0:09 Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to your presence again. Uh thank you for your goodness and kindness and mercy towards us. Even today, Lord, we look up to you. Lord, thank you for all the blessings you have poured out into our lives, 0:28 especially the spiritual blessings through our Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God you have given to us as a weapon, as a sword of the spirit. And today, as we hear your word, Lord, speak to each one of us. We are coming with 0:42 various needs as a church. Lord, you know what is the word that we need to hear today. Please give us that word and use me today. Hide me behind your cross and cover me with your grace and let every word I speak Lord be filtered by 0:57 you. Let it come from you. Please help me. I commit myself into your hands. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. So please keep praying for me as I share this message that the Lord has laid in my heart. Um for the I think not the 1:13 first time but very rarely I prepared slides but I started but I have only few slides. uh not to cover the entire message but there are few things that I wanted to show through slides just to help understand the message. Um so when 1:28 it comes to studying the Bible so the there are several ways people study uh new testament to old testament and uh do book studies to uh one of the ways is character studies also we can take a character like Paul or someone and study 1:44 them study how throughout their life what god has done and what what god accomplished through their lives and uh if you are like me sometimes when I open the bible I gravitate towards reading the New Testament and uh I don't know 1:59 somehow but so but we half more than half of the Bible is old testament and sometimes we miss out if we if we neglect reading the old testament because a lot of things um yeah it is written for Jews for many of the things 2:13 are not applicable exactly like the way it is for us like the new testament but there are a lot of principles that we can still learn but because they're all symbols every book speaks about our lord Jesus Christ if carefully observe and 2:27 it's every word in the uh Bible is uh given by the inspiration of God. So it is very valuable for us and today um what I want to share is from um from this man Nehemiah. Uh we uh we find that in the Old Testament 2:44 uh there's a lot of things as I meditate in his life we could learn together and u so please open your Bible to the book of Nehemiah. Uh so we're going to spend 95% of the time in the book of Nehemiah. So we'll go slowly and uh um and see all that we 3:04 could learn from this book. What the Lord is uh going to speak to us from this book. Um yeah. So this is so Nehemiah whenever we think about Nehemiah this picture would come uh his calling uh to rebuild the walls of 3:23 Jerusalem. But before we go there, uh I want us I want all of us to understand uh there were three great moments right. uh one during the captivity when Jews were taken captive um they were in captive for 70 years and then uh there 3:42 was a call and um Jerubabel and so he got permission from the king and he went uh so that was the first moment Zerubbabel uh and his calling was to build the temple and Hagi and Zechariah were also around the same timeline so 3:59 first moment and was um Zerubbabel to build the temple. And then after a gap of about 37 years, we see in u uh there is a second moment 4:15 where Ezra Ezra came and his calling was different. His calling is to restore the law. If you see the book of um Ezra, we see that about the importance given to the scripture, reading the Bible and uh 4:33 bringing people back to the scripture and to restore the law. And um then after 13 years the third moment where Neahhemiah led this movement because he realized uh 4:50 the temple is built, the law is restored but the walls are in a uh walls are damaged, the gates are burnt and now his calling, his burden is to rebuild the walls. That's when Nehemiah comes into picture. And um so this is the context. 5:09 If you don't understand this context, we will think why why is Nehemiah worried about walls and all that. So Jerus the Jews were led captive and from the captive three movements from Babylon to Jerusalem. And if you have time I highly 5:24 recommend going through this series called Babylon to Jerusalem by brother Zach. It's one of the wonderful uh study uh verse by verse studies are there. Uh it's a great great series to go through and I was personally very blessed. Um so 5:38 from Babylon to Jerusalem. So today we're going to see uh a little bit deeper like a deep dive into the book of Nehemiah. Um see as we see uh the temple is built. Yeah we we should not be content with okay temple is built let us relax and 5:54 then the law is restored. No uh that is not enough. when Nehemiah comes to know the state of the affairs in Jerusalem that's when uh this whole book starts right and Nehemiah was not a full-time worker uh he was uh he was working like 6:10 a cup bearer to the king articus um we see that in the first chapter so let's uh uh open the first chapter in book of Neahhemiah uh it all starts uh he gives a lot of details about the place and the time and all of that one 6:26 of his brothers Hanani verse two chapter 1 verse two and some men from Judah