Address—Nick Simon
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Perhaps we could begin by seeing hymn #200.
And 56.
The verses that I particularly have in mind are verse 2. Jesus is the name that charms us. He for conflict fits and arms us. Nothing moves and nothing harms us while we trust in Him. Then verse three, trust in Him, ye Saints forever. He is faithful, changing never. Neither force nor guile can sever those He loves from Him. If someone could stop that, please 256.
So the subject I would like to speak on this afternoon is Nehemiah.
I don't want to speak so much about the book of Nehemiah, but the man Nehemiah, Of course you can't divorce the man from the work. So I will be obviously going through the book of Nehemiah, but I'll endeavour to have my focus on the man himself. And I think there is so much we can learn and lessons we can draw from it. So forgive me if I seem to be taking rabbit trails at times.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were real encouragement to me in my younger years. When I came to the United States in 1984 and started going to meeting, my background was not altogether different in terms of how I was raised, but I was not gathered to the Lord's name and wasn't going associated with any particular group.
I won't recount that entire history.
But I ordered from BTP Edward Dennis book on Ezra and Nehemiah and found it very instructive and very helpful. And so they've always been books that have been near and dear to me. Ezra, of course, the book of Ezra speaks of the restoration of worship in Jerusalem. These are post captivity books. The children of Israel, we know their history.
They were divided and then the 10 tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians. The remaining tribes, which consisted of Judah, Benjamin and the Levites. The tribe of Levi were ultimately taken captive by the Babylonians, and Jeremiah prophesied that the Lord would allow them to return, of course.
That goes back to the book of Deuteronomy, where the promise was given that God would.
Bring them back into the land and of course we have at least impartial fulfillment that happening 70 years after the captivity. So they came back into the land first of all under the rubble at the beginning of Ezra and then in the middle of the book of Ezra some years later, Ezra himself is a priest and we'll talk a little bit about Ezra. He came back as as well. And then we get to the book of Nehemiah. If Ezra is concerned with the restoration of the temple and.
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At that place, Jerusalem, where God has said his name, the center of Jewish worship, then the book of Nehemiah is about the administrative side of things. And a brother, Steve, spoke on worship yesterday. And so it's very fitting that Ezra comes first, not Nehemiah. And then we have Nehemiah. But the book of Nehemiah is still invaluable.
You know, as a child, I grew up in a Christian home and very thankful for that. And we read every morning around the table, a Bible reading after breakfast. My mother grew up the Bible reading 1St and then breakfast. And she thought that we children would do better if we had full stomachs. We'd listen better. And so we had a reading right after breakfast. And I remember going through the book of Nehemiah.
And my mother had remarked that she thought Nehemiah was rather full of himself.
And that stuck with me as a child. And so I've always been kind of curious about Nehemiah. And I hope to circle back to that point at the very end. You know, I say things like that and then I always forget. You're welcome to remind me.
But Nehemiah, so talking about individuals from the word of God, there are those individuals that we relate to because we see something of ourselves and them maybe not their strengths, but their weaknesses. And Timothy is a person that I can relate to and it's a real encouragement to read me to to read.
Paul's letters to Timothy, the life, what little we know about his life.
You know, Timothy, but when it comes to Nehemiah, he's sort of the opposite to what I am. And so in that sense, he's attractive person to me because he's all the things that I'm not.
But Israel, Nehemiah were were concurrent with each other. I I mentioned that little comment my mother had made and so as a child I'm thinking, why did God need Nehemiah? And Ezra was still in the land when Nehemiah returned back.
Ezra was still there.
Some things we learn about Ezra we could look at don't turn there. But the 7th chapter of Ezra, for example, says Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. In the sixth verse that says Ezra was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given and so on. So Ezra was a studious man. He was a priest. He.
Prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord well he's there in the land why doesn't God use him to restore the administrative side of things because Ezra was not the man for the job in comparing and and we're apartment to make the comparison constantly between the men man Ezra and the man Nehemiah and they're very different people and different strengths and different weaknesses and it's all very well for myself to sit in my.
Ivory tower and right pamphlets and cost stones that.
Others, but that's not what God would have us to do. God has given us different strengths and different weaknesses. We need each other and we need the Nehemiah's of the world just as much as we need the Ezra's. Of this well, I'm not so much the well, but within the Church of God.
Now we just, we'll go through, as I said, the book of Nehemiah, but try to focus mostly on Nehemiah himself and what might be an encouragement of souls, what lessons we might learn from his life. So the first thing we discover with the Nehemiah is that he learns in verse three of chapter one.
The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are a great affliction, reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also has broken down the gates of a boon with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and warned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah, you align your discover as we go through as a man of action. He's quite bold and he doesn't seem to hesitate in taking on things that offer very little in terms of personal reward.
