As the walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins, Nehemiah is presented the opportunity to speak with the king. This week Brother E.J. Roussell teaches us that "we are to live by faith in the promises of God and entrust the timing and the results to Him".
For more resources join us at www.pgfirst.com
As the walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins, Nehemiah is presented the opportunity to speak with the king. This week Brother E.J. Roussell teaches us that "we are to live by faith in the promises of God and entrust the timing and the results to Him".
For more resources join us at www.pgfirst.com
Nehemiah 2:1-8
We live in a church culture that is starving. Starving for depth; starving for life. While churches everywhere are caving to the culture around them, and catering to young people so that they may seem hip and modern, taking unto themselves every novel idea imaginable,
Jeremiah 6:16
“Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
It’s in the ancient paths, where you are on safe ground spiritually. This morning, we are in Nehemiah chapter 2:1-8, a pivotal point early on in the book, and what we are going to be re-introduced to is one of those ancient paths to living the Christian life. An ancient path to godliness and joy in Christ. An ancient path that has been traversed by millions of Christians throughout the centuries and has proven time and time again to be a good way. That is the ancient path of living upon promises of God found in scripture.
It’s not something that is typically brought up today, is it? Think about for a moment.
When was the last time you walked into a Christian bookstore and saw a book on growing in godliness by making the best use of the promises of God in scripture? I can think of one. It’s not a topic that is generally written about today. You have to go back 400 years to find that. We are much more concerned with “7 steps to a better you” or “experiencing God’s presence powerfully in your life with these 4 steps” than by taking the ancient path of knowing God’s promises, believing God’s promises, praying God’s promises and acting on God’s promises. And yet it is through the promises of God according to 2 Peter 1:4 that we partake of the divine nature:
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
That is what the promises in scripture are there for—to give us nourishment and life, as well as direction, as we travel through this world as pilgrims along the way, and what we see in our text this morning is Nehemiah acting on what he knows to be true, namely the promise of God. Nehemiah, you could say, serves as a prototype for us and how we are to live by faith. And I want to make this so very clear. There is a critical lesson for us here in this text, and it’s this, that just like Nehemiah does here in chapter 2: “We are to live by faith in the promises of God and entrust the timing and the results to Him.
God’s promises are the bedrock of sustaining faith. They are the fuel to the fire of bold faith like Nehemiah’s. And they are the green pastures of peaceful, comforting faith. But in order for the promises of God to be useful to us, we have to make use of them. We have to believe them; we have to pray them; and we have to act on them.
Here Nehemiah is acting out our main point, by trusting a very specific promise of God (given in chapter 1) and then living out that faith by prayerful action and those will serve as our two subpoints. Praying by faith in the promises of God verses 1-4, and acting by faith in the promises of God verses 5-8. So let’s jump in.
What does faith in the promises of God/what does making use of the promises of God entail? What does faith look like when it moves and breathes? It looks like prayer and action. Prayerful action. We’ll focus on prayer first.
I. Pray by faith in the promises of God (v.1-4)
1 In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2 And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3 I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven.
It's the month of Nisan now—approximately 4 months after chapter 1.
Nisan was the beginning of the new year for the Persians, and it was a time of festivals and celebration, so a festival is likely being held in the King’s honor. It is well known that Persian kings were quite famous for their elaborate drinking parties. In fact, we read in Esther 1:3, of King Ahasuerus sitting on his thrown in this same city of Susa and the whole Medo-Persian army along with the nobles and governors of all of the provinces were all in attendance. When a Persian king threw a party, it was truly a spectacle. You can almost imagine the scene, can’t you? The king there in his pomp; the nobility present; we see in verse 6 that the queen herself was present, which in those days actually wasn’t as common as you would think; and Nehemiah, the cupbearer, according to verse 1, doing his job and having the wine all prepared for the King and his guests.
