Men, this evening, I'm preaching on the subject
of building and battling.
In Nehemiah chapter four, really,
the enemies become a big part of the story here
because up to this point, you know,
Nehemiah had the idea and God's hand is upon him
and he's gonna come back and build the wall
around Jerusalem and help them not to be a reproach
and not to be so vulnerable to the enemies.
And if you remember, in chapter two,
there were some rumblings from the enemy,
like, "Eh, what do they think they're gonna do?"
And Nehemiah just kind of shut them down,
put them in their place, very briefly.
But this entire chapter is about serious threats
from the enemies.
You know, whenever you do a great work for God,
there's always gonna be opposition.
There's always gonna be persecution.
There are going to be many adversaries.
And so this is just to be expected.
You're not just gonna do something great for God
without any opposition.
It's just not realistic.
So if you're not ready to fight,
if you're not ready to battle,
as we talked about this morning,
and war a good warfare,
well then you're just not gonna succeed
in the Christian life.
You're not gonna do anything great
because it's a fight.
It's a battle.
Fight the good fight of faith, the Bible says.
Now, if you look at verse number one of chapter four,
it says, "But it came to pass
"that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall,
"he was wroth and took great indignation
"and mocked the Jews."
So you can see that he's wroth.
Wroth is the adjective for the noun wrath.
Which is intense, burning, anger, rage.
And so when you do something good for God,
it will enrage wicked people.
I mean, wicked people will just be gnashing on you
with their teeth, foaming at the mouth, furious.
Why?
I mean, you're doing something good for God.
You're doing something positive.
You're not hurting them.
You're not attacking them.
I mean, what did Nehemiah do to Sanballat?
Nothing.
But just the fact that he is serving God
and doing something good for God's people,
just enrages the enemy.
And it's the same way today.
There are all kinds of people
who are just furious at our church and hate our church.
Now here's the thing.
It makes sense for sodomites to hate our church
because you know what?
We've verbally attacked the sodomites
and we'll continue to do so.
You know, we're preaching against them.
We're fighting them.
We're rebuking their wickedness.
That makes sense.
But what's bizarre is when you'll see
supposed brothers and sisters in Christ infuriated
by the soul winning that we're doing
or just by positive things that we're doing,
getting people saved, mission strips or whatever.
It's amazing to see people get infuriated by that.
And part of the reason why they get infuriated by that
I think is because it makes them feel bad about themselves.
Because for example, if you go out soul winning,
people who don't go out soul winning
are gonna kind of take that as an implicit criticism.
Like, oh, you think you're better
because you're soul winning or something?
It's like, no, I don't think I'm better,
but I think I'm actually following Jesus, unlike you.
Because if you follow Christ, you'll be fishers of men.
So I do think I'm actually doing the work
that God prescribed for us, unlike you.
But no, I don't think I'm better than you.
I think you could also do great things for God too,
if you'd actually obey the command to go out and do them.
And so people will get mad that you're soul winning.
People will get irritated by that.
It bothers them that you do that.
It's like they wanna take you down a notch.
You're reading your Bible.
What could be more positive
than just getting into reading the Bible,
or you're praying, or whatever you're doing.
You join the church.
You start coming three times a week.
And then it makes them feel bad
that they only go once a week,
and you're going three times a week, and whatever.
It's amazing how human nature is like this.
But it's a sin nature.
It's a wrong attitude to get mad at other people
for doing something good.
And so what we see here is Sam Ballot.
He's super angry.
And so the tool that he decides to use is mockery.
So he decides that he's gonna make fun of God's people
in order to demoralize them and discourage them
and make them look stupid to other people
so that people won't support them.
And just so that they might just get discouraged
and just wanna quit.
The Bible says he mocked the Jews, verse two,
and he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria
and said, "What do these feeble Jews?"
Will they fortify themselves?
Will they sacrifice?
Will they make an end in a day?
Will they revive the stones
out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
So he's making fun of them.
And the funny thing that he says at the beginning is,
what do these feeble Jews, will they fortify themselves?
Now here's the thing, if you're feeble,
feeble means weak.
I mean, if you're weak,
wouldn't the logical thing be to fortify yourself?
This would be like, if a fat guy walked into the gym,
it's like, what's this fat guy doing here?
What's he trying to do, lose a little weight?
It's like, oh yeah, that's what fat people do.
They lose weight.
That's why they go to the gym, so they can lose weight.
Like, wouldn't that be a stupid and wicked attitude?
Like, oh, this guy doesn't belong here.
What's he gonna do, lose weight?
Or some skinny dweeb comes in and is like,
what are you trying to do, build muscle?
What are you gonna do, build some muscle, you weak guy?
It's like, that's what weak people need to do, build muscle.
That's the whole point.
But it's amazing how people will criticize you
for trying to improve, for trying to do better,
for trying to fix problems.
It doesn't make any sense.
Oh, these feeble Jews,
what are they trying to do, fortify themselves?
If you're feeble, you wanna get fortified.
You wanna get strong, that's the whole point.
If you're weak, get strong.
He says, will they sacrifice?
Will they make an end in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps
of the rubbish which are burnt?
I mean, what's wrong with any of this?
What are you trying to do?
Sacrifice?
I mean, God commanded them to make sacrifices.
Of course they're trying to sacrifice.
What are you gonna do?
Revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish?
It's like, why not?
Why not recycle messed up burned stones
and see if you can salvage them and reuse them
and reuse some of those building materials?
You know, what's wrong with trying to take people
who used to be messed up and try to recycle them
and get them living for God again?
You know, what's wrong with taking areas of your life
that are messed up and trying to fix them
so that you can be used greatly by God?
You know, these aren't even bad things
that he's accusing them of.
He's just doing it in a mocking way
and making light of them and just acting like
there's no way they can succeed.
They're just gonna fail no matter what.
And I've had people tell me this throughout my life
that I was gonna be a failure
and that I was gonna crash and burn
and there's no way that my church
would ever even be a thing, that I could ever be a pastor.
I had people telling me that.
And it's just meant to try to demoralize you
and make you think like, oh, you know what?
I'm not good enough or whatever.
