Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20101212.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Nehemiah: Excelling In Leadership In Hard Times
Part III: Prayerfully Preplanning To Excel In Hard Times
(Nehemiah 2:4a-9)
  1. Introduction
    1. Hard times make for difficult choices and actions, but one can begin to excel in leadership in a marriage, a family, a business, a church or a government position by habitually practicing prayerful preplanning.
    2. Nehemiah 2:4a-9 in its context illustrates how such prayer preplanning can do much to help in hard times:
  2. Prayerfully Preplanning To Excel In Hard Times, Nehemiah 2:4a-9.
    1. God used Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in what Daniel 9:25 NIV called "times of trouble."
    2. One reason He could use this man was his resourcefulness to pre plan prayerfully under stress as follows:
      1. When we read that the Persian king asked Nehemiah what he wanted him to do for Nehemiah to solve the problem that had led to Nehemiah's saddened face (Neh. 2:1-4a), such sadness potentially being a capital offense at the time ( Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Neh. 2:2), Nehemiah prayed and answered the king, Neh. 2:4b-5a. This must have been a very short prayer, for the stress of the event required Nehemiah not be seen as stalling lest he incite the king's wrath to execute him for his sadness!
      2. However, for Nehemiah to be able to make such a short prayer and to answer the king effectively under the duress of the moment, he had to have done a lot of prayerful preplanning (as follows):
        1. First, we know from Nehemiah 1:1-11 that Nehemiah had responded to hearing news of Jerusalem's sad state of affairs, so he had spent gone to prayer, extensively beseeching God's mercy and help.
        2. Second, we know that this prayerful concern had been with Nehemiah for several months: he had heard of Jerusalem's plight in the month Chisleu (Neh. 1:1) and the Nehemiah 2 conversation with the king occurred in the month Nisan (Neh. 2:1), four months later, Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Nehemiah 2:1. Thus, he not only prayed during that time, but he had time to form a plan in the event the king would ever get involved, and the extensive, wise answer he gave to the king displays such planning.
        3. Third, the answer Nehemiah gave to the king's question showed the great degree of his preplanning: (1) Nehemiah requested that the king send him to his father's city (Jerusalem) in order to rebuild it, Neh. 2:4-5. He conveniently omitted mentioning the name of Jerusalem itself, for this same king had already sent a decree to thwart the building of its temple under Ezra (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 674), so Nehemiah did not want to hurt his whole effort in aggravating the king by mentioning the name of Jerusalem. (2) Then, Nehemiah was obviously aware of the intrigue in this particular king's harem (cf. Zon. Pict. Ency. of the Bible, vol. Four, p. 404), for because the queen was present at this conversation, Nehemiah sought to protect himself from what obstructions she might set in his path by requesting from the king letters he could possess authorizing him to do what he planned that he could show to the Trans-Euphrates governors so he could make his journey successful, and have authority to acquire timber from the king's forest for rebuilding Jerusalem's city gates, Neh. 2:6-8a. (3) We know from the rest of the book that Nehemiah had set himself to build the city wall, a shrewd move since the wall was necessary to protect the people inside the city so that their efforts to construct dwellings in the wall could be accomplished free from attacks by outsiders. Thus, Nehemiah had planned to address the wall only, thus providing time to get back to the king as well as to open the door for the rest of the city to be built with a great degree of foreseeable success!
      3. The king asked Nehemiah for how long he planned to be away, and Nehemiah had already thought about that, and gave the king a reasonable time span his ruler could approve, Nehemiah 2:6.
      4. God's hand was with Nehemiah, and the king granted him his request, Proverbs 21:1; Nehemiah 2:8b.
      5. Nehemiah then made the journey under royal guard, arriving safely at Jerusalem, Nehemiah 2:9.
Lesson: Since he prayed and planned BEFORE talking to the king about his burden, Nehemiah was able to make the most of the opportunity once God opened the door for him to speak to the king.

Application: If we are burdened about specific concerns that require the involvement of others, may we pray and plan for success once God opens the door for us to address the matter with those involved.