Nehemiah 4:10-23 - Don't Leave the Building for the Battle

well shall we open our Bibles this morning to Nehemiah chapter 4 verse 10 as we continue our study through this wonderful book Nehemiah begins or I should say continues the story of Israel's repatriation from captivity in Babylon back to Jerusalem in fact this book is one of the last historical books that you have in the Old Testament that really takes you almost to the time of that those years of silence where you really aren't told much between those four hundred years or so until the time of you know John the Baptist's appearing in God's beginning to do that work in the New Testament this book really takes us back to the captivity of Babylon in Babylon for the the northern car sorry the southern kingdom of Judah where they were kept for 70 years because of idolatry and the Lord had promised that he would one day send them back and when Cyrus the medo-persian King took over though he was named a hundred and fifty years before he was born by Isaiah he did the very thing that God said he he offered the Jews safe Pasha's back passage back home about fifty thousand folks in 536 took advantage of that ninety-one years later the fella Ezra who is the book right before this one took about two thousand more folks back mostly worship leaders and priests twelve years later in 445 BC Nehemiah shows up to rebuild the walls that had been down now for a hundred and sixty-one years so Nehemiah is an interesting guy because he is a man born in captivity a Jewish man who's never seen Jerusalem and yet he has a heart to want to serve the people and and bring honor back to God's City it is a book about calling about planning about praying about how God takes one individual and he uses them to to not only move a nation of people but to accomplish much in those people's lives it is a book about getting vision sharing vision and having to fight against the opposition that you face last week we finished in chapter 3 and saw that the walls were halfway finished and that the people had a mind to work they were faithful to I should say a chapter 4 I don't know I said chapter 3 I think was chapter 4 are we in chapter 4 everything's all right don't worry but this morning we want to pick up the story in verse 10 as we continue to watch this work unfold a work that has like I said laid there for four generation and now there's a man there willing to work and to do the work of God we've entitled the message this morning through the end of chapter four don't leave the the the work of the building for the sake of the battle because we learned last week in the in fact the last few weeks that God's work is most often done while opposition rules or while opposition reigns there is always this pushback when you are serving the Lord and it can lead to great discouragement and I think much of the chapter this morning is about discouragement so if you've ever been discouraged this might be for you if you're an eternal optimist you can go home now but otherwise you should probably hang out verse 10 says this then Judah said the strength of the laborers is failing and there is so much rubble and we're not able to build the wall back in verse 6 we had read last week that the wall was halfway to its height they were halfway done when the enemy really began to conspire verse 8 to attack Jerusalem and create confusion and they had to had set a watch and prayed for God to to watch over them and then we get to verse 10 and we see the nation Judah itself saying to each other yeah we're not gonna be able to do this it is certainly never easy to maintain your faith as a believer when everything seems to be working against you when the opposition is there when when there is a harassment to the work involved Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians made a whole list of things that he had been going through in ministry and he said we are pressed on every side but we haven't been crushed and we're perplexed but we're not in despair we're persecuted but God hasn't forsaken us we're struck down but we're not destroyed we're carrying around in our bodies everywhere we go the dining the dying of Jesus in other words we're suffering for his sake but as a result the life of Jesus can be made known in us so there is something about the battle and it should comfort you to know that guys like Paul or or Nehemiah godly men you know examples that we would look up to have all had to kind of be dogged in their steps by an enemy that doesn't want to see the work get done so don't think it too strange when you're why aren't wanting to walk with God that that opposition tends to raise its ugly head the minute you make a turn for the Lord there's someone there to impede your progress I don't think that there's an easy road in serving the Lord I think most of it probably is uphill up to now everything has been you know accomplished despite the enemy the the the the ominous threats though were a little bit more challenging and there was something else as well the work was hard and the laborers began to be hindered but notice that it was a it was a mutual outlook verse 10 Judah said wasn't one person that was discouraged the whole group was kind of down I did too additionally many of those believers in the camp were echoing the words of the enemy you might remember from last week back in verse 2 that that the talk was that the Jews were feeble that the work was great that there was no way they were going to finish it that the the so that the stones were a big heaping pile of rubbish they had been burned down there was nothing really that they could could accomplish and then notice in verse 10 it is the exact mirror of what they said in verse 2 they are now talking like the enemy they are taking on the enemy's outlook when it came to the work of God if you just divorce yourself from the emotion or of of the involvement you would say the common sense would