Well, at the end of the day, none of us is good enough,
but at the end of the day,
it's God that's gonna build the church.
It's God that's gonna do the work.
And he likes to use the weak things of this world
and the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.
And so it says in verse number three,
now Tobiah, so that's what Sanballat had to say.
Here's another enemy.
Now Tobiah the Ammonite, which was by him,
and he said, even that which they build,
if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.
Now here's what doesn't make sense about this,
is that if the wall that they're building is such a joke
that a fox could just go up on it
and it would just fall over,
it doesn't really provide any real protection,
then why are they so threatened by this?
If what they're doing is so meaningless,
then why is Tobiah the Ammonite so worked up about it?
Because if the wall is that weak,
then they don't really have any real fortification.
They're not gonna be a threat to him.
They're not gonna somehow be able to defend themselves
against the enemies with a wall that's that weak.
So what's the issue?
And that's the thing is that people will in one breath
act like we're tiny and we don't matter
and we're insignificant and we're weak
and we're lame and we're stupid, right?
But then they'll put all of this time and effort and energy
into attacking and criticizing us,
which kind of makes it seem like we must be significant
if we're worth that many hours of your life.
So he says in verse number four, this is Nehemiah praying.
And one of the things I really like about Nehemiah
is starting all the way in verse one we have,
or chapter one I should say, we have this phenomenon.
And then all the way to the end in chapter 13,
where basically Nehemiah just stops and prays
throughout the book.
And so we get like these personal insights
into the narrator here, Nehemiah,
and we get like some really intimate view
of what he's thinking and what he's experiencing
and actually word for word what he's praying to God.
And by the way, this is one of the reasons
why it makes absolutely no sense that in the Hebrew Bible
they combine these books into one book, Ezra Nehemiah.
And Ezra Nehemiah is one book.
That don't make no sense,
because these are two totally different books
that are clearly written by two totally different authors,
because Ezra does not read like Nehemiah
in this regard at all.
Nehemiah is really like autobiographical,
chapter one all the way to chapter 13.
And that's why our Bible is correct
to have it broken into two books,
the book of Ezra and book of Nehemiah,
because these have different authors.
I mean, I'm not saying it's a big deal or anything,
but I'm just saying it's clearly two different authors
and there's some subject matter between Ezra and Nehemiah
that's redundant.
There's some redundant lists.
If it was one book written by one person,
you wouldn't have the same information
listed redundantly like that.
It's two different books from two totally different authors.
So I'm not sure what their goofball rationale is
for combining them like that.
It doesn't make any sense.
And so here, we get an insight into what's going on
in Nehemiah's mind.
He's praying to the Lord, "Hear, O our God,
"for we are despised and turn their reproach
"on their own head and give them for a prey
"in the land of captivity."
Now, this is what we would call an imprecatory prayer.
Obviously, the book of Psalms
has a lot of imprecatory prayers.
Even the book of Revelation,
the saints that are up in heaven
at the opening of the fifth seal
are really praying an imprecatory prayer from heaven
when they say, "How long, O Lord, holy and true,
"dost thou not judge and avenge our blood
"on them that dwell on the earth?"
So an imprecatory prayer is when you're praying
ill upon someone else.
Praying that God would judge them or punish them
or that it would go poorly for them.
And so here, he says, turn their reproach
upon their own head, give them for a prayer.
But then look at verse five, he really ramps it up here.
"And cover not their iniquity,
"and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee,
"for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders."
So he's saying, man, do not forgive these people,
do not cover their sin, do not let this go.
Look, I'm telling you,
when you are fighting against the church,
when you are fighting against the work of God,
when you are fighting against soul-winning churches
and soul-winning pastors,
and you're trying to hinder their work
and stop them from doing the work
that God has called them to do,
I mean, you get some serious curses
coming down on your head here.
I mean, I don't know about you,
but when I screw up, when I commit sin,
when I make a mistake, I want God to go easy on me.
I want him to forgive me and let it go
and turn the blind eye to certain things.
I don't want God just coming down on me
for every single thing that I do.
But you know, this curse that Nehemiah
is putting upon them, he says,
"No, cover not their iniquity.
"Let not their sin be blotted out from before thee,
"for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders."
So when you're an enemy of the local church,
when you're enemy of God's people,
you got some serious punishments coming your way
and you're probably gonna get some imprecatory prayers
coming your way from God's people that are spirit-filled.
Now here's the thing about that is that
you can interpret this verse if the people are unsaved,
it's almost like now that they're not even gonna get saved.
That's the worst thing ever to be unsaved.
Or if they are saved, that God's gonna take them to task
for every sin that they do
and every idle word that they speak
instead of being long-suffering with them,
merciful with them.
I mean, this is a serious imprecation here
that Nehemiah is putting on these people.
It goes on in verse number six.
"So built we the wall,
"and all the wall was joined together
"unto the half thereof,
"for the people had a mind to work.
"But it came to pass when Sanballat and Tobiah
"and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites
"heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up
"and that the breaches thereof began to be stopped,
"then they were very wroth."
So, you know, they were already wroth
just at the idea of God's work being done.
Now that it's actually succeeding
and they're actually getting it done
and it's actually a reality,
boy, this makes them even more angry.
You know, the more success that we have as God's people,
the more the haters are gonna see the rage about it.
Now, the reason why they're having so much success,
the Bible says, is because the people had a mind to work,
right, and we wanna be a church of people
that are work-minded, that have a mind to work,
meaning that our mentality is,
hey, let's get something done, let's do something,
Let's be active.
Let's be proactive at going out and getting people saved
and preaching the gospel to every creature.
We're not just gonna sit around waiting for revival to come
or waiting for people to discover our church somehow.
No, no, no.
We're gonna go out and we're gonna seek and save the lost
and we're gonna go out there and be active
and be works-minded and just go out there and want to work
and want to go soul winning and want to do more
and want to help out and want to volunteer
and do everything that we can.
You know, at our church,
nobody's making anybody go soul winning
or putting any pressure like,
"Hey, you have to go soul winning,"
or "You have to go on these missions trips."
No, no, no, because we want you to have a mind to work.
And a lot of people here just, they wanna do it.
They wanna get involved.
