Good morning to you. It is very good to be with you again. Those who were not here when I spoke last at the beginning of September. We were taking a journey through the Book of Nehemiah.
I believe that God has much in this particular book that he wishes to share with us. Just as a recap from the last time, the Book of Nehemiah is about restoration. It's about a restoration project that God, through His servant Nehemiah and through His people, wishes to undertake. On the surface, it appears to mainly be a restoration project to the physical city of Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the wall of the city.
But as we go further into the book, we see that it's more about the restoration of God's people, about taking them and bringing them back to the place where God intended them to be, and where they had drifted from. I mentioned last time that there are a number of key themes that we will see in the book. The first is that every restoring work of God begins with a broken heart. That every time God does a work, no matter how large it may become, it always begins with God grabbing the heart of an individual that submits to him, surrenders to his leading, bears the burden God gives him, and allows God to be glorious through him.
We also saw that prayer is always the first step in all the action that God does through His people. It begins with prayer. And we shall see that it is always God, ultimately, who does the work. No matter what agent, what gifting, what equipping they have, ultimately it is God through His power that makes the work possible.
We looked at chapter one. We looked at the history of how the children of Israel had turned from God, repeatedly turned from God, and God had called them back. But God had also told them what would happen to them if they should turn from him. We heard of the prophecy that God gave, saying that a time would come when the Babylonians would come, and they would attack the city of Jerusalem, the place where God had attached His name.
And the walls would be torn down. And it came to pass under the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar that the city of Jerusalem was sacked, that much of its population was taken away in taxile, and that the walls were utterly destroyed, so that the city would not pose a threat, a rebellion, against the powers of Babylon ever again. And how eventually, under King Cyrus, the Jews were permitted to begin to return back to the land, back to Jerusalem, as God had promised. But the walls were still not rebuilt.
142 years had passed. At one time, they attempted to rebuild the walls, and they were ordered to stop by the king. And so the walls were in ruin. And then we meet Nehemiah.
Nehemiah, part of the people of God who has lived his life in exile, who hears one day of the condition of the walls of Jerusalem, and in that moment, God grabs his heart, and gives him a burden that he can't shake off, and he cries out to God, that God is going to do something with him. So we are in Nehemiah, chapter two, starting at verse one. But let's take a moment to pray. Our Lord and our God, awesome and glorious, majestic in all your ways.
There is none like you in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or under the earth. You have no equal. You alone have all the power and the honor and the glory. They are yours by right.
Lord, as we look into your word today, we know that we cannot truly comprehend it unless your Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts and minds. We ask that you would be doing that work today. Open our eyes to see things, maybe that we have seen many times, but see something fresh in me. Lord, give our minds the ability to comprehend.
But most of all, Lord, we pray that you would be at work in our hearts, that you would be changing us, conforming us into the image of your own dear son. Lord, we ask that the glory would be yours in what you do today, in Jesus Christ. So I'd mention to you, as we came to the end of chapter 1, that Nehemiah had a specific role in the empire of the Medes and the Persians. He was the cup bearer to the king at the time.
And unlike what sometimes we may think, the cup bearer was, he wasn't simply the butler of the king. The cup bearer, traditionally, was a senior civil servant who over years of service had proved his faithfulness to the king to the point that the king would trust his life into the hands of this man. Because the king lives in the real world of his time, where there was competition for kingship. There were people who would be just as happy if the present king was no longer king and were willing to exercise dire measures to bring that about.
So it would be Nehemiah's responsibility to ensure that the wine of the king was safe for him. And when he would bring it to the king, the king had such trust in Nehemiah that he would take it. And in these frequent encounters, because he would daily be in the presence of the king, oftentimes they would share. They would chat about things.
It was not uncommon for the cup bearer to also be an advisor to the king on private matters. And this is where Nehemiah has risen to. He's the cup bearer of the king of Persian. Chapter 2, verse 1.
In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I just want you to note something here. If you read the first chapter, in the first chapter, we're told the time of which Nehemiah hears what's happening in Jerusalem. That moment, when God grabbed hold of his heart and gave him a burden for the city and for God's people.
But if you actually look at the dates, you discover that the event that we're going to look at this morning is four months later. Now oftentimes, if you're like me, when something is heavy on my heart and I bring it to the Lord, what I would like to see is a rather immediate response. God, I have this huge problem. Huge problem.
