Bible Commentaries

Nehemiah 4:1).

How Nehemiah Built the Wall

WE have heard of Sanballat before. We heard of him in the second chapter, where we read the following words: "When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel." The word in that verse is "grieved"; the men were sore of heart, they were annoyed. There is nothing particular in the way of activity in the feeling—it is rather a passive emotion; but in the verse under consideration we find that the same Sanballat was not grieved in the passive sense of the term, but he was wroth and took great indignation. Was Nehemiah turned aside by his grief? No. But Nehemiah cowered and trembled before the wrath and great indignation of the Horonite, did he not? Never. What was it that sustained him in the midst of this passive opposition, and this active hostility? Why, it was keeping his eye upon the Eternal—there was a great purpose, a supreme and dominating conviction in the man's soul, and it was that which gave him steadiness and constancy and determination, so that he could run through a troop and leap over a wall. If you are taking your line of life from some low centre, then you will be disturbed and fretted by every little accident that may occur on the road; you will have to apologise for your existence and consult everybody as to whether you are to live tomorrow. But if you live in God, if you drink water from the rock-spring—if you feed upon the bread of heaven, then you will turn neither to the right hand nor to the left—you will write the old Latin motto on your right hand and on your left—"Per diem, per noctem"—"Night and day—on!" Who wrote the programme of your life? In what ink is it written? From what source do you derive your inspiration? Here is a man who was not turned aside by the grief, the wrath, the indignation of his enemies; he went straight on as if the whole universe were applauding his march. Let us endeavour to find out the secret of his inspiration: to draw the inspiration of our life from the same source, and to live as far above all incidental disturbance and superficial frets as Nehemiah did—right away up yonder, near the sun, where God is—where his blessing rests perpetually upon those who serve him.

Let us see how the Horonite expresses his wrath and indignation. Will he have anything original in his speech? Did the devil ever teach his scholars a single new speech? He has only one speech, only one great black lie—it may be pronounced in this key or in that, but it is the same old villainous story, false from end to end, every syllable of it saturated with falsehood! still it will be instructive to hear what a mocking man has to say. When a man is in mocking mood he usually speaks with some pungency of accent.

"And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? 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?" ( Nehemiah 4:2.)

That was an irreligious view of a religious work—it is very well put indeed from his own point of view. First of all the Jews are feeble. As a matter of fact they certainly are without any peculiar strength. Will they fortify themselves? What will they do? Will they pluck dock-leaves and use them as breast-plates? Will they search the fields round about Jerusalem for nettles, and use those stinging herbs as implements and instruments of war? What will they do? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? There is no stone to be had—no open quarries—no rocks inviting them; how will they get the stones? Why, they will revive the rubbish—put the mud together with their wet hands, and thus they will make stones. Ha, ha! That was his speech to the army. Is that a speech sufficient to stir the blood of an army? The army heard it and turned over on the other side, to have a little more sleep and a little more slumber, and a little folding of the hands together.

We do not wonder at men looking at Christian agencies and laughing at them. You have laughed when you saw a young man walking along with his Bible under his arm. Well, it did look exceedingly humble, very modest, and wholly unlikely that a man with a gilt-edged book "under his arm was going to do anything at all in the world. But in that book he had the whole panoply of God—he had the book that moves the world, say what men will. They burn it: they come to rake over the hot ashes; there it Nehemiah 4:7-8).

If the enemy thinks it worth while to be in earnest, let us take a hint from his policy. The enemy is up earlier in the morning than we are. The dram shop is open before the drapery house. Does the house of ill-fame ever put its candle out? Is the bad place ever locked up so that we cannot get into it? Our churches are fastened up, instead of being open early in the morning so that some men passing might call in for a few minutes. Is that earnestness—is that meaning it? Let any Nehemiah 4:21, Nehemiah 4:23).

That was work. How do we work? "So we laboured at the wall"—at the wall, at one thing, at a definite object, at a prescribed and well-understood work—at it, all at it, always at it, loving it and wanting to urge it forward. "So we laboured—laboured—laboured." What is the Church doing—what is the Church in the city doing—empty, desolate, sitting in its own loneliness, moaning over its own solitariness—what is the Church doing? If a man in the Church were to get up and speak above what somebody else considers to be a proper tone, he would be condemned and despised and avoided. If a man were to organise extraordinary work, there are not wanting narrow-minded Pharisees, small-spirited zealots, little—almost immeasurable—self-idolising popes, who would say that such kind of work was not the kind of service on which they could put the seal of their endorsement. And so the Church is always washing itself and putting on some new garment, and going to law to know whether it ought to have that garment on or not. Whilst we are doing that, the foxes are saying to one another—"This is the wall, is it? You pull that stone down, and I will pull this: they are all at law, they want to know whether they shall eat wafers or loaves—whether they shall stand to the east or look to the west—pull down the wall!"

We want to build—to build; to get a positive, distinct, affirmative work done. When we hear an earnest man, we need not care whether his face is to the east or west or the north or the south. Let us ask, "What is his word; is there music in his voice; is there redemption in his gospel; is there earnestness in his appeal; are there tears in the sound issuing from his throat; does he mean it?" And then, whether he be labouring at our corner of the wall or not, let us say, "God bless him—help him to build much—help him to build solidly, and God reward him for his work." Men, brethren, and fathers—Independents, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, whatever we be, let us forget all that is little and unworthy and trifling and superficial, and non-essential—and then, coats off, every one, all day at the work, and God bless every servant that toils in his name and strives to promote his glory.

Prayer

Almighty God, we are lost—therefore do we hail the blessed gospel that the Son of man is come to seek and to save us. Thou mightest have come to seek and to destroy us, for we have broken thy law, we have grieved thy Spirit, we have done the things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things that we ought to have done: but thou didst in thy great mercy send thy Son Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world. We bless thee for a salvation impartial as the sunlight—shining upon the king's palace and upon the mean man's hut: we bless thee for a gospel adapted to every state and condition of life, a great and wonderful work of love, that touches our sin, that throws the light of hope upon our despair, that comforts us when no other consolation can touch our woe, and that throws upon the grave itself a glorious and a heavenly immortality. We bless thee for the glorious gospel: we have found it to be glorious: it found us in our low and lost estate, it spoke to us of thy heart, of thy love, of thy righteousness, of our own guilt and helplessness, and it shone upon us like a light in a dark place, and it brought to our hearts the comfort and assurance of an infinite redemption. Enable us to feel that Christ has done for us all that is needful to be done, and that we have alone to accept his work by a loving, simple, childlike, unquestioning trust, and inasmuch as this trust is essential to our salvation, hear us when we say "Lord, increase our faith." Do thou destroy the power of the enemy, and let the wiles of the tempter be broken. Throw the enemy himself into confusion when he pursues our life, and enable us to hide ourselves in the infinite sanctuary of the defence of God, that, covered by the omnipotence of thy hand no malign power may be able to touch us. Guide us all our days—help us up the steep hill: when the wind is bleak and the road is drear come nearer to us, and give us to feel the tenderness and the omnipotence of thy presence. Then shall there be no tears in our eyes, no aching shall disturb our hearts, no throb of mortal disease shall be baffling our rest, and the whole head shall be strong, and the whole heart shall be sound, and we shall walk on, forward, higher, upward, in that strength and peace and in the solace of thine infinite consolation, till we become perfected according to thy purpose, sanctified in every thought, cleansed and ennobled in every motive, and made beautiful with the loveliness of the glory of Christ. Lord, hear this prayer offered at the cross; whilst we yet feel the sacrificial blood from the holy Victim let thine answer be a reply of peace. Amen.