Arnold Toynbee, the English historian, said, "Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice." That "definite intelligibl
The final step of Nehemiah's success in arousing the people to rebuild the walls was his skill in taking them into his confidence, in the sense that he kept them informed. Of what? At this stage it was the progress already attained. It had two parts. First, there had been a victory at the highest le
The people of Jerusalem were motivated by their earthly citizenship and responded, as the story shows, by rebuilding their city's walls. We have a heavenly citizenship (Phil. 3:20). Are we proud of that citizenship? Are we motivated to work enthusiastically for its good? There is work to be done, wa
In yesterday’ study, we looked at the first two aspects of planning. Today we begin by mentioning the third.3. Implementation. There is one more aspect of this that is often overlooked, mainly, I suppose, because we do not think of it as a part of good planning. It is what Robert J. Schoenberg calls
First, Nehemiah was a great planner—a prayer and a planner. He knew, as we should know also, that the two are not opposed to but rather support one another. There are three aspects of this first step of planning. We will look at the first two today. 1. Information. One of the best known incidents i
One of the complaints raised against the Bible is that it is impractical, that it is too “spiritual” to be of real use. The opinion is usually voiced by those who do not know the Bible well, though in fairness to their view it is right to acknowledge that the Bible does have spiritual goals. Even Ne
6. Dependence on God. The final secret of successful middle management in this story is dependence upon God. Nehemiah had been planning. Dependence on God does not eliminate planning any more than it eliminates hard work. But while he was planning he had also been praying. And at the end, after the
The fourth secret of middle management success is prayer. We have already looked at Nehemiah's great model prayer in chapter 1, noting that it had the elements of a formal petition: adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. It gives insight into Nehemiah's habits of personal devotion. He
2. Tact. The second secret of dealing with a superior successfully is tact. We speak about tact often. Yet more often we fail to exercise it. We think that it is more needful to “speak our mind,” Notice how tactful Nehemiah was with Artaxerxes. First, when the king asked why he was sad, Nehemiah ans
Nehemiah's difficulties did not stop there either. To be sad in King Artaxerxes presence was dangerous enough. But in addition to that, what Nehemiah wanted was to go to Jerusalem and rebuild its walls, and it was precisely this king who earlier had been petitioned against the rebuilding of the wall
We saw in the last chapter that the first dynamic of effective leadership illustrated in the memoirs of Nehemiah is the relationship between the leader and God. Unless his or her relationship to God is right the leader will never be God’s choice for any situation, nor in the final analysis will the
The final element in the ACTS acrostic is supplication, which Nehemiah employs as a conclusion to his prayer (v. 11). Having acknowledged God's greatness, confessed his own sin and reviewed God's promises, he now lays his petitions before God, saying: "O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer
Today we continue our look at the ACTS acrostic in the prayer of Nehemiah.Nehemiah has reminded himself of what he is doing and the greatness and character of the God to whom he is directing his prayer. The second element in Nehemiah’s prayer is confession of sin. “I confess the sins we Israelites,
We are going to be looking at Nehemiah's mastery of prayer more than once in these studies, but there is no better way to be introduced to it than by a study of the prayer with which the book starts. Here are three important things about it.But this study is about leadership primarily, not history.
In yesterday’s study, we concluded by saying that we needed to understand something of the history of this period. Today we look at some of the key elements.1. The fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. This event deserves special mention because it is the key to understanding most of what
Many people whose stories are told to us in the Bible were leaders. We usually think of the Bible as a book concerned only with the common man, or with the lowly or disadvantaged, and it is true that it is. But that is only part of the story. For one thing, many of these “lowly” or “disadvantaged” p
Those were Israel’s three choices if they did not want to worship the Lord. Joshua says, "Make your choice. You’ve got the gods of Egypt, the gods of Babylon, the gods of Canaan, or the God of Israel. What will it be? You have to choose. You have to go on choosing. But as for me and my house, we are
Joshua’s challenge to them is to choose God. I mentioned when we were talking about Joshua 22 and 23 that this has been his challenge all along. "You must make a decision," he’s saying. "You must choose to serve God." For the first time here in chapter 24, the word “choose” occurs: "Choose for yours
Paul wrote that no one does good and no one seeks after God. That's the way God sees the human heart. And if, when God looks down from heaven upon the heart of man, all He sees is that the heart of man is only deceitful and practicing wicked all the time from His perspective, how could God possibly
The point at which this sermon begins is with a reminder of what God had already done for the people in the past. Now that’s the pattern Joshua had used earlier in chapters 22 and 23. But here in chapter 24 we have the lengthiest rehearsal of all these great works of God on behalf of the people in p
A number of years ago, when the Committee on Biblical Exposition was first getting underway, the organizers had a meeting at which they attempted to define what they meant by “expository preaching.” It wasn’t such an easy thing to do. I was present for those discussions, and I can assure you it too
Well, we come to the last part of Joshua’s charge, and it’s in the form of a challenge. He challenges them not to drift along, but rather to make a choice for God. Perhaps it’s not as clear here at the end of chapter 23 as it’s going to become in chapter 24, where the very word, “choose” occurs: “Ch
Yesterday we looked at the first obligation in response to God’s past actions. The second obligation of the people is in verse 11, where Joshua says, "So be very careful to love the Lord your God." That hasn’t been emphasized much until now. The need for obedience has been there all along; but now J
The second part of Joshua’s address is that on the basis of what God has done, you have present obligations. There are a couple of them. One obligation is the obligation of obedience. It's what he talks about in verses 6 to 8: “Be very strong. Be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of th