came and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and survived the captivity right so this is uh this was Jeremiah's burden he was inquiring he was concerned 6:44 about the state of the affairs in Jerusalem how are things and when his brothers came uh he was asking this question we when we are burdened about something we ask we we want to know what's going on and they he got a lot of 6:59 bad news. They said to me, verse three, the remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach and the walls wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire. Interestingly, Nehemiah was not born in 7:17 Jerusalem. He was born in the captivity to the parents who were in captive in Babylon. But he was he had this burden. He had this concern about the state of Jerusalem. And when he heard this the remnant there in the province who 7:28 survived on great distress and reproach the wall is broken down. The wall represents the strength. The wall represents like the protection. If you see u any city uh it it needs to have a the uh the wall to protect the city and 7:43 if you don't have a wall you are vulnerable. We hear great great wall of China. So I mean there are people build fences, people build uh structure around their houses or to protect right from enemies to uh come in. So when the walls 7:58 are broken, you're open to attacks. You're very very vulnerable and the gates are burned with fire. And this is what he the report he got. And so first he started with the concern, the burden. He asked how are things and he got this. 8:12 Then what did he do in verse four? Verse four, he says, "When I heard these words, I sat down." Let's go slowly. And wept and mourned for days. And I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I 8:32 sat down and wept and mourned for days. This burden did not go away in couple of hours. Okay, I heard some bad news. Let me pray and I forget and move on. I was thinking what would a modern-day Christian would do if he gets some 8:47 report like this. Okay, let's create a WhatsApp group called Pray for Jerusalem. Post some pictures like those pictures and most of the people who read that we'll put this you know and then tuck t about 20 30 and we may pray for a 9:05 day and then we'll move on with other thing. We'll get another message and we we move on with our lives. But this man was not like that. I learned so much. What a great man. He's he's stopped everything. He's weeping and mourning 9:20 for days before the face of God. Sometimes we will rush to people when we get into trouble and uh some situations that are too much. We rush to people. First thing, hey, please pray for me or reach out. It's it's not at all bad thing to 9:35 reach out to people for prayer. Please don't get me wrong. But what is our first response? Are we going to the God of heaven? God who is supreme over every everyone and who is the God of maker of heaven and earth. Are we going to 9:50 people? Some trust in chariots, some trust in houses. But our trust should be in the Lord alone. And verse five, we come to verse five. This is a great prayer. One of the good thing um about Bible is it also teaches us how to pray. 10:05 Uh I learned a lot from Bible especially the book of Psalms. I struggle how to pray. Sometimes we run out of words especially when English is not my mother tongue and but when I go to this book some books like that psalms or many 10:21 prayers uh there are some passages full of prayers and this is one passage we could learn how to pray in times of crisis. Um Neahhemiah says in this prayer, I beseech you, oh Lord of God of heaven, the great and awesome God who 10:37 preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments. Uh he starts with uh praising God, not even telling about his problem. He's uh praising God of heaven and he's declaring his mighty 10:52 attributes. Now he's verse six he says let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant which I am praying before you now day and night this burden for him not only days not only when he's awake during his 11:08 night night time also he's praying he's asking God listen to my prayers may your eyes open to the prayers of your servant um and then this is interesting and then the servants um on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the 11:26 sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you, and I, my father's house have sinned. This is also the same sentiment we see in Daniel. He identifies himself. He's not like praying for the sinners, praying for 11:40 these people who are backsliding. He's identifying himself with the sinners and he's confessing the sins and uh he's asking if you look at this prayer it's nicely sandwiched between a lot of things like once he says first he says 11:56 god you are great and merciful hear my prayers and he confesses the sins and then he also says remember verse 8 remember the word which you have commanded your servant Moses if you are unfaithful I will scatter you but if you 12:11 return to me and keep my commandments um and I will gather them again. So he's going back to the times of Moses. What promise he has made to Moses and reminding God about his promises. Yes, if we are unfaithful, you'll scatter, 12:27 but when we return to you, you will gather us again and bring them to the place where have chosen to cause