When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven,And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,
4 sermons cite this verse
… and its gates are burned with fire. So it was, verse 4, when I heard these words, this is Nehemiah talking, when I heard these words, here's how he responded, that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Here is a man who is stressed out because of what's happening at his hometown. And he says, I was so stressed out, he said, I sat down and I wept and I mourned for many days. I was fasting and I'm praying before the God of heaven. Chapter two, verse 17. Let me read chapter two, verse 17. Then I said to them, you see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach. He was stressed out because his hometown, his home people were stressed out and troubled. He picked up that same burden. He had a burden for something to be done. He had a passion. And I'm here to tell you that God will give you a passion about something that would drive you to want to do something about it. And that's what Nehemiah did. …
… doesn't mean idleness and preparation. Second thing Nehemiah did in his time of waiting was he devoted himself to prayer. We learned in Nehemiah 1.4 that he prayed between the months of Chislev, which would be November, and Nisan, which is March, which means he prayed for nearly four months before saying a word about this burden to anybody. And then verse four, when the king finally asked Nehemiah what he wanted to do. Nehemiah said, so I prayed again. He'd spent four months on his face talking to God about this. And when the moment of opportunity finally came, he one more time drew in a breath and very quickly breathed out a prayer to God. In Nehemiah, every pivotal moment hinges on prayer. The book is saturated with prayer and be encouraged. These prayers were not long, flowery, theologically rich prayers. This one in verse four is what we call a breath prayer. Nehemiah didn't have time to run to a prayer room, light some candles, pull out a theology book. He just prayed, God, this is your work, not mine. So make these next words your words, not mine. You got to open this door. I can't do it. When you got a burden for something, here's the question, where do you turn? Many of us get out our notebooks and our calculators and we get our friends on the phone and we try to figure out how to get stuff done. …
… The gates have been destroyed by fire. Verse 4, as soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Now, I mentioned before turning Nehemiah into a movie. If I were making the book of Nehemiah into a movie, here's how I would do it. By the way, one of our tech geniuses here, Rob Lauder, heard me read through this description that I'm about to give you. And he said, hey, would you send me that? And he plugged it into an AI program. And this is what it came up with, okay? If I were making Nehemiah into a movie, I would start with a dark brooding shot, somber music playing in the background as the camera panned the wall, destroyed walls of Jerusalem. Everywhere you look, you see crumbling heaps of stones. The gates of Jerusalem are smolding piles of firewood. Famous monuments are overturned as the camera pans to the once great city. …
… as soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. That was his natural response. He goes, what else am I gonna do? You know, sometimes I can get lost up here. because I think, okay, what am I trying to do up here? Am I trying to talk you into praying more? Am I trying to convince you? Come on, just try it. Try two minutes a day. Try five minutes a day. Try this. Try this. Try this. Like, honestly, at this point in my life, it feels very weird when you're trying to talk someone into prayer it would be like if I showed up today and since you guys don't know who I am suppose I've got tons of money and I say you know what I'm going to go out to the lobby right now just meet me back there I've got cashier's checks for $100,000 per person okay then do I spend the next 40 minutes talking you into going into the lobby is that's just weird right no please trust me come on it's good money you can no i i shouldn't have to talk you into it is my point and i'm saying gosh forget a hundred thousand dollars forget a million like to be able to talk to the god of the universe i'm telling that's what this book is all about it's this mystery way you're telling me that me this …