Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning.

Today's text is from Nehemiah, Chapter 3.

So let's turn in our Bibles to Nehemiah 3, page 353 if you are using a pew Bible.

About two months ago, Michael announced he was starting a new series in Nehemiah.

So, like many of you, I began reading Nehemiah for myself.

About that same time, some dear friends gave Lisa and I a very nice gift: The entire Bible on CD, read by Max McLean.

You know, the great thing about listening to the Bible, is that you can multi­process.

You can listen and still do something else.

That particular evening, I was folding the laundry AND listening to the adventures of Nehemiah.

I found that Chapters 1 and 2 were pretty good.

Nehemiah was quite a man of leadership and prayer.

I could see why Michael chose this book!

Then came Chapter 3. Now, I want you to get the full experience of my evening with the socks, T-shirts, and the old city of Jerusalem.

So, for your listening pleasure, I present Max McLean, reading Nehemiah chapter 3, in the New International Version.

I think listening down through verse 7 is enough to give you a sense of my experience:

 

Chapter 3: Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the Sheep Gate.

They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel.

The men of Jericho built the adjoining section, and Zaccur son of Imri built next to them.

The Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah.

They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place.

Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired the next section.

Next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs, and next to him Zadok son of Baana also made repairs.

The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors.

The Jeshanah Gate was repaired by Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah.

They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place.'Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah-Melatiah of Gibeon and Jadon of Meronoth places under the authority of the governor of Trans-Euphrates.

[FADE CD]

 

Pretty much, it goes on like that for 32 verses.

Himhab son of Hobab worked next to Rimtam son of Hoohuz, and they repaired the Doodah Gate, laying its beams and setting its bolts and bars.

They worked next to SlimJim, son of Lama Lama Ding Dong who put the bop in the bop-pa-ba-ba-bop and the dip in the dip-di-di-di-dip!

After listening to that, I asked myself, "What in the world is Michael going to do with Nehemiah Chapter 3?" (long pause)

 

You ever wonder what Pastor's do for fun?

Perhaps you are, right now, witnessing a pastoral practical joke.

"Hey Bob, how 'bout preaching on the 18th?

I'll even give you Nehemiah Chapter 3!" Then one of the other Pastors chimes in: "You know Bob, it's really an honor to preach part of Michael's series."

I see the fence!

Where's the whitewash?

Remember 2 Timothy 3:16 from J.T.'s message last week?

I think it would be good, before mining the depths of this chapter, to remind ourselves of it.

Let's read together from the overhead:

2 T1M3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching,

for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the

man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

That tells us that all Scripture is valuable, even Nehemiah Chapter 3!  By faith then, let's look seriously at Chapter 3, expecting that God will train us in righteousness.

And I think it's a good idea for us to ask God to do that very thing.

Let's pray:

 

Lord God.

You inspired Nehemiah to record who-did-what in building the walls of Jerusalem.

Your Holy Spirit moved him to write down names which are now long forgotten, and who restored gates only to be destroyed again.

Yet the example of their teamwork lives on.

The example of HOW they served You is here for us today.

May we learn from it - imitate it - and may our service for Jesus' sake be so recorded in Your book.

In His name we pray.

Amen.

In it's introduction to Chapter 3, the Expositor's Bible Commentary tells us: "This chapter is one of the most important in the OT for determining the topography of Jerusalem."

If nothing else, my study in preparation for this sermon gave me a better understanding of the old city of Jerusalem, and the topography of the hills.

I became quite popular the last few weeks.

Whenever someone came in to see my new office, they also saw my funky map.

[STEVE SHAKING BOB'S HAND]  I projected this thing on the wall, and traced it on a piece of yellow paper.

Then I cut out a copy of the Scriptures, and pasted each verse where the guys were building.

This is a picture of the Executive Pastor giving me the "Bible Bwana of the Week" Award.

[BOB'S FUNKY MAP] You know, studying the Bible can be fun and interesting, if we just step out of the "quiet time" mode every once in a while.

Let me say, that it is OK to get your Bible time in the car, listening to it on cassette or CD.

It's OK to do projects like this one, if it helps you to understand better what was going on.

It's OK to use different kinds of Bibles.

Here is one called the Narrated Bible.

It takes the Bible and puts it in chronological order.

Now I am not saying that you only do these kinds of things.

And you need to use something like an interpretive Bible critically.

Ask yourself if you agree with their point of view.

You have a mind - use it!

If you want to win the "Bible Bwana of the Week" award, you have to read your Bible.

There is no other way.

Just remember - there are gates into your mind other than left-brained, logical, analytical information processing.

Using one of them is no less valid than ratcheting your eyes open at o-dark-thirty in the morning - as long as you are opening yourself up to the Holy Spirit, where He can plow deep furrows into your soul.

[LINE DRAWING ELEVATED CITY]

 

Now lets move from the "Mr.

Bob Funky Map" map to this line drawing of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day.

This shows why they always went "up" to Jerusalem, because it is on top a mountain.

In the foreground you have the Kidron Valley, with a steep grade up to the eastern wall.

Notice that the Temple complex is on the highest point, uphill from the City of David down here.

[PHOTO OF CITY]  This is an aerial photo from about the same perspective, and you can trace out the natural contours of the land and the site of Nehemiah's wall.

Nehemiah records the reconstruction of 10 city gates, and the walls in-between them.

[MAP OF WALLS]   He starts up here at the Sheep Gate, in the northeast, and moves counter clockwise around the city.

He had something like 40 work crews, who rebuilt the walls in 52 days - all at the same time.

And because it was only 52 days, most scholars believe that they used existing stones from the rubble, rather than cutting new ones.

Along the top section, there were about 5 work crews.

Along the northwest side, about 13 work crews.

Down here on the southwest side, 9 crews.

Now look in the southeast section.

This is where the Kidron Valley runs below the wall. 1 6 work crews were here - most of them bunched up on the ridge.

Finally, the northwest section had 8 work crews.

Now, let's return to the southeast quarter.

The highest concentration of work was right here.

The reason being, that the blocks were down here in the bottom of the Kidron ravine.

Scholars say that either this was the site of the old wall, and Nehemiah moved it to the more defensible higher ground, or the blocks fell down into the ravine when the wall was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.

In either case, the work was hardest here, because they had to drag all those stones up the hill, so it makes sense that there were more work crews for this section.

I don't know about you, but I always get a charge out of seeing the accuracy of the Bible come to life, even in little things like matching geography with the Biblical record.

So the first thing we get from Nehemiah chapter 3 is an overview of the project.

This should give you have a better mental picture of what they were doing.

But you know there is much more in this Chapter than geography.