The cupbearer would, no doubt, have had an important role at these parties. Not only would he have to make sure the wine wasn’t poisoned but remember that oftentimes cupbearers rose to a commanding rank in the pecking order of authority in country. Sometimes up to second in command. They were a trusted friend and confidant of the king. It is quite possible that Nehemiah himself could be running the show here, and if he is, then the spotlight would have been on him at an important moment.
And verse 1 says that he took the wine and gave it to the King. Surely, this would have been a moment for celebration, right? Well, not exactly. You see, something happened that Nehemiah didn’t expect.
God’s providence, unbeknownst to him at the time, had led him into an extraordinarily dangerous situation.
The problem with being so close to someone, as Nehemiah was to King Artaxerxes, is that because of that close proximity, they can see right through you. Verse 1 says: “Now I had not been sad in his presence.” Up until now, Nehemiah had been joyful. But that was before he found out about the status of Jerusalem. Now for 4 months, his soul has been vexed over the people of God. He has been praying and fasting regularly over this. Begging God for favor and mercy in the sight of the king. And what has he been guiding his prayers? It’s the promise of God. Look at verse 1:8-11 (We will be returning to this often)
8 Remember the word that 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 your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Nehemiah 1:8-11
“Lord, you said you would do this. You said you gather us together if we repented. You promised. Don’t go back on your promises”
The promise of God. That is where Nehemiah placed his hope. Not in his ingenuity; not in his own merit; not in his clearly devised plans. But in the promise of God. And what we are going to see is that this belief—his faith in the promise of God gives him great courage in a very desperate situation.
Verses 2-3: And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3 I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Nehemiah 2:2-3
You’ve been there haven’t you? There are times in your life when the stakes are raised. When you are put on the spot and the consequences of what you say, how you act, the choices you make will determine years of your life. We can think of singular moments like this that we go through. A certain job interview; a hard conversation with a close friend; legal matters; the stakes are raised, and sometimes like Nehemiah here, you didn’t have time to step away and gather your thoughts, you are just put on the spot and all of your preparation is going to be brought out in this very moment.
Nehemiah had every reason to be afraid. Even though Nehemiah had never been sad in the face of the king until now; now he is wearing his emotions on his sleeve, and the King sees right through them and calls him out on it. “Why are you sad Nehemiah? You’re not sick. This is the sadness of the heart.”
· At this point tension is at a fever pitch. Cupbearers were not supposed to be sad in the king’s presence. Instead, they were supposed to reflect the radiance of the king himself. That could be one reason why Nehemiah was afraid. He had been sad for months now over the state of Jerusalem, but up until now he had done a pretty good job of concealing it. No longer. The king was able to detect his sadness and his cover was blown.
· Another reason that could account for Nehemiah’s great fear is that the king could have suspected that something is wrong, or that Nehemiah himself had something against the King himself. None of which you want the king to think.
· Add on to that the history of King Artaxerxes himself. He had a record of blood shed. King Artaxerxes, under the influence of the man who actually killed his father who was king before Him, Artaxerxes killed his own older brother to take the throne for himself, then he turned around and killed the man who had killed his father. And he’s not the only one. Persian kings have a history of killing those who were close to them.
· And if all of that wasn’t enough to cause fear in Nehemiah—consider the fact that it was this same king Artaxerxes that put a stop to the building of Jerusalem under Ezra 13 years ago when the Jews first returned from Exile. The enemies of the Jews from the “Region beyond the river” wrote to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4:11-16, entreating him to put stop to the project, claiming that the city of Jerusalem wouldn’t pay tribute or toll to the kings and that it would damage the kings revenue, and that Jerusalem as a whole was a rebellious city which was burned to the ground for their rebelliousness.
What would happen? What would come of Nehemiah?
He was given grace in the moment to speak out on his convictions. All of those months of prayer. All of that emotion which had resulted in fasting and weeping, came roaring out of him like a dam that has been holding back the waters finally giving way and breaking forth.
“Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my father’s graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
What a daring response. Nehemiah, was affectively saying—"This is your fault, O King! You are the reason this is happened. We tried to build these walls years ago and you stopped it! You’re the reason why my people are suffering” Artaxerxes knew it, and so did Nehemiah, because look at Artaxerses response.
