Prayer Answered (by God’s Good Hand)

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Day in the day of distress, incline your ear to me, answer me speedily in the day when

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I call. For my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace, my heart is struck down like grass and has withered,

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I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning, my bones cling to my flesh.

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I'm like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake,

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I'm like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me, those who deride me use my name like for a curse.

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For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink because of your indignation and anger, for you have taken me up and thrown me down.

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My days are like an evening shadow, I wither away like grass. But you, oh

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Lord, are enthroned forever, you are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion, it is the time to favor her, the appointed time has come.

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For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. Nations will fear the name of the

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Lord and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. For the Lord builds up Zion, he appears in his glory, he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.

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Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to come to be created by, excuse me, so that a people yet to be created may praise the

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Lord, that he look down from his holy height, from heaven the Lord look down at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who are doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the

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Lord and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together and kingdoms to worship the

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Lord. He has broken my strength in midcourse, he has shortened my days, oh my God, I say take me not away in the midst of my days, you whose years endure throughout all generations.

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Of old you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands, they will perish but you will remain, they will all wear out like a garment, you will change them like a robe and they will pass away, but you are the same and your years have no end, the children of your servants shall dwell secure, their offspring shall be established before you.

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Now turn to Acts chapter 17 and we'll begin at verse 22, so Paul standing in the midst of the

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Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, for as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship,

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I found also an altar with its inscription, to the unknown God, what therefore you worship as unknown, this

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I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek

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God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring, being then

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God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art or an imagination of man, the times of ignorance

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God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead, and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this, so Paul went out from their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom were also

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Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

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You may be seated. Well, let us pray.

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Now, Father, be with us as your word is open to us. Be with me,

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Father, as I proclaim it, and be with those who hear as it is heard. May the words of my mouth, may the meditations of my heart be pleasing and acceptable in your sight,

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Father, and may they do good for sinners this day, and may by your word all of us be brought closer in conformity with he who we worship this day,

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Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray to you. Amen. And now again, with our scriptures open, please turn to the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter 2.

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I am going to read verses 1 through 8. We will this morning preach from verses 4 and 5, and then 7 and 8, taking that as a unit for this morning's message.

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You may recall last week, we opened this section up, and I said then that we are going to do three messages here.

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This is the second of them, each message being based upon one of the three questions that we have from Artaxerxes to Nehemiah, which you will now hear.

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In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king.

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Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick?

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This is nothing but sadness of the heart. Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king,

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Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?

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Then the king said to me, What are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king,

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If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it.

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And the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, How long will you be gone, and when will you come?

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So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province beyond the river, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah.

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And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.

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And the king granted me what I asked for, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

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May God bless the reading, and now the hearing of his word. The message this morning, verses four and five, the king said to me,

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What are you requesting? And Nehemiah, of course, prays, and begins his request to the king in the verses seven and eight, where he gives more detail of the thing, the things that are being requested.

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This question, then, is what, is our leaping off point for the message this morning, what are you requesting?

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If ever a passage confirmed that our extraordinary God works through ordinary means,

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I believe it is here in Nehemiah, when Nehemiah brings four months of prayer for Jerusalem, from the throne of God to the throne of Artaxerxes, from the throne of grace to the throne of a man.

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If we find anywhere encouragement to pray expectantly, I believe it is here, where God answers specifically the prayer of his servant.

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He prayed earnestly for four months, and we should all pray earnestly. He prayed believing that God answers prayer.

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He prayed expecting this answer, not presumptively or arrogantly, calling

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God to do as he would, meaning Nehemiah would have him do, but believing in God, and trusting

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God, and knowing that if God doesn't answer, that's the right answer, but expecting God to answer, and expecting

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God to hear this expectant prayer, this earnest prayer that has now brought forth this fruit, that begins with this question from the king, in whom

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Nehemiah serves, what is it you are requesting? And here we find also our extraordinary

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God, the God of heaven and earth, working through ordinary men like Nehemiah, an ordinary man.

