Hello and welcome to the Arise Church Podcast.
We are so glad you're here and want to thank you for joining us
today for the audio version of our Sunday morning message.
We want to invite you to join us in person at our Sunday morning
celebration every Sunday at 10 AM.
We are located on Old Jenks Rd. in Apex, NC.
Well, if you have your Bible, why don't you grab it?
And if you would turn to First Chronicles Chapter 9, First
Chronicles is not First Corinthians.
First Chronicles is in the Old Testament.
And I don't ever want to assume that everyone just knows, but
it's in the Old Testament, First Chronicles Chapter 9.
And before I read there, I want to just kind of go back a couple
weeks ago. A couple weeks ago, I taught a
message called the call, call of a watchman.
And today I want to talk about the call of a gatekeeper, the
call of the gatekeeper. And it's fascinating.
In fact, I could probably do a series on this.
And that's sometimes how things happen.
You just see these things that explode throughout Scripture and
the theme of gates, little roll gates within cities like
Jerusalem, but also other cities within ancient Israel and that
time were significant. And we find them all over the
place. And even the role of a
gatekeeper becomes very significant and becomes an
assigned role by God through other people to watch the gates,
to guard the gates. But before we get into, I want
to just cover a couple things to remember, really, it might be
new information to some of you about gates.
So if you can kind of transport yourself back several 100 years,
maybe even a couple thousand years ago to an ancient time in
a place like Jerusalem, and just imagine how you have these walls
and the walls guard the city, but to come in and out of the
city, you have to have gates. So when you're thinking about
gates, these would be common entry points of people, cities,
regions, and nations. So those cities have gates, but
also you have to think about their gates into regions.
There's gates into nations, there's even gates into your own
soul. And we'll talk about those for a
couple minutes today as well. Gates are the appropriate Ave.
for commerce, migration, community, and even social life.
So we'll see even from scripture that Jesus said if someone comes
up over, through and over a wall, that's not the appropriate
way, that's a thief that everyone coming in the
appropriate way comes through the gate.
Gates are controlled by appointed positions that are
authorized to restrict and approve accessed.
Those would be. Gatekeepers or doorkeepers?
Gates are protected by all the resources of the city, because
to take the gates of a city or a region is to control that city
or that region. The gates are.
The most important part of the entire fortress around a city.
And so we, most of us know it. If you've ever seen Lord of the
Rings and you've ever seen those kind of epic type movies, it's
always about the gates. That comes down to the gates.
And if they can get through the gates, then they have access to
the entire city. As I was studying, it reminded
me of Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, where Jesus said, I also say
to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church
and the gates of hell or Hades shall not prevail against it.
In other words, we're a part of a Kingdom that not only plays
defense, but we absolutely play offense.
And that when Jesus is building his church, no, no gate, no
fortress, no opposition shall be able to withstand the building
and the expansion of this Kingdom.
Come on, I'm preaching good already.
You should be saying Amen to that.
Because a lot of times fear will creep into the body of Christ,
especially within times of turmoil or peril, and people
only play defense. But I love that Jesus reminds us
that when he's on the offense, when he's building his church,
there is no gate that is secure enough to keep out the Kingdom
of God. When I have a time to follow up
with Mr. Mueller, the director of the movie, I want to tell him
that even as I was preparing, I was thinking about him.
That is, he takes ground within a very dark industry that he can
go so with confidence that there's no gate too strong for
the power of God and the Kingdom of God.
That's true for you and your own company, your own position where
God's called you to. You may think, well man, there
are these gatekeepers within your business or within your
industry that you know there's no one can get through.
Them, well, I know one. Person that can get through
them. Well, that was a good place for
a stronger Amen. Come on, this is very important,
that we know who it is that we serve and that he said the gates
of hell shall not prevail against the building of his
church. I will build my church.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I want to show you a map of of Jerusalem during the time of
Nehemiah. This map will show you 10
different gates. This is of course a more modern
rendering. None of us have pictures, none
of us were there so. But this is a pretty common
understanding of the 10 gates of that time and doing research.
