Overcoming Silence

Nehemiah 11-12 Welcome! Today we have our next-to-last message in our sequence of messages on Ezra and Nehemiah. To understand the context of today’s passage, let’s first turn back to Nehemiah 7:4:

Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. – Neh. 7:4

It has been about 100 years since the first Israelites had come back to Jerusalem after enduring the seventy years of captivity in Babylon. Things that were destroyed close to 200 years ago are still destroyed. This is a really long time. If you wander around South Carolina, you won’t find very many signs of life from nearly 200 years ago. There are exceptions, of course, places that were never abandoned, like Charleston. But abandoned places can become really “ruined” after only a few years. Look at pictures of the parts of New Orleans that still have not been rebuilt. Or just look at what was the Holiday Inn on Highway 123 here in Clemson.

Overcoming Failure

Nehemiah 9-10

Today, we are going to cover Nehemiah chapters 9 and 10. If you remember from last week in Nehemiah chapter 7, the wall had been completed in 52 days, a miracle of the Lord in the face of great opposition. God's blessing on the Israelites was so clear that it even demoralized their enemies. Then in chapter 8, the people of Israel had gathered together and Ezra read the Book of the Law of God from daybreak until noon. And, the people were weeping as they listened, but Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites stopped them and encouraged them to celebrate. The next day, they read of the feast of tabernacles or the feast of booths. Hearing that this feast should occur during the seventh month, they went out and prepared booths. Nehemiah 8:17 said “From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.”

And so, the Israelites celebrated the feast with great joy through 8 days. According to Numbers 29, the feast would begin on the 15th day of the seventh month and last 8 days ending on the 22nd day of the seventh month. Now, we pick up at the beginning of chapter 9, just a couple of days after the feast.

Overcoming Depression

Nehemiah 7-8

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Ezra and Nehemiah, focusing on Nehemiah 7 and 8. The walls of Jerusalem are rebuilt! This is what we saw at the end of last week’s message. Despite the persecution, despite the threats, despite the many devious plots against them, the walls and gates were finished. Jerusalem was once again a walled city. As we read last week,

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. – Neh. 6:15-16

Overcoming Oppression

Nehemiah 5-6

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Ezra and Nehemiah, focusing on Chapters 5 and 6. The year is 445 BC, and the location is Jerusalem.

In Nehemiah 1 and 2 we were introduced to Nehemiah as the cupbearer of the Persian King Artaxerxes. Nehemiah learned of the state of disrepair of the walls of Jerusalem as well as of the downcast “defeated” mindset of the people there, and he wept and prayed for them, praying specifically that God would use him to help the situation. After several months of prayer and fasting, through a miraculous series of events, the king decided to send Nehemiah himself to take charge of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.