Nehemiah led the third and final return of the Jews to Jerusalem after their captivity. He was raised up to rebuild Judah’s protective barriers – the wall and their obedience to the law of God. The Book of Nehemiah displays God’s protection and preservation of His people by protecting them while they rebuilt their walls and sending men to call His people to obey His laws.

Okay, let's pray. Lord, I thank you for your treasures delivered to us. The gold, the silver of your treasuries given to us so that we might know how to live profitably, so that we would know how to understand ourselves, our world, the things that are happening today, how you tell us the story, the true story of this life in the world. I thank you Lord for your kindness and now I pray you'd get helpless to understand your wisdom in this book Nehemiah and how your glorious people are preserved for the glory of your son for the spread of the gospel amen Nehemiah so turn to Nehemiah Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the walls of your faith in the midst of opposition. It's a story with enormous opposition built into it.

And we find Nehemiah is living in a strange land. He's living hundreds and hundreds of miles away from his homeland and most likely though the book of Nehemiah doesn't say it quite like this but most likely his thoughts and his emotions run along the lines of Psalm 137 where you read, by the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept. We remembered Zion and then the people say, how can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? That's Nehemiah's situation. God raised him up.

Now we need to think about Ezra and Nehemiah in the same time frame. While Ezra was raised up to restore the spiritual strength of the nation. Nehemiah was raised up to restore and protect Judah's barriers, their walls, And the wall of protection was a physical wall, but it also bears witness to the spiritual protections. And Nehemiah makes it very clear what those are, and those protections come from the law of God because particularly when we get to chapter 13 we'll see how clearly and how carefully Nehemiah calls the people back to obey the law of God. That was the heart of the protective work of God and it still is today.

So Nehemiah is showing us a number of things. He's showing us God's resolve to protect and preserve His people by the rebuilding of their walls for the spread of their glory. God is always in the business of rebuilding walls, and there isn't any true Christian where the walls aren't being rebuilt. There's always a lot of rebuilding that's necessary in every person. The rebuilding of the walls in the days of Nehemiah are figurative of the walls that need to be shored up in our own lives.

And so, Nehemiah shows us this resolve of God to protect and preserve his people. Without walls Jerusalem could not be protected. Proverbs speaks of a man without walls, speaks of the vulnerability, the hardships of a man who has no walls to his soul. And so when you read Nehemiah think about the walls of your own heart and how they correlate with this picture, this physical illustration of the walls of your life. And how does this happen?

Well, it happens when people return. That's the beginning of all rebuilding. God lights a fire in people's hearts and they return to their land. They go home and when they go home, the only way that their walls will be rebuilt is if they restore their worship to its proper order. And, not to stop there, but to cleanse their land of all their pagan practices.

It's one thing to worship God, but to claim to be worshipping God, but not to purify yourself of your pagan practices actually produces a false worship that God hates. So you see both of these things happening in the book of Nehemiah. One of the interesting things about Nehemiah as a man is his selflessness. He has his eyes on the kingdom of God and you can see it in a number of different ways. One way you see it is that he laid aside his life in the midst of opulence in the king's court.

He was serving the most powerful king in the ancient Near East And he had a very high position. Though he was a slave, like Daniel, he was living in the lap of luxury. And when he got up in the morning, he saw the magnificent walls of Babylon. He saw these enormous structures of grandeur and beauty. And he lived in an environment like that.

But where did he go? He went to a city of rubble. He went to a city where the houses weren't even rebuilt. You think of where you'd like to move. Jerusalem would be the last place you would want to move.

It would be like going to Haiti to go live down in Port-au-Prince right after the earthquake. It's nothing but rubble. And there are no bulldozers to move the rubble out and it's hard. Well that's what Nehemiah did. He laid aside all of that opulence in the king's court in Artaxerxes and he goes to a city of rubble where nobody had rebuilt their houses yet.

Another thing about this testimony that is so encouraging is that it's a picture of the blessing of God. Nehemiah experiences astounding success. Now, if you think about how successful he was, think of it in terms of an astonishing accomplishment of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem in 52 days. It's pretty astonishing. It was a huge wall, and it was a long wall.

And he did this with no equipment, no excavators, no bulldozers, nothing to lift rocks. It was an astonishing feat that God allowed these folks to accomplish. And it was completed. The job was done and the city was secure. Another thing that we should recognize about this man is that he hated sin.

