I have, dear friends, been led in recent
days, especially during this past week, back in
a very spontaneous way into the book of
Nehemiah, which I am more and more impressed
has a message, a real message, for God's
church today.
There's far too much in it for even
a reminder this morning.
We may be intending more some other time,
but there is perhaps a thing or two
that he would have us consider this morning
in this book of Nehemiah, not turning you
to any particular part of it.
You can take it from the first words,
if you like, the history, the margin says,
the history of Nehemiah, the son of Hagaliah.
The very presence of that name at the
head of this book is significant and impressive,
because it was not there at the beginning.
There was no book called the book of
Nehemiah in the Old Testament until a very
much later time.
This book united with Ezra in the Hebrew
Bible, known as the first and second books
of Ezra.
But there came a time when, and we
need not stay with the details, when they
were separated into two books in this way,
and given the names of the two men
mostly in view in their sections, Ezra and
Nehemiah.
It does seem that there was something of
the sovereignty of God.
That is a point that I want you
to notice, I think it's very impressive about
giving this man's name to this part of
the history and what it contains.
There are a lot of names in this
book.
Probably if you do read through the whole
book, there's one chapter that you won't read
through.
That is chapter ten.
It is just a book full of names,
and a lot of peculiar names at that.
You just skip that when you read through.
I think we make a mistake if we
do it.
For this reason, that neither Nehemiah nor any
of those people whose names are mentioned, and
they are a fairly large company, would ever
have come to be known, would ever have
come to have a place in the Bible
as Bible names, but for their relationship to
the purpose of God in their time.
That is, I say, impressive, and that is
very significant.
We should probably never have known that there
was such a man as Nehemiah, and we
certainly should not have had any of all
those other names, which are on record in
Holy Scripture, and we could say, in heaven,
but for their relationship to the purpose of
God in the time in which they lived.
Nehemiah was not a king, he was not
a priest, and he was not a prophet.
Who he was?
Well, all we know he was the son
of Hegeliah.
Search that out, try and make something of
that, find out something about that if you
like.
We know that he was a cup-bearer
in the palace of Artaxerxes.
That was an important position of honor.
He was evidently man of some character, distinction,
the book makes all that perfectly clear, but
as to any of the great official capacities
such as priests, kings, and prophets, he was
none of these.
We could say he was just a man.
He was a man.
And who all these people were?
Well, the Lord only knows.
We've got a lot of names.
Who they were?
All that was not being taken account of
by the Lord.
Who they were in themselves?
That was not the point.
But here they are.
They are part of this very vital history
in Israel, and a part of this movement
of God, and indeed it's a movement of
God that's being recorded here.
Tremendous amount behind it that is just the
Lord.
They came to be known and put into
this Bible, this immortal book, just for the
one reason only.
Not what they were in themselves, but because
of their relationship to what was God's specific
purpose, specific purpose in the time in which
they lived.
There was a divine sovereignty behind that.
Divine sovereignty just means that it must be
God.
It is not divine sovereignty if it is
man's importance, man's ability, man's qualifications, and you
can put it down to anything in man,
and say, well, he or she being such
a person, having such abilities and qualifications and
position and influence and resources, well, what would
you expect but that such a one should
do something outstanding?
Not like that.
Divine sovereignty just means that where anything is
done, it is God and God alone, and
where people are chosen to do it, they
are chosen of God for no other reason
than that he chooses them.
He chooses to choose them.
It is God.
But there is another side which is very
clear in this book.
While undoubtedly the divine sovereignty was at work
behind both Nehemiah and the people with him,
there was the other side not of ability,
for the story shows how imperfect these people
were, how easy it was even for them
to lose heart and give up and delay
and so on.
Nevertheless, it is perfectly clear that both Nehemiah
and the people had a heart committal to
that which God desired in their time.
We know that to be true of Nehemiah.
The enemies were rough that there was a
man who had come to seek the good
of the people, and all that we know
about him, especially in the early part of
the book, shows how this man's heart was
bound up with this situation and with God's
honor and glory in it.
Something that really was a burden, a distress,
a concern of Nehemiah's.
