Against All Odds
Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.
I think we could say everyone here tonight likes a good underdog story. It seems to be in our DNA to want to root for the one least likely to win.
We love movies like Remember the Titans or Braveheart or Miracle on Ice, which tells the story of how the 1980 US Olympic hockey team improbably beat the Soviets who were absolutely dominating back in that time in history and then went on to win the gold medal. Gale and I Friday night even watched the movie Eddie the Eagle. Good movie I can recommend tells the true story of a Britain who really wanted to be an Olympian. The only problem was he wasn't an athlete and he searched and searched until he finally figured out that there was nobody in Britain who was going into downhill or ski jumping. Now they say that usually you start at the age of five to prepare to be an Olympian in the ski jump. He was somewhere I think late 20s or early 30s when he decided to start. And so after one year of training, he actually went in and performed at the Olympics and set Britain's record for the ski jump, which wasn't very far, but it was a record. This idea, this theme of liking the underdog, We like Bible stories like David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion's Den, Gideon defeating
the Midianites with just 300 soldiers. All of those stories inspire us with their messages of faith and courage. History is full of examples of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The book of Nehemiah tells us another one of those stories of how an ordinary man, full of faith, accomplished an amazing task against all odds. the title of our message tonight, Against All Odds. I chose this as one of my brown paper passages because it inspires me to dream about what God might do through us if we have the same level of passion, faith, and tenacity that Nehemiah had.
And unlike Dave, I don't plan on covering 300 of my favorite verses tonight. We're actually only going to hit the first six chapters of Nehemiah, and I'm not going to even look in detail at all those. So Dave will still be the record holder for the most favorite passages and verses. But we're going to hit the first six chapters of Nehemiah tonight. Many people, matter of fact, probably all people, are pretty good at seeing what's wrong. But not many people are willing to put everything on the line and pay whatever the price to try and make it better. As we'll see in Nehemiah's story, God uses ordinary people to do incredible things, often in the face of some pretty stiff adversity. It's really not accurate to view Nehemiah, however, as an underdog since it was God, since God was for him. But from a human perspective, his chances of success didn't look very promising. In hindsight, we know that God was behind him, and so, you know, God plus me can do an awful lot, right? So it really wasn't
an underdog, as he had God on his side. But when you looked at it from an earthly perspective, you had to kind of decide that the odds were decidedly stacked against him in what he was trying to accomplish. I subtitled my message, You Can't Climb the Mountain on the Smooth Side. I heard that sentence years ago from some old preacher and it kind of stuck with me. He was preaching out of James chapter 1 on how God sometimes uses adversity to build our faith. And the idea was that you can't just expect your life to always be easy and expect your faith to grow. That oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes God uses adversity to build our faith. Hence, you can't climb the mountain on the smooth side.
I find it generally true that doing big things requires a lot of work and sacrifice in overcoming adversity. If slaying dragons and overrunning castles was easy, everybody would be doing it. Question, what might God do through the people of TEC if we had the character and faith of a man like Nehemiah. There's times when these elders talk about our church and we still kind of see ourselves as people with a really big vision, but little itty bitty feet and just huge shoes. You know, we've got a big dream, but we're still pretty small and waiting on God to get us ready for some of those big visions. It is my hope, my hope that we will have a bigger gospel-filled aspiration for our community and the world then just unlocking the doors to this building next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that.
ECS, I think, is one example of us trying to do much bigger things. As we go through an overview of the first few chapters of Nehemiah, I will be pointing out, then, some key character traits I see in the kind of person who makes a difference. There's going to be actually 12 of them. And kids, if you're following along with the kids corner, there's a place for you to actually fill and 12 different traits of a person who makes a difference. And so I'll be pulling these out of the passage as we go along.
So first, as we get into the study of Nehemiah or the brief overview, let me do a little bit of a historical context of what was going on leading up to the days of Nehemiah. The account recorded or Nehemiah takes place some years after the Babylonian exile. If you know your Bible history, there was the exile. And now Nehemiah takes place years, some years after that. For many, many years, Judah had been ignoring God's warnings, given through his prophets, and they had been acting very, very wickedly. So God decides to punish them. And again, if you know your history, King Manasseh and others had done some pretty horrible things.
