We love you and thank you in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, will you guys, will you guys stand with me for the
reading of of the the word this morning?
So we're going to be in in Nehemiah chapter one.
Let me just read it. I don't I don't have it there.
Let me let me read it right here.
The words of Nehemiah the son of Hakaliah.
Now it happened in the month of of kids Live.
In the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the capital, that Hannah
and I, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah, and
I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped who had survived the
exile, and concerning Jerusalem. They said to me, the remnant
there in the province who had survived the exile is in great
trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken
down and its gates are destroyed by fire.
As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned
for days. And I continued fasting and
praying before the the God of heaven.
And I said, Oh Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome
God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who
love him and keep his commandments.
Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the
prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and
night for the people of Israel, Your servants confessing the
sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against
you. Even I and my Father's house
have sinned. We have acted very corruptly
against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes
and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses,
saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the
peoples. But if You return to Me and keep
My commandments and do them though Your outcasts are in the
uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and
bring them to the place that I have chosen to make My name
dwell. There they are Your servants and
Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power and
by Your strong hand. Oh Lord, let your ear be
attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to the prayer of
Your servants, who delight to fear Your name.
And give success to Your servant today, and grant him mercy in
the sight of this man. Now I was cup bearer to the
king. This is the word of the Lord,
Amen. You guys can can have a seat.
Well, today we are we are going to start a new sermon series on
the Old Testament book of Nehemiah.
Now we will still be working through the book of Matthew when
Eric preaches, but I'll be taking us through this, this new
study and I'm excited about this study.
I even have a, a tattoo on my, on my arm that is based on an
important part of, of this book. So, so today this message is, is
in is titled Nehemiah's prayer. And we'll see how he sets the
tone. He, he sets the tone for, for,
you know, the whole book right here at at the outset.
So let's start with a little bit of a back story to, to set the
context here. Throughout the Old Testament, we
see that, that Israel, that's God's chosen people, has
repeatedly disregarded the will of God.
God sends prophets to tell the people what's expected of them
and what the consequences are of disobedience.
And, and often we see demonstrations of, of glimpses
of God's wrath poured out on them for that disobedience.
Sometimes it's on individuals, sometimes on whole groups of
people. Scripture gives us many examples
of, of God punishing his people for disobedience.
And then we see stories of redemption when the people
repent. And here is the prophet Jeremiah
telling us this same thing. And Jeremiah 25, verses 4
through 7, it says you have neither listened nor inclined
your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent you all
his servants, the prophets saying, turn now everyone of you
from his evil way, his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon
the land that the Lord has given to you and your father's from
old and forever. Do not go after other gods to
serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the
work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.
Yeah, you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you
might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your
own harm. So the books of Ezra and
Nehemiah were most likely written as a a single book.
They contain a series of parallel stories about three men
with similar missions to to work to rebuild a part of the temple
while facing various kinds of hardship.
See the temple had been destroyed by by King
Nebuchadnezzar after a 2 year siege of Jerusalem that had
caused a famine. And when the army finally
conquered the city, they destroyed the temple, tearing it
down completely. And all of the, the, the
treasure and all of the religious artifacts were, were
taken as, as like loot. And some of the pieces were,
were so big that they had to, they had to cut them into pieces
or, or they had to melt them down to be able to ship them
away. The ruling elite from Jerusalem,
we're all put to death. But the, but the, the wealthy,
the educated and skilled Jews had been taken captive to be
slaves for the Babylonians. All that was left were some
farmers, the sick and the poor, and this was meant to be a
complete physical dismantling of the spiritual and cultural
identity of the Jews. In the book of Ezra.
Again, this is before our study, before our book.
The book of Ezra tells the story of of these two men, Zerubbabel
and Ezra. Zerubbabel is 1st and he goes to
Jerusalem to rebuild the temple itself.
In the book of Zechariah in chapter 4, there's a prophecy
that that named a man that that a man named Zerubbabel would
rebuild the temple. So when Zerubbabel comes along,
he is obedient to what he sees in scripture to God calling him
by name to do this several decades later.