And it comes out with the people too,
in a very real way, people had a
mind to what they had a very real
heart concern for what God particularly wanted in
their time, in their lifetime.
Those two sides always go together, that is
God's sovereignty working and choosing and man's response
to God's need.
Now the point is this, when you put
those two things together, you cannot have one
without the other.
Put those two things together, God gives a
significance to life and to the lives which
they would never have but for a discovery
that God desires such and such a thing
in our day.
And for us there is nothing else in
life but that God should find his satisfaction
in death.
You may put yourself among these many in
chapter 10 people, not more than names really,
here, whole group, crowd, perhaps ordinary people.
At any rate, I repeat, they would never
have been mentioned or had any place but
for this particular purpose of God in their
lives.
You may put yourself in such a category.
I think we are all there, we are
all there and dear friends, naturally we may
count for little or nothing.
We may never come to anything at all,
the majority of us would not be anything
of any account at all in life or
little account in life.
We spend our life, do our work, perhaps
do a lot of good things, pass on
and that's the end of the story.
So far as our lives here are concerned,
it's bound to be like that unless there
is a linking in by divine sovereignty on
the one side and by our response and
commitment on the other to the thing that
God has in view in our day.
Let there be no mistaking it, God has
a purpose in our day, God is committed
to a thing very near to his heart
in our time and our value, our place
in divine records, our name, our history, our
significance, is going to be entirely governed by
this, how far we serve the purpose, the
purpose of God and were governed by it
in our day and in our generation.
To be so linked in with the Lord
is to give to people and to life
a significance beyond anything that would obtain at
best otherwise.
Now you see, this is the situation here.
God willed that this work should be done.
God willed and purposed that what these people
came to do should be done in their
time, there's no doubt about it, that was
God's purpose in their time.
And that purpose of God in their time
did these three things.
First of all, it brought God into evidence.
This is a book with God in evidence,
there's no doubt about that.
These two books combined into one, Ezra and
Nehemiah, are a record of God coming in
in evidence.
No mistaking that in this, we call it
divine sovereignty, go away there into the captivity
and see the movement of the divine sovereignty
to have this.
See the people coming back under the hand
of God and see God here with them
in this work.
It's not all easy, it's true, but the
verdict is so the work was finished, so
the wall was built and what a testament.
When you think of all that they met,
all that with which they had to contend,
all the opposition, all the difficulties, all the
discouragements in their own hearts and the complications
of the situation outside and the enemies from
every direction, but at the end the wall
was built, work was finished, that's a testimony
to God.
It's going to be like that dear friends,
it's going to be like that in the
much larger purpose of God, we may at
times feel the whole thing is impossible, too
much, find the discouragement in our own hearts,
find the opposition on the outside, find all
the complications associated with this purpose of God.
But it's going to be finished, in the
end the verdict will be the same, so
the work was finished, so the wall was
built, it was a completed thing, God never
undertakes something that he cannot see through.
It will be like that, but it's the
purpose that brings God into everything.
It's not just ourselves, our significance, it's the
purpose with which we are bound up.
The second thing is, it was the purpose
that brought both Nehemiah and these people into
view at all.
They would, as I have said, never have
been heard of, never have been known, their
names would never have been in the Bible,
never would they have had a place in
sacred history, but for the purpose of God.
See what that means, it is the purpose
of God that will bring any of us
into the place of the eternal accountability, accountableness,
it will be the purpose of God that
brings immortality into our history.
If we are ever known or heard of,
it will be for that reason at all,
God took account of hearts and lives that
had what was nearest to his heart on
their hearts as their chief concern.
But there was this third aspect of the
story, it was this purpose that enraged the
enemy.
It was the purpose of God which brought
all these enemies into being at all, or
brought them out in their antagonism.
The opposition was many sided, varied, but very
persistent.
Why?
Well really, Nehemiah in himself again wasn't so
much to be taken account of, and these
people, well who were they?
There was a time when they tried the
line of discounting and of scorn, ridicule, even
for the people and for the works.
What do these feeble, these feeble Jews?
Well, quite true, right, you're quite right about
that.
And even their wall, if a fox go
up against it, it will tumble down.