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He had God -given talent. He was the man for the season. He was a man with a spirit like ours, just a man who

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God chose to use at that time, and if I could encourage the church in any way this morning with these verses, with these words, it is just this, the earnest prayer of Nehemiah we spoke about last week, the expectancy that he must have had to have been ready to answer the king so quickly, and for us to know that God does answer prayer, and when we prayed him, we should expect an answer to prayer, and that that answer may just put an ordinary, mundane, everyday pedestrian like myself, or any of you who believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, to work for his purposes. This morning, as I commend from scripture that we pray with this earnest expectation of Nehemiah, let us do so, expecting

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God to work great things through ordinary people like you and me, and compared to this great man,

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Nehemiah, we might even fall from the heights of ordinary, and splash into a pond of just being mundane, and I think

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God would look and say, all the better, all the better, because now the confident warriors have been given leave from Gideon's ranks, and great things are about to come.

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In our passage, the setting, the context we have here, Artaxerxes, this king who

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Nehemiah served, he was the sole ruler of Persia, and so he was the master of the whole ancient

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Near East. Persian kings like to call themselves the king of kings, which if they knew the one from whom they borrowed that appellation, it would be sheer blasphemy, it would be laughable, but even so, we knowing that, they not, but we knowing that, we do know that the known world at the time resided under their thumb.

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In this context, under Artaxerxes' thumb. Why had

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God raised up that nation and her kings, meaning Persia? Well, there are many reasons, but this will suffice.

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Persia became a nation when they conquered Babylon, in order that God, through them, might bring about the return of his people to Jerusalem, in order that once there, they might rebuild their ruined temple, their devastated city, and their shattered hopes.

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Now Cyrus, their first king, long before Artaxerxes had authorized that return to begin that work.

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After him, Darius authorized the rebuilding of the temple, and now Artaxerxes is going to be used of God to begin work on the city itself, specifically her walls, which were destroyed about a century earlier by Babylon.

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Now these men, these kings, these kings of Persia, or really any nation, impressive as they must have been in person, were such power that a man's fate rested on the direction of the king's scepter.

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The man whose word was unbreachable law, in all this they remained what you and I and all of us here today are, they're only men, men used of God to accomplish his will.

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So we have these two. We have faithful, believing Nehemiah. We have pagan, self - glorifying

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Artaxerxes working in tandem for God, for the Lord of heaven and earth, as Nehemiah called him when he prayed.

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Now only one of these two knew the God who was doing the work, but ultimately that makes no difference to the outcome.

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Nehemiah's sad face we covered last week. He becomes so infused with the mind of God about this issue over which he was praying that he showed in every fiber of his being.

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And Artaxerxes now hearing the cause of it, which in short terms was simply the miserable condition of Jerusalem, he senses that a request is coming.

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And he gives Nehemiah this opening. What are you requesting? We might ask, why was he being so gracious?

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We know next to nothing about Artaxerxes personally, so we really can't say anything for sure.

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We know historically he was under great strain. There was unrest everywhere in his kingdom.

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Vassal states were rebelling against him. Subjects were being treasonous. His father

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Xerxes had spent the treasury on these failed military expeditions, especially against Greece.

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Egypt is rumbling in revolt on its southern border. Jerusalem is an open sore. Jerusalem, actually the whole area there was an outpost of sorts on his western flank.

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Any expedition from Egypt to put him at risk would have had to go through there. And any troops he would send their way to stop it, to quell any rebellion, would have to go through that land.

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It guarded the seaports from which invasions could be staged and supplied. The city he knew to be the subject of Nehemiah's sadness was terribly important to him.

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So what does all this mean? What does all this context tell us? Well, it's one reason

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I read Acts chapter 17 in Paul's message to the Stoics and Epicureans, the elites, the intellectual elites of Greece at the time.

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It is God who determines times. It is God who allots borders. It is God who is working in all history.

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In God's providence, you see, Nehemiah's timing of this request to Artaxerxes was perfect.

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It was perfect. What he wanted to do, what he had been praying about for four months, to do

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God's will, to accomplish God's purposes in the restoration of the city, what Nehemiah wanted was exactly what the king needed to be done.

