We continue our study in the book of Nehemiah, in particular those verses which we have read together, Nehemiah chapter 2, and the first ten verses. Nehemiah is the cup-bearer, which may not seem to us as being a particularly exalted position, but indeed it was in the household of King Artaxerxes. Yet he was also a Jew, one of God's people, and living far away from Jerusalem. even though tens of thousands had returned to Jerusalem many generations before, there were still obviously those who were of the diaspora, those who had gone out from Palestine at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Nehemiah had been raised up to a position of some exaltation in the king court of King Artaxerxes. having heard, as we saw last week in the first chapter, that the city of Jerusalem was still desolate. It was broken down, the walls had been destroyed, the gates were literally off their hinges. Nehemiah turns his thoughts to prayer, he mourns and he fasts for Jerusalem, which is the very symbol of true worship in the Old Testament times. It was as we would use the illustration, a beacon set upon a hill. It was a testimony to the nations of the true worship of the true God. Therefore, it was not just some sort of a nostalgia trip for Nehemiah as he thought of Jerusalem. It wasn't just that this was the land of his forefathers, which he rather hoped would fare better. For Nehemiah, this was the symbol of true worship of the true and living God. And the fact that the walls were broken down and the gates were off their hinges was a reproach to the people of Israel. It was a slur upon the holy God. In the Providence of God we have in the first chapter a statement of the time in which this information was brought before Nehemiah. It was sometime towards the end of November, the beginning of December of 445 BC. It's as accurately pinpointed for us as that. Within just a few days we know exactly when this information was brought to Nehemiah. Now we read in the second chapter that in the month of Nisan, well if we want to just bring that up to more accessible information, in the month of April, Nehemiah was at a feast, some public banquet at which he was present, along with not just the king but the queen as well. Nisan was the beginning of the year, something like the New Year festivities. Now to give you some idea of the background to this particular chapter of Nehemiah, in the days in which Nehemiah lived, when the king was giving a banquet, it was not just bad manners to arrive at a banquet or a feast with a rather sorrowful expression. It was almost, indeed probably was, an insult to the king. The king had invited folk round to make merry. This was going to be a great celebration and therefore for one of his senior officers of the court to be downcast was something of particular note and indeed if we understand the customs of that day the king was thought to be such a radiant personality that how could anyone possibly be unhappy in the presence of the king while he was just the very epitome of pleasure and joy And for a person, therefore, to appear sorrowful in the king's presence was as good as saying, you're not really a proper king at all. Well, with that as the background, let's just see some of the things that we can glean for our own benefit as we turn to the Old Testament, as we turn to any portion of scripture. We shall always be asking ourselves the question, how can I make personal application of this It's not just a lesson in history, interesting though that may prove to us. It is also set there for our instruction. There's no portion of scripture which is not there for us to be blessed by. So what should we learn from this first half of the second chapter of Nehemiah? Well, one of the things which we can surely learn straight away is just the sheer patience of Nehemiah. After all, this was something that had caused him great concern if we had had time to read through and set it in the context of the first chapter. We had seen that when Nehemiah received the news that he sat down and he wept and he fasted and he turned himself to prayer. There was an earnestness about Nehemiah that he saw that the state of Jerusalem was a reproach to the people of God, but more importantly it was a slur upon the name of God. Now, if you can think back, as we are presently in April, if you can think back to what you were doing in end of November, December, it now seems to me, some time ago. And if I had been brought some urgent information in November or December, and here we were still in April, and nothing had been done about it, nothing had been accomplished, then I would be getting anxious Nehemiah for many months had turned these matters over in his mind, the need of building up of the walls of Jerusalem. Four months had gone past and now at last there seems to be an opportunity. I think it does us well to be reminded of the patience of Nehemiah because God's timing is not always our timing. And perhaps we suffer from what is also one of the greatest strengths of the generation in which we live. So many things are instant. Communication enables us to speak to people half a world away. We're able to send documents to them across the internet or fax them through. Decisions which in a previous generation were easier in order to attain, now are made in a matter of minutes. But that same sense of activity can become a snare for us when we think that everything, including God himself, should be bound by the instant. Here we have Nehemiah waiting patiently upon God. Now I don't know each of your circumstances. I would hesitate to say that I would know the circumstances of each and every member of the congregation, let alone those by the grace of God are visiting with us this morning. But God surely knows your circumstances. It may be that you have prayed earnestly, even as Nehemiah prayed, with tears, and with fasting, and with a sense of urgency, and God somehow seems to tarry. He does not answer in our timescale, but in his own. Now we should learn from scripture, there are numerous illustrations in scripture