We are doing our best to connect dots between the law of Moses and other really strange places in the Bible that when I say strange, I don't mean wrong. I mean, probably often unvisited. And I'm coming to grips with the fact that people often study these books separate from one another. And I don't know if one of my missions is to show you where all the books connect, but I think it is. And so I appreciate every time we get the opportunity. I need help reading the first, uh, 11 verses and, um, of Nehemiah chapter number two. And let's see here. I want to make sure that, um, and I want to make sure that we do this in a way that would make the most sense. So I'm all for that. Why don't we look at Nehemiah chapter two and let's start reading, um, maybe two or three verses a piece. And we're gonna go through the first 11 verses, and I'm gonna read verse one. It came to pass in the month of Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, may the heat live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tomb, lies blazed and its gates are burned with fire? Then the king said to me, what do you request? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your son, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it. Then the king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, how long will your journey be, and when will you return? So it pleases the king to send me, and I accept him at the time. Furthermore, I said to the king, if it pleases the king to let letters be given to me for the governance of the legions beyond the river, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah. the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the porches, which is by the temple, for the wall of the city, and for the house to which I will go. And the king granted them to me, because the good hand of my God was on me. Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the region, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king can send me with the officers of the army to you. All right, so thank you for reading that is the word of the Lord Yes. Some of you are getting it. Thanks be to God. It's the most Lutheran we get in our worship services. One call and response. And it's just, it's, it's, it's, I mean, it should make you feel at home. Are you happy? Yeah. So just kidding. Uh, I am so thankful that we've had a chance to read these verses. They are just to remind you it is 446 BC. It is 480 years since the Exodus. forgive me, a thousand years since the exodus. And it is about four hundred, five hundred and twenty years since Solomon's temple was built. It's about four hundred and forty six years until the birth of Jesus thereabout. And the children of Israel have been kicked out of their land. They didn't play nice with their bedroom. And so the Lord put them out in the hallway and said, all right, after 70 years, we'll let you go back. And so remember there was one trip back already about 75 years before this and Zerubbabel was the leader of that little trip. And then just before that, or I should say just after that, in the late 400s BC, a second trip to Jerusalem took place from Persia, and it was led by a guy named Ezra. And now this third trip, and this errand is to go back and repair some walls and gates of the city of Jerusalem. And so you can see what happens here. The scene is in the citadel. We know that because of chapter one, verse one, the winter residence of the king of persia and there's this guy named nehemiah and you see his job it says the very last phrase of chapter one i was the king's cup bearer well you see what that does in verse one of this chapter it looks like the cup bearer handles the king's cup Isn't that strange? It says he took the wine and gave it to the king. So if you want to know what a cupbearer is, basically it's the whipping boy for anyone who's trying to assassinate the king through poisoning. And so you tend to grow really close with the person who may die on your behalf. I think it's John Bunyan that says at the age of 16, he lied about his age to get into the army in England. And John Bunyan is the writer of Pilgrim's Progress, spent a lot of years in jail, Bedford prison in London. And that's where for 12 years away from his wife and four children. And his pastor died while he was in prison and the church voted on him to be the next pastor while he was in prison. And so they would gather outside of his prison window and hear him preach. But before he got saved, he knew that the Lord had destined him for a walk with God when he was supposed to go up on his watch. And instead, a man took his charge and went in his stead. because he's just a young man and he needed a rest and a man stood up in his place in the wall and was shot in the head in the place of John Bunyan. So you know when you know someone is potentially going to take a bullet for you, in this case poisoning your cup, you tend to get close to him. A very trusted man. There's a strong possibility that Nehemiah was a eunuch. The reason I say that is because in 2 Kings chapter number 24, And in Isaiah, I believe it's chapter number 37, there's a prophecy that the king of Babylon would come and take the youth, the finest youth of the land and make them