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So what are we talking about this morning?
We're talking about leadership, right?
When the leader's not there, things go bad.
So what kind of leadership do we need?
Well, first of all, we need leadership
that tells us what the Bible says,
reads the Bible out loud,
speaks the word of God,
even maybe more obscure
or negative or unpopular parts of the word of God.
They put those things on our radar.
But also godly leadership
knows how to just clean house
and to just get rid of things
that are wrong.
You know what I mean?
I remember going to churches before
that are supposedly a King James Bible
type of a Baptist church.
But then you'll see the NIV
laying around.
You'll see the New American Standard,
New King James.
Or maybe in the back of the pew,
they'll have the hymnal for singing the songs.
But then they'll have some New King James
mixed in or something.
And you bring it up to the pastor like,
I thought we're King James.
What's the deal?
Oh, well, you know,
there's some old stuff there
we've got to work on.
We've got to get rid of that.
But look, if I showed up
to the church building
and instead of the
King James replica back there,
somebody put some decorative
precious moments NIV or something,
it's going in the trash.
If I showed up
and somebody had posted some picture
on the wall of some long-haired
hippie that they say is Jesus,
it's going in the
trash. It might even get
hurled into the trash.
Okay? You know, there's certain
things that you just have to just
put your foot down as a leader and just
say, no, this isn't allowed.
And guess what? As a parent,
there are some things like that too.
Where as a parent, you know, your children
might have something ungodly
or teenagers might try to bring
something ungodly or
blasphemous or wicked or
sinful into the house. And it might just need
to just get hurled into the trash.
Whether they spent money on it or not,
no matter what it is, because we need to
make sure that we don't have anything
wicked or satanic or ungodly
in our homes. And as
fathers, as heads of household, it's our
responsibility to clean house.
And leadership sometimes
involves throwing things in the
trash that are not right.
Throwing things that are in the trash
that are ungodly. Throwing the wrong
twisted Bible versions in the
trash. Throwing
idolatry in the trash.
Blasphemous images
and videos and things. Throwing
them in the trash where they belong.
And that's what Nehemiah did. He
throws things out. And not only
that, he throws people out that don't belong
in the house of God as well.
He gets the wrong people out. We need
to throw the wrong people out of our home.
We need to throw the wrong people out of our church.
You know, your faggot uncle
isn't invited for Thanksgiving. Amen?
Throw them out!
Nuts to him!
You say, well, you know,
there's one in every family.
Yeah, I know.
There is one in every family, but you know what?
He doesn't have to come over to your house.
He doesn't have to be around your kids.
You don't have to let him into your home and just
kind of go, oh, I don't know.
Hey, be a leader. Put your foot
down. You know, I love what my father-in-law
said when somebody tried to bring some
sodomite relative to his house.
He said, you know what? They can come to my house
as soon as them and their gay buddy
bring the child that they biologically
produce with each other, then
they can come to my house. And until then, they're
not welcome in my house.
All right, beloved, let's move on
here.
It says in verse number 9,
Then I commanded and they cleansed the chambers
and thither brought I again the
vessels of the house of God with the meat offering
and the frankincense.
Verse 10, And I perceived that the portions
of the Levites had not been
given them, for the Levites
and the singers that did the work
were fled every one to his field.
Now, one of the things that we see here
is that there's been a vacuum
of
godliness
and godly leadership,
and so evil comes in to fill
that space. So
remember the room that has become
Tobiah the Ammonite's apartment?
What was it supposed to be
for? It was supposed to store up all the tides
and offerings. It was supposed to store
up food and supplies
for the Levites and the singers and all
these different workers in the house of God.
Well, he shows up
and, you know, he
throws all this junk out,
you know, he throws
Tobiah the Ammonite's, you know,
Elton John poster and
all of his like, all of his
household stuff, all of his
junk, all of his clothes and
whatever out into the street
and then he says, okay, now
you know, we're going to put in this room
what's supposed to go in this room.
So let's bring in the food
and the supplies and things
and when he brings those in
it starts, he starts to realize
that the reason why
this room was empty and available
for Tobiah is because
of the fact that they haven't been
giving the supplies
to the Levites
who are the workers in the house of God.