And but he was a man of a tender conscience, and he saw that city and the walls were broken down.
And it broke his heart and he wept.
There would it would do well in the day in which we live if there was far more weeping for the state of things in Christendom.
The character of the day in which we live is laid as sin, and Laodicea rejoiced in their condition of things we read in Second Timothy. And there are some parallels for perhaps to draw between the individual Timothy and the individual Nehemiah. Incidentally, if we want to draw parallels, then the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
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Has quite a few parallels with the, particularly the.
1St and 2nd epistles to Timothy. We look at the history of Christendom, that which might correspond to the books of Ezra, Nehemiah is not the present day. It's a day perhaps 200 years ago. If anything corresponds with the present days, the book of Malachi. But it doesn't mean to say we can't learn from these these books. We can't say, Oh well, that's past opportunity was had and was lost.
As we go through it, we find that obedience to the Word of God never changes, Doesn't change the day in which you live.
Still called upon to work in a walk in obedience to the word of God. But Timothy, in second Timothy, it begins there. Paul says in verse 4, greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears. Here was a man also tender hearted young man called Timothy. He probably wasn't so young, but he wept at the condition of things. He didn't just weep because Paul was in prison. I don't think that was the reason for his weeping. He wept because of the condition of things.
And.
We would be in a much better state too, if we recognize things, all things, from God's perspective and realize how far removed they are from what He originally instituted. But then he prays. And as we go through Nehemiah, we find he's a man of prayer. And I really want to emphasize this, and I'm not. I'm intending to go as far as I can, and when the hour is up, we'll stop. I may not. I don't know how far I'll get.
But I intend to spend a little time on this first prayer. It's the longest prayer that we have of Nehemiah, but Nehemiah prays. I should write it in my Bible because I don't remember numbers like this. But depending on how you count them, eight or ten times, he was a man of prayer. So here you have this bold man of action, but it wasn't one that just went out and did things haphazardly. He was a man of prayer. And I think we can learn.
Much from that, you know, we had a prayer meeting before these meetings and perhaps that wasn't the meeting that you were looking forward to. And if you're a young person, I can remember being a young person, I like to hear, to hear.
Well, a capable speakers that could really get me.
Lift me up, whatever the case may be, whatever my need might have been at the time, speakers that I could learn from and if I was to to order my likes and dislikes of meetings at a conference and certainly addresses my favorite reading. Meetings were OK, but they were long and.
It's hard to follow and prayer meeting, well, that was just something we always did right. But if you think about it, the prayer meeting, that's that's the foundation. If we don't come here, independence on the Lord.
And and willing to bow before him in prayer and not just to ask things off him supplication, but also to use that as a time of communion as well.
Brethren, we were lost and I spoke on the subject and now local assembly, I think it was a week ago or something, there was some here from our local assembly and I apologized. One of the breaks that we're just going to hear what I've already spoken on. And I suppose that's true of many brethren, their local brothers here things over and over again.
But, you know, I encourage them. Why do we find it so difficult to pray? You know, the prayer meeting here?
I don't like to sound like I'm assessing things, but it was encouraging. There was prayer after prayer after prayer. That wasn't long pauses, but I did notice that the prayers stopped after about the 4th row back.
You know, if you sit in the 5th row, 6th row, 7th row, it doesn't mean you can't pray. I get it that you're not near the mics. You can woke up. That's scary. I get it. I am not an outgoing person. I said I'm not a Nehemiah.
But it's not hard to pray you know a child of God.
Well, let me let me back up a little bit and let's start looking at some verses here and I'll get to my point. Nehemiah, praise, O God of heaven, the great and terrible God that keep the covenant mercy for them, that love and observe his commandments. Is that how we pray? And if not, why not?
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Thankfully, that's not how we pray. Israel approached God on the ground that he was a merciful and faithful God.
But when the disciples were here on earth, they asked the Lord teach us to pray.
And you, you should be astounded at that. What? They didn't know how to pray? They asked how to pray. Why would they do that?
We have a lot of prayers in the Old Testament, but they didn't have that confidence.
We have been brought into such a privileged place. We have been brought into that position.
As children of God in the family of God, that's John's ministry. We have been now brought to know God.
As Father, we have sonship. That's Paul's ministry. The Lord Jesus when he was on earth. Look at Matthew chapter 6 is where we have what Christendom calls the Lord's Prayer. And it doesn't say in Matthew, but in Luke is where it says the disciples asked the Lord how to pray and he gives them what has been called the Lord's Prayer. I'll call it that simply because everyone knows what that means.