Ezra scribe and priest, he goes back to Jerusalem to rebuild the
community of the Jews. The rubble was building the
temple itself. Ezra goes back to to rebuild the
community and he was sent by the Persian king Artaxerxes to help
stabilize the region. In In Ezra Chapter 7 verse 23,
we see that our Artaxerxes, even though he's a Pagan king, he
feared God and he feared the God of the Jews and he did not want
to face his wrath. So he was recognizing God at the
God of the Jews and and his power and he didn't want to he
didn't want to have to deal with being punished.
Then in the book of Nehemiah, we see a third man, Nehemiah, who
who goes to rebuild the walls around the temple after getting
permission to do so from a king named Cyrus.
Now, amazingly, in the book of Isaiah in chapter 45, we see
another prophecy that names a future Pagan king named Cyrus
that God would use to rebuild his temple.
And this is 150 years before Cyrus that in our story with
Nehemiah before he's even born. So these three stories follow a
a similar arc, right? Each man is is granted
permission and support from the king to go rebuild parts of the
the city or the temple and then as they begin begin having
success, they start to face opposition.
Now in your personal studies, reading Ezra will will help both
in setting context and because these three men and their
stories are very similar. But we are going to focus on on
this third man in the book of Nehemiah and on his quest to
rebuild the wall around the city.
Throughout this book. I think that we're going to see
some parallels that are applicable to us today.
So I'm going to start off, my first point here is about
Nehemiah's broken heart. And, and in verses 3 and 4 of of
chapter 1, it says, and they said to me, the remnant there in
the province who had survived the Exiles in great trouble and
shame, The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are
destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words,
I sat down and wept and mourned for days and I continued fasting
and praying before the God of heaven.
So Nehemiah is a cup bearer to the king.
That's his that's his job. That's his, his role.
The cup bearer is very, very important.
He's very valuable and trusted by the king in in our modern
culture, you could liken it to the president of the United
States is what do you call him the the chief of staff, right?
Somebody who is in all of the meetings, he's in everything and
and helps him rule, but he's not the guy.
So Nehemiah gets a report from his brother Hannah and I, who
has just made this long trip from Judah, and he asks about
news from Jerusalem. How are the how are the Jews
doing that, that that weren't exiled and, and who are still
the remnant there? And then, and then how has Ezra
succeeded in, in, you know, building or rebuilding the, the
community of them there? And Hannah and I tells him that
the remnant are in a bad way. He says that they are in great
trouble and shame, right. They're in very real danger
because the walls are completely destroyed and the gates are are
non existent. And many of these people that
are there. You guys got you got to remember
many of these people are the ones that were so bad off that
they weren't even worth kidnapping.
They weren't worth kidnapping by the the Babylonians who were
taking everything, and they're left wide open to continued
raids and attacks. The rest of them are the ones
that Ezra had been trying to raise up by teaching scripture
to. But see, this isn't, this isn't,
you know, like breaking news that the temple and its walls
had been destroyed 140 something years previous.
In fact, Nehemiah never knew a day in his life before this that
the temple wasn't in ruins. And yet he mourns for days over
it. Be like us getting worked up and
and sobbing for days when we hear about the the Krakatoa
volcanic eruption back in 1883, which it is.
It is certainly tragic and sad, but but we're not all breaking
down over it, right? I mean, other than Ron, not one
of us, you know, was personally affected by the Krakatoa
volcano. Pay attention, Ron, I was
talking to you still. His heart is, is breaking here,
right? And it's breaking in in a couple
of different ways. One, it's his heart is broken
for the community that the damage to the walls and the and
the gates, they present a very real threat of, of violence and
continued raids for these hurting people.
Again, Nehemiah is a high-ranking government
official, so he would be keenly aware of the need to have a
fortified, safe community for the people to be able to to
thrive, especially for a a people who have been subjected
to conquest for so long. And we can and, and in fact, we
should have a similar desire for the prosperity of the people in
our communities too. Our hearts should be broken for
what's happening outside of, of these doors here.
There's war, poverty, drug abuse, political violence.
