Ezra chapter 1. You can set your
Bibles in your laps. Ezra chapter 1. If you don't
have your Bible, you can use your outline in your pastor's
commentary. We're going through the book
of Nehemiah. We are making our way now through a marvelous,
marvelous book. It is not unlike the book of
Ezra. It is a perpetuation of the book
of Ezra. And in fact, many of the Jewish
scholars sought to suggest that Ezra and Nehemiah were simply
what we call pseudonyms, and that is terms and titles that
actually mask one person, but there was not actually an individual
named Ezra nor an individual named Nehemiah. He was mass under
those two names. Let me quickly say that that
is not true. There was a literal Ezra whose
name was Ezra. There was a literal Nehemiah
whose name was Nehemiah too. When you know the Bible, you
can easily dismiss that. But I would say to you as you
unfold your outline and follow me in your outline now, is that
there is such a continuum a continuity between Ezra and Nehemiah. And there is such a parallelism
and similarity in much of what they said, particularly in the
content of their prayer, that one could find themselves contemplating
the idea that somehow we have one author dealing with two different
ethics. Now to resolve that one as well,
all you have to know is that the one author, is Jesus Christ
himself, that the author of the scriptures is the Holy Ghost.
He is the one who wrote this book. He's the one who has orchestrated
history, and he's the one that inspired holy men of old to write
down what they did. So we are not ever surprised
when a brother rises up in the 18th century saying precisely
the same thing that a brother says in the 7th century, who
also said it in the 1st century because the primary author of
the scriptures is the spirit of the living God. Holy men of
old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And yet I
want to make sure that we understand that what we are dealing with,
particularly Grace Bible Church, is wonderful to have our visitors
with us. But we are contemplating right
now the grand message in these books that are given to us within
the framework of the inter-testament period where national Israel
has been called out of Babylon back into their homestead with
a specific purpose and a methodology that God has executed which teaches
us something about revival. Revival, that's our meditation
as we go through this series. Revival. Get that into your mind. Revival. We need revival. We need revival. Does anyone
argue with that? You need revival. I need revival. Our families need revival. Our churches need revival. Our
nation needs revival. The world needs revival. When
you know the God of grace and you know your natural condition,
it's simply an a priori assumption that we need revival. Don't we
always need revival? No true believer would ever say,
you know, I'm so full now, I don't need revival. You need revival
all the time. It's a constant desire on the
part of born-again children of God. Because the one thing that
we know, having been born of God, is that we're not what we
want to be. So we always need revival. So
revival is a very relevant and very germane subject matter that
I want to make sure that we understand as the compendium over these
next several messages. God started doing something in
the days of Daniel and he's doing it now. So here is what I want
to make sure you grasp as we talk about revival. Revival and
restoration and recovery and reform and restructuring of those
things that have been lost and destroyed and decimated because
of sin, because of the work of the devil, because of our fallen
nature. The revival process that God
does is something that often, often, listen to me now, takes
a long time. When God does revival, He takes
His time. Let me see if I can help you.
I wanna make sure you get this. See, because revival ain't sticking
something in the microwave, putting it on one minute and then that
thing blowing up in about a minute. That's not Bible revival. Are
you hearing me? Bible revival is God moving in
his own way, in his own pattern, according to his own time, because
by the time that thing which God determines to revive is revived,
God will have gotten all the glory. God will have gotten all
the glory. Let me see if I can help you.
Revival started under Daniel. Isn't that what we talked about?
Daniel found himself hearing the Jubilee trumpet in the days
of King Cyrus and Darius for Israel to go back. That was 539
B.C. 539 B.C. Some of y'all gonna
have a problem with the numbers. Don't worry about it. In 537
B.C. The children of Israel started
going back home. They were 800 miles away from
home, so their journey took several months to get there. That takes
time, doesn't it? No planes, no Amtrak, no buses,
no cars, camels and horses and mules and feet. So we're talking
time, aren't we? 537 B.C. the jubilee horn blows. 539-537 we begin to move. We
get into Palestine and God raises up a priest. He raises up an
altar. He establishes a foundation because
worship must be according to the Word of God. Isn't that what
we learned? God must be worshipped in the truth. He must be worshipped
according to his word. He must be worshipped according
to the due order. And we know revival is taking
place when God calls his people back to biblical worship. Biblical worship. And so we saw
this in Ezra chapter 3. It wasn't until 515 BC that the
temple was completed. from 539 to 515 BC. Think about that now. From 539
to 515 BC, we're around 24 years, aren't we? That's a 24 year period. Now put that into your head.
Remember what you were doing 24 years ago? See what I'm getting
at? This is just from the time God
called Israel out of the land to go back home. It took 24 years
for the tabernacle to be built. and the tabernacle being built
was built according to Daniel chapter 9 with a lot of trouble. Remember that? The walls and
the street and the temple will be built in troubleless times. So listen to me now. Revival,
when God is reviving his people, it's not without trouble. It's not without trouble. Revival
is not the absence of trouble. Revival is not the absence of
conflict. Revival is not the absence of
setbacks. Revival is not the absence of
mistakes. Revival encompasses all of that. If you were to go back through
those passages, you would have seen that Israel made a bunch
of mistakes. Here God is, in his gracious mercy, reviving,
but they still got a lot of problems. Wives that are foreigners married
to the leadership cricks coming in all kind of problems But God's
doing his thing because as our elder said it's not about you.