I give it to you. OK. And if 24 hours goes by and nothing has happened, some of us get a bit stressed. If a week goes by, depending on the magnitude of the problem, some of us can get a little antsy.
If months are going by, some of us may begin to really wrestle with this. And you know what I've discovered when we look through the Word of God and hear the testimony of the saints? This is a rather common phenomenon. Because you see, the wonderful thing about our Lord is that his timing is perfect.
He knows all things. He is in control of all things. His plans, as his word tells us, are never thwarted. But he chooses in his wisdom not to tell us often the timeline that he's working on.
That God is putting things in place at work in many different ways. And in one part of it is our situation. But all we see is our situation. And it's a now thing.
Brother and the Lord often shares with his congregation the old saying, God is good all the time. All the time, God is good. But they add something to it that some brothers and sisters in Uganda add to the statement and say, God is good all the time, right on time, just in time. Why?
Because that's his nature. God is good all the time, just in time, right on time. So whenever God moves, it is the perfect time for God to work. Even if for us, it seemed like it should have been last week, last month, last year, God's timing.
It's perfect. And that becomes another test of our faith and understanding of God. And it's one that I wrestle with. And maybe you've arrived beyond this.
But for me, it's that constant reminder. Do I believe that the God of the universe is the God of the universe? Because if he is, then whatever time frame he works on is right. And if God chooses not to answer my prayer today, then that's the right thing to do.
If God chooses not to answer my prayer tomorrow, that's the right thing to do. If I believe God is who he says he is in his word, and who he's demonstrated who he is in creation, and who he's shown who he is in the lives of the saints. So here we have Nehemiah, who for four months has been fasting and praying and weeping over the burden God's given him for the city of Jerusalem. But when God works, when it's time, stuff happens, when it's time.
So today it's time. Nehemiah walks in to the presence of the king. I took the wine and gave it to the king, the second part of verse one. I had not been sad in his presence before.
So the king asked me, why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. Now, this is a significant moment for Nehemiah. Nehemiah has walked into the presence of the king of Persia to bring him his wine.
And he said, now, most of us, yeah, so stuff happens. I go to work, and one day I went to work, and it was a rainy day. I got up in the morning and it was raining, and it was paused. It was raining, it would pause.
And so I was praying, Lord, it would be really great if you could pause the rain for the time it takes me to get from my house to the bus. And whether it's just my mind or however God chose to work it, I remember getting ready. It's like almost time to go, and it was hardly raining at all. And no word of a lie.
The verse that came to my mind is, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And there was a rumble. It rained. And it rained.
And it rained. Yeah, by the time I got to work, I'd look like I'd swim there. And I walked in, and I can honestly say, I was not the happiest person in the world. I was sitting at my desk, realizing I was creating a puddle on the floor.
So that happens to us. We're used to it. But if we step into his context, in the time of absolute kings, in a world time frame, there was a belief that kings, if they were not divine themselves, they had such a connection to the gods that they were tied to, that to be in the presence of the king was to be in the presence of glory and majesty, goodness, joy, hope. So you were always happy in the presence of the king.
Of course you are, because he's the king. There was another concern as well, that if you were a person responsible for the care of the king, and you came into the king's presence and you weren't happy, someone might wonder, it's on your mind. Been up to something, feeling guilty, little stressed. There's also another thing that may be affecting this situation.
And that's, of course, God's perfect timing. Because for four months, Nehemiah's had this heavy burden weighing on him, and apparently he's hidden it from the king. But today, God allows it to be visible. Today, when he walks in, whatever Nehemiah has done to follow proper protocol, it falls away.
And Nehemiah's heart is displayed to the king. And the king sees it. This man, with all his busyness, with all that's going on, notices something about Nehemiah. Why?
Because it's time. God is going to do something. So the king asked me, why does your face look so sad? When you're not ill, this can be nothing but sadness of heart.
And I personally love the next verse. I was very much afraid. One of the things that I always appreciate about God's word, and I love showing it to teenagers as they're just getting into it, is that realization that the Bible is filled with real people. Sometimes we so reduce them down in our Sunday schoolish stories that they become these one-dimensional super-being characters.