But look at that chapter in Matthew and you hear the Lord Speaking of your heavenly Father, your heavenly Father, your heavenly Father.
And then when you get to Matthew 11.
I'll read a verse there, it says.
Verse 27 of Matthew 11. All these things are delivered of and be of my Father.
And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father neither knoweth any man. The Father saved the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him during the Lord's.
Sergeant here on earth, he was the Son revealing the Father, but he was still a distant father at that point, a Heavenly Father. It's not until we get after the resurrection that we're brought into that personal relationship and the Lord and John.
Is a chapter 20. Let me just turn to it.
Says to Mary.
Magdalene, I ascend unto my father, and your father. But still that's not the end of it, because it's not until we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we can cry, as we have in Romans 8, which brings before us especially the Holy Spirit in two different aspects. But it says in verse 15 of Romans 8. For you have not received the spirit of ******* again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby.
Have a father. So we brought into the conscious realization of realization of that relationship that we have been brought into by the Holy Spirit. Now, ABBA father. Why ABBA father? ABBA is Hebrew father. The word originally would have been in Greek, but ABBA is that word that flows off the lips of a child. In English it's daddy or Dada. It comes out initially, Papa. Every language has a word like that, and certainly they have.
Similar words for mother, but the emphasis here is on sonship.
And so every child of God indwelt by the Spirit of God should have that desire within them to cry out to ABBA Father.
And so again, I asked young men, but not just young men, we all need the encouragement. Why the reluctance to pray?
Why? Why is it so hard? You know, the simplest prayer is maybe a very selfish prayer. It's asking something of God.
Or thanking him for something to give thanks for the food that we receive, to ask for help at a conference. But then we come to the worship, to what? We come with the intent, I trust, to worship. It doesn't always turn out the way that the breaking of bread, but the the memorials should lead our hearts to worship.
Why, again, are we so reluctant to pray? We say I can't.
I stumble over my words, I get things wrong, and I say the wrong thing.
And it's easier to give out him. It expresses my thoughts so much better. Well I would just encourage you. We shouldn't use hymns as a crutch. We shouldn't use hymns as a replacement for prayer. Prayer is an important part of that which forms Christian worship. And I I speak these things as an exercise to my own self. I feel self-conscious when I pray.
And you probably do too. And perhaps you compare yourself to others. Why can't pray like that, brother? Because.
I mean, he, he just says it so well and I try and I just stumble. Don't compare yourself. You know what you might say in 30 seconds from the heart.
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May mean more to God than a seasoned brother that speaks 5 minutes in some eloquent prayer. I don't need to mean to put down any older brother, that's not my intent. But Nehemiah prays, and as we go through this book, we find prayer after prayer after prayer.
One thing he says here he confesses in verse six, he confesses the sins of the children of Israel which have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's House of sin. He takes his place in Israel as and accepts the government of God that had come upon them. Was was he just pretending? Was he just saying what was politically correct?
You know what does it mean when we say that we have sinned?
You know when sin comes into the assembly and as I said, Nehemiah takes up the administrative site.
Of things we can say the administrative side of the assembly.
When sin comes into the assembly, if we take it up from the standpoint that it's them versus US, immediately we've created division in the assembly.
If we don't address sin in the assembly, realizing that we have the same nature, that we are capable of the same things, it will just create division. But there's another side to this too. When the government of God falls upon here, Israel, upon an assembly, upon the Church of God, it affects us all. We're we're not. We're not somehow.
Outside of Christendom, we're within Christendom.
And the ruin that has come in affects us all. And Nehemiah felt it, and he wept. Timothy felt it and he wept. And do we feel it as well, because it makes us sensitive?
To then what God has to say to us.
If you look at the end of the book of Judges, you see when Israel had to.
Discipline, Benjamin.
And you find that every time they go out to fight Benjamin, they come out the losers.
God has to do a work in their own lives before He ultimately allows that discipline to fall upon Benjamin.
Let me just remind you, when the government of God falls upon the assembly, when matters of discipline has to be taken, it affects us all.
OK.
Let's look at the next chapter. So Nehemiah was the King's cup bearer.
And you might think, well, that's a pretty cushy job. All he had to do was to bring a cup of wine to Nebuchadnezzar, to not Nebuchadnezzar, but to the king at every meal time. But you know, you find that in royal households they had these peculiar positions and titles. And so, for example, the queen would have had her maids of her bedchamber. And again, you might think, well.
That's what that's what maids do. That's what servants do. No, these were very important positions. You know why they were important? Because you had the private ear of the queen, one-on-one. If you were the maid of the bedchamber, you you had intimate intercourse with the queen. And so Nehemiah's position was not some insignificant servant Butler that served the king.
