Blood, Sweat and Tears

Nehemiah 4:15

"And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work."

We have been studying how GOD'S church is Built Upon Jesus. How the church will endure forever and the people who came before us established all that we benefit from today. We have SO MUCH to be thankful for and keeping everything good and passing it on to the people who come after us; is a huge undertaking. We can do it! This challenge is nothing new.

Let's turn back to the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. This is the last history book of the Old Testament, written around 444 B.C. We can think of Nehemiah as a sequel to the book of Ezra. These events took place after the Jewish people's seventy years of exile in Babylon. Nehemiah led the third of three groups returning to their hometown. Nehemiah was not a priest like Ezra. Nehemiah was not a prophet like Malachi. He was a working man. He was a civil servant to the Persian king. 

Nehemiah's example is outstanding; he gave up his good job in the palace to return to a hometown he never knew and undertake the hard and laborious task to REBUILD IT! From a posh life with the royals to a life filled with BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS. 

"And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work." Here their enemies are the Samaritans. Nehemiah and his team are there to build protective walls around Jerusalem. The Samaritans are working to demolish any work they do. The Samaritans want to intimidate and scare off the Jewish people. Nehemiah’s people labored with a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other...