And it came about in the month Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes that wine was before him. And I, so Nehemiah here is speaking in the first person, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now, I had not been sad Or now I had not been sad in his presence. OK, that's a key phrase. So normally he is not a sad guy. He is, you know, a very congenial guy. Verse two. So the king said to me, why is your face sad, though you are not sick? There is nothing but sadness of heart. Then I was very much afraid. Very interesting. He was afraid when the king was asking him that. However, God was now using the king to answer his prayers. Let's see. Verse three. I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire? Then the king said to me, what would you request? And notice the instant prayer that goes up. So I prayed to the God of heaven. So that's that emergency prayer that we all have from time to time. You're in a situation, you don't have time to walk away, so in your heart, Lord, help me in this situation. Verse five, I said to the king, if it pleased the king and if your servant has found favor before 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 sitting beside him, how long will your journey be and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. It was an answer to prayer, but there's more to it. Verse seven, and I said to the king, if it pleased the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the river that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah. And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress 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." Verse 9. Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the river and gave the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. Verse 10, when Sanballat, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the Ammonite official, heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel. Let's just bow in a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. And there are certain themes throughout the Bible that we see and recognize. And Father, it teaches us about your work and when we serve you. But Father, we also see your hand, as some have called it, the invisible hand of God. It because we don't see your hand doesn't mean that your hand is not there. You are sovereign. Would you teach us that this evening, Lord? There are a number of things that will glean from Nehemiah. We pray that you would apply them to our hearts, Lord. Teach us in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. So let me just read a little bit of the context here in chapter one. Nehemiah learned that the post-exilic Jews, approximately 97,000, and that's according to Constable, that's quite a few people, but remember there were three, three times that they came back, three returns, and out of those three returns, it was about 97,000 altogether. They were in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire. Nehemiah was burdened to undertake the rebuilding of the wall and seek God's favor to do so. In chapter two, we see God's sovereign hand answer that prayer on behalf of his chastised but chosen people. Nehemiah waited four months after his initial prayer for God to answer. It was still the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, whose reign began in approximately 464 in the month of Tishri, making it approximately 445 or 444 BC. We have a number of things. First of all, we're going to see that Nehemiah receives opportunity to go back from God. Yes, it's Artaxerxes, but when we see it's the hand of God, he works through all people, all kings, whether they're godly kings or ungodly kings, he can use them to accomplish his purpose. And then that's verses one through four. And then verses 5 through 9, Nehemiah requests rebuilding from the king. So he gets an opportunity. The king asks him, what's wrong, Nehemiah? Now he's going to request, okay, you've asked me, I'm going to tell you. And he tells him and Artaxerxes is on board. And then verse 10, we're gonna see a familiar theme we saw in the book of Ezra, we saw in the book of Daniel, and we're gonna see it in the book of Nehemiah, trouble. For those who are trying to do God's work, there's often trouble by God's enemies. Nehemiah records trouble in the midst of God's work. So that's what we're gonna take a look at this evening. So let's take a look then at Verse one. Verse one, it says, and it came about in the month Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes that wine was before him. Let me just stop there. So it seems to suggest, and it may not be, but it seems to suggest that it's not suppertime, okay? And that's what he drinks, wine. It gives the idea that it's a feast going on, a festival going on. And it says, the wine was before him. And it says, and I took up the wine. And you would just imagine that if, If this was happening every night, it probably wouldn't be written this way. So it's giving the idea that it's a festival time and everybody is joyful except Nehemiah. So that's the context that's being built. And then he says, now, I had not been sad in his presence, meaning Before whenever I go before him whenever he calls me as a cup bearer and I come to bring this I have not been sad But he couldn't help it. You know, I find that interesting, you know, we all they all go through all kinds of stress in life and You know, sometimes it's you know, sometimes we kind of handle it you know, we deal with it and And sometimes we think we're