They have a mind to work.
You know, I remember sitting in the pew as a young person
and hearing preaching from the Bible
and getting super motivated and just wanting to do something.
Just kind of like, man, just point me in the right direction.
Just point me at the battle.
I wanna do something.
I wanna be in the fight.
I wanna build something.
I wanna be something.
And sometimes you didn't really know where to go
or what to do.
You know, so at our church,
we're constantly putting these opportunities in front of you.
You wanna go to Southern California?
Let's go.
You wanna go to Flagstaff?
Let's go.
You wanna go here locally in Phoenix?
Well, seven days a week, there's a chance to do that.
Anytime, anywhere, you name it,
we're trying to make it easy for the work-minded people
to find the work.
'Cause we'd hate to have some guy who's all excited
and wants to do all this work,
and we're just like, "Sorry, we got nothing for you today.
"Call back in a week."
There's always something to do.
And so the people had a mind to work.
That should be our testimony.
Verse number seven talks about how they just get super angry
when they see the success that God people are having.
And so what do they do?
Verse eight, they conspired all of them together
to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it.
So they start uniting against God's people.
And what's funny is this can sometimes make
for some strange bedfellows.
And this reminds me of the part
where the Lord Jesus Christ is on trial
and Herod and Pontius Pilate had been enemies,
but then they become friends over condemning Jesus, right?
And this is also prophesied in Psalm two.
Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord and against his anointed, right?
So Herod and Pilate come together
in fulfillment of Psalm two.
Obviously in the end times,
there's gonna be an even greater fulfillment of that,
of world leaders coming together.
The 10 kings are gonna come together
and give their power and strength under the beast.
But it's always funny when people are united,
not by having the same doctrine,
the same beliefs, the same ideas,
but rather they're just united
in their hatred for God's people,
united in their hatred for the man of God or for the church.
And a lot of times these unions don't last very long
because they're not really built on anything in common.
And hatred just isn't really a glue
to bind you together as a group.
Like in the long run, it's not gonna work.
Like our church is here 21 years later
and it's a lot of the same people that have been here
for five years, 10 years, 15 years,
even 20 years in some people's cases.
How have we stayed together all that time?
Is it because we all just hate a certain group or something?
No, that's not what binds us together.
We have a common goal, we have a common vision.
It's like we're all rallied around the Bible,
the King James Bible, soul winning.
We're all rallied around our doctrine of faith alone
and once saved, always saved.
And you know, the Trinity and all of these things
that we have in common and we have a positive goal
of reaching the community with the gospel,
reaching the nation, reaching the world,
that unites us over the decades.
But just being mad at Pastor Anderson
or being mad at Pastor Shelley,
like you're only gonna get so much mileage out of that.
You know, you're gonna run out of fuel with that pretty soon.
It's not enough to build your whole lifetime friendship on.
You hate Pastor Anderson, I hate Pastor Anderson.
You know, let's be friends.
That's not gonna last that long.
And what's funny is that over the last 21 years,
we've just made so many enemies.
Like every year, we're just making more enemies,
just pissing people off.
But here's the thing, the people that were pissing off,
they're all getting pissed off for different reasons.
You know, it's not like everybody's mad
about the same thing.
So it's like, you got the homos are mad.
The repent of your sins crowd is mad, right?
We got the Greek Orthodox mad.
The Roman Catholics are mad.
The Mormons are mad, you know?
The Seventh-day Adventists are mad.
The Flat Earthers are mad.
Who else is mad?
The feminists are mad.
Oh man, boy, are they mad.
The feminists are mad.
And then just the backslidden, washed up
former church members are mad,
because they're just backslidden,
so they just have to just come up
with something wrong with us,
so that it can be our fault and not their fault,
why they're backslidden and not serving God
and not in church.
So all these different people are mad,
but the problem is, you end up throwing these people
all together in this hodgepodge of like,
here's some people over here that are flat earth
and they're mad, and then you got these people
who are homos and they're atheists,
and it's just like, you know,
you've got Christians over here
that are just disgruntled and backslidden,
but over here, it's heretical doctrine.
Over here, the doctrine's right.
It's just the attitude that's, it's just, it's a mess.
You know, and Pastor Shelley,
we were talking about this yesterday,
or Pastor Shelley and I were talking about this yesterday
because he was talking about these two particular people
were like rallying together,
and it was like their doctrine was opposite.
One of them was like hardcore speaking against
calling upon the name of the Lord for salvation, right?
And then the other guy was totally for
and preached a whole sermon about
how you need to call in the name of the Lord for salvation.
And then it's like, but these guys are just,
they're just like liking each other and buddy buddy,
just over their hatred for Pastor Shelley.
And it didn't make any sense
because their doctrines are diametrically opposed.
Like this guy's whole big issue is he's like
anti calling upon the name of the Lord,
which is a really weird position to have.
And then this other guy over here is a hundred percent
for that, but they're just all just lovey dovey online,
just, oh yeah, it's so great.
It's like, boy, that's going to last long.
That's really going to last.
That coalition's going to last.
You know, and, and I think a good example,
I might as well just get specific and just name some names.
You know, like, like here's what's funny.
Salvador Alvarez, what a character.
I mean, this guy, and you're like, who?
Pastor who?
This guy, Salvador Alvarez, he literally starts pastoring.
And within like a couple of months,
he runs the church completely into the ground.
And he finally just had to disband it
because there was literally no one left.
He got down to one member,
then he had to break with that one member,
and then it's just him by himself.
And then he shut down the church.
It's like, bro, he didn't shut down the church,
you shut down yourself because there was no church.
The church was gone.
Everybody had already moved over to Spring Crest Baptist.
And so here's the thing,
the good people from that church
are over at Spring Crest Baptist in Houston,
and they're still serving God.
So no harm, no foul,
because Spring Crest Baptist is thriving.
You got Pastor Enrique Reyes at the helm,
and you got the good people from Pure Words
that moved over to Pastor Reyes' church
and lived happily ever after,
and they're continuing to win souls and serve God.
All things work together for good to those that love God.
But this guy, Salvador Alvarez, was way out there.
I mean, he just, within a month of starting
to become a pastor, he basically just malfunctioned
is really the only way to describe it.