Verse 4: Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?....
It doesn’t get any more pointed than that. I imagine the tone of that question “What are you requesting?” sounding a bit like “Nehemiah, choose your next words wisely….because they could be your last.”
Because look at Nehemiah’s response in verse 4---“So I prayed to the God of heaven.”
What a moment. Nehemiah’s heart must have been pounding and his blood pressure through the roof. It was a moment so intense, his life flashing before him, that his gut reaction in that moment was the only thing he had: Pray.
He didn’t have time for long-from, undistracted time of prayer. He was before the king. The king wants an answer, and when the most powerful man on Earth wants an answer, you better have it quickly. But even though he was the most powerful man on Earth, he is yet a man still, and Nehemiah, in the briefest of moments that he has while standing before King Artaxerxes in his throne room, Nehemiah storms the heavenly throne room, and sends a prayer to the God of heaven—like a winged messenger flying up to the ears of the God of Heaven and earth.
And in most stories, this ends in the death of the one in Nehemiah’s position. You don’t go against the king and live to tell the tale—Yet in this case, he has the Lord of hosts on his side, and as Proverbs 21:1 tells us:
1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;
he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:1
Here is the open door that Nehemiah in chapter 1 was praying for. And he is put on the spot. We won’t always, just like Nehemiah, have opportunities to step away and pray long form prayers but it is encouraging to know that in those moments the God of Heaven and earth hears the prayers of His children.
What did Nehemiah pray for in that moment? We can’t get into his mind, but based on what he prayed in chapter 1, I believe that it’s safe for us to assume his prayer was in line with that same long form prayer.
“This is it, Lord. Please give me grace.” “Please give me favor”. “Be glorified in this moment Lord.” “Lord, fulfill your promises. “Right now, Lord”. “And maybe there’s a bit of “Lord, don’t let him kill me!” “Go before me now, Lord.” The Lord hears spontaneous, short prayers.
Short prayers are no less spiritual and God-glorifying than long-form prayers. There’s a place for both. Both show their utmost dependence upon the Lord. Think of some of the short prayers found in the scriptures:
· “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)
· “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20)
· “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23: 46
I have been arguing, based on this text, that we are to live by faith in the promises of God and that we are to entrust the time and the results to him. The first way that we do that is to pray by faith in the promises of God.
Nehemiah prayed by faith in God’s promises—this is very clear from Nehemiah chapter 1:8-9. Which we already have read:
That was a promise. It was the specific promise of God that Nehemiah trusted in. It formed the foundation for his actions in chapter 2 in front of the king. It gave him boldness to speak up, and it fueled his strong prayer life, we also see that this is a characteristic of his life. Even in the heat of the moment in chapter 2 when the king asks him what his request was, his instinct is to pray. And even though we don’t have that prayer recorded, it is only natural to assume that it would be in line with the prayer in chapter 1. He would have prayed for God’s promise to be fulfilled in this moment.
What specific promise that is found in God’s word do you need to prayerfully consider and take hold of by faith? I don’t know what your situation is right now. Our experiences vary, and so often our faith is weakened, and we allow Satan to get a foothold in our life, because we neglect the promises of God which are so clearly found in his word. The promises of God are there for the taking. They are like keys that unlock the doors of the many struggles that we struggle with. If God’s word is the sword of the sprit as Eph 6 says it is, then the promises of God in the word are like the sharp edge of the blade. Do you want to get over fear? Look to the promise of God found in Isaiah 41:10:
10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Take hold of that by faith and pray to overcome your fear according to the promise: “Lord you say to me do not fear. I praise you that you are not just God, but you are my God, and that you give me strength when I am weak, and help when I am in destress. Uphold me Lord with you righteous right hand! Allow me to overcome this crippling fear!”
Do you struggle with assurance of faith? Oh how crippling it can be. Take in your heart Philippians 1:6
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6
And storm the throne room of grace. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Thank you that my salvation is not based on my merits, but based on a promise that you who began this good work when I believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ will bring it to completion. It is all of your grace Lord..”
