Preparing For The Vision

Nehemiah 1:1-4 "The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, [2] That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. [3]  And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. [4]  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"

How did Israel and Nehemiah come to be in this position? Israel, that great City of God, was scattered to the four winds by the hand of Him Who loved them. The poor of Israel remained in Palestine and intermarried with the Babylonian invaders, creating the nation of Samaria - a nation hated for its compromise even when Jesus walked the earth. Most of the captives were taken in bondage to Babylon, where they were allowed freedom as long as they obeyed the laws of that land. Some captives were so well off that they stayed in Babylon, even after they were released by Cyrus (Artaxerxes). Others escaped captivity by escaping to Egypt, and remained in that land to their deaths. Why did God disperse His people, His Beloved?

Yeshua, our Lord Jesus, has from eternity past sought a people to build a relationship with Him. When Jesus sought out and established Israel He did so with the intent of building a relationship with:

• Each individual member, and in so doing
• Building a relationship with this Nation, His Old Testament "Church".

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Leviticus 25:4-6 "But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. [5] That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. [6] And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee"

Every Seventh Year the Lord asked Israel to do an amazing thing: For six years each person in Israel was to work on their relationship with their Lord. They were to exercise their Faith, grow in Faith, watch as the Lord provided and know that He was really and truly interested in their well-being. For six years they were to work on their relationship with Jesus, so that on the seventh year they could rest. Imagine this! If I were an Israelite, I was expected to stop working for a whole year, to trust in God and rely on Him for my every need. God would till the field, as long as I trusted Him. God would give the increase, as long as I believed He would provide as any Father would.

Here is a great principle of Scripture, believers, that applies even today. If we trust Him and build our relationship with Him, He will provide our needs. He provided for the Israelites in the six work years though they tilled the soil and planted the seed. Do you think the seed will grow if God withholds the increase? No! The seed will rot in the ground if He withholds His blessing, or dry up and blow away if He withholds His rain. He provided in those six years, but rather than watch and learn from what Yeshua was doing, Israel stockpiled food. When the Sabbatical year came they, rather than resting and relying, kept working and planting.

Our God is a long-suffering God, and a Gracious King. He wanted Israel to start building a relationship with Him, just as He wants each one of you here today to trust Him. Yet Israel ignored God, ignored their relationship with Him, and skipped the Sabbatical Year every year for 490 years. Finally, God had had enough!

God reached out, and with His Sovereign hand touched the heart of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Israel was captured and dispersed from their homeland - if they would not build a relationship with their God at home, He would make them build a relationship with Him in another land. God held Israel in captivity for 70 years (this equaling the number of Sabbatical Years they ignored while in the land), as prophesied by Jeremiah:

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Jeremiah 25:8-11 "Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, [9] Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. [10] Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. [11] And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."

before releasing them by, once again, touching the King's heart:

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Ezra 1:1-3 "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, [2]  Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. [3]  Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem."

I apologize for the lengthy introduction, yet unless you understand the history behind these verses you will not know how God is speaking today. You will hear the message, yawn through it, tell me "great message" or some such nonsense, then go home unchanged. Yet I tell you, this passage has a great deal to speak to your hearts today. God still calls a people to be His and His alone, a people who are visionary, a people who want to build a relationship with Him while reaching out into the world for others to share in that vision. God is at work all around us, and wants us, as His Church, to join in with this work. But before we can do that we must grow in our relationship with Him.

Nehemiah 1:1 "The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace.."

I want you to notice this important principle: "I was in Shushan the palace". We have a tendency to think, as Christians, "As long as my house is in order, everything is fine". Yet this is not the truth of the Scripture. Think of Nehemiah. Had Nehemiah sinned before God, had he forsaken the Sabbatical Years for 490 years? No, yet Nehemiah was in captivity just as surely as was all of Israel.

