Address—Stan Allan
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I wonder if this afternoon we could just look at, uh, at least the same, uh #318 we all know this one very well. And certainly a prayer we need to pray in the day in which we're living. 318 O Lamb of God, still keep us close to thy peers inside.
It's only there in safety. Peace we can't abide.
318.
Oh, I'm a thug still, Caleb.
Who was there by their third time?
The bear and play.
I need to be crying out for one.
2nd and the ground.
Umm, there's something.
I don't have to take 3 lbs.
Through the channel and I think.
Your head and.
I'm resting.
Boring.
For your husband.
And grave I can see all the time.
Of my mom will.
Shall be the only strawberry.
Just ask the Lord's blessing.
Our God and Father, we come before Thee and thank Thee for this very happy time we are having together over Thy word and the beautiful day of Thou has given us. And O Lord, Thou would have us just to be exercised about the day in which we're living and our walk day by day before thee. And Lord, we just pray that what is said this afternoon might be for.
The blessing of each one, particularly the speaker. Lord, we need these things and uh, Lord, we need my help. For thou knowest that we are weak, and we thank you that we find our strength in thee. And so we would just pray that as we open my word for a few moments, that thou would bless what it says to both the speaker and the hearers. And we ask him now, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen. Amen.
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I wonder if we could just begin by taking a look at, uh, verse in Hebrews 13.
Just one verse there.
Uh, Hebrews 13.
And, umm.
Verse Umm 7.
Remembering them which have and I think it should rehab the guide over you, uh, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith followed considering the end of their conversation.
You know, there are many, umm, individuals in the scriptures, but I'm sure we have enjoyed meditating about, we think of Abraham and, uh, Jacob and umm, Moses and umm, uh, David and many others and uh, if we study their, their, umm, uh.
There are stories, there are many lessons that each one of us can learn.
And I was thinking today of speaking a little bit about, umm, Nehemiah. I'm gonna take this story up a little bit differently than perhaps you've ever heard it, but I have enjoyed this over the last few months.
The story of Nehemiah, you know, this is, he's one of the great, uh, individuals, you might say, of the Old Testament And certainly there's much that we can learn from his life. And, uh, I would just like to take a very quick look over the whole book, you might say, and, uh, try and bring out some of the, uh, things that we can learn from him. It's interesting that.
Many of these individuals that we read about in the scripture lived in a very dark day, a day of four O of what can I say, a weakness and darkness. And we have to admit that we're living in such a day-to-day. I know it's a beautiful day out there and it's sunny, but you know, morally things are weak and dark, but how wonderful but in such situations.
God often raises up somebody.
As a wonderful example, and uh, I was thinking of that first, you know that we haven't proper that says the path of the just is a shining light that that brought that shines more and more under the perfect day. And so the darker the day, the brighter the light of an individual that shines for the Lord until we are all caught up to the glory.
Well, I was thinking we don't have time to go into a long biography about Nehemiah. Actually, there's not much we can.
Say about him, I think he was probably born in captivity in the, uh, city of Babylon. And, uh, he felt very much the weakness and the, uh, failure of the nation of Israel and his part in it. And, uh, I would just like to, uh, look at him now, uh, with just five words, you know, uh, in Scripture 5 speaks of human weak.
Yes. I don't know if you've ever noticed before, but you have 5 fingers in one hand, 5:00 on the other. Five toes, 5 toes, 5 senses.
Umm all speaking in scripture of human weakness. So I would like to speak about 5 things in connection with Nehemiah Umm and the first one is prayer.
Nehemiah was a man of prayer and you know there's nothing that we need more in the day in which we are living than prayer because it expresses our dependence on the Lord. And you know without Him we can do nothing. I like that little verse that says, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.
We need Him. We need to make prayer our habits from day-to-day.
Uh, and so I'm just going to look at a few things. What's interesting as you go through this book, you find that Nehemiah was a man of prayer. Let's just take a look for a moment. Umm, well, look first of all in chapter 4 and umm, notice the the fourth verse here. Oh my God, or we are despised.
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Verse 9. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto the Lord, unto our God.
Umm, going on to chapter 19, uh, chapter 5. Sorry, the last verse. Think upon me my God for good.
Chapter 6 Verse 9 the end of the verse Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands. 14th verse my God, think thou upon Tobiah and symbolic according to these their works, and on the prophet, prophetesso and I and so on over and over again. What is Nehemiah doing? He's praying.