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Now did Nehemiah bring this out or bring this about? Of course not. It is the good hand of the

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Lord upon him. It is God's providential care for all history. It is God who decrees all things whatsoever shall come to pass.

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And what has come to pass is that Nehemiah, after four months of prayer, is called to serve the king.

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The king sees his sad face, asks what he's requesting, and here's a request from Nehemiah that exactly fits what

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Artaxerxes, the king, needs at that moment to happen in that land.

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Nehemiah seemed to know all along that God's will for him would be through this man, this

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Artaxerxes. That's why at the end of the prayer, that's just what he asked for, and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

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The end of the prayer, and that's from the end of chapter one, just a few verses before what I read. Four months of prayer, mercy prayed, and now mercy bestowed.

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This wonderful question, what are you requesting? We can ask, was Artaxerxes fond of his cupbearer?

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The evidence is that he was. Was he a generous king? The historical evidence is that he was, and also that he was a wise ruler in many civic respects.

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And all this being the case, from whom then is this wonderful inquiry? If Artaxerxes in the artistic sense is a good king in that way, from whence comes this beautiful question?

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What are you requesting from God? All this comes about because of the good hand of the

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Lord God upon me. It is God's mercy. It is

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God who chose to answer the prayer. It is God by whom all events are arranged so that this request that Artaxerxes himself draws out of Nehemiah addresses not just the need of Jerusalem, but somehow, should we say, by God's providence coincides directly with Artaxerxes and his need.

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Well, that's the way Nehemiah saw it in any case, the good hand of the Lord God upon him. The God who loosed the donkey's tongue did no less with Artaxerxes.

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It was Artaxerxes' need to have that Western flank, as it were, solidified and faithful and loyal to him.

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That's all true. So what are you requesting? From whence comes that question?

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The good hand of the Lord God upon Nehemiah. Our lesson here is very quick.

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It comes early in this message and in this text. When you pray, it has to be with anticipation that God hears and answers.

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And when he does, we don't just chalk it up to his general sovereignty because that's just too conceptual.

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Think on what you prayed and see that God heard you. An ordinary, everyday, pedestrian

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Christian, who are you? Just a believer in Jesus? Just a believer in the beloved

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Son of God who he sent to die for your sins. That's a little bit more than just a mundane, everyday, average person, which all of us are, except when we pray to God in the name of Christ.

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It's not just a general hearing of a God who knows everything, which he does, is a specific hearing of you personally who come to him in the name of his

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Son. Think on what you pray, and know that God hears you just as he did

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Nehemiah. It's not arrogance. It's faith that says, see what God did for me today.

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It's faith that says that God answered this specific prayer, and I expected him to answer, and I called upon him to answer, and why did he answer?

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Because of his good hand, his sovereign hand, his autonomous hand, his hand which goes where he would have it.

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All that, at the same time, true. See, in human terms, the issue is much in doubt.

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Will he or won't he? Will he grant fully, or will he grant partially? Could Nehemiah have even been sure that he would get this audience when he said, give him mercy in the sight of this man?

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This is why we pray, and this is why when we pray, we look for God's hand moving in specific answer to our specific prayers.

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In the book of Mark, there are times when Jesus said something very similar to what Artaxerxes said.

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This, what are you requesting? In James chapter 10 and verse 35, James and John tell the

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Lord that they have a request. Now Jesus, who knew all things, he knew it was in a man.

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He knew all men, says John, in those two different ways, but in Mark, what does he say?

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He says to them, when they go to him with this request, what do you want me to do for you? Well, they wanted special treatment in the coming kingdom, which is a very un -Nehemiah -like request, and that request was denied.

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He said, you don't know what you're asking for. You don't know what you're really requesting here.

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This is not even for me to grant. This is for God. They had come impulsively. They had come selfishly.

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They had come prayerlessly. And if you continue in Mark, it's interesting that just a short time later, just a few verses down, the

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Lord runs into blind Bartimaeus. This blind man, calling out for mercy to the

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Lord, the, pardon me, the crowd tries to shush him, tells him, be quiet.

