(Rebuilding the House of the Lord) 5. the Good Hand of Our God — Roy Hession

Reading Nehemiah's Account of Jerusalem's Ruin

We are going to read the first chapter of the book of Nehemiah and a little bit of the second. These portions of scripture are narrative and of course are not as widely known I think as other parts of the scripture and Therefore we have to spend valuable time in In reading rather long portions.

But I trust you felt the grip and thrill of the story as we've done. So the words of Nehemiah the son of Hekaliah, and it came to pass in the month of Chislew in the 20th year I Was in Shushan the palace.

We're back again in Babylon. That and it came to pass that Hanani one of my brethren came he and certain men of Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped which were left of the captivity and concerning Jerusalem and They said unto me the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and the gates thereof are burned with fire and It came to pass when I heard these words. Oh Here's another one of these great men Who knew what it was to do to weep before God on behalf of his ruined city?

And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days and Fasted and prayed before the God of heaven and said I beseech thee Oh Lord God of heaven the great and terrible God that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his Commandments.

Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servants which I pray before thee now day and night for the children of Israel thy servants and Confess the sins of the children of Israel which not they but which we have sinned against thee both I and my father's house of sin.

What a beautiful identification of himself with a sinning nation though perhaps he He'd been very different from them. But in God's sight, he said I and they We have dealt very corruptly against thee and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses.

Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses saying if he transgress I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But Oh a promise of grace was given even given under the law.

But if he turn unto me and keep my commandments and do them though There were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of heaven yet from thence Will I gather you and bring them unto the place that I've chosen to set my name there.

Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand. Oh Lord, I beseech thee let now thine heir be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name and prosper.

I pray thee thy servant this day and Grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Hello. Something's come into his heart. I Thought he was just having prayer. He's beginning to move and Grant him mercy in the sight of this man for I was the King's cupbearer and it came to pass in the month Nisan in the 20th year of Artaxerxes the king that wine was before him and I took up the wine and gave it unto the king.

Now I had not been before time sad in his presence. Wherefore the king said unto me Why is thy countenance sad? Seeing thou art not sick. This is a true and a godly sadness how little of it we know. But it's always a decree of God beginning to operate when this burden comes upon a saint.

Wherefore the king said why is thy countenance sad seeing that not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid and said unto the king let the king live forever. Why should not my countenance be sad?

When the city the place of my father's sepulchre sepulchres Lies waste and the gates thereof are consumed with fire. Then the king said it to me for what does thou remake request? So I prayed to the God of heaven and I said unto the king if it pleased the king and If thy servant have found favor in thy sight That thou would send me unto Judah under the city of my father's sepulchres That I may build it goodness.

Nehemiah's Petition and the Good Hand of God

What a conception. He's just nobody. Just a king's cup bearer. This is how God works With one man and the king said unto me the Queen also sitting by him. For how long shall thy search journey be and when wilt thou return?

So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time. Moreover I said of the king I Say he's getting bold. He's been encouraged by the Lord if it pleased the king let letters could be given me to the governors beyond the river That they may convey me over till I come unto Judah and a letter to unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest That he give may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace Which appertain to the house and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall enter into.

And the king granted me according to the good hand of my God upon me. Then I came to the governors beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had set sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.

When sand ballot the hollow knight and to bar 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. So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days and I arose in the night I and some few men with me.

Neither told I any man what my foot my God had put into my heart to do at Jerusalem. Neither was any beast with me save the beast that I rode upon. And I went out by night by the gate to the valley even before the dragon well and to the dung port and view the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and The gates thereof were consumed with fire.

Then I went on to the gate of the fountain and to the king's pool. But there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass was all rubble. Then went I up in the night by the brook and viewed the wall and turned back and entered by the gate of the valley and so returned and The rulers knew not whether I went or what I did.

Now that neither had I as yet told it to the Jews nor to the priests nor to the nobles. Nor to the rulers nor to the rest that did the work. Then said I unto them ye see the distress. Revised version of 1881 says you see the evil case that we are in how Jerusalem lies waste and The gates thereof are burned with fire.

Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach. Then I told the poor boys listen to this he said. I told them of the good hand of my God was good upon me. Don't you realize the time the set time to favor Zion has come look at these indications.

What an encouragement they'd got used to those broken-down walls. Then I told them of the good of the hand of my God, which is good upon me as also the king's words. It had spoken unto me, and they said let us rise up and build so they strengthened their head for this good work.

Good reading isn't it? What a story and I think you know once we just we've got on this line of seeing the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem a picture of the reviving of the saints of the Church of God.

Every succeeding chapter has a further picture to show us of this great work of grace. That God is doing today the work of Reviving I say again. It isn't the building of the city. It's the rebuilding and what God is after is not the revival of the Church, but the revival for Jerusalem.

Yet lies waste, but it's very emptiness and ruin rightly understood if it's confessed is its Qualification for the grace of God for grace specializes in ruins. Grace wouldn't be grace if there were some merit in its object.

Grace is only grace when the one love is in ruins. It's so wonderful this you can't be defeated really. Here am I talking about the set time to favor Zion has come and I can feel absolutely stuck. I can try and give a message and get nowhere.

That's no different that makes no difference why that very fact if acknowledged is my qualification for what grace has got. This is wonderful. This is the way now this great work of reviving the city.

The Three Phases of Restoration

Took place in various phases first of all as we've seen there was through the edict of Cyrus king of Persia. The return of some 50 ,000 Exiles an initial return headed by the rubble the civil governor and Joshua the high peace priest.

These men they were it very weak very feeble and they were aghast at what they saw and what had to be done and they needed all the Encouragement that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah could give them indeed that initial rebuilding of the temple owed more to Haggai and Zechariah Than to sir rubber bull and Joshua for their hands grew weak and they felt so unworthy and high.

Joshua felt himself anything but a high priest and he had to have given to him to his Encouragement that great chapter in Zechariah, you know of the vision of the high priest standing before the Lord in filthy garments.

And grace saying you take them off put the right ones on and a crown on his head. He's more to me than he realizes. By grace, he's a bigger man than he thinks he is. You know very often grace has to tell you you're a smaller man than you think you are.

But grace often has to tell you you're more than you think you are, but if you're joined to Christ. Terrible as it says in the Song of Solomon as an army with banners. And when you stand up for speak for Christ and give that testimony, you don't know how people tremble.

You don't know how just how embarrassed they are. Oh. The encouragement to rise to our stature in the Lord Jesus. Yes, we need it sometimes one way, but we also need it the other way and they got just this sort of ministry from Haggai I and Zechariah and so it was the first thing they did you remember they set up the altar and instituted the burnt offerings.

Then with great joy, they laid the foundations. And then you remember after a long delay where there was a great story about that they got beyond the foundations and the house of the Lord was completed and that as we saw is a picture of how we in a parlous state can be met by Jesus and by grace the house of the Lord the habitation of God.

Which we were intended to do be and which is line race could be reconstructed first the altar of Calvary then as We go on deeper with the Lord. We become what we were intended to be a habitation of God by the Spirit.

That was the first stage. The second stage was the coming of Ezra and that if you please was 60 years later and Though Ezra came from Babylon with great grants from the king to beautify the house. His real work was a work of reformation.

He discovered you remember we thought yesterday that the people had not separated themselves from the people of the land and were doing after Their abominations and all because they had begun to intermarry with foreign Heathen women we hadn't got time we haven't even today to talk about the whole question of Is it's right for a Christian to marry a worldly?

This would suggest it's contrary to the mind of God, but That's another subject. But what we did see there do you remember we saw that though this was in a sense a revival of the national life that revival needed to be revived and They were in peril of losing everything again.

Because of sin the very sins that had caused the destruction of Jerusalem in the first place they begin to play with a game and So it is with us. We saw that any work of grace and revival in our hearts or in our group or in our church Invariably needs to be revived.

Because it's so easy to get to go easy on sin. It's so easy to begin to live with things that want for you to repent of. And the life of the spirit within us ends, and we looked at psalm 85 will thou not revive us again?

