Moments to Ponder

Episode 161: It Begins With Prayer

• Betsy Marvin • Season 17 • Episode 161

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We trace the road from Israel’s fracture to Nehemiah’s grief and see why broken walls meant a vulnerable people. We connect Jerusalem’s gates to the boundaries that guard our hearts and start the rebuilding with prayer.

• setting a new series on Nehemiah and why it matters now
• timeline from Solomon to exile, Persia, and return
• the temple rebuilt but walls in ruins and why that matters
• Nehemiah’s response of lament, fasting, and prayer
• prayer as first response, not last resort
• our hearts as God’s temple and the need for gates
• practical reflection on breaches, boundaries, and renewal
• invitation to write prayers and watch for restoration

This week, I encourage you to begin to pray over any area of your life that needs God's intervention and renewal. Then write it down, bring it before God, and let's see how God works in that over the next few weeks.

Welcome And New Series Launch

0:37  Why Nehemiah And Why Now

1:35  Israel’s Split And Exile Timeline

3:14  Persia’s Role And Temple Rebuild

5:06  Ezra’s Return And Setup For Nehemiah

6:54  Nehemiah’s Report And Grief

8:15  Why Broken Walls Truly Matter

9:26  Prayer As First Response

11:18  Your Heart As God’s Temple

13:05  Guarding Gates Without Shutting Out

14:42  A Weekly Practice Of Prayer

16:00  Ponder Prompt And Closing Prayer

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi friends, I'm Betsy and I want to welcome you to Moments to Ponder. If you're interested in learning more from the Bible but sometimes struggle to know how it connects to everyday life, you have come to the right place. This podcast is designed to help you spend a few moments in God's Word and take away something to ponder. I pray our time together will be an encouragement for you. This is Episode 161. Today we begin our new series, which is season 17 on Moments to Ponder. If you're new to my content, welcome. I am so glad you're joining us. Now, I do know that for some people it's helpful to see a face and feel the space in order to connect with what's being said. And if that's you, if you're a visual learner, I'm also on YouTube, and you can find me on my channel, Betsy Marvin. So let's get started. Last fall, as I came out of a church service, an older woman who faithfully listens to this podcast laid her hand on my arm and she looked me in the eye and she said, Nehemiah, it's your next series. I love the Old Testament, and it had been a while since I'd read Nehemiah, so I dove in and uh, oh my goodness, I discovered so many applications and realized that June had given me a word I needed to follow. The Old Testament can be interesting, but sometimes complicated to deal with because of its age and all the cultures involved. But as we move through this series, it's my hope to bring these historical people to life for you and to help us connect with what they have to teach us. If you're unfamiliar with this Old Testament book, no worries. It's a short book of history that begins in 445 BC, which, for our reference, is about 445 years before Jesus is born. As with all scripture, we need to understand its context, the author, and the audience that it is for in order to fully grasp what we're reading. So let's begin with some backstory on the book of Nehemiah. You may have heard of King David. Well, he had a son, Solomon. And after King Solomon ruled, the land of Israel started to fall apart, and eventually it divided into two kingdoms, one called Israel to the north, and the other called Judah to the south. First and second Kings tell the stories of all of the different kings that led these kingdoms. Some were good, and others did evil in the sight of the Lord. In 722 BC, Israel, the northern kingdom, was conquered by the Assyrians. And later in 2 Kings 25, we read that Judah was taken over by Babylon around 605 BC. Now, if you're unfamiliar with BC dating, the years count down toward zero and then 1 A.D. going up. Thus, Israel was conquered 117 years before Judah. If you've heard of Daniel, another book in the Old Testament, he's the Lion's Den guy. He was a teenager in 605, and he was taken prisoner by the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar basically leveled the city of Jerusalem. He burned the gates to the city, destroyed the walls, and took thousands of people back to Babylon as prisoners. The book of Daniel tells of his rise in the Babylonian government, and later, when Persia took over, he served at high levels under the Persian kings. Why this matters is because the book of Nehemiah happens when Persia is still ruling the world. Now in Daniel, he writes of a prophecy that God told him, that it would be 70 years before the Jewish people would return to the city of Jerusalem. And 70 years later, under Persian rule, the first group of exiles returned under a guy named Zerubbabel. The Persians actually allowed a lot of religious freedom to those they conquered, unlike the Babylonians. They understood that by honoring belief systems, there would be a better semblance of peace in their territories. So under the Persian king Cyrus, Zerubbabel began to work on rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. But he faces quite a bit of local opposition, and the work stops. During this time, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, which are also Old Testament books, came to encourage the people. They wanted them to continue to build the temple and not get sidetracked by building their own stuff. So because of the prophet's work, a letter is sent to King Darius when he comes into his reign in 522. He's reminded by those in Jerusalem of what Cyrus had decreed about rebuilding their temple. So a couple years later, the work on the temple begins and it takes about four years to complete. Now King Darius was followed by his son Xerxes, who you might recognize from the story of Esther. Then Xerxes' son Artaxerxes begins his reign in 465 BC. Okay, hang with me. We're almost through this history. Then a guy named Ezra enters the story. Now, Ezra is a priest, and he's been given permission by King Artaxerxes to take whoever wants to go with him and return to Jerusalem. Thousands of people return with him around 458 BC. So Ezra dedicates the temple when he gets there and he calls the people back into alignment with the laws of God. Thirteen years later, we finally meet Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a continuation of the story of the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem that began a hundred years earlier under Zerubbabel. In fact, Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one book, but at some point they were separated into two. And this sets the stage for our story. The once wealthy and strong nation of Israel became divided and conquered, and the people were exiled to a foreign country. But God hadn't forgotten them. Through Daniel and Esther, God protected his people. Through Zerubbabel in Ezra, the temple was built and dedicated. And it's here that we find Nehemiah's handprint. Persia was a world power under King Xerxes. Ezra's in the temple in Jerusalem, and thousands have come, but there's a problem. The book begins this way. These are the memoirs of Nehemiah, son of Hakalya. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the 20th year of King Ari Xerxes' reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. Okay, so right away we see that this is a journal, a memoir, and it's written by Nehemiah, first person account. And as with many journal entries, he starts by dating it. It's November-Decemberish in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes, which puts us in 445 BC. And we're in the fortress of Susa, which is the capital city of the empire of that day. Today this would be located in southwest Iran. Verse 2. Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. And they said to me, Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They're in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire. When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. These verses set the stage for all that is to come. Nehemiah is concerned about the people. And then he hears that they're in great trouble and disgrace. He hears about the broken walls and the burned out gates of the city. And although this is sad, it doesn't seem like it's life-changing news for Nehemiah, who lives way over in Susa. But he's heartbroken and he's never even been there. He mourns, weeps, fasts, and prays for days. When you get bad news, what do you do? Do you find you have tears or do you get angry or frustrated? Well, it probably depends on the bad news, right? And I feel like Nehemiah is a little over the top as we first meet him. This is a big emotional reaction. But we're gonna learn that there's a lot more to this story. It is not just about walls. For Nehemiah, the city and its walls are the physical manifestation of God among his people. For the Jews, the temple was literally the presence of God among them and the heart of their faith. Without walls for this city, the temple was vulnerable. It was unguarded. The walls weren't meant to keep everyone out. The gates allowed people to come and go, but when protection was needed, the gates needed to be able to be closed to keep the people and temple safe. So when Nehemiah hears about the ruins, he knows that the presence of God is unprotected. And this affects him deeply. The heart of Jerusalem is a holy place that has been left vulnerable to outside influence and attack. It's disgraceful to have left the temple and the city in this kind of disrepair. These verses in chapter one show us something that will define Nehemiah throughout the entire book. Prayer. He mentions praying for days. In fact, we'll learn that he prayed over this for months. Have you ever felt so strongly about something that you prayed about it for days at a time? Or months or a year? I have. And they aren't small requests, are they? They're usually soul deep needs. It's not that God doesn't hear me when I pray. It's it's a way for me to keep it at the forefront of my mind, to continually remember to give it to him and to wait on him. So I keep bringing it before him in prayer. And we all have different passions that drive our work or our interests. I mean, for some of you, it's justice. For others, it's the competition of a great game. For others, it's art, as in music or drawing or painting or creating. And when that kind of passion is threatened, we react. Some with signs and rallies, some with more practice and effort for the next game, and others with artistic pieces that evoke emotion. One area of passion that I think most of us share is a passion for our families. When our families are threatened, we react, don't we? I mean, my mama bear comes out. For Nehemiah, his family, the Jews, are threatened. His people are open and vulnerable, and his first reaction is prayer. It's easy to react out of frustration and anger, but Nehemiah gives us a great example here, seeking God's counsel and direction rather than his own. Prayer, the ultimate lifeline with our Heavenly Father. It's a place of strength and discernment, courage and wisdom to seek what to do about the thing that's raised its head in our lives. For Nehemiah, the vulnerability of the temple and the people of Jerusalem has broken his heart. And he knew he needed to do something, so he prayed. We'll look closer at his prayer next time we're together. Now remember, from our little history lesson, it has been a hundred years since this process began. And now, although the temple is rebuilt, the walls are unfinished. The ruins are a constant reminder of the losses that the people have suffered. For Nehemiah, the challenge is a physical thing. But for us, as we apply this scripture to today, we connect the temple with our lives. According to 1 Corinthians 3, if we are Jesus' followers, we have become his temple, where he dwells. Jesus says in John 14, 16 and 17, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate who will never leave you. You know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. John writes in 1 John 4, God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Just as Jerusalem was the home of the Jewish people, forming a hub around the temple from which everything flowed, our lives are the city and our souls are the temple. Our hearts are central to our lives. It's the place that affects everything else. Proverbs 4.23 says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Our hearts need to be protected, not shut off. I mean, we need to have gates in the walls of our lives to let things come and go. But that central piece of us, that central part is what everything flows from. Dear one, we as followers of Jesus have become the place where God dwells, his temple. Our hearts become his home. And we need to guard this, protect it. Not in an effort to put up walls to keep everything out. Remember, walls have gates. But our hearts can become too vulnerable to outside influences if we're not careful about what we allow in. This is something Nehemiah is very concerned about to the point of praying for months. Being open and vulnerable while still protecting our souls is a hard tension to live in. Yet as we move through this story, Nehemiah will show us how this is possible. In his first lesson, it begins with prayer. So here's something to ponder. Take a look at the spiritual walls of your life as we begin this journey. What shape are they in? Are some parts of the walls crumbling, meaning you've lost some of your strength or focus that you once had in your faith? Maybe other parts are completely open, missing a wall completely, meaning that you've lost a boundary that was once important to you. Or maybe your walls are brand new and they're just being built. They're just not very high yet. Meaning you're in the learning process, discovering where walls need to be and where gates need to be. So how's your temple? Your soul in the center of your city? Are you aware of the outside influences that want to derail your walk with God? Busyness, distraction, temptation. This week, I encourage you to begin to pray over any area of your life that needs God's intervention and renewal. Then write it down, bring it before God, and let's see how God works in that over the next few weeks. As we see God work through Nehemiah, my prayer is that He will work through us as well in the areas where we need restoration and rebuilding. And it starts with prayer. Amen.