And, and, and guys, I just, I think that this concept is lost
on, on many Christians today. Too many of us are, are far too
quick to disregard our responsibility to care for the
hurting or, or to be a part of, of of the building and
rebuilding of our community. And 1st John 3 verses 17 and 18
it says, it says. But if anyone has the world's
goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart
against him, how does God's love abide in him?
Little children let us not love in Word or talk, but in deed and
in truth. So guys, I think we can easily
see our brothers in need, but we but we recognize little or no
responsibility to be a part of helping them.
And in fact, our system will do a real good job of trying to
convince you that it's better to let the professionals handle it
right. If you've ever, you know, been
walking around downtown Salt Lake, you've probably seen their
signs up down there that tell people not to give money to pan
handlers directly, but to give to a government organization
that handles that. Or if you were to turn on the
news, you'd see maybe a story of a, of a guy who, who chased down
and, and stopped someone from beating up a woman to steal her
purse. And then you'll see on this, on
this interview, or you'll see an interview with a police chief
and, and he'll be on there saying, well, it worked out OK
this time, but in the future, just call 911 and let the
professionals handle it. And I, I totally get the
sentiment here. And and there might be people
better trained to handle these situations, but God's word calls
us to be people who do. Years ago, I used to work with
a, a para ministry that was out in the in the ghettos and in the
most dangerous places in our cities trying to combat human
trafficking where he's abused, drugged out, almost nude. 12 and
13 year old girls were forced to stand out on the street corners
all night and wait to be rented out to one of the many perverts
lined up around the corner to continue to use and abuse them.
And I'd come back and I'd tell my friends, you know, I used to
be a police officer. I'd come back and tell my
friends that are that are still in law enforcement about that.
And sometimes they would get very uneasy when they learn
about a, a bunch of of Christians that were out in the
streets doing these investigations and these
tactical rescues instead of letting the police do it.
But the fact is the police often times would just drive right by
and when they when they'd see them out there.
Our, our system that we rely on isn't designed or capable of
helping these kids often times. But besides that, I read verses
like Isaiah 117, the verse right before the one that John read
from our assurance of pardon just a little bit ago.
In verse 17 it says learn to do good, seek justice, correct
oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's
'cause this is this is written to God's people in Judah.
It's not just to a government official.
This is this is our job. Now there are some of you who
might be squirming in your seats at the thought of this good get
up and and get involved in helping people.
If you're if you're not comfortable in your seat, stand
up. Let's go, let's go do the work.
We shouldn't be comfortable sitting around while others need
our help. Our our hearts should be broken
for our hurting communities. But Nehemiah's heart was also
broken for God's people, right for the church.
Our our hearts should be broken for the state of God's people.
When we look around at the at the state of the church across
the world, it is heartbreaking. And here's what I mean.
We have we have many churches that that that claim with their
mouths to be followers of Jesus, but their hearts and their
actions are far from it. Churches that affirm sin and
debauchery to remain culturally relevant.
Churches that exist to to greedily serve themselves
through conquests of money or power or political
grandstanding. And worst of all, churches that
abdicate their responsibility to properly feed and shepherd the
flock amongst them. Now in in two weeks, Eric is is
going to go much deeper into this topic when he teaches on
the on the sheep without a shepherd in in Matthew 9.
But being a part of a healthy church with proper shepherding
is very important. So I don't want to skip over it
when the the text that we're in brings it up to be discussed.
And here's why there is a there's a scary warning to
pastors in Ezekiel 34 where God tells them that that they, the
shepherds, have done a terrible job of caring for the flock and
they will face an accounting for it one day.
And far too few pastors or those pretending to be them pay
attention to this warning these days and it would behoove them
to go back and study it. And here's a part of what it
says again in Ezekiel 34. This is an in eight says as I
live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have
become a prey and my sheep have become food for all the wild
beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my
shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have
fed themselves and have not fed my sheep.
Friends, it is my responsibility to tell you that the sin in your
life is keeping you susceptible to Satan.
It is turning you into pray for wild beasts and worse than that,
you're continuing in your sin dishonors God.
If you are a professing follower of Jesus, then you are a part of
the the bride of Christ, his church.