of God's timing. Indeed, as we read through the whole of the scriptures, we see God's gracious plan of salvation. We see that right at the very beginning, when Adam fell from the garden, even as they are being ejected from paradise, indeed before they are ejected from paradise, God makes a promise that the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent. Now with our New Testament glasses on, we look back into the promises of the old and we see here a gracious promise that though man had marred the glorious creation of God, God in his grace promises to undo what man has done. And yet it was not an answer that found its fulfillment in Adam's lifetime or in his children's lifetime or his grandchildren's lifetime. Many generations passed before in due season Christ was sent forth into the world at just the right time. At a point in the history of the world when the gospel could most easily be disseminated throughout the world. Now it wasn't that God was, as it were, waiting for the right opportunity, it was that God was undergirding the history of mankind. Now as we read through Nehemiah, you can't help but have the sense that the gracious hand of God was not only upon Nehemiah, but as scripture elsewhere tells us, the hearts of kings and of princes are in the hand of God. He guides them like a watercourse. as a man wanting to irrigate his fields, turns the stream so it goes this way or that way to irrigate this field or that field. So God takes the hearts of kings and he guides their thoughts and actions to accomplish his own purposes. Now you and I may have it in mind that there is something which exercises our hearts and mind. And we look to God to answer our prayer, and yet that answer seems a long way off. May God grant to us to learn this from Nehemiah, that patience of waiting upon God in his timing. Just recently we concluded our study in the life of Elijah. If you're familiar with the life of Elijah, you'll know that just towards the end, Elisha walks with Elijah, they cross over the Jordan, and the chariots of fire come down from heaven, the whirlwind smashes up Elijah so that he does not see death. Just a few chapters before in the Old Testament, we find Elijah under very different circumstances. fleeing from the presence of Jezebel, he cast himself down in the wilderness and prayed to God, saying, I'm the only one that's left and they seek my light and take it away. God, take my life. I don't want to go on anymore. Now, I think we can understand that that was a genuine plea in the misery of Elijah at that time. And yet if God had answered Elijah's prayer, what would he have missed? He would not have had that experience given to him which has not been given to anyone else save Enoch. God withheld from Elijah what he asked because he had something better in store, though he had to wait much longer for it. Now Nehemiah is one whose heart and mind is exercised over the things of God. He has his prayer. It is not some superficial and easy prayer. It is a prayer that brings him to the point of tears. Sometimes, perhaps, our patience is really just a mask for indifference. I find it very easy to be patient for the broccoli to boil. I can't stand the broccoli, and if somebody tells me, well it's not ready yet, I say, oh well, I'll be patient. It really is no difficulty in being patient for broccoli. If it is never ready, I will be patient to the end of time. But that's not real patience now, is it? It's not indifference that the scriptures enjoin upon us. is a heartfelt interest in the things of God, it is a pouring out of heart and mind over these things, but a recognition that we do these things in God's timing, because God's timing is always best. The second thing is I want you to see the prayer of Nehemiah. Now in the first chapter there was actually a given prayer, Nehemiah, which we examined in outline last Lord's Day. You say, well really through this particular section, where's the prayer? All it says is that a question was asked by King Artaxerxes and Nehemiah prayed to God and said to the king. Well I think even in that very briefest of mentions there are lessons there for us to First of all, we can see the immediacy of prayer. You don't need to be in a special place. You don't need to wait for special circumstances. Now, of course, there are times, and Scripture itself points that out to us, that we should set aside times for prayer. We should, as Scripture says, go into the closet. Well, we don't do that, perhaps, literally, but we set aside time and place in order to regularly meet with God. But here was an occasion where Nehemiah couldn't say to the king, wait a moment, I'm just going off to pray and I'll be back in half an hour and then I'll answer your question. No, he didn't need to go to a special place and he didn't need a special time of day. That's not to say that Nehemiah's life was just one of superficiality in prayer. I think chapter 1 would dispel that entirely for us. He was one who was given to prayer. And so we can understand that this prayer, as he prayed to God but answered the king, is in the context of a life which has lived the presence of God. Now there's another lesson that we should be learning too, that prayer is something that is so natural to us, so immediate to us, that even though we don't have the opportunity of speaking to a neighbor, a friend, perhaps a colleague that you've been concerned about, because He hasn't shown any signs of spiritual life and now at last he's asking a question which might give you an opportunity to speak a word and seize it. Well hold that thought and I'll be back in half an hour after I've prayed how I should answer your question. Now Nehemiah gives us this example of seeking the face of God. He prayed to God and answered the king. And even though that prayer was the very briefest of prayers, almost just a drawing in of the breath so far as the king was concerned. Nehemiah, as it were, piggybacked that prayer on four months of prayer and of fasting and of seeking the face of God. Also see in prayer now, we don't really