April 26, 2009
Psalm 111:4
We were looking at Genesis earlier; where the Chief butler did not remember Joesph, but forgot him. Joseph had ask him, “But think on me when it shall be well with thee”; but the butler forgot. V.4. We also read in John 19 about Jesus’ wondrous work. The Lord made it to be remembered; He has called us to remember it. He said, “This do in remembrance of me”. It is our wonderful privilege to have done so this morning. Lamentations 3:19. This is the call of our Lord to remember Him in His affliction; suffering for what we had done. Song of Solomon 1:4. It was a work of love. We are asked to remember it. May our response be, “We will remember, ‘we will remember thy love more than wine’”. Wine is a type of earthly joy. Our desire should be to Him, and not to the fleeting joys that this world has to offer. The joy He has to offer is everlasting. May it be our response to say, “We will remember thy love more than wine”!
Hymn 201 – When we walk with the Lord,
Prayer
Last time, we finished the book of Revelation; I have been asking the Lord what we should do next, and I thought that since we having been going through Ezra and now Nehemiah in reading meeting, it would be good to go through Esther, which happened around the same time.
Read Esther 1:1 – 22. The book of Esther takes place between the 6^th^ and 7^th^ chapters of Ezra. It’s interesting that we don’t find the name of God anywhere in this book. This is frustrating to the Jews, but if we look at the situation, we might find out why. What we have read took place in Shushan, in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the Jews captive and had brought them to this land. Then King Cyrus let those who wanted to, return to Israel. Not all of them went back; the story of Esther is about those who stayed. In Babylon, there was no temple, no worship of the true God, and so many of the Jews probably fell into Gentile ways. Indeed, it was because of their sin that God allowed them to be taken captive in the first place. Read Hosea 1:9; God had forsaken them, and no longer owned them as His people. Now, most of them had forsaken God completely: probably few prayed, and they weren’t celebrating the feasts of Jehovah (we will find that they do celebrate a feast: the feast of Purim). So, God is not mentioned in this book because His people had forsaken Him, and He had left them (for a time). The children of Israel had been taken captive because they did not “trust and obey” God; now, they were suffering the consequences of it. We need to trust and obey God ourselves today, if we are to receive His blessing. If you give up on trusting and obeying God, you, too, may suffer the consequences. I hope this has given us the background of the book of Esther.
We ended the first chapter with Nehemiah’s prayer. As we start this chapter, we find that he is on the job; this is about four months after chapter 1. He has probably been in earnest prayer during that time, and it seems to be affecting him physically, if not emotionally. It was not a good thing to be sad in the presence of the king; it was required of royal servants that they maintain a happy expression while on the job; this was potentially dangerous for Nehemiah, which may be why he was afraid at the end of v. 2.
The king diagnosed him correctly, saying he had sorrow of heart, but we know that God was working in the king because of Nehemiah’s prayers (just as He did in Cyrus and Darius). Nehemiah responded to the king with a question; why shouldn’t he be sad, since the walls of Jerusalem were broken down. But notice what he is doing: Nehemiah was talking to the king about his concern for a city that the king had conquered. He wanted to reestablish an enemy center that had been destroyed. Because of this, the king’s response is amazing; he had been praying for mercy, and he certainly received it. He asks Nehemiah what he is asking for.
This brings us to Nehemiah’s second prayer; it was a very quick prayer, and we aren’t even told what he said. How good to know that we can offer prayer even between sentences in a conversation. Often in the Old Testament, God is referred to as the God of Israel. But now that God has forsaken them for a time, Nehemiah says that he prayed to the God of heaven.
Then he spoke to the king. We didn’t find out what he wanted to do in chapter 1, but here, v. 5, we find he has a specific request. He wanted to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. This was his desire, but it was also God’s plan (see v. 12).
The king asked Nehemiah how long he would be gone; he was willing to let him go for a time, and they set a return date. However, Nehemiah did not stop there. In vv. 7 & 8, he asked the king to sponsor his project, which he was willing to do. Nehemiah tells us that all this is because the good hand of “my God” was upon him. It is interesting that he calls him “my God” He had a personal relationship with God. Nehemiah wasn’t anyone special: he wasn’t a nobleman, prophet, or priest. He was just a civil servant; but he shows us that anyone can have a close relationship with God. Also, he undertook a big project for the Lord, teaching us that we do not need to be of the caliber of those who have gone before if we are to accomplish anything for the Lord. We just need to make ourselves available to Him. Where are those that are prepared to offer themselves to God?
Hymn 338 – I love my Saviour, my precious Saviour,
Prayer