my name to dwell. Um yeah we can go uh deeper but I uh because of the uh lack of time I want to just u put some focus light on 12:44 few verses and again he says verse 11 let your ears be attentive to the prayers of your servant and he's all it's repeating the same thing and this is the um this is the prayer at the end he says your servant uh make your servant 13:00 successful today and grant him compassion before this man and grant him compassion passion before this man. Um many times when we face problems also right as I said yeah you have a problem you go to your boss at work but 13:15 Neahhemiah had a boss who is the king who is the most powerful king in the world he did not go to the king with a problem also he went to the supreme king because he knows who is the super boss boss of all the bosses in the world king 13:29 of all the kings he went and poured out his heart before him right so that's where it starts when we are in uh situations like this which are too difficult. This is a great examples great example for us to follow like Neahhemiah he went to God and he poured 13:48 out his heart. He was and the burden it's a persistent prayer day and night uh he was praying and he could not move on until this burden was lifted up and as you see we see now his prayer is answered. If you go to chapter 2 now 14:04 slowly and again he gives some timeline and he took the the wine verse one he gave it to the king and he was never sad in the presence of king it is almost uh you are not supposed to be sad before the king right when you are serving as a 14:21 cup bearer you need to be smiling you never see someone in the flight attendants being sad and gloomy they're always cheerful serving you and um so something like that uh that example I thought of So in the king's presence no 14:33 one is sad but as soon as the king saw this man Nehemiah why are you sad your face why is your face sad verse two though you're not sick you don't appear sick but there is sad this is the sadness of heart you cannot hide you 14:48 know Nehemiah is a man he's not able to hide his emotions he's he's basically he's burdened he's thinking about these walls of Jerusalem and everything is broken down he's constantly praying and his sadness and he's not sad that you 15:01 know his situation is bad, he's sick, his family is sick or his job situation is bad or if his visa situation is bad. He's worried about the spiritual things which is the state of Jerusalem's walls. He's uh he's mourning for that. He's sad 15:17 with that. This challenge me how many times I spend most of my time in worrying about things or concern about the things that pertain to me rather than pertaining to God. This is a great example and this sadness he could not 15:28 hide. It came out and when king asked he said I said to the king let the king leave forever why should my face not be sad when the city the place of my father's tombs lies dissolate and its gates have been consumed by fire how can 15:44 I not be sad I am sad and it's interesting right see is uh king starts his conversation say he did not initiate it so when we pray we pray to god and god moves the people right we don't have to move people. We can move God through 16:01 our prayers. When we uh when we find someone who is united with you, uh who can be united with you. If you are married, uh you can find that unity with a with your spouse or you are single. Find someone united. When we pray, God 16:15 moves. And when we are especially concerned about God's name to be honored and glorified in the Lord's prayer doesn't start with our physical needs. Doesn't even start about our forgiveness of our sins. It starts with hallowed be 16:28 thy name. If our concern is about the name of God be honored and glorified and you you can be united with someone, God will do wonders. God will move things and then king initiated. So verse four he says what would you request? So he 16:43 says a blanket check. What do you want me to do? This is the interesting part. Notice that in verse four, so I prayed to the God of heaven. And then verse five he replies how much time do you think between king asking that question 16:58 and responding how much time do you think would be there five minutes maybe couple of seconds. So this is the what we call the arrow prayers right? If you are constantly praying to God and when these times of need in immediately 17:17 he said I prayed I pray to God of heaven Lord help me Lord help me I don't know what to say help me so do you pray like that I was very encouraged like this the arrow prayers when our public when our private prayers when we live before the 17:31 face of God we we can be uh when in the public in the time of need when we it doesn't have to be a long prayer we can be a it could be a short prayer And that prayer accomplishes that. So that's what he did here. A uh a short 17:47 intense prayer, a split second, a silent, a direct a fervent prayer to God of heaven. Father, help me. King is asking what should I do? What what do you want me to do? Then he said to the king, "If it pleases the king, if your 18:03 servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it." And queen is also sitting. Next verse he says, then king asked, "How long will your journey be? When will you return?" 