Nehemiah 3 Grace Emmanuel Church 11/05/17 ______Nehemiah in the OT…. Is famous for rebuilding the broken down walls of in 52 days. I’ve been purposely trying to make Nehemiah come alive for you the last two weeks. But in order to really understand him we have to grasp the unfolding story of God’s revelation.

Nehemiah, an Israelite… and all of his Jewish family…. and all of his Jewish friends are born and live 1000 miles away from their beloved… Jerusalem. Why?

Because God’s chosen people were carted off into captivity by the vicious awful godless Babylonians. Why?

In fact Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had brutally executed most of the people living in Israel… had completely destroyed Jerusalem…. Flattened the temple where God had flooded his dear children with his divine presence. Why? What happened? ______We dug through this Wed eve in our new study on …. But if you WED studyers will humor the rest of us…. Everybody here needs to mentally log in a least the three following OT passages…They are crucial to understanding Nehemiah….and Daniel and Ezekiel, and Esther, and Zechariah, and Ezra, and Malachi. All these book names from your , were real people, who really lived… and wrote ( and lived out) their books in your …. from Persia.

If you were here on Wed eve…. grab the side of your face and act surprised for the next few minutes…because it is so important for everybody here to be able to fit all these, seemingly disconnected OT books, into one flowing unfolding story!

It starts clear back with Moses…He tells God’s chosen people just as they are forming into a nation…. Just as he is promising that God will be their God and will shower them with his power, presence and protection… . He then adds:

Deuteronomy 28:64 For the LORD will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other… 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the LORD will cause your heart to tremble,

1 your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. ( Say what??) 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.

I thought the whole forming of Israel as a nation was God loving them and wanting to bless them. It was…it is…. That’s what the first part of Deuteronomy 28 says…I’m going to bless your socks off! I preached a whole series on that a couple of years ago…(it is the one playing on WSTU right now as we are sitting here) God did promise to pour every conceivable blessing out on the Israelites…. With a condition: “If you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”

But Deuteronomy chapter 28 goes on to say…if you choose not to obey me…then we have a problem. I’m laying out a pattern of life for you…. that is not for my benefit…but for yours…

If you chose to reject my love and go worship the idols of your pagan neighbors … indulge in their perverted sexual worship practices, offer your children as human sacrifices to their worthless stone idols…. You will have chosen to walk out from under my blessing and back under the curse of sin. It’s not what I want for you… but you will have made that decision for yourself… ______. And that is exactly what Israel did… the top ten tribes were dispersed to the ends of the earth…. The bottom two tribes carted off into exile to . Here’s Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 2:15 “Why has Israel become a slave? Why have they been carried away as plunder?... The towns are now in ruins, and no one lives in them anymore. 17 And you have brought this upon yourselves by rebelling against the LORD your God, even though he was leading you in the way!...

Even though Israel chose those results by their own actions…their loving God pursued them wooing them back into a relationship with him. Watch this:

Jeremiah 29:10 This is what the LORD says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 14 I will be found by you,” says the LORD. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”

2 Is that a God of anger and judgment and justice? Or is that a God of love and compassion?

Let me apply that point for a second… I’ve had people tell me, here, that they have been such bad sinners that they don’t somehow qualify for God’s forgiveness.

Not a chance!

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

God says that to the worst sinners on the planet!…in this case, his own chosen people! ______Let’s pinpoint this:

The Babylonians are the ones who destroyed Jerusalem and hauled off Gods children including Daniel…. and Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. ______

But they came to a sudden end. You remember the story of God’s hand-writing on the wall. Prince Belshazzar was using the gold bowls stolen from God’s temple in Jerusalem in a pagan party ritual and God declared an end to Babylon…forever. You’re done….finished…caput!

That very night the Medes and Persian swept in and destroyed the Babylonians. Prince Belshazzar was killed.

