This is the Truth Network. Forever thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119, verse 89. I'm Stu Everson. Welcome to this special Wednesday in the Word Leader podcast, where we prepare and equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast.
Every week to teach through the scriptures. Thirteen Dario locations. There's a men's group meeting and several of the Locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word.
A famous man once said, it's amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares. Who gets the credit?
Now some attribute that quote to Ronald Reagan, others to, who knows, maybe Chesterton, I don't know. I just know that it's true. I learned it in Del Carnegie course. Nehemiah chapter three: The building. Has begun.
They are rebuilding the walls, they're rebuilding the gates. The mission is in full gear ahead. And you don't have The Man in charge mentioned one time in Nehemiah chapter three. All thirty-two verses. You do have them in chapter 4 mentioned.
Because the attacks, as soon as you start building for the Lord, you get attacked. And we're going to cover two chapters this week in Nehemiah, Nehemiah 3. EMIA 4. Dr. Horn, it's awesome to be able to look you in the eye and see you on this.
We're usually recording. By different devices from a distance, but we are together. In a cool little coffee place, and there might be a little background noise.
Someone may walk up to us and ask us if we've heard of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we hope they'll ask us that question, but we've got both our Bibles open. We've got our drinks in front of us. But I tell you, just to get to this point is a miracle, isn't it? God is working, He's the God of the impossible. And we we've seen that.
Here, all the way in these first two chapters of Nehemiah, set the stage for us. Yeah, as we've been talking about Nehemiah, we've been looking at this whole idea of God's covenant faithfulness to His people. over centuries. I mean Nehemiah is the next stage In the covenant unfolding of God's promise to His people.
So it goes all the way back to Daniel, right? I mean, Daniel. Spent his whole life Wanting to bring his people back and couldn't. And then his final. A little stint in Babylon was working with Cyrus the Great.
who issued an edict that allowed God's people to come home under Zerubbabul. and the starting of the rebuilding of the temple. And we remember how that stymied, and eventually that completed itself. And now here we are decades later in Ezra. has come back and now Nehemiah has come back.
So we have the reestablishing of the people of God. We have the re-establishing of the city of God, and we have re-establishing of the worship in the temple of God. Not in that order, right? But here we are now, and God is, we're in those chapters in Nehemiah where we're going to see the culmination of a dream that began. Hundreds of miles away in the capital city of Susa, with Nehemiah being the cupbearer to the king, hearing a report that these walls were torn down.
and now they're about to be rebuilt in a miraculous way. Nehemiah has done his night excursion. He's taken stock in chapter two. He's encouraged the people. He's already encountered a little bit of opposition.
He's going to encount a boatload more of that. internally and externally here in Nehemiah 3, 4 and 5. But in chapter three, there is the rebuilding of the wall. And one of the beautiful things about that is that it isn't Just one man. This isn't Nehemiah's pet project.
The entire people of God rally to the work of God. and they rebuild and establish again anew the kingdom of God. And there's always opposition when that happens, you know? And when we do kingdom work, like we're doing, when our Bible study leaders, Step into their Bible studies every Wednesday morning, they're oftentimes stepping into a pile of rubble. They're stepping into somebody's rubble.
Somebody's life is in ruins.
Somebody's got a ton of... spiritual rubble laying around in their life that Satan has torn down. And these Bible study leaders are like Nehemiah. They're walking in, and over time, brick by brick, Those walls are rebuilt. That rubble is reestablished.
where God wanted it to be. And whenever that happens, whenever that happens, there's going to be opposition. Amen. Our God is the God who builds, a God who rebuilds, a God who restores. He's the God of second chances.
And the foundation we find in Nehemiah isn't necessarily brick and mortar or stone or granite. The foundation is in chapter one: this amazing prayer: prayer of repentance, prayer of confessing sin, open sin. A prayer where Nehemiah calls out to God for help. He's desperate, he's mourning, he's weeping, he's praying, he's in a season of fasting, and then he goes to the king. You can't hide your feelings from your face, and the king says, What's wrong?
