Weep For The Things That Break The Heart Of The Lord

“As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4)

Unworried, indifferent, unmoved, weakened, and oblivious may be words you can use to describe the remnant in Jerusalem. Had they become comfortable in their condition? Were they clueless or did they not know why they were in that state? Like sheep, harassed and helpless in Matthew 9:36, so were these. They needed a shepherd, one who is touched and moved by their plight and one who could rescue them from their miserable situation. Even today, many people need someone to come and give them a push, someone who can turn the light on for them to see. 

God has always shown us that our help comes from someone who is outside of us and Nehemiah was a type of Christ in that he lived a perfectly good life but had to leave his perfect dwelling and rescue people who were living in ruin. He was the trusted cupbearer of king Artaxerxes and he tasted first whatever wine the king drank. That means he was not a man of low position. He had never been sad in the presence of the king but this time, after learning about the state of the people in Jerusalem his countenance fell. He was touched to the heart, had great sorrow and compassion for the people of the Lord and Jerusalem the great city of his God. Since it had been turned into ruins no one was able to do anything about it. But the time was ripe for the Lord to reverse the fortunes of his people and the city. In the same way, Christ was perfectly happy with the Father in Heaven. There was nothing anyone could add to his joy yet he was moved by our devastatingly depraved condition. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). So, he came to seek and to save the lost. 

In our lostness, we are not able to see our dire condition to the fullest and this remnant was no different. We read that the Jews were in great trouble and shame yet continued to live in that mess. Nehemiah’s brothers did not bother to share this with him. Maybe they were only concerned about their own welfare since their brother could provide for them. But it is Nehemiah himself who asked them about “… the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 1:2) to which they replied, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire” (Nehemiah 1:3). 

A lot happened thereafter and Nehemiah prayerfully requested the king to allow him go to Jerusalem to build the wall. Like Christ, he too faced a lot of opposition. Sanballat and Tobiah mocked and ridiculed them when they were building the wall. They had great displeasure and anger that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel (Nehemiah 2:10, 4:7), jeered, despised and brought false accusation to the Jews (Nehemiah 2:19). And if that was not enough, they used intimidation saying, “if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” [Nehemiah 4:3]. There are many other things that these enemies of the Jews did like conspiring to kill Nehemiah, generating false accusations and conniving with some religious people to trap him. 

Now if this is what Sanballat and Tobiah did when Nehemiah came to build the wall, how much more did he despise the remnant before he came? Had they come to believe that they were of no value and could not do anything like seek God? Had they come to accept everything their enemies told them? Though Sanballat and Tobiah were no giants like Goliath, their tormenting words certainly were and I’m sure that like Israel during the time of Goliath, “All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid. And the men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel.” (1 Samuel 17:24-25a)

But, as soon as Nehemiah heard about the state of the Jews in Jerusalem, he “sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4). Many of the Jews in Jerusalem no longer sat down to think or muse about the city of God and they no longer wept for it. Life with a ruined and burnt up wall had become normal to them. None of them laid it to heart and none of them mourned, prayed or fasted for it. It is sad when the church no longer weeps for the things that break the heart of the Lord. It is sad state when there is an open-door policy for the world to enter the church. No wonder we see the Lord, the owner of the church telling it to open the door for Him because He was relegated to stand outside in Revelation 3:20. Jesus wept over the city (Luke 19:41, see also Matthew 23:37-39) yet they had gotten used to their ways and even killed God’s messengers to them. The temple had lost its exclusivity as a place of prayer. They had turned it into a den of robbers and a place of trade (Matthew 21:12-13, John 2:14-16). Sounds much like the church today doesn’t it where church halls are built as income generating projects to host secular meetings and weddings yet when you call for a prayer meeting, only a handful pitch up because everyone has become too busy for God’s business. Remember the early church used to meet at the hour of prayer (Acts 3:1)?

You cannot be saved and not be moved when you see the trajectory that the church and world is taking. Never before has it become self-evident that the end of the world is destruction and that people who do not believe in Jesus are on a head-on collision course with the justice and wrath of God. This is not the time nor the place for us to experiment with people’s lives. They can do that in the medical or any other field because that is not an eternal death sentence but the church must be on its prescribed mission. God has placed you and I on earth for such a time as this. He is building His church and He does that through us. We should know that this is not the time nor the place to seek our own comfort but the salvation of the lost. The Lord wants to build an eternal wall of security which can only be found in none other than Christ Himself. May the Lord make you and I weeping saints and not be callous when we see brokenness around us.  It is time to build.

What is your ambition in life and how is it contributing to God’s purposes? Nehemiah, like Moses (Hebrews 11:24-27), chose to suffer with the people of God than to continue living in the palace eating the delicacies of the king. “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26). May your and my ambition in life be like that of Paul who said, “and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation (Romans 15:20). We are to do whatever it takes to make Christ known to all people, nations and tongues. Now, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-15). Desire beautiful feet. Weep for the things that break the heart of the Lord.

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About The Author:

Pastor Sam Machacka is co-founder of Brink Ministries Southern Africa. A wonderful colleague and good friend. Equipping Pastors and Church leaders in Southern Africa. He grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe with his beautiful wife Mildred and they are blessed with three lovely children namely Samantha, Munashe and Joshua but they are now serving as missionaries in Malawi since August 2018

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