He tore out the hair of those who were following pagan practices. He knew the devastation of sin. He recognized its seriousness. He wasn't the kind of man that would just countenance sin without resistance. And he went to drastic measures.

In chapter 13 verse 25 we read, So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God saying, you shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. The people had took no thought of intermarrying with pagans, and Nehemiah was there to throw himself in the front of that bus and say, stop. The world needs Christians who are willing to stand in the way. And not a week passes that I don't get a call from someone who says, I'm gonna go talk to my brother or my friend about his adultery. And they're actually afraid to do it for the reaction.

But it's a Christian's duty to stand in the way, to stand between God and the sinner, and to say holiness to the Lord. Let's talk about the time frame. We find ourselves in 444 BC. Isn't it wonderful to read the prophets where there are these very clear time markers? We can know down to the day and often the time of day when an event takes place, but this is also true in the book of Nehemiah.

And this book covers a 19-year time frame that begins in 444 BC and ends in 425 BC. This all happens in the days of Ezra and Zechariah during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia. Malachi was a contemporary of Nehemiah. Esther was Artaxerxes' stepmother and it's possible that she may have had an influence on the king in releasing Nehemiah to go back to the land and to give him such favors to do it. You know Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament, but Nehemiah is the last historical book of the Old Testament.

So these two categories of scripture, the prophetic and also the writings, which Nehemiah falls into that category. And what you'll find is that Malachi addresses some of the same issues that result from cold-heartedness toward God. Matters of lack of love in marriage and in pagan types of marriages. So it's a very very clearly marked out time in history and just a note from archaeology, Nehemiah and the events that take place there are corroborated by what archaeologists call the elephantine papyri and they mention Sanballat, they mention Johanan, and they indicate that Nehemiah was the governor of Judah at least by 410 BC. So it's a book that is verified across, you know, various witnesses.

You don't need archaeology to prove the Bible. Believe the Bible and archaeology will find its way there at some point. Let's talk about the structure. In the Jewish Torah Ezra and Nehemiah are together. They're one book with two parts, so you have the same quality in some of the other books as well.

Like first and second Chronicles was really one book and first and second Kings were really one book two parts. I'd like to talk about Nehemiah the man. He's such an inspiring and helpful person to us. Nehemiah was a layman. He wasn't a priest.

He was not a prophet. He was actually a slave. I think you could think of him as having secular employment. He worked for the king, and He's a supremely gifted organizer. He's a leader, he's a warrior, he's a visionary.

And he does instruct in the way of the Lord. And at the same time, most likely, Ezra was the primary teacher. But he did proclaim the Word of God to his countrymen but he was a layman and his name means the Lord comforts and he did so in his everyday service toward God. Everything he did he did as unto the Lord. It's really a beautiful picture of a worker.

He was a cut bear to the king when he was in Babylon and the cut bearer was the person who would drink before the king drank because ancient Near Eastern kings would sometimes be threatened with poison. There were usurpers, sometimes children, sometimes members of the court that would want the king to die And so they would serve him poison and be killed. Well, with Nehemiah, he was the cup bearer. He was the first one to drink. He would take a drink, and everybody is standing around saying, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5.

Is he going to drop? In those days, poisons dropped you pretty fast. And so he was a trusted person. Imagine who would you want your cup bearer to be? You would have to have trust to appoint someone to cupbearer because the cupbearer could play his own games, But he was highly trustworthy even though he was a slave.

There's a great summary of Nehemiah the man in the Expositor's Bible commentary and I'm gonna read some of the qualities that are written in this commentary, because Nehemiah shows us one of the most helpful patterns of leadership anywhere in the Bible. I'm just going to give you several points. Number one, he was a man of responsibility as shown by his position as the royal cupbearer. Secondly, he was a man of vision, confident of who God was and what he could do through his servants. He was not however a visionary but a man who planned and then acted.

In other words his vision led to action. And then number three he was a man of prayer. He prayed spontaneously and constantly even in the presence of the king. Number four, he was a man of action and cooperation who realized what had to be done, explained it to others and enlisted their aid. And Nehemiah was able to get the cooperation of other men in order to accomplish an enormous task.

