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Bible in a Year :
Leviticus 1–3 , Matthew 24:1–28
We prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. - Nehemiah 4:9
When Wallace and Mary Brown moved to an impoverished part of Birmingham, England, to pastor a dying church, they didn’t know that a gang had made the grounds of their church and home its headquarters. The Browns had bricks thrown through their windows, their fences set on fire, and their children threatened. Their children were sexually abused. It continued for months; the police were unable to stop it.
The book of Nehemiah recounts how the Israelites rebuilt Jerusalem’s broken walls. When the local people (who were not Israelites) living there set out to “stir up trouble,” threatening them with violence (Nehemiah 4:8), the Israelites “prayed to . . . God and posted a guard” (v. 9). Feeling God used this passage to direct them, the Browns, their children and a few others walked round their church’s walls, praying that He would install angels as guards to protect them. The gang jeered, but the next day, only half of them showed up. The day after that, only five were there, and the day after, no one came. The Browns later heard the gang had given up abusing people.
This miraculous answer to prayer is not a maths formula for our own protection, but it’s a small reminder that opposition to God’s work will come and must be fought with the weapon of prayer. “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome,” Nehemiah told the Israelites (v. 14). He can even set violent hearts free - God will punish anyone who does wrong and those who stop others from doing His work.
Reflect & Pray
What would you have done in the Browns’ situation? Who needs your prayers for deliverance today?
Awesome God, protect Your people by Your powerful angels, and set the hearts of Your enemies free.