dealing with it, and someone comes up to us and goes, are you okay? Is everything okay? And you're like, well, why? Well, I don't know, you just seem... A little off, you seem a little sad, you know, so we sometimes cannot hide what's on the inside and it comes out and that's exactly what we have here. And remember, Nehemiah was a cupbearer. And this did put him in a good, favorable light. The king wasn't going to trust anyone to do it. The king was going to find someone trustworthy, someone who had a good attitude. You know, if someone had a bad attitude all the time, the king's looking at him like, I don't know that I can trust you. You may be poisoning me. And furthermore, the cupbearer had to be of such integrity that if the king said, well, Why don't why don't you take a drink first? You know, why don't you taste it for me? See what happens. Well, that's what we have. But the point is, is that being a cup bearer, he had found favor with the king. He was a trusted servant of his. Now, he notices the sadness of heart, verse two. So the king said to me, why is your face sad though you are not sick? And that's interesting. You know, I guess if the person is, you know, wheezing and using a handkerchief and coughing and sneezing. Well, he knows that he's not feeling well. And so he would say, okay, you look the way you do because you're sick. But that wasn't the case. It was sad and it was very odd and strange. And then the king goes on to say, this is nothing but sadness of the heart. And then he says, then I was very much afraid. So having seen this, he asks Nehemiah, now Nehemiah prayed, prayed God open the door. And here's the door being opened and he's afraid. Now the question would be, why would he be afraid? Well, there's a couple of reasons. We're going to be taking a look in a little bit at the book of Ezra because there was a time in the history of Artaxerxes when people had come to him and said, hey, they're building a temple in Jerusalem. They're rebellious people. And King Artaxerxes shut it down. Now, all we do in Ezra is read that account. We don't know exactly when that happens in this chronology, but it could be he was afraid. Oh, my word. Maybe he thinks that I'm part of this rebellion that these other people accused the Jews of. It could be also, too, that he was saying, well, I don't want the king to get the wrong idea that I'm disgruntled. It's sadness, not disgruntled. You know, a disgruntled employee. You find those all the time, don't you? In the break room, disgruntled, you know, not happy about anything. They complain about everything. And even so much that the normal person looks at them and says, you know, why are you working here if you don't like it? What's your problem? You know, hey, we were asked to do a job. We're getting paid to do this job. So what's the problem here? Anyway, part of this could have been that maybe he was afraid that the king would have a mis-idea about what was the problem here, and maybe it's malcontent, maybe he's disgruntled. We don't really know. It doesn't say that, but why else would he be afraid? Now, I want to move to this idea of in the book of Ezra. In the book of Ezra, in the beginning chapters, it talked about Artaxerxes. Now, it's actually a little bit of a confusing part in Ezra, but it's very explainable. So in chapter four, Ezra starts going about, okay, we're about to run into problem. People do not want us to do this. God's will. And that's a theme, and we're going to see that. And then Ezra, because he's writing and compiling these two books together from the future, he starts to go through the past, when there was persecution against his people, and he even goes to the future. With Artaxerxes of what's going to happen, because he already knows it happened because he's lived there, but he puts it in Ezra chapter four when it hasn't happened yet. So let me kind of just illustrate that for a second. We're going to go to that passage. and you'll be able to see. So there's a couple of things here that are going to be at play. Notice, if you will, Ezra 1 through 6. All right, so that's when Zerubbabel went, that's when they're rebuilding the temple, 536 through 516. OK. And then we have the book of Esther which we will be talking a little bit about tonight. That's 483 to 473. And then we have 458 Ezra chapter 7 through 10. 458, and then in 444, so we have a lot of years there, now we have Nehemiah 1 through 13. Now look down at the very bottom where we have Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes wasn't the king the whole time because he wasn't alive. And if we were to look at the kings, the ones that are mentioned in scripture, these pagan Persian kings. Look at them. First of all, we have Cyrus, the ones in purple, Cyrus the Great, the one who allowed the Jewish people to return. And we see that in Ezra chapter 1. We also see that in the book of Isaiah. And then from him comes Darius I. And Darius I is also mentioned in the book of Ezra, verses one through six, but specifically in chapter four. So he's mentioned. We come then to Ahasuerus. He's mentioned too in Ezra chapter four. And this is the one who was the king and chose Esther to be his queen. And then finally, we have his son, Artaxerxes, and Ezra talks about him in chapter four. So if we look at this here, Ezra. in chapter four is talking about the future. He also talked about the past with Darius, but he's also talking about the future. And you can say, well, that's confusing. Well, not really. It's