have time to explore all the aspects, the naturalness, the way in which he just brought out in the text, he prayed to God and answered the king. There's not an air of artificiality about this, he's not being pious, wearing his faith upon his sleeve so that everyone in the court, including the king, should see that he was a pious man. We might talk about the intimacy of prayer. that Nehemiah knew the Lord whom he was addressing. We might talk about the confidence that he had in prayer, or the effectiveness, as we will shortly see, to the request. Patience, prayer, thirdly, his planning. It is evident from this second chapter that Nehemiah had not been inactive in terms of thinking through the implications of the information which he had received. He had been planning what he would do. When the question is asked him, Nehemiah knew how to describe the city's needs. Now think about exactly what we have been told so far. In Nehemiah chapter 1, Hanani, the brother of Nehemiah, comes and tells him that the walls had been broken down and that the gates were off their hinges. When the king asks Nehemiah what it is that is of concern to him, he gives him this response, that I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire? And then at verse 5. If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favour in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried, so that I can rebuild it. The importance of what Nehemiah is saying is that he is addressing his needs to the king on a level which he will appreciate and respond to. In the culture of king art exercises, in the Persian court of two and a half thousand years ago, the keeping sacred of the bones of your father was something that was held in high regard. So when Nehemiah addresses himself to the king, he says, you know, it's the burial places where my fathers are buried. He says that twice to the king. Hanani had made no comment about that as far as his comments about Jerusalem to Nehemiah. But Nehemiah was prepared to answer the king in a way in which the king would look upon his request with favour. He thought to himself, now if I have an opportunity to speak to the king, how should I address him? What will get him on my side? What will open his heart to these things? How can I prepare myself so that when the question is asked, if the question is asked, I am ready and prepared to answer. You see, he had thought out in advance what it would be that he would say. And he appealed to the king. on the level in which the king's heart could be touched. The king asks a question, how long will he be away? And he is able to give substance to the answer. Well, you can imagine how it would have been at the court of the king if he had asked the question, how long are you going to be? And he said, well, I don't really know. It might be a year, a couple of years, five years, I don't really know how long it will take. Well the king needs to act on information more precise than that. So in his planning he thought to himself not only what he would say to the king, but he also asked himself the question, now what do I need to do? How long is it going to take? You see there was great planning and foresight on the part of Nehemiah. And then Nehemiah asked for protection. from the king. Give me letters of safe conduct to allow me to go from Susa, the capital city of Persia, to Jerusalem. It is interesting to know from that particular question how Ezra, the previous book of the Old Testament, who had left exactly the same place to go to Jerusalem some fourteen years beforehand, says when he departs, now we don't need a royal escort, we don't need to have troops accompanying us, because the gracious hand of our God will be upon us to protect us. And now Nehemiah asks for that protection. How should we understand the difference that is here between Ezra and Nehemiah? Well I think one of the ways we can see is that God deals with different people in different ways. For some, it may be that we are able to say, well, the Lord will watch over me and protect me. For some, we need to say, well, the Lord will watch over and protect me, and he will do it in this way. And there's nothing wrong in accepting the support of the king in sending with him an armed escort to make sure that he is safe. That is God's provision. But either way, whether it's Ezra or Nehemiah, both are unable to say the gracious hand of our God was upon us. Well, we can see therefore in this brief chapter, these verses, the patience of Nehemiah, the prayer of Nehemiah, the planning of Nehemiah. I want very briefly to step back and see not just this particular instance, but also to see these same aspects in God's gracious plan of salvation. First of all, in the patience of God. We do tend to be impatient, but if we have a biblical view of God's plans being worked out, it will help to set aside that impatience and to wait upon God. We read together earlier on from the book of Acts, Peter and John had been arrested, they'd been threatened by the Sanhedrin and then released. They'd been told, you keep quiet about this Jesus, we don't want to hear his name mentioned again. They returned to the people of God. The people of God are meeting together, perhaps not so different to what we're doing this morning. And as they meet together, it is natural for them to pray. And so they lift their voices in prayer, Sovereign Lord, Sovereign Lord. When they address the Lord as Sovereign, of course, this is not a new thought for Peter and John, or for the disciples and the people of God assembled as they were on that occasion two thousand years ago. Indeed, it has often been, almost you might say invariably been, the way in which the people of God have addressed our mighty God. sovereign Lord. Now in their prayer, they speak about how God overrules the hearts and intentions of men. Yes, there was Pontius Pilate, yes there was the Sanhedrin, but how is it they pray, they only did what you wanted them to do. Was Pontius Pilate conscious that he was a tool in the hand of God for accomplishing God's purposes? Probably