And he was so wild, he's the point where,
remember, he's writing checks to, like,
Solomon and Isaac and John and, you know,
just just for you, exclamation mark,
with the church funds, just giving church money
to these rebellious teens.
It made no sense.
Okay, but here's the thing.
His big thing was, you know, he was just a super feminist.
His sister, like, literally wrote the book on feminism.
And so he's preaching all this, like,
hardcore feminist doctrine from the pulpit and whatever,
and he was just so offended by me and my marriage
and my parenting and whatever.
He's just so horrified and offended
that he just freaked out and malfunctioned and just whatever.
So here's the thing.
The good people, the normal people, quit the church.
And they're at Spring-Crest.
The people that stayed are all the weirdos.
OK, but here's the funny thing.
I don't want to lose you on the story.
I know I'm dragging it out a little.
But I want you to get the full picture.
The weirdos are the ones who stayed, OK?
Well, here's the thing about that.
Weirdos have weird doctrine.
Weirdos have heretical doctrine.
Good people have good doctrine.
Bad people have bad doctrine.
So here's what Salvador then proceeds.
After he just has this freak out, he's mailing out checks
and just making it rain on all the rebellious teenagers,
sending them $1,000 for you, $1,000 grand for you,
$1,000 grand for me, whatever, sitting there and just
teaching this weird feminist view just to go against moi.
Well then, he turns around.
Now that he's left with only weirdos in the church,
he starts preaching good doctrine.
So he starts preaching all the right doctrines of the NIFP.
He's just like, hey, I just want to let you guys know
I haven't changed my doctrine at all.
He's preaching all this good NIFP doctrine.
Well, here's the thing, all the weirdos and haters left
because they disagreed with the good doctrine
that he turned around and preached.
So here's what I'm saying.
So it's like he runs off the good people.
He only has the rebellious weirdos left.
And then he starts preaching good doctrine.
He preached like a sermon on calling upon
the name of the Lord that was correct.
He preached a sermon about Jesus Christ,
like where he was for three days and three nights
that was correct.
He just preached like a series of correct sermons
that just offended everyone who was left.
And then he's left with no one.
'Cause here's the thing, if you're gonna have a church
full of rebellious weirdos,
you gotta preach weird doctrine.
That's what they want.
That's what they're into.
And if you want to preach good doctrine,
you gotta have good people in the church
to receive the good doctrine.
And so, Salvador is hilarious, in my opinion.
He's my favorite enemy.
I wish all my enemies were just like Salvador.
I love him so much.
I think he's a wonderful person.
I just wish they would all be like Salvador.
Because he was just perfect.
Love it.
Because he's so absurd that he just makes our point for us.
Anyway, I was a little bit of a rabbit trail.
I hope you don't mind me indulging in that for a moment.
But it's just true though.
I don't know what the heck that has to do
with Nehemiah chapter four, but where are we?
What day is it?
What year is it?
What?
Verse eight, okay.
Oh yeah, they conspired all of them together.
So what I'm saying is all the strange bedfellows
of just like Pastor Anderson haters,
they're not gonna get along.
Some of them still believe the new IFB doctrine.
Some don't.
Some of them are saved.
Some of them are not.
Some are straight and some are queer.
How's this gonna work?
It's not.
But that's what the enemies do.
They join up with all these other enemies.
And next thing you know, you got some guy
who rejects calling upon the name of the Lord,
just donating money to a guy over here
who's marching in a gay pride parade.
And you're just like, what?
How does that work?
But it makes for some very strange bedfellows
when people unite against the work of God.
Verse number eight, and conspired all of them together
to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it.
So when God's people are thriving and succeeding too much,
all the enemies are like, man,
we got to put aside our differences and join up
and just fight the work of God.
Just fight Nehemiah, just fight against God's people.
Verse number nine, nevertheless we made our prayer unto God
and set a watch against them day and night because of them.
And Judas said, the strength of the bearers of burdens
is decayed and there is much rubbish
so that we are not able to build the wall.
And so you can see that in the Christian life,
when it rains, it pours, right?
Bad things will often come at you in groups or in waves.
So on the one hand, you have the enemies
all conspiring to fight and they're all gonna come
and they're all gonna fight against Nehemiah
and the people of God.
And then at the same time,
and it doesn't seem to be necessarily connected,
it could be coincidental.
At the same time, the bearers of burdens are like,
we're too tired, man, this stuff is just too heavy.
Like we're carrying these stones, there's too much rubble,
there's too much trash.
This job is just too hard.
And so we as God's people, we can sometimes just get tired.
I mean, don't you sometimes just get worn out?
And you're just worn out and you're just like,
man, I just don't feel like going to church.
Man, I just don't feel like going soul winning.
I don't feel like reading my Bible, I'm just burned out.
Or maybe me as a pastor, man, I don't feel like preaching.
I wish I could just take some time off or something.
And that's how it can be for us in our Christian life.
At some point you're going to feel just tired and worn out.
And so coincidentally, they're tired and worn out at the same time as all the enemies are
attacking them and everything.
So when these things coincide in our lives, it can be like a perfect storm that could
ruin us.
Because it's like we're already tired, we're discouraged, then the enemies are coming out.
That can be when we're tempted to quit.
And so it says in verse number 11, and our adversary said, they shall not know neither
see till we come in the midst among them, verse 11, and slay them and cause the work
to cease.
And so it's like verse nine is talking about the enemies are after them.
Then verse 10, it like, meanwhile, cuts to the people that are with Nehemiah, getting
tired, getting discouraged, getting worn out, then it cuts back to the enemy.
And it's like, oh man, they're never going to know we're going to get them.
It's like, there's problems inside and out here, and this is how it's going to be in
the Christian life.
You'll be going through something internally, and then there'll be an external attack at
the same time.
You know, the double pronged attack coming at you from the devil.
Or at our church, there could be like problems inside the church, and then also attacks from
outside the church at the same time.
And so that's what they're going through.
So they're in a really difficult place here.
Verse 12, "And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto
us, 'Ten times from all places, when she shall return unto us, they will be upon you.'"
And so let's slow down and understand this.
Let me read it one more time.