say you're halfway done that means you're a whole lot more done than you were but it isn't always so common sensical sensical but I don't even think that's a word it seems like we can lose common sense when it comes to spiritual battles halfway finished sometimes it is the hardest place to be isn't it verse six halfway finished halfway finished you ever try to lose weight and you're about halfway there and all of a sudden those Boston cream doughnuts look good because you've lost a lot of weight so you'll be alright or you start exercising and I'm gonna get in shape and two days later everything hurts and you decide this is ridiculous why should I do this I hurt for a month and now I'm supposed to feel better I don't feel better at all halfway done driving somewhere if you have to drive a long way I remember the kids when they were little uses are we there yet for about halfway there oh not half way it's forever away lose the weight you want do the exercise you like it seems that most people stop loving their new car about when it's halfway paid off all right the new smell goes away but the bills keep coming in the mail there's this initial excitement and there was for these folks you go back and read when Nehemiah showed up how excited everyone was but they don't sound like that at all now because the work ahead is equal to the work that has still have to be accomplished and they remember how hard it was to get halfway done and so the road seems very long I'm always watching young Christians they they come out of the gate this blazing you know they they get a big Bible I get bumper stickers I get a witness shirt they're at church all the time and then they go you got to do this how long yeah the rest you like the whole life it's not a sprint so it's a marathon walking with God isn't it and that isn't for the it isn't for the faint of heart it's for the plotter who just kind of keeps moving along when the Lord took Moses and he said to them in the wilderness follow me around the way of the Red Sea and you read in numbers 21 that the that the people because of the difficulty of the journey were discouraged in their souls if you read God's reasoning it was so that he might keep them from a group of people that they weren't ready to face the road was difficult but oh man they'd have been wiped out have they gone any other way the Lord had had chosen the best path for them but it was still a discouraging way it was a hard path to follow God was leading them around trouble protecting them but the road turned out to be long I guess numbers 21 verse 4 could read if you only knew what was waiting for you it could be a whole lot worse but they didn't know that I think that as you know trying to put myself in the shoes of these workers I would suspect that cleaning out every bit of garbage before you could build was just endless you know prep prep work is not fun is it when you finally get to paint that's fine but the sanding and the priming and the patching and the or if you're building a new building you know for weeks it's just underground work come on build the thing already but you want electrical you want plumbing you want all kinds of stuff each don't get to see it and this takes a long time and it shows little progress and I would say that there's a there's an spiritual equivalent to that in our lives you you're told to go to church and get your Bible out and go share your faith and and to know the Lord and spend some time in prayer and it all seems to be prep work until I need an answer to prayer or need God to use me in something you know but now I'm ready so the wall is halfway to it's designed high which means that the next part of the wall is means it means putting bricks over your head and mortar overhead it's gonna be harder work and then the trash is piling up and the enemy wants to kill us and discouragement is is setting it and notice what we read about discouragement because it's pretty typical in verse 10 number 1 they see themselves having a loss of strength the strength of the laborers is we can't do this anymore how true in our Christian lives you know early on when you get saved and I talked to a guy this week he's been saved three weeks I've never met a more excited guy and I thought to myself would to God that everyone in church was this excited for Jesus but I remember that I remember those days don't you when we used to come to church an hour early just to find someone to pray with now I watched people roll in ten minutes late and the minute I say let's pray I open my eyes there they go so they can be the first one out the driveway it's not exactly the same our strength has failed something has changed about us we're not able to to do the work anymore it's like growing up but growing up is not always so grown-up is it we've learned the life of a believer is a battle that it isn't easy and so what I do I make life easy I give in to my flesh I don't want to struggle but if you don't build a good foundation you're never gonna be protected and and here's some hard labor man growing up as a Christian is hard work it's not easy you get weary of Bible study you get weary of prayer you get weary of self-denial you get tired of you know the slow progress but the roots gotta go down if the fruits gonna come up and sometimes I get tired of making the effort to seem to to what seems as little progress but but there's the enemy at every step who are you kidding anyway you're not gonna do well you can't do this it's like letting the air out of the balloon they were all singing the halfway done blues we've run out of gas discouraged because they feel like they've lost their strength they've also verse 10 lost their vision there is so much rubble now when I go back to read about the meeting that they had with Nehemiah everyone was excited and put their hand to this good work of God and the people had a mind to work we read last week there when your eyes