It's a double again there because the again is included in the word Revival. In other words what's David said or whoever it was asset who wrote the psalmist will tell you at the heading. I haven't got in for me.

What thou not do? You're again work again. That's the prayer. Will thou not do your again work? Again in other words revival is to be continuous and Norman Grubb has a book called continuous Revival and the Lord Jesus is the one Who is here constantly?

They'd be putting back as the gift of grace. What sin? Robs us off. It's not enough to look back to a past experience. And now this morning we come to the third phase the coming of Nehemiah. You see the work of revival is not done in a day the damage is so extensive.

One visit to cleave you may see something else, but that's the mere beginning. We don't know how big the damage has been in our lives. One man once said to me. He said you know there are so many things I'm convicted of.

What do I do. I said begin with the first thing? And after the first thing I show you the second thing and. So there was a so much as 12 years later Nehemiah comes from Babylon. Now his great work was not the temple but the wall.

The temple there was. But the walls were still broken down and the gates still burnt with fire. It was still anything, but a city. True he did have a ministry like Ezra he had a ministry to challenge the incoming of civil injustice and The oppression of one another in the matter of mortgages.

He had a ministry of challenging and correcting certain infringements of the divine law. Had that had crept in and like Ezra he looked at all these things in the light of revival. And he had the same thing, but this is the very thing that caused the trouble and you're going back to them.

And he was moved by the fear of the Lord and he got them under it. To put them things right less that little reviving that God had begun to give them should be lost again. But his great burden.

Was the walls. The walls he said the walls.

And he learned in faraway Babylon that there was a temple the walls were broken down and the gates burned. With fire and in spite of the fact that the people had been in occupation all that time Nothing had been done about the walls.

And what was a city without walls in those days? There was nothing to differentiate that city from any other part of the country and of course in those days. They were without Anything to protect it. So this is near mask and so the walls the walls.

And it began with certain ones coming from Judah back to Babylon, and he was quick to ask them how things are going how are things are going. Do we ask one another that? Someone we've had deep fellowship with with here at Clevedon, and they had such a going test to me when you beat them.

How things are going brother not how is your health. Not even how is the church organization game? How things are going with you? I? Think we ought to ask one another that how's it with Jerusalem the Jerusalem in your heart or the Jerusalem in your little sect?

And he got a sad story. And they said unto me the remnants are left to the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and Reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down and the gates are burned with fire.

And this really got near my bless his heart although They got the temple. Although the altar was having the burnt offerings burnt upon it, and you might say well. That's a wonderful Change is marvelous.

This is surely a revival of the national life. No, it not wasn't was only a beginning. They were still in great affliction and reproach. And it could be true of us. Maybe thank God many of us have a story to tell and a testimony to give of what?

Grace has done with regard to the house of the Lord that has lain so waste in our lives. Maybe we've got a story to tell how we know the value of the blood of Christ and the burnt offering on our behalf and Though we've had blessed experiences of being a habitation of God by the spirit being filled with his spirit.

You can nonetheless still be in great affliction and Reproach praise the Lord what he's done, but man the work of renewal. Which grace is after in spite of all the time and all the blessings We've had has really barely begun and you can still Have to confess.

You're in great need. Oh. It's more than happened more than once happened in our team gatherings. Some of my brethren who've been such a blessing to us. Who've ministered sometimes from this platform in the intimacy of a small gathering they said brethren?

Terribly needy. I'm in great need and they share a story and they aren't exaggerating. Though they know much of grace reaching their need of Jesus reviving what was lost. They sometimes have to confess I do.

I'm in great need. I've come to this conference in parlor state. There's a dear brother. I love so much in Canada and God has anointed this man Bill Liner and his wife Cletus and they've gone through the churches of Western Canada and the fire of God has followed them.

And when Pam and I went we met minister after minister who told of a new life new chapters life. When bill liner came when bill liner came when bill liner came, but when we had a conference of leaders in California this last time with Stanley Bill liner was the first to say brethren.