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Don't bother the Lord with something as, as, as mundane and as, you know, every day as blind eyes.

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Don't bother him. He's got things to do. But he keeps calling out to him, tent him out to prayer. Can we correlate that to Nehemiah's prayer?

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Well, Nehemiah was able to pray in comfort on his knees for four months. Bartimaeus has his one chance, and he calls out, he prays to the

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Lord, calls for mercy. Tell the crowd, tell them to be quiet. And Jesus sees him, and he says to this man, this blind

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Bartimaeus, exactly what he said to the apostles, and much what Artaxerxes said to Nehemiah, what do you want me to do for you?

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Well, both he, Bartimaeus, and the two disciples believed that it was all Jesus to grant, but only

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Bartimaeus found favor with the Lord. By what? Dependent humility.

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It is the Lord who asked the blind man, just as much as it was the Lord who arranged history to align for this favorable hearing of Nehemiah's request.

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You know, for us, all heaven sort of halts. Heaven holds his breath, waiting for this outcome.

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But as I said before, the issue only seems to be in doubt. As soon as Artaxerxes asked that the request be made known to him,

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Nehemiah was assured that it was all of God. We have in this verse, verse 4, this famous arrow prayer.

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The king said to me, what are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven. Now last week, we spoke about the transformation that comes from prayer.

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We don't change God's mind when we pray. What do we change? We change our own. But now those months of prayer, those months of devotion, have actually found their moment.

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And before he opens his mouth, he fires off this prayer. The Bible doesn't call it an arrow prayer.

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We only see that he was asking, he was asked by the king what he wanted. That's all the text tells us.

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And as he turns to answer, he prays to the Lord God of heaven. But let's agree with convention that this is properly called an arrow prayer.

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That metaphor is ripe with application, isn't it? In merry old England, the strength of the army was the longbowmen.

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In 1415, some 10 ,000 Englishmen destroyed a French army many times its size.

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That was at Agincourt. And how did they do that? Well, there was tactical superiority. They had the high ground, but mostly it was the longbowmen.

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It was those longbowmen who broke every charge from great distances. Now, that's all

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I'm going to tell you about the battle. But so important were the bowmen to England's army that on their days off, whatever day off was back then, they were not allowed to engage in any activity that was not directly related to taking care of their family, like harvesting crops and things like that.

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If they were found in what we might call a pickup game, is that what we call informal basketball games?

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A pickup game where one guy's just bouncing the basketball, and the guy's going to say, I'll play you. Well, if an

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English bowman was found doing that back in merry old England days, he could be executed because he wasn't practicing the longbow, and the longbow being that important to English armies and their security and their dominance in Europe.

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So what's the point here? We call it an arrow prayer. The Bible doesn't, but we do.

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Now, taking off from that, the point here is practice. If indeed calling it an arrow prayer is correct, practice.

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Archery is one of the most difficult activities there is to master. It takes practice. An arrow prayer, if it is that, is no more or no less heard by God than any other kind of prayer.

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But I would suggest that when the enemy is forming up before us, when the crisis has arrived, and the moment of truth has come, perhaps for its only appearance, when we reach into our quiver and send that arrow to heaven, it should be a familiar tool in our hands, and to target the same one that we've been praying about.

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This is what we could learn from Nehemiah. Four months of prayer, and he turns to the king.

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What are you requesting? And as he's turning to the king, he has about a half a second, and I prayed to the Lord God of heaven. Did he pray something different?

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No, we've been praying before to have mercy in the sight of this man. Perhaps he had time to say, remember mercy,

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Lord. Now, we must practice this.

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That instant prayer, I would suggest, needs to be backed up by a life of prayer, by a discipline of prayer.

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That instant when we pivot to face the providential opportunity that God has given us, is not time enough for us to be sure that we have the mind of God attained by the practice and the discipline of constant prayer.

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Any more than an English longbowman could have done any good had he not been an expert by practice.

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Now, my metaphor of us as longbowmen, if I was making that case, it falls apart because if I don't find you in prayer, and if I hear an error prayer that I know is not backed up by months of prayer, well, none of us can be taken outside and executed, are we?