3 ______Here’s the thing… The Medo-Peraians inherited a whole bunch of Hebrews. Some of them, like Daniel, were so God-focused and so God-blessed…that when the new Medo King Darius set up his kingdom… he formed 120 provinces with 120 governors, appointed three guys over them all…and then one of those three was so filled with wisdom that he rose to the very top under Darius, himself, and his name was…. Daniel. Yes…it was the other guy’s jealousy over it all that led Daniel to the lions den. (Daniel 6)

This is where this whole amazing story of Ezra and Nehemiah begins to unfold. Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian seem to be ruling as what history called Co-regents… Darius dies (or is helped to die) And Cyrus the Persian takes full command. (Stunningly 175 years earlier…)

Isaiah 44:26 I carry out the predictions of my prophets! By them I say to Jerusalem, ‘People will live here again,’ and to the towns of , ‘You will be rebuilt; I will restore all your ruins!..28 ’When I say of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd,’ he will certainly do as I say. He will command, ‘Rebuild Jerusalem’; he will say, ‘Restore the Temple.’” ______

Ezra 1:1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the LORD fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah. He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom:

“This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. (<<<<< I doubt it…)

Can’t you instead see Daniel the prophet sitting with his pagan boss Cyrus (remember he has outlasted Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius the Mede and now Cyrus the Persian) Daniel, all fortified with the prophesies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, knowing that God is not done with the Jews or Jerusalem yet…. “Says Hey King Cyrus: I have a Idea!!!”

Why don’t you send some those foreign Israelites back to their homeland and let them rebuild their temple… think how much they will appreciate the kind gesture.

4

______God began to do a God sized thing. He was bringing his people back from captivity just as he promised. He was going to bless them and restore all that they had lost just as he promised . He was going to restore Jerusalem until it was ready to be the place (Daniel himself prophesied) where God would one day send his blessed Messiah who would in fact be God incarnated onto this earth …. Daniel would prophesy that in that rebuilt city the coming Messiah would die…and that his death would fulfill the prophesies of Isaiah 150 years…. That the Messiah’s suffering sacrifice…. would be him taking the wretched sins of the world on himself … bearing our iniquities… and by his wounds we would be healed!!

But before any of that “Messiah coming to redeem humanity can happen,”. Jerusalem must be restored and the people returned…. The Messiah was surely not going to return to a pile of ruins with inhabitants. In fact remember the prophesy of Daniel that we looked at last week….

Daniel 9:25 ….Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times. 26 : “After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing.” ______Enter Nehemiah: He would have known by heart the prophesies of Isaiah saying God would bring his people back. He knew Ezekiel 36-37 about the valley of dry bones living again. ( I haven’t said this… yet) Ezekiel and Daniel lived at the same time in the same city. They knew each other, spoke together, prayed for Israel’s future together. Nehemiah knew the prophesies of Zechariah… (we looked at that last week)…. Chapter after chapter of prophesies about the coming Messiah’s salvation. Zechariah and Queen Esther lived at the same general place at the same time. They undoubtedly knew each other….

5

And then of course we discussed in detail the fact that Nehemiah was now the cupbearer (confidant – signet ring keeper) to Queen Esther’s Step-son Artaxeres. Nehemiah knew Esther!, He undoubtedly spent lots of time around her…He would have known and talked with the Messiah-prophesying Zechariah. And as we have said before…young queen Esther would have almost certainly known old man Daniel…and Ezekiel. These were real people who all lived with in an 80 year time span… All contributed hugely to your Old Testament….

And all of them contributed to these unfolding prophesies of Jerusalem re- establishing on the map as the place where the Messiah would appear the first time and Zechariah tell of him returning a second time…in what we now call “the Second Coming.

Can’t you just see young Nehemiah sitting down with old Zechariah…maybe with old Queen Esther in the room…. And maybe young and Malachi were there too. Two more books in your Old Testament…both lived at this same time..

