Rise up and Build

Nehemiah 2

My wife would tell me when she was a teenager her father was doing a remodeling of their house. He was doing most of it himself so it took some time. She told me when it was days they would spend on the house he would go around to wake everyone up and say, “Rise up and build.” It was time to work and time to get going.

In this chapter we read about Nehemiah who was one of the Israelites who was living in Babylon and he was a cupbearer to the king, Artaxerxes, of Persia. A cupbearer was one who would not only help in serving the king but they would need to taste the wine or drink before the king did. He was the tester to make sure no one poisoned the king. If they poisoned the king then Nehemiah would be the first to find out as he would have died.  

Nehemiah Goes

God granted Nehemiah with favor from the king as he listened to Nehemiah’s request and allowed him to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. We read about Ezra rebuilding the temple and now we will look at the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. The wall was so important for a city in that time because it served as protection from invaders. What was left of Jerusalem was a ruined heap of stone left when Babylon came and destroyed it. 

He Works

The first thing we see when Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem is that he goes and walks around the wall or all that is left. He sees that there is a lot of work left and summons the Israelites that are in Jerusalem by saying, “Rise up and Build.” There is work to do and they did not have time to waste. The city was in ruins and it needed to be repaired. 

Nehemiah started to rebuild and work with his fellow brothers and as they worked they were ridiculed and made fun of but Nehemiah kept on working.

Rebuild the Wall

I always view a wall as something defensive and we need a wall around our spiritual lives to protect us from sin which wants to invade. Sometimes sin wins and our walls fall down and crumble. When we turn from sin and follow after Christ we are rebuilding our walls. We are filling them with the solid stone of Christ death and resurrection. As we follow after the Lord we will face ridicule by someone. Just like Nehemiah faced it we face it sometimes from friends, sometimes from ourselves, and mostly from the devil. He ridicules us by making us feel stupid about it. He makes us feel unworthy and that it is pointless. The truth is that we need to keep going forward. We need to rise up and build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. We need to work because the time is short. We do not want to allow Satan a place to invade.