eunuchs to work in his court. If you're not sure what a eunuch means, don't look it up on Google. Come and talk to a trusted person or see someone in the pew next to you. There you are. And basically the idea is how can we get a good person to work in our court without him trying to get with the king's wife? There, I said it. And so the best way is to remove his desires. And therefore, everything is fine. So that's kind of an intuitive understanding that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and Nehemiah were all eunuchs by the time they had gotten in front of the king. So that is some of the context you may not have been expecting this evening. But here's one thing that you can rest assured. In verse number two of chapter two, you'll notice that the king said to me, why is your face sad since you are not sick? What does that tell you? According to verse number one, what does that tell you about Nehemiah's normal expression? Normally happy. Now take a look at chapter number two and verse two and look at the last phrase of verse two. Can you help me understand why Nehemiah is afraid that the king notices that he's sad? Why does that matter? Why is he afraid that the king notices that he's sad? The king has the power to take his life. And any, yeah, very good. But why would the king take his life for being sad? Yeah, yeah, it is an un, it is an unrighteous thing for you to be sad in the presence of a deity. And the idea of the king of Babylon and the king of Persia is that if you're serving or coming into his presence, there should be no sadness on your face. And therefore the servants before the king, I guess they understood fake it till you make it because there were not, his life was in danger if he looked to be sad or downcast in the presence of the king. So he tells what's on his mind. He says in verse number three, why should my face not be sad when the city, now take a look at the way he describes his favorite place on earth. How does he describe it in verse three? Say it again, Denny. The place of my father's tombs. Why is that significant? Sure, it's his heritage. What else? I mean, it's heritage, but put some handles on that for me. What do you mean it's his heritage? Great respect for what? For his ancestors. where they were buried. So do you think that matters? Is that just a Jewish thing? Does it matter where your fathers were buried? Think that's a big deal? Do you think that's significant, that the way he describes a holy place is the place where his family's buried? It's been 150 years. I mean, it ain't his father. It may not even be the grandpa. His descendants, his people are buried there. So his ancestors are buried there. And as Pastor Rainey pointed out, a part of our heritage is not just where we used to live, but where our ancestors are buried. We have the opportunity right here to allow the scripture to inform us. It seems so by the way, you say, well, maybe they didn't treat dead people any other way in history. I would recommend that you read up a little on Babylonian dealings with their dead. They burned them. So no, this is not Sunday night material. No, this is not Sunday morning material, but I suspect the Wednesday night crowd is strong enough to hear what I'm saying. The Lord has an opinion on everything. Doesn't he? So this is key. You need to decide, is that something that just Nehemiah cared about? Or was it important to be able to go to a place where people that they respected were buried? I'll move on. Now we might notice verse number four. I think it's informative that King said to me, what do you want? Now talk to me about the prayer of Nehemiah. Super long? We don't really know, do we? It's not recorded, do we? But how do we assume it wasn't very long? Why do we assume it wasn't very long? Did you quote the great verse, silence is golden? Is that what you did, Andy? The silence is awkward, but what in the text determines and seems to indicate to us, this is a real short prayer. Yeah, you got to answer the king. I mean, are you going to take forever and start burning incense and light candles and get out your prayer list and start the coffee and let the dogs out before you answer the king? So do your prayers need to be long? Say again. They don't need to be wordy. They don't need to be long. Is it okay to spend a lot of time with God and work out those requests? Sure. Is it always appropriate? No, there are times when nothing but help will do, right? God, what do you want me to say? Now, question here, Nehemiah, I know it's before Jesus and we usually immortalize everyone from the time of the New Testament back as if they weren't real men, like Nehemiah never had to shower, right? Never needed to put ice in his water, nothing. He was superb. He was just amazing. Never had normal stuff going on. But do you suppose that he saw something like the Wicked Witch of the East riding on the sky in an answer to him? No, of course not, right? Do you think that he got a telegraph from heaven? Maybe a stork dropped a sign out of the sky. Federal Express delivered something. DHS dropped something off at his door. Anything like that? How did he determine what God wanted? Yeah, does anything I'm going to go back to chapter one in his prayer