not really. You know, okay, the Super Bowl's coming up. We know that the Kansas City Chiefs are in it. And of course, most people don't like them, because they don't like someone to win all the time. But let's say we were talking about it last year. So we're talking about it last year, and we say, man, they're becoming a dynasty. We don't like dynasties. And you know, they won the Super Bowl before, in the past. And now this is the president, of course, and man, the way they're going, they could possibly win in 2025. They could be in the Super Bowl. No, that's not going to happen. Well, that's basically what Ezra is doing. But it's not the theme of football. It is the theme of persecution. It's in parentheses. He's saying, back there in chapter 4, he's saying, here comes persecution. Whenever we try to serve the Lord, whenever we try to do God's will, it seems as if there's always opposition, always enemies. Are you sure, Ezra? Yeah, let me prove it to you. Back in the days of Darius, the present day now, And then even in the future of Artaxerxes, because remember, he's in the future putting together Ezra and the book of Nehemiah. So that's what we have. So having said that, let's go back to Ezra chapter four, where he talks about Artaxerxes. So Ezra chapter four. Let's start with verse 12 and let's go ahead and read to verse 23. It says, let it be known to the king. Now these are those who are opposing the Jews and they're telling the king, they're tattling on the Jewish people. They're complaining about the Jewish people and they're accusing them of getting their city back together and they're rebels. Don't you remember the rebels that they were? So they're speaking to the king And it says, Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem. They are rebuilding the rebellious and evil city, and watch this, and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. So that phrase, finishing the walls, Seems to suggest, okay, he's talking about Nehemiah now. What happened with Zerubbabel? Rebuilt the temple. What happened with Ezra, his second return? Rebuilding the priesthood and the people. Well, what about the walls? That's Nehemiah. So this all seems to be in reference to Nehemiah. Now, there is a little debate on that. By the way, let's go back to verse 11. It says this is the copy of the letter which they sent to him to King Artaxerxes. Okay, so that is in 464 to 423 during his time. But the time that Ezra chapter 1 through 4 was happening was back 536 to 516. So it's very interesting, the book of Ezra's gonna say, look, there's a time coming when they're gonna be stopped again. The Jewish people are gonna be stopped again. Now, this is the only time we read about this. So why didn't they do more? Well, number one, again, probably the people to whom the letter was being written to knew it, knew it. You know, we have to dig and research. We have to look at the history, we have to look at the background so that we don't misinterpret this. But indeed, it looks like he's talking about this point with Nehemiah. Okay, so let's continue on. Verse 13. Now let it be known to the king that if that city is rebuilt and the walls are finished, So again, that sounds like the context of Nehemiah. They will not pay tribute, custom or toll, and it will damage the revenues of the kings. Now, because we are in the service of the palace and it is not fitting for us to see the king's dishonor, You know, they're really pouring it on. And we mentioned that when we read this. Therefore, we have sent and informed the king. It's not because we hate these people. 15, so that a search may be made in the record books of your fathers, and you will discover in the record books and learn that that city is a rebellious city and damaging to kings and provinces, and that they have incited revolt within it in past days. Therefore, that city was laid waste. Now, there is some truth to that, but also too, what's in those records is the records that Cyrus, Darius said, let them go back, okay? Verse 16, we informed the king that if that city is rebuilt and the walls finished, as a result, you will have no possession in the province beyond the river. Then the king sent an answer to Rahum, the commander, to Shimshai, the scribe, and to the rest of their colleagues who live in Samaria and in the rest of the provinces beyond the river. Peace, and now the document which you sent to us has been translated and read before me. A decree has been issued by me. This is King Artaxerxes, the one who Nehemiah is in front of. And the king says, what's wrong? He's a little afraid. OK, this is kind of the history here. A decree has been issued by me, and a search has been made, and it has been discovered that the city has risen up against the kings in the past, that rebellion and revolt have been perpetrated in it, that mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem, governing all the provinces beyond the river, and that tribute, custom, and toll were paid to them. So now issue a decree to make these men stop work. that this city may not be rebuilt until a decree is issued by me. And so we'll stop there. Actually, what happens in verse 23, they go to stop the work and they use force to do it. Now, again, we're putting this back in Ezra chapter 4, but he's referring to, I believe, something that's happening in the book of Nehemiah or around that time. Here's Artaxerxes. You see Nehemiah 1 through 13. So that that seems to fit together. So something happened there that these these enemies