If we're going to rebuild a society, if we're going to rebuild this community, it will only come because there's a divine frame of reference at the top.
Dr. Tony Evans says positive change and stability depend on people in leadership who see life through God's eyes. It's true in the home. It's true in the church.
It's true in the society. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Nehemiah had a vision to restore the dignity of God's people when he called them to rebuild Jerusalem's broken walls. But even after the walls were complete, his mission was far from over. Today, Dr. Evans explains that restoring a community takes more than fixing its physical structures. It requires rebuilding its spiritual foundation as well. Let's join him as he unpacks this important truth.
Nehemiah has, from a human standpoint, done the impossible. But rather than being finished, he's just gotten started. One would think that we could have had the benediction at the end of chapter 6 because we closed last time with verse 15 of chapter 6. So the wall was completed, and when all of our enemies heard of it and all of the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence, for they recognized that this had been accomplished with the help of our God. Verse 1 of chapter 7 opens up with, now it came about when the wall was rebuilt. The walls are up, the city has been secured, but there's always a problem whenever you fix something. When you fix a house, you still have one remaining problem. When you fix a business, you have one remaining problem.
When you fix a build or repair a school, you have one remaining problem, and the problem is that people still live there. You know, this world would be wonderful if it weren't for people. We wouldn't have to worry about crime if it weren't for people. We wouldn't have to worry about being abused.
We wouldn't have to worry about rape or murder or injustice. All of those things happen because of people. And so Nehemiah is in the process now of moving from walls to people. Now, one lesson that you should have learned and I should have learned and gleaned from what we started thus far is that you never say you can't regarding something God says you can. If there's any lesson that I hope you would have gleaned by now is that Christians don't have to be quitters. That regardless of what's not right in your life and in your circumstances, if the walls of your personal life or family life or career life or, in this case, community life is torn down, you don't have to quit.
The ballgame isn't over. Because in 52 days, the community had been stabilized, a community that had been distraught and destroyed for over 150 years because he concluded, by God's help I can. Or to put it in the words of the apostle Paul in the New Testament, I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. And what he means by that is all things commensurate with the will of God. When Nehemiah built the wall, God got the glory. Because the end of chapter 6 says the enemies knew that God had done it. Now my question to you is what has God done for you lately that even your enemies know God had to do it? What's broken down in your life?
Because that's what we've seen in the first six chapters. We've seen walls being broken down. Perhaps for you it's your marriage. Perhaps the walls in your marriage are broken down and they have become irreparable. Perhaps it's a parent-child relationship that's become broken down and you see no hope of being able to fix it.
Perhaps it's the directional course in your life and you're looking out and you see that they're firing people and they're dismantling your career and that doesn't look like there's any hope. Well, I have good news for you today. All that is is a wall that's a candidate for a miracle. God still does miracles today, but he only does miracles according to his guidelines and according to his will. The great tragedy today is, as it was in Nehemiah's day, that there was a generation of people, actually, three and a half generations of people who stopped believing in miracles, who stopped believing that God could turn things around. And so what had they done? They quit. They gave up.
They said, there is no hope. Well, Nehemiah was not like that. And he even now had a testimony before his enemy about what God could do. And so we find in chapter 7, verse 1, it came about when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors, gatekeepers, singers, and Levites were appointed.
Then I put Hananiah, my brother, and Hananiah, the commander of the fortress in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a man and feared God more than many. He introduces a fundamental principle here. If, when you get something started, you're going to keep it going in the right direction, you've got to have the right people on your team. He built the wall, but he understood a fundamental principle. If he puts the wrong people in places of responsibility, they can tear down what he's built up. One of the fundamental principles of progress in a family, in a church, or in a community, is make sure those people who are appointed to positions of responsibility and leadership are capable and loyal.
The characteristic of Hananiah is brought out for a major purpose. He was a faithful man and feared God more than many. Why would Nehemiah pick a military leader who feared God? Because Nehemiah understood a principle that is fundamental for the rebuilding of your personal life, your family life, your church life, and most appropriately, since he's talking about a community, the community in which we live and the country in which we live. Whenever God is removed from society, the Bible declares that that society will deteriorate, because government belongs to God. Now, people do not buy that government belongs to God, but whenever you find government being dismissed, and whenever governmental, societal, state, or municipal rulers cannot appeal to a divine standard for the operation of society, you can bet your bottom dollar that that society will begin to disintegrate. So either a government will govern according to God, or a government will govern according to men. When governments govern according to men, rather than governing according to God, God will judge the governing government that is not governing according to his governmental guidelines.
