Tuesday, June 24

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Nehemiah 2:1-8
In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.
I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?
The king said to me, What is it you want?
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.
Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
I also said to him, If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the royal park, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?And because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests.

One of the things we saw while in the Clinton Presidential Library were towering glass-enclosed shelves stacked with row after row of boxed documents. There must have been several dozen of these huge floor to ceiling cases, each containing hundreds of neatly stacked blue boxes.

A little sign said that the boxes were filled with the paperwork describing requests received by the President, and that these boxes represented only 3-4% of all the presidential documents, which numbered some 80 million pages.

Whoa.

80 million pages in 8 years! Thats a million pages a year or over 2,700 pages a day. Thats also a testament to the power of the presidency.

The book of Nehemiah tells us that the man Nehemiah worked for a very powerful man.


Nehemiah 2:1-8
In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.
I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?
Artaxerxes is considered by historians to have been generally magnanimous and kind; at least as far as emperors in the ancient world go. Even so, one did not want to be presumptive in the presence of an all-powerful monarch.
One ancient historian records a time when Artaxerxes went hunting with a group of his finest warriors. When a lion attacked their group, one of the men used his spear to kill the lion. But in killing the lion himself he violated the protocol of allowing the king the privilege of delivering the killing blow. Artaxerxesfirst response was to have the man executed by decapitation for the offense. He was eventually convinced to spare the mans life and sent him into exile instead. But we can assume that working daily in the presence of a King could be quite dangerous!
As cupbearerNehemiah likely ran the daily affairs of the King, serving as a kind of chief of staff.In this respect he would have been a trusted confidant of the King as well.
But, and this is very important to understand, he was not there to make requests or to ask favors of the King.
Notice that when Nehemiah comes in the King immediately knows from the look on his face that something is wrong.
I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.
A couple of things here:
First: How well do you have to know someone to know at a glance that something is wrong? This is a 20-year relationship, so even though Artaxerxes is a King and Nehemiah just his cupbearer, they know each other well.

Second: notice that Nehemiah says, I had not been sad in his presence before...

I think Nehemiah is hinting that this was an intentional decision on his part.

Think about it; its been four months since he heard the news about Jerusalem. For four months hes been mourning and fasting and praying before the God of heaven but this is the first time he let his guard down before the King.

Why?

Nehemiah had not let his sadness show because it was very dangerous to show emotion before the King! Persian monarchs required that those who served them refrain from bringing personal issues into their presence. To reveal ones emotional state was seen as a sign of great disrespect.

So, this was a very risky thing to do and we can now understand why Nehemiah admits that he was very afraid.


But we learn from history that the month of Nissan was the beginning of the Persian year and that New Years celebrations were traditionally a time of favors and generosity from the King. Therefore, we can see that Nehemiah may have been willing to take this risk because it was the most opportune time to approach the King with his vision for Jerusalem.

We started the series by learning that Nehemiah allowed his heart to be broken by that which broke the heart of God; the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and its gates were burned with fire and therefore the people were in trouble and disgrace.

Then we saw that Nehemiah mourned and prayed before the God of heaven.

Now we see that he is ready to take courageous and risky action to accomplish the purposes of God.

Is there any way in which God might be calling you to take courageous or risky action for his purposes? Is he calling you to serve; to reach out to someone; or to give in a way that stretches you to the point of discomfort or even fear?

It took Nehemiah four months of prayer and fasting to get up the nerve to approach King Artaxerxes; but he did it because he was convinced that it was what God wanted him to do.

May we follow Nehemiahs example; may we pray, pray and pray some more; then may we do what he is calling us to do!



Pastor Brian Coffey

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