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But the point is that these quick prayers, as much heard by God as the longer, more patient prayers, need to be backed up by something.

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They need to be backed up by a habit, by discipline, by constant expectant prayer before God.

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W .H. Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, he wrote on this, holy recollections do not come naturally nor easily even to good men.

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Repeated action makes habit, excuse me, repeated action makes habit. Practice makes perfect as in all things.

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If we think again about the bowman, if an English bowman was a traitor for failing to practice his craft, which brought death, how much more should we, who serve the author of life, practice our craft?

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And what is that craft? Prayer. One more lesson here is that the prayer

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Nehemiah sent forth to heaven was part and parcel of what he prayed for four months. He prayed quickly because the subject was by then familiar to him, and he prayed to a

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God who he could come to instantly because he had formerly come to him unhurried and unrushed.

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So Nehemiah's answer and one reason

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I think this is he had four months of expectancy calling upon God to answer.

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One reason we can think that is because he was ready with his answer. Does not the text imply that this answer that he gives so quickly to Nehemiah, what are you requesting?

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I turn to the king. I prayed as I turned to the king, and I'm reading some into that, and I said to him and here comes this request.

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Did God give him all these needs, this punch list if you will, at that instant?

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I would suggest four months of prayer. I would suggest piece by piece. Nehemiah was saying,

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Lord, you know we will need this thing. Give me mercy in the sight of this man for it. Lord, you know we're going to need more than that.

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We're going to need, and then add to the list. Give me mercy in the sight of this man for this. What was his answer?

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Something like this. Well, nothing much, O king. First, I need a leave of absence. Then I want royal letters of commission and authorization for the building materials.

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Oh, and don't forget my safe conduct. And oh yeah, before I forget, don't forget to issue a decree invalidating your former decree.

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The former decree being the one to stop the building, and now Outer Xerxes, as we said before, is being asked by Nehemiah to overrule

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Outer Xerxes. What Nehemiah wanted to do is go and build the wall, rebuild the gates.

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Someone showed me a drawing when they knew I was working on the book of Nehemiah and where I was in it. They showed me a one -frame comic, and it showed

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Nehemiah and his other helpers, other Jews working on the wall. And the caption says, we're going to build a wall, and we're going to make

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Persia pay for it. It was a little bit humorous today, but just a little bit, and we're not going to wax political.

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But that's just what's happening here. As Cyrus's forebear had financed the temple, so this king,

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Outer Xerxes, is going to the city, the wall, the gates, to bring civic protection to that place.

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He does eventually ask for all those things I said, but not exactly in those terms. The king spoke the words, what are you requesting, but their birth was of the

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Lord. Well, King David could say, even before a word was on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together.

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It was no less true for this king. It was the Lord, as Nehemiah says at the end, who orchestrated everything here.

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Do we pray with that kind of expectancy? Have any of us ever had an issue so before us, one that God withholds the result of for us, that we would pray for four months, four expectant months?

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Am I the only one guilty of praying three or four times and giving up and say, well, God must have been answering by silence.

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I'm asking for something that's not God's will, therefore, I give up. But Nehemiah gives a much better example to us.

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Jesus asks in exactly this context in Luke chapter 18, with the unjust judge and the persistent widow who just bothers him till he gives her justice, he asks in this context of a praying people, but when the

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Son of Man comes, meaning returns for the second time, when the

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Son of Man comes to earth, will he find faith on earth? Will he find men praying?

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I do confess, and I can't imagine I'm alone in this. I give up way early.

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I'm so quick to say, well, God has said no. Didn't he tell Paul no when he prayed to him for this thorn in the flesh, those three times that we read of in 1

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Corinthians? He did. Sometimes the answer is no. But notice, brethren, that when we cite

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Paul, we're citing someone who got a positive answer from God. Not a positive answer that I will do this thing for you, a positive answer in an answer.

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Not just a passive acquiescence to, well, God didn't answer, and I prayed all of two and a half times to him because I got distracted by the warning that the steaks were done in the oven or something like that.

