A true man of prayer puts feet to his prayers. He has learned that God doesn’t do for us what He has already given us the ability to do for ourselves. God looks for people who pray about their work for Him. But He also looks for people who, having prayed, do His work. God found such a man in Nehemiah.
To do a study of prayer as found in the book of Nehemiah, we first need to collect all the references to prayer. Then we need to correlate what we find in these references into an outline. When that is done we need to crystallize what we discover into some applications.
Nehemiah chapter 1 describes how his burden about the woeful conditions in Jerusalem drove him to fervent prayer and fasting. There was urgency in his prayer – note verse 11: “Give your servant success today!” In chapter 2 verse 4, when given the opportunity to tell the king about his burden, it says, “I prayed to the God of heaven and answered the king.”
In chapter 4 he prays against his enemies, and then he continues to pray and post a guard day and night to meet this threat. In chapter 6 he prays for strength to continue the work, and also for God to deal with the opposition. In chapter 8 and 9, after hearing God’s Word, the people both confessed sin and worshiped God in prayer. Nehemiah also called on God to remember him for the things he had done.
Reflecting on this information about prayer, I then correlated it into an outline:
1. Pray before you start a work.
2. Pray during the work.
3. Pray after the work is done.
We’ll continue this study tomorrow, and develop some applications.