These are great, great grandfathers and to Nehemiah and his people. And they had done so wickedly that God decides that he needs to punish them for their wickedness. And that punishment would come in the form of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, destroying Jerusalem and taking most of the Jews captive back to Babylon. From the start to finish, the exile was going to take 70 years. So God says, you're going to get a spanking. You're going to go into exile for 70 years. But it actually takes the first 21 years for God to fully implement that exile. It all starts in the year 607 BC when Nebuchadnezzar forced King Jehoiakim of Judah into becoming a vassal of his.
Now, vassal is just another word for a puppet. Nebuchadnezzar came in, he took rule, took control, but he said, okay, King Jehoiakim, I'm going to leave you behind, but you're my puppet. I'm the one pulling the strings.
And that wasn't the course of doing that he in addition to setting up Jehoiakim as his vassal he took many of Judah's finest young men captive you know some of them Daniel Hananiah that we was renamed to Shadrach, Meshach, and Azariah or Abednego It was during that first wave of the exile that all of these kind of people were taken out of Judah and away into Babylon And then three years later Jehoiakim He gets tired of being a puppet and he decides to rebel against Babylon. But instead of looking to God for help, he turns to the Egyptians for support. Well, his rebellion lasts for about seven years until Nebuchadnezzar arrives on the scene and lays siege to Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar says, no, no, no, no. He comes back in and he starts another siege. This time Nebuchadnezzar takes full control of the area. He completely loots it and he takes most of Judah's population back to Babylon. He leaves behind just the poorest people and appoints a new king, Zedekiah, to be his next puppet ruler. So if you're keeping
scores so far, we are now 10 years into when the 70-year exile started. The situation stays like this for another nine years, upon which time Zedekiah decides he's had enough of Nebuchadnezzar and he rebels. Things are about to go from bad to worse. Zedekiah ignores the fact that Judah is in the middle of God's judgment. They've been told by the prophets, you've got to go through 70 years of this, but Zedekiah decides to try to throw off the punishment. The prophet Jeremiah and others warn them you can't do that. But Zedekiah does not listen to them and he goes and he joins a coalition of other pagan nations made up of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Phoenicia and decides to go and take on Nebuchadnezzar.
The plan doesn't go very well for him, for Judah or for Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar comes again, lays siege to Jerusalem one more time. This time Zedekiah is forced to watch as his sons are killed before his very eyes, before they then pluck his eyeballs out of his head and take him captive. What's left of Jerusalem is laid to complete waste. The houses are burned and the temple is completely destroyed and more people are taken away to Babylon. Only a tiny remnant of very poor people are left to farm the land. It will be another 50 years before God allows the Jews to begin returning to Jerusalem. By the end of the exile, Persia has come along and they've conquered Babylon and the Jews are then now under Persian control. God supernaturally directs the heart of Cyrus. This is amazing just in that story on this phone, you've got a Persian key name Cyrus and God moves his heart to one day say How about if I let some of the Jews go back to Jerusalem and start building the temple?
That's pretty amazing in itself when you think about it. So the year now is 537 BC 70 years after the exile began and Then now for the next 69 or so years the people go about rebuilding the temple Cyrus has allowed them There's a couple of starts and stops but basically 69 years the Jews are busy trying to rebuild the temple and get things going again And you can read a lot about that period in the book of Ezra in fact if you ever when you're reading through that section You can read Ezra and Nehemiah together because they basically overlap and they tell the whole story From the time that the exile ended until the temple is restored and the temple worship is going again So you can get a complete picture by looking at those two books together By now in our history review, keen Cyrus is gone, keen Darius has come and gone, and now we are under the reign of keen Artaxerxes. So in Artaxerxes seventh year, we're not up to Nehemiah yet, we're close, but in Artaxerxes seventh year is keen, Ezra,
the scribe, moves to Jerusalem and starts getting busy trying to put the temple in order and getting all of those issues settled and resolved. Now then Nehemiah. Nehemiah's story picks up 13 years after Ezra shows up and we're now in the 20th year of the reign of our Dzurksis and that's where the story of Nehemiah begins. This would make it about 445 BC or 92 years after the first Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem or more than 160 years since the exile had actually begun. One observation we can make from this history lesson is that sin often has multi-generational impact. Ezra and Nehemiah are dealing with the consequences of sin that occurred more than a hundred years prior. That alone is a pretty scary thought to think that some of our sin may still be bearing fruit down to our grandkids and beyond.