You see, the relationship that God wants to build with you is not just a personal relationship, but also a relationship of the Body. Nehemiah had a personal relationship with His Creator, just as did Ezra, Daniel, and the other faithful believers who were dispersed. Yet Nehemiah went into captivity with Israel because the Body as a whole was refusing to build a relationship with God.

Today we will partake of the Lord's Table, this done in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ. But look at the elements of the Table. When the Bread is distributed, symbolic of the broken Body of our Lord Jesus, each person will hold that Bread until I say "together, Beloved". At that moment we will all individually eat of that broken Body, but we will also do it together. The fact that we do it together emphasizes that we are a Body, and we are, together, to build a relationship with our Lord. When the wine is distributed, symbolic of the shed Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, each person will hold that Blood until I say "together, Beloved". At that moment we will all individually drink of that Blood, but we will do it together. Again, we are a Body, together in union with Christ.

When one falls, we all suffer. When one sins, we all suffer. When one departs from this blessed union, the Body of Christ at Okapilco, we all suffer. Unlike the hateful admonition of Cain who cried:

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Genesis 4:9  "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?"

The Lord cries unto us, "Yes, you are your brother's keeper. You are only as strong as your weakest member. Encourage one another, call one another, rebuke one another in the Lord, so you all grow in relationship to Me".

This is a message little heeded by the me-ism of the world, yet so integral to the growth of the Church. You are your brother's keeper, and your sister's keeper. You are One Body in Christ. Take heed lest you fall by apathy toward your weaker members!

Nehemiah 1:2-3 "That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. [3]  And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire."

Before Nehemiah could do his part to rebuild Israel as God directed, he first asked some questions. He "collected information" to determine the extent of the damage. What he found out shocked him to the depth of his soul.

"The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach".  Those who were dispersed were not, as many might assume, happy and at peace with themselves. They were outside of the Plan of God, suffering. Some were dying in hospital beds with none to attend them.

I remember going to Hilda Jordan's hospital bed to see her just hours before she died. When I walked in the room, nothing could prepare me for that which I would see. Thin, her skin nearly transparent, her head was stretched forth as she struggled for each breath. I leaned over her to lean my head against hers, and with each breath she painfully jerked in I felt her pain. Her eyes were rolled up to the ceiling in a blind stare - and my heart broke for her. Her sister shared with me that she had led Hilda to the Lord prior to this moment, and I felt ease for this. Yet look - here was a sheep who, though saved, was outside of the fellowship of the Body. None attended her but a sister and a brother, and a Pastor who barely knew her. None other visited. None other cared.

Such was the suffering that the messengers related to Nehemiah. "The wall of Jerusalem", the Crown Jewel of Israel, "also is broken down". The Wall, symbolic of the protecting hand of Yeshua, was shorn in two. What was Nehemiah's response?

Nehemiah 1:4 "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"

Nehemiah suffered because Israel suffered. He wept bitter tears for those who had fallen, for the Nation torn, for the Body raped by sin - and fasted - and prayed to God above, to Jesus to bring the healing. God let Nehemiah feel about Jerusalem the way that He felt about Jerusalem. Jesus wept, so He caused Nehemiah to weep.

Are you comfortable about the way things are in this Body? Are you comfortable that members have fallen and are in sin, fallen away from the Christ who died for them? If you are I pray in Jesus' name that you feel the same way He does about those who have forsaken the Church for selfishness, for those who have fallen away into the misery of the flesh. As long as we are comfortable with the way things are, we cannot receive God's Vision for Okapilco. If we are more concerned about rocking the boat than we are with storming the gates of hell, we will never discover God's Plan for us. The river of what God wants to do is flowing all around Okapilco, around every Church .. if we will be obedient to His Will. Reach out to those who have fallen. Lift them up, together, just as we will lift up the Bread and Blood today ... together. For when we are One we will then be a tool that our Jesus can use to evangelize the community around us and the world.

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1 Corinthians 2:9-10 "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. [10]  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

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