And in Revelation 18 and 19 it tells us that that as that bride
we are either a drunken whore giving into the passions of our
immorality, or we are every day preparing ourselves for our
bridegroom church. You, you need to be about
preparing yourselves for Jesus return, purifying yourself
through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and the Word.
And by God's grace, that will be the the message that you will
hear consistently preached. From this pulpit, we should be
passionate about being prepared and sanctified to meet Jesus one
day soon. Here's what Paul said to Corinth
in his second letter. Chapter 11, verses one through 3
says, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.
Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I
betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to
Christ. But I'm afraid that as the
serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be
LED astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
This is why Nehemiah's heart is crushed because he recognizes as
as he, as he considers and he thinks about these broken down
walls and burned up gates in in Jerusalem, as he considers that
they are representative of the state of so many of God's
people. And it puts them in danger, not
only of being deceived again, as we, as we saw Paul's letter to
Church of Corinth, but of dishonouring our Almighty God.
He realizes that this city in ruin represents the sinfulness
of mankind. And, and, and as he thinks on
and considers this reality, his heart also breaks.
As he considers his sin, Nehemiah begins to to pray as
well and realizes why God's people are in this terrible
situation. And that's our our second point
here is Nehemiah's prayer of confession.
And in verse 5 through 7 it says, and I said, Oh Lord God of
heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and
steadfast love with those who love him and keep his
commandments. Let your ear be attentive and
your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I
now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel,
Your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel,
which we have sinned against You.
Even I and my Father's house have sinned.
We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept
the commandments, the statutes, excuse me, and the rules that
you commanded your servant Moses.
Well, this could have been subtitled establishing a, a
baseline because Nehemiah clearly states in this, he
clearly states who God is and who man is, right.
That's our starting point here. As we, as we go forward, he's
telling us who God is and who man is.
And as he begins to pray, he, he comes right out of the gate with
a declaration of God's greatness.
He, he recognizes God not only as a God, but as the God of
heaven, right? In scripture, we often see this
phrase God of heaven when Jews are interacting with non Jews.
And this guys, this is huge because as we read through the
Old Testament, we see that that God allowed the Babylonians to
capture Jerusalem and to imprison and and to exile the
Jews because they had become polytheistic, right?
They believed in, in many gods. They, they had become a
polyistic society and they had broken their part of the
covenant with God to worship him only.
So Nehemiah comes to this prayer with a a proper heart
inclination. He's not minimizing his sin or
or even that of of his his loved ones.
He said, in fact, he says me and my family are are all sinners
and he describes it and says that they have acted very
corruptly. He says so he's he's not
minimizing their sin or or the extent of it at all.
Nehemiah acknowledges also hear that he is speaking to the great
and awesome God. Have you guys ever given any
thought to how overused that word awesome is?
We describe everything that way, right?
Barney's Bronco is awesome. You know, the instruments up
here, they sound awesome, right? My, my shoes are awesome.
You know, whatever it is, like we, we describe everything that
way. It's like, you know, when
you're, when you're, your kid comes up to you for the 10
thousandth time and, and it's like, you know, hey, dad, did
you know that the, the, the male ringtail lemurs compete for
breeding rights by out stinking each other?
And you're, you're like, Yep, that's, that's awesome, buddy,
right. I mean the the fact is lemur
stink outs aren't awesome. They're weird.
But but our God is awesome. Our God who spoke the universe
into existence, who can name the stars and whose thoughts
outnumber the grains of sand, God who who exists outside of
time and and space is awesome. He really is awesome.
And Nehemiah is genuinely expressing that here with
honesty as he considers the the reality of what he can
comprehend about God. He mentions God who who keeps
covenant. We'll get to that here in in a
minute. And and God who keeps steadfast
love with those who love him. Both of those descriptions, they
depict something of the the, the eternality and the all
sufficient grace of God. A couple months ago in our
Sunday school class, we studied God's attributes and and in this
study we saw how truly awe inspiring God is he, he he is
existing for eternity. He's all powerful, he's all
knowing. He is the definition of love and
and that's how Nehemiah approaches this prayer.