I'm so down I'm so discouraged when I go around in this work. I feel so lonely. And oh, I'm losing something. This man, although the foundations are much else of these things there. He yet had to confess He was in great you see revival is grace Restoring what we've lost I said and To know what we've really lost by sin.

You don't have to compare yourself with six months ago when you were so rejoicing and on top. You don't have to look back to the day when the early days of your Christian life when you're so happy and free and compare It with the things now.

Oh, I've lost so much. Do you know where you've got to go back to to see what you've lost? To the Garden of Eden and you see the thing that's caused the loss is not merely our current failures and Disobediences, but the fall of Adam and what revival is is not merely restoring me by grace to when I was a year ago, but restoring me to that happiness and that relationship with God that our first father and Which was a loss.

Revival is a bigger work than many this little a current thing being put right and therefore it's a lifetime Of work, there's no writer that I've read and I'm not a great reader. Wish I was I only seem to read the things that Catch my spiritual interest and see s Lewis did yet years ago.

And I don't know any writer who has thought so deeply Into what the unfallen relationship with God was. If you want to think along these lines I suggest you get his book the problem of pain when it's on the bookstore or not I don't know and you turn to his chapter on the fall of man and You read with attention his description of what he calls the paradisal man.

And if that doesn't make you cry on the inside, I don't know what will it made me. We haven't time to go into what it was. Oh That time for the relationship with us now the thing called duty it was all delight when the Expected good which didn't come Was not mourned over but the given good was embraced without a moment Disappointment oh, I can't go into it.

It's a study in itself and after all it was not loved not told us, but thank God for the few I've tried to think there's another book of his that did something to me along the same line voyage to Venus.

Where you have the fantastic? space fiction story quite crazy of How the fall was narrowly averted on Venus? On all my That the understanding you get of what man was meant to be before the fall and as I read these books I said is that what I was meant to be I had a sort of Nostalgia for a different sort of life.

I've known anything about even as a Christian. And then I saw why that is the experience and place to which grace is Is Restoring me and I came to know something about brokenness Before I ever heard what I was seeing described by that word.

Yeah. Place Where a man looked upon even the necessities of life as uncovenanted mercy. Where it was as great as joy and delight to give up his rights to God. Oh, I can't go into it. Oh That's where God's bringing in.

That's revival. It's God putting back. What sinners lost. But the overall picture is bringing us back there now in the story that which burdened Nehemiah and Which Israel had lost? Where the walls? The walls.

Sanctification as the Rebuilding of the Walls

There's much else they lost but just now the walls and the walls was where those things which Separated them from the rest of the country and from their enemies and what man has lost and what grace wants to put back the nice big word for you is sanctification and We read in the Old Testament again again.

I am the Lord that does sanctify you and this word sanctify means separate you Separate you from evil and from a godless world and separate you unto myself. Please turn the cassette over now do not fast wind it in either direction and the word sanctify means separate you Separate you from evil and from a godless world and separate you unto myself and this is what?

Nehemiah was so burdened about and Eventually through his initiative we'll see more of that in a moment and the good hand of his God upon him. Lovely phrase. He shared his vision with the people. He told them all the mighty encouragement said he'd got from God and from the king and they began to rebuild the wall.

Every man opposite opposite his house, and I believe those men rebuilt in penitence I Believe as they put brick upon brick. They said this war would never have been broken down. But for my sin and that of my father.

There's no Experience of grace save on the path of penitent. You see the Christian life or revival is not a good Christian getting better. It's a Christian seeing all through his life parts of the wall That had been broken down new parts that have been broken back down and which grace has never yet touched and which grace needs to repair and that man Coming to Jesus to do it now.

I've been trying to choose my words with care this morning, and I've used this word grace. We mustn't use words unless they're defined. Someone had said it complained in a previous week. There's a sort of cliche that comes out grace.

We never hear that word in the world. You aren't using a word that's in current use. Yet it keeps on coming out. Well of course you don't get that world in the work that word in the world because there isn't Any grace in the world?

