1. The Book of Nehemiah

2. USS Lincoln

4. Your call!

5. JERUSALEM
“So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other.”

6. disease
drought and famine
invading armies
EXILE

7. Two exiles 721 BC – 10 northern tribes (Israel) – taken into Assyria.
606 BC – 2 southern tribes (Judah) – taken into Babylon
(606 – Rulers; Royal Court; Daniel
597 – Craftsmen; merchants; Ezekiel
587 – Temple destroyed/utter destruction)

8. Prophet Jeremiah (29)
“This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”

9. Cyrus – 538 BC
“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm …” (Ezra 1 v 1)

10. Three returns First Return: 536 BC – Sheshbazzar (Zerubbabel)
50,000 people
Build the temple & re-establish worship
Opposition of the Samaritans
Prophets Haggai & Zechariah

11. Second Return:
458 BC – Ezra (Priest and teacher)
1,800 people (Levites)
King Artaxerxes (1)
Rebuild social and religious life

12. Third Return:
444 BC – Nehemiah
Small band of craftsmen
Rebuild the city walls

13. Nehemiah 1 v

14. “The comfort of Jehovah”
NEHEMIAH
“The comfort of Jehovah”
wine steward

15. GOD RULES

17. How did God stir Nehemiah’s heart?

18. “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are; Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
“We know we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.”
(1 John 3 v 10,14)

19. CITY DILAPIDATED
COMMUNITY DISPIRITED

20. External hostility Internal pessimism

21. Misappropriation of funds
Moral compromise
Misappropriation of funds
Materialism
Migration
Meanness

22. “It is easy enough to weep over your sins when you are found out, but to weep over other people’s sins indicates a depth of spirituality that few share.”

23. “Occasionally, we may be moved for a moment
by what we have heard, and yet we have not
heard enough to really
change us!”

24. Unless we learn to weep over the ruins, we will never build the wall