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I had to get up and run. No. Nehemiah starts out here with what he had been expecting the opportunity to say, if it pleases the king, if your servant has found favor in your sight.

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It's an interesting place for us just to slow down, to stop for a second, and think, after four months of prayer and the certainty that this very opportunity, that very moment, was from the good hand of the

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Lord God upon him. Why wouldn't he just turn to him and say, thus says the

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Lord, you're to give me safe passport, and you are to write this letter to Asaph getting me all the lumber that I need, and by the way, you're going to authorize me to rebuild the gates that were burned with fire, the temple surround, and a house for myself.

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Why wouldn't he just say, thus says the Lord God? Well, he's not quite in the position

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Moses was with Pharaoh and with Artaxerxes. With Pharaoh, there was a different attitude, a different demeanor towards God coming from that pagan king.

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So it's worth us noting that Nehemiah uses the address of respect, knowing that all this is coming to him directly from the sovereign

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God, the Lord of the universe, heaven, and earth. He still speaks respectfully to the king, if it pleases the king, if your servant has found favor.

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It's so easy for us to get wrapped up in the fact that we represent the ultimate and true king of kings, the true

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Lord of lords. We forget that this very king of kings and Lord of lords, who is Jesus, we forget that he spoke respectfully to everyone.

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Luke chapter 4 verse 22 says, of Jesus, and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

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When the apostle Paul was rebuked for reviling the high priest, he said, I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written,

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You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. So here the apostle apologizes for having not spoken properly to that man of that position.

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Here Jesus never apologizes because he always spoke graciously and rightly to everyone. You see,

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Christian faith, even knowing that the Lord God of the universe is behind what we're asking for,

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Christian faith demands that we speak appropriately to others, appropriately, excuse me, to others in accord with their status in society.

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This doesn't make us man fearers. This makes us God pleasers. By good manners, by proper address, we do as Christ did.

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We imitate him. This is just what Paul means in Romans 13 7, pay to all who is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, and here put your pocketbook aside for a moment, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

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So it's, yes, your honor. Thank you, Madam Mayor, those sorts of conventions. Remember who it is we represent, whose ambassadors we are, and how he spoke words that were gracious to everyone.

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It's worth noting also another detail in this setting with Nehemiah and Artaxerxes.

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Where Nehemiah addresses the king politely and in accordance with the expectations of that people, he does so while carrying out his duties.

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There's no ascetic here too busy with heaven to attend to earthly duties. Colossians 3 23, whatever you do work hardly as for the

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Lord and not for men. Now I wonder what might have been the outcome had the duty of wine placing being replaced with something like, oh, you want your wine?

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No, king, live forever, etc., etc., but I don't have time. I've got something else on my mind than taking care of your wine.

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I've got holy matters too consequential for me to do something so mundane as my job. That's not his attitude at all.

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If the king does not please, if he has found no favor towards the man or the project, it's all off.

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Back to Romans 13, there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

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Artaxerxes had every right by God's decree to say yes or to say no, and so he is to be treated in accordance with his

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God -given position and status. Nehemiah assures the king by his speech that he is his loyal subject.

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So what do we gain from this? In the usual course of events, God uses ordinary men and women to accomplish his aims.

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He uses people like you and people like me, and we ask, what must I do to qualify like this?

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What must I do to, like Nehemiah, have great things work through me? Well, there is no one qualification as if a night class will brush us up on our resume so that it will stand out among the thousands and millions and billions and trillions that are before God, and we might be tempted to say, faith, you need great faith.

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If you have enough faith, God will use you, and that's completely wrong. Artaxerxes was a faithless pagan, yet God used him.

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Nehemiah was a faithful saint, and God used him in conjunction with this king. I think what we learn here, what we see here,

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God working through ordinary means, ordinary people like you and me, and ordinary prayers, the kind that you and I pray.

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The kind that you and I pray, and we should pray with the expectant faith. Faith, like Hebrews 11 .6, without faith it is impossible to please

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God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists, and he rewards those who seek him.

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Too often we take that reward to those who seek him, and we make an intellectual and say, well, we know God can, and so if he doesn't, that's okay, because he's

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God, all of which is true. But let's not forget that God rewards those who seek him.

