Nehemiah 4:23

REFLECTIONS

READER! you and I shall derive very sweet improvements from this chapter, if, under the teaching of God the Holy Ghost, we discover our personal interest in it, and amidst all the oppositions we meet with from the enemies of our salvation, like Nehemiah, we learn where our strength is, and from whence help is to be derived. We are building for eternity, and there are many foes to obstruct our progress. But if our foundation be Jesus; and if he who hath founded Zion, gives us, by his Holy Spirit, to rest all upon this precious Corner Stone, then the promise is sure, we shall never be ashamed, nor confounded, world without end. Reader! are you thus engaged? Is Christ your foundation? Have you laid your rest upon him deep and firm? Have you quitted every other foundation? Do you heartily and cordially, lay the whole weight of your salvation on him? Do you live upon him, act faith daily, hourly, upon him? Do you not only live upon Jesus, but live to Jesus? These are heart-searching enquiries. But if the Lord enable you thus to build upon Christ, depend upon it, in defiance of all opposition, he that enabled you to begin, will help you to complete; and the top-stone will be at length brought home with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. Let a thousand Sanballats arise, or ten thousand Tobiahs mock; yet he that is with you, is more than all that are against you. The Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it. Go on, therefore, in the strength of the Lord; crying out in the words of the prophet; Who art thou, O great mountain? before our Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.