18:17 So it pleased the king to send me and I have given him a definite time. He's already made up his mind how many days it would take. So he thought through that he gave his he was ready when king was saying he's giving the blanket 18:29 check. Yes, I want to I will be away for 3 months, 4 months, whatever time. So if it uh actually they rebuilt the wall in 52 days. Uh uh we see that later. And um also now he got away he got the time off from work. Not only he's not satisfied 18:45 with that. Now he goes to the next verse. If he sees if you see there verse seven, if it pleases the king, let let us be given for the governors of the province beyond the river. He wants a letters for the safe passage from where 18:59 he is in Persia to Jerusalem. And also not only that, he goes to the next level. Not only letter to Asaf, the keeper of the king's forest because he's going through the forest so that he will get the timber. He knows what it takes 19:13 to rebuild the wall. So I want the timber also. So he got all these requests and um he's able to uh go God moved this pagan king to do all these things. So what I learned from this is when God is calling us for some 19:30 ministry, for some some of his work, he will make sure that we have all the resources. And he got the time off, he got the safe passage letters, which means like a visa, right? And also uh uh resources like timber to rebuild the 19:47 walls. And also he got in verse 9 last part of verse 9 says now the king had sent me with the officers of the army and the horsemen. So he also got some escort right um this verse I don't know whether you are familiar with this verse uh 20:05 briefly you don't have to turn uh if you want to proverbs 16:7 has a very interesting promise uh this one of my son in when he was 8 years old I think he wrote a small note that's why this verse got imprinted in my heart it says 20:20 when man's ways are pleasing to the lord he will even make his enemies to be at peace with him when your ways are pleasing pleasing to the Lord. He will make your enemies even your enemies to be at peace with you. So we can apply 20:35 that verse in our lives. Lord, I don't want to worry about how to deal with my enemies. May uh my ways be pleasing to you. And it is up to God who will make even my enemies to be at peace. Uh whoever enemies you are dealing with in 20:50 your life, uh don't try to deal with them. Deal with living a life pleasing to God and God will take care of that. Here a pagan king gave this man his most trusted cup bearer a long leave uh safe passage letters and timber and a lot of 21:06 uh army officers officers and horsemen. This is what my God can do to in my life and in your life too. I hope it encourages you as we study these uh words. And um then he comes to Jerusalem. All right. Um 21:26 we see that under the cover of the night in the beginning of uh verses 12 and 13 he says I so I went out by the at night by the valley gate in the direction of dragon's well under the rescue gate inspecting the walls as soon as he 21:42 landed in Jerusalem I think within few days he started the work first without drawing much attention to himself he did it over the night time he inspected the broken down walls and its gates which were consumed by fire. Verse 13, then he 22:00 passed the fountain gate and because the rubble was so much his convoy could not even pass. And uh before I even I go there, I want us to focus on verse 10. Uh this is this is important. Even before the work started, 22:19 look at the opposition. San Balot and the Horonite and Tobaya the Abonite the officials heard about it and it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel. Even when you start a good work, 22:33 you think it's a good work, it's the Lord's work. Don't ever expect that there will be zero opposition. There will be opposition. The enemy Satan will instigate people. He will use people to cause hindrances. So we see the in the 22:46 story again the rest of the chapters as we go through we see this people Sandelert and Tobaya and there's one more person who come and constantly cause trouble to Nehemiah and they is already the news reached them and it's 23:00 already displeasing why is it displeasing when you are rebuilding the walls I don't know we see that later and then we come to verses back to the verses where I was reading before um after the insp ection. He calls in 23:18 verse uh 16. He calls the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials. And he says to them in verse 17, this is the pivotal verse for this book. Verse 17, you see the bad situation we are in that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates 23:36 burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach. And this is the call he made. After 23:53 inspecting, he called the people, come let us do it. Let us rebuild the wall. And to encourage them in the next verse, he says how the hand of God was upon him. Verse 18, I told them that how the hand of my God had been favorable, favorable to me and 24:12 also about the king's words. Last Friday, we heard the testimonies here, right? When we hear the testimonies of what God has done in each one of our lives, our faith gets strengthened. And Nehemiah is doing the same thing. He 24:24 said, "Look how God moved my king. how God worked all the details and how even king gave me permission and their faith got strengthened. Look at their