came and they said, we've got to stop this work. You know, they didn't say it, but they could have said they already have a temple. They already have a priesthood. but they have this problem that now they're finishing the walls and the foundation, and the work has stopped, and now they're in a terrible plight. And here's Nehemiah asking the king if he can go back. Now, the king is very gracious and is going to say yes immediately. And so it is possible that some of this got straightened out before Nehemiah asked. But some of the commentators said maybe one of the reasons why the king shifted his position on this was because of an honorable, godly man like Nehemiah. Thoroughly trusted. Not seeing him as a rebel. Not seeing him want to fight back. But it was his fatherland. And it's where his fathers were buried. And who wouldn't want to go back to the fatherland? So that's what we see here. And this could be the reason why it says that he was very fearful. Well now let's go to verse three. So go back to Nehemiah. And by the way, when we went through that in chapter four of Ezra, it was a little hard, you know, till we got it figured out, till we got it worked out. But now doing Nehemiah, it's like, boy, that really fits like a hand in a glove. I mean, here we have the background in a book of the Bible about another book of the Bible. All right, so Nehemiah, chapter two then, verse three. He says, I said to the king, let the king live forever. And by the way, notice the way in which he approaches the king. It's with honor and respect. And that would certainly be one of the reasons why he received favor from the king, because of his respectfulness. It does remind me of Romans 13, where we are to submit to the governing authorities. Now, that may mean that sometimes we're submitting to the governing authorities and things that we don't necessarily agree with. But unless the governing authorities, unless they demand that we violate a principle of scripture, not just an opinion that I have, but violate principle of scripture, unless they do that, we are to obey them, Romans 13. And after all, what we're going to see in Nehemiah is, if God's in control, He's the one who's really above it all and bringing about his purposes. Now, is there a time to disobey? Yes, Peter teaches that. Peter said, well, I either have to obey God or obey you. So the Pharisees had given Peter an ultimatum, and it was like, you can't do this. You can't preach the name of Jesus anymore when Jesus had told them to preach the name. And he said, well, you think about it. Should I obey man or should I obey God? And so it's not even a rebellion. Christianity is not a rebellion. We are not a rebellious people. We are a people who must and will obey God. And if it ever comes to where the government is telling us to disobey God, well, we just say, well, we have to obey God and not man, whatever the consequences. That's really what we see in scripture when it comes to those things. So he says, let the king live forever. And then he said, why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire? And so now he reveals his burden. But it is interesting, I mean, he says it in a wise way. He knows that there's this suspicion of the Jewish people, rebellion. And so he doesn't say anything that would make the king think it's rebellion, but it's from the heart. This is what God wants for us and it breaks my heart. And so we see this there in verse three. Verse four, he says, then the king said to me, what would you request? And that is amazing. Again, in light of the background, and again, maybe that whole thing about Artaxerxes saying stop rebuilding, maybe that had been taken care of before Nehemiah, before this episode, this narrative, but maybe not. Anyway, it's still a miracle that God is working through another pagan king to allow his city, God's city, to be rebuilt and especially the walls. And here he says the gates. So when we go and start looking at what Nehemiah is going to do, we're going to be looking at parts of the wall and the gates. They burned the gates down so that they could not protect themselves from invaders. So that's really what this was about. And then you just have to appreciate what happens here. So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I'm assuming that it doesn't mean he said, excuse me, King, I'll be right back. It is one of those, well, Emergency prayers. It is one of those ones. OK, here we go. Lord, give me grace. Give me the words. I don't you know, I don't know how much time he had, but, you know, it's you need to say what you need to say to God. Cry out to God. And here we go. So we find out something else about Nehemiah. He didn't just pray beforehand, but he also prayed during. I remember as we've gone through several times here, the prayer life of Jesus. And when I first studied that, what just really impressed me is Jesus would pray before his ministry of that day. He'd pray during the ministry of that day. And then when it was all over, he went home and watched football and relaxed. No, he went to the wilderness and prayed again. So he prayed for the ministry. He prayed while doing the ministry. And then I can only imagine that he's praying for the results of the ministry that he just performed. So we have a man like Nehemiah, who is somewhat Christ-like. And again, it's the God of heaven. When these pagan kings call him the God of heaven, that's, only God's limited realm. But when a believer in the Old Testament says it, that is