Those people hadn't been getting paid
because they got paid with a lot of those
food stuffs and supplies and things like that.
It wasn't really cash-based
it was more of a barter
economy and they're being given
actual stuff that they need. And so
then what does the Bible say? It says
that they were fled, at the end of verse 10
there, that they were fled, everyone
to his field. So because the Levites
aren't getting paid, they
had to go back to their secular job
basically. They had to go to their fields
and actually do a bunch of farming
and produce their own food
because of the fact that they weren't
being given the food that was supposed to be
given them and so therefore they're
no longer doing their job down at the house
of God. So the work's
not getting done, the music
program isn't getting done, the preaching
isn't getting done, the menial
things at the house of God aren't getting done
because these guys aren't
there. Because the supplies
aren't there because they're not being taken care of.
And so it says
in verse number 11
then contended I
with the rulers. Now the sad
thing is that the rulers of Judah
should be Nehemiah's
allies, they should be his friends,
they should be his biggest
supporters, but instead
he ends up fighting with these people.
Because
when he's gone, they're the ones who were
supposed to keep everything running, but
he ends up having to fight with this
deacon board
or whatever that was in charge while he's
gone.
These leaders, these elders
and he says to them
why is the house of God
forsaken? And I
gather them together and set them in their place.
You know you had to put these people
in their place because they
have allowed God's house to be forsaken.
And then once he does this
what's the result? Verse 12, then
brought all Judah the tithe
of the corn and the new wine
and the oil unto the treasuries.
And then he in verse 13 just
kind of organizes things and
puts people in charge of making
sure everybody gets paid and everybody
gets taken care of. And he says in verse 14
remember me oh my God concerning
this and wipe not out my good deeds that
I've done for the house of my God and
for the offices thereof. Now this is
the really sad verse here, verse 14.
And Nehemiah says
this throughout the chapter, in fact
if you go to the very end of the chapter the last words
of the chapter are Nehemiah
praying and saying remember me oh my
God for good.
Now why does he keep praying to
God in the middle of this chapter saying God
remember what I did
and he says wipe not out my good
deeds that I've done for the house of my God.
I'll tell you why, because he had
already done good deeds for the house of
God earlier in the book.
I mean look in chapter 1 of
Nehemiah he heard about how bad
things were going in Jerusalem and he said man
I'm going to do something about it.
And God's hand was on Nehemiah
and he shows up in
chapter 2 and he just
revolutionizes everything in Jerusalem.
He gets God's people back on
track, he gets the nation
back in a position
where they can serve God, where
they can have peace and prosperity
and I mean he turns
everything around.
But then when he comes back in chapter
13 the
work that he had done had been
undone.
And so he's saying God
remember what I did for the house of God
because apparently other people
aren't going to remember
what I've done. Don't wipe
out the good deeds that
I've done for the house of my God because
guess what? After I'm gone
the Tobias and the Eliashibs
of this world are going to wipe out
the good deeds that I've done.
Now this is
just a fact
of our existence here
in this world that when
we do great things for God,
when we have great achievements for God, maybe
when we build institutions like families
and churches or businesses,
after we
are gone these things will
unfortunately eventually
decay.
They will degenerate. They will eventually
be gone.
All throughout the Bible we see it.
Look at the book of Judges. You get
some godly judge that rises up.
He fixes everything but
you let a few decades go by
and all of his work is undone.
He's forgotten. Think about
Joshua and all the elders that outlive
Joshua but then once they're gone
children of Israel forget everything.
They go back.
It seems a little bit
vain then
to do anything, right?
Why even do anything if
everything I accomplish in this life
is ultimately going to be undone?
What's the point?
Why even found a church
like Faithful Word or
why even pastor a church like this or
why even be a member of a church like this
and contribute to its success
and help the church grow
and thrive? Why teach
anyone or do anything when it's all
going to be gone someday? I mean 100 years
from now Faithful Word Baptist Church
is probably going to be some
super liberal church.
I mean
I hope not.
