(T. L. Cuyler.)

I.He was a model of EARNSTNESS.

II.He was a model of UNSELFISHNESS.

III.He was a model of FAITHFULNESS.

IV.He was a model of PRAYER.

(R. Newton, D. D.)

I. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT WORK. It has —

1. A high purpose. It was —

2. Beset with difficulties. A true work will have generally to surmount —

(1)Men's scorn.

(2)External hindrances.

II. THE TEMPTATIONS THAT BESET A GREAT WORK.

1. Temptations from armed enemies.

2. Temptations from professed friends.

III. THE SPIRIT OF A TRUE WORKER. There will be —

1. Prayer for the work.

2. Earnest prosecution of it.

3. Resistance of all temptations to leave it.

(Urijah R. Thomas.)

I. THAT NEHEMIAH WAS "DOING A GREAT WORK."

II. THAT THERE WERE THOSE WHO ENDEAVOURED TO HINDER HIM.

III. THAT THE MAGNITUDE OF THE WORK REQUIRED THAT HE SHOULD NOT CEASE OR ALLOW HIMSELF TO BE HINDERED FROM PROSECUTING IT.

IV. We may learn from the CONTEXT THAT NEHEMIAH SUCCEEDED IN ACCOMPLISHING THE WORK BY PRAYER AND PAINSTAKING DILIGENCE.

(James Shore, M. A.)

1. God's work. It originated with God; its foundations were laid in heaven; it emanated from the throne of the Eternal; it is the product of infinite wisdom, love, and truth. It bears on its countenance the image of its immaculate Author, and it is every way worthy of its great Original. Unmistakable traces and manifestations of its Divinity are seen in the loftiness of its character, in the purity of its principles, and in the efficiency and permanency of its influences. Nothing is worth the name of greatness compared with the system God has devised to heal the sorrows and cleanse the pollutions of the soul. And is there not a glory and majesty about it immeasurably great? God appears great in the works of creation. If, then, God is so great throughout the wide range of creation, how great must He be in restoring man to His favour, in giving life, vigour, and beauty to souls once dead in trespasses and sins! That religion is a great work is evident —

2. From the importance attached to it in the Bible. The Bible, God's holy book, is pregnant with it, its glory and beauty being reflected from every page. This book was written expressly to pourtray religion, its doctrines, principles, and duties. Let the question be settled in our minds — religion is the "principal thing"; it is emphatically the world's great bless ing; so the sacred penmen estimate it. They speak of it as "God's salvation"; as the "great salvation"; as the "pearl of great price"; as the "one thing needful"; as the "good part"; the "more excellent way"; "the bread of life"; and "life eternal." That religion is a great work is evident from —

3. The qualifications necessary to engage in it. A high state of intellect is not essential to it. The most gigantic intellect is no qualification for God's service, if not renewed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. The qualifications necessary to engage in this work must have their seat in the heart rather than in the head. Right moral emotions cannot be dispensed with.

4. That religion is a great work appears from its blessed results on human character and conduct. The history of the past in relation to God's work unfolds a series of wonderful achievements and glorious results. Its wide spread influence amongst the various nations and tribes of men has told a marvellous tale.

II. THE GOOD MAN IS ENGAGED IN THIS WORK. This expression denotes —

1. Decision of character. In a world like ours fixedness of purpose is invaluable, whether it relate to the active duties of every-day life or to the more lofty and ennobling duties of religion. It is essential to success. The man whose movements are changeable, and who is never steady to one point or purpose, brings nothing to a good issue. What a paralysing influence indecision has upon the soul in relation to religion. Men dream and talk about their future course of action, and yet they are never found at the starting-point. They are decided for the future, but not for the present. The diligent man says, "'I am doing a great work'; I am in it; it form part and parcel of my very being." The Scriptures furnish us with specimens of the decision we plead for. We see it in Joshua, when he says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." So, too, David said, "O God, my heart is fixed"; "I have chosen the way of truth."

2. Labour. "I am doing a great work." Religion is essentially active; it has no sympathy with sloth and inactivity.

III. THE SPIRIT OF PERSEVERANCE IS REQUIRED IN THIS WORK. The good man engaged in this work cannot come down, because —

1. The work requires close and constant application. To acquire anything like an approach to perfection or completeness in religion is no easy task. The world, with its blandishments, its false maxims, and glittering snares, says, "Come down." The flesh, naturally in favour of indulgence and ease, and opposed to self-denial, joins in the cry, and says, "Come down." Satan, whose malice breaks out more bitterly as he sees the wall rising higher, repeats the order, "Come down." Thus every new stone added to the building is the subject of dispute. The builder cannot leave his work, because —

2. Shame and misery would be the result. A more pitiful sight than that of a good man "cast down from his excellency" is certainly not to be found. My reason, my judgment, my conscience, all concur with the inspired admonition, "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

IV. "WHY SHOULD THE WORK CEASE, WHILST I LEAVE IT, AND COME DOWN TO YOU?" We must not suppose that God's work would entirely cease, even though a thousand such men as Nehemiah were to desert it.

