Judge Right

Nehemiah is being threatened and mocked as he leads God's people to build the wall. How should he pray? Is it ok to ask God to judge the people threatening him or do we always need to ask God to have mercy on them? Join the journey through Nehemiah's prayer as he pursues the will of God with our guest host young person, DeShaun.

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Transcript

Press means to apply force.

When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation.

He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Greetings everybody.

So glad that you're here today.

I am in the studio slash office with one of my favorite young people. I have a lot of favorites, so but I am so glad to be here with DeShawn Haywood.

He is going to break down Nehemiah for us today.

But first of all, DeShawn, how you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm all right. A little tired today, but all right.

I wanted to ask you, you've been really involved with our campus press ministries.

Mm-hmm.

And I wanted to ask you just how has that been for you?

What has it meant to see other people even growing?

Tell us about the campus a little. Campus, I love it because really that's where I really grew, starting off with the first press at UNCW. That's where I came in and was able to receive the word and hear about the Holy Ghost, like stuff like that. Like that built my foundation to be able to get here and to be able to be one of the leaders on campus and be somebody that people come to. Has it really been a blessing to see how God can use me to people that are my age.

And he definitely is using you. And I call him Rev.

And you guys might know why by the time this is over.

As we talked about last week, we were talking about Nehemiah, and we are still in the book of Nehemiah, one of my favorite people in the Bible. But today we head to Nehemiah chapter four.

And from here, I'm going to have Rev take it.

All right.

So we're going to start off reading verse one through six. Verse one it says, "But it came to pass that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews." And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, "What do these feeble Jews?

Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day?

Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which is burnt?" Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him.

And he said, "Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he even shall break down their stone wall."

Hear, O our God, for we are despised.

And turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity. And cover not their iniquity, let not their sin be blotted out from before thee, for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders. So built we the wall, and all the people was joined together unto the half thereof, for the people had a mind to work. Want to go back to verses one through three a little bit and talk about the wording they used.

Because when it's talking about Sanballat, it says that he was wroth, meaning that he was hot. And indignation, he was burning with anger just at the fact that he heard that they were building the wall.

He asked all them questions, then Tobiah is like, even if a fox goes up, it'll break down their wall.

But as we get into their prayer, you look at Nehemiah and he says that they are despised.

He talks about reproach, which is having scorn.

And he's saying to turn what they have against him onto themselves.

Says, "Give them for a prey in the land of captivity.

Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee, for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders."

Nehemiah wasn't coming for his safety.

He wasn't saying, can you please protect us, God?

He's coming for their salvation.

I feel like that's so powerful because he understands that the weapons we fight with are not carnal. But he understood that the real fight is with God, and he's going to come for their salvation, come for who they are. And if we look at Nehemiah 2:12, he talks about how God put it on his heart for them to build the wall. Nehemiah understood who God was. He understood that God was going to fight for his people. God was going to protect his people. And since God put it on his heart to do it, it was going to happen.

And if we look at Romans 12:17, says, "Recompense to no man evil for evil.

Provide things honest in the sight of men."

We drop down to verse 19, says, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.

For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." And I like this because it is in the New Testament, but we understand that God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He's the same guy in Nehemiah's time as he is now. And Nehemiah understood that he didn't have to take it into his own hands.

He was angered. He felt a certain way, and he brought it to God. And the best part about this is in verse six, he says, "So we built the wall, and all the people was joined together unto the half thereof, for the people had a mind to work." He didn't let his anger get in the way of his assignment.

God gave him something to do, and no matter what came in the way, no matter who it was, he brought it to God and then did it. And I do like that. I love that he brought it to God. But I looked at the scripture, and I thought part of the reason he brought it to God was because they did this in front of people. He's like, God, they provoked you to anger. Like he's he's not even saying, God, ain't you mad? He's like, I know you're mad.

Mm-hmm.

Because they did this in front of your builders, the ones who are completing your word.

And I I agree with you in looking at it.

Anybody who is against God's plan is automatically God's enemy.

