You Don't Have the Right to Remain Silent
PPT 1 - Series slide
Last week we began our series on the book of Nehemiah, "Rebuilding and Restoring," by reading the first four verses of chapter 1 and noting that the people living in Jerusalem were living in great reproach and distress behind broken down walls.
Our first message was concerned with what it meant to be living behind broken walls. I spoke of two walls in particular that we need to be diligent the enemy doesn't damage, the walls of "Sacred Space," and the walls of our convictions. Don't let the devil crowd God out of your life with things and activities. Protect your "GOD" time, and beware of letting your convictions slip.
PPT 2 - Proverbs 25:28 with pic
Pr 25:28 He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.
The destruction of Jerusalem and its walls was a visible picture of the nations spiritual condition. It was if God was saying to them, The destruction of Jerusalem and its walls was so that what you now see on the outside, is what I was seeing on the inside."
Today we are still just laying the foundation for our study in Nehemia, and I want to talk about the morale of the people Nehemiah would have to be motivating.
PPT 3 - Text Ps 137:1-4
Ps 137:1 ¶ By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we remembered Zion.
Ps 137:2 Upon the willows in the midst of it We hung our harps.
Ps 137:3 For there our captors demanded of us songs, And our tormentors mirth, [saying], "Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
Ps 137:4 How can we sing the LORD'S song In a foreign land?
The background for the book of Nehemiah is found in the biblical books of Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, Ezra, Esther and Zechariah.
Jeremiah painted the picture of where they were as a nation, and the judgment that was coming.
Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied to the people in the captivity. Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the people who returned from Babylon and encouraged them in the rebuilding of the temple. Ezra encouraged the returnees to follow the law of God, lest God judge them again. Esther, like Daniel and Nehemiah is the story of a Jew who rose to high rank in a foreign land. Lastly, we have this little gem in the book of Psalms that speaks of the morale of the Jews in captivity. It paints for us a picture of a devastated people.
So today we are going to talk about the daunting task Nehemiah was about to face. I am not talking about construction issues, the building of walls is no big deal. I am talking about people who have been in a rut for almost 90 years. They had been back for 90 years and though they had rebuilt the temple the city remained in ruins. Everyone was into one thing: self.
Haggai the prophet speaks to this issue, challenging them that they have sown much and reaped little. Why? Because they lived in paneled houses while the house of God was in disrepair. He further said, they were putting their earnings into pockets with holes in them, because they weren't honoring the Lord in their giving. In like manner as long as the cities walls remained in ruins they would only prosper so much. Can you imagine what our country would be like without borders? That was Israel, and the task seemed so daunting no one did anything about it. The people who hung up their harps, still, 90 years later hadn't picked them up.
How do you motivate the decimated? When people have stagnation, the greatest battle they have is not the opposition or the great mountain, but the battle within themselves.
How do you bring back to life, people who have given up, and are living on life support?
How do you bring back a marriage that is on life support, living behind broken down walls of communication and intimacy? Nehemiah is the person God gave this task to. He succeeded, which gives us hope about all the broken walls and broken people around us.
I have an encouraging word:
Daniel 9: 25 the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
God's kingdom will advance even though we will lose ground in the political realm, financial realm, and in the realm of religious liberties. This prophecy from Daniel tells that the city would be rebuilt despite the fact of troublesome time. The kingdom of God advances regardless of the economy.
So how do you motivate the decimated?
1. First of all you need a person who believes dry bones can live again.
A person who believes dry bones have ears. That no matter how dead and lost a person may be, and no matter how many seasons have passed over them since they began to decay there is still hope for them. No one is outside the power of God's redemptive grace. You need a person who looks beyond death and sees life.
Ezekiel struggled with believing for his own people, because he was there when they hung up their harps. But in his vision of the dry bones, God revealed to him a great truth: no matter how lost a person is, there is no drug, there is no pill, there is no bottle, there is no sin that can so bind them or so destroy them they can't be saved. Nehemiah learned that bones that had dead and dried out for years still could hear the word of the Lord. If a person was trapped in the deepest pit of hell, locked behind the thickest walls and gates hell has, the word of the Lord can still revive them.
PPT 4 - Ezekiel prophesying to the wind
A person who sees not the bigness of the problems but the bigness of God.
A person who doesn't focus on the fact that hell has walls, but is excited by the fact that it has gates (plural). And that the gates of hell shall not prevail.
PPT 5 - the gates of Hell
Some want to live
within the sound
of church or chapel bell;
I want to run
a rescue shop
within a yard of hell. - C.T. Studd missionary to China, India, and Africa
When Jesus spoke of the gates of hell not prevailing, He clearly was saying the gospel has more power to deliver than hell has to hold. He was not talking about the dead, but the living, people who though alive were bound by hells thickest walls.
Like Jerusalem, hell has a lot of gates through which we can get access to the people trapped there.
People can be saved through the gate of love (good Samaritans ministry)
People can be saved through the gate of trouble (no atheists in fox holes)
People can be saved through the gate of missionary dating. I have a niece right now who has come to the Lord through her boyfriend. (Not recommended, more are lost than are found, but some are found nonetheless).
In order to motivate the decimated you have to be a person who believes God can and will do it. 3 of the 4 seeds Jesus sowed were for naught, He didn't care, He sowed anyway. Christian ministry can be frustrating if you only look at what doesn't work or won't work. You will never be a Nehemiah if you think that way.
