While we look at this important Old Testament figure, in addition to seeing how Nehemiah was a man of prayer, we will also see how Nehemiah’s example can be instructive for our own lives. Let us first briefly review some of the background to the story of this determined leader of God’s people.
After King Solomon’s death, Israel divided into the monarchies of Israel and Judah. The ten northern tribes of Israel deteriorated rather quickly and were destroyed in 722 BC by the ancient power of Assyria. The southern kingdom of Judah fared a little better, but a breaking point came at last with the wickedness of its longest reigning king, Manasseh. The patience of God expired and his judgment was poured out on his habitually unfaithful people. The prophet Jeremiah “credits” Manasseh with being the primary reason for God bringing destruction and deportation to Judah, (15:4) but it is evident from the last chapter of 2 Chronicles that by this time the entire nation had fallen into moral degradation, idolatry, and lawlessness.
As a consequence, the Babylonians swept into the land of Judah and besieged the capital city of Jerusalem, its final destruction coming in 586 BC. The drama of this devastation and resulting captivity is recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:19: “And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels.”
Through Jeremiah the prophet, God stipulated that the captivity of His people would last seventy years, one for every year the people had failed to give the land its Sabbath rest as prescribed in the Law. Upon the completion of the seventy years of captivity, waves of remnants of Jews began returning to their homeland to begin the painstaking task of rebuilding the Temple and reestablishing the proper worship of God. However, many Jews – including Nehemiah – continued to live in the land to which their forefathers had been deported decades earlier.
During the time of Judah’s captivity, the Babylonians themselves were overtaken by the Persians. Much like Joseph and Daniel before him, God strategically positioned Nehemiah high up in this new administration. Unlike Ezra his contemporary who was a priest, Nehemiah was a civil servant, a cupbearer to the king of Persia. As one of the king’s most trusted servants, a cupbearer was responsible for pre-tasting the king’s wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. God had granted Nehemiah direct access to a powerful king, and would now use that access to raise up His servant Nehemiah for one of the most important building projects recorded in the entire Bible.
In 445 BC, during the reign of King Artaxerxes, word came to Nehemiah concerning the dreadful condition of the beloved city of Jerusalem: “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” (Neh. 1:3) This news was a terrible shock to Nehemiah, whose spontaneous reaction was to weep and mourn for days for his beloved city. (1:4) Then he prayed.
The memorable prayer recorded in Nehemiah 1 could be called A Personal Prayer of Public Contrition. It is first and foremost a very personal prayer, not just because Nehemiah was praying privately, but more importantly because Nehemiah personally includes himself as one among those who have acted corruptly against God and His holy law. He does not consider himself free from the stain of the sin of God’s people. Though personal, it is also, however, a prayer of public contrition inasmuch as it is a lament for what has happened to Jerusalem, the city of God, as a result of its idolatry and lawlessness. Nehemiah’s prayer can be subdivided into four distinct acknowledgements, and the manner in which he prayed is instructive to us today.
First, Nehemiah acknowledged God’s unchanging character (1:5)
O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.”
When we pray, before all else we must be mindful of the nature and character of the God to whom we are praying! As the ancient creed rightly reminds us, there is but one God, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. Though billions of people in the world from every manner of religious perspective engage in the practice of prayer, it is only those who pray to the one God who actually exists who can expect a listening ear. But as God’s children, it is not enough for us to simply pray with a vague realization that our God actually exists. We must pray with knowledge and insight, acknowledging God’s unchanging nature and perfections of character. By employing the covenant name of YHWH, Nehemiah recognizes God’s unfailing love for Israel. By calling Him the God of heaven, he conveys God’s sovereignty over all, including Israel’s captors. And to say that God is a God who keeps His covenant promises is to confess that though He is great and awesome, His unimaginable power is not bound to an arbitrariness that makes God and his actions entirely unpredictable. On the contrary, He is the faithful God who keeps His covenant and deals with us with a steadfast love. Isn’t it a wonderful thing to realize that God does not change from day to day? He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He will always keep His covenant promises to His children. And as the Apostle Paul reminds us, nothing can separate us from His love because His love is unfailing. Not only is God unfathomably great; He is also utterly good. That is the upside of God’s unchangeableness. He is forever loving and faithful. But He is also immutable in His holiness and righteousness. God’s standards of holiness never change because God never changes.