No one really knows how many gates were in ancient, even more
ancient Israel during the kind time of King David and even
preceding him. But of course, David built the
Temple of Solomon, or actually he didn't build it, he prepped
it so that Solomon could build it and finish it.
We don't know exactly how many gates at that time, but we do
know for Nehemiah because the book of Nehemiah details how
many gates there were and appoints gatekeepers at each of
these gates. Let me show you a picture of
what just one of these gates may have looked like.
In fact, this is a picture of a gate that's in Old City of
Jerusalem today. So if you go to Jerusalem,
you'll go into the Old City and you'll see these small gates.
Do you see how small that is? We're not talking about these
big mighty gates that you might see in different movies because
it wasn't helpful to have a huge gate.
Because if you have a small gate, it's easier to control,
it's easier, easier to guard, it's easier to protect if you
build these huge old gates. Then when if someone pierces or
penetrates your gate, they're in and you're sunk.
So there was this strategy. These are smart people that were
doing this at these times. So let's look at First
Chronicles Chapter 9. If you haven't found it, give
up. It's all right, You can look up
on the screen. That's a joke.
OK, I'm just joking. It's OK to laugh.
First Chronicles Chapter 9. I'm going to start in verse 17.
I'm going to read several verses here all the way to verse 29,
but I want you to pay attention to a few keywords as we go
along. And then I'm going to just kind
of. Recap what we see through just
these scriptures. First Chronicles, Chapter 9,
verse 17. The gatekeepers who returned
were Shalom, a cub, talman, A hymen, and their relatives.
Shalom was the chief gatekeeper. Notice that chief gatekeeper.
Prior to this time, they were responsible for the King's gate
on the east side. These men served as gatekeepers
for the camps of the Levites. Shalom was the son of Kor, a
descendant of Abaya Saf from the Plan of Korra.
He and his relatives, the Korites, were responsible for
guarding the entrance to the sanctuary, just as their
ancestors had guarded the Tabernacle in the camp of the
Lord. Phineas son of Eliezer had been
in charge of the gatekeepers in earlier times, and the Lord had
been with him, and later Zechariah son of Meshal Maya was
responsible for guarding the entrance to the Tabernacle.
In all, there were 212 gatekeepers in those days.
Notice the scope. 212 gatekeepers in those days, and
they were listed according to the genealogies and their
villages. David and Samuel the seer had
appointed their ancestors because they were reliable men.
Notice that they were reliable men.
These gatekeepers and their descendants by the divisions
were responsible for guarding the entrance to the House of the
Lord, when that house was a tent.
The. Gatekeepers were stationed on
all four sides, east, West, North and South.
Their relatives in the villages came regularly to share their
duties for seven day periods. The four chief gatekeepers, all
Levites, were trusted officials for they were responsible for
the rooms and treasuries at the House of God.
Notice the responsible means they that was the
responsibilities the rooms and treasuries at the House of God.
They would spend the night around the House of God since it
was their duty to guard it and to open the night and and open
the gates every morning. Some of the gatekeepers were
assigned to care for the various articles used in worship.
They checked them in and out to avoid any loss.
Others were responsible for their furnishings, the items in
the sanctuary, and the supplies such as choice flour, wine,
olive oil, frankincense and spices.
So there's a lot of information there.
So let's just break it down a little bit because a lot of
times when you're studying Scripture and you believe, like
we believe that there's not one. There's not.
One word that's misplaced. Or that shouldn't be there.
The Bible says that all scripture is inspired by God, is
given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable.
So in other words, none of these scriptures are throw away
scriptures. None of these words are throw
throw away words where it's like, I don't understand that,
so let's just skip it now. These things have meaning to us
even today. They're profitable, or in other
words, they're worth something to us today.
So it's worth us just kind of breaking it down a little bit to
at least pick apart some of the things that might be profitable
for us today. So when I look at this and I
think, OK, well, what do I see #1 there's structure.
There is structure. There's a chief gatekeeper.
In verse 17, there's a chief gatekeeper.