"It came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us..."
So there's Jews that are on their side, but they're not living in Jerusalem.
They're living by the enemies.
They make a trip to Jerusalem, and when they show up, they bring bad news.
They're basically giving Nehemiah the warning, because how would Nehemiah know that they're
over in some other place conspiring against him?
It's because the Jews that live by them are coming to Jerusalem, and they tell him this
ten times.
Like, he gets this message ten times.
This is a serious warning.
Everybody's saying it.
He's just getting blasted with this.
And this is what they say to him ten times, "From all places when she shall return unto
us, from all places when she shall return unto us, they will be upon you."
Like, man, they are going to be on you.
They're going to be attacking you.
From all sides, from all angles, you know, and this could be discouraging when everybody's
coming at you with all this negativity.
So people inside the group, oh man, tired, worn out, enemies conspiring, other people
from the outside are just warning him, like, "Oh man, it's going to be so bad.
You don't even know what's coming.
It's going to be a disaster for you."
I mean, you can see how this could be really discouraging for Nehemiah.
It could be easy for him to just say, "You know what, maybe I should just go back to
being the king's cup bearer in Shusha in the palace.
Maybe this is a bad idea.
This is too dangerous.
This is going to get me killed.
I'm going to get other people killed.
I don't think we can do this."
But you know what?
He pushes through.
He knows that it's the will of God for him to be there.
God's hand is upon him, and he decides that he's going to push through.
So instead of just rolling over and quitting, he decides, "You know what?
I'm going to fight back."
So look what it says in verse number 13.
"Therefore said I in the lower places behind the wall and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses."
Now, this is part of leadership, is that maybe even if on the inside you're nervous
or worried, you know, you've got to give courage to the people. You've got to strengthen
the people, fortify the people. And so it's the same thing if you're just a leader in
your home. You know, as the man of the house, some of your wives get back, "Oh man, I'm
really nervous about this. I'm nervous about the finances. I'm upset about this. I don't
know if this is going to work out." You know, as a husband, you want to project calm and
strength and resolve and we've got a plan and God's going to bless us. We're doing
the right thing. If God be for us, who can be against us? You know, as a husband, it's
your job sometimes to give your wife that pep talk and tell her that everything's going
to be okay because women tend to be a little bit more emotional, worry a little more than
men sometimes. I mean, obviously we as men, we worry also, but sometimes women can get
more worried and they want that reassurance. They don't want to just panic with you. They
want to panic and they want you to tell them that it's going to be okay and talk them down
and talk them off the ledge. And so here we see that Nehemiah is projecting strength.
He's projecting confidence and he's saying, look, we're going to fight these people. He's
organized. He's got a plan. And he says, you know what? Don't be afraid of them. Don't
be scared of God before us who can be against us. Fear not them, which killed the body and
are not able to kill the soul. Rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell. And so he says, remember the Lord halfway through verse 14, be not afraid
of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible. You know who's scary? Our enemies
are not scary. You know who's scary? God is scary. They should be scared of God because
God is the great and terrible, terrifying God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God. They should be shaken in their boots, not us. Why are we scared? We're
not scared of them. They should be scared of God because God is the scary one. And he
says fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses. You
know, a lot of people think like, well, I just need to take a break from the work of
God. I need to take a break from the fight. I need to take a break from fighting the good
fight because I just need to just focus on my family. You know, I just need to focus
on my family right now. And I remember there was a pastor who quit pastoring. This is when
I was a teenager and he didn't even go to church anywhere. Like he was pastoring. He
stepped down from pastoring, but then he's like, well, I'm just not going to go to church
anywhere for the next couple of months because I'm just going to do family time for the next
couple of months. It's like, bro, your family doesn't need that much time. Like your family
probably wants a break from you a little bit. What are you just going to be with your family
24/7? That doesn't even make sense. Like how much time does it really take to go to church,
to go sit your butt in church at least once a week? You know, ideally you'd be free to
thrive, but at least you can't just get down there and warm a seat once a week. Oh, I need
family time. I have an idea. Take the whole family to church and sit with your family
in church and you can talk in the car on the way there and you can talk in the car on the
way home. Sounds like an activity. And you know, you know, these same people that are
quitting the church for more family time, they'll probably go to a movie together, which
is just sitting next to their, oh, let's have family time. Let's all sit and watch a movie
together and they sit and watch, well then why don't you sit and listen to a sermon.
If you can just all sit together and call that family time.
Well if you're sitting in church I guess that's family time too.
But you know the Bible says the best thing that you could do for your wives and your
sons and your daughters and your houses, you know what the best thing for you to do is
to fight for them.
Fight for them.
You're fighting for them.
I'm soul winning for them.
I'm preaching for them.
I want to make the world a better place for them.
I'm just like, "Oh, I'm just going to just let the world go to hell and just let the
church struggle and just let other people do all the work because I'm just so focused
on my family."
Your family is better off if you're serving God.
We need to find a balance in our lives of serving God and spending time with our families.
These things are not mutually exclusive.
You don't have to choose between the two, but when people say, "Oh, I just need more
time with my family," usually, they probably need more time with their video games.
They need more time with their sports.
They need more time with their hobbies.
Because I guarantee you, these people aren't just spending time with their family 24/7.
My wife would not want me to just dote on her all day, every day.
She'd be like, "Give me some space."
And I'd be the same way.
If she was just on me like a cheap suit all day, every day, I'd be like, "Honey, give
me some space."
Now, look, some people are more needy than others.
Maybe you're the overly attached girlfriend meme or whatever, but I'm telling you, most
people, they really like to spend time with other people and they also really like to
be alone.
And it's like, yeah, our kids want us to spend time with them, but our kids also probably
don't want us spending time with them all day, every day.
They probably want a little space.
I would have felt smothered as a kid and as a teenager if my parents are just with me
all the time.
And they're just right there and just like, "What are we going to do now, son?
What are we going to do now?
Let's play another board game, son."
It's just like, "Okay, folks.
I need a little quiet time.
I need some time to myself.
I want to be with my friends.
I want to be by myself.
I want to be alone."
And look, I'm a pretty extroverted person and I still need several hours alone every
day in order to stay sane.
