"Nehemiah’s Prayer"
Neh. 1:1-2:6
Intro:
Sometime last year while reading for my devotions, the passage for the day was this one in Nehemiah. I struck me hard. I made a note in the margin of my Bible and determined to get back to it when I had an opportunity. Tonight I have such an opportunity.
1:1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev (the 9th month of their year, Zech. 7:1) in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and
If you and I were writing this it would read more like, "In September of our twentieth year of captivity ..." -GB
(Kislev actually corresponds more with our month of December.) Nehemiah is saying, "Twenty years after the Persian invasion of Judah and the abduction of prisoners, my brother came to the palace and I asked him about the Jews left in Jerusalem. ..." -GB
I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
Ask
Nehemiah asked about these people. He was concerned about their condition. Sometimes we do not know the needs others have because we haven’t asked. True, they could volunteer the information but the fact is often they don’t. We don’t want to be nosy, and they don’t want to complain. So it’s a stand-off unless one side or the other breaks the silence. Take time to ask how someone is doing. You may be surprised - either for good or bad.
3 They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
Burdened
4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
We know nothing of prayer like that. What news would cause you to weep for others? (Especially those with whom you were only slightly acquainted.) They were in Jerusalem, he had been in exile for 20 years. How well could he have known them?
What issue moves you to this degree? ...
What is it that makes you cry?
What would impress you to fast?
Extended Prayer
Nehemiah mourned, fasted, and prayed for some days.
A few?
Several?
It is an indiscriminate amount of time; a prolonged time. This is long, lengthy, prolonged, sustained prayer.
5 Then I said: ...
Then he began to pray. It is almost as though this marks the starting point of his praying. I wonder if he would consider the bulk of his praying until now scattered prayers, a general unburdening of his soul of all he had heard. ... Then he began to pray. Then he got earnest with his prayer. Then he got down to business.
He did not consider the "some days" of praying, fasting, and mourning as the body of his intercession, but merely as the introduction - the prologue- to his prayer. He was not concluding after some days. But instead, after some days he was just getting started. That unspecified period of time had been the warm-up phase of his praying.
I say it again, we know nothing of this kind of praying. We give up if nothing happens after a few seconds of prayer. At the end of a week of praying we say, "I prayed about it for a whole week." We consider that long-term praying. We have been conditioned to microwave praying. We figure if nothing happens within a few minutes we are doing something wrong and need to change our strategy.
We never even think about prayer in the same light as Nehemiah does. We don’t anticipate extended vigils in prayer. We don’t think at the outset of a problem that we may need to settle in and prepare for the long haul. We want quick answers to quick prayers. And when we don’t see the answers we want, we question the value of prayer. We should question our failure to perceive microwave praying as a malady of our age and a flaw of human nature that God wishes to address in patient praying.
Saints of previous generations understood prayer to be a extended endeavor. They were prepared to settle in for seasons of prayer for stubborn situations. Read the works of E. M. Bounds and the biographies of Praying Hyde, David Brainerd, father Nash. Examine for yourself the kind of praying spoken of in the New Testament.
David Yonggi Cho spoke at Celebration 2000 in Indianapolis. He called prolonged prayer "Task Praying." The main idea I gained from his sermon, was once you start praying about something hang on until you have your petition. Pray persistently about that same concern until your prayer is answered. Be like Jacob who held on until morning. Don’t let go of God until He grants your request.
2:1 In the month of Nisan (the 1st month of their year - 4 months later) in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king.
If you track this on a Jewish calendar you will find that this incident transpires four months after Nehemiah began to pray.
Expect Some Side Effects
I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart."
Why? Why had he not been sad in the king’s presence? Had he never had bad days? I suppose it’s possible, but it’s not likely, is it? I think it’s because he didn’t think it was a good thing to wear his feelings on his sleeve. Not a word in this whole book is said about whiners and complainers, but what is underscored for us is the fact that Nehemiah was not a mealy-mouth whine-baby. A point is made to spell it out for us; he had never been sad before the king.
No doubt the king didn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of glum faces - so this may have been for job security - but the fact remains his behavior was so strikingly different from normal that it caught the king’s attention. I may be wrong in my estimation, but I have always figured monarchs were a pretty self-absorbed lot. I think for the most part they must have been largely occupied with their own interests. I think it is a compliment to Artaxerxes that he paid attention to a servant’s mood and disposition.
Be that as it may, the burdens of others physically and emotionally affected Nehemiah to the point he could no longer visibly conceal the effects of caring for others.
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?"
A Hasty Prayer
4 The king said to me, "What is it you want?"
Then I prayed to the God of heaven,
A short, quick prayer silently thrown to the Lord. (We’re more familiar with this kind of praying.) When the king asked what he wanted, he silently breathed a prayer as he formulated his response. I know that I have said a good deal about extended prayer, and now I am drawing attention to a very brief, unuttered prayer. It may seem like a contradiction but my intention is to show that if long seasons of prayer are our habit they will have bearing on those occasions when there is no time for a lengthy prayer. On the other hand we are woefully inept if the bulk of our praying is dependant upon brief moments of flighted prayers.
J. Bashford Bishop, one of our college professors, once said, "If we spend a good deal of time praying in secret we won’t have to spend so much time praying in public." His idea was that much of our public praying is an attempt to take care of so many things we should have tended to in private as we spent time with the Lord.
I do believe that it is not the length of a particular prayer that counts in the mind of God. But I am convinced time spent with God leaves us better prepared in emergencies when time is not permitted.
Doesn’t it make sense that if we spend time cultivating a relationship with God that He would be more receptive and we would be more responsive when we were forced to throw up a hasty prayer in a tight spot?
The Answer Comes At Last
5 and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it." 6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
The 6th verse concludes, It pleased the king to send me. I know there is no need that I should explain this, but for the sake of the sermon, in other words, God granted my petition! He answered my prayer! I got what I prayed for!
He had prayed to God for mercy for his people and God’s own blessing on his project to assist them.
Close:
We need to go to prayer for some situations that have been brought to our attention.
We need to commit ourselves to holding on in prayer on behalf of others whose needs we are aware of.
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