for Israel. He's in front of the Lord, and he's telling the Lord, I pray before you now, day and night, he's in a continual posture. of prayer, he's an intercessor. So he's having this kind of continual communication, communion with God. It kind of makes sense that he's just continually this communion is before the king. And that literally he hasn't, you know, this, this is just like, I'm already in communion with you day and night. This is my posture. So it's completely natural for me as I'm in front of the king to go ahead and pray to you right now. Okay. So, yeah, thank you. So are we saying that this was a vocal prayer? Probably not a vocal prayer. There's a good chance then that Nehemiah wrote this portion, this is part of his journal, unless you can hear silent prayers all of a sudden. So he's right there in front of the most powerful man in the known world, and he says, what would you like? And he seems to be saying something on the effect of, Lord, help us to work, on his way into saying, verse number five, send me to Judah. See what it says there? To the city of my father's tombs. Do you see how he described that place the same way twice? Send me back to the place where my ancestors are buried, that I may rebuild it. Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, how long will your journey be and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time. What does this teach us about things like project management or duration, guesstimation? I don't mean to use big words, but what is this teaching us here? When Nehemiah, when he asks, he's right there in front of the king, the time is precious, the queen is with the king, and the king says, how long do you need? Did Nehemiah say, let me get back to you in a week? What does this teach us about Nehemiah's preparation work? He had already prepared. He had already prepared. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and asked God. He prayed and Very good. So he's a man of prayer. We know that from chapter one in his prayer of confession. We know that from what Chris told us, that he prayed at the end of verse four in a quick way because he was used to praying. And we know, based on the fact that he knew how much time he needed, that he had thought about, what happens if I get what I want? Then what do I do? So he had a pretty good estimation of how much time it would take. I wonder, do you and I plan just in case we get what we want? Now, what is another indication in verses seven and eight that he's thought this thing through, just in case God answers his prayer? How about that? I mean, how has he even thought about, like the beginning of verse eight, hey, could you make sure, King, that you send a letter to the keeper of your forest? I mean, was that just off the top of his head? Lord, would you write the guy with the red vest at Walmart and tell him that, I mean, that's pretty specific. Write to your forest keeper and have him give me everything I need for the gates and for, you notice in verse number eight, there are three things listed. Beams for the gates, the city wall, and the governor's house. Me, the governor. Three things. And he says, I'd like to get all the wood I need for that if you can write some letters for me and I'll be back at a certain time. So there's some indications that he's thought this thing through. So let me read a verse to you so you can write it down there. I think it's a good one. I sent it to my daughter last week and again, I'll read it to you and then give you the reference. This is good. Nervous hands. All right, here we go. Do you see a man who excels in his work? He'll stand before kings. Book of Proverbs, chapter 22, verse 29. Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings. Now it's proverbial, but it's a good proverb and it means that there's a good chance that a person who deserves to be in front of a place of influence has already had the work ethic that shows that it's true. No one accidentally gets things done for God. Sure. Do you still have that little chart I handed out last week? Okay. Let's see here. So you're talking about Chislev, right? And verse chapter one, verse one, I believe it is the third month and I believe a third month of the year. I just can't remember, Chris. I don't remember the order of the months. What's that? I can't remember. I don't remember. I'm not trying to be evasive. I don't even have my chart from last week. Okay, so let's see here. As you look in verse nine, I went to the governors in the region beyond the river, gave them the king's letters. Now, was everyone pretty well happy that he was there? They were not. They were not happy. Good, someone's here to check up on us. Isn't that wonderful? No, usually when the Lord is interested in doing something, the same God that stirred up Nebuchadnezzar to do his work and coming to get the people stirred up Cyrus to give his people back to the land that he stirred up Nebuchadnezzar to come and get from them. God is usually working, in fact, always working, but usually behind the scenes. And that should encourage us, but Be aware that when God is working in our lives, not everyone's happy about it. They see it often as inconvenience and frustration. Let's see here, who are these