Nehemiah 1

And so we need to repent and renounce the binding patterns in you and your family.

In Nehemiah 1, verses 6-7, Nehemiah says, You see...

He confessed his sins.

He didn't blame it on his parents, but he confessed his sins.

So Nehemiah did three things.

when he heard about trouble and these are the three things everybody should do on daily basis number one he gave time and energy in praying for others Nehemiah 1 5 and 6 when Nehemiah heard the bad news we are talking about giving and I'm saying it's not only money that we give we also give prayers that young lady prayed for her friend who had kidney problem and today He has gotten a miraculous kidney.

Can you pray for that man? Clap your hands for that, my daughter.

Give him.

He prayed for those in Jerusalem.

And so.

In Nehemiah 1.

5 to 6.

When you read Nehemiah chapter 1, the Bible tells us that Nehemiah...

Please give us Nehemiah 1, the words of Nehemiah, and then all of that, verse two and three.

We'll stop maybe at six, then we'll jump to chapter two.

The Bible says Hanani came to Nehemiah and briefed him about the progress or the situation of Jerusalem and its walls, and it was a pathetic one.

To come along.

Here we pick up in Nehemiah 1.

It says this.

In the words of Nehemiah, and I'm not going to pronounce these right, so just I'm telling you ahead of time.

Any great work of God begins with God doing a great work in somebody.

Nehemiah's reaction went beyond an immediate emotion.

So as we look in Nehemiah 1 through 4, Nehemiah hears that Jerusalem is broken down.

Its gates have been burned.

And the thing about this is we have so much treatment in the Bible about prayer and how our spiritual life is to work.

You think of Abraham's prayer for Sodom or Moses' intercession for Israel or Hannah's prayer at the beginning of 1 Samuel or Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8. or Hezekiah's prayer in crisis in 2 Kings 19, or Nehemiah 1, or Daniel 9, or the entire book of Psalms, or the Lord's prayer, or the high priestly prayer of John 17, or the church's prayer under persecution in Acts 4, or Paul's many prayers for the churches, like Ephesians 3, for example, and many others we could give.

Every time and without exception, prayer is unto God alone.

And we have no biblical example of praying to or asking for the intercession of departed believers.

to do at Jerusalem.

So in Nehemiah 1, when he goes before the king, and the king is saying that, why is your face downcast? And he says that, I want to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

How did God tell him? In verse 2, chapter 2, he tells, he's showing us how God told him.

He said that God put in his heart.

And, you know, he's the one that said rejoice evermore, right? Okay, he said if Epaphroditus had died, I would have had sorrow upon sorrow.

When Nehemiah in Nehemiah 1 got the news that Jerusalem was, the wall was down, it was burned out, and the place was in just terrible shape, it really depressed him.

And he was the king's cupbearer.

He couldn't be depressed in the king's presence, but it was so overwhelming he couldn't disguise it.

You know, an open heart sees, but a responsive heart does something with what it sees.

When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem's walls were broken down and its people were in great trouble and disgrace, In Nehemiah 1 and 4 it says, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept.

For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

He didn't just receive information.

[laughs] Um, so I'm gonna be in the Book of Nehemiah tonight.

I'm gonna jump around from Nehemiah 1 to Nehemiah 4, but I'm not reading it all, but don't worry.

Um, I wanna talk to you about the wall of Jerusalem just for a minute and compare it to your life.

The wall of Jerusalem was two point, woo- I can walk still.

Look at these problems.

Look at everything around me that is just destroyed and garbage." 140 years, no one was once inspired to do anything about it.

In Nehemiah 1 it says...

And I want to tell you, the wall was like 2.5 to 3 kilometers long around Jerusalem, and 2.5 to 3 meters wide.