It's about God So God's reviving. He's bringing this thing about
515 BC the temple is built and then something happened which
requires another 45 years Before a man shows up. His name is Ezra
Ezra shows up in the year 458 BC now think about it 539 I know
this is gonna trouble some of you let's do it like this 539
to 539 years and then on back on up to 458 BC another 42 years
that's a good period of time that's a good period of time
Almost 80 years has transpired from the call to Ezra. Are you hearing me? In that process
of time, 50,000 Jews, Judites have come back to the land. They've
gotten situated. They've got their temple. They
are worshiping. But you know what we learned in Ezra is that
as Ezra came into the camp, he saw that there was a bunch of
problems still. Isn't that right? Mark this now, but God is still
reviving. God is still reviving. Do you
know how long it takes to move from Ezra's time to Nehemiah's
time? 12 years. So here we are in Nehemiah
chapter one, 12 years later. The whole time period from Daniel's
prayer to Nehemiah's coming is 94 years, almost a century. Sometimes God takes a while to
get it revived. Are you hearing me? Well, because
God's a very practical God. There's a whole bunch of people
that got to die before certain things get revived. He got to
kill off a whole lot of crooks, old crooks, middle aged crooks,
young crooks in the church. He kills off a lot of them. He
just let them die on the vine. When they're gone, we don't have,
you know, there are some crooks that all you can do is wait for
them to die. I'm talking about what goes on in the church. You're
not hearing me. They have so much of a stronghold,
so much control. As we go through near mob, we're
going to see this. They say they have so much power. They are
at the forefront of authority. And all you can do is wait for
them to die because you're not going to tear up the church for
the one crook. We just are he 80 years old. He'd be dead in
a minute. And then we can reconstitute the church and get this thing
back on the right track. Sometimes that's what God does. Because
we've learned that what God will do to his people is discipline
them and chastise them and correct them for their waywardness and
their compromise. And sometimes we just have to
bite the bullet and go through that chastisement process. Isn't
that true? Fellas didn't we learn that last night God will bring
you into the bond of the covenant He will bring you into the wilderness
of the people. He will rule over you with fury He will bring you
into the bond He'll tap you on your head with that rock cuz
he's a shepherd and you're the sheep and it's gonna hurt but
you're gonna realize that God is present and all that matters
is God is present when he's bopping you upside your head When he's
trying to revive his people when he's trying to bring them back
from lethargy and and apostasy and apathy and hostility and
variance and alienation, all of the stuff that the devil brings
into the church to destroy the people of God, to change them
from a glorious spiritual body to a harlot giving herself to
the world. God knows how to fix that. He
knows how to clean up harlots. Yes, he does. Fundamental also to a vital walk
with God. Listen to me, children of God
is patience. Haven't you found that out? Fundamental to a vital
walk with God is patience. Some of y'all been around in
the Lord for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, and you have come to learn that
God ain't in no hurry. Isn't that true? You've been
praying. You've been praying. You've been praying. You've been
wanting this. You want to see this done. You want to see that done. And
you're thinking God's not hearing you. God heard you before you
started praying and God's on his way. But by the time he gets
here, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's going to be corrected.
Our elder said rightly, as I'll talk about at the end of our
message, the privilege and the responsibility of being mothers,
praying for your children. You pray for your children until
you breathe your last breath. Did you hear what I just said?
Until you breathe your last breath. You don't put God on a time clock.
You don't tell God when to save your children, where to save
your children, how to save your children. As long as you have
breath, you pray for your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren,
and everybody whom the Lord lays on your heart until you stop
breathing. I can tell you some stories about
some of the sisters that prayed and God didn't answer their prayers
until they died. But that don't matter, does it?
Long as he answered those prayers and we know it's God moving in
us to willing to do up his good pleasure if he would cause us
to pray Prayer spiritual prayers not carnal. You can't pray without
the Spirit of God. God's blessed us over the last
couple of years I'm so thankful for years. I struggle with how
to carve out a time for our assembly here at grace to Consecrate ourselves
to prayer And we outgrew upstairs. We outgrew downstairs. We didn't
have no place to really do it because we're fighting with different
schedules in the building have been for 11 years and God opened
the door for us to lease next door. And it dawned on me that
we have an opportunity now to do what every believer in every
church must do. Set aside time to pray. And for a year and a half now,
for those of you who are prayer warriors with me from the beginning,
that's going by real quick, hasn't it? A year and a half, a year
and a half. And I told the saints, once we
started our prayer service, I said, you guys are going to learn how
to pray. You're going to learn the right way to pray. You're
going to be told what prayer is in terms of personal prayer,
in terms of public prayer, in terms of persevering prayer,
proper prayer. You're going to be taught how
to pray. And this will take your whole life. your whole life because
fundamental to the life of the church is prayer, is prayer,
is prayer. Fundamental to your life is prayer.
