Nehemiah intro...

Turn to the book of Nehemiah. Let’s pray...

Lord we pray that You will abide with us and touch our lives this morning, as we turn to the Word of God, that You will come very near and speak to every heart, we need the help of the Spirit. That He make take the word that we study as a church and bring it home to our hearts.

Lord speak and speak powerfully. May a real work be done in this church, for You and Your glory. We pray for the body of Christ to be instructed and to be built up. So help us we pray, we as in the Savior’s name & for the Savior’s sake. AMEN.

Let me catch you up on don’t know how well you know your Old Testament, so I’m going to catch you up.

Let me catch you up on don’t know how well you know the Old Testament, so I’m going to catch you up.

Don’t worry. I’m not going terribly long. It’s not like I’m not going to start in ’m going to start in Exodus.

God calls the nation of Israel out from under the tyranny of Egypt,

leads them up to the border of the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey.

There the people of Israel

doubted the goodness of God,

doubted the grace of God,

doubted the power of God.

So God allowed them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years

while he killed off that generation who refused to put their trust in him.

Then under Joshua (not under Moses), God leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land.

He drives out the Canaanites, and they are established as a nation.

They began to look around, and they want a king.

God gives them the desire of their heart, which was a king.

He gets a man’s man. Saul, according to the Bible, was a foot taller than any other man in Israel,

the best hunter, had muscles coming out of his turtleneck, just hair everywhere.

Just a man’s man. Men wanted to be him.

Saul, like our brothers and sisters in the wilderness who

doubted the goodness of God and doubted the provision of God, doubted God and

offered sacrifices that were unacceptable to God

doubted God and offered sacrifices that were unacceptable to God

and was removed as king and replaced by David,

who was a shepherd boy who played the harp.

So we went from a foot taller than everyone else …

In fact, when the prophet came to anoint the new king, David’s dad Jesse had forgotten about him in the field.

He presented all his sons, and the prophet literally said, “Hey, God is telling me you have another child.”

Jesse is going, “Oh yeah, David. I just didn’t think you would want David at all.”

So David is made king, and under David’s kingship, Israel flourishes.

In fact, all the threats against the nation of Israel are in many ways crushed under the reign of David.

He goes to war against the Philistines.

He goes to war against anyone who threatens the borders of Israel.

Man, he wrecks shop. In my head, I can’t get my mind around why the Philistines kept going, “Let’s try that again!”

Then when David dies, he turns the kingdom over to his son Solomon.

Solomon builds the temple to the Lord, and peace and that reign of David continue to happen.

Israel becomes a regional power, no real threats to its border, and it is flourishing.

You begin to see some concern on Solomon’s part about what would come after him

if you pay attention while you’re reading the book of Ecclesiastes when he says,

“What good is wealth and power if your children are fools? You’re just going to pass that wealth and power on to fools.”

Sure enough, right after Solomon, you see in the nation of Israel that

there was a regional power fracture.

The Kingdom is broken into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom.

The northern kingdom was called Israel, and

The southern kingdom was called Judah.

The northern kingdom did not fare well at all.

They had wicked king after wicked king after wicked king after wicked king.

Finally in 722 BC, the Assyrians laid siege to the northern empire and deported and really spread across the ancient empire

the Israelites in the northern kingdom of Israel.

Judah fared a bit better.

They had a Southern king. There’s something about those Southern states.

They were able to hang in here a bit longer, and they had

a godly king and wicked king,

a godly king and wicked king,

a godly king and wicked king.

But 136 years after the northern kingdom is conquered and the people are deported and exiled,

the southern kingdom of Judah falls,

not by the Assyrians but now the Babylonians,

who are the reigning & ruling empire in the world at that time.

in the world at that time.

So then the Babylonians export and deport the Israelites in the southern kingdom and

spread them across the ancient world as slaves and servants to the reigning Babylonian Empire.

Now just to catch you up on history, Persia shows up and decides they’re going to run the world.

So the Persians now conquer the Babylonians who had conquered the Assyrians.

Now the Persian Empire has taken root in the ancient world.

Then in 2 Chronicles.… I feel like I don’t even need to mention 2 Chronicles

so many of you probably have that book memorized.

At the end of 2 Chronicles, the Holy Spirit hard presses Cyrus, the king of Persia,

that the Jews should be released to go back (or at least a portion of the Jews)

to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

That’s where we get the book of Ezra. Now here’s something interesting.

The book of Ezra and the book of Nehemiah are happening simultaneously in history.

In fact, in some ancient manuscripts, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book, not two.

They’re one book, not two. So that’s where we are in history. Now let’s pick it up in , starting in verse 1.

— The words of Nehemiah ...

Nehemiah was a Jew, born in exile after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BC.

He lived in a bad age, so far as the destiny of his people was concerned.

Yet like other Jews before him—

Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as well as

Mordecai and his young ward Esther, who became the queen of Persia—

Nehemiah rose to a position of influence in the court of the foreign king.

Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, as he tells us in and 2:1.

The office of cupbearer sounds rather menial to us today, but this was not the situation.

The office of cupbearer came about in ancient societies because of the danger that an emperor or king might be poisoned by some rival.

The cupbearer was a trusted person appointed to care for and taste the wine to make sure it was safe before it was served to the king.

Such a person was obviously highly esteemed and trusted to begin with.

Because of his constant and regular access to the ruler, he naturally acquired influence far beyond all but a handful of other military leaders and nobles.

