Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, June 1st. Could life's obstacles

sometimes be a sign of God's favor? Today's podcast helps you learn how to recognize the favorable

hand of the Lord. All of us who believe us know in our heart that God loves us.

Now we know that first of all because the Bible says it.

And secondly, there are times when we feel it.

But oftentimes God's children do not feel that God loves them.

And therefore they say, well, I know that sometimes he does, but oftentimes I'm not sure. And all of us would like to feel

like that we are walking in the favorable sight of God and that we have his favorable hand

toward us. And there is a passage of scripture that I believe gives us the characteristics of a person

who is indeed walking and who is receiving and who is experiencing

the favorable hand of God. All of us would like to experience that, and I believe we can.

So I want you to turn, if you will, to Nehemiah. And I want us to look at the second chapter,

but I want to give you a little background of what's happening here.

You'll recall that under Nebuchadnezzar, many of the Jews were taken from Jerusalem over to Babylon,

and they were made slaves. Well, one of these was a person by the name of Nehemiah, and he is now

the cupbearer of the king, not Nebuchadnezzar, but Art Exerxes. And so he's lived through a period of time of

captivity. And being the cup bearer of the king, he has a special relationship to him. And while he is

serving, the scripture says that his brother and some

others came from Jerusalem and told him about what was happening in Jerusalem. That is that the walls

were torn down as a result of the captivity. The gates were broken and the enemies were just

pilfering the place. In fact, it was in great despair. The people were despair and they're continually fearful of the enemies were just pilfering the place. In fact, it was in great despair.

The people were despair, and they're continually fearful of the enemies.

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