If you're not praying, you're dead. Fundamental to the life
of your family is prayer. If you're not praying, your family
is toe up. Fundamental to the life of the kingdom of God is
prayer. If the church is not praying, it's dead. Remember
the Lord Jesus Christ right before he went to Calvary Street He
took his disciples up into that high mountain to the Mount of
Olives and he began to what pray And he agonized all night long
until the drug the blood dropped from his face coming out of his
veins Begging God to help him Isn't that right? He did that
not only because he was sincerely set between heaven and hell as
the true cupbearer I'll talk about that But in order to teach
his disciples what it takes for the kingdom of God to be realized
everywhere, it's meant to be realized through prayer. So let
me talk to you as we begin to look at this man near my, we're
just going to open it up today. Fundamental to the life of the
believers. Pray. You see that in point number two, do you see
that? Fundamental to the life of the believer believer is prayer
and this is what you read in Ezra chapter Nehemiah chapter
1 verses 4 through 11 I don't want to go through that but I'll
tell you if you read what Nehemiah Prayed here's a couple of things
that you find out He prayed all of the classical aspects of prayer
that an informed Bible believing Christian praise he confessed
to sin He acknowledged his wickedness. He acknowledged his unity with
the body of Christ. In other words, if you're a child
of God, the sin of the body of Christ is your sin. And even
though you may think you're doing all right, that's probably when
you in your worst, when you think you're doing all right, that's
when you really need to be praying. But the people of God pray for
one another because we are a unit. You pray for the body as a unit. And so he said, we have sinned.
We have transgressed your law. We have broke your commandments.
Isn't that what he said? Isn't that what Daniel said? Isn't
that what Ezra said? That's what we do. We confess
our sins as a body of Christ, but then he exalted God as well
That's what you do in prayer. You exalt God you extol him and
then you remind God of his covenant mercies because that's what he
did Reminding God you said God if you would stir your people
up and they begin to pray you'd bring them back into their inheritance
well, Nehemiah had a right to say that because he was in the
middle of what God was doing and He wasn't at the beginning,
he was in the middle. This is what I said to you last
week and the week before. I said, do you know what God
is doing? Are you conscious of what God is doing? Are you aware
of how God operates in the world and your place in it? You and
I didn't start this thing. We're in the middle of a process
and a plan of redemption, a scheme of salvation that God has been
acting out for millenniums. Isn't that right? We're somewhere
along the line of this scheme. When God awakened us to the reality
of His glory and our need of salvation, He actually was awakening
us to participate a part of the scheme that's already been started.
Nehemiah knows this. When Nehemiah reflects, you know
what he's saying? God's done started something. God's done
already started something. And my part in this is to ask
God to continue to perpetuate what he started. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? Sometimes in your own life, you
know God's just started something. I love my brethren who are honest
with me. Pastor, I know the Lord's dealing with me because he's
helped me see certain things, but I've got a long way to go.
Keep praying. He who has begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. When you see it in your children's
life, you know God's done something. He's begun to break them. Now
they're inquiring. Now they're asking the right
questions. Now they're not all that in a piece of bread. Remember
that? They thought they knew it all. They think they know
it all. And once God begins to hammer on you, they begin to
say, you know, Mom, Dad, what about this? What about that?
Maybe the Lord's moving. What do you do? You continue
to pray, Lord, don't stop. Don't stop until they bow to
neither Christ or Savior. Don't stop. Until they rise up
born again. Don't stop until they're totally
committed to Christ Don't stop until you manifested the assurance
of their salvation in their soul by believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ and having no problem telling people Don't stop don't
stop and this is what Nehemiah is saying to God in the first
four first seven verses of verses 4 through 11 Lord don't stop
Because I didn't heard something See, it started off, I didn't
heard something. I didn't heard that we still got a long way
to go. The temple's built, but the saints are being harassed
by enemies, and we don't have a wall, and we don't have gates. Now that's a bad situation. Now
that's my message next week. Walls and gates. You got to have
walls and gates. So he's praying. Nehemiah is
absolutely remarkable. Point number three, look at it
with me. Point number three. Same means different men. Do you see that? Same means different
men. I'm just giving you a survey.
Daniel was different than Ezra. Ezra was different than Nehemiah.
All three persons were really different men personally. But
they were used the same way. from three different perspectives.
