“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.”

George Bernard Shaw put those words into the mouth of the Rev. Anthony Anderson in the second act of his play The Devil’s Disciple. The statement certainly summarizes what Jesus taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37); and it rebukes all those who fold their arms complacently, smile benignly, and say somewhat sarcastically, “Ask me if I care!”

Nehemiah was the kind of person who cared. He cared about the traditions of the past and the needs of the present. He cared about the hopes for the future. He cared about his heritage, his ancestral city, and the glory of his God.

People who care are also sometimes people who cry about a lot of things. They cry at weddings. Parents cry when their children leave home. Sometimes they cry at the birth of their children and grandchildren. They cry at sad movies. Today we’re going to look at a man who cried about a broken wall.

But there’s much more to serving God than just talking about it. God wants to use each one of us, but He also wants to develop us into people who are more usable to Him. As we look at the life of Nehemiah, we will learn many qualities of service and leadership. The book falls into two broad sections: Rebuilding the Wall (chapters 1-7); and, Rebuilding the People (chapters 8-13).

God’s work has never been easy, and in these last days it is getting more and more difficult to serve. The enemy is hurling his ammunition at us as never before and is setting his subtle traps where we least expect them.

Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in 444 B.C., about 13 years after Ezra had returned there. He was a great leader whom God used to pull off a phenomenal feat: he instilled a vision in God’s remnant in Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the city. In spite of much opposition and numerous hurdles, they accomplished the task in just 52 days. The temple had been rebuilt for about 70 years, but the walls that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed in 586 B.C. were still in ruins, leaving the city defenseless against enemy attacks. As we saw in Ezra 4:11-23, an attempt at rebuilding the walls had been made a few years before. But when some Samaritans and other pagan residents of the land had complained, Artaxerxes issued a decree to stop the project, which these enemies had done with force of arms.

In November/December, 444 B.C., Nehemiah was serving as cupbearer to this same Artaxerxes at his winter capital in Susa when he had a life-changing conversation with his brother, Hanani, and some other men who had just come from Jerusalem. Nehemiah inquired about the condition of the city and the people. They responded, “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire” (1:3).

Nehemiah knew most of these facts before this. The wall and gates had been destroyed over 140 years before. But this graphic firsthand description of the scene by Nehemiah’s brother, including the news of things after the ban by Artaxerxes, devastated Nehemiah. He wept, mourned, fasted, and prayed for days, entreating God to do something about these deplorable conditions. God responded by doing something—through Nehemiah! We’re beginning a series of messages studying through the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament. It is a wonderful source for instruction about the nature of leadership and the qualities that make a good leader.

The world in which today’s young men and women take their turn at the helm will be different from the world we live in now. Some eras require strong, even authoritarian leadership, a firm and powerful voice. Other eras require leaders whose strengths are more in community-building, communication, and articulating a common vision.

We don’t know what the world will be like ten or fifteen years from now, what skill set will be required, what issues leaders will face. What we do know, though, is that at the core, effective leadership has qualities that don’t change from one time to another: wisdom, honesty, character, courage, and most important of all, godliness: a humble heart before God that will receive truth and direction and insight from him and dispense them to others.

Moses was the right man to lead the exodus and command a nation in the wilderness. Joshua was the right man to lead the conquest of the promised land. David was the right man to establish a monarchy. And in his time and place, Nehemiah was the right man to build a wall around a broken city.

We learn that …

The person God uses has a burden for His people, a vision for His purpose, and a commitment to His purpose.

First, Nehemiah saw the great need, which burdened his heart. He also saw what God wanted to accomplish. And, he committed himself to see it through in spite of the many difficulties.

1. The person God uses has a burden for His people.

When God wants to use you in some capacity, the first thing He does is to burden your heart with the situation. Perhaps, like Nehemiah, you will have known in general about the need for a long time. But then you hear about the specifics of it or you see it firsthand and you can’t put it out of your mind. When you compare the date of 1:1 with the date of 2:1, you discover that Nehemiah did not hear about this need and immediately rush in before the king with his request to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall. Rather, he waited on God in prayer for four months before the opportunity arose to talk with the king.

Let’s read the opening three verses of this book as an introduction to the whole:

(Nehemiah 1:1-3)  “The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, {2} Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. {3} They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.””

He cared enough to ask (Neh. 1:1-3)

There are two pictures I want to draw for us from these three verses. One is of Nehemiah himself, and we’ll come back to that in a bit. The picture I’d like to speak of first grows out of Hanani’s words (verse 3): They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.””

Living in a city with no walls

Hanani is a close relative (perhaps the full brother) of Nehemiah. When he comes to Susa, Nehemiah asks him about the condition of the people who have returned to Judah from exile, and he receives the grave report.

Note three things about Nehemiah’s burden

1. Nehemiah’s burden stemmed from feeling the people’s great need.

Other Jews in Babylon had probably heard about the conditions in Jerusalem, shaken their heads and said, “My, my! That’s too bad!” They went back to their work in Babylon thinking, “What a tragedy!” But they were not burdened by the need of God’s people in the land.

But the man that God used to do something about it not only heard about the need. He felt their need. He wept, mourned, fasted and prayed for days about what he had heard. He just couldn’t put it out of his mind. God used that burden as the basis for action.

Maybe you’re wondering, “The needs are so many and so great! I can’t possibly respond to them all. How do I discern which particular need God wants me to get involved with?

Two thoughts: First, don’t let the immensity of the needs paralyze you so that you don’t do anything. Sometimes you hear about the overwhelming needs around the world and run for cover because there is no way to respond to them all. Out of emotional survival, we throw up a barricade around our hearts that blocks all of the needs from moving us. We end up engrossed in our own pursuit of pleasure and ignore the needs of others.

Matthew 9:36-38 says, “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

So we need to pray, “Lord, give me the eyes of Jesus to see the needs of people. Give me the heart of Jesus to feel compassion for them. And raise up workers for the harvest to meet these overwhelming needs!”