Which could have been the death sentence for many cupbearers because you're not supposed to bring any negative vibe into the presence of the king, and yet the king. asking that question. And then I then says Well, what do you request? Verse 4 of chapter 2 is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. I don't want to belabor that.
We're going to jump into three, but Dr. Horn, just for Nehemiah, two things happen in chapter two, verse four. First, the most powerful king on the planet, Artaxerxes, may be the stepson of Esther. We see her influence all throughout this book, and we see the favor of God through her, through Mordecai, right, through faithful patriarchs, even before them. But you have this great king asking Nehemiah, what is it you want?
And Nehemiah, instead of just whipping his list out and going right to town there on the king, and with his request. It says, and I prayed to the God of heaven. He just fires that arrow for And you have unfolding God's answer to prayer. And this whole book is really not about the king's provision or the king's forest or the king's building supplies or the king's contingent of soldiers that accompanied him or even the letters that got him through the different passages safely to Jerusalem. It's about God providing, God rebuilding.
God supplying, God protecting. And we see that all throughout this book. We get in chapter three, really, it's a beautiful culmination of that in this building process. Dr. Horn, I don't even know how to set up this chapter.
I mean, it is 31 verses. You can help us with it because you got gates, you got walls, you've got the dung gate, the shepherd's gate, you've got the different passages, you've got different households working on the gates. You have a whole, you have a whole, like, it's almost like an ant colony of all these different gifted people that are working on, I've never seen a more diverse group of people working toward one goal, one mission. And it all happens in 31 verses, and this week we're also going to get into chapter 4 because when you have God rebuilding. You have opposition.
So, talk to us about three first, and then we'll transition into chapter four as well.
Well, it's easy to get lost in chapter three. and wonder why it's there because it's got all these names of people. Heads of families. It's like you mentioned, it's got the different gates. And we kind of go to one extreme or the other.
We ignore the chapter entirely because we don't know what to do with it, or we try to figure out all the significance to the fish gate, the dung gate. And I've heard some pretty interesting sermons on the fishgate standing for evangelism, the dung gate standing for church discipline, or getting the trash out of your life, or whatever. And I'm actually not convinced that either option is the right option. I mean, this passage is here. In our Bible, because Israel is being reconstituted as a nation.
When you go back to the book of numbers You have a census in the book of Numbers when God established the nation. Formally, this is the formal establishment of the nation, and here are the people who make up that nation. and the heads of the families who are part of the tribes that make up that nation. And so here the nation has been driven out, and now they are being re-established, and this functions as an informal census. This is the record of the people that God is using to re-establish formally this nation in the land.
And so there's a connection to what went before. It's going to be different, but there's a historical connection. In this chapter, there's mention of the broad gate. And the broad wall. And that's a reference to the wall that Hezekiah built.
I've actually been in Jerusalem, so have you. And you can still go to a portion of that wall. And here, all these thousands of years later, the wall that Hezekiah built is still there. And it shows up here in verse 8. They repaired as far as the broad wall.
And so you have the reestablishing of the nation. Secondly, you have the work of the nation. collectively. What was their job? You know, if you stop and think about This nation coming back.
To this ruined, broken city with a few people who had rebuilt the temple. And they were in this place of ruin. What was the nation's first and foremost task? To rebuild the city. that God had chosen to put his name on.
This was not about having a great capital. This was not about having a great comfortable life. This was about the city that God had determined to put his name on. And so here is this nation now, and they have galvanized around a mission. And Nehemiah has said to them, God is going to make us succeed.
This mission is going to succeed. And we saw that in verse. 20 of chapter 2, when he said, The God of heaven will make us prosper. And that's exactly what we see here in chapter three.
Now, in the middle of this, there's a very little interesting detail. And it's in verse five: as all these people start. Being assigned, you know, Nehemiah assigns them a place to work. We all have our spot, right? In the work of God, we all have our spot.
We all have a place. And there's not one place that's better than the other place. The best place to be is wherever God puts you.
So I want to work at the dungate. No, I want the fish gate. That's closer to my house. It was not based on convenience. It was based on divine appointment.
