Neh No.3 Effectual Praying

Daniel is very distressed because of the situation in Jerusalem and amongst the Hebrew community in exile as well as in Palestine, so he lays his burden bare before God. Daniel chapter 9 verse 3, this is one of the classic prayers of the Old Testament. If you've got the authorised version of the Bible then join me in reading it.

I'll take the third verse and please come in on the fourth and alternate verses. Daniel 9 verse 3. And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. We have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments.

O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but unto us confusion of faces as at this day to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and unto all Israel that are near and that are far off through all the countries whither thou hast driven them because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, forgiveness as though we have rebelled against him. Yes all Israel have transgressed thy law even by departing that they might not obey thy voice therefore the curse is poured upon us and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God because we have sinned against him.

As it is written in the law of Moses all this evil is come upon us yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth. And now O Lord our God that has brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and has gotten thee renowned as at this day we have sinned we have done wickedly. Now therefore O our God hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplications and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's sake.

O Lord hear, O Lord forgive, O Lord hearken and do defer not for thine own sake O my God for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. Amen. Now you may like to have your Bible open at the book of Nehemiah.

These Sunday mornings we're progressing not as quickly as I anticipated but I think at the speed that the Spirit is directing through this slender volume in the Old Testament and we are discovering much that is relevant to us personally and to our church community as a whole. The fourth verse of the first chapter we read these words 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. It's James who tells us that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much and he goes on to cite the example of the Tishbite.

He said Elijah prayed and through his intercessions he locked up the vault of heaven so that for three and a half years there was no rain and Elijah prayed again and he used intercession as his key and a deluge came down. There is power in prayer so much so that Andrew Scottish preacher and hymn writer said oh brother pray. Pray in spite of Satan.

Spend hours in prayer. Rather neglect friends than not pray. Rather fast rather lose breakfast dinner tea and supper I am sleep too than not pray and don't just talk about prayer.

Pray in earnest. Well what have those remarks to do with Nehemiah? Much every way. Nehemiah receives news you remember of the state of the wall around Jerusalem and the fact that the gates thereof were burnt with fire.

Verse three and you remember I pointed out last week that his immediate reaction when he heard this distressing scene described by his brother was not to get a ticket and go to Jerusalem but rather to go into his prayer closet to fall down on his knees and engage in this mightiest of all ministries the ministry of intercession. In certain observations and deductions that I drew last week I made remarks akin to these that before a man can breach the gap he has to stand in the gap. Before you can be a wall man you've got to be a gap man.

It's much easier you see to buy your ticket and to go to Jerusalem and engage in physical work for God than what it is to go into your own private room and intercede before the Lord in prayer. I tell you that personally. I confess it publicly.

Far easier for me as a pastor to be about physically doing things than spending time in prayer. But you see if you're not a gap man before you become a wall man then when you tend to build the wall you don't build it very well. It's off skew.

The ingredients they don't seem to be of the best quality. Before you can get your trowel and your cement and your bricks and all the instruments you need to build the wall of God you understand I'm speaking metaphorically you need first of all to stand in the gap. Generally we're not too short of wall men in the evangelical church in the 20th century but we're very very low on numbers of gap men.

Now Nehemiah brings a salutary reminder as to how we should react in our days when we hear of declension on every hand when we're confronted with the so-called church having its wall breached and it's having the wall breach and its gates burnt with with fire. We know that there are things that we are to engage in. There is relief activity that we must pursue but with all our concern to be up and doing let's not vault over the most important aspect of Christian service that is the ministry of prayer.

So from the example of Artaxerxes' cup bearer we get this good reminder that before we attend to the wall before we build up the gap we go and stand in the gap and we engage in intercession. Now last week we analysed this prayer to some degree. I don't use that word in its clinical sense.

God forbid I don't want to approach this book merely in an academic fashion that akin to a scholar but we did look into the prayer itself and see what Nehemiah traversed as he engaged in intercession but this morning I feel constrained to come back and to talk to you more about the attitude of Nehemiah and the way that he engaged in prayer. I want to comment on the duration of it of this prayer and also make some remarks about its intensity and then to close down under the heading of its immediate personal effect. First of all the duration of this prayer.

Look once more at the fourth verse. 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. In the pulpit bible the word certain there that adjective is in italics.