1. All the infidelity and wickedness of men cannot stop this work. Observe, finally, that —

2. Were it possible that His work should cease, it would be the greatest calamity the world ever knew.

(A. Twiss.)

1. Work in relation to one's self — faith in the Redeemer, progressive holiness and final glory.

2. Work in relation to others.

II. GOD'S WORK MUST BE DONE FIRST. To Sanballat's complimentary note Nehemiah replied by his conduct, "God's work first, compliments next."

III. GOD'S WORK PRESERVES FROM MISCHIEF AND MISERY.

IV. GOD'S WORK SHOULD BE LOVED FOR ITS OWN SAKE.

V. GOD'S WORK SHOULD BE BEGUN, CONTINUED, AND ENDED WITH PRAYER.

(Homilist.)

1. A SAFEGUARD AGAINST VICE. All honest work, indeed, is an antidote to vice, but Christian work is especially so.

1. It fills up those leisure hours that so often prove fatal to the unguarded soul.

2. By its very nature it supplies positive motives against temptation.

(1)It strengthens all one's Christian principles.

(2)It keeps one constantly under the play of Christian influences.

(3)It prevents the spiritual life from dying of disuse.

II. A SAFEGAURD AGAINST SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. Our spiritual life depends in the first instance on the work of Christ for us; but its continuance is dependent on activity — on the work we do for Christ.

1. Physical growth is dependent on activity.

2. So, too, with intellectual life.

3. So in a still higher degree it is in spiritual life.Selfishness is the greatest spiritual poverty. Life loses in the proportion in which it withholds itself, and gains by all it gives. According to the width of my sympathies and the self-forgetting ardour of my zeal is the true power and opulence of my being. If it be lawful or possible to enlist the higher selfishness in the service of unselfishness, as you value your religious life, as you would protect it on the one hand against innate tendencies to declension, and on the other against the sapping and undermining influences of the outer world, give your sympathies, your energies, your substance to the cause of God and man. It is not enough for your religious safety that you abstain from evil — you must engage in positive good.

III. A SAFEGUARD AGAINST SCEPTICISM. NOT THAT SCEPTICISM CANNOT BE MET IN THE FIELD OF ARGUMENT. BUT ARGUMENT is not, in every case, the best way to meet the native scepticism of the heart. Christian truth is of such a nature that to understand it fully you must live it. "If any man will do God's will he shall know of the doctrine." There was a minister who at an early period of his life was in doubt about the truth of Christianity. He had almost lost his faith, when hearing this text he resolved to make trial of it. He went and gathered a number of boys together from the streets and taught them as best he could; from that he went to something else as opportunity offered, with the result that he found the text to be true; that in doing God's will, especially in doing good to others, his doubts had all fled and never troubled him more. He found, as Carlyle says, "that doubt of whatever kind can be ended by action alone." As a rule it is not from the great class of Christian workers that scepticism draws its recruits, but from those who stand aloof from all Christian activities, and in many cases look down on them with contempt.

IV. A SAFEGUARD AGAINST DESPONDENCY. It is an old saying and true that while the water flows and the mill-stones revolve unless the grain be thrown between them to be ground, the stones will grind each other. So the heart and mind which are inactive, which have no subjects of interest, to engross them, turn their force inward and prey upon themselves. The water that is stagnant soon loses its freshness of colour and of flavour, and engenders the worthless weed, the green scum, the foul mud and noxious exhalations; so the man or woman who leads a useless, purposeless, inactive life not only degenerates in inward character, but loses the freshness and brightness of life, becomes restless, discontented, and a prey to melancholy. To a woman of the desponding type who was wont to bewail her spiritual poverty in the language of the prophet, "My leanness i my leanness I " a shrewd and faithful friend, well-known for her good works, administered the needed and merited reproof, "Nay, but it would better become you to say, 'My laziness! my laziness!'"

(Robert Whyte, D. D.)

II. SEVERAL THINGS MAY PUT A STOP TO A REVIVAL. A revival will cease —

1. Whenever the Church believes it is going to cease.

2. When Christians consent that it should cease.

3. Whenever Christians suppose the work will go on without their aid.

4. When Christians begin to proselytise.

5. When the Church in any way grieves the Holy Spirit.

6. When Christians lose the spirit of brotherly love.

7. When Christians are frequently reconverted.

III. THINGS WHICH OUGHT TO BE DONE TO CONTINUE A REVIVAL.

1. Ministerial humiliation.

2. Churches which have opposed revivals must repent.

3. Those who promote the work of revivals must repent their mistakes.

(G. Finney.)