Let me give you a little insight on this, how God works. Same
means God always works the same way. He always moves by his spirit. He always stirs up through his
word and he always brings about a burden in the heart of an individual
to pray. He always moves by spirit. He
always uses the preaching of the gospel. He always uses the
preaching of the gospel. We learned in Ezra chapter 5
that Zechariah and Haggai prophesied and preached to the people all
the time they were building the temple. They continued preaching,
they continued teaching, they continued reminding the people
of the promises of God. Who they were and whose they
were and what God would do if they would do what God called
them to do. See, you gotta have preaching and teaching. I'm gonna
get into this in a moment. You gotta have preaching and
teaching. You gotta have the exposition of the Word. Faith
comes by what? And no other way. Faith comes
by hearing and that by the Word of God. You do not have a saving
faith, a vital faith in Christ that does not love the Word of
God and does not hear the Word of God. And it's by that means
that God continues to quicken us. Quicken me, oh Lord, according
to your word. Quicken me according to your
word. Bring me back into remembrance of those things you said I am
in you and what I should be doing. And that's what preaching and
teaching does. That's what preaching and teaching does. So Haggai
was doing that and Zechariah was doing that as well. And Ezra
understands this. Now the three men were Daniel. You remember Daniel? Daniel was
uniquely different from Ezra. Let me see if I can help a little
bit Daniel was a Politician he was one of the chief in command,
you know that Daniel was excellent in his character and in his conduct,
but Daniel was not a man given to external exhibitions all you
know about Daniel is what God said about Daniel and what you
knew about Daniel was he knew how to serve God and as second
in command. And the thing that primarily
comes out of Daniel is that Daniel prayed constantly for his people. Daniel stands for us as a great
type of Christ, our high priest in heaven. Let me help you with
that. Everybody in the kingdom of Babylon
and Persia knew when Daniel was praying, because he'd go home
up into his big old house on the hill, and he'd open up the
windows. And three times a day, he'd cry
out to the God of heaven from Jerusalem, Lord, have mercy on
your people. Who's that making all that noise?
That's Daniel, man. Daniel praying. Daniel praying. Daniel's mediating. Daniel's interceding. Daniel's
calling on the name of the Lord. Listen to me. And Daniel don't
care who hears. Cause he done already proved
that you don't touch God's anointed. You don't do his prophets no
harm. You don't come after a man like Daniel. Now Daniel's not
doing any exhibition. He ain't beating up on folks.
He ain't threatening folks. All he's doing is praying. And
he's praying from the tower of his house. And it represents
and it portrays our great high priest, Jesus Christ, who presently
lives. He ever liveth. He ever liveth
to make intercession for us. Are you hearing me? Do you have
a vision? There's a man in glory right now, praying for every
one of his children. He ever lives to make intercession
for us. Now, three things about Christ's
priesthood that you need to keep in mind. His priesthood, an eternal
priesthood that means it ain't going nowhere forever forever
it's after the order of Melchizedek which means his priesthood started
before the world began it has no beginning and it has no end
and his priesthood is unchangeable. That means nothing in hell can
alter its efficacy, its design, its scope and purpose. It's immutable. He has an immutable, unchangeable
priesthood. Are you guys hearing me? It's
indestructible. That is the reason why the Hebrew
writer said he is able to save to the uttermost those that come
to God by him. He's a high priest who can't
be molested. He can't be bought off. He can't
be sold. He can't be manipulated. He's
got the ear of the father. And the only reason the church
is in existence today is because of him, our high priest in heaven.
Am I making some sense? See, the only reason you're sitting
right here interested in the gospel is because Jesus did what
he said to the disciples. I'm praying for you. I'm praying
for you. I prayed for you. The devil's
coming after you. He's going to sip you like we,
but don't worry. I prayed for you that your faith
fails. Not, not that you don't fail
your faith. We talked about this last night.
The men's meet. We had such a wonderful meeting meeting last night. about
faith. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is naked. Faith is desperate. Faith is
ugly sometimes. Faith cleaves to Christ in the
face of everything that's opposite. That's faith. That's faith. That's
leaning completely on Christ. That's a gift from God. Am I
telling the truth? And we talked about how God buoys
up faith. Sometimes your faith is so weak,
you don't even think you have any faith. Isn't that right?
That's because your intellect gets in the way of the reality
of things. But God has to do that so that
you don't worship faith because faith won't be worshiped. The
more you look to your faith and talk about how much faith you
got, the more faith withers. because the purpose of faith
is to look to Christ alone. And faith is too shy for you
to ride on the back of faith and try to make some money out
of faith, being famed. I got faith. In who? In what? Am I making some sense? And so
we were talking about how God will get you down in the valley,
get you into those pits. leave you in those dark places.
And many of you are there now. And right there, He strips you
of all of your false refuges and your confidences. See, to
tell the truth, because we are so informed, infirmed, we use
a lot of things to kind of buoy us up. Ain't that right? What
you mean, pastor? I really don't have time to go
into it, because if I did, it would be another message. But
you know and I know that you use a lot of things to buoy you
up that has nothing to do with God And God's so patient. He lets you run like that for
a while You get fat Intellectually you get fat and you're in your
thinking you give you because you think you're doing good and
then God begins to strip you of those things One by one by
one strip you of those things and you realize you were trusting
in those things He begins to strip you and show you they were
idolatries. You were leaning on them more than on God. And
so He stripped you down butt naked. And I know that's not
politically correct terminology, but work with it. Until you realize
it's Christ alone. Are you hearing me? Nothing in
my hands I bring, simply to your cross I cling. Why does God always
bring me to that place? Because you got to go there.
Because the only thing that glorifies God is Christ and Christ in you. Nothing in my hands. Why do you
always bring me to this place? So that you can give glory to
me in the right way. That's why this recession we're
going through is good. It's good. We get to find out
whether we're saved or not right now. Am I telling the truth?