That means that the word is not supplied in the original Hebrew. It has been placed there by the original translators. What were they trying to do? Well they were trying to show that Nehemiah engaged in a time of prayer at some lengths and they didn't quite know how long but it seems to me that if you contrast the first verse of the first chapter with the first verse of the second chapter and you know a little bit about the Hebrew calendar you are driven to the conclusion that Nehemiah spent three months in prayer.

The distance in time between the month Chislew and the month Nisan. Three months in prayer. This wasn't a five minute quiet time.

It wasn't even just turning out to the tabernacle early morning prayer meeting on a Saturday which was rather a costly business yesterday if you remember the weather. This was three months of intercession on one aspect of the work of God. The breach of the wall at Jerusalem.

The Bible tells us and you are aware of these words because they formed part of the motto text of the tabernacle two years ago that the people of God shall do exploits but because your memory is good you will know that that wasn't the whole of the verse. The scripture that makes this astounding promise also says the people that shall know their God or the people that do know their God shall do exploits. There is a corollary here you see.

There is a ratio between knowing God and doing exploits. Now so often we try to vault over the first and go immediately to the second. Again you see expressing it another way.

We want to be wall men before we've been gap men. You can't do exploits for God unless you know God not know about God. I can give you Calvin's Institutes freely for you to read.

I can give you a summary of systematic theology for you to pour through. I can give you any number of the thousand or so volumes of books that are in the back of the church here and you can know about God. But when Nehemiah went into his prayer closet and spent three months before the Lord in prayer he didn't emerge knowing about God.

He knew God and there's a fundamental difference there. The Bible makes it quite clear that the men who did things for the Lord in Old Testament and New Testament days were people who had a personal encounter with the Lord himself. I came across in my reading in the earlier hours of this morning a rather lovely expression.

By reading I don't mean reading scripture though I was but this was a devotional commentary. The expression that just hit me from the page that I was glancing through was this, the aristocracy of the spirit. You know what an aristocracy is? If you're a lord or a lady or do we still have dukes in this country? If you're a titled person like Sir Frederick Cathowood you're part of the aristocracy.

You're recognized as being somebody by the queen and her consort. Do you know there's an aristocracy of the Holy Ghost? Nehemiah was one of the aristocrats. So was Daniel, so was Wesley, so was Whitfield, so was Brainard, so was Carey, so was Spurgeon.

How do you become a member of this aristocracy? By having purple blood in your veins when you were born? No, by implementing the very teachings of scripture as far as prayer is concerned? By esteeming the school of prayer as being the college that attracts you above every other and by doing your lessons well with enthusiasm and diligence? I believe that we need more aristocrats in the college of intercession in this church. Nehemiah prayed three long months for Jerusalem. He saw Jerusalem as a barren city.

He had this report and he saw the picture through the eyes of his own brother and as he saw it, it distressed him. Hebrews were instructed to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Encapsuled in that command was the thought of the safety, the security of the holy city.

Nehemiah saw a barren, sterile Hebrew community there in the headquarters of Palestine itself, of God's own land and that barrenness drove him to his prayer closet and he interceded before God. I sat down and wept and mourned three months and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. John Knox plucked words from the Old Testament that first were ushered, first were uttered by Rachel and he applied them to his own national country and he said, give me Scotland or I die and Knox stamped through Scotland preaching the doctrines of grace, bringing Scotland to its feet, becoming such a menace in the eyes of the queen that she feared Knox more than all the armies of England.

He saw the barrenness, the sterility of Scotland so he prayed for spiritual children. Rachel comes in front of Isaac and she says, give me a child or I die. Have you ever noticed how many women were barren in scripture? And by explicit testimony of the written record or implicit information that's given, they pleaded before God for a child.

Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Rachel gives birth to Joseph. Hannah gives birth to Samuel.

Manoah's wife gives birth to Samson. Ruth gives birth to Obed who becomes the father of Jesse who is the father of David. Elizabeth gives birth to John the Baptist.

The very sterility of these women, the very barrenness caused them to plead before God for a child and when the child is given, my, what great men they were. Line them all up one by one, Isaac, Joseph, Samson, Samuel, ultimately David, John the Baptist. Responses to the prayers of these barren women.

Here is Nehemiah praying for the barren city of Jerusalem and praying with anguish of heart. Would to God that we did a John Knox. Would to God that we said of this church here, of our own youth group here, of this town here, Lord give me children or I die.