the only true sovereign God. And that's who he prays to. Now, from here we move into verses five through nine. And here we're going to see a little bit about the request and then we're going to see about the answer and we're also going to see some of Nehemiah's leadership qualities. We're going to see the leadership qualities. Now, I will make some applications for leadership qualities, but I don't want us to think Well, I'm not in any kind of leadership. I don't need to do these things. That's not quite the point. All of us as believers should do them. And then you think about, well, if I am in a leadership position, this is what I ought to aspire to. And obviously, one of the first things we could see is that someone in a leadership position ought to be a person of prayer, both prayer before and prayer during and probably emergency prayers too. All right, verse five. So Nehemiah now, this is the second section, Nehemiah now is going to request to go back and rebuild Jerusalem. It says, verse five, I said to the king, if it pleased the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, and again, let me just stop there. I'm not sure we get this in our day in culture, and it's sad. We would more like come to them and say, well, we're entitled to this. We're entitled to that. We're going to demand this rather than this. I believe the character of Christ, the character of Christ is always going to do the will of God. And he always wanted to please God. And here's this authority. And Nehemiah says, now, if it pleases you, if it doesn't please you, fine. But if it pleases you, Lord, and I found favor, if you think I'm a trustworthy person. Send me to Judah. Send me back. He says to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it. So at some point it was stopped in that time frame. There's nothing in scripture beside Ezra 4 that tells us about it. But here it is. He is asking that it be rebuilt and he's fearful. and he prays to God, and then in verse six, the king says, yes. Verse six, 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 gave him a definite time. So let me just kind of go through those verses. So again, he realizes that this is a heart and a heritage issue. Now, is that a religious? motive? Yes, because my people serve the one true God, but it is about his heart and his heritage. And then when he asked the king if he can rebuild it, the king asked him, well, how long and when are you gonna return? And it says, the king was very pleased to let him do it, so God had intervened. Now, I've got to take a look at this. It says, then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him. Well, we're studying this, I'm studying this, minding my own business, and I'm thinking, hey, we went through the book of Esther. Hey, we went through the book of Ezra. What queen is it? Would it be Esther? Let's go back up here. So you see in Ezra chapter four, verse six, he even talks about Ahasuerus. or Xerxes, that was the king who chose Esther to be the queen. All right, so that was in somewhere between 486 and 464. This is happening in 444. So whatever age she was when she became queen, just add another 40 years to it. So it is quite possible that she was alive, but it doesn't say the name Esther or Hadassah? I love that. Hadassah? It doesn't say that. We don't know who, but I'm just wondering, you know, who could this possibly be? Well, I have to say that as I've looked at it, it probably isn't Esther. If anything, it's probably Vashti. Now you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Vashti, that was the first queen of Ahasuerus and he kicked her out. Well, if you go back to that, what it said is she will never come into the king's presence again. She didn't die. She wasn't kicked out of the kingdom. She just was never allowed back into the presence of the king again. Well, guess what? He's not the king anymore. He died. But it's believed that Artaxerxes is the child of Ahasuerus and Vashti before Esther came on the scene. There's a couple of things here. So in history books, there's a woman by the name of a maestress. And many scholars think that's the same as Vashti. Again, you know, it's that they have their own name of their own nationality, and then they get a Persian name. That's what it was with Hadassah and Esther. Same person, but two different names. Same thing with Daniel. Daniel got a Persian name. So, it's not out of the question that we see Vashti, but also a maestress, but history tells us that King Ahasuerus and a maestress, they were the parents of Artaxerxes, who is now the king, who Nea went before, and it says the queen is sitting there. Now, the question would be, is it the queen mother? And, you know, we've seen before, we've seen in the book of Kings where mothers of the kings become controllers of the king. And some of them are very evil. One of the kings had a had a yoused his mom out because she was so evil and and then she was trying to control and he was a godly king and would have none of it. So I don't know if it's the queen mother. It doesn't say the queen mother, but It very well could be. I'm going to read a quote here where someone is going to lean that way. But if it's not Queen Vashti, who's now back on the scene, then it would have been Artaxerxes' wife, and her name was Damaspia. All right, so we'll learn that in history, but her name is not in the Bible. So Constable writes, the Bible doesn't tell us what happened to Vashti. We only know you are not allowed to ever come in the king's