”
I am doing a great work and I cannot
come down. Why should the work stop
while I leave it and come down to you” (Neh. 6:3).
Hey
Gang: Nothing ever changes, it just gets
recycled under different names and titles.
Solomon, the second wisest man of all time, wrote the following: “That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done so there is nothing new
under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9).
When asked
why we continue to return to Israel, the answer come quickly about the long
list of the blessings that God has given to us in our sojourns to His chosen
land. If I were to choose one such
blessing that stands out most in my heart and mind, it would be “because it
makes the Scriptures come alive”. We visited a new place on this tour, The City
of David. The entire city is surrounded
by huge stone walls.
One wonders,
when looking at the huge stones used in these early constructions, how they
were able to lift these giant stones up and place them on the fourteen to
sixteen feet high walls, but they did have knowledge of levers and pulleys and I
am sure it also involved a heap of brute strength.
Note: One of the basic foundation stones of the
Temple mount is estimated to weigh more than twenty tons”. Keep in mind there was not a single back hoe
or crane in the land of Israel at that time and, as of this writing, they have
found no quarries in the local Temple area from which to cut such a huge stone.
As I looked
at these mammoth walls, I thought about Nehemiah and the task that laid before
him. Not only was he dealing with a
labor shortage but one did not go to the local Lowes or Home Depot to purchase
the needed material to complete the task. Add to this the hostile environment, much
like it is today; there were many who were more than a wee bit ticked to see
him rebuilding the wall and restoring the gates.
Also like
when the UN declared Israel to be a state once again a similar action took place: “Now
when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and
very angry and mocked the Jews”
(4:1). Hey, Gang, I want to share
with you a pure reality this morning that I learned in my 83 plus years on this
earth – “If you set out to do God’s work, be prepared for the attacks of the
enemy!
Nehemiah is
a wonderful book about a dedicated warrior who set out to do an impossible
task. I can identify with the challenge.
On our first trip to Israel one of our assignments was to rebuild several walls
at the Kibbutz were we were staying. We
had about the same equipment that Nehemiah had, in our early attempt to restore
the Kibbutz to living conditions. We
had a distinct advantage, the stones were still there.
Nehemiah’s
task was to take the remnants from the destruction and rebuild the walls of the
city or Jerusalem. But his task was not
limited to making the remnants work, it was also dealing with the harassment of
those who had held the city in bondage for many decades.
To make the
long story short, we find the key to Nehemiah’s success in a number of
passages. In 1:6 we read “Hear the prayer of Your servant,” and
in 1:11 “O Lord I beseech you”. And
in our scripture of the day “I am doing
a great work and I cannot come down”.
These are
very tough days, my young friends, and I fear we ain’t seen nothing yet! So when the road seems especially filled with
pot holes, keep in mind there was an old salt by the name of Nehemiah who said
“The God of heaven will give us success,
therefore we His servants will arise and build” (2:20). When God is using you to do great things for
Him, never come down from the wall.; Just dig a little deeper.
Blessings,
Gramps
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