I'm beginning to realize as someone who's fathered no children on the natural level, that of even greater importance is to father children on the spiritual level. There is no isolate, there is no single person in the family of God. He's put the solitary in families and gives us all a responsibility, a responsibility to what? To go forth and multiply.

Give me children or I die. Came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Does that describe your prayer life? This is no five minutes with God in the morning, is it? I'm in no way deprecating that, of course, but I am pleading for a more realistic approach to the ministry of intercession on the part of this church.

We've looked at the duration of Nehemiah's praying. Now consider with me for a moment or so the intensity of it. Every word throbs with intensity, weeping, mourning, fasting, interceding.

You can pick up the pulse beat of Nehemiah in that very verse. Can you measure your own prayers? Do they contrast alongside this example? All this adds up to an intensity, an intensity of praying. Turn to the book of Acts, will you, for a moment and I'll, by New Testament illustration, amplify the teaching of this verse from Nehemiah.

We're looking into the twelfth chapter and I sketch in the scene while you're finding the particular verse, Peter is in jail and this is a catastrophe for the early church. Peter was their leader, as I was telling the boys and girls some moments ago. He's incarcerated in some Roman dungeon, maybe the fortress of Antonia, one of the cellars there, and the Christian community in Jerusalem, they're paralyzed, at least that's their immediate reaction, but that paralysis, it leads them on to prayer.

Verse five, Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. Now that word without ceasing in the Greek, if I can be technical just for a moment, is most interesting. It's the word ektenos, ektenos.

It's not very easy to put that word into the English vernacular. It really means stretching oneself out before God in prayer. Actually the AV translators were wrong.

They gave the thought of duration. That could well have been part of this prayer meeting that the disciples were holding for Peter but the Holy Ghost in inspiring the written record was not bringing out so much the duration of the prayer but the intensity of the prayer. These men, these women were stretching themselves out on behalf of Peter who, as I reminded you, was in jail.

Now with that thought in mind, flip back in the Gospels to Luke chapter 22. You get another example in verse 44 of the use of that word ektenos. Here we have the sight not of Peter but of Peter's master, the Lord Jesus.

Luke 22 verse 44, and being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. He prayed more earnestly, the same word as in Acts 12. The idea is that he was, if I can make this word, if I can coin it up so that you can visualize what the Holy Spirit is trying to describe about Jesus at this moment.

His prayer was more stretched outedly. His very being was stretched out before God. There was an intensity.

Think of the man trying to cover 100 yards in as quick a time as possible, maybe in the Olympic final. The whole body of the athlete is stretched out. Every sinew, every muscle, every nerve is rightly in order.

The whole body is delicately balanced as he stretches out towards the finishing tape. Now that's praying. That's praying that takes time.

That's praying that summons up emotion. There's a great deal of difference between emotion arising up from the innermost being and emotion being worked up by environment, by just some gimmick in a meeting. Stay with me on the thought of intensity of prayer.

It's good for us to look through Bible references, isn't it? Particularly working out a theme from the Old Testament. Turn to Romans chapter 15. And here the mighty Apostle Paul is indicating, and this is incredible, that although he's exercised a remarkable ministry from God, he still realizes that his ministry is nothing without prayer warriors at the back of him.

So in the 30th verse of Romans 15, he says this, Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. A bit more Greek. Strive together.

Agonizo? No prizes for getting the English derivative from that Greek word. Agonizing before God in prayer. Again, this is no few moments spent before the throne of grace.

Will you strive together with me? Will you agonize in your prayers to God for me? Time always beats me on a Sunday morning. I'm sure this thing goes round or somebody plays that bell over there before they should do, just to make me annoyed. But if you were to check through Colossians chapter 4, you will find there a reference to Epaphras, who was always engaging in prayer for the Christians at Colossae.

Always laboring fervently for you. I bear him record, says Paul, that he has a great zeal for you. And that word great zeal means intense labor, almost akin to the labor pains of a woman before she gives birth to a child.

Now that's the intensity of Nehemiah's praying. You see, he's got this site, the wall of God in Jerusalem. It's broken down.

The gates are burned and there have been people there for 90 years. There's been the great ministry of men of God that the Lord has sent to Jerusalem. But the citizens of that place, their hearts are so hard.

