OT Background
1. Genesis
• Creation & Fall (Adam & Eve)- 4000BC
• Flood (Noah)- 3000BC
• Promise (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph)- 2000BC
2. Exodus-Deuteronomy
• Captivity and Flight (Moses)- 1500BC
• The Lord’s king (David)- 1000BC>>
3. 2 Kings
• Elisha and more kings and prophets
• Israel carried off captive to Assyria- 722BC
• Judah carried off captive to Babylon- 586BC
4. Ezra (Haggai, Zechariah)
• Persians take over; Cyrus; Exiles return to Jerusalem- 538BC
• They rebuild the temple by 516BC despite opposition from foreigners dwelling in Israel
• In 458, Ezra returns, reinstates the law and the men put away their foreign wives
5. Nehemiah, last historical book of OT (Malachi being last prophetic)
• 445BC, King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah- contemporary of Plato, but far greater man in Matthew Henry’s book! Actually he was a modest man who waits till end of chapter 1 to tell us his credentials as king’s cupbearer.
Nehemiah intro
• Man of great problems- servant to a pagan king, seeking to rebuild the walls of a ruined, beleaguered city, assailed on all sides by malicious hostile forces- ever feel like that?
• Man of great prayer- look at two prayers today, but also
o 4:4,5; 13:29- Expresses his anger about his enemies, but leaves it up to God to deal with them
o 4:9- Trusts God whilst taking precautions
o 6:9- “Now strengthen my hands”
o 5:19; 13:14,22,31- Asks God to remember his desire to please Him
• Man of great action- often the answer to his own prayers, was always prepared to get on with the job at hand and not become distracted- how easily do we let ourselves become distracted? “Let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1)- turn off the TV and pick up the Bible; quit the gossip in the staff canteen and go and encourage someone looking down; delete my computer games and open my prayer diary!
1. Nehemiah’s problem
• How did it arise? He paid an interest in his brothers and sisters (2)
o 1 Corinthians 12:26- “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it”; no Christian should ever say, “That’s not my problem!”
o 1 John 3:16- “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers”- gratitude for His love inspires OUR love!
o Start a prayer diary and ask people what they need prayer for; subscribe to a Christian journal and use their prayer calendar; seek out ways to meet needs around us
• What was it? God’s people in God’s place were persecuted (3)
o Hasn’t changed- 2 Timothy 3:12- “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”; if you are where God wants you to be, the Devil won’t like it and will try to move you somewhere else or make it very difficult for you to carry on; but he won’t succeed- why?
o “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16); we are told that “no weapon formed against [us] shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17)
• How did it affect him? Personally affected in his emotions for days (4)
o My sister- “abyss of emptiness”; someone else’s problems were more her problems than her own were!
o “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) for the death of his friend and the grief of those left behind; even more, Jesus echoed Nehemiah by weeping over the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41); Nehemiah was weeping the very tears of God. Will you let others in to your heart enough to cause you tears and even pain?
• What did he do about it? He didn’t brood or stay crying… He persistently prayed (4)
o “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16)
o “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly” (Luke 18:7,8).
o Morning prayer- persistently prayed our numbers will increase and they have almost tripled! Children of Christian parents…four years!!
PROBLEM TO>>
2. Nehemiah’s prayer
• Appreciation of God’s supreme authority (5,10)
o Heavenly, great, awesome, strong, mighty- “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear” (Isaiah 59:1); if we refuse to pray or if we pray with doubt, we are saying God is not strong; God’s greatest power is His power to forgive sins in Christ
o ‘Willy’ at Westminster Chapel- God can’t save a wretch like me
• Affirmation of God’s covenant with his people (5,8-10)
o Strange to remind God, who has a perfect memory, of His promises. Brings us to…
o Why do we pray at all, if God is perfect and knows much better than we do what is good?
