I. Heworks thoughtfully. Before he commences this tremendous task he spends some time in deliberation. Who can tell the thoughts of Nehemiah as he moved amidst the ruins of Jerusalem this night? Jerusalem was the home of his fathers, the centre of his most hallowed associations. Before we undertake a work we should gauge its magnitude and become convinced of its practicability (Luk_14:28-30). Men, from the impulse of the hour, put their hand to undertakings which they have never given themselves time to understand, and for which they are not fitted; and hence, when the excitement is over, they abandon the work in disappointment,if not in disgust.
II. Heworks independently. “I arose in the night, I and some few men with me, neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem.” It is not thus that we are wont to act in this age. There are but few men who would take up any great work, and set about it themselves, without seeking the sympathy and counsel of their fellow-men. If we have some work which presses on us as a duty of general importance, almost the first thing wedo is to call our friends together, get their sanction, and form a committee to aid us in carrying it out. We, in these days, work by organisations. Our individuality in work is scarcely seen or felt. We are the limbs of societies, wheels in organisations. What we want is more individualism in action, more of the independent man, and less of the society. Two things will show the importance of this.
1. The opinions of others cannot determine our duty. Duty is between us and God. It is something that is perfectly independent of men’s thoughts.
2. The opinionsof others may embarrass us in duty. Duty generally comes to us in very legible writing, wants nointerpreter, speaks to us in a very distinct voice. Amid the din of human opinion there is danger of its losing its voice. Let us, therefore, cultivate the habit of acting independently; not proudly, not despising the opinions of others, or refusing their co-operation, but working ever from the force of our own convictions.
III. He worked influentially. The next chapter shows that, under his influence, all classes, male and female, set to work in right earnest.
1. The people saw that he understood the matter. They recognised in him at once a man who knew what he was about, a man of intellectual grasp and might.
2. The people saw that he wasthoroughly in earnest. What he said he meant.
IV. He worked heroically.
1. Look at the sacrifices he made.
2. Look at the enemies he encountered. He had, at least, three desperate enemies (verse 19)--Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. These men showed their opposition--
(1) By ridicule (verse 19, Neh_4:3).
(2) By indignation (Neh_4:7).
3. The labour he effected. He finished the work in fifty-two days, notwithstanding all the difficulties that seemed insurmountable. He overcame the enemies who were malignant, he triumphed over all.
V. He worked religiously. “Then I told them of the hand of my God which was upon me,” etc. (verses 18-20).
1. His impulses to act he ascribed to God.
2. His rule of action he derived from Him (verse 18).
3. His sacrifices in the work hemade for Him (Neh_5:15).
4. The spirit with which he performed his work was that of dependence upon Him (Neh_4:9-12).
This religion is the philosophy of his power. He felt himself the messenger and the servant of God. (Homilist.)
Preparation before work
We often undertake one thing and another, both in our spiritual and temporal life, without preparation; and for the want of this, failure ensues. Before Dr. Nansen, the Norwegian, started on his Polar expedition, he slept under his silk tent for the double purpose of testing it and acclimatising himself. Other members of the expedition slept in the open air covered with the wolf-skins they were taking out with them. A very famous writer, in order to secure as good a description of a thunderstorm as possible, took up his position during six such storms on the top of a cathedral tower, getting himself drenched to the skin each time. It is not only the doing of a thing, but the preparation for doing it, which in many cases issues in success. No time spent in preparation for what is worth doing is lost. (Signal.)
Purposes not to be prematurely divulged
The purposes of ruling spirits are sometimes so grand and daring in their character as to be incapable of deriving support from other minds; and were they to be prematurely divulged, they would be ruined in their execution. Lord Clive was wont to say that he never called a council of war but once, and if he had acted on the advice given, the battle of Plessey would not have been fought, and India would have been lost to the British Empire. (W. Ritchie.)
A time for silence
Learn--Good intentions are best kept secret.
I. Until they are ascertained to be practicable.
II. Until they can be carried out with decisive energy.
III. From those who are likely to opposethem.
IV. Until the co-operation essential to success can re relied on. (Homiletic Commentary.)
The Divine visit to the soul
In this visit of generous sorrow to a scene of temple desolation we are reminded of the first approach of the Holy Spirit in mercy to our ruined souls. (W. Ritchie.)