But they're not. This is a true story that happened in real time, with a real person, with a real job, with real ups and real downs, and real fears who was walking with the real God. And in that moment, as suddenly the king of the most powerful empire at the time turns to him and says, so, what's up? Nehemiah is scared.
Because in this moment, what he's going to say, what the Lord has been putting in his mind, what he's going to say, could have huge ramifications. And he's scared. I feel that. I've never been in his position.
But I can tell you that when I came up here this morning, I was afraid. And have been every Sunday I've stood up to open the Lord's word. Another reason that Nehemiah may be afraid is that he is about to ask the king to do something which is huge in Persian culture. Because you see a preceding king, as is recorded in Ezra chapter 4, gave an order, a decree that the walls of the city were not to be rebuilt around Jerusalem.
And now Nehemiah is asking a later king to make a new decree canceling out the decree of the Medes and the Persians which cannot be changed. That's a big thing to say. King, would you change a previous king's decree? He was afraid.
But I said to the king, see, we can be afraid. But are we still willing to be obedient? We can be afraid. But do we still step out in the faith that he has given us?
Nehemiah does in this moment. May the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies and ruins? And its gates have been destroyed by fire.
He makes a statement. And things are happening. And the king said to me, what is it you want? Now it's getting intense.
It's one thing for the king to say, why are you looking so sad? And for Nehemiah to say, I'm sad because of Jerusalem, because of the condition of the city of my forefathers. And it could have ended right there. It could have been the king's like, oh, that's too bad.
There's a lot of that going around. But he doesn't, of course, because this is God's time. Any other day in the previous four months, it was not God's time. But at this moment, the Lord of the universe has dictated that this is the time that he's going to do, what he's going to do.
And the king responds, what is it you want? Then I prayed to the God of heaven. And as we always need to recognize at this point, this prayer is different than the praying that Nehemiah has been doing in chapter 1. In chapter 1, it talks about him crying out and petitioning to the Lord.
These are hours of agonizing prayer before the Lord of heaven. Now in the presence of the king, the king says, what do you want? Nehemiah needs to be sure that his thoughts that are running through his mind are in line with what the Lord of the universe desires to do. But he can't say to the king of Persia, hold on a moment.
I need to pray. And go off and have a good prayer time and come back. You don't do that to the king. So his prayer in all likelihood is probably akin to this.
Some of you may have prayed it before. It's very simple. It generally goes in one word in English. Help.
We say it in our minds. But it is preceded by an attitude of prayer for four months. See, sometimes we live our lives in total independence of God. In total independence of our Lord and the leading of his spirit.
We don't pray. We don't seek his wisdom. We don't seek him in the word. But then in that moment where something has to be done, then suddenly turn to God.
And I was like, what? No clarity? What's up? My Lord says, where were you yesterday?
On the day before? On the day before? We haven't talked. We haven't talked.
You ever had situations where you suddenly need help and there's someone you need help from. And you haven't communicated with them. Have you had any contact with them? You've totally avoided them.
And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, I need that person to help them. And you call them up. Hi. Yeah.
How are you? Oh, really? Stuff's happening. Oh, that's nice.
I have a question for you. And we wonder why the person seems a little distant. Well, Nehemiah's cry to God in the moment is built upon walking with God for four months, for much time before that. So he already knows the mind of God.
He's already been seeking God's face. So he just needs that moment. Lord, help me in what I'm about to say. And then he speaks.
And I answer the king. If it pleases the king. And if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it. There's the request.
The walls are down. What do they need to do? They need to be rebuilt. So he says, your majesty, send me so I can be built.
I want you to know this as well. This very important moment. Something needs to be done. God has given him the burden.
God creates the opportunity. It's the time for action to begin to happen. And Nehemiah says, send me. He doesn't say, this needs to happen, king.
Could you send someone? He says, Nehemiah says, king, if it pleases you, send me. Brothers and sisters, one of the struggles I think we have often in the body of Christ is we see needs. And sometimes we have burdens for them.
But then when the time comes for action, we say, someone needs to do that. Someone should be sent. Or maybe someone will come up to you and say, you know, I see a new gifts and characteristics and things. I think that you could meet that need.
No, I don't think so. But somebody should go. In this moment of obedience, not knowing what it's going to look like, not knowing what's going to mean for him, Nehemiah says, send me. Then the king with the queen sitting beside him asked me, how long will your journey take?
