigue to compromise with evil by staying focused on God's calling for us.