If I'm just around people all day for a whole day, it's like, man, this is too much.
If I do that for two or three days in a row, I'm just like, "I want to go out into the
desert."
And you say, "Well, that's just you, Pastor."
Even Jesus is like constantly getting away from the multitude, going up into a mountain
to pray, going into the desert to pray, going by himself.
He has to get away from the crowd, get off by himself.
It's a normal human need to be around other people, and it's also a normal human need
to be by yourself.
And so here's what I'm submitting to you tonight, this radical idea that you can have some time
with your family, have some quality time with your wife, have some quality time with your
kids, and still have time to go to work every day and still have time to serve God and go
to church and go soul winning and read your Bible and pray.
You know, if you prioritize your time, you can make this happen.
You got 24 hours in the day, you sleep eight hours, you got 16 waking hours, you spend
eight of them at work, and maybe let's just say that you spend, what, an hour driving,
you know, an hour preening yourself.
So it's like, okay, but there's still a lot of time left, folks, right?
Eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, two hours of preening, you got six more hours.
In that six hours, you can spend, you know, a couple hours with your family per day.
You can spend a few hours with your family.
And then you could still spend at least 15, 20 minutes reading your Bible.
I bet you can make it work.
You can listen to the Bible on audio while you take care of your personal hygiene.
Or how about in the car on the way to work.
You know what?
You can make it work if you want to make it work.
People are just like, "Oh, I don't have time.
I don't have time.
I don't have time to read my Bible."
You don't have 15 minutes a day to read your Bible.
It's absurd.
Everybody's got 15 minutes.
And if you read the Bible for 15 to 20 minutes a day, if you're an average reader, you'll
read the entire Bible cover to cover in one year.
That's pretty good, huh?
Whole Bible every year, full Bible cover.
In 20 years, you've read the Bible cover to cover 20 times, 20 minutes a day.
You think he can do that?
Absolutely.
But what there's maybe not time for is us just wasting tons of time on things that don't
matter and, you know, so we might just have to, and I'm not saying it's wrong to have
some useless time where you just blow off a little steam, but when you start sacrificing
the things of God and saying, oh, I can't show up for church, I can't go soul winning
because I just need more family time, did God just put you on this earth to just be
a family guy?
I thought we're on this earth to do the work of Christ.
It's like, yeah, of course we got to go to work.
Of course we're going to spend time with our, of course we love our wives and we get to
enjoy her and that's a fun time for us and we get to enjoy our children and play with
them and that's a fun time too and it's good for them.
It's good for us.
It's good for everybody.
But you know what?
It's not why I'm on this earth.
I'm just like, "Hi, my name is Pastor Anderson and I am my kid's dad, primarily.
And secondly, I'm my wife's husband and I also happen to pastor a church."
Is that really do you think the way I look at my life or do you think I would say, "Hi,
I'm Pastor Anderson.
I'm the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church.
This is my wife.
These are my children."
Okay?
Versus even if I weren't a pastor, I would have said, "Hey, my name is Steven Anderson
and I own a fire alarm business."
Not just like, "I'm my wife's husband.
I'm my kid's dad.
And I also own a fire alarm business."
Goofy and effeminate.
It doesn't make any sense.
And look, I know that I've been slandered ridiculously on this subject.
I've been slandered as a bad husband.
I've been slandered as a bad dad.
I'm here to tell you right now that God is my witness that I have been a very involved
husband and father for the last 25 years.
That I have been a good parent and a good husband, and I've spent lots of time with
my family.
But you know what?
I didn't sacrifice the work of God and say, "Oh, can't read my Bible.
Can't pray.
Can't go to church.
Can't go soul winning.
Can't pastor.
Can't start a church."
You know, I found a way to do both, okay?
And so that's what you have to do.
Don't bind it.
And you know what?
Let me just go off on this for a second.
There's this thing that I call the cult of the family, the cult of the family.
In our society that worships family life and says, "Family is everything."
Really?
Is that what the Bible says?
Because last time I checked, Jesus said, "He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me.
He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me."
That's what the Bible actually says.
Didn't Jesus say in Luke chapter 14 that, you know, if you come after him, if any man
come after me and doesn't hate his father, mother, brother, sister, child, and his own
life also, he can't be my disciple.
But family's everything, folks.
It's all about the family.
Hocus pocus on the family, right?
No, it's not all about the family.
It's all about Christ.
Christ is our life, okay?
Marriage is our second most relationship, our second most important relationship.
Our number one most important relationship is with the Lord.
Yeah, the most important person on this earth to me is my wife, but she's not number one.
Jesus is number one, okay?
And you know what?
Yeah, my kids are important to me, but you know what?
Jesus is more important.
And by the way, my wife's more important to me than my kids are.
And if you ladies are smart, your husband will be more important to you than your kids.
Big a big mistake, women, when you prioritize your children above your husband.
It's a stupid mistake, because let me tell you something, someday all your kids are going
to be gone, and it's going to be you and your husband.
Did you hear me?
Someday all of your kids will be gone, it's not going to be you and them, it's going to
be you and him.
And listen, I have a great relationship with both of my parents, okay.
I love both of my parents dearly, they love me dearly, we spend a lot of time together.
Even though they live in California, I see them all the time.
I talk to them on the phone, we spend time together, I have a great relationship with
both of them.
But let me tell you something, I go weeks without talking to them.
Even though we have a great relationship, love each other, do stuff together, we still
go weeks without talking.
But let me ask you this, do you think that my dad goes weeks without talking to his wife?
Do you think that my mom goes weeks without talking to her husband?
Or do you think that she talks to her husband every single day, lives with her husband,
eats meals with her husband, talks to her husband all day every day?
So at the end of the day, even if you have a great relationship with your kids, even
if you're super proud of them, and super close with them, and talk on the phone to them,
and you know what, here's the thing, even in my grandma's last days, she'd be on the
phone with my dad almost every day, sometimes, in her last days, but you know what, she's
still not spending as much time with him as he's spending with his wife.
At the end of the day, number one, Christ, number two, your spouse, number three, your
kids.
Do you understand?
Like, don't mix that up, just, oh, my kids are just my world, my kids are my everything.