Personal exploration
Take your own measure of the destitution of the world. Every Christian man should go about in the world, so far As he is able to do so, by the aid of reports--to take his own measure of the situation--steal out by night and see what the devil has done with this human nature of ours, and he should say, “God helping me, I will do my utmost to undo this mischief and to repair the shattered house of the Lord.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
The midnight horseman
I.My subject impresses me with the idea what an intense thing is attachment to the house of god. It is through the spectacles of this scene that we discover the ardent attachment of Nehemiah for that sacred Jerusalem which in all ages has been the type of the Church of God, our Jerusalem, which we love just as much as Nehemiah loved his Jerusalem. What Jerusalem was to Nehemiah the house of God is to you. Infidels may scoff at the Church as an obsolete affair, as a relic of the dark ages, as a convention of goody-goody people, but all the impression they have ever made on your mind against the Church of Godis absolutely nothing. You would make more sacrifices for it to-day than for any other institution, and if it were needful, you would die in its defence.
II. The ruins must be explored before the work of reconstruction can begin. The reason that so many people in this day, apparently converted, do not remain converted, is because they did not first explore the ruin of their own heart. There was a superstructure of religion built on a substratum of unrepented sins. The trouble with a good deal of modern theology is that, instead of building on the right foundation, it builds on debris of an unregenerated nature. They attempt to rebuild Jerusalem before, in the midnight of conviction, they have seen the ghastliness of the ruin. A dentist said to me a few days ago, “Does that hurt?” I replied, “Of course it hurts. It is in your business as in my profession--we haveto hurt before we can help; we have to explore and dig away before we can put in the gold.” You will never understand redemption until you understand ruin. A man comes to me to talk about religion. The first question I ask him is, “Do you feel yourself to be a sinner?” If he says, “Well, I--yes,” the hesitancy makes me feel that the man wants a ride on Nehemiah’s horse by midnight through the ruins--in at the gate of his affections, out at the gate of his will, by the dragon well; and before he has got through with that midnight ride he will drop the reins on the horse’s neck, and he will take his right hand and smite on his heart, and say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
III. My subject gives me a specimen of busy and triumphant sadness. If there was any man in the world who had a right tomope and give up everything as lost, it was Nehemiah. You say, “He was a cupbearer in the palace of Shushan, and it was a grand place.” So it was. But you know very well that fine architecture will not put down home-sickness. Although he had a grief so intense that it excited the commiseration of the king, yet he rouses himself up to rebuild the city. He gets his permission of absence; he gets hispassports, he hastens away to Jerusalem. By night he rides through the ruins; he arouses the piety and patriotism of the people, and in less than two months Jerusalem was rebuilt. That’s what I call busy and triumphant sadness. Thewhole temptation is with you, when you have trouble, to do just the opposite to the behaviour of Nehemiah, and that is to give up. You say, “I have lost my child, and can never smile again.” You say, “I have lost my property, and I can never repair my fortunes.” You say, “I have fallen into sin, and I can never start again for a new life.” If Satan can make you form that resolution, and make you keep it, he has ruined you. Trouble is not sent to crush you, but to arouse you, to animate you, to propel you. Oh, that the Lord God of Nehemiah would arouse up all broken-hearted people to rebuild. Whipped, betrayed, shipwrecked, imprisoned, Paul went right on. I knew a mother who buried her babe on Friday, and on the Sabbath appeared in the house of God, and said, “Give me a class; give me a Sabbath-school class. I have no child now left me, and I would like to have a class of little children. Give me really poor children. Give me a class off the back street.” That is beautiful. That is triumphant sadness. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
An inspiration for workers
Itwas like the magic horn that awoke the inmates of the enchanted castle. The spell was broken. The torpor of the Jews gave place to hope and energy. Nehemiah brought with him no new labourers; but he brought what was better, the one essential requisite for every great enterprise--an inspiration. This is the one supreme need at present. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