are on the Lord work is exciting but when you see just the difficulty just the rubbish and it's half of what it used to be was twice there before it's the old cuff half half empty or half full but their focus had changed and I was saying if you're discouraged sometimes it's because you've seeing the problem more than the God that you serve and you can find yourself losing your vision your your eyes get off the Lord you know a new mom when she has a new baby is just so excited we've had a couple of folks have kids the last couple of months and and it's fun to watch how excited they're can't wait to get the baby home you know and they bring them home to that newly you know built nursery that's beautiful and just the way it should be and they wanted to wake the baby up from a nap just to look in its eyes but eventually fifty diapers a day later this bundle of joy that has become a poop machine is only cute when it's sleeping and you've lost the vision or nearly newlyweds huh we can't wait to live together until she finds out that his idea of living together is throwing his underwear behind the door laying on the couch for record numbers of hours and the vision becomes a nightmare and then you wake up to the reality hey there's a reality for walking with God it's not gonna be easy it's gonna be an enemy we get saved and we can't wait to tell someone about what Jesus has done and then the reality hits that most people are gonna react but with negative attitudes are gonna refuse to hear what God has been doing in your life and you're less motivated to try it again or you used to be so hungry for the things of God but now you know you come to church as though as an obligation rather than as a privilege you're driven not by hunger but by yeah I should do that guilt not exactly the same as it used to be and and here you find halfway halfway home they're dying in their places they've they've lost their strength II they believe they they've lost a vision for sure and here's the enemy who's robbing them of the joy of the Lord of being halfway done because they've lost their focus and they see the difficulties more than they see the Lord that has brought them this far and notice at the end of verse 10 they they've lost all confidence we're not able to do this our strength is failing there is much rubbish if we can't we just can't waning faith the harder I I go the behind your I get right it is a good time in in spiritual life to sometimes go back and read verses like Galatians chapter 6 that where the Lord said don't get weary in well-doing don't get tired of it because in due season you're gonna reap if you don't lose heart or Paul writing in his very last letter to Timothy to a man that is now in his 40s but yet in his first pastoral role if you will and Paul from death row writes to Timothy look just continuing the thing that you've learned and been assured assured of and that you've known since you've learned them as a kid the things you've known about the scriptures they're gonna be able to make you wise through salvation and faith in Christ Timothy don't give up now hang on to what you've known and what you've learned yet just thinking about pursuing those things necessary for spiritual growth and it just feels like the battle be skin's and earnest I can't that's what we hear from people I can't you commit yourself to praying a little bit more and the minute you do the phone's gonna ring or your minds gonna wander or some long-lost friend is gonna drop by unexpectedly you decide to go to church during the week I'm gonna start going to church during the week I'm gonna I'm gonna commit myself to the spiritual growth and immediately your work says you'll need to stay late there's an emergency or your kids will announce that there's a six month project due tomorrow that there to tell you about our soccer practice now is on Wednesdays as well or there's other things you're tired cars out of gas the barbecue went too late I got a shop for groceries and it all has to be done during that hour you could be going to church there's a battle I can't do it I quit and people do quit Jesus when he told the parable about the great supper said that he had sent the folks out to say go tell those that have been invited that the supper is ready come everything is ready it and it says with all with white with all no no it says what they always one Accord began to make excuses and one said well I just bought a piece of ground I should go look at it which isn't that a silly argument I just bought a house I should probably go look at it maybe she'd look at it before you buy it another guy said well I just bought five yoke of oxen I should go test out to see if they'd work modern translation I just bought a truck I hope I can pull the boat did you try it no didn't another guy said I just got married I can't come the old Adam and Eve argument and then the Lord says I just go into the byways well whoever wants to come can come Lord I can't there's the old I can't I just can't and Satan's opposition to your spiritual well-being will take lots of forms but but it always has just one singular purpose and the purpose is pretty clear just keep you from building the wall keep you from living your life in a place that God can use you and Satan knows about 50% if I guess because these sure throws it in their faces and and and the attacks you know they come with a renewed vigor verse 11 we hear that the children of Israel saying our adversaries have said that they will not know nor see anything until we come up to their midst and kill them and cause the work deceased and so it was when the Jews who dwelt near them came they said now 10 times to us or from whatever place you turn they will be upon us it had been sarcasm and jeers and and now became personal threats of attack a concerted effort from the enemy that is now notice and I want you to notice repeated by the workers notice verse eleven and our