response in verse second half of verse 18. He says let us arise and build. So they put 24:42 their hands to the good work. So they responded to the call. So it all you think about if you go back it all started with one man having a burden was concerned and who prayed and how God set things in motion and so now he got that 24:58 response again you see that opposition in verse 19 same people sandal and Tobaya and now there is a third person gisham the Arab heard it they mocked and despised us what this thing what is this thing you are going to do are you 25:15 rebelling against the king. No, no way. It is a rebel. He all they are trying to do is rebuild the wall, but they are imagining, oh, are you rebelling against the king? And uh so they are trying to put the seeds of fear in them. But look 25:31 at verse 20. Uh the response from Nehemiah. Um this is how we must respond to the voices of unbelief, voices of doubt. Right? Verse 20 it says, "So I answered them and said to them, the God of heaven 25:49 will give us success. Therefore, we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or memorial in Jerusalem." So his response is the God of heaven. He's again putting the focus back. It is not we are doing. Do you 26:05 think that we are trying to do something? God of heaven will give us success. Therefore, we his servants will arise. It is God Jesus who is building the church but we are also co-laboring with him right but when this opposition 26:19 comes this is his response Nehemiah you don't have any portion right yeah Jesus remembers even uh people who give uh a cup of cold water and who does something to his children he also remembers if he also remembers what people do to hinder 26:38 the work of God so um this is this on um there there will be no uh mention of them. So it is um it is um quite a scary thing to oppose the work of God. And um I I'm I'm thankful for a man like 26:55 Nehemiah who is a man of prayer who u who responded like that where he said go the God of heaven will give success. I was thinking about similar responses. You see Josh and Joshua and Caleb, how they responded when they saw the giants 27:14 when the Israelites were paralyzed with fear. What did they say? God will give these giants to us. I mean their stronghold is removed. Um you don't worry. God will deliver them. So when we uh go through the situations, remember 27:30 these words of faith. This is this is how we respond. Um we put our focus focus back onto God. God of heaven will give us the success and that we see the verse that I mentioned is in num numbers 148. If the Lord is pleased with us, he 27:48 will bring us to into this land and give it to us a land which flows with milk and honey. This was a response of Joshua and Caleb. And God was so pleased with those words. He says they had a different spirit. The spirit of Caleb 28:02 and Joshua are different. They are looking at these giants, but they're not discouraged. Nehemiah they're looking he's looking at this opposition from San Bullet and Tobaya he says God will give me success and um when I was thinking 28:14 what should we learn from this we face our brothers and sisters who go through a lot of trials what we do we speak words of encouragement right turn the situation back to God don't worry my brothers and sisters God will give us 28:28 God will deliver us God will help us to overcome this sin God will deliver us from this situation and speak those words of faith My dear brothers and sisters, I am also guilty of that. Sometimes I speak this words of unbelief. Oh, or maybe some 28:43 impossibility. I don't know what will happen uh to this when we are facing some situation like that. Let us speak. Let us learn to speak words of faith to each other so that we can build up one another because out of the heart a 28:57 person believes under righteousness. Out of the mouth we make a confession and that leads us to salvation. Salvation comes by confession of our mouth. So let us speak the words, confess our faith. When we meet on Friday, on Sunday, let 29:11 us confess our words of hope. Not despair, not hopelessness. Let us speak words of faith. Now we come to chapter 3. This is a long chapter. I just want to give a summary of what happened here. If you are more interested, you can read it uh later at 29:29 your leisure. But one thing you notice, first thing you notice when you go through this, it's a community work. It's not like Nehemiah is just doing everything by himself. He's involving everyone. He called people. And this 29:41 phrase in chapter 3, this phrase comes 20 times. You can count yourself. Um it says the phrase is next to him, next to them, next to him, next to them. And I was thinking of this verse, Jerusalem is built as a city compact together. Right? 