guys? I wonder if I'm, I wonder if I've thought about this. When you get to verse 10, you find out that there's this guy named Sanbalat, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the Ammonite. And they were officials, And here comes a guy from the headshed, the headquarters, and he's there with letters. And we'll get into what they're gonna talk about two weeks from tonight. We have something specific and really important we need to talk about next Wednesday night, but maybe we'll be back to Nehemiah two weeks from tonight to finish this chapter. But we already know who the Ammonites came from, and if you don't, hang on. But the Horonite, what is a Horonite? I mean, if we were hearing that spoken on the street corner, we'd probably make a funny guess, but it would be wrong. Sanballat the Horonite. Well, a Horonite is from the city of Horonium in the region of Moab. Hmm. So here in this verse, who's troubling Nehemiah on his journey for the Lord to do the Lord's work in rebuilding the wall around the sacred town? A Moabite and an Ammonite. OK. Why don't we go find out where they came from? Go with me to Genesis 19. Genesis 19. And I'm going to put another little date up here, which seems to be my habit. I'm going to put a little date up here. And right here. Let me get a different color. There we are. I'm getting good at this. 1851 BC. 1851 BC, Abraham is in his hundredth year. It's Genesis 19. And you might notice, as you look at chapter 19, what's the big story in chapter 19? Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. All right, so look at verse number 29. It came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt. And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar, and he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, our father is old and there's no man on the earth to come into us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let's make our father drink wine and we'll lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our father. So they made their father drink wine that night and the firstborn went in and lay with her father and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. It happened the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, indeed, I lay with my father last night. Let's make him drink wine tonight also. And you're going to lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our father. Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him. And he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus, both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He's the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi. And he is the father of the Ammonites to this day. Well, in our passage tonight, we have a Moabite and an Ammonite that are ready to provide a resistance to Nehemiah. In about 1851, I'm not super good with the math, so I'll do some subtraction here. And let's just see if I can make this work. 1,405 years later, it mattered what Lot did that night. I mean, it mattered many times since then. But on the day that Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem, even with permission from the king, there are people that are trying to stymie his work, and they are the descendants of a night Lot got drunk. Two, two nights, Block got drunk. All right, so come on, help me out here. Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, what's the devotional thought? What's the takeaway there? Don't get drunk. Okay, that's one of them. All right, thanks, Papaw. Off to bed. It matters what we do today. Yeah, it matters today and it matters for a long time what we do today. Very good. I won't get that done in two minutes. I had one more thing I wanted to show you that matters, but we can show you in another time, maybe. But I wonder, is there another question or another comment you'd like to make based on the passage? I think I have a Calvary sighting. A Calvary sighting. I am ready. Is it in Nehemiah 2? Nehemiah 2.6. All right, let's hear it. Nehemiah 2.6 says, then the king said to me, how long will your journey be? And when will you return? And I can't help but think of another man to set a piece of displaced people only to return to the king's side. That's golden. Good stuff. Did everyone get that? All right, let's hear it again. Break it down real easy for us. Go Barney for me. I'm slow. So the son leaves the father's side to set a piece of displaced people only to return to the father's side. It's good. And he goes with the father's permission. He goes with the father's resources, or we'll go back to tonight's story. The son, Nehemiah, as he goes back to the displaced people to restore hope, he goes with the resources of the sovereign, doesn't he? All of the permission and the resources go with him. And Jesus, after his resurrection, in Matthew 28, said, all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth, after his resurrection. That's good. Everyone understand that? So the reason we have hope tonight is because Christ died on the cross for us to give us our home with the Father one day. So it matters when Paul, when he says, in my Father's house are many mansions. Yeah, and he goes, I go to prepare a place for you. That's good. I appreciate that. Thanks, Pastor Jordan.