There is no neutral government. All governments reflect a biblical or humanistic worldview. Nehemiah said, when I'm going to place my men in leadership, I need a faithful man, a man who understands his task, but who also understands the Lord. If we're going to rebuild a society, if we're going to rebuild this community, if we're going to rebuild with the problems that we face as our culture is being torn down, it will only come because there's a divine frame of reference at the top. And that's why you want men who surround themselves with men who have a divine orientation and also know their fields.
So back to Nehemiah. He was a man who understood the nature of leadership that goes for our homes. The first place I start when talking about our homes is with the men, if there's a man in the home, because you must set the divine temperature of the home, because the way God has established the family as a hierarchy.
And if you want to look at a home, look at the thermostat and see what the husband's reading is, because his job is to set the temperature for the family. And when that man fails that job, it will show itself all the way down through the attitude of the wife and through the attitudes of the children, because there has not been a faithful leader at the top. It's true in a church. If there are unfaithful leaders at the top, it will filter down. That's God's hierarchy. So this is no small point. If you want to keep something going, if you want to keep it stable and on target, you must have leaders with a divine consciousness.
That's what I'm saying. Leaders who have a sense of God. We'll learn how Nehemiah put that kind of leadership into action with clear instructions for protecting the city when Dr. Evans returns in a moment. Before he does, though, today's lesson is part of his 15-part sermon series on the book of Nehemiah, a powerful look at how God can use ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. As we follow Nehemiah's journey to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, we're discovering timeless truths about leadership, perseverance, and spiritual renewal, truths that can help us overcome challenges and step confidently into God's purpose for our lives. For a limited time, you can get this complete audio series for yourself on digital download, as well as on either CDs or a USB flash drive, along with Tony's compelling book, One Nation Under God, a timely, practical guide to making a kingdom impact in our culture. Just visit tonyevans.org or call us at 1-800-800-3222, make a contribution, and let us send you the Nehemiah audio series and One Nation Under God. Once again, you can find all the details on this special offer at tonyevans.org or by phone at 1-800-800-3222.
Well, let's get back to more now from Dr. Evans. Well, Nehemiah now proceeds. He says in verse 3, Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be open until the sun is hot. And while they are standing guard, let them shut and bolt the doors. I also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, each at his own post and each in front of his own house.
Now Nehemiah wants to stabilize his community. And in order to stabilize it, what he does is he puts out a whole force of people who are on ready alert. He guards his community. In other words, he protects what he's built.
A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into putting this wall up. And he doesn't want enemies coming in and knocking it over a few days after he's built it up. So the first thing he does is appoint guard in the leadership. The second thing he does is what he had done earlier, get everybody involved in protecting their little space. Everyone, he says, outside of his house, everyone, now watch this, watching for enemies who are coming in to destroy. The biblical principle of watch and pray means always keep your eyes open for the enemy, because when the enemy comes in, he will come in, not in the way that you expect, and seek to destroy everything you've built up, so make sure, he says, watch and pray.
Some of us as parents are going to have to watch and pray for our kids. We not only have to get on our knees by their bed at night and say, God, protect them, but we've got to watch the music that comes inside the house and protect them. We just saw it's also the job of government to watch for good and to identify evil, to discriminate between the two, to judge evil and promote good.
It's true in the home, it's true in the church, it's true in the society. So Nehemiah appoints faithful men. He sets up a guard to watch out for the enemy, that they do not enter into it. In fact, the Bible says that we ought to watch out for Satan.
We are to keep alert, for he's a roaring lion. And then we come to verse 4. Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few, and the houses were not built.
Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, the people, to be enrolled by genealogies, and I found the book of genealogy of those who came up first in which I found the following record. In verse 4, he has a problem, and that is he's rebuilt the wall, but everybody's moved to the suburbs. What happened was, when the walls were torn down, nobody wanted to live in Jerusalem anymore. The neighborhood went down, because there was no security, there was no protection, everybody was worried about crime, and they were worried about the disintegration of the community, so everybody moved out. Nehemiah now has restructured the community and provided protection and provided security and provided welfare. Now the problem was nobody was living there. So what he needed was, and get this, reinvestment.
He needed reinvestment back into the community in order to rebuild the community to the point it was and even more than before everybody left. See, the reason why people leave an area is because generally they're discouraged about the direction that the area is going. There are two approaches you can take. One approach is to leave the area.
There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, if the walls are torn down, you've got to look at the security of your family and all that. But the other solution is to reinvest in the area so people will want to come back, so that people who choose to come back, because where a person lives is their own private choice, but if they choose to come back, they will feel good about coming back because there is security back there.
