The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.” (Nehemiah 1:1-3)

Broken Walls For Ninety-Two Years

In the year 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire. The king of the Chaldeans killed the young men with the sword without mercy and slaughtered the virgins along with the old and the weak. Those who escaped the sword were bound in chains and taken to Babylon. For seventy years, according to the word of Jeremiah, the prophet, the people of Judah remained until the rule of the kingdom of Persia. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a remnant was allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple of God. The work on the temple was completed in 516 B.C.

When the temple’s foundation was finished, there was great joy in praise to God mingled with voices of sadness for those who remembered the first temple. Many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. Over a period of twenty years, the temple remained unfinished because of opposition from critics. Through the work of Haggai, Zechariah, and Zerubbabel, the people had a mind to work and finish the temple. While the city rejoiced at the completion of the second temple in Jerusalem, the walls and city gates remained broken and burned. They would remain broken for seventy-two years; ninety-two years after the first group returned from Persia.

The story of the returning Jews building the temple before repairing the walls illustrates a need to trust in God first. Rebuilding the temple established the sovereignty of the Lord over His people again. What the remnant failed to do was make any effort to restore the walls of Jerusalem. For almost one hundred years, the people walked around and over the broken-down walls and burned gates. No one took the initiative to begin repairing the walls. They had grown accustomed to a world of broken walls. It was inconvenient, but it was not a worry. The task seemed too great, and no one made the effort. A city without walls was susceptible to attacks, but no one cared. It seems everyone thought it was someone else’s job to repair the walls, not their own.

It would take the heart of a man who had never seen Jerusalem to change the city. He was not an engineer, ruler, or prominent man of his day. The man who changed the city of Jerusalem was a cupbearer for the Persian king. What separated Nehemiah from the Jews of Jerusalem was his heart. He mourned over the condition of the city while the inhabitants moved over the ruins of the city. Nehemiah had a plan and purpose and believed in the power of God. Through his leadership, the city walls were repaired in 52 days. It was a remarkable feat through the power of God. Nehemiah accomplished in less than two months what everyone had ignored for nearly one hundred years.

Nehemiah saw a need and immediately began the task of rebuilding. The people of Jerusalem saw the same ruins but did not care. Nehemiah cared for Jerusalem, but the people had become complacent. Too many churches live among broken walls with little or no concern for the lost. It becomes easy to live among the ruins. Year after year, the same group meets and goes through the motions of scriptural worship and sound doctrine. Like the people of Jerusalem, they walk around the lost but never seek to tell them the story of Jesus. Praise God, we are the spiritual city of Jerusalem with broken walls and burned gates; but we have a temple!

The cupbearer for the king did not accomplish the task of building the walls alone. He gathered the faithful together and worked under harsh conditions, believing the work was the will of God. Nehemiah did not care what the norm was or how the brethren had done things for the past ninety-two years. He was there to build. Either lend a helping hand or get out of the way. What the church needs today are men and women like Nehemiah – not the people who sat around for ninety-two years doing nothing. Let us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to this good work. Are you willing?