That's not biblical.
Oh, it's just all about my spouse, and that's just, oh, I just live for my wife.
My wife would be like, if I said to my wife, I live for you, I exist for you, I live for
you, she'd be like, that's gross, don't say that to me.
She'd be like, you're freaking me out right now, you need to chill out.
It's true.
Now, look, maybe some of you psychos out there want your spouse to just worship you all day,
every day, but most of us normal people have other stuff going on, and hanging out with
our spouse is a treat, and it's cool, and it's fun, and it's something that we enjoy
each day, but it's not our whole life.
Look, folks, I'm making a lot of sense right now, okay, and the Bible's on my side, but
you know what?
TV's not on my side, because TV, who's the bad guy in the movie?
The bad guy is the guy who has to miss a birthday party to go to work, because his boss literally
says, "I will fire you if you don't show up today.
Show up to work or you're fired."
Sorry guys, I have to go to work.
My boss made me come in, "Such a bad dad."
Bro, we'll celebrate your birthday tomorrow.
Bro, it's tomorrow in the Philippines right now.
You know, it's just like, it's five o'clock somewhere.
You know what I mean?
It's just like, "Get over it.
Get off.
We're just not going to use the Julian calendar.
We're going to the Gregorian calendar."
You know, or vice versa, but you know what I meant.
Hey, we might have to get on the Iranian calendar, you know, because I need to stick and go to
work right now and we're going to celebrate your birthday tomorrow.
But is it, am I making that up or is that not a major trope in fiction?
Oh, bad dad, going out and making a living.
You know what?
My wife would much rather that I don't get fired and that I work hard at my job and bring
home the money than if I'm just like, "Hey, honey, great news.
I'm going to be spending so much more time with you now that I've been fired."
It's sort of like Pastor Stuckey was told in January when he was fired, "Look on the
bright side, you're going to have so much more time now.
You have time with your family."
Oh, don't you just love getting fired because you have so much time.
Alright, we need to get back on track here.
Verse 15, "It came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God
had brought their counsel to not, that we returned all of us to the wall, everyone unto
his work."
So basically they lost the element of surprise, and so their plan's not really going to work.
And so here's the thing, the attack never happens.
So it's this big scary thing, all these enemies are going to come, ten times he's warned,
they're going to kill you, they're going to get you, they're going to be all over you,
and it doesn't even happen.
Have you noticed that sometimes the things that we worry about in life most never even
end up happening?
You know, we're all nervous and scared and worried about something, and it doesn't even
happen.
This is why we shouldn't stress and worry about things.
Just pass all your cares upon him, for he careth for you.
The Bible says be careful for nothing, meaning don't be worried about or stressed out or
having all these cares about things, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God
which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Just be at peace and realize that some of these things that you're scared of, they're
not even real, they're not even going to happen.
Some of the things I've dreaded, I've been tossing and turning all night dreading something
and then the next day it doesn't even happen.
What was I, what did I waste all that time worrying?
And so the attack doesn't happen.
So they're like, all right, let's get back to work.
But they're still going to be cautious because you know, the threat is not zero.
So it says in verse 16, it came to pass from that time forth that the half of my servants
wrought in the work and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields and
the bows and the Habergens.
And the rulers were behind all the house of Judah.
They which built it on the wall and they that bear burdens with those that laid it, everyone
with one of his hands wrought in the work and with the other hand held a weapon.
For the builders, everyone had his sword girded by his side and so builded.
And he that sounded the trumpet was by me.
So there's basically two kinds of people here.
There are some people who just all their whole job is just to be the security force.
That's it.
I mean they are just out there ready to fight, weapon in hand, standing guard, showing strength
against the enemy.
They're just there to fight.
And then the other half of the people that are doing the actual building, even they either
have a weapon in one hand and a tool in the other hand, or they have a sword girded by
their side so that they're working with both hands, but they can at least pull the sword
at a moment's notice when they need to, if they need to fight.
So there's the people who are just only ready to fight, and then there's the people who
are building and ready to fight.
It looks like everybody needs to be ready for a fight.
Everybody needs to be a fighter.
It's all hands on deck when it comes to the fighting aspect.
He says in verse 19, "And I said unto the nobles," oh, by the way, let me just stop.
We're almost done.
But, you know, if you do the math on this, it's like 75% warfare and 25% building, right?
Because 50% is all war and then 50% is half and half.
So it's like 75% warfare, 25% building.
Now, think about this.
When I'm preaching up here, a lot of people want my preaching to be just positive all
the time, right?
And some people will be offended by hard preaching, negative preaching.
Like you don't have to rebuke sin and false doctrine.
Just tell us the truth.
Just tell us what the truth is.
I remember when I first started preaching, I mean, I just started preaching as a young,
you know, a young man, just newly married and everything.
And I'm preaching in a nursing home ministry on like every week or every other week kind
of a basis.
And I'm preaching in this nursing home and, you know, I preach some negative sermons.
And the guy who was running the thing told me, he's like, he said, you don't preach
against other religions.
He said, don't say anything negative about the Catholic Church.
He said, you don't, don't say, hey, confessing your sins, the priest isn't biblical.
Don't say that.
Just talk about how we can go straight to God, but don't mention how the Catholics
are teaching the opposite.
You know, just only mention the truth and you don't have to debunk the error, you know.
And here's the thing.
Now, if he were the pastor of the church or had authority like that, then I would have
thought to myself, "Okay, you know, this is my authority figure.
I'm preaching in his ministry.
It's his gig.
You know, I got to just preach, you know, the stuff that we agree on and I'm not going
to go against it."
But here's the thing.
I knew that the pastor of the church was a thousand percent on my side and the pastor
of the church, who's actually the boss, who's actually in charge, he was always ripping
on false religion every single Sunday.
Like there was not a Sunday that would go by that he wasn't ripping on something.
And I remember the way that my sister put it was, quote, "Pastor Nichols educated us
on every possible heresy," you know, because he's just preaching against every false doctrine.
Amen.
You know, we got educated against heresy.
And the thing is, this guy's telling me, "Oh, no, no, only preach positive.
You can only preach positive, right?"
