Nehemiah Sermon 1
Book Sermon Neh. 1-13
The Man Who Worked With God
“I told them how God had been with me-They replied, Lets’ start rebuilding? (2:18)
God Needs Workers
An elephant was running down the road and a frog jumped on his back to hitch a ride. They ran across and old bridge and planks started flying, dust filled the air, and just as the duo made it to the other side, the bridge collapsed. Later the frog, telling his fellow frogs said, “Man you should have seen what that elephant and I did to that bridge.”
This was not entirely incorrect. God could have snapped his finger and a wall the size of the Wall of China, with Holiday Inns every 100 miles, could have popped up in Judah. But God chooses to use ordinary people like you and me to accomplish worthwhile things.
God needs you and me
When God has a need in his world, He lays His hand on some particular person to meet that need. Sometimes, if we won’t do what he asks, he will raise up someone else to do it. Years before, when He called Esther to go to the King and save her people from whole slaughter, He told her someone would do it if she didn’t (Esth. 4:14)).
But sometimes there is no one else to raise up to do our job. God cannot be a good husband or dad or Pastor or citizen for you and me. The simple and sad truth is that unless we do them some things will not get done. It has been said, “Without us God will not and without God we cannot.”
A sad example is world hunger. There is enough food on the planet to feed everyone, but 12,000 people every day die from disease related to malnutrition because we do not get the food out. Nehemiah shows us how to work with God with something He wants done.
A. The Problems Confronted (1:2-3)
God’s great need in 446BC was to restore and revive the community of Hebrews living in Judah. They land was in ruins; their wall of Jerusalem was a pile of rubbish; the people were looked down on by neighbors; the Jews were marrying gentiles; and the people were discouraged and bringing God only their leftovers. They accused God of being unfair; the priests hated their work and the people were refusing to tithe. (Mal. 1-3)
B. The Person Chosen
To meet the need he raised up a Bible scholar and teacher named Ezra; a prophet to the discouraged, and half committed, named Malachi; and a layman named Nehemiah. His task was to lead in rebuilding the wall and to serve as Governor for 12 years.
1. A Prepared Man
Nehemiah had risen to the highest of positions in Persia, that of cupbearer to the King. Protecting the king from enemies and being part of the royal court took intelligence, physical presence, integrity and courage. All these were enlisted by the Lord.
Everything good and bad that has happened to you and me has made us who and what we are, and have fitted us for some particular service. The only question is whether or not we place it all in God’s hands.
2. An Overlooked Man
Nehemiah, a layman, might just be the most ignored or overlooked hero in the Old Testament. Like Moses, he gave up wealth, position, and many comforts to identify with the people of God, as well as go up against the most powerful ruler on Earth. (Heb. 11; Ex. 2) Almost single handedly he gathered the materials, made the plans, enlisted the workers, and supervised the construction of Jerusalem’s walls. And he did it in the face of extreme opposition that included plots to take his life.
Are you and I willing to work for God with little or no recognition from others? Do we do right because it is right or because we want the applause of the crowd.
3. A Solitary Man
Facing countless needs we cannot throw up our hands and say, “What can I do, I am only one person.” With this many a person brushes aside their responsibility to help.
Give me a man of God, one man /
True to the vision that he sees /
And I will build your broken shrines /
And bring the nations to their knees.
4. A Concerned Man (1:4)
Nehemiah was broken hearted by the news from Judah and wept and fasted (1:4). He did not ask about real estate ventures or health spas or tourism in Judah; he wanted to know about their spiritual needs. We get involved in what we are concerned about.
Sam Hadley, the converted drunk, once went into several bars witnessing, and later leaned against a post and sighed, “Lord, the sin of this city is breaking my heart.”
5. A Praying Man (1:4-10: 2:11)
Concern drove him to his knees. And prayer filled his life. Praying was a natural to Nehemiah as breathing. This Book:
- begins and ends with prayer (1:4-11; 13:31)
- includes 12 prayers
- includes 10 arrow-like prayers of the moment that
went straight to the heart of God.