It's interesting to me because. Again, in a few moments, I'm
going to break down the fact that you and I have a lot of
gates in our life. And if you're not intentional
about it and you don't know what is guarding those gates, your
gates are vulnerable both in your person, your own soul, in
your family, in your ministry, and even in our community.
And we're going to make it very real today.
But there there's an incredible amount of intention.
And I'm going to guess that 99.9999% and maybe 100% of us
are not being intentional with our gates.
And today the God's going to highlight some stuff and he's
going to call you up and say man your gates, man your gates.
And another thing that we see is that there are assignments to
particular gates. In verse 18, we saw that there's
one group that was assigned to the King's gate when you go to
the Book of Nehemiah, which we won't take time to do today
through in the book of Nehemiah, when he's rebuilding the walls
of Jerusalem and basically he's redoing all this that we're
seeing here in First Chronicles because the walls had been torn
down, they had been pillaged, they had been taken into
captivity. And Nehemiah comes back, he
starts to rebuild the walls. Well, he starts to assign
families to different. Gates.
He's saying you take this gate, you take this gate, you take
this gate, you take this gate. They had assignments and they
didn't get to just pick whatever gate they wanted.
They didn't say, oh, I don't like that gate.
That's in a bad side of town. I don't like that.
Gate give me the give me the gate that's by the nice
restaurant or the the gate that's by the ball or whatever.
Nope, you got to take the gate you're assigned.
There were assignments to particular gates.
Another thing we noticed is that one of the one of the prominent
assignments at this time was to guard the entrance to the House
of the Lord. That's found in verse 1921 and
23. So it's so.
Important. It's repeated multiple times
that one of their chief responsibilities is to guard the
entrance of the House of the Lord.
That was the King's Gate. That was the particular summit
they had right there, but not all the.
Gates. In fact, if you don't mind
crystal, put back up on the map of Jerusalem and you'll notice
that there are. A lot of gates that aren't even
near the temple area, but the how the the gate that they were
assigned to was towards the entrance of the House of the
Lord. And they were, they were
assigned to guard that entrance, guard that entrance.
Well, did you know you have entrances in your own life to
guard, guard the entrance of your life, of your heart, of
your thought life, of your family, of your marriage?
Did you know a lot of us have entrances that right now are
unmanned? They're unmanned.
In other words, we're not paying.
Attention to them. We just watch whatever comes on.
We just listen to whatever comes on the radio next.
Don't even know the words to be honest.
I can't understand most of the words anymore.
I don't know why people have a problem speaking in tongues.
It's on the radio every day. Can't understand a word.
But what's interesting about that, though, are those words,
even if not understood, are going into your ears, your
entrance, free of charge. They just come right.
In and yet the assignment on these people was to guard the
entrance. Another thing we recognize in
verse 22, these were reliable people that were assigned
reliable people. Reliable.
Everybody say reliable. You know, great example is Mr.
Farley over here. He has tow truck company and you
know, probably one of the things that is important for his
business to be successful is that they are reliable.
So that when you call them and you say I'm at the intersection
of such and such and my car's broken down and they say we'll
be there in 10 minutes. Well, if in two hours go by they
haven't called you, guess what? You're going to have a problem
because they're not reliable. Thank God they're reliable.
That's why they're successful. But reliability matters.
Did you know in the, the ministry, reliability matters.
Reliability matters. If I ask someone to man of
certain ministry, or I give them responsibility over a certain
ministry and they neglect it, we have a problem.
Why? Because reliability matters.
And if we really believe this Kingdom matters, it matters all
the more. Well, that was true here.
Reliability matters greatly. Another thing we noticed verse
26, they had responsibilities and one of those
responsibilities was for each. Room within the the the the
temple complex and also the treasury so they would make sure
they knew what's coming in and out of these rooms.
Who's coming in and out of these rooms are the right people?
Are those approved allowed, those who we know are coming in
and out of this house or the House of God do do they have the
approval to do that? In fact, one of them, it says in
verses 2829 that they were to care for those various articles,
furnishings, items and supplies. And I think it's fascinating
that the Bible details that they were supposed to do a check in,
check out system. A lot of people then church, we
don't need all those systems. Like can we just get together
and just praise the Lord and just figure out what happens?