Second, don’t commit yourself impetuously to something just because the need is there. The needs are simply endless. You don’t have to respond to all of the world’s needs. Nobody could do that. Rather, wait on God in prayer until He burdens your heart with a particular need that you can do something about.

Alan Redpath wrote, “Recognition of need must be followed by earnest, persistent waiting upon God until the overwhelming sense of world need becomes a specific burden in my soul for one particular piece of work which God would have me do” (Victorious Christian Service [Revell], p. 31). So we need to pray continually that God would give us a heart to feel the burden of hurting people’s needs and the willingness to get involved where we can offer some help.

Nehemiah was a layman, cupbearer to the great “Artaxerxes Longimanus,” who ruled Persia from 464 to 423 b.c. He is identified as the son of Hachaliah to distinguish him from other Jews of the same name (Neh. 3:16; Ezra 2:2). Nehemiah means “The Lord has comforted.”

A cupbearer was much more than our modern “butler” (see Gen. 40). It was a position of great responsibility and privilege. At each meal, he tested the king’s wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. A man who stood that close to the king in public had to be handsome, cultured, knowledgeable in court procedures, and able to converse with the king and advise him if asked (see 41:1-13). Because he had access to the king, the cupbearer was a man of great influence, which he could use for good or for evil.

That Nehemiah, a Jew, held such an important position in the palace speaks well of his character and ability (Dan. 1:1-4). For nearly a century, the Jewish remnant had been back in their own land, and Nehemiah could have joined them; but he chose to remain in the palace. It turned out that God had a work for him to do there that he could not have accomplished elsewhere. God put Nehemiah in Susa just as He had put Esther there a generation before, and just as He had put Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon. When God wants to accomplish a work, He always prepares His workers and puts them in the right places at the right time.

The Hebrew month of Chislev runs from mid-November to mid-December on our calendar; and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes was the year 444 b.c. Shushan (or Susa) was the capital city of the Persian Empire and the site of the king’s winter palace. No doubt it was just another routine day when Nehemiah met his brother Hanani (see Neh. 7:2), who had just returned from a visit to Jerusalem, but it turned out to be a turning point in Nehemiah’s life.

Like large doors, great life-changing events can swing on very small hinges. It was just another day when Moses went out to care for his sheep, but on that day he heard the Lord’s call and became a prophet (Ex. 3). It was an ordinary day when David was called home from shepherding his flock; but on that day, he was anointed king (1 Sam. 16). It was an ordinary day when Peter, Andrew, James, and John were mending their nets after a night of failure; but that was the day Jesus called them to become fishers of men (Luke 5:1-11). You never know what God has in store, even in a commonplace conversation with a friend or relative; so keep your heart open to God’s providential leading. I attended a birthday party one evening when I was nineteen years old, and a statement made to me there by a friend helped direct my life into the plans God had for me; and I will be forever grateful.

Why would Nehemiah inquire about a struggling remnant of people who lived hundreds of miles away? After all, he was the king’s cupbearer and he was successfully secure in his own life. Certainly it wasn’t his fault that his ancestors had sinned against the Lord and brought judgment to the city of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. A century and a half before, the Prophet Jeremiah had given this word from the Lord: “For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who will bemoan you? Or who will turn aside to ask how you are doing?” (Jer. 15:5, nkjv) Nehemiah was the man God had chosen to do those very things!

Some people prefer not to know what’s going on, because information might bring obligation. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” says the old adage; but is it true? In a letter to a Mrs. Foote, Mark Twain wrote, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.” But what we don’t know could hurt us a great deal! There are people in the cemetery who chose not to know the truth. The slogan for the 1987 AIDS publicity campaign was “Don’t die of ignorance”; and that slogan can be applied to many areas of life besides health.

Nehemiah asked about Jerusalem and the Jews living there because he had a caring heart. When we truly care about people, we want the facts, no matter how painful they may be. “Practical politics consists in ignoring facts,” American historian Henry Adams said; but Aldous Huxley said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Closing our eyes and ears to the truth could be the first step toward tragedy for ourselves as well as for others.

What did Nehemiah learn about Jerusalem and the Jews? Three words summarize the bad news: remnant, ruin, and reproach. Instead of a land inhabited by a great nation, only a remnant of people lived there; and they were in great affliction and struggling to survive. Instead of a magnificent city, Jerusalem was in shambles; and where there had once been great glory, there was now nothing but great reproach.

Of course, Nehemiah had known all his life that the city of his fathers was in ruins, because the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem’s walls, gates, and temple in 586 b.c. (2 Kings 25:1-21). Fifty years later, a group of 50,000 Jews had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city. Since the Gentiles had hindered their work, however, the temple was not completed for twenty years (Ezra 1–6), and the gates and walls never were repaired. Perhaps Nehemiah had hoped that the work on the walls had begun again and that the city was now restored. Without walls and gates, the city was open to ridicule and attack. See Psalms 48, 79, 84, and 87 to see how much loyal Jews loved their city.

Are we like Nehemiah, anxious to know the truth even about the worst situations? Is our interest born of concern or idle curiosity? When we read missionary prayer letters, the news in religious periodicals, or even our church’s ministry reports, do we want the facts, and do the facts burden us? Are we the kind of people who care enough to ask?

Now let’s look again at the word of Hanani: “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

A city with no wall around it is vulnerable and disgraced. By analogy, we might say that a vulnerable heart is one in which invasion and seduction can happen at any time. Whether it’s a physical city that is in danger or a faith that lacks conviction, in which everything is true and nothing is true, the dangers are similar.

We live in a world that is very much without boundaries, one in which the difference between truth and lies, holy and profane, substance and image, deep and shallow, lasting and momentary, divine and human, is regularly muddied. We ought to acknowledge and defend what we stand for. If we can’t tell the difference anymore between righteousness and unrighteousness, between godliness and rebellion, then we live in a place without walls. Part of the sorrow and anxiety of the Jews who were living in Jerusalem was that they had lost their identity as God’s beloved ones. They didn’t know who they were or what they stood for anymore, and their broken walls were very much like their spiritually undefended hearts.