We get to find out whether we're saved. Whether we're saved. Daniel represents our high priest
in glory. praying for us, sustaining our
faith, not our reputation, our faith, not our person, our faith,
not our bank account, our faith, not anything temporal, our faith. The just shall live by faith,
walk by faith, and die in what? Faith. Are you hearing me? Yes.
And that in Christ. The second thing we see is Ezra.
Ezra is just like Daniel in a lot of ways, but a little different.
We see Ezra as the one who came down. Isn't this what we learned
last week? You don't find a brother exhibiting
the kind of, listen to me now, the kind of ethic, the kind of
ethic that Ezra did. Ezra fell on his face on the
ground in front of all the people and wept and cried and confessed
to sin. He sat there from morning to
evening and everybody got a chance to see the humility of Ezra. Ezra pointed to Christ crucified. See, until you are a sinner,
the cross of Christ means nothing to you. Until you are a needy
sinner, that man hanging on Calvary's tree appearing to be weakness
and foolishness means nothing to you. But when you see a weeping
savior, and you realize that a weeping Savior is weeping for
needy sinners, then you just might understand there's something
to that weeping. There's something to that wailing.
There's something to that crying. Here's what Ezra did. As our
great high priest Jesus Christ, he stood as the crucified Christ
teaching us how God really feels and thinks about his law. In
other words, Ezra actually magnified God's law. Did he magnify? And he made it honorable. Because
the people were just walking in wicked sin. Y'all don't know
nothing about that. They the people of God, but they
walking in just open-bladed wicked sin. We all right. Ezra said,
you ain't all right. And the cross teaches you you're
not all right. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Calvary teaches
you you're not all right. And Calvary teaches you again
that God's holy, God's just, God's righteous, and God has
every right to send you to hell. Am I telling the truth? When
you look at Calvary, you say, Lord, have mercy. Because if
he did it to his son, he'll do it to you. When he saw sin on
his son, he punished sin in his son because God can't look on
sin and one day sin's got to go. Am I making some sense? One day sins got to go. And so
what we learned in Ezra was, Ezra was our mediator modeling
for us God's perfect righteousness which none of us can do. And
our only escape is a throne of grace. A throne of grace. Am I making some sense? That
throne of grace is Christ on Calvary Street calling needy
sinners to come to him for life. That's what Ezra taught us. He
was a model. In theology, they call it an ethic. He was a demonstration
of what God demands. And by virtue of that ethic of
Calvary, the Spirit of God communicated into the hearts of the people
true repentance. See, repentance comes when you
see Christ crucified and all of its implications. God granted
repentance to those people, didn't he? He granted repentance. And
if you go back in your own time to the 10th chapter of Ezra,
guess what you'll see? You'll see that whole Judah tribe
standing in the street with Ezra and it's raining. Now, you know,
y'all don't come to church when it's a little cold, but it's
raining. It's raining. And they are all
out in the street with Ezra weeping. confessing their sin. I'm telling
you, that's remarkable to me. What's happening? The Spirit
of God's moving. The Spirit of God's moving. He's breaking hearts.
See, it takes root downward before it bears fruit upward. God's
got to break up the fallow ground. He's got to break up those wicked
schemes and devices. He's got to humble us before
He exalts us. Am I making some sense? And that's
what we see in Ezra. Ezra demonstrates he's a mild-mannered
man And he's a model. And he mediated between the people
and God. He showed the people what God
desired. And he showed God what the people
really needed in himself. And that's mercy. He stood in
the way of God's wrath against the people. Remember what we
learned? God had given them just a little space and a little grace. And Ezra is saying to God, God,
look on me and have mercy on them for my sake. That's what
Christ is saying. Father, look on me and have mercy
on them for my sake. Because they're such sinners,
they don't even know how sinful they are. That's Ezra on Calvary Street.
Mild mannered, I call him the quiet storm. There was a storm
that day. He was a quiet storm. Different
from Daniel. Daniel's in glory. Ezra's on
Calvary. But now notice Nehemiah. Oh,
Nehemiah is a piece of work. I'm almost done. I'm telling
you, I'm looking forward to this series of Nehemiah. Put your
seat belts on. Nehemiah. Nehemiah. Nehemiah. Who is Nehemiah? Nehemiah is
just like Ezra in a lot of ways. He prays. He's burdened. He had heard from his brethren
that Israel was in shambles, and he cried out to the Lord.
This is phenomenal. Nehemiah is said by some theologians
to be Ezra's alter ego. Now you know what an alter ego
is? It's a person that's like you, but also is opposite of
you. So Ezra's mild-mannered, but Nehemiah is this kind of
fella that goes to work. I want you to think about it.
He goes to work. And all of these things are seen
in the ministry of the gospel. God's a very patient God. He's
a very kind God. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
is the revelation of our God, the Lord Jesus is meek and he's
mild, isn't he? The Bible says a bruised reed
will he not break? A smoking flax will he not quench? The Lord is kind to sinners,
isn't he? Gentle to sinners. Patient with
sinners come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and
I'll rest you I'll take that burdensome yoke off of you and
I'll feed you in my fields of grace and mercy You'll go in
and out and find salvation and rest for yourself. That's how
the Lord Jesus we found him to be that way Haven't we we found
it to be so much more gracious than we ever deserve, but there's
a side of the Lord Jesus Christ That's just like me am I? Now
Nehemiah had heard that the people of God were tore up. And Nehemiah
now is in the same position that Daniel is, like Joseph was. He's
living high on the hog. He's the king's cupbearer. He
lives in the palace of Persia. You talking about living high? He lived high. He was far away
from his people. This is what makes him remarkable.