I think there's this mindset of Christians where they think you have to accept everything, you have to be everybody's friend, and you have to show love to everybody. And there's some truth to this showing love, but I don't know that people understand that our God is a God of recompense, as you were saying, a payback. Do you ever see like in dealing with people where they're like, hey, you know, but isn't God just love?

And you shouldn't judge, and that's not what Nehemiah's doing. But what do you think in terms of this? In terms of this, I'd say first what she said is that happens all the time, especially with judgment.

Oh, you can't judge, you can't this.

That's not what the word says. The word says in John 7:24, says, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

If I'm judging you, it's not because I have a hatred toward you or I'm angry with you, but it's because I want to see the best of you.

And that's how we have to be. We can't allow everything just to happen.

I agree with that. I believe that Nehemiah's not judging them.

When you're against God, you're wrong. And so if it's against scripture, it's wrong.

We don't have to make up the judgments.

The Bible has already said it.

Don't get mad at me for repeating it.

If God says you're wrong, you're just wrong.

And so he can ask for judgment.

And that's what Nehemiah did. And I thought that was really powerful that we could say, God, judge this.

Mm-hmm.

Pay them back.

Yeah.

And he did it. He got right back to work.

He has so much confidence in God.

Like going through his entire book, I love how it's written because it's from him.

He said, I did this. Because he's saying how he felt and how what happened during his situations. And he's saying like, I asked God to judge them, but then we got back to work.

We built the wall.

We're going to do what God said.

If we look at verse seven and eight, like Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, the Ammonites, Ashdodites, they all came together.

They conspired to come and fight against them. They were like, we're going to destroy this wall.

And then verse nine says, "Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto God, and set a watching against them day and night because of them."

He knew they were coming for him, prayed to God, and got back to work.

Verse 13 through 18 talks about how he gave half the workers swords, the other half were building.

Nothing stopped them from the work.

Yeah.

Not people talking, not people lining up against them. I think it's one thing when people are just talking, but it is another thing when you see them coming for you.

Yeah.

And to me, the confidence that it takes, like you said, to not only pray but then to believe and still prepare though.

Like they're coming.

He's like, we took a night shift, we got a day shift. They're coming, but I prayed, and I prepared, and we're going to do what we got to do.

He understood they were coming also.

That's a big thing also is he had that understanding of who God was and what God would do.

It wasn't always just going to work out the way that he wanted it. So that's why he did prepare himself, but he didn't have a fear because he understood that God would be with him because he had an assignment from God. And he didn't know in his preparation, it appears that he didn't know if God would make him have to fight it out or if God would just handle them. But either way, he trusted God, and he followed the plan for the work.

And what does that say to you about how we should be today in terms of serving God or whatever?

However would you take it?

I'd say that we got to have that confidence. Because one of the verses that came to my mind was Proverbs 14:26, says, "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge." I feel like that goes so well with this story because Nehemiah understood he was his child, and he knew he had a place of refuge. But he feared God more than anything and anybody that could come in his way. So he had that confidence in I'm going to talk to God. I'm going to bring this prayer to him, and then I'm going to do what he said. And that's how we have to be today. Like we have to believe that he will never leave nor forsake us. We have to understand that he is our refuge and our strength.

He's a very present help.

He's going to be there for us if we're in his will. Not our own will, making up things in our head, saying we're going to do this and do that. Once God tells you to do it, it's going to happen. God's going to make a way for it to happen because his will will always prevail.

We don't know much about Nehemiah's relationship with God before this book.

Yeah.

We don't know if Nehemiah had experienced with God working miracles and all that. What we do see is Nehemiah had a burden. And his burden was for the people of Israel, but then also it came with a faith and a repentance and just a strong conviction that I'm going to do what God said.

Mm-hmm.

In this day and time, how does that look for us? We don't have a wall that we have to build, and we don't have always people in our faces taunting us, though some do, you know.

Our love missions work, all of that, it is different. Overseas and around the world, you have different confrontations where it is more physical or it is more in your face.

But here in the United States, that's not really our fight yet.

And I do believe yet.

I believe that actually is something that's coming down the pipeline.

But when we talk about how our posture should be today, what are you seeing? What should we take away from this story? We should take away that one, we can bring it to God.

And two, that he's here for us.

Like you said, Nehemiah asked God for judgment.

He asked him, King, judge this.

And there's nothing wrong with that because he understood they're wrong.

So God, let me bring this to you.

And we can do the same thing today.

They're wrong.

God, let me bring this to you. Help me understand how I should go about this.

What do you need me to do?

Because a lot of times we can get caught up in our feelings, we can get caught up in our emotions, and not get caught up in where God wants us to be. Gets to a point where we get away from our assignment because of how we feel.

But God's going to always keep bringing it back to you until you pass 100%. This isn't a you can get a 75 and pass. This isn't a C's get degrees. This is 100%.

God wants your all.

So you need to bring it all to him. You need to bring him who you are and how you're feeling.

Okay, God, I know this wasn't right. I know I shouldn't have felt this way. Or maybe I should have.

Maybe somebody else told me this was wrong.

Let me bring it to you. Let me get the proper judgment because you are the judge.

I believe we have to let God fight for us.

Mm-hmm.

We're so quick nowadays to just take matters into our own hands or I got to say something back or I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

But the truth is that our the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

And anytime we get carnal and try to fight, we're in the wrong fight. And so encouraging the different ones who are listening, how do you trust God to be the one to fight, however he wants to fight, and plan to wait on him and get back to work? How do we keep the mindset to work?

Let's grab all that.

How do we keep the mindset to work in our fight?

First thing that comes to my mind is trusting God. That's the biggest thing to me is being able to believe that he has your best interest in mind.

Like Jeremiah 29:11, "I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end."

Because we always talk about coming to God with expectation.

He has an expectation for us.

There's an expectation of where you're supposed to be and what you're going to do. So as you trust in God, those expectations that he has for us are going to be fulfilled. Because he wants to see us in our best place because he knows what's the best for us.

So as we can be able to give it to him, and we can be able to, okay, this happened, but I'm going to keep working. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going to go through this. He's going to bring us to where we need to be.

Because we can only do so much, but he is greater. We understand that he's going to make the increase. I think we have to also be open to God's definition of best. Because sometimes we think that what's best for us is what's comfortable.

It is our nature to want to be comfortable. It is our nature to want to be okay.

And I'm not advocating for anybody out there to just go do something extreme or crazy. But I do believe we have to understand that if God lets us have to fight it out or if he lets us have to struggle or if he just handles it on his own, either way, it's still God's plan. And there's safety in God's plan because his plan is not just temporal, it's not just what we see, it's eternal. And so I just I love that about God.

But I do think in our fights and in this day and time, we have to get our minds back on the fact his plan outweighs my life. You brought me to Romans 5:3 and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.

Because everything's connected.

Like I like how you said that it's not always going to be our way. But we have to be patient for God's answer because he's always not going to answer right away also. Being able to sit in that tribulation, being able to be like, I'm getting this trial, thank you, Jesus, because you're trusting me with this. You can get the glory out of this. What I'm going through right now is going to bring you more glory because the more we get glory is the more glory we give him.

James 1:2, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, and let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

Because there's perfection in patience. There's perfection in waiting on God because he's taking that time to build us, to take those little things to tweak us a little bit to get us where he needs us to be. We have to just trust him, and he's always going to get the glory out of the situation.

Are there any last words you want to leave them with concerning this prayer or just encouraging somebody else?

Towards the prayer, I'd say give it to God, even when it hurts, even when you're tired, even when you're angry, give it to him.

Ask him. Ask him to judge this. Ask him to help you.

Because when the people were coming, it said Nehemiah prayed. And even at the end of uh verse 20, said, "In what place therefore ye shall sound the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us, our God shall fight for us." God's going to fight for us. If you are his child, he's going to fight for you.

Just words of encouragement would be just trust him.

Allow him to work. And his all going to work out.

And we believe that because we know that prayer reaches every single situation.

Be blessed.

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Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears?

I know some of us have prayed, and we're wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows?

How will I know God is answering?

And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice.

It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice, and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit press topray.com.