The other thing I would say by way of analogy is that while it’s hard to live under the iron rule of an enemy, it’s also hard to live in a multicultural, highly tolerant set of circumstances in which you can have your private religion as long as you never rock the boat. So the rule of Persia was a welcome replacement for the rule of Babylon, but it carried with it its own difficulties.

Living in two worlds

Now let’s look at the other picture we can draw from these verses. Who is Nehemiah? What does he tell us of himself? He is the son of Hacaliah, a man unknown to us anywhere else in Scripture. He is the kinsman of Hanani. In saying that, he declares that he is a member of the Jewish race, an exile himself. The other thing he tells us in these verses is that he’s now living in the citadel of Susa, the fortress of the Persian emperor.

Finally, in the last sentence of chapter 1, which we’re going to get to in the next message, is almost a throw-away line: “I was cupbearer to the king.” As it turns out, over the course of exile he had become educated, grown in stature, and moved up through the ranks. He was a man who tasted the king’s wine before the king drank it to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. He therefore had intimate access to the royal person. He almost certainly had political standing, a portfolio, a position of state of some kind; the cupbearer typically did. He was a man high in the ranks of influence in government, and he presumably had the wealth and stature that went with the title.

Note the humble way Nehemiah introduces himself. He tells us of his unknown father. He tells us of his commitment to the exiled people. He tells us where he lives. He even recalls his prayer. It’s a wonderful prayer, which we’re going to look at in the next message. He says all that before he gets around to telling us that he’s cupbearer to the king.

How do you introduce yourself? What things about you are the most important to tell someone first? Do people know about your prayer life before they get your business card? Do they know of your passion for the things of God? Do you regard these as more important than where you work and for whom you work and what status in society you occupy?

In introducing himself the way he does, Nehemiah is also identifying the great tension of his life in these opening two verses. He lives in Susa, and he’s a kinsman of the exiles. How is that tension going to get resolved? He is cupbearer to the king, a man of station and influence, living in the capital, near to the king. It must have occurred to him that he could well serve God in that position. Daniel served foreign kings all his life and never returned to Jerusalem. We can imagine Nehemiah asking, “Should I be like that? Should I use the status I have to steer the emperor toward good policies?”

But the tension remains: “My brother has come and said the people are in disgrace. Their hearts are sick. The walls are broken. The gates are burned. On the front lines people are risking much to be faithful to God. They might have stayed abroad, made their living in exile, succeeded in having some kind of worldly stature, kept their religion as a kind of important compartment at home. But they didn’t, and now they’re under tremendous pressure.”

I think most of us live in two worlds exactly as Nehemiah did. Most of us in a sense are cupbearer to the king. We have risen to some level of status in this world. It’s paying off. We’re making a living. We’re in secure surroundings. Careers have a predictable trajectory. Yet some have been called into front-line service of God. Some experience major changes in occupation, residence, language, and culture. Some put lives and fortunes at risk to serve the Lord. How do we determine what place of discipleship God intends for us?

The text before us can help answer this question. It’s significant that Nehemiah asked his brother Hanani about the remnant in Jerusalem. He could have insulated himself from the visitors if he chose to. Yet he sought them out and heard first-hand of the hardships and sorrows of his people.

This is an important starting point. It’s easy to stay unaware. Do you care enough to want to find out what’s happening with kids and youth, with foreign missions and care of the poor? Where is the word of God changing hearts? Where are people coming to Christ? I don’t want the difficulties of discipleship to be reduced because I am too busy to be informed.

This introductory message will end without a resolution to Nehemiah’s dilemma. Learning to hear God as he directs our lives is not a quick or easy process. It requires honesty about ourselves.

The musical Fiddler on the Roof [1]is a sweet story of Jews in exile. It’s especially the story of a milkman named Tevye who loved God and wanted to live a life that pleased him. My favorite song in that musical is If I Were a Rich Man. In it Tevye lists all the things that would happen if he were a rich man: He’d have chickens and geese, and his wife would have a proper double chin. She’d have servants she could order around. They’d have one long staircase going up and a longer one coming down. And more. The singing grows quiet toward the end, and you hear the heart of the man. He says, “You know what I’d really do if I were a rich man? I’d have a seat by the eastern wall in the synagogue (nearest to Jerusalem), and I’d discuss the holy books seven hours every day, and that would be the sweetest thing of all.”(1) He was saying, “If I were rich, if I had everything I really wanted in life, what I’d really want is to be where people care about God. That’s what I’d use my riches for.”

That’s the tension that Nehemiah faces. I pray it’s ours as well. If I could do whatever I wanted, if I could somehow figure out how to steer my way through the responsibilities and the dreams I have and get to be more where I want to be, where I’d want to be is where God is, with the people who love him the most. That would be the sweetest thing of all.

He cared enough to weep (Neh. 1:4)

This is the time of year for blockbuster adventure movies filled with dangers and rescues, heroes and villains. The book we’re studying in this series, Nehemiah, is similar. It’s a story of struggles between good and evil, heroic deeds, and tensions that need resolution.

We ended the last message with our hero, Nehemiah, caught in a conflict, realizing that he needed an answer from God as to how to resolve the dilemma. Information was brought to him in the Persian citadel of Susa, from Jerusalem and its environs, a thousand miles away. It concerned the exiles who had returned there over the course of three generations. Chapter 1 verse 3 describes their difficult circumstances. “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.” Nehemiah’s brothers and sisters in the exile were in anguish. Their city was a place of sorrow.

The end of chapter 1 records the other horn of the dilemma. Nehemiah tells us he was cupbearer to the Persian emperor, Artaxerxes, the most powerful man in the world. Cupbearer was a very high station, an influential political position. Nehemiah had regular access to the king and would have been counted on to give advice. He surely had the status and wealth that went along with having such a position. His two identities pulled at him: brother to the exiles and cupbearer to the king.