Second, Nehemiah acknowledged God’s righteous standards (1:6-7)
Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.”
A prayer of contrition is only possible where there is first a sober recognition that God’s standards of holiness are not dissolvable but instead issue forth from His perfect, unchangeable nature. God does not alter His standards for anyone, including His children. To do so would be to violate His very nature! As Jesus preached, “you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:8) Given such a lofty standard, it is no wonder that the apostle Paul would reveal that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) Nehemiah confesses that the people of Israel – himself included – have lived contrary to the law of God as revealed through Moses. Perhaps of particular interest to Nehemiah that day was the stern warning issued a thousand years earlier: “The LORD will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.” (Deut. 28:36-37) At this point we might be tempted to say, “Well, that was the Old Testament and that was the law. We don’t have to worry about all that.” It is true that much of the Mosaic law had to do with ceremonial and civil regulations that applied only to Old Testament Israel and were fulfilled with the coming of Christ. But the moral component of the Mosaic law – for instance, the Ten Commandments – is not contingent upon culture or time. The moral law of God issues forth from the very nature of the eternal God, He who is unchangingly holy and just. So while we do not have to be concerned with the warning of Deuteronomy 28 about being booted out of the land, we do have this to concern us instead: “the wages of sin is death.” Thankfully, God is not only a God who pledges judgment for unrepentant sinners, but also a gracious God who promises redemption for those who turn to Him for their salvation. Thus, while the wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23)
Third, Nehemiah acknowledged God’s enduring promises (1:8-9)
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’”
Nehemiah’s calling on God “to remember” is his way of recognizing, as Paul would say centuries later, that God never lies (Titus 1:2); he says what he means and means what he says. God has promised both death and life: death for those who persistently and willfully resist the grace and truth found in Jesus Christ, life for those who come to Christ to freely drink from the fountain of His redemptive love. Just as God had already acted upon His promise to scatter His disobedient people among the nations, here Nehemiah calls upon God to also act upon his related promise to re-gather the remnant of those who returned to their covenant God in repentance and faith. It is important that we understand the promises that God has made to us in Christ and that we claim those promises when we pray for ourselves or for others. The other day a young man came to me for prayer. He very sincerely wanted to discover who God wanted him to be and how he should live his life. In a nutshell, he needed wisdom. As I prayed for him, I claimed the promise of James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” I know that God is a God who honors His word. So what better way to pray than to ask God to “remember” the word that He has spoken concerning His people?
Fourth, Nehemiah acknowledged God’s gracious redemption (1:10-11)
They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”
Nehemiah recognizes that the servants of the Lord – himself included – are servants only by way of redemption. As the apostle Paul puts it, God has saved us in order to “purify for himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:14) Nehemiah was keenly aware of the heritage of his kinsmen, those who had been redeemed from slavery in Egypt “by [God’s] great power and by [God’s] outstretched arm.” Jesus once told a group of listeners: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32) Offended at the insinuation that they had ever been not free, the Jews who heard Jesus thus shot back: “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:33) Not only does this response overlook the fact that most of its history Israel had been either a vassal state or outright enslaved, it also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. Jesus was referring not to their political situation, but spiritual: their slavery to sin. Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin, Jesus told them. Paul later put it this way: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” The unredeemed sinner is a slave to sin; only the redeemed of the Lord have been set free from sin’s bondage. But we were not set free so that we could use our freedom to serve ourselves, but that we might become willing bondservants to the Lord our Redeemer. That much is evident not only in Nehemiah’s prayer, but in his life as well.
To sum up: We want our prayers to be God-centered; God-focused. We want to acknowledge God’s unchanging character, His unyielding love and faithfulness. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Without that divine reality, how could we hope in His promises? We also want to acknowledge that God’s standards of holiness and righteousness are likewise unchanging. This leads us to confession for the ways in which we have fallen short of His glory. But God’s promises are enduring. We must be knowledgeable of His word and ask God to “remember” His promises and fulfill them in our lives. And finally, we should gratefully acknowledge His redemption in Christ, that we might be transformed from enemies to bondservants, like Nehemiah.