I'm just gonna make a comment sometimes, you know, it's nice when you're, uh, listening to somebody. It's good to have a pencil with you. And, uh, I said I was gonna mention five points.
Sometimes it's nice just to mark in, you know, all the things about prayer and perhaps the other things that we are considering because I don't know if you're like me, but I have a very, uh, brief memory. I forget things very quickly. I need to underline. So it's nice to see here all the times that need a line of prayer praise. Now I'd like to go back to the first chapter again.
And, uh, we'll just read a few verses, starting at verse. Umm.
Well, we'll read from verse one the words of Nehemiah the son of Achalia. And it came to pass in the month Chiselu in the 20th year, as I was in Shuchen, the palace at Hanini, uh, one of my brethren came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, uh, which uh, were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, the remnants that are left of the.
They're in the province, are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. And I said, Oh, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great, terrible God.
A keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments.
Let's sign here now we get tentative and thine eyes open that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee day and night for the children of Israel, thy servants and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against the and I and my father's House of sin. He could read on more of a history of that amount. So here's Nehemiah, he's living in battling and his brother.
Sanini and he asked Sanini, how are things doing in Jerusalem? You know, just before this, I guess maybe about nine years before, uh, Ezra had gone back to, uh, uh, to Jerusalem and they had rebuilt the temple. And, uh, Nehemiah wants to know how things are going. And you'll see here how, what Hanini has to say. Things are in a sad state of affairs. There's great affliction and reproach. And this was a real.
Certain to umm, to the online, you know, I think he thought of Jerusalem as a place where the Lord had placed his name. You know, I think of that verse that says umm in, in Psalms. I think I can quote it. Uh, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God in the mountains of His Holiness. Uh, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.
Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north the city of the great King?
That's the way he thought of Jerusalem, but look at what happened to it. And he had a real burden about it. And you know, I think this today we have to recognize that the, the, uh, the testimony is in a very similar state. Things are broken. They're not what they used to be. You know, we can look back and think of the wonderful things that we've enjoyed in the past.
And yeah, we have to see how things have become so broken. But you know, the Lord is the same, isn't it? Yesterday, today and forever He's the same. And we have the same God to help us today as we have had many years ago. Well, Nehemiah here. Notice how he responds in the fourth verse. I gotta watch the time here. It says I sat down, wept and mourned and fasted and prayed. Notice five things he did.
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What did he do? He sat down in the presence of the Lord. He thought about the situation.
So I was there in Jerusalem, he wept. He really felt it in his heart. Umm, but what he thinks are gone, he mourned. You know, you think of that verse that says, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted of God. And you know something, Nehemiah means comfort of God. And uh, and so it says here he mourned and then he fasted. It had an effect on his life from day-to-day. And then it says he prayed.
And so we find here that Nehemiah was much before the Lord about this whole thing, and he began to pray and ask the Lord what he should do. And he began to formulate in his mind what the Lord might have him to do. And so he says, they're not six verse. Hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now night and day. Notice this wasn't just something that he did once and forgot about it.
Every day, every night he prayed and he was concerned. Are we that way? That's what we need to do. We need to to pray and we need to be before the Lord about these things that are so concerning. And that was the case here with with him. Well, when we go on, I'm going to come back and say a few more about this chapter, but.
If you go on the next chapter, you find prayer again. Nehemiah, he had a very responsible job.
He was cut there. You know, being a cop there back in those days was a very serious, uh, responsibility because someone was always trying to poison the cat to get rid of them. And so it was very important to have somebody that you could trust that would give you your cup of wine. And usually that cup there, he would always take a step 1St and then he would give it to the king. Uh, so the king knew it wasn't poisonous. Well, Nehemiah, he had this responsible.
Jobs And there he was before the king, and the king looked at him and he said, well, I might have meant to say something else about the cup here. The cup here was to always look happy and, umm, full of confidence. But this particular day when Nehemiah came before the king, he felt terrible and he thought of the Jerusalem and he was cast down. And the king said to me, what's wrong? What's wrong?
And umm, Nehemiah was frightened. Because if the king doesn't like the way you look, you could just have you execute it. But you know, Nehemiah told you the truth, He said. How can I be happy when I see the condition of Jerusalem?