Number five, he was a man of compassion who was moved by the plight of the poorer members of society, so that he renounced even the rights he was entitled to and denounced the greed of the wealthy. That's in chapter 5 verse 8. Number 6, he was a man who triumphed over opposition. His opponents tried to ridicule and slander and spread misleading messages, but through God's favor, Nehemiah triumphed over difficulties. You know, we need men like this today.

We need men who are willing to rise up and rebuild in the midst of the difficulties that exist in the midst of the rebuilding that's necessary in the kingdom of God. We need men like this in our generation who are willing to stand strong and you'll see he was a mighty man and we'll spend some time talking about how he dealt with opposition and it's very telling. I want you to note the role of prayer in Nehemiah. This is the fifth item in your outline. I've listed a number of places where you can find prayer.

It's scattered all throughout the book. Nehemiah shows us what a critical impact a normal person whose life is bathed in prayer can have on the church. He was a man of prayer. At every change he was praying He would pray at the drop of a hat. If he was in a tough situation or one where he needed God's help he would shoot up what people have called arrow prayers.

Shoot them to heaven right away. Cry out to God. He was a man of prayer. Let's move into the book here. You see the outline in front of you.

I've divided the book into four sections. The first section is preparation to rebuild the wall from chapter 1, 1 to chapter 2, 20. And then the actual building of the wall, chapter 3, 1, to chapter 7, 73, and this is where a lot of the conflict happens. And then the third section begins in chapter 8 verse 1 and goes to chapter 10 verse 39 where we find the covenant being renewed, people turning to God and what all that meant. And then finally the fourth section explains the obedience that Nehemiah called for and then was fulfilled in the people in chapter 11 verse 1 to the end of chapter 13.

So that's the basic flow of it, but let's start with reading some of this text. The first part is the preparation to build the wall in 1-1, and what we find right at the beginning is Nehemiah gets a report from home. The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah, it came to pass in the month of Chislev in the 20th year as I was in Shushan the Citadel. Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem." So he's interviewing someone who has been in Jerusalem and Nehemiah is in the capital in the Citadel you read about the same place in Daniel 8 and all through Esther and it's 250 miles east of Babylon these men when they came they traveled 1200 miles it's a long trip and here's what they said verse 3 the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire." So that's the report that he receives.

And then Nehemiah responds by Weeping and fasting. Verse 4, So it was when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned, for many days I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And then in verse 5 and following is the record of the prayer and whenever you encounter a prayer in Scripture it's a marvelous opportunity to take note of it and use it to pray through Scripture and when you pray through Scripture it enlivens your prayers it makes them more diverse it makes them broader and sweeter It makes you cover areas that you might not normally. And so here's the prayer beginning in verse five. I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you." And so he goes into a time of confession.

And then in verse 8 he says, "'Remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses. If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them though some of you are cast out to the farthest part of the heavens yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name." So Nehemiah is very well aware of the prophecy that Moses delivered that if you obey the commandments of God you'll be blessed. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country.

But if you reject the law of God, you'll be cursed." So he's harkening back to that and he's claiming the promise that if you return He will restore. And we encounter again one of the most important messages of Scripture, and that is this, you can be restored. No one can go too far. God is a restoring God. And even after a season of rebellion and rejection, when a heart turns toward Him, He has mercy, and He receives sinners back into His arms.

It's so wonderful to know that we live in a world like that. And that's the world that this prayer bear is witness to. And then in chapter 2, Nehemiah is with the king and his sadness is evident. He did not have his game face on. Perhaps it might mean that he had a genuine relationship with the king.

He wasn't putting on airs. Rather, he was real. And so we read in verse 1, and it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, why is your face sad, since you are not sick?

This is nothing but sorrow of heart." And then Nehemiah responds to the king, who's answered him very tenderly, you know this king was known for lopping people's heads off or offending him or coming into his presence in an untimely manner. But Nehemiah responds to the king and he says, So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. Now Nehemiah knew that he was doing something dangerous but the king says to him, what do you request? That must have knocked him off his chair.

And what does he do? What is the first thing that he does? Look at verse 4, the end of it. His first impulse is to pray. So I prayed to the God of heaven.