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God does in fact answer specific and expectant prayers.

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Faith includes the certainty that he rewards us, and too often I think we start out in somewhat of a defeated state.

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We start with something like, Lord, you know what I so desperately need, and if I don't get it now, well, that's okay.

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I know that you're only doing what is good and right for me, and you're sovereign, so Father, thanks for hearing me, and if you don't want to give it to me, well, okay,

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I'm fine with that. Now hear my prayer. You see, Nehemiah shows us a different course.

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His ready lips spelling out what was needed specifically and in detail proved something.

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It proved that he fully expected God to answer. He was ready for this moment. So do we pray this way?

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Do we? Do you, with faithful and confident expectation of an answer, not just a passive and I would say intellectual acquiescence that God will do what is right, so if I get no answer, that's okay, and if God chooses not to answer, that is okay, because he is

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God. But what is our expectation to be? If we read the prayers in the Bible, do we not see over and over and over again

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God specifically and timely and graciously and exactly answering?

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Do we pray this way? Do you pray this way? We have recently increased the intensity of prayer for our church.

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Is it a kind of, well, let's pray because we're supposed to and pastor's watching us, so let's pray, or it is a knees -bent, heart -subdued, childlike dependence on a

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God who can and who does answer? We pray for the needs of this church.

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But let us pray. Looking at God's will for the church, let us pray, looking at the history of God's answers to prayer.

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Read in the book of Acts. When John and Peter, excuse me, when Peter was in prison, and the church was praying for him specifically and expectantly and consistently, and as a body praying for the church that they would be spared the death of this man who was so important to them then.

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And what's the next thing that happens? The chains fell off, the door comes open, an angel guides him out.

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It's only when he leaves the gate of the prison he realizes that it wasn't a dream. Do we pray like this?

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I would suggest to you Nehemiah did. I would suggest to you Nehemiah prayed to a

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God he believed would answer. It's not presumption.

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I would call it faith. It doesn't mean that there's no God if he doesn't answer.

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But I would suggest over and over again in the Scriptures, the example we have is

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God answers our prayers. Think of little

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Judah. No money, no army, no walls, no status, soon to stand and brush off the last vestiges of that horrible defeat.

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Think of little Providence Bible Church of Sunnyvale. Are we not praying to the same God that Nehemiah prayed?

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Are we not men with a spirit like his? Was his prayer heard because of its length? May it never be.

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Its eloquence, as though the God who made language would be impressed by its use, we're hearing more and more about prayer these days.

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Three weeks ago, we finished a four -part series in Sunday School about prayer.

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You've been told that the officers of this church, now your

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Deacon Conley, your pastor, myself, have been more intensively than before praying specifically for this church, and we're calling you to pray along with us, specifically for this church.

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For many things and the needs, I will not go into detail now. You can ask me any time you want. Most of you know.

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Do we pray like this? I would suggest let's.

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When you go to God in your knees on behalf of this place, amongst all the other needs for which you properly go to God when you pray for this place,

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I would ask you, pray as Nehemiah did, ready for God to give opportunities.

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So when we say to that man, whatever opportunity that is that he gives, and we send that prayer to God, and say, so I prayed to the

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Lord God of heaven in Jesus' name, and I said to this man, we're ready, because we've been praying together intensively and expectantly, knowing that God does answer.

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I'll close with just a couple of quotes, and I know these are going to be worth quoting, because I'm going to read the

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Scripture exactly in them. The first is Paul's words in Romans chapter 8, verse 32.

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Think of this in terms of Nehemiah's prayer. And kind of prayer I'm calling us to.

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He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

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I'll let that stand on its own. And I close with Jesus' words from Luke 11 13.

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If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the

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Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this day, for giving us this opportunity around your word.

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I thank you Lord for the encouragement we have to pray, your word so many places over and over again showing that you hear, and Father that you do answer.

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And I pray that you would in this place hear the cries of your children, and that you would answer speedily to those whose knees are ever bent to you, and whose faith is set upon your