Nehemiah’s appeal
I. The appeal to the inhabitants of jerusalem. The distress under which the city was then groaning was the result--
1. Of the opposition of enemies.
2. The indifference of friends.
II. The invitation in connection with the appeal. It was an invitation--
1. To laborious and self-denying exertion.
2. To immediate exertion.
3. To individual, to combined, to persevering exertion.
III. The considerations by which the invitation is enforced.
1. He appeals to their sense of shame.
2. He notices the encouragement which was afforded them by God.
3. He appeals to the encouraging circumstances of the times.
IV. The effect which all this had upon the minds of the people.
1. It raised their enthusiasm.
2. It led them to exertion.
3. It led to mutual excitement and cooperation.
4. It led to final success. (W. Orme.)
The call to build
I. A typeof all God’s true repairers. Think of our English Church alone, Ridley at Cambridge, musing in his walks over St. Paul’s Epistles; Wesley in days when our pulpits were too much filled with “apes of Epictetus,” brooding over the gospel of grace and the sweetness of the name of Jesus; Simeon, maturing the views which stirred so many stagnant parishes, and gave a fresh spring to missionary work; in the last few years Aitken, often spending six hours in prayer within his church upon the Cornish cliff, and then going out with his soul on fire to speak to sinners of redeeming love--what are these and many others but Christian Nehemiahs? Such men began with prayer their survey in solitude and silence of the wall which was broken down. They ended by crying with a voice that went forth with the winds, and entered with the power of God into hundreds of spirits--“Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem.”
II. Lessons for all such repairers.
1. The builders worked under arms. Those who at this crisis would do a real work of spiritual restoration in the English Church, must “every one have his sword girded by his side,” and “so build.” Those who seek three great ends--a more reverent worship, a ministry fuller of individual consolation, and a tenderer devotion--must, even while they build, be equipped and vigilant against a hostile influence.
(1) They must guard against a Romanising ritual, and, I will add, a sentimental ritualism.
(2) They should be vigilant to resist other and far subtler invasions of principles hostile to the spirit of the English Reformation.
(a) We are often told that we must have among us habitual private confession, and absolution, and systematic spiritual guidance. I hold with Mason, who says, “We have not only a public absolution in our Church, but a private one also, for there are many who want particular comfort. And therefore we use a private absolution in the visitation of thesick, and so often as the broken hearts and wounded consciences of particular persons do require it.” But if any desire to go further--to change confession from a medicine for the morbid into a good for all--they are aiming at that which the genius of Teutonic Christianity, the character of the English people, and of the English Reformation, render an impossibility.
(b) A second point, in which our builders need to wear the sword while they repair the wall, concerns the form of the devotions which they may introduce or recommend. Let me instance that of which so much has lately been heard--the worship of the Sacred Heart.
2. The builders worked under the harmonious co-operation of priesthood and laity. Ezra and Nehemiah combined in the restoration. (Abp. Alexander.)
A desolate city
A desolate city tells a tale of past greatness, past resources, past life. Who can look upon the nations of China and India and not mourn over their moral and spiritual desolation? There are God’s gifts in abundance, but superstition reigns supreme. The teeming millions are in a state of moral ruin. Shall we not feel compassion for them? Let us arise and restore the breaches made by sin, Satan, and superstition. (J. M. Randall.)
The ruins of Jerusalem
Nehemiah is for us an example. Like him, we would build again the walls of Jerusalem.
I. Let us see is what way our situation recalls to us the times ofNehemiah.
1. Jerusalem, for us, is the Church. I use the word in the wide and yet exact sense that the Scripture does. The Church, according to the expression of Paul, is the spiritual house of God, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. The Church, according to the expression of Peter, is that building to which we ought to belong as living stones in order to be a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. The Church is that family whose members are known to God alone; it is that great city of souls of which our various Churches are but imperfect realisations. If the house in which we have grown up is dear to us above all, what then will be the Church, especially when it has transmitted to us with the treasures of the gospel examples of heroic fidelity? Let us then love the Church we belong to--love it more than others; it is our right, it is our duty; but above this, let us maintain the grand reality which is called the universal Church, and which must be to us an object of faith.
2. “The wall of Jerusalem is broken down,” said the fugitives to Nehemiah. Is not this the message that many voices bring to us to-day from all parts of Christendom? The Protestant Church has been surprised. Protected heretofore by the rampart of the authority of the Scriptures which the Reformation had built up, and behind which, no doubt, were sheltered many intestine struggles, it was unanimous in rushing to the breach when it was necessary to defend its liberty against Catholicism, its faith in the God of revelation against infidelity. To-day that rampart has been forced; criticism has penetrated into the place like a vast and impetuous torrent. The authenticity of the sacred books, facts, and doctrines, all have been shaken; and, after having denied the reality of a supernatural revelation, it sees itself outstripped by a philosophy which, enlarging the breach which it has forced open, destroys even the religious sentiment itself, well knowing that nothing will have been accomplished so long as the voice within the recesses of the human soul, which calls for succour and pardon from the living God, has not been stifled.
