A National Revival
Begins with The Butler

Nehemiah 2-3

James R. Davis

In the book of Joel the prophet has sensed that the day of the Lord is at hand. He knows that God is coming in judgment upon Israel. He understands Israel's deepest need. Joel describes in urgent, intense tones the appropriate response: "Awake! . . .Weep! . . . Howl! . . . Lament! . . . Fast! . . . Call a solemn assembly . . . Cry unto the Lord . . . Blow the trumpet . . . sound an alarm . . . Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart . . . Gather the people . . . assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, 'Spare Thy people, O Lord . . .!'" 1

"Do you get the picture? Something is very wrong and grave serious action is needed! The situation is so critical that everyone is to stop whatever they are doing--even nursing mothers and couples on their honeymoons!--to cry out to the Lord for mercy." 2 The sad part about this urgent need is that the people didn't recognize the urgency of the hour. They couldn't see their need for such a revival.

Revival Is for Those Who Are Broken

The Bible reveals that the greatest men and women of faith were those who had a clear understanding of the wretched sinfulness of their own lives. Isaiah said, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Paul said, "I am chief of sinners." The publican came to God praying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Jesus ate with publicans and sinners because they were the only ones who understood their need of what he had to offer. The healthy have no need of a physician.

When we come to the book of Nehemiah the Israelites have experienced the severity of God's mercy. The Israelites had lost everything near and dear as a result of the judgment of God. They were captives in a foreign land. The people who are living in Jerusalem are living in disgrace. Ezra has made a failed effort to revive the homeland. Nehemiah hears about the sad condition and he weeps mourns, fasts and prays to the God of heaven. (Neh 1:4) Nehemiah has personally felt the severity of God's mercy and he cries out.

Nehemiah 1:5-7
Then I said: "O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

Nehemiah not only understands the need but he also understands what has brought them to be in such deep need. "I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses." God had removed his protection from Israel to allow them to come to the end of their rope. The severity of God's mercy brought them to a place where they understood that no human abilities could save them. He brought them to a place where they could see their need of him . . . he broke them. Then Nehemiah sat down and prayed this prayer recognizing his failure and his need of God's help.

There are many formulas given today for church growth. There are a lot of ideas for new programs, for better classes, for a different kind of worship and for new songs. There have been a lot of church house brawls over these sorts of things. We forget that Christianity is not methodology or technique; it is an entirely different revolutionary principle of life. You can only wonder . . . is all this strife an indication of a much deeper need among God's people today? You might wonder if this is a sign of the severe hand of God's merciful judgment? Is God endeavoring to bring about a great awakening among his people? Is there something that God wants us to understand? Is there a need that we refuse to see?

Today We Need the Gracious Hand of God

In chapter one Nehemiah had prayed in the month of Kislev, which is close to our December. Nehemiah prayed, "They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man." I was cupbearer to the king. (Nehemiah 1:10-11). In chapter two it is the month of Nisan, which is close to our April. Four or five months have elapsed and Nehemiah has not brought the matter before the king. Months of praying with no answer leave Nehemiah sad. It was no small thing to come before a king of ancient times with a sad face. You could be killed.

Neh 2:1-5
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 fathers 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 fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it."

Suddenly out of the blue the king asks, "What is it you want?" You can only wonder at the tone of the king's voice. You can only wonder at how many times that Nehemiah rehearsed to himself exactly what he was going to say. But Nehemiah says that he immediately prayed to the God of heaven. I don't envision Nehemiah falling on his knees in prayer to God as he stood before the king. I envision a mental prayer. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the prayer he prayed, "Oh Lord, if there was ever a time that I needed to say the right thing, it is now! Please God help me!"

Nehemiah 2:6-8
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 king's forest, 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 upon me, the king granted my requests.

The church today needs the gracious hand of God to be upon her. When Daniel was carried to Babylon as a young man, God was with him. "Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs." (Daniel 1:9) When Joseph was sold into slavery, Stephen said, " . . . but God was with him and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of the Pharaoh king of Egypt, and made him governor over Egypt and all his house." (Acts 7:9-10) Paul said, " . . . God . . . put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus . . . " for the Corinthians. In every instance we see the gracious hand of God upon his people. God can place his gracious hand upon you in a very special way. He still works his wonders to perform. He is the same God today. He may not rain Manna out of heaven but he still works in broken contrite hearts. This is the kind of revival that we need today. God wants to start that revival in your life.

What Is God Trying to Place In Your Heart?

Nehemiah said, "I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem." This tells us that Nehemiah's heart was open for instruction. God had placed in Nehemiah's heart what he wanted Nehemiah to ask for. It is amazing what God can do with a broken heart. A heart that is open for instruction. God can't do that unless your heart is open. God can't do that unless your heart is broken. Have you ever seen someone with a deep need, a need that you could help meet, but you knew that his or her heart was closed. Their eyes are closed and their ears are stopped.

A man knocked on my door one evening. He said, "I want to become a Christian. I have lived an ungodly life and I have lost my job and I need God." His wife was already a Christian. He had never shown anything but disdain for the church. But he was broken. Fifteen years later he is a song leader and has remained faithful.

Another person who had destroyed his life through sinful living woke up one day to the reality of all that he had done. He saw the destruction that his life had brought to others he loved. He simply prayed, "God I don't know how to find you, I don't where to start, but I am going to try to find you?" What a prayer! When our stubborn pride is broken and we sit in tears, our hearts are emptied, and only then can they be filled. You can only fill an empty cup. You can't put anything into a full one. Especially when it is full of itself. When we want what God wants, we can rest assured that " . . . the gracious hand of God will be upon us."

