Part 8 (1/2)

THE CONVERTED CUPBEARER,

had arrived from the Persian court, and was going to build the walls of Jerusalem. There are some men who are always telling what they are going to do. Man, let the work speak for itself. You needn't blow any horns; go and do the work, and it will advertise itself.

Nehemiah didn't have any newspapers writing about him, or any placards. However, there was no small stir. No doubt every one in town was talking about it, saying that a very important personage had arrived from the Persian court; but he was there three days and three nights without telling anyone why he had come.

One night he went out to survey the city. He couldn't ride around; even now you cannot ride a beast around the walls of Jerusalem. He tried to ride around, but he couldn't, so he walked. It was a difficult task which he had before him, but he was not discouraged.

That is what makes character. Men who can go into a hard field and succeed, they are the men we want. Any quant.i.ty of men are looking for easy places, but the world will never hear of them. We want men who are looking for hard places, who are willing to go into the darkest corners of the earth, and make those dark places bloom like gardens. They can do it if the Lord is with them.

Everything looked dark before Nehemiah. The walls were broken down.

There was not a man of influence among the people, not a man of culture or a man of wealth. The nations all around were looking down upon these weak, feeble Jews. So it is in many churches today, the walls are down, and people say it is no use, and their hands drop down by their side. Everything seemed against Nehemiah, but he was a man who had the _fire of G.o.d_ in his soul; he had come to build the walls of Jerusalem. If you could have bored a hole into his head, you would have found ”Jerusalem” stamped on his brain. If you could have looked into his heart you would have found ”Jerusalem” there.

He was a fanatic; he was terribly in earnest; he was an enthusiast.

I like to see a man take up some one thing and say, ”I will do it; I live for this thing; this one thing I am bound to do.” We spread out so much, and try to do so many things, that

WE SPREAD SO THIN

the world never hears of us.

After he had been in the city three days and nights, he called the elders of Israel together, and told them for what he had come. G.o.d had been preparing them, for the moment he told them they said:

”Let us rise up and build.”

But there has not been a work undertaken for G.o.d since Adam fell which has not met with opposition. If Satan allows us to work unhindered, it is because our work is of no consequence. The first thing we read, after the decision had been made to rebuild the walls, is:

”When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?”

These men were very indignant. They didn't care for the welfare of Jerusalem. Who were they? A mixed mult.i.tude who had no portion nor right nor memorial in Jerusalem. They didn't like to see the restoration of the ruins, just as people nowadays do not like to see the cause of Christ prospering. The offence of the cross has not ceased.

It doesn't take long to build the walls of a city if you can only get the whole of the people at it. If the Christians of this country would only rise up, we could evangelize America in twelve months.

All the Jews had a hand in repairing the walls of Jerusalem. Each built over against his own house, priest and merchant, goldsmith and apothecary, and even the women. The men of Jericho and other cities came to help. The walls began to rise.

This stirred up Nehemiah's enemies, and they began to ridicule.

RIDICULE

is a mighty weapon.

”What do these feeble Jews?” said Sanballat. ”Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day?

Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?”

”Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall,” said Tobiah the Ammonite.

But Nehemiah was wise. He paid no attention to them. He just looked to G.o.d for grace and comfort:

”Hear, O our G.o.d; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity: and cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before: for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders.”