that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I
will scatter you abroad among the nations: but if ye turn unto me,
and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast
out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them
from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen
to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people,
whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand.
O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer
of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to
fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and
grant him mercy in the sight of this man."

When he began to pray I have no idea that he thought he was to be
the instrument in God's hand of building the walls of Jerusalem. But
when a man gets into sympathy and harmony with God, then God
prepares him for the work He has for him. No doubt he thought the
Persian king might send one of his great warriors and accomplish the
work with a great army of men, but after he had been praying for
months, it may be the thought flashed into his mind:

"Why should not I go to Jerusalem myself and build those walls?"

Prayer for the work will soon arouse your own sympathy and effort.

Now mark, it meant a good deal for Nehemiah to give up the palace of
Shushan and his high office, and identify himself with the despised
and captive Jews. He was among the highest in the whole realm. Not
only that, but he was a man of wealth, lived in ease and luxury, and
had great influence at court. For him to go to Jerusalem and lose
caste was like Moses turning his back on the palace of Pharaoh and
identifying himself with the Hebrew slaves. Yet we might

NEVER HAVE HEARD OF

either of them if they had not done this. They stooped to conquer;
and when you get ready to stoop God will bless you. Plato, Socrates,
and other Greek philosophers lived in the same century as Nehemiah.
How few have heard of them and read their words compared with the
hundreds of thousands who have heard and read of Nehemiah during the
last two thousand years!

If you and I are to be blessed in this world, we must be willing to
take any position into which God puts us. So, after Nehemiah had
prayed a while, he began to pray God to send him, and that he might
be the man to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

After he had been praying some time, he was one day