Rightly understood this they don't treat one another that way. I Give we another what each deserves. It's seeing where the walls have been broken down and where grace needs to repair them and Coming for Jesus for him to do it.

What is grace? The difference between love and grace. I've said this so often it cannot be repeated more often too much love. Well the love of God. It's on all. But grace is a little different is still love love Becomes grace when the object of that love doesn't deserve it.

When they argue that love is miserable, and he's miserable because he's culpable and the more culpable and wrong a person The more is he the object and candidate for grace? The moment I've got to qualify by some improvement by turning over a new leaf or improving some.

Grace is no more grace. That's what Paul says in Romans 11 have a look at it. If you want a definition of this word that we're using this morning here. It is Romans 11 verse 6 if by grace. Then is it no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace and This restoring of the city of God is a work of grace.

Sometimes I've heard people pay Lord in this meeting to a work of grace. I said that's right. Oh, it'll have to be a work of great because I'm having to preach a work of grace. Oh, I bet my faith began to rise if they said all may the man give a mighty message.

I get small Lord a work of grace. Yes, the preacher needs it. It's gonna be something God doing without respect to our worthiness. Without respect to the fact that we're such failures provided we admit it.

And what he does in heart is going to be a work of Grace. Does cleansing proceed grace or grace proceed cleansing grace proceeds. We can over emphasize. I must be clean to be used and therefore you make your repentance of work and therefore if you're a preacher as it the great our company got him to give an important message because you can have ever so much.

More scrupulous you repent of this you tend to that you say sorry to your wife and sorry to the children. That's works. You think that by all that you're going to be used. My dear friend on that basis.

I'm finished. I've done all that. But I said Lord if they think I'm this that and the other I'll tell you Lord. They think the truth. And I accept anything The Spirit shall say but I'm not gonna. I'm going as an empty man.

And the wonderful thing is when grace is really expensive on that ground you do naturally and spontaneously. Repent or pray or surrender. Or go after this one and that one because you know. You're not another ground altogether, and I want to tell you grace is always produces results where law doesn't.

Oh. Illegal preaching sounds mighty what you've got to do, but it doesn't get anywhere. See why don't you talk about doing this and so winning in prayer because it wouldn't get you anywhere. You've only got to see Jesus as the one who's the embodiment of this grace and keep coming to him and the result will be abounding labors for Christ.

Grace faith or grace work is by love. Nothing engages the heart in love for Jesus as to be much forgiven. That's the man who'll be extravagant in his devotion and service to Jesus and so it is I Am to see progressively new parts of the wall that have been broken down broken down since Adam fell a Disrepair that I've inherited from him but which you're responsible to see and recognize that grace needs to repair it and With which you must come to Jesus himself.

Who is the mediator embodiment of the grace of God? Now my friends I see here a completely new conception of the Christian life. I think this has been my conception for years now. But I've never quite been able to verbalize it quite as I feel perhaps I'm.

I don't know whether I'll succeed. I might be able to this morning. Anyhow, here's a picture. The Christian life is not a Christian getting better and better but a Christian Progressively seeing new parts of the wall.

That have never been touched and seeing as he admits it. He's a candidate for the grace of God and coming to Jesus. He might do it now. This will help somebody who finds it difficult this Reiteration of repentance is the last word in the gospel that is known and loved amongst us evangelicals.

Ongoing Repentance and Growth in Grace

Now if this is a Christian if this is a right concept of the Christian life. Then obviously progress in the Christian life is simply progress in recognizing new parts of the wall that need repairing not.

I can't do it. But he can but I've got to see them. He can't Obviously deal with that which I don't acknowledge. He needs that cooperation at least from me. Though sometimes grace changes things without you knowing he did people say what a difference.

But by and large this is the apartment so it is how if this is right if this picture is right How can there be growth in grace? Without continual seeing recognizing new parts of the wall that have broken down new trades.

That you've lived with never seen to be said that part of the wall man has been broken down since Adam fell and you've inherited It but we've lived with it. I've learned to give you my testimony how God has to show me new parts of the wall that have been broken down that I've never recognized and never let Jesus deal with and give me mercy about and restore and change.