That's called fraud because you know people will come in and
they'll start stealing the money when you don't have systems and
you don't have people who have checks and balances to make sure
that the money's going where it's supposed to go.
Amen. Right.
In fact, I'm thankful in this community, we have gatekeepers
called a church council. And every single month, myself
with our church council members, I'm the chair of the church
council, but they all have equal vote to me.
And we sit and we look at all the finances and we look at
every single transaction that comes in and every single
transaction that goes out. They got the bait statements.
They got the QuickBooks reports. What are they doing?
They're gatekeepers. They're making sure everything's
on the up and up. They're making sure that we know
where the money's going. They making sure that the
stewardship is what it needs to be.
In fact, I got several right, just right in front of Eyesight.
Deb Vincey. David Farrell.
April Harrison and Tim's back there and then.
Lillian's right here. Our church council right there.
Gatekeepers. And aren't you glad you got
them? This is biblical.
We didn't. Make it up.
This Is Us doing our biblical responsibility and they're
reliable people. That's why within our Welcome to
Arise starter pathway classes, I explain the church governance.
I explain who sees the money, who sees where it's going.
I explain the role of the church council because that's that's
important. And these are reliable people.
I even share. How we vote to put them into
that office of the church council.
And so that's a little teaser. If you want more information,
you got to go to the class. Another thing we notice in verse
26 is that they spent the night to guard and then to open.
The gate at the appointed time in the morning, so the gates
don't just stay open, there's times where they need to be
closed. And then there's times where
they're to be open, but no matter what, they're to be on
guard at their spot. Man the gates.
Everybody say man, the gates. Let's read again in First
Chronicles chapter 26, so just a few chapters down the road.
I didn't mention it earlier, but I'm reading out of the new
Living Translation. But let me read a few more
verses. First Chronicles chapter 26,
verse one. In fact, I'll just start the
couple, the first verse where it says these are the divisions of
the gatekeepers. And then it goes through several
of the families, their names, their sons.
It even details them out. It's the first, the oldest son,
the fourth son, and it goes on from there.
I'm not going to take the time to slaughter their names, so
we'll just kind of skip through of verse 6.
Let's go to verse 6. Obed Edom's son Shamayam had
sons with great ability who earn positions of great authority in
the clan. Notice these are not unnotable
people who are manning their post.
Verse 7, their names were Athani, Raphael, Obed, and
Elzabad. Their relatives Elihu and
Semakaya were also very capable. Men very capable verse 8, all of
these descendants of Obed Edom, including their sons and
grandsons, 62 of them in all were very capable men, well
qualified for their work, very capable, well qualified.
This is why I'm pointing out these details that the Holy
Spirit decided put that in there.
Make sure that they know these were well qualified, that these
were very capable people, because don't turn your gates
over to uncapable, unreliable people.
When you vote this week, do not turn the gates of this city over
to unreliable, uncapable people. I could just drop the mic and go
home right now. Hello.
In our system of government, you each, if you have the ability to
vote, you have a responsibility to make sure you know who you're
voting for. Have you noticed?
I didn't plan to go down this rabbit hole, but now that I'm in
it, I'm going to go. Have you noticed it's hard to
know your local officials? Where do you find information?
How do you get to know what they really stand for?
But you know, we ought to know. We ought to be prayerful before
you go to the ballot box. This week.
There are several of our cities that are doing church council,
City Council, different representatives across the local
governments. You should know who you're
voting for. Why?
Because they are about to be gatekeepers.
And the Bible says those ought to be very capable, competent
people. I would even say we were, we are
prayerful that they be God appointed.
I'm going to break it down for Apex in a minute, but just give
me time, all right? Praise the Lord.
Well qualified for their work, well qualified for their work.
Qualifications matter. Qualifications matter.
I'm just seeing if I want to. Read the rest of those or just
skip down. Let's skip down to verse 12.
