foundation 30

We are in Nehemiah chapter 6 today Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates, 2then Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, "Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono." But they were planning to harm me. 3So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?" 4They sent messages to me four times in this manner, and I answered them in the same way. 5Then Sanballat sent his servant to me in the same manner a fifth time with an open letter in his hand. 6In it was written, "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel; therefore you are rebuilding the wall. And you are to be their king, according to these reports. 7"You have also appointed prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, 'A king is in Judah!' And now it will be reported to the king according to these reports. So come now, let us take counsel together." 8Then I sent a message to him saying, "Such things as you are saying have not been done, but you are inventing them in your own mind." 9For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking, "They will become discouraged with the work and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Let’s stop there for now. I want you to be aware that as God is in the process of growing us up and bringing healing to our lives and families it will cause the enemy to be stirred up. I know we have talked about this a couple times already. But we need to be aware that the battle will not stop until every enemy of Christ is turned into a footstool for him. With that in mind we need to remember what to expect when God begins to work in our lives. We need to expect to be getting better and getting healed and at the same time we need to be mindful that the enemy will continue to attack us from any angle he can. Too often the Christian life is portrayed as an easy walk where all your troubles melt away when you pray. Such is not the case. In the real world growing up is hard work and that is why very few people actually do it. I think we heard about an attack last week when Stephanie talked about the lies that had been spread about her family. That’s one of the methods that the enemy uses. We see that right here in this passage. The enemy is saying things about Nehemiah that are not true. They are saying that he wants to be king and rebel against the kind of Babylon. Nothing could be further from the truth and so Nehemiah has to confront the enemy with the truth. He has to stand up to the lies. One of the main goals of the enemy is to frighten you so that you will stop pressing into what God has for you. He wants us to be afraid of what might happen so that we will stop the work of God that has already begun. The wall is being built. The church is growing up and maturing. The people of God are repenting and changing in spite of the enemy. But the enemy just redoubles his efforts to stop the progress. The attacks are not always frontal attacks sometimes the enemy finds someone in the church to use as an ally. That’s what happens in the next section: When I entered the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined at home, he said, "Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you, and they are coming to kill you at night." 11But I said, "Should a man like me flee? And could one such as I go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in." 12Then I perceived that surely God had not sent him, but he uttered his prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. Here is a man in the church who is confined to his house, something is wrong with him that he can’t get out and about and he can’t do work on the wall. And the enemy uses this man to try and frighten Nehemiah by giving him bad words from a friend, from a so called part of the body of Christ. But Nehemiah sees through it. Notice that he calls what this guy did, false prophecy. I think too often times we have an unbiblical understanding of what prophecy is. Whenever we say this is what I believe the Lord is saying we are speaking prophecy even if it is about a construction project. Here in this example the man says the enemy is coming to kill you we need to run and hide. Notice that sometimes prophecy can be very practical. Notice also that Nehemiah understands that this simple request is a prophecy but it is a false one. The New Testament tells us in first John 4: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. Too often what we try to do is spiritualize these things and make them about religious stuff or make them other worldly but here prophecy is nothing more than a simple statement: these people are coming to kill you. Nehemiah test’s the spirit of the man who tells him this and he understands that this man is a false prophet. Another way of saying it is the guy was a liar. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t also a prophecy. I would go so far as to say that the gift of prophecy is not so much in revealing the word of God but in giving direction in what to do or not to do. God puts an idea in someone’s head and then it is up to us to discern whether that idea is from God or not and whether to pursue it or not. I am reminded of Paul and the prophet Agabus in Acts 21: On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. 9Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. 10As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says: 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" 12When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." 14And since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, "The will of the Lord be done!" Notice that the prophet says a simple statement. He doesn’t say don’t go. He doesn’t say go. He simply says this is going to happen. The response differs depending on who heard the words. The majority heard the words and said don’t go. They assumed that the will of the Lord was for Paul to remain free. But Paul heard the word of the prophet and understood that this was what God had called him to do and if the message was a true prophecy then he was ready to not only be bound but to die in the name of the Lord Jesus. The prophecy in some sense only confirmed what was already in Paul’s heart. And had he gone with the majority he would have been rebelling against God. This was a testing of Spirits. The Spirit of the prophecy was correct. The spirit of the majority was not correct and Paul had to discern between the two which was the will of God. I have been asking you over the last couple of months to listen for the Lord to speak to you because I believe that God still speaks, that he wants to speak and give us direction so that we do not have to stumble around in the dark. I believe he wants to tell us how to apply the word of God, the law of God, in everyday situations. He wants to tell us how to pray and what to pray for. But just because something comes to your head doesn’t mean that it’s from the Lord. We need to be discerning. We need to be testing the spirits. I believe I have heard some words from some of you concerning all that we are praying for and they are good words, words of hope that God is doing and going to do great things in the lives of those connected with our congregation. Those words mesh with what God has been laying on my heart as well but that doesn’t mean that they are going to happen in the blink of an eye. Look at what has transpired in the 30 weeks that we have been going through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah: over thirty years have gone by and the wall of the city is just being completed. As we will see in the next chapter there aren’t even very many people living in the city yet. But the word of the Lord had been given over 100 years before that God would raise up Jerusalem again after they went into captivity. God is faithful to keep his promises. God has promised to heal our broken hearts if we humble ourselves before him. He promises to restore our children to us. He promises to make us the head and not the tail. I believe that he is keeping those promises in our midst. But that doesn’t mean that we can all have happy family reunions next week. Change takes time. Growing up takes time. God is using us to lay a foundation for the future here. This is more about our great grandchildren in the faith than it is about us. Nehemiah is not