“Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God?” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” In that fear, desiring to know and do the will of God, let us look at the lessons in Nehemiah, written for our instruction. If we study this book in the presence of the Lord, we shall hear Him speaking to us in it, as to present events.
In Nehemiah 1, we see a man before God. He learns the state of the remnant of the Jews, and that the wall of Jerusalem is broken down. He bows in confession and prayer. Deeply earnest is this man of God, as he pleads with Jehovah for the state of the fallen, yet the redeemed by power. Thus he pleads: “O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who desire to fear Thy name” (Neh. 1:1111O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cupbearer. (Nehemiah 1:11)).
Thus we see him before the Lord, feeling acutely the state of Israel and the city of the Great King. He owns fully their deep sin in departing from the Lord: “We have dealt very corruptly against Thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments which Thou commandest Thy servant Moses.”
Now, as these things were written as types for us, may I ask, Have we been thus before the Lord, in deep confession, as to the present state of the church of God? Have we thus wept, and mourned, and prayed, for the blood-bought people of the Lord in this day?
Let us seek no mere controversy, but sit down before the Lord, and compare the present captivity of the church in the world with what it was in the beginning. Has not the wall been broken down? When God by the Holy Spirit first built the church, there was the wall of separation. All believers were together, and formed one body, as all the houses in the ancient city formed the one Jerusalem, with its wall strong and high. Even so we read of the one church of God, “and of the rest durst no man join himself to them” (Acts 5:1313And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them. (Acts 5:13)). Have you sat down before the Lord? Look, then, back along the dark ages, the centuries of captivity, wherein this wall of separation has been broken down.
As God prepared Nehemiah, by this deep exercise of heart in His own presence, for his future work, so has God been pleased in like manner to raise up servants, prepared by Himself, for special work. But there must be this process of heart-preparation. I would not write another word for controversy, but there are many souls bowed down at the thought of what calls itself the church; God will use these thoughts for their help, and, I trust, for His own glory.
After deep prostration and exercise before God, in Nehemiah 1, we find as the result, divine yearnings and activities of love for the welfare of the people of God in Nehemiah 2.
All this brings before us for the first time, Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite. Now, as these and their companions are brought before us throughout this book as the enemies and opposers of Nehemiah, and his work for God in building the wall, it is important to know who they were, and whom they represent. They were, then, Horonites, Ammonites, and Arabians. But they were dwelling in the land of Israel in Nehemiah 4:77But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, (Nehemiah 4:7); Sanballat spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria; and Samaria in the beginning formed part of the land of Israel – they were active, boastful, subtle, men of authority in the land, but not of it. Do they not, then, represent the active, boastful, subtle men of authority who are in the professing church, but who are really strangers to God, and not of the church at all, but are the enemies and opposers of those desirous of carrying on the work of God, in caring for the saints, and in building the wall of separation to God?
If we now turn to the history of these men, we shall find seven forms or aspects of enmity to God’s work. “When Sanballat, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite, heard, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel” (Neh. 2:1010When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. (Nehemiah 2:10)). And when has God raised up a man in like manner, to seek the real welfare of the church of God, but those have been found – and not a few of them – who have been grieved exceedingly? How great was the grief of the clergy when God raised up a Wiclif, a Huss, or a Luther! But especially do we find these seven marks of opposition to the work of God during this last half century. What a grief it has been to many, that God should have raised up men to seek the real welfare of the church of God, apart from all sectarianism. Some years ago men were brought, like Nehemiah, on their faces before the Lord. Amazed at the departure of the church from the commandments of her Lord, they were bowed in confession and prayer. And the Holy Spirit put earnest yearnings in their hearts for the one church of God.
Philadelphia (Rev. 3) answers to Nehemiah, as antitype answers to type. One must be alone a good deal with God to understand this. There were but few men with Nehemiah when he arose in the night and no man knew what God had put into his heart. Just take a ride with him around Jerusalem. Dragon wall and dung port wall broken down. Such are the things you will find in and around the church in ruins. That is the church as seen in the hands of men.
Very clearly have the Scriptures foretold all this. The present state of Christendom is most accurately described in the Word. (See 2 Tim. 3; 2 Peter 2:1-91But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. 3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. 4For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; 5And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; 7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) 9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: (2 Peter 2:1‑9); culminating in Rev. 17-18). Its progress is marked in detail in its seven stages in Revelation 2-3. Neither is there one intimation that it would be restored to its primitive glory as the bright witness of a rejected Christ. A feeble remnant is found in Philadelphia, clinging to the person and Word of Christ, and keeping His patience.
As Nehemiah, then, rode round Jerusalem (Neh. 2:11-1611So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. 12And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem: neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode upon. 13And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire. 14Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass. 15Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned. 16And the rulers knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as 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. (Nehemiah 2:11‑16)), so ride around Christendom. O, I ask you to reflect, what are God’s thoughts about Romanism and Protestantism? View the whole scene in the presence of God and in His fear. Did Nehemiah hang down his hands in despair? No! he said, “Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem.” Thus he encourages them, and the hand of God was good upon him. They reply, “Let us rise up and build.”
This brings us to the second form of opposition. “But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? Will ye rebel against the king?” The first from of opposition was grief; the second is laughter. Compared with the whole nation, they were indeed a feeble remnant.
They longed to see the sacred city enclosed within the wall of separation. And shall that city of the king be more dear to them than the sacred enclosure of the saints of God, around the person of Christ, be to us? As Nehemiah stirred up the remnant to build the wall, so has the Holy Spirit stirred up a few, each in his place, to build this wall, so long cast down. O, how the modern Sanballats have laughed and despised! What is this thing that you feeble, silly, Christians will do? Yes, there has been a time for grief, and a time of laughter.
(To be Continued).