29:58 There's a verse in Psalms. Next to him, next to him, which means there are no gaps. The work is continuous. Um we should not give any room any gap for the enemy. The moment you give enemy is an uninvited guest who wants to get in into 30:14 our lives. So it's like a a circle of people formed without any gap next to them, next to them, next to them. And um we see lot of people people uh of various professions. Here you see people who are perfumemers, people who are 30:29 officials, priests, everyone was involved. If you see the kind of people who were involved in this, there are a lot of people from different backgrounds, different some people even came from outside of the city. They were 30:42 all part of this great work to restore the walls of Jerusalem. Um, and the other vers that other word that comes here is repair. They repaired the wall. They repaired the wall. They repaired the wall. Um if you go and see the um 30:59 actually this is how the walls look like. Okay. So you see a lot of gates there are 10 gates and there is a wall between these gates and they were all working and this word comes repair. The root word for that is quazak. Uh it 31:15 looks like it it's a root word that is used also to which means to make strong to restore to strength to strengthen to encourage to make bold. You can think about it when you say repairing the walls you're actually making it strong 31:32 encouraging giving strength. So when we are coming uh as a church this is what we are doing. We are repairing, we are strengthening, we are encouraging and exalting one another so that we are becoming stronger. So next without any 31:47 gaps and quazak which is repair, encourage and u build up one another. This is what we do as a body of Christ. There's so much we could apply here. And interestingly, I want to also uh take your attention to one part of this 32:05 verse. Verse five, the second part actually let me read the full verse. Verse five. Moreover, next to him, again, the word next to him comes. The Tquite made repairs made them strong. But their nobles did not support the work of their masters. There's small 32:22 group of people who did not were not subject to the masters. They did not they got work but they kind of this is one one uh black spot in this whole chapter. There are few people who did not follow the instruction of the 32:37 masters. Uh we don't have to be discouraged but the work is completed. There will be always people uh who may not follow the instructions or may not want to submit to the masters but the work of God nobody can stop. If God 32:51 starts the work nobody can stop. And you see these gates, a fish gate, sheep gate, inspection gate, east gate. And also one thing you'll see in this chapter is each family built the walls across their homes. So if my home is 33:07 here, the wall is going. So I'm focusing on the wall. So it is like personal responsibility they have taken. We also talk about these three layers, right? Uh first layer is our individual walk with God. Free floors I mean second floor are 33:21 marriage. Third floor is a church. So when we are building the part of the church uh basically opposite our house which means I I took it this way when I'm doing my own part I don't have to worry about everything else my own part 33:34 right this wall right across my house my build my house and build this wall and we are doing our part we don't have to spread out uh the effort to all the parts of the walls wherever you are designated bloom where you are planted 33:49 do the work wherever whatever ministry you are given do do the work of the Lord with joy and let us not do the work negligently. Uh there's a there is a pro uh not promise there's a warning in the scripture curses the man who does the lord's work 34:04 negligently. So whatever work is given to us right across their home they were building the wall they were building in some one verse it says even their little their daughters were also part of this rebuilding the wall I don't have time to 34:15 go through this chapter but you can see it was a family effort you can work in the church as a family you can take whatever responsibility you have and build build and uh it's a great uh everything is written so God is taking a 34:29 note of all that people are doing for his church Um we're coming to the uh fourth chapter now. So in the fourth chapter we see some problems coming up to Nehemiah. Uh 34:48 so verse one uh chapter 4 verse one onwards. Now it came about that when San Ballard heard we were rebuilding the wall he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews. And um in verse two uh there are a lot of questions a lot of 35:07 uh kind of questions spoke at uh Nehemiah. Let's go one by one. He spoke in the presence of his brothers and said what are these feeble Jews doing? Verse two, chapter 4:2. Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they 35:25 finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from this dusty rubble? Even the burned ones. Look at all these questions they are asking Nehemiah or the people like they are trying to discourage them. And even someone goes to the next one. Tobaya 35:42 says this. Oh, even a fox should jump on it. It would break their stone wall down. Verse three, fox is like a small animal and even if it jumps, this whole wall is going to break down. It's kind of undermining the work, criticizing the 35:57 work and putting doubts, speaking words of discouragement, all of that. So, Nehemiah had to deal with all that, right? And what is his response when he hears that? Verse four, immediately, again, he's a man of prayer. What a 36:12 wonderful example we have. Instead of responding to him, immediately he's praying again, here, oh God, how we are despised, return their reproach on their own heads. again he's turning his uh problem into a prayer and making it Lord 36:27 please help us. Um and there are some