Uh, I'm skipping no one. I just need one to say when he, the king first said to him, and what's wrong, Nehemiah? What does it say? Notice the verse, uh, verse, uh four. Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request that says So I prayed to the God of heaven. Was that a long fancy prayer? No, it was probably a prayer that lasted a couple of seconds.
And, you know, sometimes I think we think of prayers is something that has to go on for a very long time.
But if you notice here in the book of Nehemiah, many of the prayers the Nehemiah prays were very brief. Look at uh chapter 4 again, verse 4 here, O our God, for we are despised. Verse nine, we made our prayer to the God of heaven. They're all brief prayers and we need to do this. We need to get in the habit of praying in every situation like Nehemiah did.
Uh, we think it's Peter and you know, he said, Lord save me. He did not sign to figure out a big long prayer. He was sneaking in the water and all he could say is Lord save me. And umm, I, I remember.
Uh, some years ago I was traveling from Cago Falls, Ohio, where my wife lives, to Ottawa. It was the winter time and you've probably seen those signs on bridges sometimes.
A bridge freezes before pavement or something of that nature. I usually don't pay any attention to them. But anyway, we're going along about 70 miles an hour. And I was sleeping in the back seat. It was my car that that you that was being driven. And the driver was Barbara's cousin, Harold Smith. And all of a sudden I woke up and all I could hear is Lord save me, Lord help me, Lord help me, Lord help me. And the car was blowing this way. Then it was going the other way and it spun right around. This is.
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About 70 miles an hour and finally it slid right into the medium and came to a desktop and uh, we were just shaking. I shook for 1/2 an hour afterwards. But you know, I always felt the Lord answered that quick prayer. Lord help me, Lord help me, Lord help me. And there wasn't a scratch on my car. I got out of the car and there were about three other cars that did the very same thing we did. They smashed into the other cars and everything else.
But the Lord preserved us, so we need to get in the habit of praying in every little situation. And that's the way Nehemiah was. He was a man of prayer. Secondly, he was a man of the word. Study is the second word. Word I want you to study. He studied the Scriptures.
You know, we're living in an age where we can spend a lot of.
Time frivolously. Umm, and I have to admit, it's very easy for the speaker to do it too, because you take out your tablet or your computer and it's very easy to spend time on various things, isn't it? You know this, but you know we need to spend time studying the Word of God. And that's exactly what Nehemiah did notice in the first chapter again.
It says there in the umm uh, sex verse.
He says, no, I, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. A little bit further along verse 8, remember, I beseech that he's praying here, uh, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses saying, if he transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. So he's reminding the Lord of what Moses said. In other words, Nehemiah had studied.
The Pentateuch. Umm, because he's quoting here.
Uh, from the book of Deuteronomy, you can look at Deuteronomy chapter 4. It won't take time, but he's quoting from And then in the ninth verse, if he turned on to me and keep my commandments and do them, uh, though they were of, uh, you passed out into the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather these from fence? There's a, a quotation, I believe from Deuteronomy 30.
And umm, then in verse 11, oh Lord, I beseech thee, and let thou thy here be attentive to the prayer of thy servant.
And to the prayer of My servants who desired to fear thy name and prosper. That's not the verse I was thinking of, but umm, that was verse seven. Sorry. We have dealt very corruptly against it and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes, nor the judgments without commanders. Thy servant Moses. So he was a studier of the word. And I'm just going to say this to all of us.
And to the speaker included, we need to spend time in the word.
And uh, if you read through and underline every time there's a reference to the scriptures, umm, that Nehemiah quotes is very interesting to see how much the value of the scriptures until we come to the 8th chapter and you all know the 8th chapter I'm sure very well heard of spoken on.
You know, there's an expression all through this chapter that I think is a real exercise to all of us. Look at the first verse.
It says, And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. Now notice that expression, all the people. Look how often it's mentioned.
Umm, in the first verse, look at the third verse.
The latter part, the years of all the people were attentive under the book of the law, verse 5, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people and so on, not going to read them all of it over and over again. It says all the people, you know, sometimes I think you think that studying the Scriptures is something that umm, oh, David Burns can do, you know.
Umm, Robert Bullard can do. It's up to them. But you know, it says here all the people.
In other words, I believe the scriptures is telling us that we should all take serious seriously the studying of the word. I hope you don't mind a personal reference, but when I was growing up, uh, I sometimes bored my mother's Bible and uh, I would look at it and I would notice at the end of every, every chapter there was a checklist and maybe sometimes 4 checklists, sometimes 5 checkpoints.