It was a very important position. We see him standing before the King and the Queen having.
A conversation with them. Mere mortals didn't do that in that day. Ordinary people, I should say. And anyway, the king notices that he's sad. And in those days, you know, I don't know about this culture, but in, let's say, English.
Courts, they had jesters. You know, you're someone to make everyone happy and laugh. You weren't supposed to be discouraged in the presence of the king. But Nehemiah's disposition is so affected him the state of his own people.
And as I said, that's a good thing to be affected by the state of things in Christianity, by the state of things in the assembly, by the state of things in your home assembly, to be exercised about these things. And it reflected on his face. And the king says to him, What does thou make requests? So I pray to the God of heaven. This is prayer #2 And I said unto the king, Well, wait a minute, what did he pray? Well, we never find out what he prayed, but it had to be really short.
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And he never got down on his knees and maybe he never closed his eyes, but believe me, this was number what?
I don't mean to be irreverent, but what the world calls a Hail Mary, you know, in football, I understand that. You know, if the clock's running out and you're losing, you throw the ball all the way down the end of the field just hoping someone's there to catch it. This wasn't a prayer, just throwing out, hoping that God maybe heard it. And why not? Because this is not the first time. Nehemiah's parade.
This is not the first time Nehemiah has prayed. If you never pray, except we are in trouble.
And you wonder whether God is listening to you. I'm not surprised.
You haven't got a relationship with them.
So Nehemiah prays, and we discover that in.
Verse seven He says, If it please the king, let let us be given to the governors beyond the river. They may convey me over till I come into Judah in a letter unto Asaph, the king of the King's forest, that he may give me timber, and so on, and.
Verse nine, it says the end of the verse. Now the king had sent captains, the army and horsemen with me, and we'll stop there.
Now here we have one of the striking differences between Nehemiah and Ezra.
We find that when Nehemiah returned back to the land of captivity, he was given the Commission to rebuild the walls of the city. He was given permission. He asked for it. He was given permission to rebuild the walls of the city that he was given royal Ritz and gods to go with him. This was a dangerous journey I imagine today.
If you were to go from.
Area which would be probably in present day Iraq or Iran.
To Jerusalem by foot it would be equally as deadly.
When we see with Ezra who made a similar trip.
In verse 22 of Ezra 8, Ezra says I was ashamed to require the king of band of soldiers and Hussman to help us against the enemy in the way, because we have spoken unto the king, saying, the hand of our God is upon all them for good.
That seek him, but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.
So we fostered and we sought our God for this, and He was entreated of us. Ezra refused a royal guard. Nehemiah accepted a royal guard. So do we rank our brethren and say, well, clearly Ezra was superior to Nehemiah. As I said, Ezra was already in the land at this time.
That we're reading about Why didn't God use Ezra to direct the rebuilding of the wall? Because he wasn't the right man.
Just remember that you can't. I cannot walk your faith. You cannot walk my faith. But you need to walk. We need to walk by faith.
There are those that have far greater faith than me, but for me to attempt to walk in their footsteps would be mere pretension. One thing that characterizes remnant that returned back to the land of Israel was a lack of pretension. Weakness is not necessarily a sin. Pretension to spiritual things is a sin. We're not here to pretend to be something we're not.
We'll get into that because when Ezra returned back to got back to Jerusalem, we find that by night.
He rides around that city and reviews the walls and he can't get all the way around because of the ruin.
This is an apartment picture of the condition of things and the day in which we live within Christianity.
Within Christendom.
But by and large, Christendom rejects it and has rejected it. Mr. Darby wrote quite a lot, and his peers as well, about the ruin of the church, the ruin of the Christian testimony. You can go to any of the brethren.
Writings, websites, BTP, stem publishing and so on. And Google that expression.
Will search for it.
The ruin of the church. Put it in quotes so it finds exactly the match and you'll find numerous references to it. The brethren were opposed in that day to it, and the day in which we live it is likewise opposed.
The ruin is not recognized, and yet here we have a physical picture of that which characterized well. It was certainly what characterized the day in which Nehemiah lived, but it characterizes in type the day in which we live. Now Nehemiah rode around it at night, and I suspect they must have carried lanterns, or the the light of the moon and the stars was what showed them their way.
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But any light?
That they shone. What did it do? What effect did it have? The only effect it had was to accentuate.
The ruin. And so, brethren, any light that we might shine only serves to accentuate the ruin. We're not attempting to fix the ruin. That's not what our desire is. Our desire is simply to walk in obedience to the Word of God in a day of ruin.
Let's move on.