Like any good story, we have a protagonist and a couple of antagonists. Nehemiah, of course, is the protagonist, while Sanballat, Tobiah, and Gesham, the Arab are the main antagonists in our story. We are told in the opening verses that Nehemiah was King Artaxerci's cup-bearer. You might be thinking that wasn't a very significant position. What does a cup-bearer do all day? What would the job description say if you were applying to be the cup bearer? What's it going to say? Bears, the cup? What do you put on a job description like that? Actually cup bearer was a pretty high ranking position in the royal court. To start with, he had to be very trustworthy.
Part of his job was to make sure no one tried to poison the cane. It wasn't uncommon for the cup bearer to actually have to take the first sip out of the cup just to prove that there wasn't any poison in it. came with a certain degree of authority in the court, along with some pretty decent pay.
So although Cup Bear to us sounds like a lowly position, it was actually a pretty decent position in the court and obviously Nehemiah had to be a pretty trusted man to hold that position. Very few actually ever rose to this level of responsibility. We don't know how old Nehemiah was while serving as the Cup Bear, but we do know he was serving during Artaxerxes' 20th year when he requested permission to take a leave of absence and go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then we also know that he was a contemporary of Ezra. Their time in Jerusalem would have overlapped, although each one had a different purpose for being there in Jerusalem. Regarding our antagonists, we have San Bellet the Horonite. San Bellet was probably originally from a town in Moab and most likely was a Moabite. At the time of Nehemiah, he was living in Samaria and he served in some kind of local leadership position, but again under the authority of the Persian rule.
Then we have Tobiah the Ammonite. Tobiah was also a leader, possibly even a governor in Ammon. He had business dealings in Jerusalem. And being the political animal that he was, he was married to a daughter of one of the Judite leaders. And his son was married to the daughter of another Judite leader. So through cross marriage, he had set himself up to be in pretty good cahoots with the Jews at the time. Through those relationships, he was then able to curry some favor with the Jewish high priest, Elie Shibb. Elie Shibb's grandson, contrary to Jewish law, was married to San Ballot's daughter. He got all of this cross marriage going on and all of this, you know, I scratch your back, you scratch my back.
Through his connection with Elie Shibb, the high priest, Tobiah was able to negotiate a deal to lease out some of the temple storerooms and to run his businesses from there. This would have been a very serious violation of temple use, but at that time, the Jewish state was in such disarray that all bets were off. Nobody was following the rules. When Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem, one of the first things he does is to throw all of Tobias' belongings out of the storeroom and restore the storerooms back to their proper use. So you can see why Tobias was a little bit miffed, having Nehemiah show up on the scene. And then lastly for our antagonists we have Geshim the Arab.
We don't know much about Geshim other than that he probably was an Arab chief and he was again aligned with San Belen and Tabiah for his own political ends. Remember that all of the players at this time are still under Persian control. So all of these different people but ultimately reporting back up to our Xerxes at this time. So then, we have a Moabite, an Ammonite, and an Arab. It sounds like the start of a bad Middle Eastern joke. You can see why they were not excited to see the Jews build Jerusalem. They were opposed to the Jews politically and religiously. They were probably also afraid of the Jews becoming a military threat.
Since Moab, Ammon, and Edom, if you look at the map, were all right adjacent to Jerusalem. They knew if Jerusalem came back to power, they'd have some problems. Whatever their motivations were, it was clear that they were not happy to see the temple being restored. And then the first six chapters of Nehemiah tells the story of how God used Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. As we surveyed these chapters, and again, I'm going to focus on these character traits that Nehemiah exhibited, and that any believer who wants to make a difference today should have.