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And I said to her one day, I said, why do you have all those checkmarks after you go to this in your chapters? Well, she said, every time I read the chapter, I put a check mark inside and.
I found it the fact that my mother spent time reading the word and she also read written ministry. You know, she could say to to me, I suppose I never would administer to anybody, but she took the time to read written ministry. She valued studying the Scriptures. It was a tremendous example to me. And so we find here that all the people came together to hear the word of God read.
And Nehemiah is mentioned. I know Ezra comes up quite often, but if you look in the ninth verse.
It says Nehemiah, which is the governor and Ezra the priest, uh, the scribe and the Levites that taught the people. So he was involved in this too. And they, they read the law and notice, uh, thus the uh, third verse, it says umm.
There he read therein before the street that was before the Watergate. Uh, from the morning until the midday notice.
There they were, all the people standing there from morning to the midday. Then the meeting must have gone on for maybe two or three hours. And you know, sometimes young people would get together like this and we said, when is this meeting going to be over Another half hour. And, uh, and we get all upset. Well, this man was talking too much and, uh, you know, uh, we gotta get out of here and so on. That's often the way we say, but here these people are willing.
Staying for two or three hours, listening to the Word of God, they took it seriously and those who did the reading knows what they did. Verse eight, it says they read in the book in the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand. I think that's so important and that's a word I think to those of us are older.
Do we take the time to read the Word of God?
Publicly, distinctly, so that even the younger ones can understand, you know, sometimes it just goes over their heads. But we, I know my wife is gonna turn and this helps me in this regard, she said. You've got to think of your audience. It's not what you know, it's think of your audience. And I think that's so important. So they, they, they caused the people to.
Hear the word of God distinctly and give the sense and cause them to understand.
Isn't the 10th verse I don't want to take too much time or time is running away. Then he said unto me unto them, go your way, keep the fats, drink the sweet, and send portions onto them for whom nothing is prepared. In other words, enjoy the word of God, listen to it. Take out about what you can that's sweet, take out of what is.
Going to build you up and give to those.
Who has nothing, uh, that's to whom nothing is prepared. I'm gonna tell you another story. I know that, uh, there was a lady in Ottawa. I could give you her name, but I won't. And every time there was a meeting, she was always writing notes, not for her own benefits, but so that she could send out these little portions to those who couldn't get out to the meetings. And she did this without telling anybody.
And to me, it was so touching that she would take that opportunity.
To send out portions to those who had nothing. So the study of the word is so important. Pray study.
One other thing about studying them, we shouldn't be studying just to get an encyclopedic knowledge of the word so that I know more than somebody else. We should do it because the Lord wants us to put into practice what we, what we've read and studied. That's so important. So the third thing, obedience, obey, obey.
You know you can come and you can hear the the word of God presented, but our brother.
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Robert here this morning talked about the importance of obedience. And we all know the story of Saul and Samuel and how Samuel told Saul to wait for seven days and wait for Samuel to come, and then they would make an offering to the Lord. And after the seven days, Saul didn't wait for Samuel and he went ahead and offered.
And then and Samuel was, uh, very angry with Saul because he didn't listen to the word of God.
And he said sacrifice and offering thou, which they're not that sort of stuff here. Uh, let's read the verse. Umm, it's in the first Samuel 15.
So I can quote it, but uh, sometimes it gets confused. Uh, First Samuel 15 verse 22.
And Samuel said, as the Lord has great delight in her offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hear.
In other words, what the Lord's values is obedience to His Word.
And you know, this is something that I think we have to take very seriously. Sometimes we don't make the progress in the things of God like we would like to. You know, there's that verse that says grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I think most of us here wants a growing grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Why is we don't?
Don't you think the trouble is sometimes?
That we don't want to do what the Lord have asked us to do. We are disobedience. I think that's often the problem. You know, a brother one time said, it's not that I don't know what to do.
It's I don't want to do it. And don't you think that's the case? Sometimes we don't want to do what the Lord wants us to do. The Lord wants us to obey and.
That's a word to me as well as anyone. We need to obey. We wanna make progress in the things of God. We gotta walk in the good of what we know.
Well, obedience is so important. Umm.
