Nehemiah - Lesson 2
When you receive bad news, what do you do? I hope you will run to God. That is what I hope that I will do the next chance I get.
When I moved to Florida three years ago I fell into depression for the first time in my life. I had left “hundreds” of good friends in Michigan along with a great ministry—I had purpose in life! We arrived in Florida in March and in July we decided to fly Space Available to Europe (my husband is retired military so we can fly free to many bases all over the world). We were in Europe for 30 days and decided to try and caught a “Space Available” flight home. We tried unsuccessfully for a week, taking trains from one base to another base, from Italy to Germany. We were in the Ramstein Air Force Base, and I was now about to give up on God.
I had seen a poster in a hallway for a Sunday School class. So I left my room in search of it in this gigantic Ramstein complex. I walked and looked and walked, but I could not find the room. I returned to the Chapel and sat on a rock and cried. “Where are you God”, I asked? “Why haven’t you answered my prayers? Aren’t you in control? I feel like you have left me”. Then it began to rain. It was cold and damp. We had only clothes for hot weather. A cold chill ran through me and I felt so alone abandoned by God. Now I did not even want to go to church. “Why”, I asked myself. “God is not going to intervene on my behalf anyway”. I had never before in my Christian life felt like God was not there. In fact I had taught many, many times that God is “Jehovah-Shammah –The LORD Is There”. But now I could not feel God, I felt that God no longer cared about me. I felt that I had once been useful, but now God was through using me. I sat on the rock and cried.
I went back to the room. My husband had gone out for breakfast. The rooms shared a bath room in between them. As I was entering my room a woman stepped out of her room and with a very stoic face and stern voice said to me “If you would follow the rules, it would be much easier for all of us”. If only the women knew how I was feeling. As I looked into her face I thought of just falling on the floor in tears and defeat. Then the inner me kicked in. “What do you mean”, I asked her. “Each of us has a bath mat that we are to take from our room and put in the shower and when we are finished with it we are to take it back to our room” she said. That was it, I could take no more. It was bad enough that God was not answering my prayers, but now this woman was wrongly accusing me. I looked at her and said “The bath mat was not in my room, the bath mat was in the shower. No one told me it was mine and excuse me for living!” I went into my room and yelled into the air. “I’ve had it, I don’t want to go on, I want to get out of Germany, I hate everything here.”
My husband returned and said it was time to go to the church service, and I followed him. For the first time in 33 years I did not want to go to church. We went into the chapel and we sat down close to the front. I began to cry. Tears flowed down my face as I sat there. “Where are you God?” I asked. “Why can’t you get me home? Why can’t you make things as they were? Will you ever use me again?” then God started speaking to me through the service.
The service was all about being in a storm, about trials and despair. They sang, “Til the Storm Passes By”, “God Leads Us Along”, “Francis of Assi Prayer”, “My Life Is In You Lord”.
The Sermon passages were from 1 Kings 19:9-18, Romans 10:5-15 and Matthew 14:22-33. 1 Kings was about Elijah in despair! As I looked at the scripture through my tears and listened to the sermon I heard God speaking to me. He knew I was discouraged. As the chaplain spoke from the Book of Romans I heard God assuring me that he was not finished using me, he was using me, he would use me again to speak for him.
God answered my questions. He did care. He did hear. He was there. He would rescue me and continue to use me. I wrote those words three years ago in Germany. Since then God has called me to this group of ladies to help start a CBS. God called me to share my life story with women all over Florida through The Women’s Connection and this Thursday will be my 24th club I have spoken at. I have even flown to Michigan to speak for God four times. I share that story with you to encourage you to run to God—He does hear and answer prayer.
When you receive bad news and are tempted to be discouraged and despaired, what will you do? I hope you will run to God.
That is what Nehemiah did. He had been in exile in Babylon all his life but he loved God’s beloved Jerusalem. So he asks some who had just returned from Jerusalem what it was like. He receives bad news; “the walls are broken down and the gates have been burned with fire”. Those words would have cut through Nehemiah’s heart. When he hears these words he runs to God. He runs to God in his sadness.
That is very important to note. He was sad! He was discouraged. That is what “to mourn” means. It is to feel or express grief or sorrow. There is a time to mourn.
Ecclesiastes 3:4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
When we receive bad news we must take time to mourn, then we must run to God. Sometimes we fast, always we pray.
Nehemiah fasted. What is “fasting”? Fasting is the laying aside of food for a period of time in order to communicate with God in a deeper experience. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:16-18 that fasting is to be between you and God alone. It is not something you do to be seen by others.
In Acts 13 Luke shows how, through fasting, Saul and Barnabas found the direction that God wanted them to take for their lives.
Isaiah 58:6 tells us to “fast” to: loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, break every yoke.
In Daniel 9 we are told to fast when disaster comes upon us.
And my favorite story is found in Jonah chapter 3.
On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
(Jonah 3:4-10)
When we receive bad news we must take time to mourn, then we must run to God. Sometimes we fast, always we pray.
What is prayer? Prayer is talking to God. Nehemiah prays often in this book and we can learn how to pray from his example.
First, We are to praise, lift up, God for who He is. Nehemiah praise God in 4 ways;
1. He is LORD (Jehovah)
2. God of heaven (Elohim)
3. Great and awesome
4. Keeps his promises
Prayer is talking to God. First we praise God for who he is, second, we are to confess our sins. Confess means “To disclose (something damaging or inconvenient to oneself)”. Nehemiah confessed his sins and the sins of the people. Nehemiah knew that if he did not confess his sins, his communication to God would be hindered.
King David a man who loved God, but was only human failed to keep God’s commands. He took another man’s wife and then he ordered the death of the man. He did not confess his sin and he tells us in Psalm 32:
32:1 Of David. …. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”– and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
Sin hinders our communication with God. Confession restores it. David said in Psalm 66:18-19
18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
19 but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.
After Nehemiah, (1) mourned, (2) fasted, (3) prayed, praising God and confessing his sin, he brought his request to God which was: that he would have success when he went before the king.
When we receive bad news we must take time to mourn, then we must run to God. Sometimes we fast, always we pray.
God is faithful, he is Jehovah- shammah, he promises to hear and answer our prayers.