Because you know, when you and I live in the hood, we are more
sensitive to the struggles of the hood because we live there.
And we might do something about it. We might not. We might just
go in and out, shut our doors, lock them. Tell the truth. Sometimes
you just get tired. You didn't told them over and
over. They're not getting it. So you're just going about your business. Just
be real. But very seldom will you find somebody that is living
a relatively nice lifestyle up in the hills or a loop away,
coming down to the hood, being seriously concerned about the
issues in the hood. It just doesn't happen. But Christ
did it. Did Christ do it? Christ left
the palaces of glory and came down to the hood. This whole
world ain't nothing but a hood. I told you this whole world ain't
nothing but a ghetto. Just a ghetto. Just a straight ghetto. Hollywood's
a ghetto. Beverly Hills is a ghetto. New
York's a ghetto. It's all a ghetto compared to glory. That's a long
way to come down, brother. Listen to me. You got to care
about people to come from glory down here. Nehemiah is the King's
cupbearer and he's hearing this and you know what the Bible says
he began to pray. You know how long Nehemiah prayed
before something happened? Four months. So all you got to
do is read the text. It's all there. For four months,
all he did every day was pray. You know the Spirit of God is
dealing with you when every day you are bound to pray for one
issue for four months. You're not trying to fix nothing.
You're not manipulating nothing. You're not scheming nothing.
You're just talking to God. See, I want you to be patient
with it. You're just talking to God. Here's
what you know. If God moves, it's going to be
all right. But you're just talking to God. You're just talking to
God. I like the way Mr. Spurgeon said
it. God don't need activists. He needs dependents. He need
people depending on him. He need people calling on him,
waiting on him, praying to him, asking God to move. You and I
are presumptuous when we move out before God. And we're operating
out of the flesh and carnality. That's when we got to buy into
methods and techniques to try to influence people. But when
you wait on God, you just wait on God. You just wait. That's
what Nehemiah did. And I'm going to tell you what
happened. Nehemiah's praying increased in fervor. It increased
in intensity. It increased in passion until
he finally said in the 11th verse of the first chapter, Lord calls
this man. Who's he talking about? The king
calls this man to hear me when I go before him. Now, he had
been in the presence of the king hundreds of times since he had
heard four months earlier. He's the king's cupbearer. Cause
this man to hear. He could tell prior to this request
that the king wasn't hearing a thing. See, a wise man discerns
both time and judgment. A wise man knows when to say
something, when not to say something. See, you just pray, you pray,
you pray, you pray, you wait, you wait, you go, you know what?
I'm not getting an auction. It ain't happening here. I'm
not going to open my mouth here. because this was a big issue.
What Nehemiah was about to request was a big issue. I'll tell you
why, that ain't God calling. Nehemiah realized, now I want
you to hear this as I begin to wrap this up, Nehemiah realized
that the very reason for which Israel was in the shambles that
it's in was because of the king's decree. Let me help you. Back in Ezra chapter 5, the crooks
and enemies told the king that the history of Israel is such
that they used to be a bad kingdom. They used to be big and they
dominated the world. And if you let them restore their
temple, establish their nationality again, and build up their walls,
they're going to end up rebelling against you. And Artaxerxes said,
we ain't having that. keep those walls down and keep
those gates burned. And I'm going to talk about that
next week. What that assured Israel of is no capacity to defend
itself. Are you hearing me? No capacity
to defend itself. Nehemiah knows that the very
king whom God had providentially moved him to become the cup bearer,
he knew that this was the king who had given this decree. And
I told you long ago, the law of the Medes and the Persians
don't change while legit the king is alive. Am I making some
sense? See, Nehemiah's in between two straits, the decree, the
immutable, unchangeable decree of the king and the people's
needs. He knows that if he goes before
the king and the king ain't ready to hear him, this is going to
mess everything up. So Nehemiah waits. He waits until
he's white hot. White hot. You know what white
hot means? So white hot that the Bible tells
us that King Artaxerxes in chapter 2, when Ezra, Nehemiah was serving
the wine, King Artaxerxes looked on Nehemiah's face and saw that
he was sad. Watch it now. You know, you and
I can put on a nice facade. so we can be about our business
on a daily level. Jesus even told us, don't go
around exhibiting your troubles. Don't tell everybody you're fasting
and praying. Oh, I'm fasting and I'm praying.
That ain't holy, that's self-righteousness. Oh, I'm fasting, I'm praying.
I ain't ate all week. I'm asking the Lord to bless
me. No, you're not. You're asking the people to bless
you. You're asking the people to be moved to give you something.