I think I said enough there, uh, going on then to the 4th, uh, word and that is work work. If you look through this book, you find work is mentioned many, many times. Umm.
Notice uh chapter 2, uh, Nehemiah here speaking to the king, verse 5.
I said unto the king, Have been pleased the king, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight.
That thou would send me unto Judah, unto the city of my father's sepulchers, that I may build it.
So there he is, He desires to build. And then in uh, the 16th verse. And the rulers knew not whether I went or what I did, neither had I yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work. Then said I unto them, You see the distress we are in how Jerusalem?
Lies waste and the gates are off, are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem. There's worse again that we may uh, that we be no more a reproach.
Verse 18 Then I told them of the hands of my God that was good upon me, as also the King's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work. Verse 29 Middle of the verse, We his servants will arrive and build. And if you go through this whole book, you'll see it over and over again. Let us build, let us.
And so on all the way through. Good to take a colored pencil and mark in every time it's in. So here's another very important thing about Neelaya. He wasn't afraid of work. You know, I think sometimes naturally speaking, and I speak to myself, we become lazy Christians. Don't you think it's easy to come to a meeting like this? Or maybe in our local meeting, I should say.
Our local meeting and take a back seat and let somebody else go all over. Let them do the talking, let them do the praying, let them do the same.
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And I'll just sit in the back and maybe fall asleep. You know, that's the way sometimes things go.
But Nehemiah was a worker. He wasn't afraid to throw himself into it. And he, and he was one of the leaders, I'll come to that again. But he wasn't willing to get his hands dirty. And so when he was telling other people to get to work, he got to work himself. In fact, I think one of the things that's so nice to see about Nehemiah is that he was a great encouragement.
He stirred up the people so that they wanted to work as well.
And I think this is very important. You know, sometimes young people, we have big thoughts when we're younger. We thought, oh, I'd like to go and, uh, fix the gospel in Angola or, you know, I would like to get on the international to preach the gospel a 3 minute serving something like this. But you know, it doesn't start in Guyana or it doesn't start in Angola or wherever. It starts at home.
Do you have an exercise in your local assembly?
To take on responsibility. That's what the Lord wants us to do. Think of things you can do. It doesn't have to be something big. Umm, I remember a man in Ottawa, I won't mention his name, but umm, he always made his responsibility to get to the meeting room about 1/2 an hour ahead of time before there was anybody there.
And sometimes I used to think why are you coming so early? But you know, one time he came 1/2 an hour earlier and the furnace wasn't working and the place was freezing cold and he had to get it fixed. This same person.
Would you know the inbox of the gospel means this same person would fix the chairs? These are little things that we can do. The Lord has given us all something that we can do, and as time goes on, He might increase that responsibility.
So I think it's interesting to see here as you read how they all work together. Sometimes there was a problem. Look at the third, third chapter.
And the fifth verse, it says next unto them, they're building the wall here. Next unto them the techloids repair, but they're nobles put not there next to the work of their Lord. So here are the men who were really supposed to be the leaders, but they weren't putting their necks to the work. They weren't doing what they should have been doing. Does that mean that the work of the Lord was hindered? Well, it was hindered, but it didn't stop.
Because look, if you look on further in that chapter to the 27th verse, it says after them, that's a colon. This is the very same group we were talking about before. Umm, the Socolites repaired another piece. It doesn't talk about the nobles here in the 27th verse. It just says that's a coat. So even though their leaders didn't do very much, that's a collides carried on the work. And you know, if you don't want to do what the Lord can always find somebody else.
To do them. But, you know, I think we need to be exercised, uh, about what the Lord would have us to do. Uh, and we don't all we are. And I might say this is also true of sisters. You might think if you're a sister, then there's nothing that you can do. But read about Aquila and Priscilla, read about Phoebe in, in Roman 16 and you'll find that they had a work to do for the Lord.
So I believe the Lord would have us to pray.
He wants us to study, He wants us to, umm, work, and he wants us to obey the scriptures. Now, there's just one other thing that I wanted to mention.
Umm, Nehemiah was also a leader. He was a leader. And it's not that we have to decide to be a leader when we're young, but if we're faithful in praying, in studying the Word and obeying, and in carrying on the work, little by little the Lord might give us more responsibility. And I believe that was true of Nehemiah.
There's no question that this man was a faithful man, and the king recognized it in Babylon. So what did he do? He gave him the responsibility being cut there.