II. Let us now see what his example ought to teach us. Notice--
1. His sorrow. Do you understand such sorrow as Nehemiah’s? Do you know what it is to groan as he did over the desolation of Jerusalem? Our agehas signalised sorrow; its poets have sung of the secret melancholy of the soul with a vivid emotion; but in the sadness which inspects itself, which analyses itself with complacent curiosity, which exhibits itself to the world, what egotism is there, what bitter pride or trivial vanity! How rare is sorrow for the cause of God. Curious about everything, even of evil, diverted by everything, distracted from the one thing needful, we are hardly able to comprehend the sorrow of an Elijah making lament over erring Israel, of a Nehemiah shedding heartfelt tears over the ruins of Jerusalem, or a Paul full of holy bitterness in the presence of Athenian idolatry, of a Calvin consumed with sadness at the sight of the persecuted Churches.
2. His spirit of sacrifice. Nehemiah does more than lament. He acts, and to act he knows how to sacrifice all. To the peace which he enjoys he prefers the dangers of a struggle without a truce; to the brilliant future which awaits him, the reproach of his people. It is this spirit which always distinguishes those who wish to serve God here below. In every age they must be separated from the world. I have seen, in another denomination, young men and maidens, at the age when life promised them its enchantments, giving all up, even their very name, putting on the serge or the cassock, and for ever enlisting themselves in the service of the poor, in school or hospital. We like an easy religion. They alone are able and worthy to raise the walls of Jerusalem who, as Nehemiah, will know how to sacrifice all for God.
3. His earnestness in the work he has undertaken. Notice here the greatness of his faith, as measured by the paucity of his resources and by the vast obstacles which he encounters: Possibly more than one person in this assembly has felt his zeal paralysed by the spectacle of the Church, by the smallness of our resources compared with the vastness of the obstacles! You also, like Nehemiah, have passed dark nights in which you have reviewed one after another all the ruins which our century piles up. Old beliefs, holy, venerated traditions, which mingle in a far-off recollection with the prayers of the cradle, scouted, abandoned to the derision of the multitude! Have you not seen in those souls which are dear to you the hopes and consolations of the gospel wear away one by one? Have you not heard from lips which once prayed as yours the cold denials of a pitiless criticism? Once they heard, when beholding the skies, the song of worlds praising their creator God; now they catch nothing more than the inevitable evolution of an eternal mechanism. Once it was Providence, without whose permission not a sparrow falls to the ground, and who counts our tears; now it is man, who stands solitary in face of the cold immensities of space, where God is no more. Alas! before such ruins I understand how the heart shudders. But it is the very magnificence of these ruins that fills us with hope. Between the living God of Christianity and the nullity of fatalism there is nothing which remains standing; not one system which keeps together even sufficient stones to build a piece of wall or a shelter. Now humanity does not live upon nothing. It sins, it suffers, it dies; it has need of pardon, of consolation, of hope; and if, before those supreme questions which we can shun to-day, but which will return to-morrow, science must confess its entire ignorance; if, to the spirit which has a thirst for the absolute, to the heart which has a thirst for love, to the conscience which has a thirst for righteousness, it replies, “Leave those reveries; I acknowledge nothing but what I touch and what I see”; if such are its latest words, as we are given to understand, humanity must go away elsewhere to seek for repose, peace, certitude, May it then find opened before it the Jerusalem of the living God I Come then, I say to you,come, and let us raise again the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach. To the work, in days of difficulty; to the work, notwithstanding the want of success. “O God,” said a great Christian, “success is Thine affair; as for me, give me obedience.” (E. Bersier, D. D.)
And they said, Let us rise up and build.--
Prepared hearts
There are moments when human hearts are so prepared by God that great truths require only to be addressed to them to meet an immediate reception. They are as the paper made ready by the photographer for receiving the impress of a likeness; the object has only to be presented before it in a proper light, when it takes on its exact image. It was so in this instance with these men of Judah. They readily responded to Nehemiah’s appeal. (W. Ritchie.)
Enthusiasm
The power of enthusiasm, the worth of an enthusiastic man, is the lesson here impressed upon our minds.
