1. My message this morning is entitled, "The Value of Broken Things."
2. The great evangelist Vance Havner said, “God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.”
3. In Judges 7, God used broken pitchers. Gideon's army conquered the Midianites by putting their lamps within the pitchers.
4. When Gideon blew his trumpet, his men blew their trumpets, "and brake the pitchers that were in their hands" (Judges 7:19).
5. The Midianites were frightened and fled, but Gideon and his army gave chase and defeated them.
6. In I Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul gives instructions regarding the Lord's Supper.  In verses 23 and 24, Paul says, "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
7. Psalm 51:17 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."
8. This morning I want to look at the value of broken things as seen in the life of Nehemiah.

I. BROKEN DOWN WALLS (1:1-3)

1. The book of Nehemiah and the book of Ezra deal with the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem after their exile in Babylon.
2. We know very little about Nehemiah's background.  Apparently he was born in Persia and rose to a position of prominence in the king's court.
3. Shushan (1:1) was the ancient capital of Persia.   Nehemiah was in the king's palace because he "was the king's cupbearer" (1:11).
4. While he was working for the king of Persia, his brother Hanani and a few of his friends from Judah, paid him a visit.
5. Nehemiah asked the men about things back home and he was given a discouraging report (1:3).
6. It was a sad report, but yet we see the providence of God in the story of Nehemiah.  God was working in the lives of godly men like Nehemiah, and Ezra, and Zerubbabel; and He was also working in the lives of Persian kings such as Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes (cf. Ezra 1:1-4).
7. Interestingly, the LORD says this about King Cyrus in Isaiah 44:28, "He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."
8. The walls of Jerusalem were broken down, but God raised up Nehemiah to rebuild them.  And through Nehemiah's leadership, many others got involved in the work, including the king of Persia.
9. One of my favorite verses in the book of Nehemiah is 4:6, "So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work."
10. We can apply this to our church, to our homes, and to our country.  There are many broken-down walls, but if pray like Nehemiah prayed, and we seek the direction of God like Nehemiah did, and we have a mind to work like Nehemiah worked, we can see great things happen.
11. The first thing we will consider are the broken down walls (Neh. 1:3).  But God used this to stir up Nehemiah.

II. A BROKEN HEART (1:4)

1. Psalm 51:17 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."
2. Nehemiah had a broken spirit, and a broken heart.

• He sat down and wept (1:4)
• He mourned certain days (1:4)
• He fasted (1:4)
• He prayed before the God of heaven (1:4).

3. Nehemiah had a good job in Persia.  He was very comfortable working and living in the king's palace.  But when he heard about the deplorable conditions back home in Jerusalem, his heart was broken (1:4).
4. As we study the book of Nehemiah we see that Nehemiah was first and foremost a great man of prayer (1:4; 2:4; 4:4, 5, 9; 5:19; 6:9; 13:14, 22, 29, 31).
5. Nehemiah prayed "day and night" (1:6). These frequent and persistent prayers illustrate I Thessalonians 5:17 -- "Pray without ceasing"
6. Nehemiah prayed day and night for four months. He started praying for the broken walls "in the month Chisleu," i.e., December (see margin). The king asked Nehemiah why he was sad in the month Nisan, i.e. April (2:1, see margin).
7. Nehemiah was totally dependent upon the Lord, and trusted Him moment by moment.  Nehemiah looked to the Lord for help, not to the king of Persia.
8. Nehemiah prayed, "I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God" (1:5).   Nehemiah had four months to broach the subject with the king but he said not a word till the king asked him why he was sad (2:1-4).
9. Nehemiah knew that God would move the king at His appointed time.
10. Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will" (cf. Neh. 2:7, 8).
11. R.A. Torrey asked, "Why is this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer so needful?" and he gave some good reasons.
12. Dr. Torrey said, "First of all, because there is a devil. He is cunning, he is mighty, he never rests, he is ever plotting the downfall of the child of God; and if the child of God relaxes in prayer, the devil will succeed in ensnaring him."
13. Nehemiah understood the wiles of the devil.  The devil's emissaries were Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian (2:19).
14. Nehemiah rebuked them (2:20), and he kept working on the broken down walls, and he kept praying (4:1-9).
15. R.A. Torrey said, "A second reason for this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that prayer is God's appointed way for obtaining things."
16. Nehemiah understood these broken down walls would not be repaired and rebuilt unless he prayed.  In fact, he fasted and prayed (1:4).
17. Certain things will not get done without prayer.  James 4:2 says, "Ye have not, because ye ask not."
18. E.M. Bounds said, "How vast are the possibilities of prayer! How wide is its reach! What great things are accomplished by this divinely appointed means of grace! It lays its hand on Almighty God and moves him to do what he would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It brings things to pass which would never otherwise occur. The story of prayer is the story of great achievements. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in the hands of his saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. Prayer reaches to everything, takes in all things great and small which are promised by God to the children of men."
19. Prayer must be specific; and specific prayer gets a specific answer from God.   Nehemiah prayed specifically that God would "grant him mercy" in the sight of King Artaxerxes (1:11), and the Lord answered that prayer in a marvelous way (2:1-9).

III. A BROKEN NATION (1:8-11)

1. Nehemiah understood why the Jewish nation was in such distress (1:6-8).
2. America is in distress too, but many people do not recognize it.
3. Some people think we are going through a temporary economic recession and we will soon get out of it.  But our nation's problems are far more serious than high unemployment and a 14 trillion dollar deficit (as serious as this is)!
4. We need men like Nehemiah, who will intercede for our country, and pray like Nehemiah prayed -- "we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned" (1:6b).
5. "We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses" (1:7).
6. Daniel also identified with his fellow countrymen, and he prayed that way too (Daniel 9:3-19).
7. God used Daniel, and God used Nehemiah, and if we want God to use us like that we must learn to pray like they prayed!
8. A profitable and thoroughly enjoyable Bible study is to study the great intercessory prayers in the Bible -- men who prayed effectually and fervently -- men like Moses, Elijah, Daniel, and Paul.
9. And not just men.  One of the greatest examples of intercessory prayer in the Bible is the prayer of the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matthew 15:21-28).
10. Like all great intercessors, Nehemiah asked God to remember what He had promised in His Word (1:8, 9; cf. Deuteronomy 28 & 30).
11. Nehemiah pleaded on the basis of Scripture.   This is essential in effectual, fervent prayer.
12. Early in his ministry, George Muller learned how to be effective in prayer.  He read a biography of the great evangelist George Whitefield, and it made a great impression on him.
13. A.T. Pierson, who wrote (in my opinion) the greatest biography of George Müller said, "Particularly was this impression deeply made on Mr. Müller's mind and heart: that Whitefield's unparalleled success in evangelistic labours was plainly traceable to two causes and could not be separated from them as direct effects; namely, his unusual prayerfulness, and his habit of reading the Bible on his knees" (A.T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol).

CONCLUSION:

1. Merrill Unger called the book of Nehemiah, "one of the famous autobiographical masterpieces in history" (Unger's Commentary on the Old Testament).
2. But this great masterpiece would not have been written without a broken man being burdened to rebuild some broken walls.
3. M.R. DeHaan said, "How we need to be broken.  How often we bewailed and bemoaned the sad fact of broken lives, but found later that only broken things are used by the Lord, and only after we are broken are we our very best for God" (Broken Things).