Yet, even when that kind of prayer is prayed, more times than not, God makes us wait for an answer. I think that making us wait is God's way of testing us. Is it a whimsical request or is it a serious need? It is as though God is saying, "I want you to take some time and give some thought about where you are and what you really need." Nehemiah waited so long that he began to walk around sad. Jesus said blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Nehemiah was spiritually mourning and eventually he was comforted.

Do we just want out of the mess we are in or do we want to turn our lives over to God? When I was in the Air Force a group in our squadron hitched a ride on a cargo plane leaving Suwon South Korea that was headed to Okinawa. We were on temporary assignment in South Korea and we wanted to get back to our home base. We boarded the cargo plane and sat down. A Major came out of the cockpit before takeoff and announced that one of the generators had an oil leak, but he thought that if they could get the plane airborne that everything would be all right. We stayed on that plane, which was the quietest flight that I had ever taken. We made it to Okinawa. There was this one fellow with us whom we called Cowboy. He was from Montana. As we got off the plane Cowboy said, "It has been along time since I have prayed, but I sure did some praying on that flight?" This kind of prayer is what I call an escape hatch prayer. It is where we only want relief for the moment. It is not a life changing prayer. This type of prayer is only looking for temporary relief. (I have often wondered in later years if the Major was just pulling a joke on those of us that did not do much flying. If it was, it worked.)

Vance Havner tells of how when he was a boy his father used to take him out in the country to see an old mill operated by a water wheel. The water from the creek flowed down and made the wheel turn, rotating the shaft of the mechanism inside the building to grind the wheat into flour. If the miller came up one day and found that the stream was clogged up, his wheel wouldn't work. He could push and shove and try to turn the wheel himself. He could even call in the men from the surrounding farms to help him. His efforts would be in vain until he went up the creek and pulled out the dead logs and debris that dammed up the water. With those hindrances out of the way, the water would flow down again and those wheels would begin to turn.

Today we are striving and straining everywhere trying to make wheels go around. Church bulletins list all kinds of activities. Church members are urged to visit, call folks, invite others to church, and pray for revival. There's nothing wrong with all that. "But," says Havner, "I've looked in vain for what is so obvious in the New Testament that I cannot understand our silence about it. Almost nothing is said about the need for repentance in the church. Isn't it about time that we first went up the creek, cleared the channel and removed the hindering debris of sin from our hearts and lives?" 3

We need prayers that ask God to place in our hearts what he wants us to do? But first we must move the debris from the channels so that his living water can bring his life sustaining power. This kind of prayer is a prayer of confession and it is a prayer of repentance. It can only be prayed when we have come to the end of ourselves and understand our need for a new direction. It is then that we will experience the gracious hand of God upon our efforts.

"The God of Heaven Will Give Us Success . . . "

Nehemiah had spent months in godly sorrow, which had brought him to repentance. (2 Corinthians 7:10) It was then that God placed in his heart what he wanted him to do. Yet this did not alleviate all his troubles. His life and his city were still in ruins. There is no Easy Street. That is what we spend too much time praying for. But now the focus is different.

Nehemiah 2:17-20
Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace." I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." So they began this good work. But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. "What is this you are doing?" they asked. "Are you rebelling against the king?" I answered them by saying, "The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it."

There seems to be a deep awareness on Nehemiah's part that God is their only hope. He is fully aware of where his efforts will take him if he is without God. You can only have hope in your situation if God is your only hope. Today there are many negative forces trying to refocus the people of God. We can sit around and bemoan what we lack, what we need, and what others have that we don't have. In spite of all of this God can still give us success. Our focus must be on God.

"Let Us Start Building"

Nehemiah said, "I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." In today's world we make our plans, set our goals and fortify our faith in ourselves. We tell ourselves "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, man can achieve." Our power relies on our ability to conceive what needs to be done. The approach in the book of Nehemiah was much different. We find Nehemiah totally emptied of himself. There is no way that he can begin to conceive of a way to do what needs to be done. Nehemiah realizes that there is no hope outside of total dependence upon God. Nehemiah empties himself in prayer before God. It was then that God placed a plan within Nehemiah's heart. It was then that he began to realize what really needed to be done. It was at that point that Nehemiah realized that whatever happened would be the result of the gracious hand of God. It was at that point that progress began to be made.

Conclusion:

I want to remind you again how the British evangelist Gypsy Smith responded when he was asked how to start a revival, he said, "Go home, lock yourself in your room, kneel down in the middle of your floor. Draw a chalk mark all around yourself and ask God to start the revival inside that chalk mark. When He has answered your prayer, the revival will be on."

Revival begins with simple prayers.

"O Lord, I am a person of unclean lips!"
"Have mercy on me, O God . . .
"God be merciful to me a sinner"
"Create in me a clean heart, O God . . . "
"Renew a right spirit within me . . . "
"Lord make to hear joy and gladness . . . "
"Then I will teach transgressors your ways . . . "

Remember as you pray these simply prayers, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

1. Revival Report, Feb 1994. Page 3. Via InfoSearch Database, Arlington, Texas
2. Ibid.
3. "Spirit of Revival," Oct 1991. Page 4. Via InfoSearch Database, Arlington, Texas