Many of us are familiar with this tension. The world has paid off for us. We have found a place of security and status and comfort and wealth. And we know that on the front lines of the work of God people are caring for the poor and the sick, doing evangelism in areas where they are unwelcome and threatened, putting their lives on the line, risking all they are and have.

There are certainly other kinds of tensions as well. It may be that you’re overcoming some pattern in your life that has ruined and hurt you, and this struggle is the pattern of stress you’re called to live with. Or it may be that there is some other pressure upon you’a family crisis or medical emergency. Nehemiah’s prayers and growing faith can be an encouragement in these circumstances as well. But those who have dual identities as Nehemiah did will find this chapter especially helpful.

We might note that others in the Bible faced the same problem Nehemiah did:

1. Joseph had risen to the highest station of the land in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, and he had to resolve the question of his identity as a Jew and his identity as an Egyptian, how he would serve God having the place and opportunity that he did.
2. David had the same problem when he was running for his life from Saul. He lived for a time among the Philistines, and was accorded a position of respect among them.
3. Daniel was Nebuchadnezzar’s most important advisor.
4. Esther served as queen in a Persian court. Her uncle Mordecai spoke to her at a crisis moment and said, “…Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14.) She was a Jewish believer, and she was queen in Persia. How would she resolve the dual responsibilities?

There are a couple of ways that most of us tend to react when we feel this sort of tension. Some of us, and I think this would have been Nehemiah’s natural response, tend to fire off in all directions at once. If there are people suffering, somebody ought to do something about it. “I’m going to make some phone calls, issue a series of edicts, plan some strategies, and make something happen!” A lot of activity is generated, but nothing gets changed. The other natural inclination when we feel this vise of conflicting pressures is to look at how hard it will be to do anything. It’s such a long way from Susa to Jerusalem. The people have been there a long time, and they’ve got it tough, but what can be done? There’s so much inertia to overcome, so many complexities and questions that need to be answered. So we decide to start a committee to do a study and issue a report. And in the end, we conclude that probably somebody else ought to do it anyway. It’s easy to be impressed with how difficult the problem is and just give up.

But Nehemiah didn’t choose either of those natural options. He didn’t fire off in all directions at once, and he didn’t do nothing. What he did was enter into the presence of God in a profound way, and that’s what we want to consider in this message.

(Nehemiah 1:4)  “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

What makes people laugh or weep is often an indication of character. People who laugh at others’ mistakes or misfortunes, or who weep over trivial personal disappointments, are lacking either in culture or character, and possibly both. Sometimes weeping is a sign of weakness; but with Nehemiah, it was a sign of strength, as it was with Jeremiah (Jer. 9:1), Paul (Acts 20:19), and the Lord Jesus (Luke 19:41). In fact, Nehemiah was like the Lord Jesus in that he willingly shared the burden that was crushing others. “The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me” (Ps. 69:9; Rom. 15:3).

Nehemiah didn’t know what to do. The answer was not obvious to him. God had put him where he was. He was cupbearer to the king, not for bad reasons but for good reasons. There was no sinful process that had led to his success in the empire. His family had been taken there as exiles and slaves. They had no choice in the matter. He was raised there under circumstances that were dealt to him. And he had succeeded. The problem was, now he knew there were people to whom his heart was knit, with whom his destiny was cast, who were beaten down by the circumstances in Jerusalem. After he was made aware of their suffering, then he knew that the report had come to him for reasons that his heavenly Father had chosen as well. And he didn’t know how to proceed. “For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

That period of “some days” is probably four months. In 1:1 he says, “In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year….” In 2:1, when he begins to take action, he refers to the month of Nisan, four months later. In a moment we’re going to read a prayer that is probably a distillation of what took place in the four months he wept and mourned and fasted and prayed. He went back time and again to be with God. He didn’t understand and he wanted answers. He didn’t take the easy way out. As Jacob wrestled with the angel and said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26), Nehemiah wrestled with God and said, “I need some answers from you. The burden is heavy. The direction is not obvious.” For four months he spent time with the Lord in this way. Verse 6 says he prayed “day and night.”

When God puts a burden on your heart, don’t try to escape it; for if you do, you may miss the blessing He has planned for you. The Book of Nehemiah begins with “great affliction” (Neh. 1:3), but before it closes, there is great joy (8:12, 17). “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). Our tears water the “seeds of providence” that God has planted on our path; and without our tears, those seeds could never grow and produce fruit.

It was customary for the Jews to sit down when they mourned (Ezra 9:1-4; 2:13). Unconsciously, Nehemiah was imitating the grieving Jewish captives who had been exiled in Babylon years before (Ps. 137:1). Like Daniel, Nehemiah probably had a private room where he prayed to God with his face toward Jerusalem (Dan. 6:10; 1 Kings 8:28-30). Fasting was required of the Jews only once a year, on the annual Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29); but Nehemiah spent several days fasting, weeping, and praying. He knew that somebody had to do something to rescue Jerusalem, and he was willing to go.

Four verbs are used in verse 4 that may help us see Nehemiah in God’s presence. It says, first of all, “…I sat down and wept.” When it matters to you that someone else’s experience is difficult, when you love somebody, you make yourself vulnerable to their pain. Paul clearly describes the church that way in the New Testament: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26.) We’re part of each other too much to not feel others’ pain. I much prefer to let layers of distance exist between myself and other people so that I can know of their circumstance and maybe even wish them well, but not have the hardship of whatever it is they’re dealing with enter my heart. But I’m not successful at keeping the wall up, and God won’t let any of us be. There are times when somebody else’s misery or sorrow descends on you, and your body reacts. Tears fall, sobs break loose, your shoulders sag. That’s the first thing that happened to Nehemiah. He let himself emotionally be part of what his people were going through.

The second thing we’re told in verse 4 is that he mourned. Mourning is a thoughtful response to the hard circumstances. Weeping is emotional, often involuntary. But mourning is a deliberate, thoughtful entering into the problem. It includes taking off the masks, if you will. It acknowledges that there is not only pain but guilt, that things are not only hurtful but wrong. We’ll see in a bit his acknowledgment in this prayer: “We did this to ourselves. The reason life is so hard is that we resisted God.” There’s an awful sense in which we are reaping what we sowed.

