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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Leading Leaders

Father in Heaven, we're indeed grateful that you've given us the ability to read your Word, that you've protected your Word through the centuries.

And as we listen today, we ask that that Spirit would translate into our own lives and through our lives.

20 years ago on September 11, I got a frantic phone call from a student of mine.

I turned on the TV to my horror to see the World Trade Center burning 1 of the towers.

And how many of you were alive in 2001 and saw that?

Anyway, it was probably 1 of the most life-changing several hours.

I just sat there in horror as the first tower fell and then another plane hit and then as that tower fell and my wife and I were totally traumatized by this.

And then I remember after that, what are we gonna do?

And that week I started going door to door.

I put on an American shirt, like you know, red, white, and blue.

And I just wanted people to know that you know I I was American and that I think that America needed help from God And I remember going down the street talking to people and praying with people and in just 1 day's time 58 different people asked me to study the Bible with them.

I said, man, I really want to study the Word.

And then, you know, 1 of my favorite things is restaurant ministry.

1 of my ministries was going to the Falafel Mediterranean place and they called me up on the phone they said you got to come down here we're afraid we don't even want to open our shop because we're we're from the we're we're Muslims you know that because you talked to us for years, come down and talk to us." And they said, what should we say?

And I talked to them and then they asked me to come and talk to the mosque.

And just amazing things happened, both evil and good, out of September 11th.

More Bibles were sold than any time in decades.

And life changed because of that huge attack on some huge buildings that represented America's economy and many other things.

And the book of Nehemiah is not unlike that because the wall had been broken down, the temple had been broken down, the economic center of the nation had been broken down.

And Nehemiah had to lead through that time.

I don't know if you remember all the various leaders of the world and how they reacted.

I certainly remember how they were all kind of jockeying for what to do, and I don't even remember this.

Nehemiah had to learn how to lead leaders with tact and timing just like our nation had to learn how to do that during that trying time.

So let's pick up the story again this week.

And I want to tell you another story about September 11 at the end of the message today that kind of really changed.

So by the way, at September 11, while I'm thinking about it, Dr.

Nedley called me up, I remember, and I've known Dr.

Called me up and he said, Don, you've got to come to New York.

They asked me to come to do a depression and anxiety session for all the people that were near the Twin Towers.

I couldn't go because I said, look, I can't go out there.

But that was 1 of the first depression recovery programs.

It was delivered in a very intense situation.

And that program has been used by God since then with many, many different people going through traumatic, post-traumatic, depressive events as well.

Let's look at our message today, and we'll pick it up here in Nehemiah 2, because we were in chapter 1 last week.

It came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine, gave it to the king.

Now I had never been sad in his presence before.

Therefore the king said to me, why is your face sad since you are not sick?

You see, Nehemiah had heard about the wall being broken down.

He had gotten a traumatic, kind of 9-11 report, and Yet he couldn't really talk to anybody he had had it all bottled up, but now it came bubbling forth Why are you sad and so I became dreadfully afraid kind of like my friends down at the Mediterranean restaurant They didn't want to go out of their house.

I said to the king, may the king live forever.

Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste and its gates are burned with fire.

And then the king said to me, what do you request?

And so I prayed to the God of heaven." So here we see something as we're making a list of the things that leaders do to lead leaders.

First of all, leaders have a sense of God's timing.

In the first chapter, it was 4 months prior to this.

He didn't say anything, had said nothing about his report for 4 months.

I mean, why does he start now talking about it?

Well, I've read many different people about what they think about that question, but then I just looked at the text itself.

And I looked up usually every word in the text that I don't know, you know, and I didn't know what Nissan meant.

So I was pretty sure that's not what it meant, and I was right.

But I looked it up and the Hebrew month Nisan comes from the Hebrew word Nes, which means miracle.

And Nisan was called the month of miracles because it was the month that the Almighty Led the Jewish nation out of Egypt Redeemed them from slavery after they'd been there for centuries Nisan was the month of redemption Nisan was the month that Passover was celebrated how God had had done all kinds of things to bring the heart of a king into line, Pharaoh, who finally let his people go.

So I know, even though I never read it anywhere, I think the reason that Nehemiah said this is the time to talk because it was the month of Nisan, because he knew that God had led on behalf of his people in the past, and now if at any time God would again lead on behalf of his people in the present.

It was the month of miracles, it was the month of Nisan, not only that it was the right time, they had been there 69 years, it was 70 years coming on, and there had been a prophecy and there had also been that Passover and both of these things made him confident that now he could actually reveal what was on his heart.

I just feel like something good is about to happen.

I just feel like something good is in the air.

And I don't think he was singing that song, but I do think he knew timing.

He knew what God had done in the past, and he knew that God was about to act now on another miracle.

This gave him confidence to actually reveal his emotions before the king.

And the other thing that we see in these verses we just read is that he also had this in mind.

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Leading Leaders

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