I hope that this church stands
for 300 years. I mean we don't know
when Christ is going to return, right?
Obviously we don't even know
that could be in our lifetime.
We don't know when that's going to be.
But let's just say for a minute that it didn't
happen for a few hundred years.
The chances of this church
still being
a red hot fire breathing
soul winning church 100 years from now
150 years from now are virtually
zero if we
take history as a guide.
Could be the exception but
let's face it, probably not going to happen.
I mean can you imagine
Faithful Word Baptist Church
and it's just some super
liberal watered down church.
They have the worst Bible works female
pastor and just
you know everything's totally
different. It's just
a complete joke.
I mean you can imagine you know
yeah I can imagine it because I've seen
churches go that way that were once
fundamental.
And then you know somewhere deep
on this church's website
in the metaverse or whatever
it
won't be a website. It'll be like you know
some hologram that you see on glasses
or something. It'll say like oh
you know Faithful Word Baptist Church
was founded by a guy named
Steven Anderson. Moving right along you know
and kind of just
you know who's that?
Oh it's just some guy hundreds of years ago
that started this church. It was totally different back then.
Don't ask.
So you say you know what's the point?
Well here's the point.
Number one God remembers.
God remembers everything
that you do is
something that matters
because it matters to God.
Right? Because the Bible
says your labor is not
in vain in the Lord.
But not only that
the lives that we touch
the people that we win to Christ
the lives that are
changed, the lives that are transformed
the people that are discipled, the children
that are raised up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord. Those are eternal
souls that will go
on forever and
so our work will never be erased
or destroyed in that sense. But
physically on this earth our
work will eventually be erased
just as Nehemiah saw
that it's going to all be erased.
And here's why this is so
important is that we need to realize
that we constantly need
men like
Ezra, Nehemiah, and
later John the Baptist
to basically push
a reset button.
Every generation
has to re-dig those wells
from the previous generation.
You know you think about Abraham dug all these
wells all over the promised land but then
the enemy stopped up the wells.
And so Isaac had to
re-dig the wells that
Abraham had dug. And then Jacob
is going to have to re-dig those wells.
And every generation has to re-dig
those wells. And so
Nehemiah straightens out God's
people then he leaves for a while
comes back and it's a mess
again. Alright here we go again.
He has to straighten things out once again
but in the process he's realizing wait a minute
the work that I do on this earth is
not permanent.
The work that I do in God's house isn't
permanent. The reforms
that I make amongst God's people
they're not permanent. And
after I'm gone
it's all going to go bad. What did the
Apostle Paul say in the New Testament?
He said I know that after
my departing grievous wolves
will come in.
Not sparing the flock. He said I know
for a fact that when I'm gone
bad people are going to come in
and take over and ruin things eventually.
It happens all throughout the book of
Judges. It happens throughout the
monarchy in Israel. It's
something that the New Testament
explains is going to happen.
And that's why we
need constant
new fresh
leadership coming in
and saying thus saith the Lord
let's reopen. Look
50 years from now if
Faithful Word Baptist Church is
willing to still be serving God
there's going to have to be a man
hopefully it's still me
at age 91. But let's
say 60 years from now. Well
maybe it still will be me. No I'm just kidding.
I hope so. But anyway
if we were to go in the future
if this church is still going to be serving
God 80 years
from now, because I'll for sure be dead
at 80 years, 100%
80
years from now there's going to have to
be some man up here who
says look we need to go back to the
Bible. We're going to read the Bible.
We're going to go back to what the Bible says.
We're going to figure out what it says and we're
going to do it. We're going to follow it. We're
going to fix things. Not
just well we're just kind
of coasting on what they
did back in the
20s is what they'll
say right? Back in the 20s
and 30s we're just kind of riding on what
no no it's going to have to be fresh.
It's going to have to be new. It's going to have
to be reduct. And this is part of the problem
with the old IFB
is that you know what the old
IFB needs? They need
some young leather
lung preachers in the old
IFB to rise up
and raise hell in the old
IFB and fix things and
preach hard and be
inspirations to a new
generation instead of just still
dusting off the old tired
sermons from 30, 40, 50, 60
years ago. And look I'm very thankful
for the great preaching that was done
30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.