I believe the 12 traits that we're going to identify could be a list anybody could take down and these if these traits are true of you Then if God's if God be with you, there's all kinds of things we could do So let's get into the story of Nehemiah Chapter one of Nehemiah gives us the first four traits of someone who makes a difference And I will be repeat I'll repeat all twelve traits at the end of my sermon tonight So if you miss some just hold tight, I'll restate them all clearly at the end But in the first chapter, we're going to see the first four of these traits and here they are This the this kind of a person first off is they're able to see the problem And you say a big whoop everybody can see a problem, but they can see a problem. They are passionate about the problem They confess their sin first and then they rely on God for strength and wisdom to do something about it They can see the problem. They are passionate about the problem They are quick to confess their sin first and they rely on God for strength and wisdom to do something
Let's read about it 1 1 the words of Nehemiah the son of Hukaliah now it happened in the month of Kislev in the 20th year as I was in Susa the citadel that Hennai, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them, concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. The story starts with Nehemiah receiving distressing news about Jerusalem. The text tells us it was the Hebrew month of Kislev when the news reaches him. And this Hebrew calendar, that would equate to us to be between November and December. That's about the time of the year when he first hears about this. At this time, he's living in the city of Susa, which is the modern day city of Shush in Iran. And he would have been actually physically about a thousand miles away from Jerusalem, almost exactly
due east a thousand miles when he gets this news somewhere around November December. Nehemiah's brother Hani describes in detail how the walls of Jerusalem are in ruin and the remnant of the Jews that were left are in complete disarray. Remember Nebuchadnezzar left only the very poor people behind when he leveled Jerusalem. You can imagine what kind of spiritual and sociological condition the people would be in after many years without any leadership. Having been first under Babylonian rule and then Persian rule. So all those years, the poorest of the poor, no leaders, many, many, many years have elapsed. Just you can picture what the condition of the Jewish people there would have been like.
It is likely that Nehemiah had been raised hearing stories about what Jerusalem had been like in its glory days, but all of his life he had only known life under captivity. So all he could picture of Jerusalem's glory would be just stories that might have been passed down through the generations. So we see the problem has been presented to him. He sees the problem. We see his passion. Verse 4, as soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Nehemiah would have been born some time after the Babylonian exile. There's no record that he ever visited Jerusalem, and given the distance between Susa and Jerusalem, it's reasonable to assume he had probably never ever been there. Everything he knew about Jerusalem would have just been stories that had been told. Nevertheless, the news about Jerusalem hits him like a ton of bricks. This shows several traits then of the person who makes a difference. Again, they can see the problem when it's in front of them, and they recognize when something
isn't right, and second, they care deeply. They are passionate about the problem before them. Lots of people see a problem and might even rail about it for a while, but they soon become distracted or indifferent and forget about it. This was not the case for Nehemiah. It consumed him. It burdened him. He sat down and wept and mourned and fasted for days.
Notice that his passion wasn't just aimless, fretting, and fussing. Lots of us can do that. It drove him to get on his knees before God and to pour out his heart. Hand-wringing is useless in times of crisis. People who make a difference pray earnestly and repeatedly.
And then we see his penitence, verse five. And I said, oh Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love for those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayers of your servant that I pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you, even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded for your servant, Moses.
One of the candidates currently running for president this November, I'll let you guess who it might be, is promising to make America great again. In a recent interview, he commented that he can't recall a time ever needing to ask for forgiveness. That is the common of a prideful and arrogant person. A trait of a person who will make a difference is that they are humble and they confess their sin first. God resists the pride but gives grace to the humble. You can't expect God to use you for anything if you don't think you need forgiveness. Nehemiah could have rightly blamed the mess the Jews are in on all the sins his forefathers had committed.