Here is the spirit of Nehemiah encapsulated in the NT:
PPT 6 - Immovable rock
1Co 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
2. Secondly you need to know how to sing in the night.
They checked out Nehemiah checked in. What I mean is they gave up, but Nehemiah made a conscious decision to bloom where he was planted. Think about this: Nehemiah a Jew, was the King of Persia's (Iran) closest confidant and bodyguard. I will talk more about this in a future message, but let me say for today, most of the people in Israel hung up their harps and saw no value in working hard in a desperate situation. The only way to motivate people who have lost their motivation is to focus on what can be done and not on what can't be done.
People who have hung up their harps, often have very good reasons for doing so, you just need to be able to demonstrate to them they should pick them back up again.
I have a powerful illustration I want to share with you about a man who was asked to sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land. This comes from a message from a woman by the name of Jan Briscoe, she is a writer and so is her husband, Stuart who is also a pastor. This is the story she tells:
For just a few moments tonight I want to talk about some of the trees that we hang our harps up on as Christians.
Let's think first of all about the grief tree. Have you ever hung up your harp on a grief tree? It's very hard when you are suffering grief, or a grieving process, to sing a song at all. People watch you, of course. The Babylonians watched. Whom did the Babylonians represent? Unbelievers. People who don't know God, are not familiar with Jesus Christ as their Savior or their Friend, or don't even go to church. They represent the Babylonians, or the Babylonians represent them.
And the strange thing is, as soon as something goes wrong in a Christian's life, the unbelievers gather around and they say, "Come on and sing one of those songs. Let's see how a Christian reacts to this difficult situation, to this grief." It's very hard to sing a song when you are grieving. And yet, if a Christian doesn't have a song to sing, who has? You see, the Christian is supposed to know the Music Maker, the one who said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest." I will give you rest; I will give you serenity; I will give you peace of mind; I will give you that inner semblance of order in your life; I will hold you together; I will knit you together so you will not become unraveled like a ball of wool that gets all tangled up.
Have you ever been in grief and gone to God and said, '"Oh, Music Master, give me a song to sing?" If you have and you've waited on him to renew your strength, he will give you a song to sing. Oh, yes.
I remember some friends of ours who had a very tragic thing happen in their life. They needed a child. They wanted a child. And they couldn't have a child. He worked in a place that was antagonistic to his beliefs as a Christian. Then one day his wife got pregnant. He was so excited. He went back to work (this happened in England), and he said to everybody, "We're going to have a child."
Well, they didn't care. And then the child was born. And oh, horrors of horrors, what grief, for the child was a Mongoloid child. What then could the believer say? He knew that if he went back to work, "the Babylonians" — his workmates — would gather around and say, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Go on."
"They that wasted us required of us a song," the scriptures say.
And he was right because the people gathered round at the workplace and they said, "That's strange. We don't believe in God and our children are healthy. You believe in God and he gave you a Mongoloid child. Go on. Sing us a song."
My friend, in telling me this story, said that he stood there aghast, dismayed, but within him he turned to his Lord and his Savior, Jesus Christ, and he said, '"Oh, Music Master, give me a song to sing."
And his little harp that he had hung on the grief tree was taken down in that moment of time, and God, by the Holy Spirit, brought to remembrance some truths of scripture that encouraged him and looking at their hard, hostile faces, my friend said, "I'm so glad that God gave her to us and not to you." Now, that's a song. Oh yes, that's a song. "I'm so glad God gave this child to us and not to you."1
Nehemiah was not going to a good situation, he was going to work with people that had given up for a very long time. There would be lots of discouragement and opposition, lots of nay-sayers, but he chose to be a person who sings in the night, not one who hangs up his heart.
We are told in Psalm 137 that at the river Chebar they hung up their harps, I want to show you something that happened at the exact same time:
PPT 7 - Ezekiel 1:1, 3:23 and pic
Eze 1:1 ¶ Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month, as I [was] among the captives by the river of Chebar, [that] the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
Eze 3:23 Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.
A whole group was hanging up their harps, and in contrast one man with the exact same circumstances was experiencing the glory of God.
Let me show you something, by turning a very familiar phrase on its head:
Whenever you are tempted to hang up your harp, say to yourself: "You don't have the right to remain silent."
PPT 8 - Right to Remain silent
Turn to your neighbor and say, "You don't have the right to remain silent."
Let me explain why.
First of all your praise is a weapon. Ps. 149 teaches that praise in our mouth is like a weapon in our hand. The enemy would love to take the sword out of your hand.
Secondly if you remain silent He will remain silent. If we confess Him... If we deny Him...
PPT 9 - Esther 4:14 and pic
The book of Esther gives three powerful reasons you don't have the right to remain silent.
Es 4:14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"
1. Someone else will get a blessing and a destiny you could have gotten.
2. You and your father's house will perish. If you don't stand in the gap with your praise, the enemy will come thru it.
3. This is the purpose for which you have been brought to this occasion, don't miss it.
1Pe 2:9 But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
You don't have the right to remain silent.
We are very blessed to have Valarie Jennings as a part of our church. Twice in her life she has been in a battle with cancer, and twice she has refused to hang up her harp. She is an overcomer.
I thought it would be great to end this service with her playing the harp for us.
Close: Prayer for those who have hardships that have caused them to be tempted to hang up their harp.