He heard a question that he was going to be required to answer, and it was a question that he cared so much about. He had thought about it, and now He is supposed to give a response and so he prays. In verse 5, Nehemiah makes this request and when you think about this remember Solomon. The very same question was asked Solomon, where God asks him, what do you want from me? And he asks for wisdom.

He doesn't ask for riches. So verse 5 says, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it.'" And then the king responds, "'How long will your journey be and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time." Amazing, isn't it? God is giving a man the desire of his heart. There's something very precious about that.

If you think back at different times in your life where God gave you the desire of your heart. It really is a very sweet thing. It doesn't always happen, but when it happens it's a very, very sweet thing. And I can think of a number of things like that. I remember when I asked Deborah to marry me, God gave me the desire of my heart.

I was so grateful for that and there have been many things along the way as well. But this is one of those moments where you're before God, you're extremely vulnerable, you're not in control. Only God can fulfill that desire. And here it was confirmed by God working through this king. Well it was also sweet until Sanballat and Tobiah hear the plan.

And this is where the conflict begins. So we read in verse 10, when Sambalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel because they hated Israel, they hated the people of God, and any benefit to the people of Israel would be despised in their eyes. And so in verse 11 the journey has been made from Shushan all the way to the Promised Land. And now Nehemiah enters into Jerusalem, verse 11. So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days.

Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. So he goes out secretly in the middle of the night. He makes this nighttime survey of the city to see the destruction that's there and he doesn't go with very many people at all. There is one animal, the one that he rode, but he went out and surveyed the city of Jerusalem and it says here he viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire And it speaks about how he went all through the different parts of the city and particularly to survey the wall. And he goes out of his way in verse 16 to make it clear that no one knew he was doing this.

He didn't show up in the city with the marching band. He didn't come back to rescue the world. He came back humbly and he went out secretly to survey the damage that had been done. And he didn't tell anyone. He didn't tell the Jews, he didn't tell the nobles, he didn't tell the priests, no officials knew about the work at all.

He was given freedom by King Artaxerxes and no one else knew why he was there. And so then Nehemiah gathers the people together after surveying the situation and he says let us rise up and build. The word says then they set their hands to this good work. So it's a beautiful picture where you have the people of God rising up to build, rising up to rebuild. There's nothing sweeter than when the people of God have it in their hearts to rebuild the broken down walls of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They see the things have been burned down and charred because this happens as a result of sin. They see the rubble. They see the labor that's going to be necessary in order to do the cleanup work. Anyone who's been a local church pastor for a while understands that the cleanup work takes a long time. People don't change overnight, but they do change over time as one piece of rubble is removed, as the charred remains of the wood that was burned or rebuilt.

And it takes time. If you're around long enough, you can see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ working through His people. Often when people show up at your church, you wonder, is it even possible to rebuild this? And the answer is absolutely, yes, it is. And if they really turn to the Lord, God will rebuild them.

But it will take time. I'm just struck by Nehemiah's vision to take the time that was necessary. But it doesn't, it just happened automatically. People need to rise up and build and that's exactly what happened. But then the opposition rises from Sanballat and Tobiah.

This is quite a study in dealing with opposition. But what we read about in verse 19 is, they laughed at us and despised us and said, what is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king? Well they weren't rebelling against the king, it was a lie. And this is what the enemies of God are always doing.

They're always lying about what you're doing. And that's what Sambalat and Tobiah did. And Nehemiah answers them in chapter 2 verse 20, the God of heaven himself will prosper us. Therefore we his servants will arise and build. But you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem." And then the building of the wall begins.

There's excellent progress right at the beginning, particularly in chapter 3, verse 1. And they're making significant progress early on. And in chapter 3, verse 1 is a documentation of that progress. They built the wall as far as the tower of the hundred and then they consecrated it. So they're completing various portions of the wall.

And then in this chapter there's a listing of all the different people who were involved in the building. And you can tell right away it's families. Families are working together. In verse 12 in chapter 3, one of my favorite entries exists. As Nehemiah is describing all the different people who are putting their shoulder to the work, he says, and next to him was Shalom, the son of Halohash, leader of half the district of Jerusalem.

He and his daughters made repairs. He and his daughters made repairs. Apparently, it was a man who had no sons. And his daughters were right alongside of him building. You know, it's very inspiring, you know, to see a family like this that's being as productive as they can.