The heroes of the faith from
back then. But you know what? The heroes of
the faith back then they're not helping
me right now though are they?
No we need people now
today. Hey we can all sit
around and talk about how great
it was when Ezra first came on
the scene and we can sit around and talk about
how great it was back in the days
of Nehemiah being here.
Well no no no we need to get Nehemiah
back here or we need to get another Nehemiah
we need to get somebody that will
actually fire things up
again and get things going.
You know in your
home you might need to push a spiritual
reset button and say hey
we haven't been reading the Bible but you know what
we're going to start reading the Bible again in our house.
Let's everybody get back
to reading the Bible. You know January 1st
we all had that Bible reading plan
and then you know
March
ah
still in Genesis
hey it's time to fire
that thing up and not to
wait till next year.
Why don't you get on like the Hebrew calendar
or something that just starts in March
and ends in March. Now normally I'm totally
against the Hebrew calendar.
But you may need to use the Chinese
New Year for crying out loud. You need to
figure something out and you need to push
a reset button and restart
the Bible reading in your house.
Hey we haven't been praying
let's get back to praying. Hey I
haven't been going to church time to get back in
church time to get back out soul winning.
Hey you need to push
that reset button and sometimes it takes
a leader to push that reset button.
And again I'm not talking about somebody who
has a position necessarily or
a title that says hello my name
is the leader but I'm saying
it could just mean that you know
you and your friends just say hey
remember we used to go soul winning? Let's
go soul winning again.
It could be a couple of friends that used to go soul winning
together and they haven't been in a while and one of them
says to the other hey let's go soul winning.
Let's get back into it.
Hey you
want to keep me accountable on my Bible reading?
I'll keep you accountable. Let's get back
to reading our Bible. Let's get back
faithful to church. Hey we used to go
to the evening service. Let's get back into the
evening services. Let's get back involved
like we once were getting
fired up because you need
that constant reboot and a
reset. What are we reading in Nehemiah 13?
It's a reboot.
And it's a boot to Tobiah's backside
is a reboot that's needed
but it's a reboot.
We need the same thing.
Now ultimately we
know that this reboot that Nehemiah
does in chapter 13 didn't
last forever but does that surprise
us? That's why he says
God remember all the stuff I'm doing.
Don't wipe away my good deeds
because physically on this earth my good
deeds are going to be wiped away. There will
be no trace of them.
Okay what happens when Jesus Christ
comes on the scene? The children
of Israel are in a terrible place spiritually
when Jesus comes on the scene. That's why
God had to raise up whom
to come before Jesus?
John the Baptist right? And
John the Baptist is raised up because
the people need to be prepared
for the coming of Jesus.
And he wants to make
people that are ready for
Jesus Christ to come on the scene. And so
John the Baptist comes in and his job
is to turn the hearts of the fathers to
the children. Turn the hearts of the children
to their fathers. Right? Get parents
loving their children. Get children
honoring their parents. Make
straight a highway in
the desert for our God.
And make straight paths
and to straighten out some of the sinful
things and wrong things because
frankly the Pharisees and the Sadducees weren't
getting it done.
Now look, maybe when the Pharisees first
started out
for sure when the Sadducees first started
out, you know what? They
started out as being groups
of godly men. I mean the Sadducees are named
after a guy named Zadok who's a great guy.
You know the Sadducees
aren't Zadok though.
Right? And so
just because you maybe had a great founder
or you had some great
men in the past, you know those
things degenerate over time.
And they may still keep
the name but they're no good
anymore. And so the Sadducees and
the Pharisees are both rotten by the time Jesus
shows up and when Jesus talks about
them it's pretty much woe unto you
Pharisees. Woe unto you
Sadducees. He's rebuking them.
He's ripping on them. He's preaching
against them. What were
for sure in the case of the Sadducees
possibly in the case of the Pharisees
even, you know maybe these started out
in some ways as being
godly movements or godly people.