It's become apparent if we are going to do something about the community in which we live, there has to be a group that's going to invest in changing it. Nehemiah did a beautiful thing. You don't find it until chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. He got a tithe of the people to return. He says, give me 10%. All of you don't have to come, but give me 10%.
We're going to give you some incentives to come back, and we're going to give 10%. I want 10% of the families who know God and who love God and who perhaps have family back there, relatives back there, to reinvest back into that community in order to rebuild it for God's sake. So the other people were not disturbed. They still had the freedom to live where they wanted to live, but the idea wasn't to let one area go down and the other areas to stay up. It was to make sure all the areas progressed and moved forward. But in order to do that, you had to have strength located in the neighborhood.
So what he is saying here in verse 4 is his concern was he did not have the right people nor the right amount of people in the environment. If you're going to change a family or a church or a community, you've got to have the right people in place. That's the principle. You've got to have the right people in position.
You've got to have the right people contributing back to it. The last principle that I'm going to have time to go over today is in verse 5. Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up in which I found the following record. Now, from verses 6 through verses 65, he gives a comprehensive list of the record he found.
Now, folks, this is a lesson on divine guidance. He says, my God put it into my heart to do a census of the people. By genealogies, he means a census.
It's like in American government, we have a census. Who's living where? He wants a census so that he can try to find out who's living there so that maybe he can trace who's not living there but living outside of the city to bring them back into the city. So he wants to go around to the people who are living inside Jerusalem and say, okay, your name is Smith, okay? Do you have any Smiths who are living outside that I can go outside and entice to come back and live here with you Smiths as a family in this particular community?
We're going to rebuild this community of a family, so I need a census of who I've got living here as a basis for going out. Now, he says, my God put this idea in my heart. How do you know when God has put something in your heart and you didn't put it in your heart? You hear people say, the Lord led me.
How do you know that's not the pizza leading you? How do you know that it's God leading you? Listen to me now. God will always validate your subjective sense of His leading you with an external objective verification. Listen to me now. If you feel this is what God wants me to do, and that's kind of what your heart feels, assuming you've been walking with the Lord because if you're not walking with the Lord, it could be Satan making you feel it, but if you're walking with the Lord, you say, this is in my heart what God wants me to do with my career.
This is who He wants me to marry. This is what you feel. You've got this feeling in my heart. Please notice what happens. The second half of verse 5 says, then I what? Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first. Now, in order to understand this, you have to understand Ezra.
Way back in the book of Ezra, in 536 BC, Zerubbabel led a group of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of Persia back down to Jerusalem. Now, that book of genealogy had been lost. So Nehemiah doesn't know that this thing exists. He gets it in his heart to do a census. See, that's fundamentally, you have to understand that what God put into his heart is to enroll the people by genealogy.
So he's starting from scratch. He's going to do an enrolling. But because God put it in his heart and God knew that that's what he wanted Nehemiah to do, when he gets into the process of getting ready to do the enrollment, he found the enrollment has already been done.
Not only that, not only has the enrollment already been done, but if you would look at this list, you will find out that those who are enrolled are enrolled and are stated to already be living on the outside of the city. So now God has not only verified that this enrollment is the step he should take, but God has solved part of the problem for him because he's told him who's living where. So now he can go and get those people to link back in. What's my spiritual point? My spiritual point is when you have a dynamic prayer life, when you have a dynamic obedient life, the Spirit of God will move your heart to do certain things. But of course, how do I know the Spirit is leading me? Because God always validates your subjective feelings with his objective evidence. In other words, there'll be something out there to let you know that this is the will of God.
God never lets you move on feelings without verifying it with fact. God validates his will. Dr. Tony Evans, with an inspiring lesson on bringing restoration to our communities, taken from the story of Nehemiah's vision and leadership. Now if you'd like to hear the full-length version of this message, you can receive it as a part of Tony's 15-part sermon series, simply titled, Nehemiah.
And don't forget that special double offer I mentioned earlier. You can receive all the lessons in this series bundled along with his compelling book, One Nation Under God. Both of these resources are yours with our thanks for your donation to help make this listener-supported program possible. Make the arrangements today at 1-800-800-3222 before time runs out.
That's 1-800-800-3222. Or visit tonyevans.org. As we've seen, when Nehemiah led the people to rebuild Jerusalem's walls, it wasn't just about construction. It was the start of a spiritual awakening. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans continues our journey through this powerful book and reveals the true source of lasting revival. Be sure to join us.