So there are enemies. Let's before we turn head just a little bit, they're enemies. And we see that the reaction of the enemies changes over time and Satan will test us each with different strategies. And so initially in verse 10 of chapter 2, it says San Violet, the horror night to buy the servant, the Ammonite hood of it. And it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.
So at first, the enemy is grieved.
But then.
In verse 19 it says when Sambal the horror night and Tobiah the servant.
The Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian heard it. They laughed as to scorn and despised us. It's another tactic of the enemy is to mock.
And to make fun of us the more.
We desire to walk according to the Word of God. We'll find that there are those that not just from without, but within that will find occasion to mock.
One other point to note too, before we move from the 2nd chapter, it says that.
Nehemiah went up alone. He didn't. There was, there were those with him. But it says in verse 16, 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 the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work. We find that a lot that Nehemiah did, he stood alone.
At this point, I believe that he went up to assess the condition of things he didn't want.
To frighten anyone. He didn't want to scare anyone away with what his task was, so he first surveys the condition of things.
And then?
He ultimately tells his brother. Now the third chapter is the rebuilding of the gates and the wall, and if anyone takes up the book of Nehemiah, typically it's the third chapter that's taken up. There's ministry on it. Excellent ministry on it as a chapter, well worth going through. I do not intend to actually go through the 3rd chapter.
And I will skip it and move ahead to the 4th chapter.
The one brief comment that I'll make about the third chapter is in building the wall. You'll notice the number of references to families and individuals that rebuilt the wall against their chamber. And you might say, well, that was a bit selfish. They weren't interested in the bit of wall next to their house. But it's vitally important.
You know, if we don't begin the work within our homes, if we don't.
Instruct our children.
In our homes.
Then what hope have we got of maintaining order and things in the assembly? As I said, the subject Nehemiah's administrative more connected with the order of things.
I my wife had picked up a book second hand I think it was.
Written by an individual who's quite well known in Christian circles. And the title is something like the Last Christian Generation. And as tends to be the case with these books, it's quite political. And he one of the chapters that I glanced at, he said, well, we need to change your education system. We got our education system all wrong. No, we don't need to change our education system.
What we need to change is the way that we raise. What we need to continue doing and not be distracted from is the way we raise our children. I'm not saying that when you make a choice as to where to send your child to school, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. That's not the case. It's a very weighty decision for parents in the day in which we live. Not not to be lightly taken, I get that. But if you think about it, Daniel and his brother and they would have been.
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Teenagers that were sent to Babylon, that was sent to the finest schools of Babylon and they weren't persuaded from their faith, where did they learn that faith wasn't in the schools? Don't send your child to school to learn faith or however you want to word it. That has to be taught at home.
They need that foundation at home. Daniel had that foundation unquestionably in his upbringing at home and he didn't, was not moved from it when he ended what let's say was university.
In the fourth chapter, then as I said, we're not going to go through the 3rd chapter, 4th chapter.
And Sand Ballot heard that we builded the wall here as a wrath, so we've had First of all, they were.
Grieved and then the enemy tried mocking and that didn't work. You know, it's hard to be mocked. I, I find that hard, very hard personally remember being at school and to be mocked with something that was incredibly difficult to, to take. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. Who doesn't? Who doesn't want to be liked? And you know, that's one of the things I find about Nehemiah that I admire. He's a man that just seemed to.
Do what was necessary to do and nothing would move him.
Umm, in verse two of chapter 4, the enemy says what do these stable Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day?
With their revives, phones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned and so on.
And now to buy the ammonite was by him. He said even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall breakdown their Stonewall. And so there's like again this continued mocking us through their efforts.
And will they sacrifice? Will they return back to the way that things were? Were they? That's what they're saying. And perhaps you might find that.
Position that we have as brethren is mocked as well by by something.
Again, keep in mind, it's not a matter of returning back to the days of Pentecost. It's not a matter of rebuilding that which has been fallen, ruined. It's a question of walking in obedience to the Word of God in a day of ruin. And that instruction we have, especially in Second Timothy. But here we have another prayer of Nehemiah.
In verse 4 near my praise, O God, for we are despised.
And turn the reproach on their own head, and give them for prey in the land of captivity, and cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee.
They have provoked me to anger before. The builders so built me the wall and all the walls wall was joined together into the half thereof. The people had a mind to work. Now this type of prayer is what we call imprecatory prayer. There's very psalms that follow a similar line of things. We do not pray in the way that Nehemiah prayed here where he calls for God's judgment to come a pound upon the heads of his enemies.
We live in a day of grace.
Disciples of the Lord said to this. I think it was the Samaritans let fire come down upon their heads.
And the Lord had to tell them that they did not know what spirit they were. I think that's Luke nine. Let me just.