But at that time they
sure aren't. You know the children of
Israel in the days of Nehemiah
is serving God. But when
John the Baptist shows up, man they needed
a serious reboot
didn't they?
Serious reset button. And so
we as leaders, whether
it's leaders in the home, leaders in
business, and look it's the same thing with business
by the way. Businesses have to
have a reboot or they just slowly get
worse. A business will start
out being good and then their
quality just goes down, down, down.
You know what I guarantee you if we got at a time machine
and we went back in
time to Los Angeles, California
back you know
70 years ago, I think that
McDonald's would have been awesome.
I'm serious.
It would have been awesome.
Like if I got a time machine
and went back I'd be like let's go to McDonald's.
Let's do it. And you know
it probably would have been a pretty good burger
because it would have been locally raised beef.
Okay.
And you know they're using
machines to crank it out and it's all
mass produced and everything. But it probably would have been
a beautiful milkshake, a beautiful
cheeseburger. Probably would have been great.
But you know what I don't want to go to McDonald's this afternoon.
It's junk.
It's garbage. It's not the same.
It's gone down in quality.
But here's the thing.
You know there are companies
that just keep declining
and declining until they're just gone.
And you start
looking at them and they look
like their logo
is from like 40 years ago
and it's all faded.
Everything's out of style.
You
go inside. Everything feels all
janky. And you're just like man I need to find
a new place to shop.
This place you know. But then other
companies they kind of like rebrand
themselves and they get a fresh logo.
They clean things up.
They change the menu. They change things
in a good way and actually
stay relevant.
Okay. Well here's the thing. We
have to do the same thing
as a church except we're not trying
to market ourselves to what
people want or make money or something
like that. What we're trying to do
is push a reset button to get back
to the Word of God. Get
God's power and
God's blessing back on
the ministry by constantly
re-digging those wells
and constantly going
to the Word of God and preaching
what needs to be done. Fixing problems.
Having new exciting
missions and soul winning
trips and programs
and things to keep things going.
Because if we just coast
then
eventually we're going to run out of steam.
We're going to run out of
energy. The friction
is going to slow us down.
And it's going to be over.
And so it says in verse number 15
in those days, Si and Judah some
treading wine presses on the Sabbath
and bringing in sheaves. And of course
this is the Old Testament. They're commanded to
keep the Sabbath. And
there are all these people violating the
Sabbath. They've got all kinds of foreigners
coming in and everything's open
on Sunday. Obviously
it wasn't Sunday back then.
But in our modern day
equivalent they're just
coming in and having all
of this activity on the
day that under the Old Covenant is
supposed to be a day of
rest. And so
of course
Nehemiah puts a stop to this.
And then people are pushing
back against Nehemiah and
they keep trying to get in there and
operate on the Sabbath and
finally he just threatens them and says
if you guys come back I'm going to lay hands on you.
And he doesn't say we.
Everything with Nehemiah
is I. I'm
going to lay hands on you. I'm
personally going to kick your butts if you keep
coming back here. And again
obviously we as New Testament Christians
should never get physical. We should never get
violent because we don't wrestle against flesh
and blood. But
the idea here is that a leader
takes the steps necessary
whether it's throwing Tobias
stuff outside or whether it's threatening
to get physical with these guys.
Obviously in the New Testament we're not going to do that.
But we need to
actually back up
what we say.
Right? You know it's one thing
as a parent
or as a pastor or as a leader
to get up and say hey this is
how things are. And then it's another
thing to actually back those things up.
You know
like if I said
hey you know my
daughters are not
going to be wearing
short skirts. You know they need to wear skirts
that go down to the knee. They're not
going to go out of here in Daisy Dukes
or something. They're not going to go out in
short shorts. And then what if
my daughter is just like okay bye dad
and she's just walking out and I'm just like
I told her not
to do it. You know
those kind of things have to be
enforced. Okay?
You know we could just get up
at our church and just
say things but
some of those things need to be enforced.
And we have to say hey
this is how it is.
And I'm not talking about necessarily just arbitrary
things. Although in your home you
are allowed to have arbitrary rules.
At church we don't typically have
arbitrary rules but sometimes we might need to
have arbitrary rules at church. And
those things sometimes need to be enforced.
