The Book of Nehemiah Series #10
By Pastor Jim May
After Salvation and Separation, What Comes Next?
Nehemiah 7:1-5, "Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed, That I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the ruler of the palace, charge over Jerusalem: for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many. And I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot; and while they stand by, let them shut the doors, and bar them: and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every one to be over against his house. Now the city was large and great: but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded. And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and found written therein,"
The walls of Jerusalem were finally completed. The doors were set in place and the locks and bars were ready. The first great task of Nehemiah was finally completed after 52 days of hard work and persecution. No more could Sanballat stand and say that they could not complete the work. Tobiah had been temporarily silenced and Geshem’s tricks had been discovered and defeated. Nehemiah and his small army of builders, priests and their families had completed the task and now Israel could begin to rebuild as a nation. It had been a long 70-year captivity, and the work on the wall had been hard and dangerous for many weeks, but now the wall was finished.
Those walls that separated Israel from the outside world were in place, but the battles were not over yet.
Even though we may be washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and sanctified by the Word and Spirit, we can’t drop our guard. There is still an enemy out there; an enemy that desires to kill, steal and destroy all they we are.
Sanballat’s attacks against the minds of the Jews had failed. Then his physical attacks were repulsed. And finally the divisions and dissention in the ranks had failed to stop the work. None of the enemy’s tricks would work because God was with Nehemiah as he rebuilt. But Sanballat and Tobiah had not left yet. They would still be a source of trouble for a long time to come.
After the wall was completed a new phase of rebuilding began. The infrastructure had to be rebuilt; everything from shops, to houses, to market places and other needs had to be rebuilt. Let’s remember that Nebuchadnezzar’s army had conquered Israel and had laid waste to Jerusalem and the Temple. The city of Jerusalem was in ruins and the nation had been scattered or carried away as captives into Babylon, and that’s how it was until nearly two generations had passed.
There’s a picture of mankind’s problem in a nutshell. We had a place in God that was built and created as a perfect home. While Adam walked in the Garden, he wanted for nothing, and he had direct communication with God. What a privilege that must have been? Then along came Satan, slithering, sneaking and slinking around, with but one intent – to kill the soul of man, to steal the peace, joy and love that man enjoyed with God, and to destroy that personal relationship with God. Satan knew that the void would be left but he was already poised to fill that void with the things of sin and shame.
Satan doesn’t know have anything to offer that is as valuable as your soul, but he will try his best to offer you whatever you want. Sadly, many people fall into his trap and are led off into captivity. Some quickly turn back to God in repentance and begin to rebuild their wall of separation from the world, while others seem to love being in the world and just refuse to consider where they will spend eternity.
Nehemiah’s construction is a true story but it can also be taken as an allegory of the Christians’ walk with the Lord in this life.
The story of Nehemiah is the picture of a soul that has turned back to God and accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior after having fallen into sin and separation from God. First there has to be a time of reparation. The foundation has to be re-established. Once we have dug down deep and made sure that we are established upon the Rock, and rebuilt our walls to hold the world back, we can stop for a moment, take a breath and then quickly move on. But we can’t stay there for long. We have to keep working, keep building, keep fighting the devil, or we will lose it all again in a short time. Our enemy never quits! Either the Holy Spirit is working in us to make us better and lead us onward in Christ, or we are deteriorating daily in our relationship with Jesus. There’s no rest, no stopping, no loitering; just keep moving on in God.
In speaking to the church in Revelation 2:4-5, Jesus said, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
Nehemiah finished his first job and immediately began to plan for the future. He wasn’t satisfied with just the walls and doors; he wanted to work and build as long as God would allow him to do so.
But before he could continue on, Nehemiah had to see to it that Jerusalem would remain secure from the attacks of Sanballat and Tobiah.
He called for the porters, or gatekeepers, and the singers and the Levites, but he didn’t call them to be guards on the wall. Nehemiah knew that the most important thing he could do was to re-establish worship in the Temple. The porters were the gatekeepers to the Temple. The singers were enlisted to begin to sing the songs of Zion, giving praise unto the God of Israel. And lastly, the Levites were assigned to perform their priestly duties in the Temple, in the offering of prayers and sacrifices.