The third thing Nehemiah refers to in this process is fasting. Now, that certainly includes choices to restrict one’s diet for the purpose of paying attention to God. But in the ancient world meals were not like ours. We can have a sandwich with us or quickly grab something to eat and be talking on the phone and typing while we eat it, so that the experience of eating happens almost without our knowing it. In the ancient world meals were communal events. The whole family would be together. It took a long time to prepare. It was expected that you would enter into extended conversation and be part of the social network. So fasting was a deliberate attempt not only to keep from eating but to withdraw from the whole network, to stop listening to all the voices, to not attend to all the responsibilities. Fasting was stepping away from the world and all its entanglements in order to spend time with God.

It was more than just not eating food. He was saying, “I’m stepping back. God will have space in my life; no intruders are allowed.”

If that was the way it was in the ancient world, think of how much more difficult it is in the modern world to make time for God. Think of how many ways we can be contacted and demands can be made on us for response: meetings, phones, message machines, mail, e-mail, aggressive advertising and promotion.

The fourth thing mentioned in verse 4 is prayer before the God of heaven. That’s a broad, inclusive term for communication with God. Knowing he had a problem, he spoke with and listened to the God of heaven, the Lord of all. His heart would not let him rest. He didn’t know what to do, and so he spent these four months wrestling with God, calling on God, appealing, listening, returning, not settling for easy, obvious answers, but wanting to know what his Lord would do with his life, what his future should be.

He cared enough to pray (Neh. 1:5-10)

(Nehemiah 1:5-10)  “Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, {6} let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. {7} We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. {8} “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, {9} but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ {10} “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.”

This prayer is the first of twelve instances of prayer recorded in this book. (See 2:4; 4:4, 9; 5:19; 6:9, 14; 9:5ff; 13:14, 22, 29, 31.) The Book of Nehemiah opens and closes with prayer. It is obvious that Nehemiah was a man of faith who depended wholly on the Lord to help him accomplish the work He had called him to do. The Scottish novelist George MacDonald said, “In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably, or succeed more miserably.” Nehemiah succeeded because he depended on God. Speaking about the church’s ministry today, the late Alan Redpath said, “There is too much working before men and too little waiting before God.”

Let me make some observations about this prayer. It’s one of the great prayers of the Bible, and there are more to come. This is a great book to read if you want to learn to pray or to grow as a man or woman of prayer.

Verse 5 begins as the majority of the prayers recorded in the Bible do, by speaking to God of himself. It doesn’t start with Nehemiah’s problems, hopes and dreams, or concerns. As Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven,” so Nehemiah starts out, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love….”

The insistence that begins this prayer is that events are going to have their outcome not based on the armies of earth, the wealth of individuals, or the great social currents that roil against one another, raising up some and putting down others. Events in history are going to have their outcome based on what God decides. “You are the God of heaven and you keep your promises.”

Of course, it didn’t look that way to Nehemiah, and it doesn’t look that way to us. No measurement of current events is going to suggest to you that God is in charge. It’s not apparent that the Lord is bringing glory to himself and mercy to people, or that he is working out history so that it will have the glorious ending that he has promised it will have. It doesn’t often seem as if God is doing what he ought to do in our lives. It seems as if everybody else is in charge of our lives, and where is he? Ray Stedman used to quote a limerick:

Humankind had a lovely beginning, but we ruined our chances by sinning.

We know that the story will end to God’s glory, but at present, the other side’s winning.

That’s the way the world looks: We started well, and it’s supposed to come out well, but right now the bad guys are in charge. But it’s not true. God keeps his promises, and that’s how Nehemiah starts his prayer.

This prayer begins with ascription of praise to God (1:5). “God of heaven” is the title Cyrus used for the Lord when he announced that the Jews could return to their land (2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-2). The heathen gods were but idols on the earth, but the God of the Jews was Lord in heaven.

Ezra often used this divine title (5:11-12; 6:9; 7:12, 21, 23), and it is found four times in Nehemiah (1:4-5; 2:4, 20) and three times in Daniel (2:18-19, 44). Nehemiah began his prayer as we should begin our prayers: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name” (Matt. 6:9).

C. Nehemiah’s burden was lightened by seeing the people’s great God. He begins his prayer addressing God: “I beseech You, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments” (1:5).

Toward the conclusion he reminds God (and himself) of God’s promise to gather His people from the most remote parts where He has scattered them for their disobedience. Then he prays (1:10), “They are Your servants and Your people whom You redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand.” Five times in that verse he repeats “you” and “your” as if to say, “These aren’t my people, God; they’re Your people.” God wants us to feel the burden for others, but then He wants us to roll that burden back on Him, remembering that it is not our power, but His power, that redeems them.

What if you honestly don’t have a burden for God’s people or for lost people? What does that mean? What should you do? It could mean that you are not born again, because you are not concerned about the things that God is concerned about. If that is your condition, you need to repent of your sins and trust in Christ to save you.

If you are born again but do not feel burdened for the lost or for God’s people, it probably means that you have become so caught up with seeking the things that the world seeks that you are not seeking first God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33). You need to go before God and get your priorities in line with His priorities. He does not save us so that we can live happy lives pursuing the American dream. He saves us so that He can use us to further His purpose.

To what kind of a God do we pray when we lift our prayers to “the God of heaven”? We pray to a “great and awesome God” (Neh. 1:5, nkjv; and see 4:14, 8:6, and 9:32), who is worthy of our praise and worship. If you are experiencing great affliction (v. 3) and are about to undertake a great work (4:19; 6:3), then you need the great power (1:10), great goodness (9:25, 35), and great mercy (v. 31) of a great God. Is the God you worship big enough to handle the challenges that you face?

He is also a God who keeps His Word (1:5). The Lord had made a covenant with His people Israel, promising to bless them richly if they obeyed His Word, but warning that He would chasten them if they disobeyed (Lev. 26; Deut. 27–30). The city of Jerusalem was in ruins, and the nation was feeble because the people had sinned against the Lord. (See Ezra’s prayer of confession in Ezra 9 and the prayer of the nation in Neh. 9.)