And you know that's
part of what it means to actually
have leadership is that
the rules mean something.
And that they're not just
spoken as hey
don't wear
this
scanty clothing out of the house and then they just
they're allowed to wear whatever they want.
You know some of that clothing might just
need to go into the trash.
Oh I can't find
my little short skirt. Well it's in the trash
honey.
And I'm sorry you wasted your money on that but guess what
you shouldn't be buying stuff that you know is not
allowed in this house.
And so he does some
enforcement in chapter
13. I got to
hurry I'm almost out of time but jump down
to verse 23 it says
in those days saw Jews that had
married wives of Ashdod.
And Ashdod is one
of the main cities of the Philistines
of Ammon and
of Moab and we've already talked about them earlier
in the chapter.
And their children spake half in the speech of
Ashdod and could
not speak in the Jews language
but according to the language of each
people. Now
why is this a problem? Because God's
Word is in the Jews
language.
And these people they've
become so mixed with the heathen
that they can't even understand
the language anymore
of the Jews. And so
this is where Nehemiah really loses
it verse 25. This is
probably the most extreme verse in the chapter.
And I contended with them
and cursed them
and smote
certain of them
and plucked off their hair.
I did some stuff.
He said I
contended with them and cursed them
and smote certain of them.
Look I didn't hit everybody okay.
I only hit a few people.
And plucked
off their hair
and made them swear by God saying
you shall not give your daughters
unto their sons nor take their
daughters unto your sons or for yourselves.
Now again remember when we're reading the historical
books of the Bible
everything that people do in the story is not
automatically right even if they're the good guy.
All throughout the historical
books good guys do
things that are good and bad.
Bad guys do things that are good and bad.
You have to use discernment study
the rest of the Bible. Obviously
this is not appropriate
for him to just be just
punching these people
and ripping their hair out and chasing
them and cursing them and everything
like that. But he's frustrated.
He's angry.
He's just losing his temper.
He's losing his cool.
Because he didn't
understand how bad things
could get with him being gone.
Like really I'm just gone for a few years
and this is what happens. I mean Moses is in
the mouth for 40 days and 40 nights and they're
worshipping the golden calf.
They just crossed the Red Sea.
And it takes
40 days of Moses being gone
and they're worshipping the golden calf.
You can see why these guys get frustrated. You can see why he broke
the Ten Commandments. You can see
why these guys are frustrated even if we don't
approve of it. You can
see where they're coming from.
And so he's
plucking off their
hair. He's chasing people.
He's just slapping
them. He's just
really mad at this point.
And he
brings up to them all the reasons
why they're wrong. He says,
did not Solomon king of Israel sin
by these things? Yet among
many nations was there no king like him
who was beloved of his God and
God made him king over all Israel.
Nevertheless even him did outlandish
women cause to sin. Shall we
then hearken unto you to do
all this great evil to transgress
against our God in marrying
strange wives?
And one of the
I love this verse. One of the sons
of Joita, the son of Eliashib,
the high priest, was
son-in-law to Sanballat
the Horonite. And this is another
guy that's like Tobiah. Sanballat
is Tobiah's buddy.
Therefore, I
chased him from me.
You know, it's just like,
He's like, wait a minute.
You're the son-in-law?
You, hold on.
Let me get this straight. You married
Sanballat's daughter?
You know, the guy's just like,
I mean, he didn't even have a chance to smite
this guy. He didn't even have a
chance to pull out his hair because the guy just
the guy took off. So he said, well,
I chased him from me.
I chased him off.
Look, you see what
you see what this guy's forfeiting?
I mean, this guy's the grandson
of the high priest.
He should be in that
priestly succession.
He should be the next guy to pick up
the torch and serve the Lord in a
very honorable position.
But instead, he gets
chased off by Nehemiah
for being a bozo
and marrying Sanballat's daughter
for being unequally yoked.
And, you know, again, the New Testament
application of this is
that we're not to be unequally yoked together
with unbelievers.
And so we don't want our young people
marrying unbelievers.