It would have been totally fair for him to do that. He wasn't even alive when the sins that triggered the exile took place.
rather than try to shift the blame, he owns his sins, the sins of his father and the sins of his people. It says, night and day he was confessing the sins of the people of Israel which we had sinned against you, even I and my father's house have sinned. There's a truth that sin is never completely a private matter. In some sense, our personal sin affects others and is borne by others, borne by those in our various spheres and influence. Notice Nehemiah's use of we and I, even though he wasn't personally guilty of all the sins he was confessing. That's a hard one for us to swallow, the idea that somehow we share somehow in these sins and the consequences and the need to repent as a nation, even though we may not personally have committed some of the sins we're repenting of. Well then we see his plea in verse 11, oh Lord let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Now I was the cupbearer to the
king. Having spent much time in prayer and repentance and idea begins to formulate and Nehemiah's mind but he's going to need lots of courage and planning and blessings from God to pull it off. It is one thing to be able to see a problem and to feel passionately about it, but without God's help, that's about as far as Nehemiah will get. After having confessed his and others' sins, he pleads with God to grant him success with his plans. The person who makes a difference understands how vital it is to soak their plans in earnest prayer. Psalm 127.1 states the principle this way, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Now, some might take this verse as a call to quote, let go and let God, but that's not what it's saying. Builders and guards are necessary, but without an utter dependence on God, they will not succeed in their labors.
So far in the story, Nehemiah has seen the problem. He has felt compassionate about the problem. gone to God in penitence for his and other sins and he has petitioned God to bless his plans. That brings us all the way then up to chapter 2 where he starts to put the plans into action. So picking up at 2-1, in the month of Nysan in the 20th year of keen artaxerxes when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the keen. Now I had not been sad in his presence and the keen said to me, why is your face sad seeing you are not sick?
This is nothing but sadness of heart. Then I was very much afraid and I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? Then the king said to me, What are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heavens and I said to the king, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah to the city of my father's graves that I may rebuild it. So it's now the month of Nysen. This would be equivalent to about March or April in our calendar. So it's four months later from when he first got the report from his brother. So for four months he's been praying and thinking and considering what he's going to do. We can learn from this that Nehemiah didn't just throw up a quick prayer to heaven and then run out and start executing his plan. He spent a lot of time thinking and praying and pleading with God before he made his first move. This shows patience as another virtue
of the person who makes a difference. Some messes are years in the making and they don't lend themselves to quick fixes. There has to be the right kind of tenaciousness in our hearts when it comes to making a difference. Luke 18 tells the parable of the widow who who persisted in seeking justice from an ungodly judge until he finally relented and gave her what she was asking for. Jesus asks, if a godless judge will respond to persistence, how much more so will our father respond to our persistence? So often, we have not because we ask not. Clearly, Nehemiah had carried his burden for four months, so much so that he could no longer hide his sadness before the king.
At first, when the king notices his sad face, Nehemiah is afraid. Why? Why would he be afraid? Serving as a cupbearer was an honorable position, but it was also a very tenuous one. You served at the pleasure of the king. Any offense could get you dismissed, or worse. Do you remember the cupbearer in the story of Joseph and what happened to him? All he did was he, it says he offended the king and he ended up in jail and if you remember the rest of the story, he eventually had his head cut off. So being a cup bear in the king's presses and not having a happy face on could actually lead to some pretty dire results.
It could have easily offended king Artaxerxes and hence you can understand why Nehemiah might have been a little bit afraid to be concerned he was going to offend the king by showing his sadness. But this shows another trait of the person who makes a difference. They are willing to take personal risks when pursuing what God has called them to do. It could have gone very bad for him, letting his sadness be visible to the king, but he took the risk and got honored. With some trepidation, Nehemiah explains what is bothering him and asks for a leave of absence along with access to some of the king's resources to go rebuild the wall.
We can see that in verses 6 and 8. verse 8, and the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. We might be tempted to think that having the good hand of God upon him meant that he was now on easy street from there on out, but as we're going to see, that was not the case. Even though he knew at that point God was with him, the good hand of God was upon him, he still had a lot of uphill battle to go through. Nehemiah even reaches Jerusalem, he runs into opposition from San Beleta and Tobiah 9 and 10. It says it displeased them greatly that someone was seeking the welfare of the Israelites. So now we can add not afraid of opposition to our list of traits of the person who makes a difference. He's already getting some heat but he's not afraid of that opposition. He's not going to back down.
