if you
will. Will you not do it now?

THE PROPHET NEHEMIAH

I should like to call your attention to the prophet Nehemiah. We may
gain some help from that distinguished man who accomplished a great
work. He was one of the last of the prophets, was supposed to be
contemporary with Malachi, and perhaps his book was one of the last
of the Old Testament books that was written. He might have known
Daniel, for he was a young man in the declining years of that very
eminent and godly statesman. We are sure of one thing at least--he
was a man of sterling worth. Although he was brought up in the
Persian court among idolaters, yet he had a character that has stood
all these centuries.

Notice his prayer in which he made confession of Israel's apostasy
from God. There may be some confessions we need to make to be
brought into close fellowship with God. I have no doubt that numbers
of Christians are hungering and thirsting for a personal blessing,
and have a great desire to get closer to God. If that is the desire
of _your_ heart, keep in mind that if there is some obstacle in the
way which you can remove, you will not get a blessing until you
remove it. We must cooperate with God. If there is any sin in my
heart that I am not willing to give up then I need not pray. You may
take a bottle and cork it up tight, and put it under Niagara, and
not a drop of that mighty volume of water will get into the bottle.
If there is any sin in my heart that I am not willing to give up, I
need not expect a blessing. The men who have had power with God in
prayer have always begun by confessing their sins. Take the prayers
of Jeremiah and Daniel. You find Daniel confessing his sin, when
there isn't a single sin recorded against him; but he confesses his
sin and the sins of the people. Notice how David confessed his sins
and what power he had with God. So it is a good thing for us to
begin as Nehemiah did.

It seems that some men had come down from his country to the Persian
court, perhaps to see the king on business. This man, who was in
high favor with the king, met them, and finding that they had come
from Jerusalem he began to inquire about his country. He not only
loved his God, but he

LOVED HIS COUNTRY.

I like to see a patriotic man. He began to inquire about his people
and about the city that was very near to his heart, Jerusalem. He
had never seen the city. He had no relations back there in Jerusalem
that he knew of. Nehemia