But then, but then he switches from recognizing God's goodness
to owning man's wickedness. And at first, you know, his, his
first reference is in general terms, he the sins of the people
or recognition that humanity as a whole is sinful and separated
from God. Theologically, this is a a big
thing because he he isn't dividing people into the
righteous ones over here and and the sinners here.
His recognition of the sinfulness of all people is a
reminder that even those that we might try to convince ourselves
are innocent like like babies and children are in fact sinners
from conception even before birth.
They have a sin nature. But then he gets personally
responsible. He says even I and my father's
house have sinned. He doesn't pretend that those
close to him are are are less culpable either.
He he owns it and then he goes. He goes further in that passage
to admit that he knew about the statutes that God had commanded,
so he can't claim ignorance. Nehemiah recognizes the calamity
and the ruin of the walls and gates of Jerusalem as being
representative of his own sinful life.
And that realization evokes this, this powerful emotional
outpouring. Imagine how wrecked you you are
to cry and mourn for for days on end over something that you
didn't necessarily witness. There's this other example,
another example of this, this heart cry in Isaiah 6, four
through 7, where the prophet Isaiah had a a vision of angels
singing about God's holiness. And then just God's voice causes
him to understand the magnitude of his sin.
This is what it says in Isaiah 6.
It says and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice
of him who called and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean
lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.
Then one of the seraphim that's that's an Angel flew to me,
having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken from
tongs with the altar. And he touched my mouth and
said, behold, this has touched your lip.
Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for a burning
coal here is it's representative of of the purification process,
similar to the way that gold is refined by fire, drawing out the
impurities that process, guys, that process is, is harsh.
There is, there is violence, there is pain, there's trauma,
but the finished product is, is is far better.
It is becoming pure. So this whole prayer attitude is
something that the world is tragically missing and we we
need to know that God exists and he is good, a recognition that
there is a God and that he is the very standard of goodness.
We need to know that sin separates mankind from God.
The the sin that every one of us is born with and every one of us
chooses to commit separates us from his goodness, does not
separate us from his his wrath, but it does separate us from his
goodness. We need to know that
disobedience demands punishment. Now, when we break the law, we
expect mercy, but when someone else breaks the law that affects
us, we demand justice because guys, because we know that that
makes sense. We need to know that God keeps
his promises. That means that when He says He
will punish our rebellious transgressions, we must believe
him. When I was when I was young, and
I'm talking like probably 6 or 7, my little brother was 2.
He's two years younger than me. We were outside playing one time
and he was being a jerk as he does.
And, and whatever was he was, he was giving me a hard time.
And I remember my mom calling out the window and and saying,
Jason, you knock it off, you leave your brother alone.
And he kept doing it. And at some point, at some
point, she said, you know, one of these days I'm going to, I'm
going to let, I'm going to let Mike turn around and, and smack
you for the way that you, you act to him.
Well, in my mind, I thought I had it now a coupon for that.
I, I felt like this was a credit that I had and I hung onto it
for dear life for a couple of years.
And I remember years later when again, you know, he was giving
me a hard time. I remember going to my mom and I
said, Hey, remember, remember when you told me that I could, I
could turn around and punch him in the face or whatever.
And she's like, no, no, I know I would never say anything like
that. Absolutely not.
Well, my mom was not a keeper of promises, apparently, when it
came to justice. And she's listening online right
now. So mom, you remember that?
I know you do so, but we know about that.
God does keep his promises when it when it comes to justice for
wrongdoing. But that's not all that Nehemiah
says in our passage, is it? He?
He doesn't just say that God keeps his promises regarding
punishment. He goes a bit further.
And that's not a part of the of the story that we want to skip.
And so our Third Point here is Nehemiah's solid foundation in
verses 8 through 11. This finishes out the that
chapter. It says, Remember the word that
you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are
unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.
But if you return to Me and keep my commandments and do them
though you're outcaster in the uttermost parts of heaven, from
there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I
have chosen to make my name dwell.
There they are your servants and your people, whom you have
redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your
servant and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to
fear your name. And give success to your servant
today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
Now I was cut bearer to the king.
Although he acknowledges that God is a promise keeper who has
promised justice and wrath regarding disobedient sinners,
God has also promised mercy to those who repent of their sin.