So then I listened to what he had to say, I came back the next week, and I preached
a whole sermon that was 100% positive.
And I was just like, and it was all about being against Catholicism, but without saying
that.
So I'm just like, "Hey, there's one mediator between God and men.
We just go straight to God."
And I preached a whole sermon that way.
Then I get to the very end of the sermon.
I just looked at the guy and I said, "Hey, let me tell you something about the Roman
Catholic Church."
And then I just spent the last two minutes saying, "They don't agree with any of this.
They're not saved.
They're a false doctrine."
And then afterward, the guy walked up to me that had given me this advice and he said,
"Great sermon, brother."
And I said, "Thank you."
So we ended up agreeing to disagree.
But the point is, you know what, 75% of my preaching is battling.
"Oh, why is it so negative?
Oh, why are you so militant?
Why are you up there yelling and fighting?"
Because I spend 75% of the time battling because we're at war.
We're fighting a good fight.
And so there's so much heresy that many false prophets are gone out into the world.
There's constant problems cropping up in the church and people are fighting and there's
strife and then there's division, there's heresy, there's external attacks.
There's just false doctrine that's always popping up and influencing people.
I'm not saying in our church in particular because we don't have these problems in our
church because we already took care of it prophylactically.
You're like what the heck does that mean?
Hey, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It's like the head and shoulders commercial.
You know, why are you using this dandruff shampoo?
You don't have dandruff.
Exactly.
I'm using dandruff shampoo, that's why I don't have dandruff.
You know, this message has been brought to you in part by head and shoulders.
But the point is that yeah, I am constantly preaching against sin, constantly preaching
against false doctrine, constantly fighting these battles so that we don't have these
problems, which is why our church is so unified on doctrine, has so little strife and bickering
and fussing, and has so few, you know, heresies creeping in at any given time.
I mean, we're doing great because we prevent it in advance.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Now, is Nehemiah actually fighting against an enemy?
Like is his sword clanging against?
No, no, it's all prevention.
When I say it's 75% warfare and 25% building, is the 75% warfare actually active warfare?
No, it's really prevention.
It's really just a guy standing out there with a weapon showing force.
It's really just the builders just brandishing weapons all the time, waving them around while
they work just to scare off the enemy.
And so the preaching hard against sin is a prevention.
It's a prophylaxis.
It is to get us, you know, clean before it gets too dirty.
You know, we're not going to wait until we're just super filthy to take a shower.
Sometimes you just take a shower, you know, once a week whether you need it or not.
Just kidding.
All right.
That was a joke.
You know, that was what we joked about people.
Nowadays in Germany, they've been Americanized, so they take more showers.
But when I first went to Germany, like it was like once a week whether you need it or
not type of a thing.
And the joke was that Germans wash their car two times a week and their body one time a
week.
Because they're always like keeping their car really clean and nice and pristine, you
know.
But the thing is, you know, sometimes you take a shower even though you don't stink
to high heaven, you're not stinking yet, you're not filthy yet, you're not dirty yet.
But you just take a shower just to kind of reset the clock, you know.
And wouldn't you rather take a shower every single time before you stink really bad?
Or do you want to every single time first stink bad and offend someone's nostrils and
then be like, "Oh, now I've got to go take a shower."
You know, it's better to just do some preventative showering.
You know, how about this?
You get out of the shower, you're clean the moment you get out of the shower, and yet
what do you do?
Immediately you put on deodorant.
But you don't stink, you're fresh out of the shower, why are you putting on deodorant?
I'm putting on deodorant so I don't stink in the future.
Why are you preaching against smoking?
Why are you preaching against drugs?
Is your church filled with drug addicts?
No.
Because I'm preaching against drugs and alcohol and smoking and gambling and fornication and
adultery and divorce and all that.
I want to preach against these things in advance to prevent.
And so this battling or warfare is really more preventative than actual active warfare.
And that's how preaching should ideally be.
I mean I don't want to be in some doctrinal fight against heresy in our church.
Who wants to just be in some horrible doctrinal, no.
We want to just prevent it by just preaching against every heresy.
Like I don't even know if anybody's even thinking this, but I might as well just preach it anyway.
You know, like I'm really glad that I preached hard against modalism like three months before
we had that fight in 2017.
Because I preached that sermon on the shack, the shack part one and the shack part two.
And in that sermon I went hard against modalism and I'm glad I did.
Rather than doing it in the midst of the fight.
I did it again in the midst of the fight, but it was good that I'd already laid some
serious foundation three months earlier.
You know, it definitely doesn't hurt.
Caused people to be prepared for the fight a little more.
Myself included.
All right, we got to hurry up.
But it says in verse 19, I said to the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people,
the work is great and large and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another.
In what place therefore you hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us
or God shall fight for us.
We don't want to all just fight our own personal war.
What we want to do is we want to rally to the church and fight the church's war and
not just doing our own personal thing.
It's better to rally to the group for the fighting.
Let's fight the battle together.
Verse 21, "So we labored in the work and half of them held spears from the rising
of the morning till the stars appeared.
Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, let everyone with his servant lodge
within Jerusalem that in the night they may be a guard to us and labor on the day.
So neither I nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me,
none of us put off our clothes saving that everyone put them off for washing."
So it's like, yeah, obviously we took our clothes off, take a bath.
But other than that, we're dressed, we're shod, we're ready to go.
And you know, the modern application would be the armor of God all the time.
You know, we're always vigilant, we're always working on ourselves spiritually.
We're denying self, taking up the cross every day.
We don't want to slack at all.
Day and night, we want to be in the right frame of mind.
You know, on guard, as it were, sober and vigilant all the time.
And that's what we see here.
Let's pray.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great passage of scripture, Lord.
Help us to be like Nehemiah.
Help us to be leaders in our home, in business, in our friend group, in our family, in church,
Lord, that project confidence.
We don't fear man, but we fear God.
And Lord, help us to put the fear of you into the enemies, Lord.
And help us to stand our ground, to be sober, to be vigilant, Lord.
And to fight the good fight and not to be shy of being in a battle, Lord.
Help us to build a great work for you, but help us also to be ready for battle at any
time, Lord.
Give us the strength and the courage to be in our places and not to slack.
And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.