In Luke 9 verse 54, when the disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from the heaven, consume them even as Elias did. But he turned and rebuked them, and said, You know not what manner of spirit you are, For the Son of man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.
One thing that differentiates.
Christianity, Christians, our hopes from that of Israel is we're not looking for a earthly inheritance. Israel was promised the land of Israel as the land of promise. And so when enemies took Israel, they had to fight for it. We're not fighting for this world. We're not fighting for this country in which we live. We can be thankful for the degree.
In which the various presence of this country, the various administrators of this country.
Have been sympathetic towards Christianity. We can be thankful for it, but we're not fighting for this country.
And it's a mistake that.
Christians have fallen into over the centuries, You know, I had a.
Book on my shelf. I had a sitting on my shelf for 30 years back in December. We were visiting someone and they happened to be reading through that book as a couple. And I thought, you know, I should take that book off the shelf and read it for myself. The book is familiar one. It's called The Patriarchs by Bella, and Bella has a particular way of writing.
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May be difficult for some to follow, but.
It's.
It really warms my heart, but he said some things in there and brought things out in a way that I had perhaps never considered before. But he spoke of Cain, and Cain was given a mock so that he might not be killed. The descendants of Seth were not to go after Cain.
And that's our position in this world. This is Keynes Weld in which we live. We're not out to change Keynes. Well, we're not out to kill Cane. We're not out to establish, cave out a little inheritance for ourselves in this world.
And so, as I said, this prayer of Nehemiah is not a prayer that we would pray. Now. There are other Perez later in the book.
And I hope we'll get to that. Might sound similar, but I think they're a little different character. And there are times where we perhaps may have to pray the way that Nehemiah prayed.
There's another prayer in verse 9.
We're in the 4th chapter just to remind you again, verse 9. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto our God again, the present not enunciated and set a watch against them day and night because of them, because of their enemies. So here we have a prayer and they set a watch. He said well that's a lack of faith. They prayed and they still said a watch and I would suggest that not necessarily you know, I think I've encouraged prayer and.
That you would be exercised about.
Praying suddenly If you don't have the courage to pray publicly and certainly privately, your life should be characterized by prayer. But.
Here they pray and still set a watch. You know, prayer is not a way of sidestepping responsibility.
Sometimes matters come before an assembly, by way of example, and the brothers might say, well, let's pray about it.
Because there's an unwillingness to address the matter in question. Now don't get me wrong, I think that.
Prayer is needful in those circumstances and I don't want to.
Say, well, you should just charge ahead.
In James it says there in verse five of chapter one of James, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.
And it shall be given unto him. If we lack wisdom, we definitely should pray. And I don't deny that when matters come before the assembly, particularly serious matters, there should be prayer and collective prayer. But let's not let prayer be an excuse to avoid responsibility. Sometimes we have to act in responsibility. Prayer is not a way to be careless.
Prayer is not a way, God is not. Again, I don't want to sound a reverent. Not a genie in a bottle, you know?
Story of Aladdin You rubbed a little lamp, and you make your wish. That's not what Christian prayer is.
When we pray, I believe there's a work in ourselves that goes on.
God would have us exercised about things, and so these men, they not only pray to God, but they set a watch.
We could go through a lot of these verses. There's so much, but time is.
Moving along and I particularly wanted to focus on Nehemiah himself, but we noticed in verse 18 the builders, everyone had his sword girded by his side and so builded.
Or another point back in verse 16, it says it came to pass from that time forth that half of my servants wrought in the work.
The other half of them held both the Spears, the Shields and the bows, and the harbogens, and the rulers were behind all the houses of God, and so on.
You know, in any assembly there are those that have strengths. There are some that seem to be better at handling conflict.
Than others, and so it's not.
Inappropriate for some to have to take up that role. Some build, some fit for conflict, sometimes in an assembly when they're small.
Perhaps we lack builders, perhaps we lack those that are suited to conflict, in which case God is able to to meet the need.
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In verse 23, he is always our resource. We spoke about grace briefly in the meetings. Remember that, you know, we seem to have this very narrow idea of grace, that grace is this is a phrase we use and there's nothing wrong with it. It defines 1 aspect of grace. Grace is getting something we don't deserve.
The gift, the birthday gift that we got because we were, even though we were still naughty.
Mercy, on the other hand, is not getting what we should receive. That spanking we should have got that we didn't get. That's mercy. And we tend to think of grace and mercy in those terms, whereas I believe the way Scripture takes up grace, it's much bigger. It's the first definition that sticks in my mind for grace is unmerited favor.