We don't want them marrying ungodly
people. We want them to be equally
yoked with other Bible-believing Christians.
But what we see
Nehemiah doing here is
chasing
from him
people who are
put in a position that's hereditary
when they themselves
are not seeking holiness
and righteousness and biblical separation.
You know, this is another thing that the old
IFB needs to do.
Pastors' sons
that are not
interested in serving God
and preaching hard
and being Fundamental Baptist
should not be put into
positions of leadership, period.
No position in
the New Testament Church should ever be
hereditary.
In the Old Testament, certain things are
hereditary. The priesthood's hereditary.
The monarchy's hereditary.
But guess what? We're not living in the
Old Testament. We're living in the New Testament.
And you know what we need
is we need pastors
and church staff
that are put in those positions because
of their godliness,
not because of
family relationships.
It shouldn't just be,
oh, it's the pastor's
son. Well, then he's
automatically just has
all of these doors and ministry open
unto him. Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
Because of the fact
that just being
the son of doesn't
make you like that person necessarily
when it comes to your love for God,
your service for God. That needs
to be judged on an individual basis because
we all have our own personal decisions to make
about whether or not we're going to serve God.
The fact that my parents serve God
did not guarantee
that I'm going to serve God.
We have to make sure
that we put people in charge
not just because, oh, it's a
famous preacher's son.
It's a famous preacher's grandson.
And look, all of us have the same human nature,
don't we?
When we hear
that somebody is the son of a famous
preacher, we automatically
have a higher view of that person,
don't we? Automatically.
I mean, we're automatically
going to just think, oh, wow,
this person is
you know, I was thinking about and this
is not a criticism of him because I saw a great
video of him this week really
preaching well.
But, you know, you think about like Tony
Hudson. You know, you might
be like, who's this guy? But that's like, oh, this
is Curtis Hudson's son.
Oh, wow.
You know, I mean, that's just kind of human nature
because, you know, you admire
the man, Curtis Hudson. So then you think,
oh, well, this is his son. Wow.
You know, and
there was a great video that somebody posted
on Facebook this week of
Tony Hudson preaching the
reprobate doctrine. And so
I did enjoy that.
Somebody said it was an old video, though, from
like 2008 or something or 2000
when was it from?
2016. Sorry,
not that old. They said it was a video from
2016. I was hoping that it was from
like last week or something, you know,
it's kind of excited, like, yeah,
the old IFP is coming around.
But, yeah, this
is 2016. So it's time for the rest of the
old IFP to catch up
on that doctrine.
But the point is, though,
that when you've got
a guy who's the
grandson of so-and-so or the
son of so-and-so, you know what,
he needs to be evaluated on his own
individual merits.
And if he's
allied with God's enemies,
if he's a wicked
person, if he's like this guy
who's the son-in-law of
Sam Ballot, the horror knight, you know, we need
to chase those people from us.
They need to be chased away from us.
Okay. They need to not
be holding that position of high
priest because, let's face it, even
though the position of priest in the
Old Testament was hereditary, right,
the sons of Aaron,
even though the monarchy was
hereditary, you know, the sons of David,
does that necessarily mean
that it's going to be a certain son
of David or a certain son of Aaron?
No. Because remember
when a certain branch of Aaron's family
went sideways, what happened?
They got cut off from
the priesthood and we went with
the good Zadok side,
right, and we got rid of
that bad side where
Abimelech and Haimeaz and that
crowd, Abiathar had gone the
wrong direction. We went with the Zadok
side and that
ended up being the side that we go with. I mean, look
at David. David had sons like
Adonijah, nope. Absalom, nope.
Amnon, nope. Solomon.
Right? And so
there's still a choice.
So it's not to say that
the pastor's son could never
be a great man of God.
You know, there could be, so I'm not criticizing
every church that
hands off the ministry
to their son, although I will, I've
gone on the record saying I will never do that
because I've seen it go bad too many times.
If any of my sons ever
decides to go into the ministry, they're going to be ordained
somewhere else.
You know, just because
I've seen it too much in my life, I'm sick
of it. I'm sick of the nepotism.