He says, remember, remember Lord, you said that if we return
to you that you'd return to us. Now You know, often times we see
people pray to God by reminding him of who he is.
Now this isn't because God is forgetful like my mom and it's
he. He is omniscient and all
knowing. Even when we read that God
forgets our sins, He doesn't actually forget anything, but he
forgives us of everything and chooses not to look on our sins
any longer. Here's what it it says in Isaiah
4325I. I am He who blots out your
transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your
sins. When we pray to God and remind
Him of who He is, we are aligning our hearts about God
with who He tells us in scripture that He is.
See none of us guys, none of us comes to our comprehension of
God with any any real credible ideas outside of what we learned
based on scripture. The world will come up and has
come up with thousands of ideas about God.
That there are multiple gods, that we are gods, or that we
could become gods. That God is exists as the rock
or as the tree, or as the sun. Scripture though tells us who
God actually is and how to align ourselves with Him.
Nehemiah reminds God that he keeps promises and that and that
God has promised if you return to me and keep my commandments
that they will be blessed. Specifically that God would
gather them back to the place that he's given them.
Now guys, we have to understand that this does not mean that we
can manipulate God. He's not a holy ATM machine.
See, all too often people think that that the the the dynamic
with God is that if we do something like that, he likes,
he blesses us or or we if we do something he dislikes and he and
then he takes away from us. This this errant thinking causes
us to believe that we have the ability to will God into
reacting the way we want him to, or that God needs something from
us. Paul clears this up directly in
Romans 11 verses 34 through 36. For who has known the mind of
the Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has given a
gift to him, that he might be repaid?
For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be
glory forever. Amen.
We need to understand that what we are given by God is up to and
dependent only only it is dependent on only his good grace
and what He gives might not be what you want.
Matthew 5 verse 45 says for he makes the sunrise on the evil
and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Guys, this is a crucial thing for us to understand here
because often we want to put God in a box and demand that that he
comport to our sense of what is is good.
In Isaiah 45 seven it says I form light and create darkness.
I make well-being and create calamity.
I am the Lord who does all these things.
Now guys, we, we can, we struggle to believe that God
would allow bad things to happen to us and we get twisted out of
shape. When someone says that God
brings it about intentionally, we say something like, Oh no,
not my God, right. See, the problem is we
misunderstand the motive for it. Satan is the the father of of
evil. He does evil for the sake of
evil. God brings about disaster and
calamity as punishment for evil. That evil that he's punishing is
our disobedience. Where most of us run into a
problem with this is that we put ourselves in the camp of the
righteous, not in the camp of the disobedience.
In the book of Habakkuk chapter 1, we see this very interesting
back and forth, right where Habakkuk complaints to God about
the bad things that that happen and, and he's, and he's, you
know, complaining about the evil in the world and how it
continues to seem to, to, to win.
And, and he kind of demands to know why God isn't fixing
things. And then in the book, he writes
out God's response to him. And we see this in Habakkuk
chapter 1 verses. 5 through 5 and 6, it says this is God's
response. He says, look among the nations
and see wonder and be astounded for I am doing a work in your
days that you would not believe if told or behold, I am raising
up the Chaldeans. Those are the bad guys, that
bitter and hate that bitter and hasty nation who marched through
the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
He's he's saying, guys pay attention, right?
Like pay attention, you're not going to believe it anyways,
even though it's, it's written here.
You're not going to believe this.
But but those, those bad people, I am raising them them up.
Those people who steal stuff, right?
Who sees dwellings not their own?
God controls the political scene and uses nations for his own
purpose. We, we, we struggle to
understand that to, to see the, the big picture here.
But he uses those nations for his own purposes.
He goes on describing God, goes on describing their sin and, and
then says in verse 11, which I don't have up here, it says then
they sweep past like the wind and go on guilty people whose
own strength is their God. So God is saying, yeah, they are
really bad and their success has, has gone to their heads.
They think that they're powerful because they prosper through
their military strength. And so Habakkuk he comes, he
complaints again because he says that's not fair, right?
And then he tries to do the math for God in and in and in verse
13, he says you who are of purer, purer eyes than to see
evil and cannot look at wrong. He's saying, God, you are so
pure that you can't even look upon sin.