Nehemiah appointed these. Households Uh, who work together and as a household and then collaboratively with the other households to re-establish these walls. But there's one group. that didn't want to work. And they're mentioned here in verse 5.
The nobles would not stoop. to serve the Lord. In other words, Wall building is not for us. We're good with ruling. We're good with administrating.
We're good with worship leading. But wall building, that's not for us. That's beneath us. And so that's a good reminder in this chapter. As you think about Nehemiah's humility, you mentioned it earlier.
He is never mentioned in this chat. There's another Nehemiah mentioned, but it's a different Nehemiah. But he's not mentioned. And there's another nobleman who says he jumped right into build and he included his daughters in the process.
So they were getting dirty. They were getting involved. It's like a family thing, like they're all contributing. But you have an interesting group of folks. There's always those that don't want to get their hands dirty.
They don't want to work. They're more of a showhorse than a workhorse. But here, this is a remarkable thing. 31 verses, the Chronicles. A build of an entire city's walls and an entire city's gates.
In 52 days. What a miracle. What an answer to prayer. There's no human explanation for that. That's the point, right?
He said in chapter 2. Uh the God of heaven will prosper us. And by the time we get to the finished wall in 52 days, there's no question in anybody's mind. that this was a supernatural thing. Because you could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 52 days.
You would not rebuild this wall. But this was a supernatural thing God did. It was God's enablement. To do God's work when God's people put their hand to do that work. And that's the encouragement for us, no matter.
You know, we're not predominantly looking at Nehemiah as a manual for doing building projects. But the big principle is when God has called you to do something, you need the people of God to help you. And as a part of the people of God, we should joyfully enter. No matter what the obstacles in front of us are, what the rubble is, we should joyfully enter and we should labor willingly in the place of our appointment, wherever that is. Whatever that is.
I love it. You know, in these 31 verses of chapter 3, the rebuild of the wall, Dr. Warren, it's hard to structure and alliterate them like we would in our. You know, chapter one is a simple outline. There's a problem, there's a prayer, right?
But in chapter three, Rather than try to alliterate or put together a nice outline. I would encourage our teachers, like you said earlier, to just to follow the narrative. And as the Lord leads you in your study, there are plenty of helps. I have a MacArthur study Bible. It's got a nice visual picture of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day and all these gates, all these towers, the Tower of the Hundred, the Sheep Gate, the Mustard Gate, the East Gate, the Horse Gate.
The different walls, the older wall, the newer wall.
Some of these walls were uncovered by the Turks in the 1500s. One of the walls was sealed because these Muslims didn't want Jesus to come back through that eastern gate.
So they went and they sealed it. Like that's going to stop the King of Kings from coming into Jerusalem. But there's. Beautiful history. Yeah, there's symbolism, and there's a reason that King David lived before this.
And there's things that point to him in here. There's things that point to Solomon. And David. Sure. The Jews of David.
You got Hezekiah in here. You got a whole.
So I think it's important to see God's working through all of these people. You know, this guy isn't just a. A little stamp on your triptych on your way to another place. This is someone God used. It's the seed of David that brings us the Messiah.
There's people that have journeyed here, there are people that have walked through those ruins praying before Nehemiah was born. People that watch their family slaughtered by the Syrians, and they're walking through the city praying God would do something, and here, A young man shows up, the cupbearer of the king, as an answer to those prayers.
So, the significance of this. In past redemptive history. The significance of this moving forward, and I love this application. And we don't want to jump here. When you're teaching through the Bible, you've got to talk about what the Bible's saying through the author of this Bible in that time to those people, to that audience.
So, what's God saying to Israel? These are Hebrew scriptures. What's God saying through Nehemiah? What's going on in his life? What's happening in this narrative?
But When you get through that as you teach, Dr. Horny. Isn't it fair to say there is an application when you look at Romans 12. When you look at 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, where we are one body, but many members. And you see all these different members, these different architects, these different, there are people that are perfumers.
There are people that are Artisans. There are people That are uh Goldsmiths and jewelers and others who are a part of this.
So we see God using. Israel, maybe is a picture of the church. Is that going too far? No.
So that's what I was saying.