Last week, I think it was there was a something seemed to go wrong with the serving of the tables and table was perhaps left without plates or something and I Got a bit stirred up because feeling sort of responsible.

I suppose in any case doesn't take much to get me stirred up I'm afraid. And so I got up to the table and I talked to the girl as I thought and just told her That it hadn't been done and so on. Later in that day.

She was in tears and when someone was it my wife went to her. She was very sensitive girl and she was in tears. She said mr. Hessian hates me and she said why will he shouted at me? Well, I admit that I possibly had spoken sharply to her but I Didn't want to call it shouting.

But I've had it told to me more than once that I don't recognize how strong I sound. And ultimately after a struggle I said, all right Lord. I'll admit the word shout. And I don't think it was humility.

It must have been so and then what didn't I show me a particular sin that needed acknowledging and confessing. He said here's a whole area. That's course this isn't the first time that people have found what you think you're talking to anyway, is that this over strong Man how can you grow in grace without repentance if this is the Christian life and I dare to say it is.

Never is the Christian life a Christian good Christian getting nicer and nicer. It's a Christian progressively seeing new areas of all that have long since been burnt with fire. As a Lord I admit it and he becomes a candidate for what Jesus does for such people and he knows how to build up that wall and put it to rights and So that his disposition is progressively Revealed in us.

Does that help anybody and people do stumble we admit it and we don't put it very well. Clevedon is classic for its for its feebleness is in its mistakes. And someone was having a great battle of what said here and he said yeah.

Well, anyway, it must be right because some people feel people get blessed. Well, we aren't right. My goodness, are we feeding our way, but we're trying to feed our way with others to learn together. What are hidden secrets in the Christian life?

If you see From whence art fallen you'll never believe that that cannot be a place for regressively seeing. From whence we've fallen and progressively coming to a Jesus who ahead of time in his death and endless life.

Which is imparted to us has made provision for it. Well. So we could really end there. Mercifully we have some time. Because I always remind myself that have had to take time with the notices. And I tell the other speakers to I said we always have to steal something of time so you can go beyond the half hour somewhat.

From Personal Revival to Wider Spiritual Awakening

Now can we switch to another side now? We have been seeing in this story Pictorial illustration of great eternal New Testament truths. I don't know that you'd call them even New Testament truths. They were truths long before the New Testament was ever written.

But it's a pictorial representation and Sometimes we switched as we've tried to apply it. Sometimes the the revival of which we speak is something that's happened in your life. And other times we speak of it as something needs to happen in our church or in our nation and.

Both applications, of course are valid provided we do make it clear that we sometimes apply it this way. I'm trying to apply it this way and sometimes the other way now. For a last bit may I apply it on this wider way because what God does in one heart.

He wants to do in many hearts and If revival is not merely a saint having restored that which is foolishness was restored has lost but if it is this wider thing of grace gathering out of people of lost sinners to restore To where Adam was indeed to a better place for in Christ the sons of Adam boasts more blessings than their father lost.

If that's what God's after Revival will not only be The reviving of the Saints but life coming to the spiritually dead. You really cannot distinguish between the two. Now in this great work of God he invariably uses a man.

He doesn't stay with one man. Many other men are brought in to the new thing that God's doing in some place. But it's so often begins with one man and In this question of the rebuilding of the walls it began with one man Nehemiah.

Now you've perhaps heard the famous saying that was blessed to deal moody the world has yet to see What God can do with one man? Fully Surrendered to him and that certainly stirs faith, and there's real truth in it, but there's danger.

So I'd like to be the one man I'd like to for the world to see what God could do with one man. Who's fully straight if I'm the one man and so there's danger along this line because it appeals too much to our egoism and Yet the fact remains God begins with one man the safeguarding thing is the one man with whom God is beginning has no idea What is going to lead to?

He's no idea the world will even see it. When God began with two men as it was in in Uganda with Joe Church and Simeonius of Bambi. They were just two flops and failures who are telling Jesus they were So burdened not anywhere their own state with the state of the church in which they were.