They need to stand on their own merits
and they need to
climb the ladder somewhere else.
But the thing is,
I'm not criticizing every single situation
because there could be lots of great
examples we could point to
of a pastor who
passes on the ministry to his son
and the son's a godly man, a righteous
man, and continues the great work
that his father did. And we have some examples of that in
the Bible, don't we? But we also
have a lot of bad examples in
real life and in the Bible. And so
what I'm saying is that it should be based upon
merit. And these
hereditary people,
sons of this pastor or that
preacher, hey, if they
are wicked, chase them from us.
We need godly
leadership, not leadership
with a famous last name.
Remember
them, verse 29, oh my God, because
they have defiled the priesthood and the
covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.
Thus cleansed I them
from all strangers and appointed
the wards of the priests and the Levites,
everyone in his business, and
for the wood offering at times appointed
and for the first fruits. Remember
me, oh my God, for good. And what's he saying?
He's saying, look, just so you know everybody,
I'm writing this down
because Nehemiah is the author of the book of
Nehemiah. Everything's first person. Chapter one,
he says, I this, I that,
I this, I that, all the way to
chapter 13. So he's writing this
himself, and
he's saying in these last couple of verses,
hey, just so you know,
when I left, everything was
good. When
I died, everything was good. When
I left, everything was happening.
Why is he writing this? Because he knows
for a fact that
people who are going to read this book later are
going to be like, whoa, that's not how it is now.
Not how things are
now. We're, we got Ammonites
everywhere we look. We, we
got the Mobites. We got
all these wicked people surrounding us.
The Levites aren't getting paid.
They're out working secular jobs.
They're not able to do the work that they
need to do. And so again,
our work on this earth
is going to be erased,
but the spiritual work that we
do can never be erased. Just as
Nehemiah's spiritual legacy is never
erased. Every single person
that we win to the Lord is going to
lead to heaven. Nothing can change
that. Every single
person whom we influence in a godly
way and who we teach the word of
God, every child that is brought up in
our church for the nurture and admonition of
the Lord will last
forever. The building's not
going to last forever. The institution's
not going to last forever. Eventually, it's going
to be faithful word community church.
Okay. And it's going to be
totally different, but that's never
going to change what we're accomplishing
right here, right now.
The souls that are won out, soul winning
this afternoon, today are
going to last forever.
The missions trips that are run this
year are going to last forever.
The children that are hearing
this sermon right now
and deciding to serve God with
their lives right now, that's going to
last forever.
So invest in something that's going to last
forever and don't be married
to an institution.
Be married to the truth.
Be married to the word of
God and holiness and
righteousness. Not a name, not
a building, not an institution,
not a personality, not a
family, not a certain
church or organization or denomination,
but you've got
to be with the Lord
and wherever that cloudy
pillar goes, that's where you
go. And don't always
expect it to stay in the same place.
And there's always going to need to be
a new preacher,
a new leader,
and people to stand up even in their own
homes and have a new
regime. And some
of you in your homes need to
push a reset button and say, hey,
starting today, I don't care what March
5th, it's New Year's somewhere
in some culture.
Hey, March
5th, let's make
a change.
And enforce it
and get it done.
And we need to get back to the
Lord in this country and it means
that we need a whole bunch of Nehemiahs
and John the Baptist
in their homes, in their churches,
in their communities to stand
up and lead with biblical
leadership. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for Nehemiah, Lord,
and we
thank you so much for all of
the reforms that he made,
Lord, even though Israel today is
a complete mess and you'd never know that
a guy like Nehemiah had ever even been
there in 2023.
But Lord, the spiritual
legacy of Nehemiah lives on.
And Nehemiah is even
a blessing to us on this
Sunday morning in 2023, Lord.
Help us to learn
from his successes, maybe learn
from his mistakes a little bit.
And Lord, God, help us to also
be willing to push that reset
button, help us to fill roles of leadership,
not necessarily because we've been
given a fancy title, but maybe
we could just lead our friends and loved
ones and families to greater
service for you, Lord. Help us
to clean house spiritually in our own
lives and in the institutions that
we run. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.