THE CONVERTED CUPBEARER,
had arrived from the Persian court, and was going to build the walls of Jerusalem. There are some men who are always telling what they are going to do. Man, let the work speak for itself. You needn"t blow any horns; go and do the work, and it will advertise itself.
Nehemiah didn"t have any newspapers writing about him, or any placards. However, there was no small stir. No doubt every one in town was talking about it, saying that a very important personage had arrived from the Persian court; but he was there three days and three nights without telling anyone why he had come.
One night he went out to survey the city. He couldn"t ride around; even now you cannot ride a beast around the walls of Jerusalem. He tried to ride around, but he couldn"t, so he walked. It was a difficult task which he had before him, but he was not discouraged.
That is what makes character. Men who can go into a hard field and succeed, they are the men we want. Any quant.i.ty of men are looking for easy places, but the world will never hear of them. We want men who are looking for hard places, who are willing to go into the darkest corners of the earth, and make those dark places bloom like gardens. They can do it if the Lord is with them.
Everything looked dark before Nehemiah. The walls were broken down.
There was not a man of influence among the people, not a man of culture or a man of wealth. The nations all around were looking down upon these weak, feeble Jews. So it is in many churches today, the walls are down, and people say it is no use, and their hands drop down by their side. Everything seemed against Nehemiah, but he was a man who had the _fire of G.o.d_ in his soul; he had come to build the walls of Jerusalem. If you could have bored a hole into his head, you would have found "Jerusalem" stamped on his brain. If you could have looked into his heart you would have found "Jerusalem" there.
He was a fanatic; he was terribly in earnest; he was an enthusiast.
I like to see a man take up some one thing and say, "I will do it; I live for this thing; this one thing I am bound to do." We spread out so much, and try to do so many things, that
WE SPREAD SO THIN
the world never hears of us.
After he had been in the city three days and nights, he called the elders of Israel together, and told them for what he had come. G.o.d had been preparing them, for the moment he told them they said:
"Let us rise up and build."
But there has not been a work undertaken for G.o.d since Adam fell which has not met with opposition. If Satan allows us to work unhindered, it is because our work is of no consequence. The first thing we read, after the decision had been made to rebuild the walls, is:
"When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?"
These men were very indignant. They didn"t care for the welfare of Jerusalem. Who were they? A mixed mult.i.tude who had no portion nor right nor memorial in Jerusalem. They didn"t like to see the restoration of the ruins, just as people nowadays do not like to see the cause of Christ prospering. The offence of the cross has not ceased.
It doesn"t take long to build the walls of a city if you can only get the whole of the people at it. If the Christians of this country would only rise up, we could evangelize America in twelve months.
All the Jews had a hand in repairing the walls of Jerusalem. Each built over against his own house, priest and merchant, goldsmith and apothecary, and even the women. The men of Jericho and other cities came to help. The walls began to rise.
This stirred up Nehemiah"s enemies, and they began to ridicule.
RIDICULE
is a mighty weapon.
"What do these feeble Jews?" said Sanballat. "Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?"
"Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall," said Tobiah the Ammonite.
But Nehemiah was wise. He paid no attention to them. He just looked to G.o.d for grace and comfort:
"Hear, O our G.o.d; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity: and cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before: for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders."
Young man, if you wish to be successful in this world, don"t mind Sanballat or Tobiah. Don"t be kept out of the kingdom of G.o.d or out of active Christian work by the scorn and laughter and ridicule of your G.o.dless neighbors and companions.
Next, these enemies conspired to come and fight against Jerusalem.
Nehemiah was warned, and took steps to guard against them. Half of the people were on the watch, and the other half held a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. There was
NO EIGHT-HOUR WORKING DAY
then; they were on duty from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. They did not take off their clothes except to wash them. Fancy, this man who came from the Persian court with all its luxury, living and sleeping in his clothes for those fifty-two days!
But he was in earnest. Ah, that is what we want! men who will set themselves to do one thing, and keep at it day and night.
All the people were bidden to lodge within the city, so that they should always be on hand to work and fight. Would to G.o.d that we could get all who belong inside the church to come in and do their share. "Happy is the church," says one, "whose workers are well skilled in the use of the Scripture, so that while strenuously building the Gospel Wall, they can fight too, if occasion require it." We ought all be ready to use the Sword of the Spirit.
By and by the men wrote a friendly letter, and wanted Nehemiah to go down on the plain of Ono and have a friendly discussion. It is
A MASTERPIECE OF THE DEVIL
to get men into friendly discussions. I don"t know whether Nehemiah had a typewriter in those days or not; I don"t know whether he had a printed form of letters, but he always sent back the same reply:
"I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down."
How many a church has turned aside for years to discuss "questions of the day," and has neglected the salvation of the world because they must go down to the "plain of Ono" and have a friendly discussion! Nehemiah struck a good keynote--"I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." If G.o.d has sent you to build the walls of Jerusalem, _you go and do it_.
They sent him another letter, and again he sent word back, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." He did not believe in "coming down." They sent him another, and he sent back the same word. They sent him a fourth letter, with the same result. They could not get him down; they wanted to slay him on the way.
I have seen many Christian men on the plain of Ono, men who were doing a splendid work but had been switched off. Think how much work has been neglected by temperance advocates in this country because they have gone into politics and into discussing woman"s rights and woman"s suffrage. How many times the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation has been switched off by discussing some other subject instead of holding up Christ before a lost world! If the church would only keep right on and build the walls of Jerusalem they would soon be built. Oh, it is a wily devil that we have to contend with!
Do you know it? If he can only get the church to stop to discuss these questions, he has accomplished his desire.
His enemies wrote him one more letter,
AN OPEN LETTER,
in which they said that they had heard he was going to set up a kingdom in opposition to the Persians, and that they were going to report him to the king. Treason has an ugly sound, but Nehemiah committed himself to the Lord, and went on building.
Then his enemies hired a prophet, one of his friends. A hundred enemies outside are not half so hard to deal with as one inside--a false friend. When the devil gets possession of a child of G.o.d he will do the work better than the devil himself. Temptations are never so dangerous as when they come to us in a religious garb. So Tobiah and Sanballat bought up one of the prophets, and hired him to try to induce Nehemiah to go into the temple, that they might put him to death there.
"Now, Nehemiah, there is a plan to kill you, come into the temple.
Let"s go in and stay for the night."
He came near being deceived, but he said, "Shall I, such a man as I, be afraid of my life, and do that to save my life?"
After he had refused their invitation he saw that this man was a false prophet; and so by his standing his ground he succeeded in fifty-two days in building the walls of Jerusalem. Then the gates were set up and the work was finished.
Now during all these centuries that story has been told. If Nehemiah had remained at court, he might have died a millionaire, but he never would have been heard of twenty years after his death. Do you know the names of any of Nineveh"s millionaires? This man stepped out of that high position and took a low position, one that the world looked down upon and frowned upon, and his name has been a.s.sociated with the walls of Jerusalem all these centuries. Young man, if you want to be immortal, become identified with G.o.d"s work, and pay no attention to what men outside say. Nehemiah and his a.s.sociates began at sunrise and worked until it grew so dark they could not see. A man who will take up G.o.d"s work, and work summer and winter right through the year, will have a harvest before the year is over, and the record of it will shine after he enters the other world.
The next thing we learn of Nehemiah is that he got up a great