Workers

by DARKE, R. | Category: Workers | Aug 1955

The book of Nehemiah is a wonderful story. revealing the great heart, the tears, the love, the determination, of a man for the work of the LORD. In fact the word "work" occurs 21 times in this book. It concerns the work of God's remnant people led by Nehemiah in the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem that had been broken down, and the gates which had been burned with fire.

Nehemiah speaks of these tasks, which took only 52 days to accomplish. What a lot can be done by God's people in such a short time, if only there is the will to work (chapter 2. verse 18)! He refers

The good work (2.18).

The large work (4.19).

The great work (6.8).

The work of God (6.16).

The work of the house of God (10.33).

God recorded the words and works of Nehemiah and the men who were called "these feeble Jews," whose love for the city of the great King caused them to make a sacrifice to build and to live near to the house of God. There is a clear-sounding voice in this today for God's people who are " contending earnestly for the faith, "and particularly for the young people in the Fellowship. It should be an encouragement to our hearts to know that the Lord counts His own so precious that even the hairs of our heads are all numbered (Luke 12.7), and He is minutely interested in our work for Him. Paul takes up this very theme in 1 Corinthians 3. where he writes of the judgement seat of Christ, where there will be manifested, and where fire will prove, "each man's work of what sort it is" (verse 18).

What a challenge this is to those of us who have been "called into the Fellowship" of God's Son! (1 Corinthians 1.9). What sort of work are we producing for the Lord who bought us at such a great cost? When Nehemiah viewed the work of the once broken down wall and burnt-out gates in its completion, he was a man satisfied with a job well done. There was nothing slipshod or careless about it, despite constant opposition and interference which the adversary always gives, but a work done according to divine plan and design, and carried out by individuals who knew what it was to work in harmony and unity. This is well expressed in the repeated expression, "next unto them," in Nehemiah 3.

Yet in this same chapter we read of the sad fact that the nobles "put not their necks to the work." One has rightly said that there "are two kinds of willing people-those who are willing to work, and those who are willing to let them!" But how thankful we should be that we can also read in this chapter of willing workers !men like the goldsmith, and the apothecary, men who were not ashamed to mark their hands in the service of the building of the wall, men who willingly handled the trowel and the stone with delicate hands that had been engaged previously with the fine and accurate work of their professions. What sacrifice they made! Can anything be accomplished for God without sacrifice? These men could have resorted to excuses, but their hearts were filled with an earnest desire to "rise up and build." Young people need to recapture such a spirit. It is much easier to excuse oneself, than to do the Lord's work, but how empty excuses will sound at the judgement seat of Christ! How feeble, maybe, our explanations when we tell the Lord that we did not give out tracts from door to door, because we thought others were better suited to do the work; they had a better personality! We did not do personal work because we did not think it was our gift. We did not help with open-air work, because we thought it was out of date and we should use more modern methods; and we did not preach the truth to believers because they did not want to be identified with the assemblies of God. How easy to find excuses! Let us look again at the zeal of God's remnant whose lives were filled with the vision of a rebuilt wall and gates surrounding the city and house of God. "They strengthened their hands for the good work" (chapter 2.18). The work is urgent. We might have a legitimate excuse that our work is not upon the wall. That was true in Nehemiah's day, for not all the people of God were upon the wall. It is said in 4.17: "They that builded the wall and they that bare burdens laded themselves, every one.... God does not encourage indolence. As then, so today, God has His wall-builders, who are seen and heard in their ceaseless activity for Him. God also has His burden-bearers. In Nehemiah's day the burden-bearer was not prominently seen; he may have been hidden by the wall as he carried the stones and the mortar to the builders. "Out of sight" men and women are as important as the builders in the house today. Such saints bear the burdens in prayer and encouragement (not criticism) for those who are on the wall. What am I? a worker on the wall ? a burden bearer? or one who looks on? "Let each man examine himself."

DARKE, R. | Aug 1955
Workers