1. Nehemiah comes all on fire for his undertaking. He is not only enthusiastic, but wise. Enthusiasm without forethought is blind force. It is like the ocean foaming away its power in battle with an iron-bound coast. United with prudence it is like the stream of a broad, deep river fertilising the soil, bearing on its breast the ships of merchants, giving an impulse to industry, to enterprise, and to the spirit of adventure and discovery.
2. Christianity is a feeble power if it is not enthusiastic. It is the amazing spectacle of the great Redeemer of the world laying clown His life for the world which has created the Church, and which is the life and energy of her every message and mission.
3. Enthusiasm is the need of the Church of God. Hearts with fire, souls with passion glowing within them. Before such men the mountain becomes a plain, the rough places smooth, the impossible possible. It is humanity’s true cleansing stream and motive power. The enthusiasm of Christ is for us all the safeguard of conduct, the mightiest inspiration to a holy and useful life. (A. J. Griffith.)
Leaders wanted
Often what people are waiting for is simply a leader--a man of courage, energy, and hopefulness, who can stimulate their zeal by the contagion of his own, and who, at the same time, has practical ability to marshal their powers and to organise and direct their resources. Such a man was Nehemiah. (T. Campbell Finlayson.)
The strength of unity -
I.Consists in itspower to protect individual workers against discouragement.
1. Isolated workers are always liable to depression.
2. Mutual sympathy and conference relieve mental strain, and renew exhausted energy.
II. Consists inits power of resisting. Combined opposition from without.
III. Consists inits power to cope with the inherent difficulties of the work, which otherwise would be insurmountable. (Homiletic Commentary.)
The rebuilding of Jerusalem
I remember a saying of Edward Irving’s which proved a guiding light to so great a man as Frederick Maurice, when he was in doubt and darkness. It was this: “The Old Testament is the dictionary of the New!” We can use the Old Testament reverently as such to-day, and may find the meaning and motive of modern service in this story of earlier days. Let us try to look, then, under the surface and see--
I. The nature of this work--the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
1. It was for religious ends that it was undertaken. Babylon and Shushan were noble cities; but the work of erecting others like them would not have inspired Nehemiah with this self-sacrificing fervour. Some cities are the creatures of commerce, and grow, as London grows, by the numbers who come to it for work or speculation; and then they decay, as many a city has done, because the highway to the sea gets closed up by the mass of matter poured down by the river and silted up by the tides. Other cities are planted by a conqueror for military purposes, to dominate some disaffected district, or to guard a threatened frontier--as Metz was fortified in modern days, and as most Roman towns were erected in our own country. But Jerusalem was not a military centre; it was on no great highway, and its site would have been ill chosen for commercial enterprise. That city was pre-eminently a sacred city, containing a temple whose ritual enshrined truths which the world could not have done without. If you read the subsequent history of this rebuilding you will see the uses to which the city was put directly it was safe against attack. And those were the purposes the builders contemplated. The law of God was read to the people by Ezra; the Feast of Tabernacles was kept, as it had not been for many a year; the Day of Atonement was solemnly observed; and the former covenant with Jehovah was renewed. And then righteous laws were enforced, and justice was done to all the people. This teaches us that all our undertakings, as God’s people--even though they are as material as building a city or enlarging a church--are to be begun and carried on with such ends in view.
2. Again, the good work these Jews had to do was amid the ruins of what had been noble. Every dislodged stone, every chiselled capital, every broken pillar, every charred fragment of carved woodwork was an evidence of the beauty and glory which had been. Ruins! we Christian workers see them everywhere. Heathen sacrifices and penances--what are these but the fragments, the dimly-remembered traditions, of a nobler faith? And inspiring utterances from the lips and pens of great thinkers, who doubt or deny the existence of God, are only the shattered columns which tell us of what has been given of God, though now marred by human folly. Aye, and in the Church are ruins of theological systems which once imperfectly set forth the Divine ideal, now broken up, not to be destroyed, but to be rebuilt in statelier and nobler forms. And, sadder far, we see around us ruins of manhood, ruins of womanhood, ruins of childhood, faces besotted by drink, bodies debased by impurity, living temples defiled and desecrated, till the very angels might weep over them. God help us to do a little upbuilding, and give us grace to this end to undertake the lowliest work.