So when you look at the chapter. And you're trying to bring it forward to the world that you and I live in in our day and age as members of this great people of God called the church. What do we take away from? A chapter like this. And that's why I said at the beginning: you can't just go to the gates and say Dungate, Fishgate, and whatever those mean.
And you can't ignore the chapter.
So when I think of the chapter, there are three big theological truths that jump off the pages. Number one is the sovereignty of God. In the timing of God, it came time for this wall to be rebuilt. It could have happened anytime in the sovereign process of God, but at this time, With this man, In this place, God determined to do a work. And so the sovereignty of God jumps off the place.
Secondly, is human responsibility. The sovereign will of God determines the work. But human responsibility enables it. In other words, Nehemiah and the people actually had to lift their hands, start picking up the rubble. Cleaning stuff up, laying out a new wall, it wasn't like they just stepped back and watched God do it, right?
It wasn't let go, let God. It was trust God, but then walk into the way of God and follow through and actually get going in the work of God.
So there's the sovereignty of God, right? Then there's human responsibility, number two. And then, number three, there is providential enablement. The providence of God enabling this work. Is stunning, right?
I mean, we're going to see it really big in chapter four. But these people could have gotten out there and done all of this work, and it wouldn't have happened. This was not human hands alone. This was the hand of God. making the work of God, the work of their hands, the work of His hands.
He put his hand over all this. Remember in chapter two? And in chapter 1, Nehemiah kept saying, The hand of God is upon me, and the hand of God is upon me.
Well, here now, the hands of the people are upon the rubble to turn it into a wall. And it succeeds because the hand of God is on their hand. And that's really the great lesson for us because in our day and age, no matter what we're called to do or when we're called to do it, we're going to need to pick up our hands and our feet and jump into that work. Think about the work you do with the Truth Network. Think about the work our Bible studies leader do with these Bible studies.
And the whole point is they have to show up on Wednesday morning.
Somebody's got to open up that restaurant.
Somebody's got to stand there and talk. But if that's all that happens, there's no spiritual work that's being done.
So there is human work that is being done here, and there is divine work that is being done here. And those two things produce a miracle. Yeah, and I think the Lord is working through everyone's gifts. This isn't to diminish this guy over here who's more of a welder. This guy over here, who's more of a guy who's a mechanic, or this guy over here who's building on this part of the wall.
Every single gift in the body is divinely inspired, divinely distributed. for the work of the body and after our Wednesday in the Word at the Dario ILEA, Dr. Horn. At the very end, I always say, hey, before you leave, pray with one person before you leave. And it's amazing to see the body.
go to work. Because we may have someone get up and share that they lost someone in their family, maybe a young person in their family. When I say pray with soul before you leave, I see two or three guys that have suffered that same thing. Run over to that person and pray with them. I see certain guys that just have a gift of hospitality going to these first-timers.
Putting their hands on them, praying for them. It's just a beautiful sight.
Sometimes they'll hang around dairy over two or three hours. And this is really what the church is built for. You have everyone listening to my voice right now has a gift. And God has given you that gift supernaturally to teach, to serve, to lead, to have compassion, to counsel. To give.
Some of you have the gift of giving. Like you can't, you know, I love Chuck Swindoll said. He said, you know, you find out someone's gifts. He says, here's the illustration: everyone's sitting around a table. Everyone's sitting around a table.
And someone knocks over their drink.
So, the guy with the gift of teaching instantly says, Now, let me give you three points. The three key reasons you knocked that drink. The trajectory of your arm was a little, was 15 degrees northeast of where it should have been. And the ice load in that drink was, you know, X amount of liters too high. And he just, you know, this is this exposition of why the person goes.
But then the person with givings disappeared. Why? Because they went to the front to pay for a drink for that person and a gift card for that person for their next trip there. You know, the person with a gift of compassion is, oh, my soul. You don't know how many times I have cried over spilled milk.
I am here. Let me tell you, I feel your pain. The Lord is with you. Don't be discouraged. You know, they're going, what were you thinking?