presence. Ahasuerus died. She's still alive. Her son becomes king. She's back in the throne. She's back in there. Many biblical scholars believe she was a maestress, the mother of Artaxerxes, who ruled from 464 to 425. It is likely that Esther was either out of favor or dead. So she might have died, or she might have been out of favor now that Vashti's back in the scene. for a maestress exercised great influence as the queen mother during her son's reign. So history seems to tell us that she was kind of a controlling person, wanted it, and so, I don't know. But it's very interesting that it says the queen sitting aside. Now usually, a queen was not sitting aside of the king. You remember, even during festival times, the king Ahasuerus wanted her to be called out. It's a festival. I wanna show off my wife. I wanna show off my wife. I want you to come out. She refused. Remember, that was the big deal. And so he said, that's it. Well, and then his counselor said that. Now, just something else that I read too, and we might be really going down a rabbit trail, but this is really an interesting rabbit trail. It's very possible when you do the math, that she might have been already pregnant with Artaxerxes. Maybe, we don't know. Maybe that's why she didn't want to come out. Oh my word, I don't want anybody to see me like this. You know, I'm pregnant. You know where a guy is insensitive, no, I want to show everybody, come on out, you know, that kind of a thing. So, I don't know. Again, this is just speculation, but it's very interesting that it comes alive with some of these possibilities just from that phrase and the queen was beside him. So anyway, it could have been that this queen is the queen mother, and she's very much a part of ruling, or it could be on a special occasion that the king asked this wife to come out. I know that some think, well, maybe that was Esther, and since she was a Jew, she would enjoy hearing this. But again, we don't really know much about her history after the book of Esther. And more than likely, because of Vashti, she would have been out of favor or she may have been dead. All right. So anyway, quite interesting. Okay, so we're still in verse six. So after we get over the queen sitting beside him, then he asks him, how long will your journey be? And when will you return? And that's a very good question. That's a question that a king would ask. That's a question that a parent would ask, right? Okay, so you're thinking of doing this. Well, how long are you gonna be gone? What are you thinking of doing? But I think it was done in a good way. And what we're going to find out is that Nehemiah had an answer. Nehemiah was a good leader. He was a good administrator. He knew how long roughly it was gonna take. He also knew about some of the provisions he was gonna need. He had been thinking about this. Now, remember the prayer in chapter one of Nehemiah was about four months before this. So he was thinking about this for four months and he had an answer to the king. And for one of the things, it certainly shows his leadership skills, his administration. So we see that there's a definite time. It says, so it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. This is how long it should take. And it's very interesting because one of the things that's going to happen is, I wonder if Nehemiah, as great as he is, if he's accounting for enemies? Is he accounting for persecution? The one that Ezra talked about all of these places in the past and that we're going to come up in the future. And some of them are coming about now anyway. And yet it's a short time. It's a time of like some like a little over 50 days that this is all going to be accomplished. And he is going to encounter enemies. In fact, verse 10 is going to talk about the enemies already starting. We see then verse seven. So not only was it a definite time, but watch this. He says, and I said to the king, if it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the river that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah. Okay. He knew that there was problems. He knew that there was persecution. He knew that it was like, uh, going to be stopped and there was going to be question. And it also gives us a little bit, OK, that background that we said where Art Xerxes said that they had to stop building and all of that. OK, we see that that sort of animosity is going on in that area. So he wants to be sure that he has the papers to go. Then look at verse eight and a letter. to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of that city, and for the house to which I go. and the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me. So these administrative qualities was not just how long do you think it'll take, but what kind of provisions do you think I'll need? And Nehemiah had been thinking about that. And then Nehemiah is also thinking about here's the best time to ask for letters to go and for protection. And so, you know, he really had thought of just about everything. One of the things that is interesting is maybe when we think of walls, the walls that go around, these gates were made of timbers. Because if you remember, it said, and the walls and the gates were burned down. Okay, so he's going to rebuild them and the gates are going to be rebuilt with timber. And by the way, that's what you would have to do. You couldn't build them with stone because you could never open the gate. Okay, so it had to be of wood. But it is gonna be walls. He's gonna repair some