Side bar… We often hear the last chapter of Malachi ringing out the Old Testament but that is not actually true. Our Nehemiah says in chapter 13 that he left Jerusalem and went back to serve the king for about three years. It’s during that time that Malachi picked up Nehemiah’s mantle and prophesied in Jerusalem. Nehemiah comes back a second time…and everything he says after that is actually the last word of the OT.

You say…who in the world cares?...My point really is that These OT books are not just some disconnected writing by faceless people…these men and women ho knew each other…. In their Bible studies and prayer times together… they delved deeply in what was going to happen in Jerusalem and how and when the Messiah would arrive there.

Q: Can’t you just see young Nehemiah sitting down with old Zechariah…maybe with old Queen Esther in the room…. And maybe young Haggai and Malachi there…and Nehemiah saying to old Zechariah…what did you mean when you said the Messiah would show up in Jerusalem a second time and land on the Mount of Olives and then set up an eternal kingdom from there… And Zechariah saying: I don’t really know…I just know it’s going to one day happen!!

6 It’s not hard to understand why the Jews in Jesus day expected him to set up an immediate kingdom and start ruling. They just couldn’t seem to sort out a “First Coming” of Jesus vs. a Second Coming of Jesus! ______

Admittedly; I’m continually giving us more and more of the background.. If we don’t understand it… we have no way of knowing what was in Nehemiah’s head when we read the first chapter. If Nehemiah stays a children’s Bible story… in our adult heads… we are going to miss all the amazing applications…. that God intended us to receive through this book. Several of you said God really started to break through to you last week…applying Nehemiah’s truths to your modern life…. Let’s take this several steps further today… ______

Nehemiah 1:1 In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of . 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. 3 They said to me, “Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. ______

The walls of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.”

4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven

One of the things we drilled down on last week was the fact that this wasn’t new news. In his Bible studies with Zechariah, and Esther, and Haggai, and Malachi…. This is the kind of thing they would have discussed all the time….and how the various prophesies were pointing toward the day when God was going to do something to fix the problem.

So on this day in - wasn’t sitting down and crying his little eyes out because he heard something he had never heard before.

7 • God was impressing on Nehemiah that God’s concerns were supposed to become his concerns. That something that was “none-of-his-business” was supposed to become his life business.

My guess is as signet carry-er for the most powerful King on earth he probably wasn’t a “cry your eyes” out kind of person anyway. Even telling us that fact…is supposed to be to us like an Army Ranger saying, I heard something and it made me sit down and cry.

For him to hear news that he had heard a thousand times in his life and for that old news to suddenly to leave him weeping, mourning, fasting, and praying… is supposed to tell us that God had gripped his heart in a way he, apparently had never done before. ______Now the process of all that is what I find intriguing (Put these two verses together)

1:4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

2:1 Early the following spring, in the month of Nisan, during the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was serving the king his wine. I had never before appeared sad in his presence. 2 So the king asked me, “Why are you looking so sad? You don’t look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled.”

Here’s how, I would imagine, this unfolded. The period between 1:4 and 2:1 is about 4 months…and it only ends there…. because in God’s divine providence the king forces the issue.

I don’t imagine that Nehemiah heard the familiar news from his brother and started gushing out tears. Remember he already knew it. It wasn’t the walls laying on the ground that squeezed out the tears.

• Let’s just say that Nehemiah gets on his knees the next day and reminds God that “them walls are still down” and you God have promised through the prophets that “them walls are going to go back up” …and your Messiah is going to arrive in that city. Amen!

• The next day he gets down again… Dear God…don’t forget those flat walls. At some point God responds…What are you asking me to do about it? And somewhere along the line… Nehemiah would have responded: I’m asking you to send somebody to rebuild the walls. Amen!

8 • The burden begins to grow…Nehemiah get more serious in his praying. God you are beginning to impress on me that the time has now come. Those walls aren’t supposed to go up in another 150 years…they are supposed to go up now! Amen

• Somewhere about the end of the first week God whispers: What are you going to do about this obvious burden I am giving you?