You're not talking to God. God says don't do anything to
be seen of men. If you pray to your father, pray
in secret, wash your face, put your clothes on, act like everything's
all right, and believe that when you talk to God, God's hearing
you. This is the difference between external works religion and true
religion. This is the difference between
show religion true religion. True religion is about you and
God. They that worship me must worship
me in what? Spirit! And in what? Truth! And so Nehemiah's
praying and praying and praying until he's so full of burden
he transgresses. Because when you're in the presence
of the King, this is a gospel truth, you're supposed to be
happy just because you're in the presence of the King. When
you're in the presence of the King, you're supposed to be happy
because you're in the presence of the King. Our King is God
Almighty. And there ain't no reason for
God's people not to be happy, because we're in the presence
of the king. And you see how earthly kings portray and typify
the heavenly king? And the earthly king in those
days, when they saw a man or woman who was close to the kingdom,
with a face discombobulated and twisted and burdened. Some of
y'all been watching this movie called Lies. Have y'all watched
Lies? Where the guy's trying to figure out whether they lying
or not. You know the I go up, he lying. I go down, he lying. Can I share something about you
with that? The whole movie is a lie. Please. Sinners, sinners are
good liars. Isn't that true? Sinners and
even religious folks, some of y'all are good liars. You can
look me in the face and lie to me. I'll never see it. The only
person you can't lie to is God. But he's sitting there trying,
oh, see, we can tell by the way he postures and this and that.
There is only some basic truth to that. But for the most part,
we can exercise hypocrisy with the best of them. Am I telling
the truth? See, that's being sociopathic.
You can do it. But when there's a burden on
you, and that burden is so heavy that you can't hide it, people
see it. Nehemiah was full of the burden. And while he's working in the
presence of the king, passing him the wine, the king sees this
and Nehemiah, listen, I know you, you, you weren't too close
to me. You've been with me all your
life. I'm here to tell you something's wrong. This is nothing but sorrow
of heart. Even the king could see it. Isn't
that right? And Nehemiah realizes that this
is the door. So I'm going to share with you
some things about Nehemiah's character that's critical to
our observation. And then we're going to wrap
this up. The difference between Nehemiah and Ezra is that Nehemiah,
unlike Ezra, who was a model of what God requires, Nehemiah
represents the dynamic of the spirit of God. When he actually
moves, that is God, when he actually begins to move, things happen. Will you hear me? Some of y'all
don't know about this, but you will. When God actually moves,
you know it. When God begins to actually do
something in the heart of a sinner, you know it. When God begins
to move in the people of God's life, you know it. You know it
when God begins to bring about that kind of evidential revival
where the people of God are concerned and where they are now given
renewed strength to be committed to the things of God. It's obvious
that Nehemiah represents the movement of the Spirit of God
on a very obvious, on a very public level. Nehemiah, in other
words, is not merely a man that talks, he acts. So I'm going
to remind you of a few things he did. The first thing he did,
he came into the presence of the king. And when the king said,
what's your problem? You know what he did? He immediately
said, Lord, help me. Here I go. Got it. Here I go, Lord, help me. And
he opened his mouth. He said, King, how can a brother
not be tore up like I am when my father's house, when my father's
house is messed up the way that it is? Before the world began,
the Lord placed on the Lord Jesus Christ this burden for his father's
house. in the person of Christ. Christ
bore all of the responsibility as our covenant surety for his
father's house. Remember, if you never forget
this, the gospel is about the love of the father to the son
and the love of the son to his father. And you and I are simply
beneficiaries of this. Am I making some sense? This
is what I mean by when God, the Holy Ghost begins to move, things
have already taken place. Things have already taken place.
And Nehemiah simply says it. My father's house is tore up.
And God moved and had the king to say, man, go and do your business.
Nehemiah now represents the spirit of God in that gospel age called
the book of Acts. See, the Acts is about the work
of the spirit of God and actually saving sinners because of what
Christ has already accomplished on Calvary Street. Am I making
some sense? See, what we pray for is the spirit of God to enter
into the equation. I'm so serious about what I'm
about to say now. I'm so serious about this. Listen
to me now. We need the third person. We need the third person
because only the third person can make effectual what the second
person did. Is that true? We can academically
learn about the second person. We can even be, as it were, externally
drawn by the first person to learn about the second person.
But it was the second person that says, it's expedient that
I go so that you might have the comforter, the Holy Ghost, to
bring you into vital union with the things I've accomplished
for you on Calvary Street. There's a work that the Spirit
of God has been doing for 2000 years. You know what he's been
doing? He's been establishing the church, building the walls,
and establishing the gates. Christ laid the foundation. The
Holy Ghost is building the church. He's called the Spirit of Christ.
Will you guys hear me? He's called the Spirit of Christ.
He's called the Spirit of Christ. So I'm going to show you a few
things that... I'm going to remind you. I don't want you to go there.
Our time is up. I'm going to remind you of a few things that Nehemiah
did. This is quite remarkable. After he prayed, after this burden
was given to him, the first thing he does is he petitions the king
to go. And the Bible says in chapter
2, he went. You guys saw that. He's now in
Jerusalem. See, he ain't just talking, he
went. He's in Jerusalem. And you know what happens when
he gets there? For three days, I'm gonna talk about this next
week, three days, he simply assesses what's going on. See, your assessment
and my assessment is not the same as God's assessment. But
we gonna talk about that. Cause he had to assess the work.