As we move along in the story, we're going to see the opposition to Nehemiah Take numerous forms as well as intensify as he moves forward Well he finally arrives in Jerusalem after months of planning and travel and perhaps sensing trouble Nehemiah spends the first few days in Jerusalem surveying the situation by night and Sharing his plans with no one so as not to arouse suspicion Verses 11 through 16 so at night he goes out with his lantern or whatever and nobody knows he's out there He's just going up and down the walls just checking to see what the situation is finalizing the plans in his head He's kind of keeping it all to himself and Then once the survey work was done and he had a plan in mind He then meets with the other Jews and shares that plan verse 17 Then I said to them you see the troubles we are in how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned Come let us build the walls of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good,
and also the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work." These verses right here, I think, provide a very basic formula for success in any God-endeavoring activity. Here's a simple formula, a clear vision, plus a solid plan, plus the good hand of God upon you, plus hand strengthened for work will usually lead them to accomplishing pretty amazing things. We all have heard and we know the phrase, God helps those who help themselves. And that's not in the Bible. It's not even one of my favorite verses, because it's not in the Bible. So it can't be a favorite verse. I think it was Benjamin Franklin or somebody.
So we can't escape the fact that God usually uses people as the means to his ends. That means another trait of the person who accomplishes much has to make the effort to strengthen their hands for good work. That can include things like getting an education or otherwise developing skills, gifts, talents, so they can be put to good use when the time comes. is a responsibility. We have to be preparing ourselves so that God can then use us for the situation to sit around eating Cheetos and playing video games and then waiting for God to call us to go build a wall just isn't going to happen. We need to be strengthening our hands and preparing for the day. As excitement grows for the project so does the opposition verses 19 through 20.
But when Sanbeleth, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the Ammonite servant, and Gesham, the Arab, heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king? Then I replied to them, The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we, his servants, will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem." You've got to really like Nehemiah's attitude in these things. Realizing that simple disapproval hasn't dissuaded Nehemiah, our three antagonists up their games by accusing Nehemiah of fomenting rebellion against the king. If those charges had been true, it would have meant the death penalty for Nehemiah.
But again Nehemiah rebuffs their false accusations and puts his trust in God. You know, we didn't have Twitter back then. You know, we didn't have email, you know, we didn't even have, you know, snail mail. It would have taken a long time for word to get back to the cane and for word to come back And can you imagine if they'd somehow sent a messenger off to our dessert see do you know what this guy's doing that you sent? He's leading a rebellion and he's gonna make himself king Could have been easy that our desserts he would have already sent troops to go and cut his head off I mean there's the dangers that he was facing were amazing and pretty intense Well chapter 3 which we're not going to read gives lots of details about the rebuilding of the wall itself I did spend a little time trying to find out how long the wall was that Nehemiah rebuilt so we could appreciate the magnitude of the project.
The resources I had were a little sketchy, but from what I could find, there's archaeologists who believe that the city area that the wall at Nehemiah's time, probably the area it circled was probably about one and a half square miles. And if we assume the city was roughly the shape of a square that would then make the wall three miles long other sources Talking about the wall during the Ottoman Empire when they when they Jerusalem was under Ottoman Empire I think around the 1500s at that time they put the wall length at about two and a half miles So so three miles sounds believable The wall was about 40 feet high and many feet thick Can you imagine the project and this wall, it was knocked down to nothing when Nehemiah started.
Whatever source of information you believe, it was a huge project and Nehemiah and his workers, how quick did they build that wall? You guys remember from the time they started? Fifty-two days. They built a three mile wall, 40 feet high. That's crazy. With our technology and what we can do today, what can we do if we put our minds to it in hand of God was behind us. When Sanbell found out how much progress they were making on the wall, he became furious. He and Tobias resort to mocking and insulting, but Nehemiah is unmovable and continues to trust God in the midst of adversity. Now let's start reading again in chapter 4 verse 1. Now when Sanbell had heard that they were building the wall, he became angry. He was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews and he said in the presence of his brothers into the army of Samaria. What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that? Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him and he said, yes, what are they building? If a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall. Here, O God, for we are despised, turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.