These divisions of the gatekeepers were named for their
family leaders, and like the other Levites, they served at
the House of the Lord. They were assigned by families.
For guard duty at various gates. Guard duty.
Guard duty you know, a lot of times when I thought of
gatekeepers before, I didn't realize, oh, these are guards.
These are armed people these are people who make sure you try to
come through this gate without permission.
I will cut you they. Probably didn't say that in
Hebrew, but I'll say it today in English.
You will. You picked the wrong place.
They were on guard duty. They were on guard.
Duty without regard to age or training for it was all decided
by means of sacred lots. That was a way that they
determine the will of God was through lots.
Now we have the Holy Spirit. That's how we determine the will
of God by discerning His voice and hearing His voice.
Verse 14 The responsibility for the Eastgate went to Mesh
Shalamaya and his group the Northgate.
Was assigned to his son Zechariah, a man of unusual
wisdom. Interesting.
I wonder why they thought you know what the Northgate ought to
go to. The man with unusual wisdom.
The Southgate went to Obed Edom and his sons were put in charge.
Of the storehouse Shapam went to and Hosa.
Yeah, Shapam and Hosa were assigned the Westgate and the
gateway leading up to the temple.
Guard duties were divided evenly. 6 Levites were assigned
each day to the Eastgate, 4 to the Northgate, 4 to the
Southgate, and two pair at the storehouse.
Six were assigned each day to the Westgate, 4 to the gateway
leading up to the temple, and two to the courtyard.
Notice there were they knew who's on duty today, How many
people ought to be there? How many people is it going to
take to guard that city? And not every gate was the same.
Some gates required more gatekeepers.
This is important for us because I think we live a little bit
many times, and I can even say it for myself, a little bit
ignorant, maybe aloof, naive to the spiritual war and dynamics
that we are in constantly, that there are constantly enemies
trying to breach your gates, constantly trying to breach the
gates of our city, of our region, and our state.
Listen to this out of Second Chronicles chapter 23, verse 19.
He also stationed gatekeepers at the gates of the Lord's temple
to keep out those who for any reason were ceremony
ceremonially unclean. He also stationed gatekeepers at
the gates of the Lord's temple to keep out those who for any
reason were ceremonially unclean.
Now this is interesting to me because part of the assignment
of gatekeepers was to say, no, you're unclean, you can't come
in here. And one of the things that I
consistently pray over our church property as that no
unclean spirit can cross the boundary line of this property.
So that when people come, we want the people but not the
spirits. We want the people, but not
demonic influence and not demonic assignments.
And so we believe there's a real enemy.
There are real unclean things. And we put a boundary line over
this property. We put a boundary line over our
home property. So no matter who comes and goes,
I don't care if it's an Amazon driver or if it's a friend that
may drop by if you bring in unclean things, it's checked at
the property. Line.
Oh, some of y'all I'm tweaking a little bit though, that's all
right. But what it reminds me of is in
Acts chapter 3, there was a man outside the beautiful gate.
Peter and John came across him and the man was begging for
alms. Why was that crippled man
outside the gate? He wasn't allowed in?
And isn't it so good of God to send two servants on that day
who had eyes to see the man who couldn't come beyond the gate,
but on that day could get healing for his infirmity so
that he could come through the gate?
Could it be that that's our assignment?
Could it be that it's our assignment is watch the gates?
Who hangs out around the gates? Who are the people who hang out
around City Hall? Who are the people who hang
around Congress? Who are the people who hang just
outside the perimeter? Could it be that it's our
assignment to go clean them up, bring healing to them, bring,
bring the salvation to them that through the through the blood of
Jesus Christ, these things are right here in scripture.
I bet you never thought we talked through gates today, but
here we are and it's very relevant to us today.
Second Chronicles 35, verse 15. The musicians, descendants of
Asaph, were in their assigned places, following the commands
that had been given by David Asaph, human and Jettethan, the
King's seer. The gatekeepers guarded the
gates and did not leave, did not need to leave their post of
duty, for their Passover offerings were prepared for them
by their fellow Levites. This is detailing them honoring
the Passover, but I thought it was fascinating that they didn't
even leave their post for Passover, This high holiday,
this high feast holiday and they didn't leave.