1. Gashmu evidently was a man with a great reputation. His word had weight. It was the word of a superior person — of one who perhaps spoke but little, but who took care when he did speak to put a sting into what he said. He took care not hastily to commit himself. He not only thought before he spoke, but chose the words in which to .pack most strikingly the thought. His was a quoted opinion. It went on long .journeys. "A wise word that! A fine remark that! Whose?" "Gashmu says it!" Men looked up to Gashmu. From silent heights he spoke down to them. He despised most of them, as one of a loftier race, and yet strangely loved their reverential attention, prompt praise, and their homage to his wisdom in quoting:far and wide his opinion. He was great in criticism. If there was a fault in anybody, he could spot it. No number of excellences, however bright, could blind him to that fault. He could not only see it, but could excel all others in speaking disagreeably about it. Who could expect such a superior person to have pity on human infirmities? It is not a difficult thing for a man to build up to-day such a reputation as Gashmu's. Let him be blind to all that is good in others. Let him darken and exaggerate the faults he sees, and when he cannot see them, imagine them. Let him pick the keenest and most poisonous words. Never ,commend anybody. Let him have a clever tongue, with a bad heart, and he would be a great man among pigmy souls. Let Christian men and women be on their guard. In the effort to live purely, and to serve God by serving their generation, they will meet with Gashmu. Let not such hinder you from Christian life and labour. Answer not this railing with railing; answer it only with a more devoted piety, and a larger Christian service.

2. Gashmu was a man without sympathy with goodness. Nehemiah was a patriot. From love to his country and his God he had given up an honourable and lucrative office at the Persian Court. If Nehemiah is dependent upon outside sympathy for the prosecution and completion of his work, he had better at once get his retinue together and go back to Babylon! No sympathy for him from clever and oft-quoted Gashmu! Welcome to all the inspiration of sympathy. The kindly eye, the warm-grasping hand, the love-kindling appreciation, how welcome! Difficult duty becomes easier, the burthened life is lightened of its load. But do not live on this; don't look for this. Live a life that lives above it. Live in God. Then let not their opinion dishearten you. Does Gashmu say it? Who is Gashmu? A man who, whatever his worldly shrewdness and reputation, is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. What judge can he be of the quality of Christian labour, of the beauty of a holy and Christian life?

3. Gashmu had keen hatred of religious enthusiasm. Nehemiah's religion was the root of his patriotism. He lost no time in carrying out the rebuilding of the ruined wall. He allowed not the quickened and responsive zeal of the people to flag. He was as ready to fight as to build. No specious pretence could call him from the work. On it went — on till done. This was gall and wormwood to Gashmu. If Nehemiah had only talked, however loudly, of his intentions, it had not mattered. Gashmu could not tolerate enthusiasm. He is still alive, though in English garb. The earnest Christian is certain to meet with him. He hates earnestness, and enthusiasm he cannot away with.

4. Gashmu was a man skilful to read motives. Or so he deemed himself. He could not only look at the rising walls of the city, but right through them. He could not only see Nehemiah on the wall inspiriting the armed masons; but he could see into Nehemiah's heart. He knew the secret meaning of all this rapid labour. "What do you think, Gashmu, about it?" He knew, and soon the report is flying abroad among the surrounding heathens, that the Jews intend to rebel against the Persian power, and that Nehemiah means to be their king — King Nehemiah. So the lying rumour goes on its journey, and "Gashmu saith it" gives it wings. Not an atom of truth in it! But Gashmu smiled and nodded, and calmly whispered into willing ears the lie that no amount of confidence and conceit and cleverness could make true. But his lie is written here. "Gashmu says it!" And for that lie Gashmu is remembered to-day. Live to God — do any brave stroke of work for Him, and some present-day Gashmu will know all about your motive for doing it. He will know more about you than you know about yourself. Engage in work for Christ, and Gashmu will say, "I know pride is at the bottom of this; he wants to show how much better he is than anybody else. He wants to be talked about. Anything to make headway. Anything to build up business. He knows that Sunday will help Monday." Slanderous Gashmu! Is he not alive to-day?

II. IMITATE NEHEMIAH'S TREATMENT OF GASHMU. He would not be hindered. He kept to prayer. He kept to work. He would not go down. Are you seeking to build up your character in truth, purity, holiness? This is God's work. Be not hindered in it. Be not diverted from it. Are you seeking to build up some other — some neglected, broken-down, and ruined character? Do the work — finish it.

(G. T. Coster.)

