A Little More History....

This info is from a Beth Moore study on Nehemiah. It gives a little more history that I found very interesting. She, also, shares her thoughts on how Nehemiah is relevant to us today.

Enjoy...

History:

The people of Israel consisted of 12 tribes. During Solomon's reign, they divided into the 10 Northern Tribes and the 2 Southern Tribes.

The 10 Northern Tribes maintained the name Israel.

The 2 Southern Tribes took the name Judah.

God told them early on, long before they went into the promised land "if you stick with me, I will fight every battle for you. However, if you fall to the temptation of worshipping and living like the pagans around you, I will take my hand off of you in warfare. You will fall to the enemy and end up in captivity.


The Northern tribes fell into captivity first (722 BC). They (Israel) were taken in Syrian Captivity. The problem was that they assimiliated into the Syrian culture, and became like the Syrians. They fell apart. They did not unite in their captivity.

When the southern Tribes (Judah) went into Babylonian captivy (586 BC), they did not do what Israel did. They remained intact. They stuck together.


In 539 BC, the power of Babylon was broken by the Persians. The Persian king believed it was appropriate for Judah to go back to their homeland. The first exiles that returned rebuilt the temple. The second exiles were freed 20 years later. When they went back, they realized the first exiles had taken on pagan practices. One reason they did it was because they had a temple but they had no wall.

The wall represents the protection from the enemy.


Without a wall, there was no way of keeping the people of God in a protected worshipful environment, so they were subject to defeat.

Nehemiah was living in a pagan kingdom (Persia) during the first two exiles, because he had not been released yet.

Relevance in our lives:


(1) We are living in a pagan kingdom; We have compromised and gotten gray and blurry.

John 17:14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them for they are not of the world anymore than I am. My prayer is tnot that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. Santify them by the truth. If we are going to be successful in a pagan world, we must be santified by God's word and to be a spiritual filled people.

(2) Although we have been libereated in Christ, all of us have experienced captivity in this pagan kingdom.

In alot of ways Satan has us captive. ex. Division in the church... legalism....

(3) We are never more vulnerable than when we just returned from captivity.


How have you been in exile? ex....death, divorce... trying to rebuild life after a catastrophe. feeling of real vulnerability...the aftermath of a crisis...life will never be the same, but how is it gonna be, and will we make it?

(4) We must remain unified in this pagan kingdom. If we are humble and repentant, God will do mighty things.

(5) Though we are called to work here, we must resist being at home here. How do we do that? We stay connected to our real home. If we get outside God's word, we will be able to look at our lives and see how we had begun to blend in with the pagan kingdom.

(6) We, too, are cupbearers, Matt 20:22-23 Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand? He said - are you ready to drink the cup that is for me. Christ drinks THE cup, but he calls upon us, his disciples, to dirnk FROM the cup. We sip the same cup when we live the same cup when we live the same life that Christ lived on this earath. . If you have been betrayed by someone, and you let Christ teach you in this suffering, you drink from the cup. We are the cupbearers of this generations, living in a pagan world.


We are wise to do a couple of things:

Grow more aquainted with God and his people through the study of His word.

1. his personality
2. his promises
3. his practices

Nehemiah knew what to ask because he already knew God well enough to know what to ask. God is a righteous judge.

Learn to take our time with God and pour out our hearts before we take action. "for some days I mourned, and fasted, and prayed"

In a time of crisis we can't think straight....Nehemiah mourned before God for days....then he came and prayed the prayers...checking into the scriptures

We can't always know the mind of God, but we can always know the heart of God. God's heart is for people. Wait before we begin to act. Put the petition before God. Where, in your word, can I find a prescedent for what's going on.

Grow in our prayer lives. Mourn to Him.

Those who knew God best - Nehemiah, Ezra, David - had reverence and boldness in prayer.

James 4:3 When we have a request that reflects the heart of God, even if He isn't going to give it to us, then we can go before him Boldly...God will honor that kind of heart.

We are human beings filled with the Holy Spirit of God; We are the Nehemiah's of this generation, who teaches people how to live in a pagan world, and how to be secured/santified in the love of God while they are still the light of the world.

We have the same God as Nehemiah. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I know this is a brief summary and may not make a lot of sense. As we get further into Nehemiah, I will spend more time in the Beth Moore study, and hopefully, go into more detail to make things more clear.

I am heading to Florida tomorrow and won't be back until Monday. We will start Nehemiah, Chapter 2, then.

Looking forward to it...