The greater part of Nehemiah’s prayer was devoted to confession of sin (1:6-9).

B. Nehemiah’s burden was focused by seeing the people’s great sin.

Nehemiah was realistic in assessing the problem. He quickly realized that at the heart of things was not a lack of organization, although they desperately needed someone to organize things, which Nehemiah subsequently did. The root problem was not a lack of resources, although the project required resources. The root problem was sin. So he prayed, “confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses” (1:6b-7).

The Bible is clear that at the root of all our global and personal problems is sin. Why are there wars and terrorist attacks? Sin. Why are there famine and disease? Sin. Why are governments and businesses riddled with greed and corruption? Sin. Why is the mission task of the church not fulfilled? Sin. On the personal level, why do couples argue and have problems communicating? Sin. Why do kids from Christian homes rebel against God and their parents? Sin. Whatever the problem, you can trace its roots back to sin, either to the original sin of Adam and Eve, or directly to the sins of the people with the problems. If God is going to use us to help alleviate any great need, we need to keep clear in our focus, that at the root of the problem is human sin.

But it’s not just the sins of others that we need to be aware of. We also need to be aware of and confess our own sins. Nehemiah included himself with the sins of the people. Staying aware of our own sins keeps us humbled before God and others so that we don’t sit in judgment on them. We are sinners who have been shown mercy. We go to other sinners and offer God’s mercy.

But we dare not get distracted from the root problem. If we start thinking that the real need is better organization or more funds or better methods, we’ll start at the wrong place. The root need is for repentance on the part of God’s people, who have forgotten His purpose and are living for their own purpose. And lost people need repentance so that they can be reconciled to God. Nehemiah’s burden stemmed from feeling the people’s great need. It was focused by seeing the people’s and his own great sin.

The God who promised blessing and chastening also promised forgiveness if His people would repent and turn back to Him (Deut. 30; 1 Kings 8:31-53). It was this promise that Nehemiah was claiming as he prayed for himself and the nation. God’s eyes are upon His people and His ears are open to their prayers (1 Kings 8:29; 2 Chron. 7:14). The word remember is a key word in this book (Neh. 1:8; 4:14; 5:19; 6:14; 13:14, 22, 29, 31).

Further, he declares that God can hear and see and remember. The prophets castigated worship of idols, saying, “They’re deaf and dumb! Why would you put your trust in blocks of wood made by human hands?” But this God to whom Nehemiah prays has ears that hear and eyes that see and a heart that remembers.

We hear Nehemiah’s honesty about the problem: “We are guilty as charged. We have deliberately and knowingly trampled on the word of God. We have rebelled against you, and we are getting only what we deserve. You are entirely right.” He doesn’t imagine extenuating circumstances or plead special cases.

“My father’s house is rebellious, and so am I.” He is willing to join his people in their sins. Many of us are willing to admit the minor faults that we think we have, but we don’t like to think of ourselves as part of the greater human race that is capable of all the terrible things that have been done. Yet Nehemiah doesn’t shy away from that. However, he doesn’t dwell on recognition of sinfulness, nor does he end with it.

Note that Nehemiah used the pronoun “we” and not “they,” identifying himself with the sins of a generation he didn’t even know. It would have been easy to look back and blame his ancestors for the reproach of Jerusalem, but Nehemiah looked within and blamed himself! “We have sinned! We have dealt very corruptly!”

When one Jewish soldier, Achan, sinned at Jericho, God said that “the children of Israel committed a trespass” and that “Israel” sinned and transgressed the covenant (Josh. 7:1, 11). Since the sin of one man was the sin of the whole nation, it brought shame and defeat to the whole nation. Once that sin had been dealt with, God could again bless His people with victory.

How do we know that God forgives our sins when we repent and confess to Him? He has so promised in His Word. Nehemiah’s prayer is saturated with quotations from and allusions to the covenants of God found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He certainly knew the Old Testament Law! In Nehemiah 1:8-9, he reminded God of His words found in Deuteronomy 28:63-67 and 30:1-10, just as we remind the Lord of His promise in 1 John 1:9. Nehemiah asked God to forgive His people, regather them to their land, and restore them to His favor and blessing.

2. The person God uses has a vision for His purpose.

If Nehemiah had lacked a vision of God’s purpose, when he heard about the conditions in Jerusalem he would have said, “Why be bothered about Jerusalem? We live in Babylon and have lived here for over 100 years. What’s the big deal about Jerusalem anyway? Why not just settle down and worship God here?”

But Nehemiah knew something about what God wanted to do with His people (1:9): “I … will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.” Babylon would not do. God’s purpose involved His name or His glory being made known in Jerusalem.

God’s purpose in this age involves the church. Jesus said, “I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). Revelation 5:9 says that Jesus purchased for God with His blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. But why does He want to save people from around the globe? Be careful how you answer! We live in such a man-centered age that we easily can fall into the error of thinking that God’s purpose is to save people because He loves them and wants them to be happy. But that is a man-centered goal. God’s purpose is not man-centered; it is God-centered. God does love people and He wants them to be happy, but not as the final end in itself. Saving people is a means toward God’s purpose, but it is not the end of God’s purpose.

As Paul makes clear in Ephesians 1-3, God’s purpose involves building His church for the sake of His name or His glory. He wants to display the riches of His glorious grace and His manifold wisdom through the church to all of the angelic hosts (Eph. 1:6, 10-12, 14; 3:8-11). God’s chief purpose is to further His own glory through the joy of salvation that His people experience in Him.

One of the most profound, life-changing books that you could ever read is John Piper’s God’s Passion for His Glory [Crossway Books], which is built around and includes the full text of Jonathan Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World. I will warn you: it is not easy, light reading! Grappling with the truths that Edwards presents makes your brain ache! He argues that the end for which God created the world is, “first, that the glory of God might be magnified in the universe, and, second, that Christ’s ransomed people from all times and all nations would rejoice in God above all things” (Piper, p. 31).