Don't ever do that again. The exhorter with prophecy exhortation is saying that. But the other exhorter is saying, hey, let me tell you something. You're going to get through this. You're going to live to spill another day.
But then the gift of serving, while everyone else is looking around and thinking, how dumb is this person? The gift of serving's already got 10 napkins. He's got a spray bottle. He's wiping up. Yeah, he's cleaning up.
He's wiping the person. He's getting the baking soda, get the stain out of the shirt. You know, so you see all the gifts just going into this beautiful, you know, harmony. And that's how the body's, but the enemy. Wants to divide us.
And that brings us to chapter four: opposition. There's one big thing I say for the end, and that is. You know, you and I don't know any of these names. When we read these names, it's like, who are these people? But God knows every one of these names.
And he wrote them down. And it's a reminder to me that no matter how small or how large our contribution might be, God notes it. God takes note of that. Every one of these people worked for 52 days, and I'll bet in those 52 days they were tired, they were frustrated, they wondered, what in the world am I doing out here on this wall? Yeah.
Thousands of years later, God wanted to make sure we knew their name. Even though we don't have a clue who they are, God's like, I want you to know their name because I know who they are. And I took note of how many bricks they put back in that wall. They built for me. God is an amazing, amazing, amazing rewarder.
of those who serve him. And sometimes we labor in these hard places. In these forgotten places, in these dark places, and we suffer all kinds of opposition like we see in chapter four, and we wonder if it's worth it. And God says, wait a minute. Wait a second, I wrote that down.
I I know what you went through. I know exactly And I haven't forgotten it, and trust me. On reward day, I'm going to bring that out. And I'm going to give you the biggest thank you you've ever had in your entire existence.
So, here are these people. And even though we have their names and we don't really know them, God's light. These are some of my choice servants. Yeah, even Miletia, the Gibeonite, Jadon, the Maronathite, the men of Gibeon in Mitzpah, repaired the residence of the governor of the region beyond the river. All these names, they're all in Scripture.
These folks are in the holy canon of scripture. Dr. Horn. Yes, it's miraculous. They built this in 51, 52 days, but even more miraculous, I believe.
We see God's hand. I've never seen a more diverse group of people.
Some of these were proselytes. The Gibeonites weren't originally Jews, but they came over to become Jews because of that treaty that Joshua made with them. Remember, they kind of tricked them into that early on as they were coming to the promised land. They didn't want to be destroyed, so they became water bearers for them, and other roles. But you think about, you have.
Never before have you seen a more diverse group of people working in perfect unison and harmony. You have priests. You have noblemen, you have servants, you have welders, you have people that are ironsmiths, you have all these different gifts. Showing off at all these different backgrounds from all these different areas that, you know, and many of their homes have been sacked, and many of them were in exile, and many of them, but it was God raised them up for this moment. I think that's the church today.
The church is like, you know, these people aren't like me. How can I go to a building with a bunch of different oddballs, of different nationalities, of different races, and this and that?
Well, they have been bought. by the blood of Jesus Christ redeemed to build his church. All in unison, all in harmony, all are the glory of God. Because God is a God of not chance, but of second chances. He's a God of building, he's a God of rebuilding.
And he could have built this whole thing without chapter 3 of Nehemiah. He could have built this whole thing without Nehemiah. He said, let there be light, and there was light. Look at Genesis chapter 1. God could have spoken this whole city.
Every stone. And he could have put a force field around it for it never to be heard again until his son came back. But he chose not just to ordain the ends, but to ordain the means. To ordain our hands and feet to walk in his way, to ordain Nehemiah, this government worker, to bring about one of the greatest revivals in Israel's history. But when you have revival, Dr.
Horn. There's opposition. One of my mentors told me I was going through a real rough season at Christian Radio. And I was very discouraged. And he said, you know, Stu?
He said If you weren't making such an impact for the Lord... You would never be under attack. And whenever there's a movement of God, there's always going to be these attacks from within and without, Dr. Horn. And that's what we see, it's alluded to in chapter 2.
Two, when we first meet these enemies of their mission, but chapter four, they come out hard against these guys, and we're going to see them again throughout this book. Yeah, so in chapter four, I think you could take it this way: this is the way I've taken it. Is there two threats and two responses?