This position would better be linked to what we know as “the chief of staff” for the president.

In such a position many people might have been content to rest on their achievement or

even retire to the good life,

but Nehemiah showed his greatness as a leader at precisely this point.

Although he was a man of the greatest possible influence in the Persian court,

he left this highly desirable position to lead an effort to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem,

the city of his fathers,

which now lay in ruins, and

to restore its influence.

He was successful against great odds.

Although others had been trying to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls and thus

restore the city’s influence

for nearly one hundred years,

Nehemiah accomplished this Herculean task in only fifty-two days.

Then, God used him to lead a series of spiritual and right/moral reforms that were to have

the greatest influence on the Jewish nation up to the time of Jesus Christ.

The book of Nehemiah is the record of this accomplishment.

So let’s look today of the Tender Heart of Nehemiah.

— 1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah [HAK uh LEE uh]. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, 2 that Hanani [huh NAY nigh] one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 3 And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.” 4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

In 445 B.C., the twentieth year of Artaxerxes’ reign, in the month of Kislev (November–December),

Nehemiah’s brother Hanani ‘came from Judah’ with sad news ‘about the Jewish remnant’.

This one visit dramatically changed the course of the cupbearer’s life.

Indeed it was a turning-point in the history of the Jews and a further development in events which finally reached their climax in the birth of Christ.

So much can hinge on something which may seem so trivial or insignificant at the time.

A similar thing happened when Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church at midday on 31 October 1517.

His protest about the selling of indulgences sparked off the Protestant Reformation.

We learn right away. That when God is going to work, He’s never at a lack of instruments to do it with.

ALSO, That God has His remnant in all places. In Scripture we read of

In Scripture we read of Obadiah in the house of Ahab or saints in Caesar’s household, and here, devout Nehemiah in Susa.

Obadiah in the house of Ahab or

saints in Caesar’s household, and here,

devout Nehemiah in Susa.

But here’s Hanani and his report to Nehemiah’s question in v2 about how are the Jews that had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem.

How are they? — And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”

Then Nehemiah jotted down in his diary his response to this tragic news:Nehemiah 1:4 — So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

The first thing we see is the Attitude in the Sorrow. It says, “I sat down”.

We see through a window into Nehemiah’s soul when we see him weeping after he heard the bad news.

A godly leader is strong enough to weep! But first he takes the position of sitting down.

He’s going to do some pondering. He is quieting his mind to think, which also fosters the right attitude to enter into sacred prayer to God.

Then we see the Anguish in the Sorrow. After he sat down v4 says he “wept, and mourned for many days”.

What we’re going to learn about Nehemiah, as he’s revealed in this book is that he is a man of action.

A vigorous, gifted,

organizationally meticulous,

administratively efficient, and

a leader of men.

But where does he start? Brokenness. For Nehemiah, prayer wasn’t his last resort, it was his first.

Prayer is his action.

Here’s a man of courage and bold action (which we’ll see later in the book).

Here, he’s humbled before God, even to the point of tears and fasting.

He’s not presumptuous, but he know that God is able to what he’g going to ask, so therefore

he comes to God in submission and with seriousness.

Do we have people in our midst, who will still pray this way?

The self-sufficient do not pray; they merely talk to themselves.

The self-satisfied will not pray; they have no knowledge of their need.

The self-satisfied will not pray; they have no knowledge of their need.

The self-righteous cannot pray; they have no basis on which to approach God.

The self-righteous cannot pray; they have no basis on which to approach God.

But a true leader is one who isn’t self-sufficient, self-satisfied, or self-righteous.

A true leader knows his need and is ready to humble himself before the One who alone is sufficient for that need!

The world will call those who weep a sign of weakness.

To the contrary, as some of the weeping is recorded in Scripture, weeping shows itself to be a sign of care, concern and compassion.

Jeremiah wept: — 1 Oh, that my head were waters, And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people!

Jesus wept: — 41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,

Paul wept: — 19 serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews;

These wept because they cared for and loved the people and were deeply concerned for their fallen condition.

We see through a window into Nehemiah’s soul when we see him weeping after he heard the bad news.

A godly leader is strong enough to weep!

We’ll see this prayer next week, but it’s mentioned in v4 that he prayed.

There are 12 references (in the book of Nehemiah) of his prayers being recorded, showing us that his life was bathed in prayer.

Many leaders today, rely on humanistic, business-oriented approaches rather than turning to the great power of prayer.

We see in v1 that this happened in the month of Chislev and in chapter 2:1 we read of the month of Nisan.

Most believe that Nehemiah spent about three to five months seeking the Lord’s face in planned out blocks of prayer.

[that’s going to be one of our main points next week: something to do with patience in prayer]

So planned prayer and then we’ll see spontaneous prayer as well.

Both are beautifully illustrated in the life of Nehemiah.

Here, Nehemia would’ve had to schedule his times of prayer around his daily duties, just as we have to do.

Nehemia would’ve had to schedule his times of prayer around his daily duties, just as we have to do.

Nehemiah’s prayer life reflected his consciousness of his total dependence on God.

We can learn from his example how to pray for ourselves in the pursuit of holiness.

Sometimes we are guilty of praying when action is what we need.

Prayer in those instances becomes an excuse for action.

But before Nehemiah did anything else, he spent from three to five months praying about it.

Prayer is his action.

So, Nehemiah is a man called of God to serve God.