imprecatory uh verses that may we may not have to follow because we are living in the age of grace. We ask we pray for forgiveness. He is in verse five he says do not forgive their iniquity. Do not 36:40 let their sin be blotted. In we are living in the new covenant. We pray for our enemies. We bless those who curse us. Um and then verse six, uh we so we built the wall and the whole world was joined together to half of its 36:56 height and the people had to mind to work. Um and again you see a few verses later this opposition goes and they become angry and they're conspiring against together to come and fight against them. Verse 8. But not only these external 37:12 problems, they also face some internals internal struggles. One of them is um some people their strength was sapping away. There were there was some internal fatigue that came up. You know this work of physical labor is intense. Those huge 37:28 uh stones they have to build up. They have to repair it. Um verse 10 it says the strength of the burdenbearers is failing yet there is so much rubbish and we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall. And um not only that um then 37:44 there's verse 12 uh there's a rumor mill started you see that u in verse um verse 11 and 12 it says our enemies said they will not know or see until we come among them kill them and put them put a stop 38:01 to the work and verse 12 says when the Jews lived near them came and told us 10 times same thing they will come up come up against us from every place where you may turn. They generated this rumor mill. Sometimes we have to face this 38:19 kind of uh lies and things that are going around. But uh Neahhemiah being a man of prayer rooted in God's uh God's love and um because he know it is God who has initiated that he had his response. How did he respond? Uh he 38:36 responded with prayer also. He had a strategy. Um then they had a set up a god against them day and night. They had a strategy. Um um so and then he speaks these words of faith again in verse 14. 38:53 Uh when all these people saw this fear says when I saw their fear verse 14 I rose and spoke to the nobles officials and rest of the people. What did he say? Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight 39:10 for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses. Again the focus do not be afraid of them. Focus on God. Uh we hear this word I heard that is 365 times it comes do not be afraid. Do not fear in the Bible. 39:25 So it's an assurance for us that God is telling us when we face opposition when we face difficulties do not be afraid. God will frustrate the plans of the enemies. Um and not only that he had another strategy when they when they 39:41 working so with one hand verse u 17 those who were rebuilding the wall and those who are carried the burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and another hand a weapon. So while they're working they also have 39:55 a weapon. I was thinking uh when we are working it doesn't mean that we are not praying we are also pra like always practicing the presence of god and wherever we are even doing the work of god or doing our secular job this weapon of prayer is always with us 40:12 we can always be praying and the strategies for them they followed is pray watch and work pray watch and work they're watchful for the enemies anytime they can come and they're not stopping the work they're not like just sitting 40:25 idle But they're working and praying, one hand work, one hand a weapon. Um I said to the nobles, verse 19, uh the officials and the rest of the people, the work is great and extensive and we are separated far from one another. 40:41 Whenever you hear the sound of a trumpet, rally us to hear our God will fight for us. So we're all spread out into different places. But whenever there is a problem this trumpet he had a trumpeter he will blow the trumpet rally 40:55 us let's fight for each other or god will fight for us let's it's almost like in a body if there is a uh infection the antibodies and everything the white blood corpus red blood something that body will fight against an infection 41:09 everything will be rushed to that it'll take care of that body and same thing when one part of the body suffers in the church rest of the body will also rush We'll pray, we'll encourage, we'll strengthen. That's a great help um we 41:22 can have. So we we're all vulnerable so we can help each other. Our our God will fight for us. So verse 21, so we carried on the work with half of them holding the spears from dawn until the stars appeared. They worked from the dawn of 41:36 the day until the stars appeared throughout until the night time. What a great example for us to follow to carry the sword and the trouble to pray and to rush to others help and focusing on God not getting discouraged when they face 41:53 opposition and uh doing it with the strength that God gives. Um yeah it is impossible to cover this book in one 30 40 minute session. uh God willing I may have a another concluding message on this book but I am already blessed to 42:11 read this and meditate on this. I thought I would share what the Lord is teaching me through this book um from this man Neahhemiah who did such a great work uh how God used him mightily in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and so 42:26 that