So, four ideas here.
So, if you look at Verses one through three. There is this external opposition in the form of mockery and contempt. Look, let me read the text. When Sanbal had heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged. This is satanic language.
Right? I mean, Satan is a roaring lion. He is greatly enraged. at the people of God. Here is a satanic opponent.
And he is angry and greatly enraged, and the word is he jeered. He mocked. There is this verbal mockery. And he said in the presence of his brothers, And of the army of Samaria, there's an army there, right? What are these feeble Jews doing?
Like, what are these weak Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish?
and burn ones at that? And Tobiah, who was beside him, said, Yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up, he will break down their stone wall. These are mockery terms. And so here is the first response. that the people of God encounter When they put their hand to do the work of God.
And it comes from a satanic opponent with an army. Satan is a force to be reckoned with. And he has, according to Ephesians 6, a massively wicked army. marshalled against the people of God who are committed to doing the work of God. And so it shouldn't surprise us when it shows up in human form.
Generally speaking, we don't think of satanic opposition, and when we do, we don't really know what it is. It generally shows up in the form of a sandballot or a tobias. And it is intimidating. It is offensive, it is mockery, it is designed to be debilitating and discouraging. Will you all actually.
Do you think you could rebuild this in. The short amount of time that you guys are talking about, there's no possible way. The rubble is too great. The rubble is burned. How are you going to do this?
And there is this serious mocking. This is not just... Um Somebody coming along and going, this work is too hard. This is intended. To tear down the will of the people.
This is going at the will of the people. the morale of the people. And so how does Nehemiah respond to this? And in verses four through six, He does the same thing that he did in chapter one and in chapter two when he reached those moments. In chapter one, he had been praying for four months.
In chapter two, he throws up an arrow prayer. And here in chapter four, He prays a very strong Kind of prayer. The kind of prayer he praise has a name. It's called an imprecatory prayer. And he is praying.
To God to do something about the enemies that are mocking his name. Because when they're jeering the people of God who are doing the work of God, what they're really doing is mocking God. And so Nehemiah prays, and this is his prayer in verses 4 through 6. He said, Hear, O God. Hear, O our God, for we are despised.
Turn back their taunt on their own heads. There's the imprecatory nature of the prayer. What they're saying about us, Lord. you do to them. That's the nature of the imprecatory prayer.
And give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight. For they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. And so there is this Deep or Godly man praying this kind of prayer. This is not coming out of anger.
This is not a carnal reaction. You know, sometimes we can react in carnal ways and pray for God's judgment to fall on somebody we don't like. That's not an imprecatory prayer, that's just a carnal prayer. There's a big difference between Praying a ticked-off prayer, but somebody I'm. really, you know, just ripped at.
or praying for the honor of God. And that's what Nehemiah is doing. Your name has been honored, dishonored. Your people are being discouraged from the work you've called them to do. Lord, you deal with these people.
And then there's this incredible statement, so we built the wall. In other words. When he and I prayed, they just kept working.
So we built the wall, and all the walls were joined together to half its height. for the people had a mind to work, so they're halfway done. Right.
Now, what happens next... Is this Opposition deepens and it moves from mockery to actual physical. Danger.
Alright, so in verses 7 through 12, you have this coalition of enemies that comes together. You got San Ballat, you got Tobiah, you have the Ammonites, the Ashdodites, and they all get together to form an attack. You can see it in verse 7. When San Balat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls was going forward, that word repairing is the word for healing. The walls were being healed.
It's an interesting word to use. It's more, there's more than just physical rebuilding here. Right, God is healing the nation of the wounds that He inflicted on them in judgment.
So, this healing is taking place, and they were very angry. Remember, they were enraged in verse one. Here they are. They're still angry. They are very, very angry.
And they plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and cause confusion. What does Nihon I do? We pray to our God, we set a guard. As a protection. Against them day and night, and in Judah it was said, the strength Of those who bear the burdens is failing.