He obeyed the NT command:
“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17)
“Never stop praying.” (CEV)
6. A Hard Working Man
Concern drove him to his knees in prayer and prayer stood him on his feet with a job to do for God. Read his diary and you will want to take a nap. He prays for four months; he goes before the king; he travels to Jerusalem; he inspects the walls; he enlists the workers; he faces the enemies; he rebukes the wealthy; he stations the guards; he sees that a census is taken; he serves as governor for twelve years. And when his reforms are being undermined, he returns the 900 miles to clean house spiritually. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
We don’t pray just to get God’s help; we pray to offer our help. If we are not willing to do our part in answering our prayers, then our prayers are blasphemy.
We might as well kneel down/
And worship gods of stone
As offer to the living God/
A prayer of words alone
7. A Cooperative Man
Nehemiah would say, “There is no ‘I’ in team.” Arriving in Jerusalem, he waits three days before he makes his move. Before he reveals the purpose of his coming to the Jews, he makes his own personal survey of the crumbled walls (2:11-16). Riding his horse, with a few hand picked men at his side, Nehemiah toured the once proud ruins.
Stepping out from among the ruins he saturated Jerusalem with this cry, “Come let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer disgrace” (2:17). And the Bible says that the people cried, “Let us rise up and build: and they strengthened their hands for the good work (2:18). And Nehemiah, family by family, organized the Jews, and set them to work, each in their own neighborhood. Added to his agonizing, then, was organizing
Courage and commitment are inspiring. Just as a bad example will lead men the wrong way, so will a brave example lead men the right way. We start out alone but before long others are with us. Elijah thought he was the only true servant of God in Israel, but God told him of 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal and God told him of a young farm boy behind a plow who would be the next prophet after him.
8. A Successful Man (6:15)
Fifty-two days from the day he and his workers began, the Jerusalem wall was finished. (6:15)
9. A Brave and Persistent Man
The instant we take a stand for God we wake up hell. From the day God told him to build the wall he had one problem and one dangerous task after another, until it was completed.
1) Danger (2:1-10)
He had staying power born of courage: He put his life on the line and asked the king for permission to leave. When attacked and bullied by enemies, he kept on building.
Nehemiah admitted he was scared before the king (Ch. 2). Courage is not the absence of fear. Only a fool is unafraid in the face of danger. Courage is doing one’s duty in spite of one’s fears. To put it on the spiritual level, “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”
2) Ridicule (2:19; 4:1-6)
The neighbors laughed:
“What does this bunch of poor, feeble Jews think they are doing? Do they think they can build the wall in a day if they offer enough sacrifices. And look at those charred stones they are pulling out of the rubbish and using again. . . If even a fox walked along the top of their wall, it would collapse.” (Neh. 4:2, Living Bible).
Ever and always the church of God must rise up and do its work in spite of ridicule. And never underestimate the power of barbed words. Men who would face lions for God have gone down to defeat because they could not face laughter.
3) Physical Threats (4:7-23)
Scorn gave way to power. Taunts turned into threats and sneers into plots. Nehemiah responded, “And we prayed to our God, and set a guard as a protection against them day and night? (2:9).
Half of the workers were builders and half were soldiers, armed with bow and spear and sword. At times some would build with swords hanging from their sides (2:13-23).
Pray and keep your powder dry, said Oliver Cromwell. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, said the song popular in W W II.
4) Greed Within (5:1-13)
The people were poor and times were hard. And rich Jewish officials, in their greed, were foreclosing on their fellow countrymen’s property, even to the point of forcing them to sell their own children into slavery to pay their debts (5:1-5).
This outrageous situation brought out the raw manhood of Nehemiah (v. 6). He called for a public trial (v. 8) and openly charged them with sin (v. 9). He led them to openly vow that they would return these people’s property and stop charging such high interest. And this was done and the building of the wall continued. I like verse 3:6;
“I was very angry when I heard this and I decided to do something. I denounced the leaders and the officials.”