Well, maybe poor work from this world's standpoint,
being very massive, very wonderful, doing their best,
there's nothing on that side to enrage these
enemies.
Simply the purpose of God that drew it
all out.
You cannot explain a lot of opposition, really
no sense in it, no reason for it
from any human standpoint.
But who are the people?
What are the people?
What is the work that they're doing?
It doesn't stand alongside the wonderful things that
many are doing, even in the religious world.
Look at it, what is it?
Look at them, what are they?
And yet it seems to be worth their
while to fight in every conceivable way to
destroy and to spoil.
Isn't it true?
You can't explain it on any other ground
than there's something here that God purposes and
the devil knows that.
It's the purpose, not the people and not
the thing, but the purpose of God that
stirs hell and brings out the opposition.
Well, I must leave it there for our
time.
Exhausted, but it would be perhaps leaving you
somewhat in the air if I did not
remind you that these men and their fellow
workers, Ezra and Nehemiah, were rebuilding Jerusalem.
They were rebuilding Jerusalem.
Nehemiah's part was perhaps mainly the wall, not
altogether by any means.
The wall comes very much into view with
him.
They were really rebuilding the city.
You know, Satan always sees a fuller significance
in things than men do.
Then it is impressive that when God took
his first steps in this nation, Israel, and
called Abraham, called Abraham, first of this nation,
he forsook an earthly city and we are
told he looked for a heavenly city.
It was a city that was in the
vision of Abraham, the first.
And all along this city of Jerusalem had
such a large place, hasn't it?
In those ages, in those centuries, a city.
We know quite well that it is no
earthly city that is God's object.
This is only after all symbolic of something
more.
And so when we reach the end of
the Bible, in the very last chapters, we
have the city.
It took me up into a great and
high mountain.
It showed me a holy city, new Jerusalem
coming down from God out of heaven.
We know that that is not just a
city.
That's a people.
That's the people of God.
But the point that I want to make
here as I close is this.
When that city is seen, or that people
in terms of a city, in the symbolism
of a city, is seen coming out of
heaven, it's something already complete.
The building of that city is not going
to begin at the end of time with
the beginning of eternity.
It's complete at the end of time.
It comes in complete with the beginning of
eternity.
It's complete.
When then was it built?
That was not built in an hour, in
a day.
When was it built?
It must have taken a long time to
build that city, to form that people after
that character.
When?
Dear friends, it's being done today.
It's being done here in this company, this
very morning.
The city is being built and you are
in the building of the city.
You're a part of it, but you're being
built into it.
The character of that city is being built
into you.
It's going on now.
Work will be done when the heavens open
and the church comes forth.
A completed work is going on now.
We're in this thing that God has foreshadowed
in Abraham and in Israel.
We're in the spiritual reality of it now.
It's going on.
We are called according to this purpose to
be what?
A people embodying all the essentials, the essence
of God's thought concerning a people.
That's Jerusalem.
The embodiment of God's full thought for a
people.
Stand there at the center of the universe,
God having God.
That upon which his heart was set to
have himself expressed in a people.
That's what he's doing now.
It's going on.
We're committed to that.
Are we?
Are we with Nehemiah, with this people in
heart, saying God has set his heart upon
having a people, a city, a church, which
embodies his thought and his character.
We're committed to that.
It will be that that will give eternal
significance to us and to our having been
here.
Again, I come back to it.
How much of the Lord, how much of
the Lord and what the Lord desires, that
is the thing which becomes our place and
our measure in the eternal interest of God.
Think about that.
May the Lord show us that this tremendous
work of building, building, building is the thing
to which he has committed himself.
Our New Testament is so unfortunate, isn't it,
in its translation of that word, how again
and again and again the original word for
building is translated edifying.
Misleading, isn't it?
Unto edifying, unto edification.
No, no, the word is unto building.
Unto building.
This is the book of building.
God is at work on building according to
Christ.
And if our hearts are with him in
that, and we labor with our hearts as
did these people and are as devoted as
was this man, there will be given to
our having been here, although very insignificant and
unimportant people, there will be, will have been
given a meaning and a value beyond anything
that we could be or have otherwise.
Amen.