And here you are giving it a pass and even allowing it to
prosper. And then in chapter 2, God
answers him again and he says, write down the revelation and
make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.
That's a really nice way of saying, let me put this in the
clearest way possible for you simpletons.
He says, for the revelation awaits an appointed time.
It speaks of the end and will not prove false, though it
linger. Wait for it, it will certainly
come and will not delay. The dynamic here of God causing
the rain of blessing on the just and the unjust alike is
according to His will for His good reasons.
He's telling us it will make sense in the end.
None of this is for us to fully understand our role guys.
Our role in that is to simply obey.
We aren't owed blessing. We are owed punishment.
So the way we avoid that punishment is to avoid
disobedience. Nehemiah gets this.
He finally gets this. The walls of Jerusalem were
destroyed and the gates burned because God's people turned away
from Him. God was not on the side of the
Babylonians. He was allowing their debauchery
to serve His glory and majesty through the eventual
demonstration of His wrath and justice.
He is. He is refining His people and
giving them 'cause to turn back to Him.
Because when we turn back to God, when we turn away from our
sinful disobedience, God is faithful to forgive.
He redeems us and shows us mercy that we don't deserve.
We can let God worry about Babylon.
Nehemiah knew that Zerubbabel was obedient to what the
prophecy said. He knew that Ezra was sent by a
Pagan king that recognized God's supremacy and demand for
obedience. So as Nehemiah considered the
calamity of of the the world and the and the the destruction of
the walls of Jerusalem and the and the gates around it, and he
considers the nature of God. He knew that the answer was in
the people turning back to God. So as we close here today and
think about this lesson, how do we look at the the calamity in
the world around us and the bad things that we experience and
keep that in perspective? When we consider the way God
created the world, we should be reminded that it was perfect.
It it it was sin that corrupted paradise, that sin that still
exists in your life and in all of our lives ought to break your
heart. But guys, you have to admit it.
You have to admit that it's there.
You have to stop making excuses for it and pretending that it
isn't there. Your status in the in the
community or your quaint life will not get you out of hell is
only through repenting of your sin and and trusting Jesus alone
for the forgiveness of your sins that you can be saved.
And we can trust that Jesus is exactly who he said He is.
And we'll keep that promise that Nehemiah reminded him of.
When we turn back to him, away from our sinful ways, God will
gather us and bring us to the innermost parts of heaven with
him. Will you guys pray with me,
Lord? I think for me, Lord, as I look
around the world, it is easy to to see evil people prosper.
We see we there are there are investigations that that with
names, Lord, that every one of us knows exactly what what we're
talking about, where we feel like bad people have gotten away
with horrendous things and they profited from it.
And yet, Lord, we hear about the victimization of otherwise quote
UN quote good people. And so Lord in her, in our
humanity, it just, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense until we
have this, this moment of clarity as as you've given us
this demonstration through Nehemiah of, of recognizing the
sin in our life and our need to turn back to you and to to to
worship you and you only Lord, there are there are professing
believers here in this room who in our hearts, Lord, know that
that you are not the the God of their life, that you that, that
have turned from you or that that are are even far from you.
And there are people, Lord, who who have never made a decision
about you that are here today listening as well.
Lord, that that I I pray, Lord, that you would help them to
realize that the sin about them separates them from your
goodness. And that there is a demand for
justice that exists, Lord, and that, and that that the only way
to avoid that is to turn from that sin and to and to
understand that, that you made a way for us to be back in a good
relationship with you through the the sacrifice of your son on
the cross and through his resurrection 3 days later,
defeating sin and death. And Lord, I just ask that you
would like Nehemiah came to this understanding after he was
wrecked emotionally. Lord, help all of us to be like
that, that we are wrecked emotionally, that we would
understand this, this dynamic that exists between man and God,
between US and you, or that it would it would wreck us and it
would bring us to a place of days and weeks of of crying and
mourning as we as we reconcile with that.
But ultimately, Lord, there would bring us to a place of
repentance so that we can be gathered back to you.
God, I I hope that you have been blessed and honored in this in
this lesson and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.