If you are with us this morning and you happen to not know the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a promise for you as well. A promise that the Lord Jesus Christ gives in John 6:35-37
5 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. The Lord Jesus comes that you may have life and have it to the full. Satan tells you that the problem with you is that you are too unclean to come to Christ, yet here we have the Lord Jesus himself telling you the problem is that you are hungry and thirsty and are refusing to come to him that you may be satisfied. Satan tells you that you have to clean your life up first before you come to Christ; Jesus is standing there telling that whoever comes to me I will never cast out. You too can go to the throne room in prayer and appeal to God himself: “You said you wouldn’t cast me out. Here I am.”
The Lord Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that you and I couldn’t and died the death on the cross that we deserve in order that our sins may be forgiven. He was raised three days later so that we can have newness of life. The promise is for you friend. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent and believe the gospel of grace. If you have questions about that, please come and see us. We would love to have that conversation with you.
Nehemiah prayed according to a specific promise tailor-made for his specific situation and so should we. But living a life of faith in God’s promises entails more than just prayer, it also involves action. Which leads to our second point.
II. Act by faith in the promises of God (V.5-8)
5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.” 6 And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. 7 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, 8 and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. Nehemiah 2:5-8
Nehemiah is great example of prayerful action.
We are called to act on that which we pray for. Nehemiah is not only a man of prayer, but he is also a man of action. He had been praying for months for this specific opportunity and he has just lifted up another prayer, by faith, to God. Now Nehemiah will make his request. He is going to act and ask the King, point blank, to send him to Judah.
Verse 5: If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father’s graves, that I may rebuild it.
“You put a stop to it earlier, O King. You want to know what I want? I want you to reverse your decision and let me go.” That is lion like faith.
Now, some say that the choice of wording was intentional (i.e. Send me to Judah (didn’t mention Jerusalem specifically); send me to the city of my father’s graves (Persians took the burial of their ancestors seriously, so some commentators argue that Nehemiah could be trying to pull at the King’s heartstrings a bit by appealing to something he would have cared deeply about). That’s possible. I am of the thought that The King knew exactly where Nehemiah was wanting to go and wanting to do.
Regardless, something amazing happened. Nehemiah’s prayer in chapter 1, that God would give him favor before this man, the King, was answered.
“and the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time.” (2:6)
We see Nehemiah’s leadership ability here. He has the kings attention and he is acting in faith on God’s promise. He knows all of this is of God, which he makes clear in verse 9. This is taking place ultimately because of God’s providence. Yet at the same time, Nehemiah, over the 4 months has been planning. During those 4 months of waiting there wasn’t much that Nehemiah could do to help God’s people. But he could do two things: Pray and plan. And that’s what we see. Great leadership involves great planning. And Nehemiah is clearly ready for this moment. Everything that he does from here on out is meticulously planned out.
He goes on to ask for letters to the governors of the province Beyond the River be given to him so that he may pass through to Judah without being stopped by those like Sanballat the governor of Samaria, as well as a letter to Asaph, who was the chief forester of the King, so he could have the necessary supplies in order to make beams for the building of the gates, and the wall. Even a fortress for the temple, from the King’s own personal forest which would have contained the best timber one could get.
He also asks for supplies for his own place of residence. The mentioning of a house, meant that Nehemiah was coming as an official of the King. He was coming as a governor. This is made really clear in chapter 5:14:
It was a bold request. He was effectively asking for the king to completely reverse what he had done a little more than a decade ago. He prayed for months, and even briefly in the moment, and now he acted on faith. And what was the bedrock of this faith? The promise of God.
Praying by faith in the promise, and here acting by faith in the promise. We live by faith in the promises of God. That’s the main point.
And God answered Nehemiah. Look at the end of verse 9—“And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.”
The providence of God is a massive theme in scripture.
The providence of God often get’s confused with God’s sovereignty. They are very similar and directly related to one another, but they are not the same. God’s sovereignty is his kingship. His right to rule. He is the King of Kings. He is sovereign. Providence is when that sovereignty goes public. It’s his ruling of creation as he sees fit.
