by: Dr. Allen Domelle
Nehemiah 13:4
“And before this, Eliashib the priest, having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God, was allied unto Tobiah:”
It is treasonous for a person to ally with the enemy. Maybe the most famous traitor in history is Benedict Arnold. Arnold achieved the rank of general in the American Revolutionary Army. He led his militia to many victories alongside Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, but jealousy and anger set in when he felt the Continental Congress had overlooked his accomplishments. This led to him contriving a plan with the British to surrender West Point, but this plot was exposed and he escaped without ever being captured. Benedict Arnold’s name will forever be associated with the word traitor among Americans.
Eliashib the priest committed a treasonous act when he allied himself with Tobiah. Tobiah was the enemy who tried to destroy the efforts to rebuild the wall. Yet, for some unknown reason, he built a chamber for Tobiah to live in outside the temple. Nehemiah’s discovery of this act led to forcing Tobiah out of the chamber and cleansing it from any of his possessions.
It is unfathomable to see Eliashib ally himself with the enemy; however, many Christians have allied themselves with their enemy. The enemy I am talking about is not a person, but it is the sin in their life that has done everything to destroy them. Instead of fighting the sin that has beset them, many Christians have settled at peace with their enemy only to see the peace agreement become their spiritual death certificate.
You will never overcome sin when you build chambers in your heart for it to dwell in. Eliashib’s act to prepare a chamber for Tobiah to dwell in was a surrender to the enemy. You will never have victory over sin when you continue to keep its temptations around you. Keeping the things that tempt you to do wrong around is like a person on a diet keeping candy bars in the cabinets. The only way you will destroy sin is to destroy the chambers where you allow sin to dwell. You must get rid of anything that leads to the temptation to do wrong. You need to change friends if it is a person or a crowd of people who continually tempts you to do wrong. You must stop going to a place you frequent if that is what tempts to do wrong. You must destroy whatever your chamber is that tempts you to do wrong.
Moreover, you must destroy your peace treaty with sin if you ever want to have victory over it. You must never settle in your heart that you cannot have victory. Being allied with sin is treasonous and destructive to your Christian life. 1 John 4:4 reminds us, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You don’t have to be at peace with sin. You have the victory residing within you to overcome your sin. When you raise the white flag to sin, you are saying that God is not powerful enough to help you defeat it.
Friend, it’s time to lower the white flag, tear up the peace treaty, and trust in the LORD’s power to overcome your sin. Whatever your sin may be, God can help you defeat it if you will ask him. Don’t make the mistake of being allied with sin. Fight it! You have no chance of victory if you become your sin’s ally, but you do have a chance if you continue to fight.