So we built the wall and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mine to work. Having failed to stop Nehemiah with false accusations and verbal assaults, Sanbellon and Tobiah and Geshem start to rally a group of troublemakers to come and attack the workers. Nehemiah gets word about the pending attacks and organizes the people to defend themselves even as they continue to build the wall, verses 7 through 14. You can imagine the tension that must have been mounting. The people are working at a feverish pitch. I mean, 52 days you're building this wall, working fast to get the job done, and on top of that they have to be ready to, at a moment's notice, to do battle. Nehemiah had his hands full just keeping the the people's spirits up. In verse 14 he says to the people, Do not be afraid of them, remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.
Nehemiah's courage and faith are pretty remarkable, and this shows again another trait of a person who accomplishes much. They inspire others in hard times through their faith and determination. The rest of chapter 4 describes how the people continued working on the wall sometimes with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other.
This battle readiness succeeds in keeping sand belt and his buddies from attacking. So can you see it you know you know putting some mud on there and laying some rock and whatever and you know the sword on the other hand trying to work like that and in 52 days you know they build the they build the wall. Well chapter five introduces a problem then that arose among the Jews themselves that was already bad enough that he was having trouble from outside the camp. Now all of a sudden the the problem arises from inside the Jewish camp. Sometimes the hardest problems facing us are not external but internal. Before Nehemiah had arrived and become governor, the previous governor and nobles among the Jews had been charging the people heavy taxes on their basic needs. It was so bad that the people were mortgaging their fields and their homes just to get enough grain to feed their families. In some cases they were selling their children into slavery. When Nehemiah heard about this, he was furious and he gathered the nobles
and publicly shamed them with a good tongue-lashing. Verse 8 of chapter 5 says that when he was done with them, they were silent and could not find a word to say. You can just imagine the tongue-lashing he gave them and they're sitting with their heads down and busted and they couldn't even make a defense. It was so wrong what they were doing. The previous governor of Jerusalem had enjoyed a stipend from our dessert season being being underneath our dessert season he would get some money from him but on top of that he had been extracting a daily ration of 40 shekels of silver from the people even though that they are had very little money to give even the governor's servants would lord over the people adding insult to injury so here's supposedly a fellow Jewish brother who's got the title of governor he's already getting some money from our desert seas, but he's still going back to the people who are poor and he's saying, I need 40 shekels of silver from you every day. And his servants are out there mocking and making
fun of the people. Not a very good situation. As the new governor of Jerusalem, Nehemiah instituted a new policy. Neither he nor his brothers would take any of the governor's allowance that was coming from our desert seas. Not only did he take from that allowance, he was entitled to, But he started feeding the people at his own expense Chapter 5 verse 17 Moreover there were at my table 150 men Jews and officials besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us so 150 plus people Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six-choice sheep and birds and every ten days All kinds of wine in abundance yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor because the service was too heavy on his people. Remember for my good, oh my God, all that I have done for my people. Shows us again another trait of a real leader. They make the greater sacrifice on behalf of others. Well, our time is running out, so let me summarize the rest of Nehemiah up to the completion of
the wall. Even though Sanbellum and Tobiah weren't having much success in stopping Nehemiah, it didn't keep them from trying. In 6.2, we see Sanbellum Gesham trying to get Nehemiah to come to a meeting where they plan to kill him. Nehemiah gets word of it and he just says basically, sorry guys, I'm too busy working right now, can't meet with you. In 6.6 we read that Sandballot sent servants five times to Nehemiah with letters accusing him of rebelling against Artaxerxes and trying to set himself up as the king of Jerusalem. So lies in slander. In 610 through 13, San Beled and Tobiah asked a buddy named Shemea to request a meeting with Nehemiah inside a forbidden area of the temple under the roost that people were trying to kill him.