They're contributing as well as they can with the people that God's given them. And you might think, well, the rebuilding of the wall is man's work. Well, not in Nehemiah's rulebook. The whole family is working and building. And it's a blessing when women know how to build things.

It really is. And that's what you see here. So then the opposition continues to rise in chapters four through six. Well they're making really good progress and Sanballat and Tobiah are furious about it. And what we find in chapters 4 through 6 is the classic methodology that the devil uses to try to distract and discourage the people of God when they're working to rebuild the walls.

And we learn A couple of things. We learn what the haters of God do, and we learn what a godly man does in response to the opposition. It's a very significant section for anyone who is rebuilding the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we walk through this, I'm just gonna mark out six ways of this opposition, how it happened and how it was handled. The first is mocking.

Sanballat goes first in chapter four, verse one. So it happened when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, that he was furious and very indignant and mocked the Jews and he spoke before his brethren And the army of Samaria and said, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day?

Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish? Stones that are burned? Well, that was sand built. Then Tobiah weighs in. He opens his mouth and he says, whatever they build, even if a fox goes on it, he'll break down their stone wall.

This is mocking. The enemies of God are always going to front their work of opposition with mocking. This is why the church is always being mocked. Don't ever worry about that. It's always been that way and it always will be that way.

And so the mocking takes place and what does Nehemiah do? What is he doing as a result of the mocking? Does he start writing articles? Does he start running around the country making proclamations and accusations? Does he run out there to hold big meetings, you know, to try to overthrow the voice of opposition?

He prays, verse 4, Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their reproach on their own heads and give them as plunder to a land of captivity do not cover their iniquity and do not let their sin be blotted out from before you For they have provoked you to anger before the builders." And verse 6, I love verse 6, just a few words, so we built the wall. That's how Nehemiah responded to the mockery. He just built the wall. He cried out to God and did what he was supposed to do.

And that's a pattern you'll see in Nehemiah. Whatever discouraging thing is happening in your life that seems so overwhelming or someone, you know, is criticizing you in an unrighteous way, what do you do? You pray and don't waste any time on them. Get back to work and focus on the things that God has given you to do. The second voice of the enemy is a voice of violence and the second way that the enemies of God oppose God's work is through threats of violence.

And you read about this beginning in verse seven. And again, it's Sanballat and Tobiah, and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed. They became very angry and all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. So mockery didn't work. How about physical violence?

Let's threaten that. And that's exactly what they were doing. And what does Nehemiah do? He does two things. He prays and then he acts.

Verse 9, nevertheless we made our prayer to our God and because of them we set a watch against them day and night. So they're prepared now but all is not well. The people are tired. Moving all of this rubble has become overwhelming and they're at a low point. You know, anytime you're doing anything of any significance, there'll be times of weariness and you'll just want to give up.

You don't know if he can go on anymore and that's exactly what happened here and that's why in verse 10 we read the strength of the laborers is failing and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall they were just overwhelmed by the scale of it even though they had already made enormous progress, but this is what happens to us. Enormous ground has been recovered, but yet it seems so vast to finish the work. And that's always an illusion, because God is there. But the adversaries just keep on threatening verse 11 and our adversary said they will neither know or see anything till we come into their midst and kill them and cause the work to cease. In other words, this was their threat.

Yeah, just keep on working. You won't even see us. It's gonna come from behind you and you'll be dead. You won't even see us coming. That was the threat.

You know, often the haters of God make bold threats, and there are all kinds of rumors of threatening, and that's exactly what was happening here. But it got worse. It wasn't just the enemies that were discouraging them with these threats. Their own brothers bought into the lie and were distracted by the threat. Verse 15, so it was when the Jews who dwelt near them came and they told us 10 times from whatever place you turn they will be upon us.

So, Nehemiah's own countrymen are now spreading this word among the people and it's he says they said it ten times. In other words they just kept blabbering about the danger that we're in. Danger here, danger there, danger everywhere. Stop your work. Be afraid of their threats rather than to ignore their threats, which is what Nehemiah did.