And I had to unpack that. I was probably a teenager when I heard that. What in the world does that mean? It's God's favor to you and to me that we didn't deserve because of nothing in me. But God showed his favor to us, and in various ways it's connected with saving grace. We're justified freely by his grace. Not free, wasn't free. It cost God in a tremendous amount. But that word freely there means undeservedly unmerited.
Wasn't anything that God looked down upon me and said, well, I think he deserves saving. No, that's not the way grace works. But grace, as I said, is much broader. Grace. As someone much more recently, I heard this definition is divine enablement. Again, undeserved divine.
Enablement. And so in the day in which we live, even in our great weakness, God is able to provide through His grace that which enables us. The converse is, as we take up things in our own hands, we take things up in our own strength, and then it just creates a hash of things. It turns into legality. Just remember that grace and graciousness are not the same thing. Grace is not just getting things we don't deserve.
Grace is divine enablement. It is God providing everything we need.
For this wilderness journey that we're on.
The last verse of this 4th chapter.
It says in verse 23. So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men, nor the God which followed me, none of us put off our clothes.
Saving that everyone put them off for washing. So cleanliness is not denied here. Purity and walk. But what's this about not washing their clothes? You know what it says in Second Timothy the 2nd chapter?
And I'm going to use the King James translation. I know Mr. Dhabi translates somewhat differently, but in this case, I want to actually use the perhaps poorer translation. But it says thou therefore, in your hardness is a good soldier of Jesus Christ. When we think of the armor of God, when we think of being a soldier, what do we think of?
We think of combat.
But when Paul makes this reference here to the soldier, he's not Speaking of combat so much as the.
Hardness that a soldier has to endure. I have been listening to a book. It's a, it's a history. It's not scriptural about scriptural subjects. I enjoy history. I think there's a lot that we can learn from history.
That makes valuable illustrations like the one I'm about to give. But it's the story of the American Mexican War. I don't know if you realize, but New Mexico, Arizona, California, and I think parts of Colorado.
We're part of Mexico. We're not a part of the United States. And under President Polk, I believe the United States went to war against Mexico and ultimately seized those lands. But there was a man who in the West we know very well, Kit Carson. There's lots of things named after Carson in the West. The capital of Nevada is Carson City. He is tied up with all of this well.
When the American army came, they first conquered.
Santa Fe, which is the capital of New Mexico. Santa Fe, incidentally, is a much older city than anything you have on the East Coast. Much older. There were settlements from the Spanish in the West that predate the Plymouth Rock and all that on the East Coast. They took Santa Fe without a fight, but then they had to March to California.
And they literally did that. They marched through the desert SW to California.
Didn't fight anyone, no battles. There was a battle ultimately, and it was only about 30 miles away from San Diego. 1 battle that the overall scheme of things was quite small. Turned out to be significant, but it was quite small. But the hardships they endured on that was unbelievable. They had mules dying beneath men.
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And the last 30 miles, Carson lost his shoes, actually took them off so the Mexicans who had surrounded them wouldn't hear them. And he and two other men walked to San Diego 30 miles in bare feet.
And ground covered with rock and thorns. And two of his men almost didn't survive the ordeal. One, I think it took him over a month to recover.
The hardship that's associated with being a good soldier.
Remember, it's not all about conflict, it's about endurance and we've had that in our meetings.
The next chapter, chapter 5, we find it's a little bit of a parenthesis. The it's no longer enemies from without, there's enemies from within. This discouragement from within and we find once again Nehemiah standing alone. What happened was the the land of Israel wasn't returned back to the Jews. They were allowed to return to the land. They were allowed to rebuild the temple, they were allowed to rebuild the walls of the city, but they were still under the.
Rulers of the Kings.
Of Persia. And tribute or tax was imposed upon them, and they couldn't pay their taxes. So the poor Jews went to the rich Jews and borrowed money, sold their children into servitude.
And then they of course there was a great cry that went up and Nehemiah had to rebuke his brethren. So again, not all the enemies are without. There are those within the Christian profession that seek to enrich themselves. I heard recently it was in a.
Meal the other night about the situation in Brazil and one of the driving forces.
Behind such an interest in the ground of gathering and so forth down there and the oppression the the prosperity gospel that's being preached in the.
The prosperity gospel is all about this. It's about the rich robbing from the poor and making much, as it says in Second Timothy, Second Peter, chapter 2, making merchandise of them, making merchandise of them.
Now at the end of.
Well, we'll just move along.
In chapter 6.
Again, we have the enemy, the external enemy.
That.
Sam Chapter 6, verse 2 Sambalat and Geshem sent on be saying, Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono, that they thought to do me mischief. So enemy seeks to cause mischief now. And what Nehemiah say, I sent messengers unto them, saying, I'm doing a great work, so I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you?