3. Such labour is called for by God.
II. The advantages of such work.
1. Its tendency is to increase strength. I have seen some Churches ruined by rust, through lying by like a disused plough in fallow ground; but I never saw (or heard of) one broken down by overwork. So long as there is a spirit of enterprise, a longing to do greater things--not from a desire for self-glorification, but from a sincere wish to advance the cause of the Master--so long there is life, and life which becomesmore abundant. Use develops and improves living things and living gifts always. There is more muscle in the ironworker than in the student; more keenness of sight in the Highland gillie than in the shopman; more intellectual power in the student than in the ploughman--because in each the gift has been developed by exercise. Let a Church transmute its feeling of love for the brethren into actual service for the poor, and its love will abound yet more and more.
2. Its tendency is to make more real fellowship among the workers.
III. The spirit in which all work for God should be undertaken.
1. In the spirit of earnestness. How seldom we pause to ask, “Is this the best I can do?” Is this “the most I can afford”? Nehemiah sacrificed ease and wealth, but our Lord sacrificed Himself; and in the presence of Christ’s Cross how poor our offerings and services seem! Yet men who do not profess what we do sometimes put us to shame. Did you read, in your newspaper, about that terrible accident at the Clifton Colliery, near Manchester, whereby about one hundred and fifty men and boys lost their lives? It seemed going down to certain death to descend the shaft; yet when there was a call for volunteers there was eager competition for the honour of risking life to save the men entombed below. And one of the men down there at the time--Thomas Worrall, the surviving underlooker--knocked to the ground by the force of the explosion, recovered consciousness only to devote himself to the guidance and the deliverance of the frightened men and lads about him; and when he reached the main shaft he sent up all the injured, and then the uninjured, himself remaining in danger till the last. In another part of the pit was a fireman, George Hickson, whose duty it was to manipulate the signals between the bottom of the shaft and the engine-house above. He stood there at the post of duty, refusing to leave, whatever happened; for he was the appointed means of communication between the rescuers up in light and those to be rescued down in darkness. We admire and praise the earnestness and devotion of such heroes in humble life; butshould we not emulate them if we profess to be the disciples of Him who gave His life for the world? Standing as we do, like that poor collier, between the living and the dead, the mediators--holding God with the hand of faith, and holding man with the hand of love--let us realise our responsibility and be true to our duty.
2. In the spirit of hopefulness.
3. In the spirit of prayerfulness. (A. Rowland, LL. B. , B. A.)
They laughed us to scorn.--
Derision
A poor, godly man was the subject of much profane ridicule amongst his neighbours. On being asked if these persecutions did not sometimes make him ready to give up his profession of religion, he replied, “No. I recollect that our minister once said in his sermon, that if we were so foolish as to permit such people to laugh us out of our religion, till at last we dropped into hell, they could not laugh us out again.”
Fortified against derision
Admiral Colpoys relates that when he first left his lodgings to join his ship as a midshipman, his landlady presented him with a Bible and a guinea, saying, “God bless you, and prosper you my lad; and as long as you live never suffer yourself to be laughed out of your money or your prayers.” This advice he carefully followed through life.
Open derision
The sin of mocking--
I. Weakens every virtous restraint.
II. Strengthens vicious propensities.
III. Gives great advantage to your worst enemies.
IV. Exposes to peculiar marks of God’s displeasure (2Ki_2:23).
V. Terminates in remediless woe (Isa_66:3-4; Pro_1:25-26). (J. Kidd.)
Ridicule confronted
There are some natures--and these by no means the most ignoble--that are peculiarly sensitive to ridicule. They could meet a blow better than a sneer, and would rather be persecuted than despised. If we hold certain views on political questions, let us, indeed, make sure that we are holding them on good grounds; but let us not give them up, or be ashamed of them, merely because we may be sneered at as being “behind the age.” There is an intellectual self-conceit which shelters its own ignorance behind the authority of great names, and all but exhausts its own shallow powers in flippant sarcasm and clever scorn. Or, again, if we take an interest in Christian missioner or try to teach a few children in a Sunday-school, or aim at lifting some of ourcompanions into a more thoughtful life, let us not give up our endeavours merely because some Sanballat or Tobiah may jeer at us. If our work is one which theGod of heaven is likely to smile upon and prosper, we can afford to despise all this foolish scorn. Or, again, if we are seeking to build up our own character into true godliness, let us learn to confront all ridicule with calmness. (T. Campbell Finlayson.)