But he didn't ignore them with a lack of wisdom or sort of a Pollyanna approach to life. He recognized that there was a threat and so he took some precautions. And you can read about these precautions in verse 13, therefore I positioned men behind the lower parts of the wall at the openings and I set the people according to their families with their swords their spears and their bows So he armed the families and you know all little boys love to carry knives and swords But boy, they must were probably having their heyday So the families were armed and he says to them, do not be afraid of them. He says, remember the Lord great and awesome and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses. So picture this, the families are mobilized all around the wall And where do you think that Nehemiah had each family rebuilt?

In front of their own house. That's what he did. So they were there protecting their own houses, their own livelihoods, as a result of this deployment that he had engaged them in. And so he responds with a very powerful and motivating message, protect your family. And then we learn in verse 15 that all these were idle threats.

And it happened when our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had brought their plot to nothing, that all of us returned to the wall, everyone to his work. All of the threats came to nothing. This happens quite regularly. You might think there's some threat on your life in some way, in some area of your life. Most of your worst fears never come true.

That's the truth. You might think of what are my top five fears? Here's a suggestion. Probably none of them are gonna come true. And that's what happened here.

They were well armed. And look when you read this and you get to these chapters, recognize kind of the administrative wisdom that Nehemiah is applying in this whole thing. He's got people working, you know, in different ways. For example, he says, half of my servants worked in construction while the other half held their spears and shields and bows and wore armor. So he had a division of labor that was effective.

And so then there were also these long distances along the wall. So the people were scattered out. But what would happen if somebody, if the enemy came in and just attacked a certain part of the wall? How would they receive help from the people all the way on the other side of the wall? So Nehemiah had a guard with him and that guard had a trumpet.

So whenever the trumpet was blown everybody was to gather to that place there. These guys were working really hard. Remember 52 days. There's a citation in verse 23 in chapter 4. So neither I, my brethren, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me took off our clothes, except that everyone took them off for washing.

Okay, So they barely had time to do anything but build and defend. It's a little bit like the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, who said, you know, the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. And there were times where He didn't even eat. The ministry was so intense. DMI was like that.

Chapter 5, we come to the third way that opposition comes. If the devil can't undo your work through mockery, then he uses violence. If he can't undo it through violence or threats of it, there's a third way, internal opposition. Chapter 5 verses 1 through 6. So internal opposition is often the most pernicious and difficult.

The people were under extreme pressure. They had mortgaged their lands and you can read all about this grave difficulty financially that the people had gotten themselves into here in this chapter. Verse 3, we have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses that we might buy grain because of the famine. And they're saying also that they had they sold their children into slavery in order to to do all these things. So things were very very difficult financially for the families of Israel.

And Nehemiah actually becomes angry with the people because they've been disobeying the law of God. They had been charging each other interest usury which was prohibited in the law that brothers do not charge brothers interest and so Nehemiah is very upset when he hears these outcries And he rebukes the nobles and the rulers for a number of things, but particularly their financial practices. And so he calls them to repentance in verse nine. Then I said, what you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nation's our enemies I also with my brethren and my servants and lending them money and grain please let us stop this usury Restore now to them even this day their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil that you have charged them." In other words, give the land back, give them their sons and daughters back, give them back the things that you collected by usury.

So it was a shocking message because here obedience to God had a profound impact on their pocketbook. And what happens? Well verse 12, the people obeyed. So they said, we will restore it and we'll require nothing from them. We will do as you say.

So they were cleaning up their worldly practices of lending money to their brothers. And then you see the generosity of Nehemiah. You'll see this in chapter five and other places. Take note of the generosity of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is being financed by the king.

He could do pretty much whatever he wants, but he doesn't do everything that he can do. And he says that neither he nor his brothers ate the governor's provisions. He provided for himself. He didn't want to be on the dole. And he continued to work on the wall and he didn't buy any land.

He wanted to serve the kingdom of heaven alone. And he had a hundred and fifty people at his table all the time. He was feeding them out of his own resources. Chapter 6, the opposition continues, and now we have opposition through compromise. In chapter 6 verses 1 through 4, and then now we have Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem, the Arab and the rest of their enemies, they've heard that the wall has been rebuilt and that there are now no breaks in the wall at all.

They've closed up all the gaps in the wall and Sanballat and Geshem, they begin to send letters saying, come let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono. So these enemies are saying, let's have a meeting, Let's get together. And so four friendly letters are sent. Hey, let's have a little, let's just get together and collaborate a little bit. Let's figure out how to solve this problem.