Let us never forget that the battles we fight are not carnal in nature. Though our struggles may appear to come in the form of the attacks of man, we must never forget their real source. Satan is our real enemy, and his demons are our adversaries. We are fighting a spiritual warfare and unless we engage them with spiritual weapons we will surely lose. Our weapons are prayer, praise, sanctified living, giving of our selves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. We cannot lean upon the arm of the flesh, for it will fail.
After appointing those who would serve in and around the Temple, Nehemiah then chose two men to be in charge of the city while he was gone. Nehemiah was leaving for a while because he had to go back to Persia to bring his report of the progress of the work to King Cyrus.
That’s called accountability. Too many preachers, too many ministries today are in trouble because they don’t want to be accountable to anyone. One preacher confessed that his biggest problem before his fall was pride. He thought he was too good, too spiritual, and too high on the ladder to bring his problems to other men or women of God and seek their counsel. “All I needed to hear from is God”, is what he said. Well that’s true if you are not listening to the voices of the world, but sadly, we often hear the world calling louder than God and we need to be accountable to other people who can see what we are blinded to and give us direction when all the road signs are down.
No man is an island and we all need help at some time or another. I’m glad to be accountable to my bishops, both in the district and nationally. If I get squirrelly in my teaching, or go astray in my dealings with business, or have a moral failure, it’s for my own protection, and yours, that I am accountable. You may not be accountable to me in your business and finances except when it comes to tithes and offerings, but you’re always accountable to God, and to the IRS.
Accountability is a wonderful thing because it keeps us on the right track and keeps us from falling into error so easily.
The two people that were appointed as leaders over Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s absence were Hanani, who had brought Nehemiah the news of Jerusalem’s condition while they were still in captivity; and Hananiah, who had been viceroy of King Persia back in Babylon.
Why would Nehemiah give the trust of guarding Jerusalem to a man that had been so loyal to King Cyrus? It was as though he trusted his captor more than some of this own people. The reason was that even a heathen can have a good character, wise in his ability to rule over people, and a caring, compassionate heart. He might have been loyal to King Cyrus but he was also very loyal to Nehemiah and feared the God of Israel more than many of the other Jews.
I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life where I could find no one in the church to lean upon for help and support through some tough times. When you need a friend, there isn’t very many who will stand with you. When you aren’t in need, friends are everywhere. Let your money run out, or your health go bad, where you can’t help them in return, that’s when you find out who your real friends are. In those times God sent some people into my life who were unsaved and still aren’t today. Even though they didn’t know Jesus, they cared, they shared and they did everything they could to bring us through. I thank God for friends, even if they aren’t in the church. The only word of caution is that you make sure your friends in the world aren’t trying to drag you back into the world with them. That often happens with friends outside of the family of God.
When you are trying to rebuild your life in Christ, you need accountability and you need real friends. That’s a hard combination to beat. Good friends will help you find your way when you can’t see it yourself, and they will make you accountable if you make the wrong choices.
After these verses we see that Nehemiah found the “Roll Call” of all of those who had been given permission to leave Babylon and travel back to Jerusalem to rebuild. A genealogy of names was established to prove who was, and who was not a qualified man to serve the Lord and be called a citizen of Jerusalem. It was important to know those who lived among them, lest an enemy would infiltrate them once again. There was also the Law of Moses concerning circumcision and Laws regarding the qualifications for serving in the Temple. So all of those in the city had to be accounted for and recorded for future generations. This was the first step in rebuilding the society and the infrastructure of the city.
The city covered a lot of ground and there were just a few people inside to rebuild it. The walls were nearly six miles around and there were only 42,360 people who had traveled back from Persia. Many of those had settled in other towns, or in the country, and that left only a few to populate such a large area, and there just wasn’t enough housing available for even the small number that remained. There was just a lot of work to do.
We can relate to that due to the recent hurricanes. Huge numbers of people lost homes, cars and everything. Families were separated and many still are. Just yesterday I watched as one youngster was finally reunited with her family after being separated for nearly 6 months. The City of New Orleans is having a hard time recovering because the infrastructure of the city has collapsed. Clean water, power, food and workers to do the work were all in short supply. When the workers did try to go back, housing was non-existent. There was no FEMA in Jerusalem. They just had to make it the best way they could, kind of like the people in Mississippi and Alabama that couldn’t get help because all the focus was on New Orleans. Looking at the effort and cost of rebuilding New Orleans alone, I think that it was a miracle of God that a city like Jerusalem and the nation of Israel was able to be rebuilt at all after being completely leveled and led away captive by Babylon for 70 years.