And when will you get back? Which is the king's way of saying, yes, he's going to go. It pleased the king to send me. So I set a time.
And now because Nehemiah knows that the Lord is in this, now it's time to start asking for more. I also said to him, if it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of trans-Uphrades so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah? And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so that he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence. I will occupy.
So he's asking for everything now. Now, I'm going to need materials. King, could you give me those? I'm going to need safe conduct.
Would you look after that for me? Everything that's in your power as the king of Persia, humanly speaking, to bestow upon me, I'd like to have that please. And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my request. Notice that.
Not because Nehemiah made a good pitch. Not because Nehemiah was the right man for the job. Not because the king was in the right mood. But because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.
Nehemiah knows who's at work here. Nehemiah understands what is happening. This is a work of God. And if it's a work of God, God is going to enable it to take place.
And so the king provides. So I went to the governors of trans-Uphrades and gave them the king's letters. And the king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me. What a difference.
Four months ago, Nehemiah doing his work in Sousa, in the Persian empire, someone walks in and shares something with him. God grabs hold of his heart and gives him a burden that he agonizes over and petitions to the Lord for four months. And now he's heading to Judah. He's never been there.
He's heading there now. With a company of cavalry, with a king of Persia's letters in his hands to go and do what God had laid on his heart to do, I think he's pretty stoked right now. I think he's probably pretty sad. I have the feeling that he has one of those smiles that just kind of wraps behind the ears.
Because he's seeing the power of God at work. Then we come to verse 10. When Sanbalaat the Horonite and Tabaya the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites. It seems almost out of place in this passage as it's so positive.
Everything is clicking. Everything is happening. In a moment, Nehemiah's walked into the presence of the king. The veil is gone.
His heart's been revealed to the king. The king asks him what's going on. He shares his burden. The king says what do you want.
He shares what the need is. The king responds, gives him all he needs. Everything is going great until we have. But there are these fellows back in Judah.
When they heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites. This is another theme that we'll see as we continue through this book. And it's one that bears remembering that wherever the Lord is doing a restoring work, there will always be opposition. If the Lord is working, there will be opposition.
If we are sitting in a place where everything is smooth and everything is calm and everything is quiet, possibly the Lord has given you a brief period of respite. But examine it carefully to make sure that it's not that you're sitting in activity. Because if the Lord is working, there will be opposition. Because we have adversaries.
As I referred to last time, we have a world system that is at odds with us. Because it is at odds with our Lord. We have an adversary, which is the evil one, who is at odds with us because he is at odds with our Lord. And we have an adversary that we bring with us of our old nature, which is at odds with our new nature, because it's at odds with the Lord.
So if you find yourselves in a place where everything is simply calm, and it's like whatever we do, it goes fine. It doesn't phase anybody. It doesn't make any difference. Go to the Lord about it.
And say, Lord, is this just a period of rest that you're giving me, or am I out of the game? Because I don't feel any opposition. When I go around, no one looks at me and is concerned that I'm there, our works don't bring any opposition. Because you see, these individuals in Judah want the power in this region.
And when Nehemiah comes riding through the countryside with an army of cavalry behind him with letters from the king in his hand going to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall, to give it a place of prominence, to give it the position it deserves as the city to whom God has attached his name, these men want nothing to do with it. Because it compromises their power. And they're going to stand against it. They know what it means if Jerusalem's wall is rebuilt.
They know what it means if the people of God are being restored, they know what it means, and they're going to fight against it. They will always be opposition. At this point, we'll stop for the time being. But remember, as you reflect on the opposition, as I share this with folks, recognize that there is opposition, but keep it in perspective.
Because your opposition that you face if you are walking in the Lord's ways in the power of his spirit through a relationship with Jesus Christ, the opposition doesn't compare to the Lord. No opposition against our Lord will stand. So even though these men have set their minds to oppose what Nehemiah is about to do, he's going to get done. Is it going to be easy?
No. It's going to get done. Because God has set the plan. And his power is greater than opposition.
