Nehemiah 1--Why We Need Walls

Nehemiah was a Jew among the exiles who were carried away into Babylon in 587 BC. Israel and Judah had once been a great people, but now they had fallen because of their sins.  While they were in captivity, their captors—the Babylonians— had themselves been conquered by the Persian Empire. 

One day his brother Hanani came to visit.  He was among a small group who returned to Jerusalem after the exile.  He brought bad news in verses 1-3.

Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the capital,   that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, "The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire."

Jerusalem was in trouble because it had no wall. A wall was necessary for the survival of any city.  Without a wall, a city had no integrity. How could you know where your city begins and ends? Without a wall, a city had no defense.  How do you keep robbers and animals out?  Without a wall, no one wanted to live there. Who wants to settle in a defenseless place?  Without a wall, a city had no sense of identity.  Where do you hand your royal banners?

The Babylonians had torn down the physical wall of the city, but before Babylonians had torn down the physical wall the proud, sinful leaders of the city had already destroyed the spiritual and culture wall that surrounded the nation. They followed foreign gods until they saw no difference in their minds between Israel and the surrounding countries. They encouraged commerce and borrowed customs until it made little difference whether they were Jewish or Gentile.  What's the point of maintaining the wall if you have nothing unique inside?  What's the point of defending some piece of land that is no safer or more beautiful than the places outside the wall? 

Whenever a community comes together, there must be a sense of difference between what is inside and what is not. This is our spiritual wall.  Without it, the physical wall makes little difference. 

Every church has an invisible spiritual boundary.  This wall serves as our protection, defense and corporate identity. Part of that wall is our denominational and/or doctrinal affiliation that makes us different from other religions and even other Christian denominations.  This wall protects us from heretics and schismatics. 

Another part is the individual, God-given vision for a local church. This is why we exist separately as an institution.  We are not just Presbyterian, Baptist, or Methodist churches, but we are called to this  community,  this ministry, or this kind of approach to God's Word.  

Other Christian churches will have different walls, and they are entitled to do so.  Having walls does not mean that those on the outside are enemies.  They are our friends and allies who have their own and different walls.  They are entitled to draw their lines wherever they wish.  Our walls give us and them to freedom to exist independently, in a mutually supportive relationship.  Poet Robert Frost once wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.”  Our different walls delineate us from others, define our sole responsibility, and give us freedom to be who we are. 

When Jesus walked the earth, He operated within the walls of Palestinian Judaism. He did not turn away those on the outside, but worked mainly on the inside of that wall.  In time His kingdom expanded across the whole earth, and created a new entity called the church. But Jesus understood the need for ministry within the covenant family of Israel until the time of fulfillment. Only when it was all done did He send His disciples beyond the wall to the world at large.  

In Ephesians Paul wrote about the "wall of separation" which existed in his day between Jew and Gentile, and how the wall came down in Christ.  This was not a condemnation of walls but a creation of a new community in Christ.  The wall to Paul was Christ.  Within that wall we are one city.  When the walls go down, there is no defense. Vision needs to be nurtured within community. Without that nurture time, our vision becomes weak and fragile.

For a long time, our church has attempted to function without a clearly defined central vision. We know who we used to be, but we didn’t know who we are now. Our church wall needs to be restored, rebuilt and refined. For that reason we have been meeting with the elders to seek to redefine what the vision of the church is today.  This is not a process that can be accomplished in a day or a month, maybe not even in a year, but it must be accomplished. Just as Jerusalem needed a wall around it if it was ever to become a great city, so we must have a wall around us if we are ever to again become a great church. That visionary definition is all important. 

When Nehemiah found that the wall had not been rebuilt, he understood exactly what it meant. No city can be great without a wall around it.  Nehemiah couldn't rebuild the wall, and neither could the people who had returned.  Nehemiah became very sad and troubled.

Being sad and troubled  isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes if we don’t get upset, nothing gets done.  God allows trouble in our lives to move us on to greater things.  So here is what he did in verse 4

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

His prayers were not mechanical.  He really got down and wept. Not only did he pray, but he also fasted.  Fasting is a sign of mourning. He took his sadness and despondency and turned it over to God.  

People often talk about the “power of prayer.”  Actually, our prayer has no power—the power is all in God's hands. Prayer is simply asking for God’s power. God does not answer prayer according to some magic formula, but He answers people  who seek His help before they seek the help of others.  They ask with passion and purpose. These are the kinds of people who may be turned into conduits for His power.  Nehemiah was such a person, as evidenced by his passionate prayers and fasting. Nehemiah wanted this more than he wanted food, his high position or his own safety. That was why God could use him.

Nehemiah was in an impossible position to help.  Yet God used him to rebuild the wall. You may think God cannot use you--that you are too old, too weak, too busy or too young.  You may be asking if there is someone else. God may raise us up as leaders to rebuild the wall, but first we must be willing to get passionate about it.

Nehemiah’s prayer is found in 5-11. 

"O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

He acknowledged God’s kingship.  God can do whatever He wants. If He wanted Jerusalem’s wall not to be built and Jerusalem to perish--so be it. Second, Nehemiah recognized His power.  He is an awesome God.  If God wanted Jerusalem’s walls to be rebuilt and Jerusalem to be a great city again, He has the power to rebuild the wall out of nothing.  Third, Nehemiah recognized God’s promise God made to Israel and claimed that promise on behalf of God's people. No human institution  will exist forever. But He will never leave us or forsake us. If we are faithful in fulfilling what God wants us to do, then our church will be blessed with a long life within the walls of God's promise and purpose.

Then he confessed his own and his country's failures. He didn’t just say “God, we had bad leadership.” Blaming gains nothing. 

The first sin mankind ever committed was almost immediately acknowledged and confessed--not by the person who committed the first sin, but by the person who committed the second one as a means of avoiding their own responsibility! Adam blamed Eve for the Fall.  Not only did he blame Eve, but he also blamed God for giving her to to him.  “God that woman you gave me caused this!” 

Suppose Adam had been willing to bear his own responsibility for the Fall, confessing his own sin and working to restore the spiritual wall around Eden that sin broke. If he had taken responsibility instead of blaming his wife, history might have been very different!  We all must take responsibility--either we caused the wall to fall, or we allowed it to happen. Nehemiah did not dwell on the past--he looked forward to the future. Repentance is turning our back to the past, not wallowing in remorse. His acknowledgement of the problem was a prerequisite to God changing the future. 

Because our wall has not been maintained, we have been scattered abroad, weakened and almost destroyed. But if we regain God's vision and again obey His Word, and rebuild that wall, God will surely bring us back. That vision will not be the same as the first vision, but it will be a great one-- better, clearer, and more suited to today.

Our job is not to rebuild the old wall, but make a new one.  In the end, the latter glory of the city can be greater than the first. One day we will reach out beyond these walls and become a great influence in the world again. But we must keep things in order. First we pray. Then we build the wall. Afterward, we will conquer the rest of the country. In the end, all will be done in its proper order, and God will be glorified again.