Nehemiah 7:70-73, "And some of the chief of the fathers gave unto the work. The Tirshatha gave to the treasure a thousand drams of gold, fifty basons, five hundred and thirty priests’ garments. And some of the chief of the fathers gave to the treasure of the work twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand and two hundred pound of silver. And that which the rest of the people gave was twenty thousand drams of gold, and two thousand pound of silver, and threescore and seven priests’ garments. So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinims, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities; and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities."
Just as we also saw in the recent disasters, people came forth with a heart to give so that the city could be rebuilt. There were no taxes to collect, no jobs to support their living, no government help would be offered, so there was only one source of money to use in the rebuilding project. That money had to come from their own pockets.
Sometimes when we are trying to rebuild our walk with the Lord, the only one we can count on to help us is ourselves. There are times when it seems that even Jesus says, “Just get up, dust yourself off, and keep on moving.” But even in those times it is the power of God that keeps lifting us up in our struggles.
I know you have seen the “Footprints in the Sand” poem and picture. When there is only one set of footprints, sinking deep into the sands of trouble, it’s Jesus carrying both us and the burdens we bear. He has promised never to leave you alone.
The Book of Ezra also contains much of the same information as Nehemiah concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the people who were there at that time. Though the numbers and names may vary, the story is the same. The names may vary simply because of some people being known by more than one name. The numbers may vary because some died along the way and never reached Jerusalem, or perhaps they settled in some other place than inside the city. Nehemiah’s list is of those who left Persia under Cyrus’ decree, while Ezra’s list was compiled of those who had made the journey and were in Jerusalem doing the work.
When you look at the size of the city and the fact that it had so much empty space and so much rubble still to be repaired or removed, you can see a picture of the heart after it is cleansed by the Blood of Jesus and born again.
First, there are a lot of empty spaces that must be filled with something. That’s when we must be careful of what we put into that heart. Satan wants to reclaim what was his and he will try to take control once more.
Matthew 12:43-45, "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first."
Secondly, even though the soul is saved and born again, there is often still a lot of “rubbish” still in our lives that we have to get cleaned out through the process of sanctification. Little by little the Word of God reveals those little things in our hearts that will keep us from growing in the Lord, the Holy Spirit convicts us of that sin, and then we have to repent of it and put something else in its place that is better for our growth. If we don’t deal with the rubbish and clean it out, then it will eventually get worse and bring us down into the miry clay of sin once again.
One final point that I want to give you in this chapter is that, according to history, when Nehemiah was getting ready to leave Persia to come and rebuild Jerusalem, he couldn’t find enough Levites to work in the Temple area. His departure from captivity was delayed until enough Levites could be found.
Was this just a coincidence or a design of the devil? I believe that Satan’s greatest attacks are aimed right at those who are involved in working in the ministry. You don’t have to be a pastor, teacher or preacher to be working in the ministry. All you have to do is be working to tell others about Jesus, and you will feel those spiritual attacks as they come against you.
When Jerusalem was conquered I am certain that most of the Levites, the temple priests, were killed. Nebuchadnezzar and his idols couldn’t bear letting them live. It would be a mockery of Babylon’s gods. In addition, after 70 years, many of those Levites who did survive couldn’t serve anymore and had not trained anyone to replace them. Those who understood the work that had to be done in the Temple, according to God’s specific instructions, were few and far between. Not just anyone could be used for that work. They had to face the cleansing rituals. Their claim to being a Levite had to be proven. And they had to be trained for the task or they would die in the presence of the Lord.
Satan’s greatest attack was against those who served Israel to bring them before God in the Temple to worship Him and sacrifice to Him. If Satan could destroy all of the Levites, the worship would cease. Thank God that God never allows the devil to succeed in his plans. God is still in control and He had promised Israel that the day of deliverance would come and that they would be a nation called by His name once again.
The walls are finished. Jerusalem is safe for the moment. Nehemiah has chosen the leaders of the city and now there is the work of rebuilding a city and a nation that is poised to begin. We will continue with this next time in Nehemiah Chapter 8.