II. WHAT HE TRIED TO DO. A good man was doing a good work and bad men tried to stop him. They tried to hurt his person. Gashmu was above that, yet he will sit there and nurse his dislike, and be glad to hear the petty stories that float like thistledown in the neighbourhood against the innocent man. One story in particular gets credence. This man means to be a king. Gashmu hears the floating absurdity. On any other subject he would pronounce anything so empty as this silly; but when this man is the subject of the rumour, he would rather believe it than not. He goes and sees for himself, and when he returns, ready ears listen, and the fatal word is uttered: "That man, certainly means to be a king." Before night it is repeated by twenty tongues: "He intends to rebel; Gashmu says it." Gashmu has permitted his prejudices grow into a lie. He is the representative man of unprincipled gossips and narrow bigots.

1. There are Gashmus in the Church, and "Gashmu said it" is at the bottom of nine-tenths of all the differences in Christendom.

2. There are Gashmus in social life. Your social Gashmu means well on his own estimate of things. Perhaps he is on the whole a good man, lives a life that wins the respect; of a whole town; tells the truth so constantly that his word is as good as gold. But some one man does not train with him, he does not like that man at all; does not understand him; and so cultivates a little feeling of dislike, until it bulges into a receptiveness of idle rumours, that would be like mere straws if they were reported of a man he loves. Yet he will nurse them and cherish them, and at some moment his dislike will come to a head, and he will say, "I have no doubt it is true." Then "Gashmu said it" clips that man's margin at the bank, draws the sunshine out of half the faces he meets on the street, and puts him in a position that, it may be, brings the very tendencies for which Gashmu has spotted him. How many grown men and women regret bitterly to-day some such misjudgment on another — the hasty word of a single moment, that we could never recall and never atone for, by which the life of the man or woman about whom we said it has been darkened and injured past redemption! It was a small matter of itself, but Gashmu said it, and that was like sowing the thing in black prairie loam, insuring to us a harvest of bitter regrets, and to our victim a harvest of bitter memories.

3. There are Gashmus in the nation and the public life.

III. WHAT CAME OF IT. It came to nothing. It was common rumour, and Gashmu on the one side, and God and the right on the other; and alas for Gashmu when he is found fighting against God!Conclusion: To every earnest man and woman I would say —

1. Keep true to your task, whatever it may be, and never mind Gashmu.

2. When Gashmu comes and begins to say this and that to annoy you, do not come down to talk to him.

3. If you come across Gashmu in the Church, or in society, or in: any way whatever, keep out of his way as much as you can — have nothing to say to him.

4. Let us take care that we are not Gashmus.

5. We must pity Gashmu.

(R. Collyer.)

(G. H. Hubbard, D. D.)

(Christian Age.)

     5589   trap
     8720   double-mindedness

Nehemiah 6:1-8

     5355   invitations

Nehemiah 6:2-13

     5948   shrewdness

Hindrances to Revivals.
Text.--I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you."--Nehemiah vi. 3. THIS servant of God had come down from Babylon to rebuild the temple and re-establish the worship of God at Jerusalem, the city of his fathers' sepulchres. When it was discovered by Sanballat and certain individuals, his allies, who had long enjoyed the desolations of Zion, that now the temple, and the holy city were about to be rebuilt, they raised a great …
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

Sharon. Caphar Lodim. The Village of those of Lydda.
Between Lydda and the sea, a spacious valley runs out, here and there widely spreading itself, and sprinkled with villages. The holy page of the New Testament [Acts 9:35] calls it Saron: and that of the Old calls the whole, perhaps, or some part of it, 'the plain of Ono,' Nehemiah 6:2, 11:35; 1 Chronicles 8:12... The wine of Sharon is of great fame, with which they mixed two parts water: and remarkable is that they say concerning the houses of Sharon. R. Lazar saith, "He that builds a brick house …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

"My Little Children, These Things Write I unto You, that Ye Sin Not. And if any Man Sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,",
1 John ii. 1.--"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,", &c. Christ Jesus came by water and by blood, not by water only, but by blood also, and I add, not by blood only but by water also, chap. v. 6. In sin there is the guilt binding over to punishment, and there is the filth or spot that defileth the soul in God's sight. To take away guilt, nothing so fit as blood for there is no punishment beyond blood, therefore …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Exhortations to Christians as they are Children of God
1 There is a bill of indictment against those who declare to the world they are not the children of God: all profane persons. These have damnation written upon their forehead. Scoffers at religion. It were blasphemy to call these the children of God. Will a true child jeer at his Father's picture? Drunkards, who drown reason and stupefy conscience. These declare their sin as Sodom. They are children indeed, but cursed children' (2 Peter 2:14). 2 Exhortation, which consists of two branches. (i) Let …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament