“I sent out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except for the one I was riding on.”
– Nehemiah 2:12
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you check things out? Do you eyeball situations? Do you collect information? Do you react rashly? Do you respond to a situation by the seat of your pants? Do you act before you think? Do you pull a Nehemiah? Nehemiah checked out things. Nehemiah did eyeballing. Nehemiah understood a felt need. Nehemiah 2 portrays Nehemiah as the good guy. Nehemiah had been for four months mulling over news that had really disturbed him. Nehemiah had been told that nothing had been done to repair the walls that had once completely surrounded the city of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar – who reigned as king over the guys and gals who lived in the country of Babylonia, had with his Babylonian army about 140 years earlier sacked and razed the city of Jerusalem and destroyed and burned the walls that surrounded the city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s people group – the Israelite people group guys and gals, had lived in the city of Jerusalem. Even though Nehemiah probably never visited the city of Jerusalem, Nehemiah still really felt for the place. The city of Jerusalem was Nehemiah’s place of heritage. Because Nehemiah’s day job that he had in the city of Babylon – which was being King Artaxerxes’ winetaster, was at the time probably a fairly secure job, Nehemiah probably could have lived comfortably where he was living for the rest of his life. A winetasters’ job was to taste the wine from a flask before a king drank the wine. There was always the probability that an enemy of a king would try to take out the sitting king by slipping poison into the wine that the king would drink. Artaxerxes reigned as king over the guys and gals who lived in the lands that he and his Persian army captured. Nehemiah was okay with taking risks. After having an impassionate heart to heart talk with God about the city of Jerusalem’s walls and after King Artaxerxes – who had already reigned for twenty years, noticed Nehemiah’s hangdog look – which had him asking Nehemiah what was making him sad. When Nehemiah explained to King Artaxerxes why he was feeling down, Nehemiah told King Artaxerxes his concerns and what he would like to do in the city of Jerusalem if he is given the opportunity to go there. King Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah his okay to go to the city of Jerusalem along with signing off on the paperwork that informed specific guys in his authority to give Nehemiah the support and supplies that he would need to rebuild the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem.
Nehemiah is his diary – which is the Nehemiah Book, recounted in verse 12 what he did three days after he arrived in the city of Jerusalem “I sent out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except for the one I was riding on.” He then went on to record that he went through the Valley Gate towards the Jackel Well and Dung Gate where he began to examine the walls that had been destroyed with fire then on towards the Foutain Gate and Kings Pool. Nehemiah wanted to first check out the walls that had once surrounded the city of Jerusalem by eyeballing the destroyed walls to determine what would be the best plan to repair the walls that had once surrounded the city of Jerusalem.
When Nehemiah told guys who were living in the city of Jerusalem his desire to rebuild the walls that had once surrounded the city of Jerusalem and his plan on how to do rebuild the walls, they told Nehemiah that they were up to rebuilding the walls. There were at least three guys – Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arab, who lived in the city of Jerusalem were not on the same page with Nehemiah. These three guys were nefarious guys who exerted a lot of influence over the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. The guys began to mock and ridicule Nehemiah and the guys who were willing to help Nehemiah rebuild the walls that had once surrounded the city of Jerusalem. The reprehensible guys tried to spread a rumor that Nehemiah was rebelling against the king – who would have been Artaxerxes. Nehemiah told the guys that he had God on his side to help him so . . . even though the guys would not go away – as they continued to hassle and threaten Nehemiah and the guys who were helping him rebuild the walls that once surround the city of Jerusalem, they were not able to stop Nehemiah and the guys who were helping him do what they were doing to rebuild the walls that once had totally surrounded the city of Jerusalem. Your grandpaa in a way can identify with the opposition that Nehemiah received from Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem. When your grandpaa was prompted by God – as God the Spirit, to take his kids to the mission field instead of committing his support for his kids by standing up if God – as God the Spirit, ever prompted one of his kids to become a missionary, your grandpaa had one of the men who attended the same church that your grandmaa and grandpaa attended – with your dad and Aunt Lynn, urge your grandpaa to stay in the church as he did want your grandpaa to leave the church and what he was doing in the church. Even the pastor expressed his wish that your grandpaa would not leave his church. Your grandpaa wishes that he would get one hundred percent support for whatever he sensed that God – as God the Spirit, was prompting him to do but . . . when your grandmaa and grandpaa implemented the rural resident Bible education and leadership training program in January of 1982 in Concepcion, Nuflo de Chavez, one of the field team missionaries told another field team missionary that is was not going to work getting the program off the ground by loading up two pickups with stuff and students and . . . your grandpaa has learned that getting pushback is a good thing as it makes him think about what God wants him to do.
Nehemiah 2 (972)