And once he got the responsibility of cut there, umm, and he came to the king and told him what was on his mind about going back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. What did the king do? He not only gave him an escort, but he actually made him the governor. I think we read that, didn't we, that he was the governor. In Chapter 8, he says he was the first half.
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That's uh, chapter 8 and verse, umm, 9.
Nehemiah umm.
Where was that?
Yes, the first nine of Chapter 3, Nehemiah, which is the first half. So he was appointed governor. He was given a very responsible job.
And so I think Nehemiah was naturally a leader. He probably didn't realize that at the 1St, but he had a vision of what the Lord wanted them to do. He went to the king and told the king when the opportunity arose, umm, what he wanted to do. He went to Jerusalem. And it's very interesting there. Uh, I didn't read it, but if you look in the second chapter.
In verse 12 it says I arose in the night.
I and a few men with me, neither told I, any man, what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. That means building the walls. Neither was there, uh, any beast with me, save the beast that I wrote upon. And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon, well, until the dumb port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down on the gates thereof were consumed with fire.
Then I went on to the gate of the fountain and to the King's pool, but there was no place for the beast that I was under. I'm sorry, that was underneath the past.
In other words, you just saw the terrible situation of things there in the city and he formulated the plan of what he was going to do. Why did he do it at night? I think he did it night because he knew there were enemies there. Send Ballot, Tobiah Isham and these others, they wanted to stop the work at every turn. So he went out at night when no one could see it and he made his plan. What did you what did he do next?
He got the people together and he explained what he wanted to do.
Notice, uh, verse umm 17 again. Then said I unto them, you see the distress that we are in how Jerusalem lieth waste and negates their upper earth and fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem. So he encourages them, let's get going. Let's do this and he was being a leader, wasn't.
And umm, if you go on, uh, what was the result? The end of verse 18? They strengthened their hands for this good work.
I like one other thing about 18. First it says the hands of my God, which was good upon me over and over again. He says that, you know, I think there's a good lesson there. It says accept the Lord, build the house. They labor in vain that builds. In other words, if we get the Lord isn't the one that has looked to and whatever we're doing, it's going to come to nothing.
But.
Nehemiah always gave the Lord the friends, and there was blessing and.
The work was done and you'll notice we didn't really show it, but I think in the 6th chapter it tells us that the work was done in 52 days. Uh, verse 15. So the wall was finished in the 25th day of the month, Elol in 52 days. Can you imagine a wall around the city? These are big huge stones and they were built up. I don't know how high the wall was. Probably the height of this ceiling at least.
And we're running around the entire city. They rebuild in 52 days. So the Lord really prospered them. And so how wonderful it was that the Nehemiah was a leader. So there are those five things that I think we need to consider. Prayer, study, obey.
Work and then maybe come to the point where complete very important.
Well, I just leave that with you. It's just a few things I've enjoyed and I certainly have not gone into, umm, a lot of the things in this book, but I just leave it for your meditation.
Maybe we could just, uh, sing a couple of her lines with him of 243?
Oh Lord, we would delight in thee and on thy charity path Thee in every troubles. We are safe on failing friends. Just the first, uh, two in the last verse of 243.
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Oh Lord, wait, what day? My theme? And come on, like everything else.
Our God and Father, we come before thee, and we thank thee for the story of Nehemiah. We thank Thee for his faithfulness, How much time he spent in prayer and studying my word. And oh Lord, we think of the example he was.
In in obeying the word and.
In helping at the building of the wall and use of the in such a mighty way. And oh Lord, we know that, uh, the little hymn says you and your small corner and I and mine. Lord, thou hast placed us in various situations. And we pray, Lord, that we might use Nehemiah as an example and uh, that we might, uh, Lord Jesus, seek to glorify thee in the place of knowledge puts.
And assume we just asked to provide help and my blessing, uh, upon these words, and we ask of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I should have mentioned about obedience. I'm always wanting to forget things, but if you look at the last chapter of Nehemiah, you would find there that, umm, the people were refusing from ties like they were asked to do under the law. They were involved in mixed marriages, uh, with the Ammonites and the Moabites, and they weren't keeping the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And uh.
Nehemiah dealt with each one of those problems, uh, by referring them to the Word of God and urging them to act in obedience. I just forgot to mention that, but it's something to consider that last chapter.