doing the work he’s doing so he can have a nice place to retire. The city he is working on probably won’t be completed in his life time. The restoration of Israel to the promise land will be completed long after he is gone and as a matter of fact long after we are gone. The kingdom of God which is what Israel is a picture of takes a lot of life times to be built, especially since after it seems some construction progress a new generation comes along and tears down all the work that has been done. But we must take heart because God promises to advance the kingdom of God until it fills the whole earth. We must build for the future and not just for our retirement. When we understand that the world is bigger than our lives and our happiness then we will be more prepared to do what God has called us to with a long term vision. We need to be laying up a foundation, storing up building supplies for the godly generations that follow. I think it is important that we understand that our hard work in the kingdom must be passed on to the godly of the next generation. The sad part of that is that it may or may not be our own flesh and blood that get to be the recipients of our hard work. The kingdom of God is bigger than our families. And at the same time it shouldn’t have to start from scratch with each new generation. We should be able to build upon the foundation of those who came before us. Back in the passage we find out more about the latest attack from the enemy. It seems that this man was hired so that Nehemiah might become frightened and act accordingly and sin, so that they might have an evil report in order that they could reproach him. So once again Nehemiah prays down hard prayers upon his enemies: 14Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these works of theirs, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the rest of the prophets who were trying to frighten me. I think we need to learn to start praying against our enemies – not the flesh and blood people who get in our way but the principalities’ and powers that we are really at war with. It’s time to begin to ask God to destroy the work of the enemy in our day and age. What does the scripture say: you have not because you ask not and you ask and don’t receive because you ask for the wrong reasons so that you may spend it on your pleasures. If you pray that the enemy would be destroyed in order that you can get ahead and prosper so you can retire early then you’re praying for the wrong things. We have to remember that we are called to die to ourselves, give up our desires and advance the kingdom of God. I’m learning that dying looks different in everyone’s life because we must each die to ourselves and we are all different. I have to die to lust and to quitting and running away. That means I have to learn to live life without being numb. I have to learn to persevere and to stand and face the things that life brings my way. That’s a lot of hard lessons for me. But that is what dying to myself means in my life. You on the other hand may need to die to self reliance or even success so that you can begin to trust God more. Some may need to learn to take care of others while others may need to stop taking care of others so that they can take care of themselves. Growing up in the Kingdom of God looks different for every person even though we are all dying to ourselves. One persons dying is not easier than another person’s dying it’s just different. Look at the next set of verses: So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. 16When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence; for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. 17Also in those days many letters went from the nobles of Judah to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them. 18For many in Judah were bound by oath to him because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. 19Moreover, they were speaking about his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. Then Tobiah sent letters to frighten me. The work of building the wall has been completed. The call of Nehemiah has been fulfilled. The enemies of God lost their confidence because they saw that God was working in the midst of his people. Yes, the enemy was still around. He continued to try to frighten Nehemiah but God refused to let it happen and fear was beginning to show up in the enemy ranks instead. Now just because the wall is built around the city doesn’t mean that the kingdom has come in its glory. Look at the first few verses of chapter 7: 1Now when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed, 2then I put Hanani my brother, and Hananiah the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. 3Then I said to them, "Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot, and while they are standing guard, let them shut and bolt the doors. Also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, each at his post, and each in front of his own house." 4Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not built. Too often what happens in the church is that great gains are made, revival breaks out, people get saved whatever and we get comfortable and let down our guard. But even though the wall is completed, great success has happened, much restoration has happened in the body of Christ, Nehemiah is not taking any chances and he makes sure to keep guards in place even as he begins to move on to new tasks. We must remember that we are at war. We must stay vigilant because the enemy would like nothing better than to destroy all that is being built up here at Immanuel. I find that it’s easy to get side tracked by stupid things. I’ve been doing pretty good the last couple of months staying focused on the warfare that is around us. God has poured out a desire to pray like I’ve never known before. I’ve been praying like crazy. But then early last week something happened, in keeping with the context with the passage let’s just say it was a false prophet that spoke out and instead of testing the spirit I listened to what he said because well he was in a position of authority over me – and well I like my job. I didn’t test the spirit I just laid down and died. I got angry. I beat myself up. I took it all on myself and the result was that I took my focus off the warfare. I quit praying. I didn’t want to pray because I was consumed with what someone said about me and how it reflected on me personally. But even though in the heat of battle I guess I gave up on God for a bit God didn’t give up on me. In fact, he used my giving up to take me where I needed to go to win a victory. He used my bad situation to answer my prayer. He did what was necessary to change the way I was looking at my situation so that I could see the true problem and solve it. You see the problem was another leaky roof and just like my roof at home ( which is no longer leaking by the way) God didn’t fix the leak in the roof. He could have. He has the power. But instead, he took a year of my life and worked on me doing everything that was necessary to give me the eyes that I needed to see so that I could take steps to fix the problem. God is in the process of fixing the leak in the roof but he is using me and has bee preparing me to do it. That is how God works in the world. He takes dominion over the earth through us. That is why we have to quit being ME focused and start being God focused because he know exactly what we need to be able to see in order to advance the kingdom and we are for the most part blind, deaf and dumb with regard to advancing the Kingdom. It is time for us to lay it all down before the king. It’s time to say do whatever it takes to me to get me where you want me to be. It’s time to let God be God and put ourselves in his hands so the job will get done right. I would challenge all of you to place your selves and all that you have and are at the feet of your king and master and like Isaiah simply say: Here am I. Send me. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for being you. Thank you for all that you are and all that you are doing. Please be merciful to us and give us eyes to see and ears to hear all that you are doing so that we may walk faithfully on the path that you have created for us. Advance the kingdom through our feeble hands. In Jesus name we ask these things AMEN.