Nehemiah recognized that the work he was doing was a great.
Work.
Does that mean, as I said at the beginning, that he was a man full of his own self importance? Not in this instance, no. No it wasn't. He recognized that this was the work that God had given him to do and consequently it was a great work.
Walking in obedience to the Word of God is not pride. It can be done in pride. Absolutely no question about it can be done in pride, can be done in pretension. But obedience, simple obedience to the Word of God is a great work.
And it's so interesting here we had a visiting brother, a brother that just happened to be in town in Denver the day we went through this chapter. And he he made some comments on it, only some of which I remember. But he just loved how that Nehemiah just responds doing a great work. I can't, can't stop it. But this is abstract a little bit. I didn't know how many times, perhaps in my career and perhaps in your career, your school, whenever someone says, well, let's go do this.
And what's your answer? What's my answer?
And it's something you know you shouldn't really be doing, something you shouldn't really be involved in. It's dishonoring to the Lord. It's where it just might be getting you caught up in things that you really rather didn't get caught up in. What's your response?
Well, I need to pray about it. But maybe that's what not what you tell the person, but in your mind you're thinking, oh, I should pray about this. No, you don't need to pray about it.
You know the answer. You know what your conscience is telling you. Perhaps you say all. Not this time. Maybe another time.
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These are the things that we tell ourselves to try to make life easy. And what do they do?
How do you make life difficult? EMI would have no.
Communion with the enemy, he just said. No, I'm doing great work, I can't come.
All right, I see how time is nearly up. We can see that the enemy seeks mischief. And then a little further on, the enemy starts accusing Nehemiah of treason. Pride. Pride. Nehemiah. You think you're somebody, don't you?
You know, as I said, simple obedience to the word of God. Don't automatically label it. Pray.
And then the enemy seeks compromise. Come now, Therefore, let us take counsel. Together we can work this out.
And so on verse nine we have another prayer of Nehemiah. Now therefore, our God, strengthen my hands.
Well, there was two points I wanted to touch on. Perhaps I can do it.
I said there are other prayers that Nehemiah praised. Incidentally, as you go through the book of Nehemiah when you get to.
Chapter 7, verse five, It's the end of really Nehemiah's narrative. Then we have things that I don't believe are necessarily in chronological order.
And then eventually in the.
13th chapter, the sixth verse, we find that Nehemiah has gone back to his job in Babylon, and then he comes back to the land of Israel again. But there's a few more prayers in there.
One more that I wanted to touch on.
Complete a thought that I had. Well, maybe it was.
Give me a minute and I'll find it.
Yeah, verse four so chapter 6 verse 14 I said that the imprecatory prayer was not a Christian prayer. We don't pray that way, but Nehemiah 6 verse 14 says my God think thou upon to buy and send ballot according to these their works and the prophetess Nadia and the rest of the prophets that they would have put me in fear in this prayer he simply laying at Jehovah's feet his enemies and says Lord, they're in your hands and sometimes as.
Christians, we have to do that. In First Timothy there is a man called Alexander whom Paul had delivered unto Satan that he might learn not to blasphemy aligned with Hymenius. It's good to remember that the word blasphemy is actually much broader than we might make it out to be is to speak injuriously against someone.
But when we get to Second Timothy, the last chapter and this, I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. Maybe a second, maybe a different Alexander, but I'm going to take it up as if it's the same Alexander. So the last chapter of Second Timothy.
Verse 14 Alexander the Coppersmith did me much evil and.
The Apostle Paul and the King James says the Lord reward him according to his works. It makes it sound like Paul is praying Lord reward him given what he deserves, but he doesn't say that. The new translation says the Lord will reward him according to his works.
There are times in our lives when we encounter people.
Or situations where perhaps we've worked to address.
And there has not been a response.
And then it's rather like we read in Hosea chapter 4 verse 17. Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone.
There may be a time when we simply have to say, Lord, this individual, this matter is in your hands. You deal with it as you see fit and then we have to let it go and move on. Now I asked at the beginning was Nehemiah man full of his own self importance? Maybe to a degree he was. And you know, if someone points out faults in ourselves, even when we feel that they're unjust, we had this in the meetings earlier. I remember a brother once saying, you know.
Might come up to you and say you've got a spot on your shirt and you say no, I don't, that's not true, I don't. And you vehemently defend yourself all the time. You know that there's a hole in your sock.
You know, sometimes people point out things and they're wrong about it.
But use those opportunities to let the Lord speak to you. Don't disregard them. Don't say they're being unfair, unjust.
In the way that I've behaved, let the Lord speak to me. I'll make it very personal.
Let me remember that it's an occasion to listen what the Lord has to say. Let's.