The life-transforming truth is that God’s glory and His people’s joy in Him fit together. As Piper puts it, “The further up you go in the revealed thoughts of God, the clearer you see that God’s aim in creating the world was to display the value of His glory, and that this aim is no other than the endless, ever-increasing joy of his people in that glory” (p. 32). He goes on to show how the Great Commission fits with God’s purpose: “If the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing, then world missions is a declaration of the glories of God among all the unreached peoples, with a view to gathering worshippers who magnify God through the gladness of radically obedient lives” (p. 42, italics his). He sums up, “In other words, rejoicing in God and glorifying God are one, and that one thing is the aim of world missions” (p. 43).

When God’s people are in great distress and reproach and the wall between them and the pagan world is broken down, God is not glorified through His people because His people are not living any differently than the world lives. The wall symbolizes the distinctive difference between God’s people and worldly people in the way we think, the values we hold, and the way we relate to God and to one another (see 1 Pet. 2:9-12).

Thus God’s purpose is to magnify His name or His glory through His people. He does that when His people not only know and dutifully obey Him, but when they joyfully know and obey Him (Piper, p. 75). As John Piper often states, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” If you want God to use you, ask Him to give you a burden for His people and a vision for His purpose.

This humble prayer closed with an expression of confidence (Neh. 1:10-11). To begin with, he had confidence in the power of God. When the Bible speaks of the eyes, ears, and hands of the Lord, it is using only human language to describe divine activity. God is spirit, and therefore does not have a body such as humans have; but He is able to see His people’s needs, hear their prayers, and work on their behalf with His mighty hand. Nehemiah knew that he was too weak to rebuild Jerusalem, but he had faith that God would work on his behalf.

He also had confidence in God’s faithfulness. “Now these are Thy servants and Thy people” (v. 10). In bringing Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take the people captive, God chastened the Jews sorely; but He did not forsake them! They were still His people and His servants. He had redeemed them from Egypt by His great power (Ex. 14:13-31) and had also set them free from bondage in Babylon. Would He not, in His faithfulness, help them rebuild the city?

Unlike Elijah, who thought he was the only faithful Jew left (1 Kings 19:10), Nehemiah had confidence that God would raise up other people to help him in his work. He was sure that many other Jews were also praying and that they would rally to the cause once they heard that God was at work. Great leaders are not only believing people who obey the Lord and courageously move ahead, but they also challenge others to go with them. You can’t be a true leader unless you have followers, and Nehemiah was able to enlist others to help him do the work.

Finally, Nehemiah was confident that God would work in the heart of Artaxerxes and secure for the project the official support that it needed (Neh. 1:10). Nehemiah couldn’t simply quit his job and move to Jerusalem. He was an appointee of the king, and he needed the king’s permission for everything he did. Furthermore, he needed the king’s provision and protection so he could travel to Jerusalem and remain away from his post until the work was completed. Without official authority to govern, an official guard for the journey, and the right to use materials from the king’s forest, the entire project was destined to fail. Eastern monarchs were absolute despots, and it was not easy to approach them or convince them. But “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases” (Prov. 21:2, niv).

Too often, we plan our projects and then ask God to bless them; but Nehemiah didn’t make that mistake. He sat down and wept (Neh. 1:4), knelt down and prayed, and then stood up and worked because he knew he had the blessing of the Lord on what he was doing.

This is very much a Scripture-based prayer. When Nehemiah prays, he prays with the Bible in his mind and perhaps open before him. He is praying the words of Moses. He is referring to the prayers of Daniel and probably others here. This is a prayer that is deeply informed by what God has already said about himself. So Nehemiah says, “You promised us that if we rebelled we would be punished, and we did and we are. But you also promised that if we turned back, however far we had been scattered, you would bring us home.” And he refers to the people now as those whose hearts are broken, who revere the name of God. He calls on God to act as he promised he would. This is a prayer that speaks back to God his own words. Sin doesn’t have the final authority. The punishment is not the end; the return of God’s people is the end of the story.

The last observation I would make about this prayer is about the very simple request that comes at the end. Nehemiah has prayed about the greatness of God, the failure of the people, the promise of God to bring about their return. He has cast back to the time of Moses, saying, “God, our world is going to turn on whether you keep thousand-year-old promises. Artaxerxes and his armies and the greatness of this empire are nothing compared to the word you gave to your servant Moses, and we’re claiming that now. In view of this, the personal request he makes at the end of verse 11 is actually surprisingly small: “Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.” Now, Nehemiah knows that God rules the emperor, that the response he will get from Artaxerxes is the response that God will call for. I think the success he hopes for is that he will have the courage to follow through. “Will I be able to do what it is in my heart to do? Will I have the courage to speak up?” The success may for him depend more on whether he speaks up than whether Artaxerxes gives the right answer or not.

3. The person God uses has a commitment to His purpose.

Nehemiah didn’t hear about the sad conditions in Jerusalem and say, “That’s too bad! I hope that somebody does something about it.” Rather, he was willing to commit himself to the task and to stick with it in spite of numerous difficulties. Note two things about Nehemiah’s commitment:

A. He was willing to count the world as loss for the sake of God’s purpose.

Nehemiah notes that he was cupbearer to the king (1:11). The cupbearer was a high position in the court. His responsibility was to choose and taste the wine before it was served to the king to make sure that it was not poisoned. He would have been a handsome man, well-trained in court etiquette. He would have to be a friendly companion, willing to lend an ear and even to give advice to the king. Since he enjoyed closest access to the king, he was a highly trusted man. Early documents also reveal that the cupbearer could be the keeper of the royal signet, be in charge of administration of the accounts, and even serve as second to the king (see Edwin Yamauchi, Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Zondervan], 4:683).

