Nehemiah 01.04-11 “4
When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was
fasting and praying before the God of heaven. 5 I said, “I beseech You, O LORD
God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and
lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 6 let Your ear
now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I
am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your
servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned
against You; I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 “We have acted very
corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor
the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. 8 “Remember the word
which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful I will
scatter you among the peoples; 9 but if
you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who
have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather
them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause
My name to dwell.’ 10 “They are Your servants and Your people whom You redeemed
by Your great power and by Your strong hand. 11 “O Lord, I beseech You, may
Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your
servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today
and grant him compassion before this man.” Now I was the cupbearer to the
king.”
Outline of the Book of Nehemiah:
Nehemiah 01.01-06.19 Covers the reconstruction of
the walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah 07.01-13.31 Covers the re-instruction of
the people of God.
BACKGROUND: In Deuteronomy 28.01-68 God had
promised Israel that if they obeyed Him, He would bless them as a nation. But
if they did not obey Him, then He would judge them and cause them to be taken
into captivity.
In fact, when Solomon was dedicating the Temple (1Kings 09.01-09;
2Chronicles
07.12-22; see also THE LORD’S PROMISE post), God repeated this promise of blessing & judgment.
Well unfortunately, its not how you start but how you
finish. Though Solomon started out well, he sinned greatly against the LORD.
One of his greatest sins was marrying many foreign wives, (1Kings 11.01-04; see also THE FOOLISH WISE MAN post).
Because of Solomon’s sin of disobedience, the LORD said that
the Kingdom would be divided (1Kings 11:9-12)
After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became King of
Israel. After he ascended to the throne, the 10 northern tribes of Israel
(Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Isaachar, Zebulun, Manasseh &
Ephraim) separated and Jeroboam became their king (2Chronicles
10.01-11.13). From then on they
were known as Israel, the Northern Kingdom, or Ephraim.
The tribes that stayed w/Rehoboam & the House of David
were Judah and Benjamin. They were known as the Southern Kingdom or Judah (1Kings 11.13).
The Northern Kingdom did not have one godly king, and the
Assyrians in 722BC took them into captivity.
The Southern Kingdom had about half their kings godly, and
the Babylonians conquered them in 586BC.
In 538BC, under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the first
group of Jews came back to Jerusalem from Babylon (Ezra 01.01-02.02). Through a lot
of opposition, they finally were able to rebuild the Temple in 515BC.
In 458BC, Ezra the priest led another group back from
Babylon (Ezra
07.01-10). When Ezra arrived at Jerusalem, he saw that the people
were in a state of moral & spiritual depravity (Ezra 08.01-10.44, see also THE MUCK OF MIXED MARRIAGES post).
In 445BC, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem & God uses him
to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
In todays reading, Nehemiah
records how he first heard about the physical condition of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 01.01-03), Nehemiah’s response (Nehemiah 01.04-11). We then see Nehemiah’s prayer answered (Nehemiah 02.01-10), he goes to Jerusalem and at night he inspects the walls
(Nehemiah 02.11-20). The people are now excited and began rebuilding the
walls (Nehemiah 03.01-32).
Nehemiah was the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, an important
position in the kingdom (Nehemiah 01.11; Nehemiah 02.01).
Nehemiah asked his brother Hanani how are things going in Jerusalem.
Hanani tells him that the people are in great distress and reproach and that
the walls of Jerusalem are still broken down (Nehemiah 01.01-03).
His first response was to sit down and weep (Nehemiah 01.04).
Jeremiah years before asked who would weep for Jerusalem (Jeremiah 15.05)? Nehemiah was
this man!
The people had been rebuilding the walls but were stopped by
the man that Nehemiah is the cupbearer for, King Artaxerxes (Ezra 04.21)!
Nehemiah’s responded by praying
and fasting as well (Nehemiah 01.04).
Nehemiah was a man of great prayer, in fact, we see him
praying eleven different times in this book, (Nehemiah 01.04-11; Nehemiah 02.04; Nehemiah 04.04-05;
Nehemiah 04.09;
Nehemiah 05.19;
Nehemiah 06.09;
Nehemiah 06.14;
Nehemiah 13.14;
Nehemiah 13.22;
Nehemiah 13.29;
and Nehemiah
13.31).
You can say that this book (almost) begins and ends with Nehemiah
praying (Nehemiah
01.04; Nehemiah 13.31).
Charles H Spurgeon said that “Prayer is the lungs of the
church”.
03 parts of
Nehemiah’s prayer
01. Praises God (Nehemiah 01.05) Nehemiah realized that he is
praying to the God of Heaven who is worthy of praise & worship.
02. Confesses The Nation’s Sin (Nehemiah 01.06-09) Nehemiah chooses
to identify himself with the sins of the nation by using the pronoun “we”.
For other examples of this, see Joshua 07.01; Daniel 09.01-19.
No comments:
Post a Comment