So the Shemea guy who has been hired by San Bel and Tobiah, hey, tell Nehemiah there's people trying to kill him and get him to come hide with you in this part of the temple that Nehemiah is not supposed to go into. Their intention was to be able to slander Nehemiah once they got him inside that part of the temple where he wasn't supposed to be. But again, Nehemiah doesn't fall for it. In 614, Sanbellum and Tobiah tried intimidating Nehemiah by having the prophetess, Noadiah, and other prophets make false prophecies to try and scare Nehemiah.
And then finally, in 617-19, Tobiah gets some of the nobles of Judah to write letters to Amaya, praising Tobiah and writing about all the good things he has done hoping that he could curry some favor. He hasn't been able to scare him away, he hasn't been able to intimidate him, he hasn't been able to make him go away through slander or threats of war or anything else. So basically he gets some of his Tobiah gets some of these Judites who he was in cahoots with, doing business with, he gets them to start writing letters from the Amaya saying, oh let us tell you how wonderful Tobiah is, what a nice guy, you ought to be friends with to Tabbiah. You want to get to know Tabbiah. So they're trying to curry favor. But once again, Nehemiah isn't biting.
All these attempts to distract or discourage Nehemiah fail and the wall is finished in the month of Elul, sorry, ELUL, somewhere around August, September timeframe. And then from the time they started to they finished 52 days. Through all types of opposition, Nehemiah never wavers. His trust in God is absolute. This reveals another trait of one who makes a difference. They fear God and not man. Isaiah 2.22, I love this verse, says, do not fear man whose breath is in his nostrils. Isn't that just like a slam, total slam at men? Do not fear man whose breath is in his nostrils. Nehemiah refuses to let the fear of men get him off track from the mission God has called him to.
Why were sand-bellied and Tobias so ardently opposed to Nehemiah? Verse 6, 16 gives an answer, And when all our enemies heard of it, And all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, For they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Imagine that all the nations around them said, Oh my, and in their own eyes their esteem fell, they said, God, this is a God thing. It's interesting that the other nations perceive that it was God who enabled the wall to be built, not just some crazy determined Jewish cupbearer. That's how it should be. God gets the credit and the glory for when, what he enables us to accomplish.
The book of Nehemiah is an amazing story of how God moved a Persian keen to allow a Jewish cupbearer to take 12 years leave of absence, to rebuild the walls of Potential rival kingdom and how that cup bear did in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against him All this took just nine months from the time Nehemiah first heard a report of a problem and finished building the wall pretty amazing Listen to recap I told you I'd recap at the end here are the 12 traits then that we see from the life of Nehemiah These are 12 traits that we traits that we want to try to emulate and I think anybody who really wants to be able To do great things for God should exhibit number one One, they can recognize when problems exist.
Two, they're passionate about fixing the problem. Three, they confess their sins first. Four, they pray earnestly and regularly for wisdom and strength. Five, they're patient in the process no matter how long it takes. Six, they're willing to take personal risks. Seven, they're willing to face major opposition. Eight, they are busy strengthening their hand the task, whatever that may end up being. Nine, they inspire the faint-hearted with faith and determination. Ten, they make the biggest sacrifices of all. Eleven, they persevere, confident in God's ability to see the project through. And twelve, they fear God and not what men can do to them.
Let's pray. Well, Father, through this quick overview of Nehemiah, what an amazing story.
Testament first and foremost to you in which you can do But we thank you for the example we see in the life of Nehemiah We realize he was just an ordinary man that you called to do an extraordinary thing that you are the same God Then that you are today that we have no reason to not believe that if Your hand is strengthening us and if we are walking in accordance with your will that we could expect you to do some pretty amazing things in our own day and age. Father, lots of walls are in ruins in our own culture and we know we at TEC, we would love to be a part of beginning to rebuild some of those walls. So I pray that you would give us the faith of a man like Nehemiah to look to you, not for our namesake, not for our glory, but for yours, but that we would aspire to do more than just open up the doors on Sunday, but to actually get out there and really shake it up in our community. Would you be pleased Father to use this tiny little fellowship to to do that. We just pray this now in Jesus name. Amen.