But what you read in verse 2 is that they were designing to do him harm. They were just luring him out there. This is the world. This is the lure of the world, to come and to collaborate with the world, to come and have dialogue. You know, there are people you don't want to have dialogue with.

They have nothing good to say. Their motives are all corrupt and they actually hate you but they use these sweet words. You know it's interesting over the last few months I've been getting emails from a Muslim group out of Turkey here locally and they're inviting pastors to come and eat with them and to learn about Ramadan and all this kind of stuff. You know, this is the very same kind of thing. We're not here to dialogue, we're here to proclaim.

And this is what's happening here, and they have malicious intent. And Nehemiah says, you know, I'm doing a great work, I'm not coming. I'm not gonna stop this work to have some kind of dialogue, you know, out in the country with you guys. This message comes four times, and he answers them in the same manner and this has to do with the way that the devil often desires to distract his people to get them involved in all kinds of dialogues and debates that are really meaningless to the effort. They slow you down, they distract you, they take you away from the work that you have to do for rebuilding the wall.

And this happens all the time in life where some interesting lawful thing pops up and it distracts you from the work of the rebuilding that God has you involved with. There's so many entertainments and interests and things like that that can distract you from the work. And you really only have so much time in this life to do the work of God. And so this means that Christians have to say no to lots of lawful, interesting things in order to do the work. If you do everything you're interested in, you'll never do the work of God.

I realized this many years ago. I was interested in so many things. I still am. Sometimes I think, I wish I had, you know, six more lives I would do this in this life, I would do that. It's enjoyable.

You know, God has created this world of activity that's a blessing and it's a blast and you can get distracted by the things that are dangled in front of you that actually are not unlawful at all. But what's wrong with them is that they distract you and they take up all your time And so you have no value in the rebuilding of the wall of the Church of Jesus Christ. So then after this expression of opposition through compromise, through this lure of friendly debate to go waste your time talking with people who hate you, then the fifth type of opposition is recorded in chapter 6 verses 5 through 9. This is slander. So if the devil is not able to distract you through mockery or threat of violence or any of these other things slander is often on the table and So we read that they come and they lie It is reported among the nation's Geshem says that you and the Jews plan to rebel.

Therefore, according to these rumors, you are rebuilding the wall that you may be their king. So this is slander. These are lies that are being spread about the work. Whenever you're doing a work of God, you will be slandered at some level in some way. And this is why Christians need to be very careful not to love the favors of man.

If you love people's favor, then slander will get you every time. And you'll snap into action as a result of the slander that came. But these are lies that are being told. You know there's some really extreme examples of this in history. In the days of the Roman Empire when the Christians were being brutally martyred, What Rome was saying was that the Christians were enemies of society.

That the Christians were the cannibals. That the Christians were the true scum of the Empire that were, you know, corroding its values. That's how the devil slanders the church. And it lies. And that's exactly what you find here.

Now Nehemiah responds in verse 8 and he says, Then I sent to him saying, no such thing as you say are being done but you invent them in your own heart for they all were trying to make us afraid saying their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not be done. Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands." So Nehemiah responds very clearly. He says, we're not doing that for one thing and secondly we're not stopping. That's it. End of story.

Six, there's opposition through deception and confusion in verses 10 through 14 So the work was finished, but now there were spies in Jerusalem Tobiah had in-laws in the city And so from the inside there was a subversive element and traitors are always a threat and that was the threat here. False apostles, there will be traitors and we meet a man by the name of Shemaiah. When you're reading through this book, read carefully what it says about Shemaiah. He was hired. Sambalad and Tobiah hired him, and they hired him to tell a lie to Nehemiah to get him to go into the temple because that's where they wanted to kill him.

So this friendly man comes and what does Nehemiah do? He refuses the opportunity. He says I'm not going and quit trying to make me afraid because I'm not afraid. That was his basic message. And then finally, the wall is completed, and Tobiah continues to attack through all of his letters.

His letters just get more and more hateful after these first four sweet letters of friendship to come out and meet us out by the river. In chapter seven, there's this brilliant organization of the people and how it all happened. And there's a phrase in this chapter seven, verse five, then God put it into my heart to gather the nobles. I really love that verse because it speaks of often the way that God leads his people. They're praying about something, they're considering a problem or a situation, and all of a sudden God puts something in their heart, and it's it.