adversaries have said and and they have said verse twelve they they're quick to point out that the the information is being you know driven to the hearts of the people that are working through the lives of others who are working with them I don't doubt that this kind of threat you know they're hanging over your head would wear you out you know it would take a lot of your your drive away somewhere somehow and you least expect it you're gonna get died not so exciting now to serve the Lord now there's a cost involved I thought it was easy I I love just singing you know Alleluia my hands raised seems like there's more to it now than that Psalm 112 says that he who walks with God is not afraid of evil tidings the Lord's my health who should I fear but notice in verse twelve that that that some of Nehemiah's own wink work team became the conduits for the enemy to spread his threats and that once or twice notice Nehemiah writes twelve ten different times the lies of the enemy were being repeated and embraced and I want you to know who they're coming from they are coming from those in the body who lived closest to the enemy you see that the conduit came from those who were living closest to the enemy those who dwelt near them not just physically but someone who is far enough away from the Lord and close enough to the world to be the conduit where they bring into the church the world's philosophies and outlooks and fears and concerns they became the voice they become stumbling blocks they became tools of the enemy they brought negative outlooks and words of discouragement and then they said it time and again oh they told us watch over your shoulder man be careful at night look over watch I'll go out in pairs be careful you have to ask yourself am ia tool of the enemy when it comes to my life in the church or a a voice for God's Spirit verse 13 tells us that Nehemiah therefore positioned men behind the lower parts of the wall where they maybe had come and easier at the openings of the gates I put people together with their families with swords and spears and bows and I looked and I rose and I said to the nobles into the leaders until the rest of you don't you be afraid of them you remember the Lord he is great and he is awesome you fight for your brethren and your sons your daughters your wives and your homes and it happened when our enemies heard that it was known to us that God had brought this plot to nothing that all of us returned to the world each to his own work reassigning work assignments moving some people from building to guarding I suspect slowed down the work but it didn't stop it teamwork we got to do this together a watch set day and night a guard set where the easiest access was to the to the city itself and then I like verse 14 notice it of Nehemiah says that he looked and then he arose and then he spoke he spoke to the leaders he spoke to the to the roots to the nobles and he spoke to the people I looked I arose and I spoke Nehemiah is a good leader he's aware of what's going on he he assesses the knees he knew that the will of God was to build that God was great he looked at at all that was going on and he said to the people this just remember the Lord what are you guys doing you're afraid because you forgot the Lord the sons of korah was saying it this morning why are you so down Katmai so why are you so discounted disquieted with me hoping God I yep shall praise him for the help of his countenance they'd forgotten God I would say to you that if you're discouraged this morning remember God because what you remember about what he has done will certainly keep you in the ways that you go everything depended upon him and still did go fight for your kids go fight for your family go fight for your life go it's a it's a fight worth engaging yourself in it's a commitment worth doing to neglect building the wall was to forego their peace and their joy and their hope Satan would have his way of killing and stealing and destroying their influence would be stopped but they they were encouraged Nehemiah one guy come on man we've come this far with the Lord let's go and notice in verse 14 our sorry verse 15 that in the end the aid of the Lord and the encouragement of his word and of his leader it put the plot kind of - aim the enemy suffers a setback the people are determined at all cost to move forward and so it was from that time on verse 13 16 that the that half of my servants would work at construction while the other half would hold the spears the swords that are the shields the bows and the armor and the leaders all behind the house of Judah those who built on the wall and those who carried burdens loaded themselves with one hand that they could work with the other hand they held a weapon every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built and and one who traveled with me sound that could sound the trumpet and so I said to the nobles and rulers and to the people this work is great and it works extensive and we are separated far from one another on the wall so wherever you hear this or whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet Rati rally to us there and God will fight for us and so we labored in the work and half of the men held the swords from daybreak until the stars appeared at the same time I said to the people let every man and his servants stay at night in Jerusalem that they might guard by night and have a working party by day and so neither I know my brethren or my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me changed their clothes except everyone that was took them off to go take a bath verse 16 17 18 mitad to the fight get busy for the armored watch yourself you know when you get two infusions six Paul starts to talk about the armor of God that we can wear in the battle against the enemy and in your hand this morning is the sword of God's Spirit right so you might fight the enemy and by the way your head your