Many of you have heard the story possibly when a number of missionaries working with nationals in China in the early 1980s, with a cry that was coming out of mainline China was the need for more scriptures, being available for believers. And so a plan was put together to print 1 million scriptures and smuggle them into mainline China. Men had this burden and they had prayed about it and gone to the Lord about it and a plan was formed together. They were printing these Bibles.
They were going to seal them in plastic, large pallets. They were going to put them on an ocean going tug. It was semi-submersible. They were going to go to an appointed bay along the coast of China and an appointed night when the tide was high and flowing in.
And they'd semi-submersed this tug and released these large pallets that would float and be drawn into the bay where Chinese believers would pull them on to shore, quickly cut them open and begin to disperse them through China. The time came. One of the times of preparation just before the event, a number of believers from other countries met with some Chinese house leaders, church leaders. They said, we just want to remind you what could happen to you.
You've dealt with supplies of Bibles, but we're bringing in a million Bibles into China. Do you know what could happen to you if you're caught being involved with us in this? And all the Chinese house leaders sitting in the room looked at each other and smiled and one of them said, sir, every one of us here have been beaten and tortured, have spent years in prison, have been ostracized by our families, have been attacked by our communities, have been hated by our government. They can't do anything to us.
For the opportunity to bring the word of God and put it into the hands of believers. What the government can do? You can't compare. So the ship arrives.
The pallets start to float in. Chinese believers are swimming out and rolling out in small boats, hooking them in. They get them on shore. They start to cut them open.
They're beginning to disperse them. And all of a sudden the cry goes out. The governments found out. The soldiers are coming.
They quickly disperse. The soldiers arrive. Some of the packages haven't been dispersed yet. They are seized.
Some of the packages leaked and they got wet, which is an amusing thing. It was all over that region, that province. For the next number of weeks you drive through and a number of the little houses had a different color roof, which someone not from the area didn't really notice. What they had done is any of the scriptures that had got water logged, they took them and laid them on the roofs.
There were all these roofs of houses covered in bibles, drying in the sun, which would then be displayed. But a number of the leaders were caught. The bibles were confiscated. People were tortured.
They were put in prison. But during this, word leaked out to the press around the world. The government was trying to track them down. It happened at the exact moment when the government of China was seeking to negotiate some very influential and significant financial agreements with a number of world powers.
The press got a hold of it. The Chinese government in response announced that they not only wanted to, they not only were in favor of the Chinese people being able to read bibles if they chose, but to show their goodwill they had just allocated a million dollars to print a million bibles to distribute to China. So by the end, the house churches managed to get their hands on, not one million bibles, but just under two million bibles to deliver to China. And the brothers and sisters said, because it was God's plan and it was God's burden, that the opposition of our government not only couldn't stop what God was doing, but in the end, God used them to promote what God is doing.
Remember that as you look through this passage of how God is ordering the events of what will take place as we look at them in the weeks to come. If you know Christ, then God desires you to be involved in a restoring work. He always starts at home and brings it out. If God has given you a burden, as I said last time we were together, if there's something on your heart that won't go away, whether it's in family, in community, yet your work in here, within the fellowship that God is giving you a burden for them to watch, because when it's time comes, it's going to come and things will happen.
And it will involve you because God doesn't give you somebody else's burden, he gives you your burden. So don't have a burden and think, I wonder who God's going to use to meet this. You, because that's what God does. And then to prepare it for the opposition, which will immediately arise, but know that God is greater than the opposition.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for Nehemiah, that he is the same as any of us. But he knew you. He cried out to you and you heard him.
You gave him a burden, and then you showed him what you were going to do. And so as we end this passage this morning, we see this man riding to Jerusalem, with the human power to do what you burdened him to do, that most of all, with renewed and strengthened confidence, that your hand is upon work and upon him. Lord, that we would know that too, we who know Christ, knowing that there is much work that you desire to have done, for the gospel we proclaim in power, for disciples to be made, for your name to be glorified. But Lord, often we are very much afraid.
To Lord, I pray that you would show us that you are greater than our fears and our expectations, that you are mightier than our oppositions, that you are able to do what you lay on our hearts because you are the Lord, and there is none like you. Lord, we thank you for your Son and Jesus Christ, who if we know Him, we have your Spirit in us, we have our purpose set. I want to be praying. Be glorious in each of us.
In Jesus Christ. Amen. For a closing hymn, we will sing in 150 and we will be able to come and lead.