PIECES OF THE PUZZLE - WHERE ARE THE MODERN DAY NEHEMIAHS IN THE MIDST OF AN ELECTION YEAR?

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf) 

 The people of Nehemiah's day were in transition.  They probably thought the great days of God with their nation had passed, and that all of God's great deeds had been done.  They had lost any sense of mission, any sense of calling, any sense of challenge. 

As a result, they almost missed their chance to see God act powerfully among them.  They almost missed the chance to experience His reclaiming them as His beloved people all over again. 

Isn't that much as our world is today? 

Our nation has been in such a huge spiritual struggle to hold on to anything that is sure and right.  We fight for a while, sometimes; then we reach for the remote and the volume control of the radio and the television.  It is easier to ignore it and just hold on than to continue to fight.  We turn off the newscast on the television and the radio because we can’t take any more bad news.  Day after day we are more aware that we seem to be losing the battle, both on earth and in the heavenly realms.  What is happening to our ability to renew our spirits, receive our marching orders from God and move ahead? 

We have let the enemy into the camp for so long that we have become used to him being there.  He is so familiar and so everywhere around us that we just don’t even notice it is him anymore.   We have forgotten what the fight is all about.  We can’t remember why we are fighting or who we are fighting against.  We haven’t listened for a long, long time.  A whole generation of young people has grown up while we have sat still and very complacent in this condition, not moving, not protesting; just being politically correct and remaining silent.  This is all that the generation living right now has ever known. They have formed new ideas without our knowledge and experience.  They have listened to the world while we hid from things we did not want to face or confront.  How can we expect them to rise above it all when we have thrown away our hope and reason? 

Where are the Nehemiahs of today?  

The church must call them forth and put them in charge of the task of restoring the Kingdom of God to the earth.  Time is growing very short.  When Nehemiah engineered the walls and gates around Jerusalem, he also provided support and worked with the priest who was proclaiming a true and real message from God that did not conform to the culture they had come out of.  The message of God's way of life was being restored with each stone on the wall and with every gate that was hung.  Some people had forgotten the truth of the message.  It all had to be repreached and retaught.  The people of God had to relearn the things they had forgotten while away from their own true culture.  

 Thank God for Nehemiah pointing the way to Christ, and thank God if you can find a modern Nehemiah hiding in the culture where we currently live.  I pray that each and every one of them will receive their calling and come forth.  They are still out there somewhere!  God doesn’t stop calling and anointing people to do His work on this earth.  Who will answer the call?

The Church has walls and gates to rebuild! 

 In an amazing period of just 52 days - under constant threat of attack – by the help of God and the hard work of Nehemiah’s men, the walls of Jerusalem were raised.  

It was a great miracle!  Miracles have not passed away my friends.  They DO still happen, but only when we are seeking God’s will and God’s way for them to happen.  That news we keep turning off on the radio and television can change!  All it takes is a nation with a heart for God, truly committed to following His instruction book, and a few good men – like those that Nehemiah led, like those that Christ led!  Those are the men we need.  Pray every day for them to show up and come forth, and when they do – support them and help them.   Are you confused as to who our new leaders should be?  Try praying and asking God to show you.  

  

We need another such miracle of restoration with the walls around our church congregations today.  Time is drawing shorter and shorter.  The Bride must be ready.  We must begin to rebuild.  Our leaders, much like Nehemiah, must take a deep breath and start their tasks.  The work is not all out there in another land of foreign missions – the greatest mission any soldier of Christ can take on today would be to open the eyes and wake up your own local church congregation.  Why are they coming week after week?  Is it to be entertained or to worship?  Is it to learn how to best follow God or to socialize?  This is the great mission field we must conquer now.    

In congregations across the land you can hear the people of the church today groaning.   

They groan and they morn as they sit and wait for things to change.  That certainly was not the case in Nehemiah’s time.  Nehemiah was willing to DO something.  There was not any sitting and groaning and waiting!

After convincing the king that he should be allowed to go, Nehemiah made that long, hard journey to Jerusalem.  He brought with him supplies and leadership. Nehemiah had clear vision.  He knew the walls were torn down and needed rebuilding. He realized there were no gates of protection.  The people themselves needed to be rebuilt.  He set about to change things with the help and authority of God.