It's the thing. Often, it takes some time. But when God puts that thing in your heart and you know what to do, it's such a blessing. And then they're registering of all these people in this chapter, you know, who have been involved in completing the wall. And then the second of the last section is the section of covenant renewal.

And this is where there's worship, there's singing, there's A restoration of the worship of God there. Ezra is there, he's reading the book of the law. One of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible is Nehemiah chapter 8, in this scene where Ezra is reading the law of God. For a long time, all the children are there, He's explaining the nuances to it. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture.

And you see the people's response. It's joy. So this is what you get in chapters 8 and 9 and 10. And There's the handling of the Word of God, the Reformation that takes place, the feasting in the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles is begun again. It had not been done for a long, long time and now it's feasting again.

You know, the people of God should be feasting and that's what you find here. They finally pick up feasting again. They make booths and they stay there and it's a beautiful beautiful picture. In Chapter 9 there's a prayer of the Levites. It's a beautiful prayer that you should really linger on.

And there's a whole recounting of the history of God's faithfulness in this prayer and the disastrous impact of turning from God's laws and then in chapter 10 there's a list of those who signed the covenant and Exactly what it was well. It was a covenant to enter into obedience to God's law and this is to me one of the most exciting parts of the book. Offerings are taken, there's a structure to it, and then in chapter 11 through 13 is the subject of obedience. And there's the resettlement in Jerusalem, but then there are various aspects of obedience that need to be secured, particularly the way that they've been dealing with their marriages and the celebration of the Sabbath. And there's significant conflict here.

Chapter 12 there's a registration of the priests and the things that they're doing. Nehemiah dedicates the wall in that same chapter. There are two large choirs. Read about the musical stuff in chapter 12. It's really, really beautiful to read about how they handled the music.

He divides up the temple responsibilities. And then finally, in chapter 13, there's the final restoration of the people. There's the separation of the believers from the unbelievers. And why did that happen? It's because they were reading the law of God, and it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God.

So they were reforming their worship, they were reforming their marriages, they were reforming their whole economic life in terms of their celebration of the Sabbath. And there was quite a bit of conflict. Nehemiah comes out as a very bold and courageous leader who stops the breaking of the Sabbath in the land. He's contending with them and he is fighting with some of them and he does some pretty dramatic highly physical things there and but God secures their obedience and then finally at the very end you see what Nehemiah's legacy is. Verse 30 in chapter 13, thus I cleansed them from everything pagan and I assigned the duties to the priests and the Levites.

In other words, God used him to deal with the paganism that existed in the hearts of the people there, and secondly, to restore their worship. These are the two very most important parts of what it means to walk with God, to come under his authority, and then to begin to hate the paganism that has infiltrated your life and your heart. Well, Christ in Nehemiah. You know, Nehemiah here takes us to the very end of the Bible, and the very next event is the coming of John the Baptist after Nehemiah. Malachi, Nehemiah, and then John the Baptist.

And you have a 400 year period of time that's called the intertestamental period. So all the prophecies of Christ will be in waiting until John the Baptist comes. Like Christ, Nehemiah leaves a high position. He leaves the glory of the king's court and he goes to a city of rubble. That's what Jesus Christ did.

He passed through the heavens. He came down to the place of sin and sickness, the degradation of people, broken people, broken hearted people with broken lives. And what does he do? He rebuilds them. This is the work of Jesus Christ and so when you see the rebuilding of the wall you you must always correlate it with the rebuilding that the Lord Jesus Christ is involved in.

You know, in this book everything is restored except the King. The temple's rebuilt, Jerusalem is reconstructed, the Covenant is renewed, the people are reformed, The messianic line is intact. But the King has not come yet. He will come. His name is Jesus.

Four hundred years later, He'll be born in Bethlehem. Let me just leave you with one final practical way to consider Nehemiah. Colossians 3.17, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. That's a picture of Nehemiah and I hope it's a picture of us as we're involved in rebuilding the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we'd give our whole hearts to the work and we would be undistracted and we would not care about the slanderous mockery that comes to us. It's a good work that we do, like Nehemiah said, and we ought to just keep on doing it.

Okay, there you have it. Nehemiah.