Their spiritual being is so insensitive. What do you do? You go straight away and give them a piece of your mind? It's no good at all. It's no good on the human level.

There are people who associate with us here in the tabernacle, and one would love to see them fired up for the Lord. But it's no use my phoning them and saying, can I come around and see you? Or will you come down to my office? And really giving them a verbal thrashing. That's no good at all.

They could, if they wanted, just not attend the church at all. Send in their resignation. You don't achieve anything spiritually just by confronting people with words.

Words in themselves have no power. The apostle Paul, in a different level, on a different line, admittedly, makes reference to this. He says, my preaching was not in word only, but in the power and the demonstration of the Spirit.

What humbles a man, what humbles a young couple, what humbles boys and girls, are not just words that we may utter to them directly. But those words, when they take on a particular power, when they penetrate the heart, because they've been soaked in intercession. I was reading a classic on prayer earlier today, R. A. Turrey, The Power of Prayer.

It's quoting from David Braynard. Take for example, says Turrey, David Braynard, that physically feeble but spiritually mighty man of God, trembling for years on the verge of consumption, from which he ultimately died at an early age, Braynard felt led of God to labor among the North American Indians in the early days in the primeval forests of northern Pennsylvania. Sometimes of a winter night he would go out into the forest and kneel in the cold snow, when it was a foot deep, and so labor with God in prayer that he would be wringing wet with perspiration, even out in the cold winter night hours.

And God heard David Braynard and sent such a mighty revival among the North American Indians as had never been heard of before, as indeed had never been dreamt about. And not only did God send in answer to David Braynard's prayers this mighty revival among the North American Indians, but also in answer to David Braynard's prayers, he transformed David Braynard's father-in-law, Jonathan Edwards, that mighty prince of metaphysicians, probably the mightiest thinker that America has ever produced, into Jonathan Edwards, the flaming evangelist. I told you before, Edwards thanked God that Braynard died in his home so that he could hear Braynard's last prayers interceding before God on behalf of America.

The duration of Nehemiah's prayer, the intensity of it, sitting down, weeping, mourning, fasting, and interceding before the God of heaven. Yes, that word fasting, I was going to touch on that this morning in our meditation, but now I'm going to leave it for next week, and I'm going to preach a whole message, give 30 odd minutes or so, just to the concept of fasting. This vitally important, but oh so neglected aspect of a whole ministry of intercession.

When you've learned to fast in your praying, maybe you'll get more heart in your prayer, and more observable response. Let's conclude then by saying that when Nehemiah had finished his praying, personally, it had this effect. He got everything into perspective.

Look at that last verse, the last part of the 11th. I pray thee, Lord, thy servant, grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. What's he referring to? Well, you see, if he's going to Jerusalem after he's finished his work of prayer, he's got to get permission from Artaxerxes.

He's the greatest fellow that there was in the world in that day. He's the emperor. All night is invested in him, and one might be timid in asking for permission to leave the job of being royal cupbearer and moving towards the holy city.

What would Artaxerxes say as a result of that request? Wouldn't it seem impudence to put the wall of God and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem before attending to this man who's got great power? But you see, prayer gets things into perspective. By me, says God, king's reign. Why should Nehemiah, who's been in the presence of the king of kings, be afraid of Artaxerxes, just a human monarch? Prosper your work, the work of your servant this day, as he stands before this man.

Work out your plan with this man, for I recognize, as I've been with you in prayer, that all power belongs to you. And if you want me to go to Jerusalem, then you can melt the heart of this man and progress your work through me. Spending time in prayer with God gets personal things into perspective.

And there we must leave our study this morning. Father, we see so many evidences of the walls of Jerusalem being broken down and the gates that are burned. Help us to react as Nehemiah did.

May there be an agony within our own prayer life. May there be a stretched outness before your throne. We would say, Lord, give us children or we die.

We long to see more men and women turning to the Christ of God as a result of the ministries of this church, of this congregation. Keep us faithful on our knees. And we thank you, Father, for your superb timing by which you draw our attention to this book at this particular time in our church's history.

So continue to work out its lessons in our day-by-day living. And now for those who have to go at this juncture, be with them and grant them traveling mercies on these slippery roads. Be with our dear older folks in particular.

But for many who remain and come around this table, may Jesus be known in the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine. For his sake. Amen.