Have you convinced your King (Jesus) that you are ready to go to that holy place and begin to work? Have you asked him for your supplies? He will grant them just as Nehemiah was granted what he needed by the earthly king, but even Nehemiah had to ask first! 

 There is a place right here, right now that God is calling you to today.  It is located right in your own front door, in your own community, in your own local church, in your own country.  What is needed?  Just exactly what God gave you to offer. 

There are broken down walls and gates every way that you turn, in every area of the nation and all across the land.  There are dead people walking that need to be given new and eternal life.  There are churches that sit in decay and ruin because no one has invited God to come inside for quite a while.  There are poor, hungry, needy people just holding on to their very survival that need rescuing.  There are those who are being tortured by terrorist because they will not deny The One True God of Heaven and Earth.  These precious ones have been forgotten and overlooked or ignored by the very one that Christ has chosen to call His bride!  How long will it be before he notices and says, this isn’t the one I have chosen to love?

 When will the church in America return to her first love and worship God again?  

Numbers mean nothing – souls on fire for God mean everything.  

When is the last time you asked God to let His Holy Spirit fall on you and give you new direction?  

f you do this, you might be the next Nehemiah that we are looking for.  He was led of God in all that he did.

 In the days of Nehemiah, the broken walls became a metaphor for the broken people.  Nehemiah was not just mending a wall - he was mending a nation.  The nation of Israel was God’s tool for speaking to the world.  Their voice must be heard again.  The voice that God has graced the nation of America with must be revived.The broken walls of America must also be repaired.  We must once more become one nation, under God with liberty and justice for all.  Who will rise up and lead us?  Pray for God to send the right people.  

 The Church is God’s voice today for speaking to the world.  The silence must end.  The entertaining and babysitting must stop.  The real work must begin.  We need strong walls and gates.  We need brave and courageous people.  We need to love one another and get along with one another and seek God's face together.  We need to be willing to listen to what God tells us collectively, as a nation of true believers.

With Nehemiah's Godly leadership, the people of God once again became great.  This happened because they were willing to work together under God's leadership to accomplish a common goal.  The unity of our faith must be restored.  All of God’s people must once again work together.  We must quit pointing fingers at one another and bow our heads together to pray in one voice.

 In Nehemiah’s time everyone pitched in to do the work.  That is; everyone but those who opposed the work that God had led Nehemiah to do.  There will always be opposition.  Today it is stronger than ever.  We live in a world full of evil thinkers that are determined to overturn correct ideology and replace it with their own new brand of truth, which is false!  

Who will speak out and tell the truth in the face of false doctrines?  

Who will study The Word enough to be qualified to do this? 

 Back in the day of Nehemiah, there were those who did everything they could to stop the rebuilding of the walls and gates of the city.  Opposition of the church is just as rampant in our culture today.  We can expect it; but how many of us realize that our God is greater than the opposition?

 We are to be overcomers.  

We are to be builders.   

This is not the time to stop - this is the time to go to work!

Can you hear the voice of God calling your name?  Are you listening?

The Godly people of that day in which Nehemiah lived handled much adversity and opposition to obtain the restoration of their city.  

God only promised us that the Kingdom will be good.  He never said it would be either easy or safe. We must hold on to our hope.  We must keep moving forward and looking up as Nehemiah did.  With Christ as our hope, the people of God are always moving forward, always seeking God’s Face and always helping and allowing His will to prevail in the earth.

  Because of Nehemiah's Godly leadership and the people's spirit of unity, a broken, disorganized, discouraged bunch of individuals who were alienated from God and from one another by a bunch of pagan rulers transitioned into a strong, well-organized, deeply committed and proud community.  They were rededicated to God, recommitted to each other, and when this happened they began to be respected by their enemies.

God's people haven’t changed much through time.  They still face similar dilemmas and they still ask the same hard questions.  They consistently have their periods of doubt and faith.  But true men and women of God keep looking toward a river whose streams shall make glad The City of God.

Like the few good men in the days of Nehemiah, they look to the future with the hope of a restored Kingdom, where God is in the midst, and they shall not be moved.

May our hearts join in with Nehemiah’s once more!

May God’s churches be filled with faithful, true, believing, trusting, overcoming, persevering hearts again!

May the sound of Non Nobis Domine ring out again  – “Not to us Lord, not to us but to Your Name give glory.”

May new Nehemiah’s come forth and begin to rise up and build!