Dutch theologian G.C. Berkhouwer defines it this way:
“Providence is the beneficent outworking of God’s sovereignty whereby all events are directed and disposed to bring about those purposes and glory and good for which the universe was made.”
This was all of God. It was God’s providence that turned the heart of the king and gave Nehemiah success. And yet “Let go and let God….” Didn’t make sense to Nehemiah. Nehemiah truly believed that God was the one who was providentially working all of this out, and yet he also believed that God would work through the means of his praying and planning and acting.
And yet, it’s also important that we always keep in mind that as we trust in his promises, God is on His time frame and not ours, and many times God’s providence is displayed in ways that you don’t expect. The same providence that led Nehemiah in front of the king and granted him his wish, is the same providence that led Joseph to the dungeon for 13 years. But in both instances God’s glory is magnified and it’s for the good of God’s people. So don’t be surprised when God’s providence takes you places that you don’t expect. But remember the goodness of God and keep your eyes fixed on his precious promises.
Listen to what William Spurstowe says:
“The Lord has set a date and a time for the fruition of His promise, but that is His timing, not ours. We must look to Him as the all-wise God and wait on Him with submission and contentment, for His timing is perfect; He is never late but is always on time.” William Spurstowe, “The Wells of Salvation Opened”
There’s some lessons for us here:
1) We serve the sovereign God. Our God is the true God. He is ruling over his creation according to his good and wise providence, and there isn’t a king or ruler than can thwart those purposes.
King Nebuchnezzar in Daniel 4:34-35 realized this after he was humbled.
34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,
for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?” Daniel 4:34-35
Nebuchnezzar had to come to realize that though he was the most powerful man in the world at the time, there is one mightier and more kingly than he is. One that all kings and rulers must bow the knee to.
2) Don’t waste your time of waiting. Are you in a time of waiting? What are you doing now to make sure that when that door opens you are ready? Nehemiah prayed and planned for months. By time he met with King Artaxerxes, he knew exactly what was needed. He knew he needed letters from the King and he knew how much supplies were needed (probably from conversations with his brother Hanani). What we see in verses 5-8 is a man who had planned and was ready because he had put so much forethought into it.
a. So what about you? What are you doing now to make sure that when that door opens, you are ready?
3) Search the scriptures for specific promises to apply to your specific needs, memorize them, pray them and then act on them. For Nehemiah to pray God’s promise to him extemporaneously like we see in chapter 1, that implies that he knew the promise and he had the promise memorized. It then came out in his prayers, and bore fruit in his action in chapter 2. Be the same way. What are you wrestling with at the moment? Look to the promises of God and take hold of them by faith.
The beautiful thing about the Christian life is that we serve the one true God. And this one true God is not distant. He is intimately involved in every area of our lives, like we see in Nehemiah. And he has given us his word, and his word is true. And in his word are found promise after promise after promise, like a treasure-house full of costly jewels, that we can adorn our life with. They are there for you, beloved. If God is your God, then all of his promises are for you, because the promises lead us straight to Jesus Christ.
“Christ is the sum, fountain, seal, treasury of all the promises”-Edward Reynolds
The promises are from Christ; lead us to Christ; assure us of Christ; and they help us behold Christ. So if you want more of Christ, then look to his promises.
Listen to what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20
9 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
It is through Christ alone, that God is for you and his promises are for you. All the promises find their Yes in Him. Nehemiah points forwards to Jesus Christ—the one who truly lived a life of prayerful action. He prayed “Not my will but your will be done.” and then went to the cross to die for the sins of many. He was then raised three days later according to the scriptures and has ascended to heaven as king of kings and Lord of Lords and he is coming back to rescue those who earnestly waiting on him.
The life of godliness is lived by faith. And the promises of God are there for us to take and stoke the fires of our faith. Let us return to the ancient paths. Let us live by faith, by prayer and acting upon the promises of God, and let us entrust all timing and results to his good and wise providence.