of the structures of the wall. Some of it's fine, some of it's not. And then if you notice, it even says, and for the house to which I will go. He's thinking, where am I going to stay when I'm there? And he's thinking, I need a headquarters. I need a headquarters where probably Probably he had a map. He probably did a map. Probably had GPS and on X maps. Probably had that all figured out. I'm just kidding. But he probably, once he viewed it, and we're going to see that when he goes, he goes around it, you know, and takes a survey of it. And he does that by himself, and then he knows what has to be fixed, and one would imagine. But he needed a place of headquarters that he would send people out, they would come, they would answer to him. And he's, man, this is a project manager right here. He's an engineer. This is one of the reasons why the book of Nehemiah is always looked at as a book for leadership qualities. But again, the miracle, the king granted all of these requests. The king answered all of these, but why? I love this, it says, and the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me. It's very interesting as you look in the Old Testament, this phrase is used several times. It's used a number of times in the book of Ezra. It's used in the and the hand of God was on me and the hand of God was in it. So even though there was a human agent here, he's giving the credit ultimately to God. And I think that's what we need to keep our eyes on, is the invisible sovereign hand of God. And we basically tap into that when we pray. We tap into that when we pray. But it's a common theme, and here it is again. And so, by the way, this is one of the reasons why they think both Ezra and Nehemiah are by the same author, It doesn't have to be, but many said we think Ezra wrote both of them, but he probably took some of the journal of Nehemiah and put that in. Still inspired, still inspired, but nevertheless, we see this phrase come up like in chapter one, chapter seven, chapter eight of the book of Ezra. And we're gonna see it in verse 18 of this chapter in Nehemiah. Now, notice, if you will, in verse nine, let's go to verse nine, because this isn't all. Verse nine says, Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the river and gave them the letters. So he's on his way. Now, the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. So the king not only gave him permission for provisions, but the king gave him not only a letter, but also guards, lets you know what's going on out there. But he provided. Now, do you remember what happened with Ezra? So Ezra was talking to the king about, you know, the hand of God and how God was great and how God is doing this work. And then he didn't ask for protection. And it says he was too ashamed to ask for. protection in other words I can't tell you how great God was and then ask you oh by the way can you send me your soldiers because I'm a little scared they can protect us he just told him how great is God would you remember that little dilemma well somebody made the comment there are times when we will have protection, but ultimately our protection will always be from the Lord, whether it's the horses or whether not. And there seems that there's a right time for it and a wrong time for it. That's what they said. There's that verse in Proverbs that says, make the horse ready for battle, but victory is of the Lord. Do what you're supposed to do. But don't trust in your horse or your weapons, trust in the hand of the Lord. A great lesson there for us to keep that. So we see that now we come to verse 10. And verse 10, it says, when Sanballat, now, if you know anything about the book of Nehemiah, Sanballat is, opposition and this will not be the only time that we see his name and it says when Sam Ballot the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel and so Ezra had good cause back in chapter four saying, look, we reached opposition from the very beginning and we always have opposition. We see that. Now, it is interesting the way he writes it. He says it's very displeasing. And the Hebrew word is ra'ah, and it means evil and bad. This is bad. They were bad disappointed. It was bad. They did not like this at all. And we see the the word vary there, so he lets it know, and we're gonna see that there is a problem, and I don't know if Nehemiah thought about that ahead of time, probably to a degree, but he still gave the king a definite time. Well, let me just try to make a few principles here. So, as we were talking earlier, this is the historical and grammatical interpretation of the scripture, and we see principles that happened in that day, and now we want to take those principles and apply them to ourselves. And the first thing that I want to say is, we must take time to prayerfully plan before God. And it might sound like that's kind of a generic thing, but it's not. Turn with me to Proverbs 16.1. Proverbs 16.1, and I just marvel at the wisdom of scripture. Proverbs 16.1 says, the plans of the heart belong to man. but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. What's so interesting about that is it is right to plan. It's okay to plan. You know, it's not like we should say, well, I'm just gonna trust the Lord and I'm gonna trust the Lord to put that all together. One of the ways you would never wanna do that is when it comes to teaching. I've heard of people doing that. Well, I'll just wait till I get to the classroom, and then I'll just trust the Holy Spirit to give me the lesson. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way at all. We are to plan, and we are to plan in other things. But we must also have an attitude of the heart that, well, it might go our way and it might not go our way. There might be things that we have to move or maybe the answer is going to be no. I think one of the things that's helpful is if we really can focus on God's will, not ours. You know, it's hard. Our heart wants a certain direction, and I'm talking about good things, ministry or whatever, and we want that. But I think what helps is if we get our heart in such a condition as whatever way you determine God. If you don't allow this to happen now or whatever, okay, that's your will. So if we could get our heart in such a state that what we really want is God's will, I think then we are getting in the right place. But it's interesting here, we are to plan. There's nothing wrong with planning. What about, is planning contrary to waiting on the Lord? No, it's not. I think that's hockey out there. Is that contrary to waiting? No. Is planning opposition to saying, I'm doing it rather than God? No, no, it's not. In fact, I would think a sovereign God who is calling us to do something is also enabling us to think it through. Now, we're not gonna be able to think everything through. And I suppose at times there are those of us who think way too much, okay? Think it through way too much. In fact, it could be so much that we're frightened to go further because we've thought, what about this and what about that? There is an element that we have to trust the Lord. I think Nehemiah has the right balance. I think he has the right. But he had thought it out. He did pray for it. He knew it was a little bit of a scary situation, but he was trusting the Lord. And he he gave that one last prayer before. I would just say this. When we plan, let's prayerfully plan, prayerfully plan. You know, that's that's what it tells us in Proverbs chapter three, does it not? says trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. That's hard for us to do, but that's what we do. And then it says in all your ways acknowledge him. and he will make your path straight. So we see the idea that we're trusting in the Lord. We're not leaning on our understanding. Well, how's this gonna all work out? But acknowledge him and plan for it, and the Lord will certainly work in that. I think God is sovereign and will work in that planning. I think sometimes in that planning, other people will say, hey, this is a good idea, but maybe you should do that. Ah, I hadn't thought about that. That kind of a thing. So I think it's a great quality here. We must take time to prayerfully plan before God. By the way, Proverbs 19, 21 says many plans are in a man's heart. We do that a lot. But the counsel of the Lord will stand, so it's not wrong to plan, but we should plan in a sense that not my will, but thy will be done. We've run out of time, but quickly there's a couple of other things, and that is leadership recognizes that there will often be trouble in the midst of trying to do God's will in ministry. So we shouldn't say, I don't know what in the world's happening. We should say, yeah, this is kind of expected. Whenever you go to serve the Lord, for one, Satan gives his opposition, spiritual warfare. That's certainly a possibility. Maybe God's trying to get our attention through it. That could be another reason. But we just need to realize, as we see here, sand ballot. It's great literature, but it's true literature. It's like, OK, the enemy has now been introduced. We're going to we're going to see the the enemy a little bit more and then a lot in the book of Nehemiah. But we're going to see what the victory of God over the enemies. We're going to see all that. But it is interesting. It should come as no surprise that there was an enemy. Again, we go back to Ezra chapter four. Ezra begins to wax eloquent and say, of course we're gonna have opposition. We had opposition in the past, we're having opposition now, and then he was able to reflect the opposition that they had in the future because he's writing the book from the future back about this and giving his narrative of it. So anyway, we see that. So always focus on God's will, especially, always, but especially in times of trials and fearful conditions. Your will be done, Lord. That's such an important prayer. And then again, we do wait on the Lord, but we see Nehemiah, even though he prayed, he's prayerfully praying about, OK, how long is this going to take? What are the provisions I need? What about the protection I need? And so this is really, I think, some of the big takeaways out of the book of Nehemiah. Let's just close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this time, and we ask you, Lord, to, as we hear these applications, and there are many, many more, and there might be those, Lord, that right now, individuals are seeing how there was other applications here, and that's a great thing that we apply them to our lives. But Lord, we know for a fact, Lord, that we desire to do your will. Father, we desire to do your will above our will. We desire to do your plan, and Father, we'll prayerfully plan to do that, Lord, and yet at the same time, we will watch your will lead us and guide us. And we also know, Lord, the struggles that are involved in trying to do your will and in trying to have ministry. So, Father, we do ask for your protection and your wisdom, but help us to apply these things. In Jesus' name, amen.