Nehemiah lived in the palace at Susa with the king. Excavations have shown that it was built with cedar, gold, silver, and ivory. The walls were decorated with artistically colored glazed bricks and relief designs of winged bulls (Donald K. Campbell, Nehemiah: Man in Charge [Victor Books], pp. 7-8). Nehemiah would have eaten the best food, worn the best clothes, and lived in very comfortable quarters. It was a cushy job! We do not know why he had not returned with the remnant with Ezra 13 years before. Perhaps, like Daniel and his friends, he had been conscripted into the king’s service as a young man and was not free to leave.

But now when he hears about the distress of God’s people and the dishonor to God’s name, he cannot be happy in this great job and these luxurious surroundings. He was willing to give it all up, make the difficult journey to Jerusalem, and to set about the stressful job of mobilizing the people to rebuild the walls so that God’s name would be honored among His people.

Was it a costly sacrifice? Yes and no. Yes, he had to give up all of the comforts that he enjoyed and endure a lot of hardship. But, no, in that he could no longer be happy doing what he had been doing. He found great joy in doing what God wanted him to do. Like Paul, he counted it all rubbish so that he might gain Christ.

John Paton and his wife gave up the comforts of their Scottish homes and the relationships with their loved ones to take the gospel to the cannibals of the New Hebrides Islands in the South Seas. When she lay there dying after complications of childbirth, her last words were, “Oh that my dear mother were here! She is a good woman, my mother, a jewel of a woman.” Then she saw that another missionary was standing nearby. She exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Copeland, I did not know that you were there! You must not think that I regret coming here, and leaving my mother. If I had the same thing to do over again, I would do it with far more pleasure, yes, with all my heart. Oh, no! I do not regret leaving home and friends, though at the time I felt it keenly” (John G. Paton Autobiography [Banner of Truth], pp. 84-85).

B. He was willing to overcome the obstacles for the sake of God’s purpose.

The rest of the book of Nehemiah is an account of how he overcame one obstacle after another. There was overt and covert opposition from enemies. There were problems within the ranks that could have stopped the work. But Nehemiah persisted and the wall was completed in 52 days!

If you try to do anything in service for the Lord, you will face obstacles and opposition. Some of it will come from the world, but the most difficult opposition often comes from within the church. You have to realize up front that you will encounter problems and commit yourself to God and His purpose to endure.

Notice that by verse 11 the tension has been resolved. Nehemiah no longer questions how he should handle the dilemma of being brother to the exiles and cupbearer to the king. As we will see in chapter 2, he asks permission to go himself. The answer God gave him in this four months of prayer was, “Nehemiah, you go.” He could have continued to pray, “Lord, bless the exiles, bring them relief, raise up leadership, provide money, change the hearts of the enemy.” He could have prayed for all of that to happen while he stayed in Susa, and it might have been God’s choice for him to pray and stay. But it wasn’t. In this case, he knew by now that he must ask permission of the king to go himself. “Lord, send me.” That was the answer that had come about after he had spent this time wrestling and fasting and mourning.

I want to urge upon us that we can know what the Lord wants from us. When things seem confusing, when pressures pull us in more than one direction regarding where we should be and who we should be and how we should use our gifts and what ministry we should have and how and when the way to find out answers to these questions is the pattern of Nehemiah: to spend this focused, honest, lengthy, serious time with God. His choice was to say, “Lord, direct me. Make of me what you want. I’m willing to invest myself in pursuing you to find out.” If you’re experiencing the same longing to know what God would make of your life, are you willing to do what Nehemiah did? Are you willing to spend this kind of time with God with this level of passion, this level of love and expectancy?

He cared enough to volunteer (Neh. 1:11)

It has well been said that prayer is not getting man’s will done in heaven but getting God’s will done on earth. However, for God’s will to be done on earth, He needs people to be available for Him to use. God does “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us (Eph. 3:20, nkjv, italics mine). If God is going to answer prayer, He must start by working in the one doing the praying! He works in us and through us to help us see our prayers answered.

While Nehemiah was praying, his burden for Jerusalem became greater and his vision of what needed to be done became clearer. Real prayer keeps your heart and your head in balance so your burden doesn’t make you impatient to run ahead of the Lord and ruin everything. As we pray, God tells us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it; and all are important to the accomplishing of the will of God. Some Christian workers are like Lord Ronald in one of Stephen Leacock’s short stories who “flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”

Nehemiah planned to volunteer to go to Jerusalem to supervise the rebuilding of the walls. He didn’t pray for God to send somebody else, nor did he argue that he was ill-equipped for such a difficult task. He simply said, “Here am I—send me!” He knew that he would have to approach the king and request a leave of absence. Eastern kings’ word meant life or death. What would happen to Nehemiah’s plans if he approached Artaxerxes on the wrong day, when the king was ill or displeased with something or someone in the palace? No matter how you look at it, Nehemiah was facing a test of faith; but he knew that his God was a great God and would see him through.

The king’s cupbearer would have to sacrifice the comfort and security of the palace for the rigors and dangers of life in a ruined city. Luxury would be replaced by ruins, and prestige by ridicule and slander. Instead of sharing the king’s bounties, Nehemiah would personally pay for the upkeep of scores of people who would eat at his table. He would leave behind the ease of the palace and take up the toils of encouraging a beaten people and finishing an almost impossible task.

And with the help of God, he did it! In fifty-two days, the walls were rebuilt, the gates were restored, and the people were rejoicing! And it all started with a man who cared.

Abraham cared and rescued Lot from Sodom (Gen. 18–19). Moses cared and delivered the Israelites from Egypt. David cared and brought the nation and the kingdom back to the Lord. Esther cared and risked her life to save her nation from genocide. Paul cared and took the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire. Jesus cared and died on the cross for a lost world.

God is still looking for people who care, people like Nehemiah, who cared enough to ask for the facts, weep over the needs, pray for God’s help, and then volunteer to get the job done.

“Here am I, Lord—send me!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Sheldon Harnick, lyrics of Fiddler on the Roof, book by Joseph Stein, © 1964, 1965, 1971. Times Square Music Publication Co., distributed by Hal Leonard Publishing Corp., Milwaukee, WI.