Jerusalem will no longer be a city of reproach not despised and how he was a man of prayer he had a burden he he was concerned and as soon as he heard the words that there's something uh this city walls are burned uh are broken down 42:41 gates are burned done. He prayed and fasted before God and how God moved the king. He not only got a vacation but also got all the resources. How he motivated the people come let us rebuild the wall shared his testimony and uh 42:55 arranged it strategized everything. How everyone got involved. It was a community thing. No one has it's all about the Lord's work. when we are doing the Lord's work doing joyfully all the families getting involved even though we 43:07 can have some small portion of the people who don't want to join and want don't want to follow instructions it's fine the work of God will never stop how he handled the fatigue how he handled the external opposition how he turned 43:19 every need into prayer um I have a lot to learn from this man Neahmiah's wonderful brother in Christ I'm going to say thank you to him when I meet him in heaven may the Lord bless us thank Thank you, brother Seren, for um 43:53 reminding us to the book of Neahhemiah. I think I remember when I first started listening to some of the CFC messages, that series was the first one that I gravitate towards. Um, it's a series called the From Babylon to Jerusalem. It's it's on 44:10 the website. It's an Old Testament series that um has the books of Daniel, Ezra, and uh Hegi, Zechariah, Nehemiah, and Malachi because those are the contemporaries at that time when building 44:29 um the wall, a Jerusalem wall. And what happens also after and before is I think was very important. I think that was probably the key um takeaway that burden. So, thank you for I know it's not over yet and uh just like CERN had a 44:49 difficult time summarizing the whole book in a few minutes, I'm going to have a difficult time summarizing it uh you know about a minute. But what I took away personally is when I looked at chapter one of book of Neahhemiah 45:07 um he inquired although he was not there physically he inquired he had an interest you know you only have an interest if you have a burden for the lives of others uh if if I'm not if I'm only focusing on my problems and my own 45:26 issues my challenges I probably don't have the bandwidth to focus on others. But he had an interest. He asked about how the Jews are doing, who escaped, and who survived. It wasn't really necessarily busy body, but it was more of interest, 45:43 genuine interest for the the welfare of others. Um, so I saw that heart in Nehemiah as he began. And God must have seen it too because he gave him the burden um that he's not only uh focusing 46:00 on his career and his life but also for the lives of others who are as a shepherd. Um so he saw that heart and then the Lord gave him and then what he did was when he was b given the burden 46:16 you he responded Nehemiah responded and I think we that's what we should take away too that when the Lord gives us a burden about something that bothers God himself you know he'll share his heart with us personally and 46:35 those who person can hear that heart of Jesus and when he gives a burden to you to me he prayed you know how long he prayed since he got that burden he didn't speak a word anything about his burden he didn't share with the king right away 46:51 when he got a burden so from the verse one to the next chapter verse two when he starts talking to the king about it when he was inquired from the king it was four months so he was praying and fasting for 4 months. So just because you have a 47:08 burden, that zeal will kill people. If I don't have the right timing of the Lord opening the door for me. If I'm overzealous about something, I'll also make mistakes. I'll hurt people. So wait and pray. And when the Lord 47:26 presents the opportunity to present his burden to the king which he had to risk his life just like we saw earlier today. Um then that's when the Lord opened the door. Um so we know the Lord's timing only when we pray u and he'll provide 47:43 all the resources as we are learned today and all the people that can stand together in unity. So I pray for that for our church. Now don't and start I want to start that um the battle the burden in a spiritual way. You know our 48:03 struggle is not against flesh and blood right now but against the rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. So focus on spiritual battles. 48:16 Um start there. I want to focus on I want to listen. And I want to be careful of what needs are of others in the church. Let's go to the Lord in prayer as we close and hopefully we'll read more about Nehemiah at the time. Let's 48:34 close. Thank you Lord that you've um written these things down for us. And in these um scriptures, we want to read your heart. Not just the facts and 48:51 the historical part, but we want to see your heart. Also, we want to have a burden, Lord, in our hearts and have that patience to pray and go to you before we try to open doors um ourselves, myself. I want to depend on you, Lord. Um may it be true in our 49:11 personal lives and this church Lord that belongs to you Lord. Pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining us also on Zoom and uh please help us to prepare for our lunch.