The second thing he did was gathered the leaders together and tell
the leaders precisely what was wrong. Are you hearing me? Leaders that are not guided by
God the Spirit are blind leaders of the blind. Until leaders in
the church see things the way God sees things, they don't see
things at all. It's amazing. See, I'm getting
ready to get into this message. It's amazing how we can allow
the gates to be burned up and the walls to be broken down.
But that's not leadership. So he tells the leadership, don't
you see what's going on? Do you know what he does after
that? He gathers all the people together. He said, now, listen,
I want to tell you something. We're getting ready to build this wall.
I want you to get a shovel in your hand, in your right hand,
if you're right-handed. A shovel in your left, if you're
left-handed. And I want you to get a pistol in your other hand.
I'm giving you the 2009 version. I want you to get a sword. I
want you to get a sword. because while we build, we got
to fight. Did you get that? So he tell
him, there ain't no joke here, we got to fight. The enemies
came all grieved. He said, you ain't got nothing
to do with this. This is us and the people of God. The next thing
that we find Nehemiah doing, this is quite remarkable. You
know what he did? Remember, Ezra sat down on the ground and cried
and Ezra plucked his beard out, right? We're looking at Ezra
pluck his beard out. This represented being under
the curse. It represented being under the wrath of God. But Nehemiah
wasn't plucking his beard out. He trimmed his beard, trimmed
his hair. But when he caught the false
leadership, guess what he did? He plucked their beards out.
Ezra chapter 13, he said, Lord, and I plucked their beards out
and I smoked my hands and I made them ashamed. I made them ashamed. I made them realize how grievously
sinful they are before you. Remember me, Lord. Are you hearing
me? Tell you what else he did. What
else he did? He went on up into the high priest's
house. Cause you know, we don't like to, we don't like to touch
the preacher, but he went on up in the high priest's house.
And as he was looking around, he realized that there was a
condo right next to the temple. He said, now, who told you to
build a condo next to the temple? That wasn't in Moses' blueprint. That wasn't in Solomon's blueprint.
How'd a condo get here? Now we talked about this going
through the Kings. Condos right next to the temple meant that
they were liaisons that were generally there for perverse
things the sodomites The women that were making the idols they
were harlots You know, they just had a nice little harlot house
right next Nehemiah found out that there was a condo right
next to it and then he found out that the man living in the
condo was Tobiah a wicked pagan And then he found out that Tobiah
had manipulated the high priest in order to get in there. We're
going to deal with that. Then he found out that Tobiah
had gotten the high priest to stop the money from going down
to the common priest so that they could do their job. Man,
the next thing you know, you see furniture flying everywhere.
Chairs and desks and couches. What's going on? Nehemiah's presence. Nehemiah's presence. Nehemiah's
present. That's called the work of the
Holy Ghost. Nehemiah's present. You know what he's doing? He's
cleaning house. He's cleaning house. Am I making
some sense? If you are going to be saved,
God's going to deal with you. And especially for those of you
who are leaders in the church, hooking and crooking, bow the
knee or perish because it ain't gonna happen in the kingdom of
God. It's so funny, he starts to close the book out. This is
my last point. He closes the book out in a prayer after he cleans
up, help cleans up the priesthood with the same problem that Ezra
had. As he's closing out, he said, Lord, and as I was dealing
with the people, one of Sam Ballard's sons came to me and he happened
to have been a priest too. And I found out that he was married
to Sam Ballard's daughter. Now the priests were never allowed
to marry anyone but priest children. And the daughters they were to
marry according to the Levitical code had to be virgins because
Christ is the great high priest and his bride is a virgin. Are
you hearing me? You know how he closes off the
book of Nehemiah? He says, and Lord, when I found
out, I chased him away from me. You can see that old man Nehemiah
running down the street chasing Sam Ballad's son out of the kingdom. Chased him. Chased him. Now if the Spirit of God ever
enters into the work, he's chasing out every Antichrist. You got
to go. Are you hearing me? You got to
go. Man, Nehemiah wasn't playing. Nehemiah wasn't joking. And after
he chased him out, you know what he said to the Lord? Lord, remember
me for all the good I did for your kingdom. He was a proud
doer of the work of the Lord. Now Nehemiah would be scourged
and utterly ridiculed in this day and age as a pastor or a
preacher. Are you hearing me? He would
be excoriated. He would be called an extremist.
He would be called an individual who had lost his mind. But you
see, God doesn't see things the way we see things. And when Nehemiah
was done, the temple was ready for worship and it was ready
for the coming of the Messiah who came to his temple when he
was a little boy, eight years old. Are you hearing me? When
revival is done, the people of God worship Christ and they worship
Christ alone bar none. When the Spirit of God is done,
all you see is Jesus. All you see is Christ high and
lifted up. All you see is the sufficiency
and the glory and the fullness and the bliss of the person of
Christ. Do you see Him now? Do you see Christ as everything
now? Do you see Him this way in your heart? Do you desire
Him this way in your life? The Spirit of God can get it
done. If you hold on, He will. Amen.