enemies not your husband or your wife or your neighbor or your employee there's a devil and notice that building is more important than the battling we started by saying don't leave the building to attend to the battle obviously there's battles they never go away but in the midst of that the pot of positive is you get work done you know I talk to people sometimes hey you're gonna get involved I go oh you know my life is just I've gone through so much stuff and they just give them a hundred excuses why all they can barely do is battle never get anywhere they just are beaten down and yet you can't stop building for the battle you're the walls of your life spiritually have to go up if you're gonna be a witness you can't you can't stay out of fellowship just because you're fighting you can't stay out of building if Satan can reduce your life to battling alone nobody gets saved no lives are touched no missionaries go forward if he can keep you from investing in your spiritual well-being through study and prayer and and faithfulness to God and plugging yourself into the church he'll do it and you'll have a story to tell but you'll never have accomplishment to mention you can't replace building with just battling you know Wesley went to prison five times for preaching and yet the Methodist revival raged during his life they couldn't slow him down it cost him plenty and Nehemiah saw that the work was great I love these last few verses were where he said to them as he spread out look we'll have a central calling system if there's trouble anyway well anywhere we'll blow the trumpets and you guys all come running and then he said this God will fight for us now let's see how he mixes the two together you come running with your sword and fight and God will fight for us God works through the body he works through God's people so focus on the commander serve him one day the Lord will blow the trumpet movie out of here and that'll be the end of the enemy for us notice that hey he calls upon it in the last three verses people to make selfless selfless kind of devotion for one another it's hard enough to do this battle but now you gotta sleep in town there weren't any houses this was hard on everyone tireless commitment emergent emergent emergency needs required emergency responses this was temporary but they'd have to do it together you know the Bible doesn't make any provision for loners if you look at this picture you can't get by on your own don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together so the discouragement was one where their eyes were off the Lord and when their eyes were off the Lord certainly everything that they saw was discouraging they didn't have strength they they didn't have vision they they didn't have any confidence they were just downcast the threats were being passed along into the church or into the body if you will by the body itself they were listening to the enemy you live close enough to the world man you're gonna be not only are you gonna be a discouragement to everyone else you're not gonna ever be encouraged yourself I would say hang around God's people you know speak God's Word you know share with each other God's promises that's where life is the world little it'll chew you up and spit you out that's the way the world works always has but we don't want to live there we don't want to say our strength is failing there's much rubbish we can't do it we can't there's a battle but the building's got to continue doesn't it next week in chapter 5 we will run into a new enemy those within the body itself that are selfish and self-serving and taking advantage of others when they should be committing themselves to the good of the of the whole it's a great chapter you won't want to miss it read ahead all of 19 verses you should be alright father we thank you this morning as we sit together that you are a good god who has great love for us as your people that you have made plans and provisions for us that you have called this Lord to be faithful that you have strength for us who are weak and powerless but also warnings to us that there is in the midst of Christian living and Christian ministry there's an enemy there's resistance and as the work grows as the fruit comes as we're halfway finish as we see great progress we can express more expect more opposition Jesus you you told us if if they hate us it's because they hated you first if they listened to us it's because they'll listen to you and that really our suffering is because we've aligned ourselves Lord with you in this world so as we consider nehemiah's groups that the discouraging the the enemy's plotting the those who live close to the enemy bringing even more bad news from the world into the into the fellowship of the Saints we see them delivering bad news and Nehemiah standing on one side don't forget God be discouraged don't be don't don't be fearful of them you trust the Lord and here we are stuck in the middle between the the opinions of those who live close to the world and the Word of God which is so powerful and able to deliver may I encourage you this morning to remember the Lord and dedicate yourself to those things that God's Word has told you would help you to grow and be strong because as you do the fruit of that commitment will come don't grow weary in well-doing and in due season you'll reap if you don't faint stick with what Paul said to Timothy what you have learned and has brought you this far don't leave the building just for the battle there'll be a battle but God's greatest work gets done under pressure always has and will in your life as well God has great things that he would want to accomplish in you through you don't be discouraged the enemy rages but the Lord stands over him in victory be encouraged remember him so we stand

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Length: 33min 59sec (2039 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2017