There's too much rubble. All right, so there is this. Internal Discussion now that is happening on account of this external. Issue, right? The words of San Ballad in Tobaya and the threats of San Ballad in Tobaya, those verbal arrows had found a mark.
They had landed. And so internally, as the work got hard. There were people in Jerusalem. You can see that in verse 10. In Judah, it was said, so among the Judaites, this is no longer Sandballad and Tobiah and the Arabs and all those people.
This is what the Judaites were saying. The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. In other words, This could be a reference to God. It's more likely a reference to the people. The people who are working hard are getting tired.
There is too much rubble by ourselves. We will not be able to rebuild the wall. I mean, they just hit a wall metaphorically as they were building the wall, right? And our enemies said, They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. And so here are people now who are looking at the threat and saying, look, Maybe we should quit.
I'm just telling you, this is too much. There's too much rubble. There's no way we can finish this. And while we're building, these enemies are going to creep up on us and they're going to kill us.
So there's this discouragement, there's this mental tiredness, and there's this emotional frustration, and there's this physical danger that's going on. And so, in essence, there's one more thing. At that time, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times, You must return to us. In other words, now you've got other Jews going, it's too much for you. You can't do this.
Nehemiah is working way too hard. You got the enemies that are going to come kill you. This rubble is too much for you. This project is way too big for you. And 10 times.
they were encouraging the builders to abandon the work.
So This is a good reminder that when we get into the work of God, it is humanly impossible, and we're going to face external opposition. We're going to face our own internal tiredness. And sometimes, even from our own people, people are going to look at us and go. It's too much for you. What are you thinking?
How? I mean, Stu, you're trying to build a network of radio stations and do Bible studies and do this and be a good dad and serve at your church. That is way too much for you. And you're going to have people repeatedly coming to you and saying, you just need to leave that alone and come and just do the things you can do. And any time I limit myself to the things I can do, I miss the point of chapter two.
Because Nehemiah promised those people, God is going to prosper our work. And we're going to see that here at the end of the chapter.
So you have this, the first three verses, really, this external opposition, four to six, a godly response, prayers, warfare. He calls on the name of the Lord as God. He calls in this, much like the psalmist did many times. Correct. This And precatory prayer upon his enemies.
He weaponizes his prayer, which is really powerful. It's about God's glory, it's not about him. And then 7 through 12. you have this This kind of uh Coalition. of where they all they come together.
And but then of this, the danger is even more there. And then you have the take us to the final part of chapter four. How do we look at it? Yeah, so what does an EMI do when there's this external enemy threatening to damage them and actually kill them? The workers are discouraged because they're tired and worn down and they're actually starting to believe the fact that maybe San Ballad and Tobaya are right, maybe this is way too much for us.
And they have their own people coming to them and saying, it is too much for you. You need to come back. You need to come back and be with us, right?
So this is all going on. And so Nehemiah stands up. In verse 13, and he does something. He makes military preparations, so he takes the threat seriously. But he looks out and he says to the nobles and to the people, do not be afraid.
Right? Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. And fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your homes. In other words. Remember who you're working for.
Remember why you're building this wall. You're building this wall because this is how God is going to protect. Your families from those enemies, the reason they're mocking you, the reason they brought that army of Samaria is they want what's inside the walls that you're rebuilding. And what's inside the walls that they're rebuilding, you're rebuilding is your family's.
So if you listen to them Or you listen to the people that are trying to say it's too much for you, everything is going to be lost. But remember something: it is your God who is strong. And then you start looking at verse 15 to the end of the chapter, and what you discover is that God frustrates the plot, right?
So that's the first thing. When our enemies heard. That it was known to us, that we knew what they were up to, and that God had frustrated their plan. We all returned to the wall, each to his work. And then in verses 16 to the end, basically Nehemiah does a brilliant thing.
He takes the workforce. and he divides them into two. Part of the workforce is the protective detail that guards the workers, and the other part is the part. uh the workers that actually do the building. And literally, he has these warning signals, these trumpeters.