Anger has a place in a good man’s life. It was the anger of Abraham Lincoln that broke the back of slavery. It was William Booth’s anger over the slums of London that created and sent the Salvation Army into those and other slums across our world. We will never rid ourselves of our moral cancers - alcohol, abortion clinics, drugs, pornography, gambling, corruption in government, etc. - until we get mad.
When the Japanese bombed the American Navy to the bottom of Pearl Harbor the enemy soldiers and officers rejoiced over their triumph. But Japan’s Commander-in-Chief of that task force said, “I fear that we have only awakened a sleeping giant.” And they had! In anger we answered the challenge. Would to God that the church would wake up!
5) Treachery and Danger (6:1-14)
Near the completion the enemy tried to trick him into coming to a conference, with the idea of capturing him. He refused to come (6:1-4) and they threatening to tell the King he was planning a revolution. Nehemiah just called them liars and went on with his work (6:5-9).
Then they hired a Jewish preacher, Shemaiah, to lure Nehemiah into hiding in the Temple where they could kill him. But Nehemiah wasn’t the hiding kind and so they failed and the wall, after 52 days of work and fighting, was completed (6:10-15).
Nehemiah’s reactions give us two of the greatest verses in Scripture. When called to come to a conference he said, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down” (Neh. 6:3). When the false preacher tried to scare him he said, “Should such a man as I run away?” (Neh. 6:11). In other words, there are worse things than dying and one of these is the loss of self respect.
When Robert E. Lee was old and crippled some men offered to make him rich if they could use his name to sell a questionable product. Lee, unable to believe his ears, asked them to repeat what they said. When they did, the old soldier rose from his rocking chair, crutch in hand and said, “I lost my home in the war. I lost my fortune. I lost everything except my name and it is not for sale. If you do not leave right now I will break this crutch over your heads.”
5) Indifference and Backsliding (13:1-31)
Nehemiah’s greatest challenge, however, came long after the wall was completed. For 12 years he stayed in Jerusalem as Governor and along with Ezra and Malachi tried to lead his people into true godliness.
Years later, back in Persia he learned the High Priest had broken the law of allowing Gentiles in the Temple by actually giving the Moabite Tobiah, who opposed the wall, a room in the Temple. In addition to this, people were not giving their offerings to support the Temple; the Sabbath had become just another day of work; and the Jews were marring Gentiles and losing the language of their culture.
He made the 900 mile trip back across the desert, He threw Tobiahs furniture out of the Temple. He saw that the Levites weren’t being paid for serving God and he openly rebuked the officials and set the matter straight (13:10-14). He saw the Sabbath turned into a day of trade and ran the merchants off saying, “If you do this again I will lay hands on you” (13:21). And listen to what he did to those who still practiced intermarriage with the heathen,
“So I argued with these parents and cursed (pronounced a curse upon) them and punched a few of them and knocked them around and pulled out their hair; and they vowed before God that they would not let their children intermarry with non-Jews.”
(Neh. 13:25, Living Bible).
Nothing is more discouraging for a leader of God’s people than the degeneracy of God’s people. It is those on the inside who deliver the deadliest blows against leadership. These turn preachers into insurance salesmen and new Christians into disillusioned, half-hearted followers. But Nehemiah rose to the occasion with this strange prayer, “O my God, remember these good things I have done for your Temple and its services.” What a man of God! What a hero!
We desperately need the spirit of Nehemiah as we build the ramparts of the church of God and as we lay brick upon brick within our own souls. We must win in spite of ridicule; persecution; costs and dangers.. The key is perseverance. The key is not only to fight but to fight on, to fight with the scabbard when the sword is gone. And the glory of God’s conquering saints is that when beaten up and chewed up they keep on jumping up.
No one is beaten till he quits/ No one is through till he stops/ No matter how hard failure hits / No matter how often he drops/ A fellow is not down till he lies / In the dust and refuses to rise.
-Author Unknown
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