• We’ll God I purpose to pray daily for this very serious issue. I’m my capacity as cupbearer to the king…I could even go to the king and convince him to throw his full support behind a leader and a team who will go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls! Amen

• On some day…part way into the four months…God whispered in Nehemiah’s ear… Why don’t you go? That is about the time, IMO, that Nehemiah really began to weep, and mourn, fast, and pray.

• Four months in… he is so visibly bummed out that the King says: “Hey dude, something is wrong! You just missed my cup by six inches.”

• How much of what Nehemiah was wrestling with was because the walls were down…and how much was because God had asked him to halt his exalted position… go do something he had never imagined doing in his whole life?

______Archeological digs in Susa found the ruins of this… covered in gold, silver, and ivory:

This is what Nehemiah was wrestling with: many would say that if God had lifted your station in life until you were second to the President…. That that would be evidence of God’s blessing you in the exact capacity for which he put you on this earth,

If Nehemiah asked himself the question: Why was I born…he would have had no problem answering that… I was definitely born to have a huge influence for the God of Heaven in this pagan Persian Empire…just like Daniel was.

9 This tomb is found in modern day Iran…in the area of Susa. It is stated without question to be the original tomb of Daniel. If it is…Nehemiah would have stood in that mausoleum and looked at that very image… encrusted with gold and silver. He probably took huge inspiration from looking back at Daniels great life.

Daniel did most of his prophesying in the later part of his life. Perhaps Nehemiah imagined the same for himself …that God would one day show him a vision… and he would write it down… (maybe even about the coming of the Messiah) …. And people would read his prophesies just like he did Daniel and Ezekiel’s.

He probably imagined himself entombed in silver and gold someday just like Daniel was ______

And now, he is becoming increasingly sure that God is asking him to leave all this “blessing”…travel 1000 miles to … literally “a God forsaken place” live in a broken down stone hut…and order around a group of nomadic people…

And somebody else would step us to his role as close confidant to the most powerful man on earth!

______Now, I think, we are getting a better idea why Nehemiah was weeping, mourning, fasting, and praying… God are you sure….am I hearing you wrong. Surely God I can be so much more help to you here…and somebody far better at traveling across the desert… leading a bunch of uncouth masons. …somebody with experience in construction. God there is such a huge difference between “bearing a cup” and building a wall!

• And God apparently said: Nope…you’re the right guy!

• So we find Nehemiah four months later, long face, moping around, spilling wine all over the tablecloth!

…..That brings us once again to the five C’s of Nehemiah’s prayer…

10 # 1) Concern about the problem (two-fold)

1) The walls of Jerusalem were laying in rubble (Bible story version) 2) God was asking him to fix the problem

✓ What is the thing God is most talking to you about this morning? ✓ Alan Redpath – Recognition of the need must be followed by earnest persistent “waiting on God” until the overwhelming need becomes a specific burden in your soul for one particular work God would have you do! ______Then comes the second part but notice the second part is a progression from the first

# 2) Conviction about God’s Character

“O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel.

▪ Nehemiah calls God “Lord!” ( You God are the boss) ▪ He says he is “great and awesome (worthy of honor and reverence) ▪ You are a covenant keeper – you are faithful – you can be trusted

______Nehemiah is probably saying more here than most of us imagine. Remember his earthly boss is the greatest and mightiest king on earth…. And what Nehemiah is admitting, here, is that his earthly boss is nothing compared to his heavenly boss.

He thinks so much of the God of Heaven that he is willing to walk away from the “mighty”… to do what the “Almighty” has asked him to do!

______Lastly: (for today) God …Jerusalem’s problem is/was not the Babylonians…Our problem was our own sin! Those walls are not down because of Nebuchadnezzar…they are down because of us!

# 3) Confession of Sin

I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! 7 We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

Notice the progression: God I’m seeing and wrestling with the real problem… I submit to you as the faithful trustworthy God…I start with confession… repentance.

11