Nehemiah 4:17

How They Built The Walls

We made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night. Nehemiah 4:9.

Every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other held his weapon. Nehemiah 4:17.

Today I want to carry you all away with me back across the centuries till we reach a time more than four hundred years before Jesus came into the world. And I want to take you far across land and sea till we stand outside old Jerusalem. Will you all please put on a magic wishing-cap and think yourselves there?

We are going to take a night ride round the city with a man called Nehemiah, and we are going to see all that he sees. The moon is shining brightly and everything shows up almost as well as in the daylight. It shines down on the beautiful Temple of God within the city, but it shines, too, on ruined walls and gates destroyed by fire. We try to enter by one gate but there is no room for our mules to pass. The gateway is choked with stones and trash. So we ride on, and we begin to feel very sad as we look at all this ruin and desolation. We ask what it means, and this is the story we are told.

About a hundred and fifty years ago Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, laid siege to this beautiful city of Jerusalem. He broke down the walls, destroyed the

Temple, and carried away many of the Jews captive into Babylon. But after many years the king of Persia defeated and conquered the king of (Babylon, and this new king allowed the Jews to return to their own country and rebuild the Temple of their God.

But although the Temple has been rebuilt the walls still lie in ruins, and no city in these days is safe unless it is surrounded by a high strong wall.

So Nehemiah has come to Jerusalem to help the Jews to raise their wall again, and as he rides round the city he is planning how he will set them all to work to build it.

Now we are going to let a few weeks pass and we are going back to look at the city. The wall has been built to half its height and everywhere men are busy carrying burdens or getting the stones fixed in their places. Suddenly a report comes in that the enemies of the Jews are plotting to destroy the wall. These men do not want a fortified Jerusalem and they have tried to do all they can to stop the work.

But Nehemiah is ready for them. He does three things to thwart their plans. First he prays to God. But although he knows that God will help him he does not neglect to do his part. So next he sets a watch day and night. And lastly he arms every man. Those who are bearing burdens on their heads or backs and so have one hand free carry a javelin; and the masons who require both hands for their work have a sword fastened to their side. In the meantime the main work goes on from day to day. Stone rises on stone until at last the wall is finished and Jerusalem is safe.

I wonder if you can guess why I have chosen this old-time story today. It is because we have all within us you and I and everyone else a beautiful temple of God. That temple is the temple of the soul and we must build a high, strong protecting wall round it the wall of character. We have to build that wall stone by stone, and inch by inch. Sometimes we put in a good habit, sometimes an unselfish act. Sometimes we add a kind word and sometimes a loving look. But whatever they are, if they are good stones, they all help to build a beautiful strong wall to protect God's temple.

Now we all have an Enemy who wants to knock down our wall and spoil the temple of our soul, and like Nehemiah we must defend ourselves against him in three ways.

First we must pray to God. He alone is stronger than the Enemy and it is only with God's help that we can gain the victory over him, so we are never really safe unless we keep near to God in prayer.

But besides praying to God we must do our part. We must not ask God to help us and take no trouble to keep the Enemy away. So next we must set a watch day and night. The Enemy is very cunning and you may be sure he will try to get into our fortress at the side where we are not watching.

Do you remember the story in Aesop's Fables about the deer with the blind eye? This deer fed on the grass between a wood and the sea, and she always kept her blind eye to the sea and her good eye towards the wood where the hunters and the dogs were. But one day a hunter noticed this; so he got a little boat and put out a bit from the shore and shot the deer from the side where she could not see. And as the deer lay dying she lamented that she had been quite safe from the side where she looked for danger, and that the danger had come from the side where she was not expecting it.

Our Enemy is just like that. He is much too cunning to try to pierce our walls at the point where we are watching. He goes round till he finds the place where we think we are quite secure. So the only safe way is to watch at all sides and at all times.

But if, in spite of all our precautions, the Enemy does get a footing inside our fortress we must have our weapons ready to drive him out again. So in the third place we must wear our armor constantly. And the best weapons are a strong determination and a firm faith in God.

Just one word more. Remember that the Jews who raised the walls went on building all the time. They prayed, and they watched, and they had their weapons ready, but above all they built. Their enemies would have been quite content if they had stopped the work, and our Enemy desires above all things that we should stop our work of character-building. So we must keep at it, however hard and monotonous it seems at times, however much we blunder, however weary we feel. And remember that if we are in earnest, God will put right all our mistakes, and keep our temples safe for His Holy City, the New Jerusalem above.