The God of heaven, He will prosper us.--
Confidence in God an incentive to work
Because--
I. It suggests almighty protection.
II. It suggests providential direction.
III. It suggests divine benediction.
IV. It anticipates ultimate success. (Homiletic Commentary.)
Signs of prosperity
We are not called to build a wall; but to raise something more noble than that. We are called of Godto go and search amongst the rubbish of our poor fallen humanity, and find our precious stones that shall be polished after the similitude of a palace. We are called to build a city of living stones that shall be a habitation of God through the Spirit. The times in which we are doing this are no whit better than they were in Nehemiah’s day. The men who scoffed in that day sent their spirit flitting through the ages, and in their children they scoff still. I hear them sneer, and say, “What are these poor people trying to do? Do they presume to tread upon our domain, and think of building on our ruins? Why, if a fox comes against their work it will fall.” Well, what is our answer? “The God of heaven, He will prosper us.”
I. Signs of prosperity.
1. A bold independence of the world.
2. A total dependence upon God.
3. A third sign of prosperity is the spirit and power of prayer in a Church. This is the great secret of her strength and success, and the power that moves all her machinery. My little child wants to know what makes the hands of my watch go round and tell me the time. I explain the power of the spring, and assure her that is the secret of the hands going round. I want to know the secret of so much prosperity in some Churches. I see it is there in abundance, and wonder if the secret is in the learning and eloquence of the preacher, or the wealth of the deacons, or the respectability of the congregation. I have found out the secret. There is a crowd of earnest men, and in the crowd the spirit and power of prayer.
4. When the work of conversion goes on in the congregation.
II. THE SOURCE OF PROSPERITY.
III. THE CERTAINTY OF PROSPERITY. (W. Cuff.)
The worker’s watchword
I. The honourable name Nehemiah appropriates to himself and to his fellow-labourers: a servant of God. To know God is the highest aim of science; to be like God, the highest ideal of humanity; to serve God, the joy of angels. A child of God is a more precious designation than that of servant of God. Yet there is a resemblance between them, for true liberty, greatness, salvation consists in this--serving God.
II. The holy purpose Nehemiah had before him. “We will rise and build.” The true servant of God must be building the house of God.
1. In his own heart.
2. In his home.
3. In society.
4. In the state.
5. In the Church.
6. In the world.
III. His severe strife. His work does not prosper without conflict. The world and the kingdom of God are as opposed to one another as the Samaritans and Jews were of old. Ethics they hold to be of value still, but care nothing for the revelation of the saving grace of God to sinful men.
IV. The true support.
V. A conscious fidelity. Nehemiah was conscious of his own fidelity. The Lord still knows those who preserve their fidelity. For their fidelity they are responsible, not for the results.
VI. A glorious triumph. The Lord causes the work to succeed. If we build and trust, pray and work, the like success will be ours. (J. J. Van Oosterzee.)
A well-grounded resolution
I.The answer to the adversaries.
II. The confidence expressed.
III. The resolution to work. (J. Wells.)
Nehemiah’s answer to his reproachful adversaries
I. The subject-matter of Nehemiah’s answer and what it teaches us. It reminds us--
1. Whence all true prosperity and success in the Lord’s work are to be looked for and obtained. “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord.” It is “ God that giveth the increase.” What the Word of God thus plainly teaches, providence abundantly illustrates, and human experience amply confirms.
2. That this ought to have the effect of stirring us up to earnest united exertion, and of keeping us ever actively engaged in the Lord’s service.
II. The spirit in which this answer was made.
1. It was made in a strong, unwavering confidence in God, with the humble assurance of Divine help and success in the work.
2. It was the spirit of enlightened zeal for the cause of God and the Divine glory.
3. It was the spirit of fearless determination to prosecute the work on which he was entering at all hazards.
4. It was one of self-denying patriotism.
Conclusion: We ought to cultivate the spirit and imitate the example of Nehemiah--
1. In the work of our own individual salvation.
2. In furthering the interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom in the world. (J. Sturrock.)
Inspiring mottoes for Christian workers
There was an excellent missionary who, from his conversion to his death, adopted three texts as his daily mottoes.
1. Personal hope: “Looking unto Jesus.”
2. Personal strength: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
3. Personal service: “Whose I am, and whom I serve.” (J. M. Randall.)