And as soon as you hear the trumpet, here's what the trumpet is to remind you of: God is with us. Like when I hear the trumpet, I'm thinking, uh-oh, the enemy's upon us. But Nehemiah says, When you hear the warning sound, I want you to remember something: God is with us. And you know, honestly, as we close out the chapter, that's really what's going on here in our own days. We got to embrace the section of the wall where God has placed us, right?
And we've got to meet mockery and jeering and discouragement with prayer, the kind of faith-built prayer. But we also have to engage in practical preparation. Paul says, make no provision to fulfill the lust of the flesh. And then we've got to persevere with vigilance and commitment until the wall is finished. And that is exactly what we see happening as we head into chapter 5.
And the old adage: sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Well, the enemy is full of words, he's full of vain speaking, he's full of jeering. and condemnation. He comes to steal To kill and to destroy. But Jesus said, I have come that you might have life, might have it more abundantly. Nehemiah is reminding them of the abundant life of God.
And yes, Dr. Horne, a very important point that you covered. Yes, our God will fight for us. Yes, there's that sound of the trumpet that rallies. Us to the King of Kings and to the fact that the Lord of hosts is with us, right?
He's our provider, He is the God who fights our battles for us. But it doesn't mean we don't stop building. And it doesn't mean that in some cases we build with a tool in one hand and a sword in the other hand.
So there's this warring while building Because we're in a battle. The Christian life. Like I've heard many pastors say, it's not a cruise ship. It's a battleship. We are at war, Dr.
Horn. Just close us out here, but let's thank God. That Jesus Christ won the battle. Let's thank God that He's rebuilding. Let's thank God that the enemy is a defeated foe.
Jesus is the serpent crusher. He crushed Satan under his feet at that cross. We said it is finished.
So we need to live not for victory, we need to live from victory. He's won the victory, so we're going to keep building, rebuilding. We're going to be a part using our gifts in his service, no matter the foe that comes at us. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I think that may be a really important application as we look at chapter four, after we look at chapter three, as we tackle these two chapters in Tandem.
I'm Stu Everson. We're in a little bit of a noisy spot. It's not too bad. We'll see how the poster record comes out. But there's some music, there's some conversations, but we're having coffee and we're having a great conversation in the Word.
I rarely get face to face with this guy to record.
So, Dr. Horn, thank you so much for your insights on these two chapters and our journey through the word together, equipping our leaders. And anyone who's journeying to the word is is Wants to teach a Bible study, a science school, or pastoring a church that just wants to go deeper. We hope these messages in Nehemiah will help you. Please be sure you download the previous week's podcast.
You hear what we did in chapter one and chapter two, and now we're doing chapter three and four.
Next time, we're going to jump right into chapter five. And Stu, I actually like the fact we're doing this here because this is life, right? We're doing it in the bustle and hustle of life. Everybody around us is doing life. They're eating and drinking and discussing their issues, and here we are talking about.
Nehemiah. And the significance of what that is in our lives is simply this: the people had a mind to work. And I guess as I look at these chapters, I have to ask myself: do I have that kind of mind? Because when I put my mind to work in the work of the Lord, I can expect opposition. I can expect tiredness.
I can expect discouragement. I can even expect things from my own friends going, What are you doing? At this stage in your life, why are you doing this? And at some point. You're going to have to step back and say, because the Lord told me to.
He put me on this wall. He told me to pile these bricks up here. He told me to put my hand to the plow. And at the end of the chapter, there's this interesting verse. Nehemiah says, None of us took off our clothes, each kept his weapon at his right hand.
These people were committed, and they were prepared, and they were willing to work, and they were vigilant. And those are the things that we read about in the New Testament. We're to be vigilant, right? Because our enemy is walking around like a raging lion. We are to do our work with fervency unto the Lord, right?
Not as men pleasers, but as pleasing unto the Lord. And so as we pray here, I want to pray. that even in the midst of this doing life place As we've been talking, the God of life would grant life and strength to us. Lord, thanks for our time in this wonderful book, in these two chapters. Lord, we pray that you would help our leaders to be able to capture these ideas and present them well so they bring about a good result.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Dr. Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including in Stu Graham.
And be encouraged, stay in the Word, read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on God's Word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Proverbs 30, verse 5.