not. Was the Sanhedrin? Well, they probably would have said yes, but for all the wrong reasons. The people of God, as they prayed, saw behind historical events to see the hand of God moving. You and I also need to be conscious that God is truly sovereign. that he has not only the heart of Pontius Pilate in his hand, but all the affairs of this world. God is patiently working out the history of this world to his own glory. And that means that we can have full assurance of the truth of Scripture in Philippians, which tells us that a day will dawn When every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And all the various strands of history, whether it's set down in history books or not, is working to that glad and glorious consummation of the vindication of the holy name of Jesus Christ. Well, the history of the world is in the hand of God. And so are you and I. We are in the hand of God. Let us be patient then. Well, prayer. How do we apply the aspect of prayer to the great glorious purposes of God? Well, we can see certain facets of prayer in the Nehemiah, in the second chapter. We can see immediacy and naturalness and intimacy. And how do you see those exact same things in God's dealing with the history of this world? There is an immediacy. God is directly involved with this world, day by day and moment by moment. A few hundred years ago an error got into the church which would have us believe that God was little more than the maker of a rather elaborate clock, that at creation he wound it up and then stepped back to see how long it would continue going for, and it was entirely hands-off. But that's not the picture that we get from It's not consistent with the view that says the gracious hand of our God was upon me. God is directly involved day by day. And surely that's what enables us to pray, Sovereign Lord. Nothing is beyond his control. Now we saw that there was a naturalness in the prayer of Nehemiah. And there's a naturalness too in the way in which God deals with this world. It's not as though we are making our way along and then suddenly we are dragged away, kicking and screaming in a direction that we never thought to go in. Or that the kings and princes, whose hearts are in the hand of an almighty God, suddenly and inextricably they find themselves forced into doing something by some strange power from outside. Now the way in which the disciples prayed, at the time when Peter and John were released, show us that there is a naturalness. Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, did whatever they wanted to do, but they only did what God wanted them to do. And it may be paradoxical, but it's still true. And then finally we can see that there is a plan. I always find it rather difficult to understand how people reject the idea of God's sovereignty, of God's electing power, his grace. After all, you and I, with our, dare I say, somewhat puny and finite intellects, are able to make plans. I dare say that if I went round the congregation this morning and asked each one of you individually, well what are you going to be doing this coming week? You'd be able to say something that you were planning to do. you plan to do something today perhaps you have a plan as a family to gather together and to rejoice in one another's company perhaps there are meetings that you have scheduled in your day timer for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday each one of you will have certain plans things you are intending to do in the course of this week now if you with your, I don't want to be insulting but finite mental abilities plan, make purposes, expect to fulfill them. How is it that we don't expect the same of an almighty God, of the greatest intellect, infinite intellect, that God is somehow sitting back, no plans, almost we might say vacuous in his intent. Does that make any sense to you? I have to confess it makes no sense to me, but surely what we read in scripture speaks to the contrary. God is one who makes plans, he makes promises, and he will fulfil them. Well, let's very briefly and finally make some other applications, personally. When we are facing a particular difficulty, perhaps it's someone that is dear to us, it may be in just thinking of ourselves, in terms of the building up of the walls, the building up of Jerusalem, the work of the kingdom in my life as it were, or the work of the kingdom in someone else's life who is dear to me, and we are exercised of heart and mind because that husband, that wife, that father or mother, son or daughter, seems to have no desire for the building up of the kingdom in their lives. And that's, as with Nehemiah, a matter of tears as well as of prayers. Well, listen to Nehemiah and be patient. God will answer your prayers. But in his time, Secondly, don't stop praying. Don't stop praying. Thirdly, plan for it. There is nothing particularly spiritual about sitting back and doing nothing and just saying to yourself, I'm waiting for the spirit to move me. Nehemiah is pre-eminently the servant of God. And yet he used his intellectual facilities to plan for the future. You and I need to plan for the future too. What is it that we desire? What opportunities are we seeking to create? When the opportunity comes, do we seize it with both hands and say, now this is the very moment for which I have been looking and longing, this is the moment for which I have been praying and fasting, now it is here, I will seize upon it, because I am ready. There's the planning. When King Artaxerxes asked Nehemiah, why are you so sad? He had his answer ready. When that colleague of yours for whom you have been praying because you are concerned for him, you have been patient, not disinterested, concerned, patient. waiting for the opportunity. And he says to you, why do you read your Bible? You're ready! Because you've been planning for that time. You've been looking for the opportunity. And now God has answered your prayer. The gracious hand of my God was upon me, and I spoke to Him. There, in Scripture. patience, prayer, planning. Let's pray together.