“What is the purpose of prayer? Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those [actions] that are done by finite agents… [Prayers] have not advised or changed God’ s mind -- that is, His overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His Creatures” (CS Lewis, ‘Efficacy of Prayer’)
o Perhaps, then, we pray to align our will with His, rather than align His with ours…Romans 8:26
”In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
o Have you ever started praying one way and ended up praying another? Perhaps the Spirit is at work, guiding your mind to ask for things that God is already working to fulfil
• Asking to be heard (6,11)
o Surely God hears us? Psalm 94:9-“Does he who implanted the ear not hear?”
o Why ask to be heard? Shows God the sincerity of our hearts; but we have even more confidence than Nehemiah that God will hear us: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need…” BECAUSE OF JESUS! BECAUSE THE TEMPLE VEIL IS TORN IN TWO!
• Acknowledgement of sinfulness (6,7)
o “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2); Habakkuk 1:13- “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil”; BUT “no matter how far away we were, we could turn to you and start obeying your laws” (CEV v9).
o Also, because acknowledgement of guilt is a way of showing respect for God’s law, which is the expression of His character; in other words, if I say I am guilty, I am saying God is beautiful; on the other hand, “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives” (1 John 1:10).
o Losing my keys- ask Dave for help!
• Seeking an actual answer (11)
o Encouragement to pray specific prayers- Hannah for a baby; Elijah’s prayer for fire on Mount Carmel; Hezekiah’s prayer for deliverance from the Assyrians; Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the whale; the early church’s prayer for boldness; the early church’s prayer for Peter’s release
o God doesn’t always answer the way we might hope- see Paul’s request to have his thorn in the flesh removed or Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. But in every instance we get a NO, we KNOW there is something better; with Paul’s Thorn, God’s continued strength working through weakness; with Jesus’ Cross, the salvation of all our souls! Apparently Luther says, “We keep on asking God for silver, but He insists on giving us gold!” God prefers ‘best’ to ‘good’.
PRAYER TO>>
3. Nehemiah’s action
• Faces his fear (2:1-3)
o Death penalty for a sad face! Nehemiah courageously let his honest emotions show, and God honoured his bravery
• Fulfils his own prayer to God by requesting of the king (3,5,7,8)
o Nehemiah’s previous prayer to God gave him tremendous confidence to ask of the king not only permission to return, but also letters of safe-conduct, and timber to build with! In verse 8 we see his calm knowledge that God’s hand is on him, so the king will definitely respond
• Fortifies prayer with… more prayer (4)
o Two types of prayer- the “arming yourself for battle” prayer and the “lightning” prayer in the midst of the conflict. The two go hand-in-hand, and bolster each other.
o Bishopsgate Evangelical Church door-to-door: a) in prayer meetings; b) during the door to door (by evangelists and pray-ers back at church)
• Follows up prayer and answers to prayer with action and sharing (9,11-18)
o Business meetings we have agenda items and the person taking the minutes writes down who does what- but in prayer meetings, sometimes we just pray and go home, hoping that God will do the rest!; or when we get a positive answer from God, we fail to build on it
o Nehemiah was different- he prayed and followed up his prayers and their answers with ACTION; he got up off his bottom (1:4) and went off to Jerusalem during the middle of the night (12). He shares his answer to prayer with his companions, and this encouragement gives them the spur they need to start rebuilding (18). Do we share our encouragements and answers to prayer with friends? Or do we quickly forget and move on to the next item in the shopping list?!
Conclusion: Nehemiah’s problem>prayer>action
• What’s your problem? More importantly, what are the problems of those around you?
• How are you going to pray about it? Are you going to remember to appreciate God and His authority over the situation? How about affirming God’s promises to you to strengthen yourself to continue? Will you show God your sincerity and trust in Him by asking to be heard, knowing that through Jesus, you will be? Are you prepared to acknowledge your sinfulness before expecting results? And can you make it specific, waiting on God for an actual answer?
• Afterwards, believe you can face your fear and even that God can use you to fulfil your own prayers by following up with action and sharing answers to prayer with others for their encouragement.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14,15).