They didn't go to back to their house to enjoy Passover with all
their family. They stayed their post.
And there are sometimes where we don't heed the voice of the Lord
to know should I leave the post or I stay at my post.
This is important because we live in a very calendared
society. Everybody's telling us who to
honor on whatever day this is, you know, the chewing gum
holiday of whatever. It's like what in the world?
And then I got to go buy chewing gum because somebody told me
it's chewing gum holiday. We live in this very calendar
society. Most of them made-up, you know,
just made-up. Somebody made it up probably to
make some more business. But if you're not careful, you
get caught in the rat race, in the world of what everybody else
is telling you ought to be honoring, you ought to be doing,
and you don't know. I can't leave my post.
I love in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah is up building the wall
and there's two messengers that want to come and talk to him.
And they were kind of distracting him.
And this is what Nehemiah told those two distractions.
He says I cannot come down. I cannot come down.
For the work is great. And many of us, we need to stay
on duty. It's time to stop being
distracted because wouldn't it be just like an enemy strategy
to distract you for 5 minutes and then now he's in, take you
off duty, take you off your post and yet it's not time to leave
our posts. I believe in the hours we are
living in. This is part of why I'm bringing
this message up right now is this is time to keep your post,
man your gates. Be aware, be alert, The New
Testament says. Be sober.
Be vigilant for your adversary, the devil.
Walks around like a. Roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour. What's he looking for?
Open gates. Open gates.
He just needs a little bit. Have you ever heard the term?
Give him an itch and he'll take a yeah.
We need to know the status and the the the status of our gates.
Second Kings, Chapter 7, verse 10.
So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what
had happened. We went out to the Aramean camp,
they said, and no one was there. The horses and donkeys were
tethered and the gates. Were all in order, but there
wasn't a single person around. Look at verse 11.
Then the gatekeeper shouted the news to the people in the
palace. The gatekeeper shouted the news
to the people in the palace. Gatekeepers communicate, Listen
to me. Gatekeepers don't stay silent.
So we talked about Watchmen a couple weeks ago.
A lot of times Watchmen would alert the gatekeepers.
So if there's trouble on the way, it might be the middle of
the day. But if trouble's on the way,
shut the gates. Board it up, shut the gates.
But then gatekeepers communicate.
They hear news from another land, news from another city,
news from another town. It's their job to not say, wow,
that's interesting. And then to sit around the gate
and gossip. No, they got to communicate.
Tell the people what's happening.
Tell the people, what are we hearing of what's going on in
other areas. This is so, so, so important.
It's time to even communicate. What are you seeing?
What are you hearing? Use all means to communicate.
Stop using Facebook and social media to tell me what you had
for lunch. I'm like, Oh no, half the room
that didn't laugh. You're the ones.
You know, I'm not even on. So if you're doing crazy stuff
on social media, I don't even see it.
So that's so I can look at you with clean eyes and I don't know
anything going on except. The Lord and the Lord crucified,
that's all I know. But gatekeepers communicate.
Use your communication tools to be a gatekeeper.
What are you hearing? What is God saying to you?
What do we need to be alerted about?
Where do we need to shut up and wall up and make sure that the
people know about? If you're taking notes, why
don't we just kind of break this down into our own lives?
I'm going to give you different areas that you're a gatekeeper
of #1 you're the gatekeeper of your heart.
You are the gatekeeper of your heart.
It is no one else's job to keep your heart.
It is no one else's job to make sure that you guard your heart.
It is your responsibility. Praise the Lord, we're going to
just get rid of all victim mentality and we're just going
to take responsibility for our heart and say, As for me and
Lord, I'm going to guard my heart.
I can't help my spouse guard their heart.
I can't help other people guard their hearts, or at least I
can't do it for them, but I can guard my heart.
Verse Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23 out of the new living
translation says guard your heart above all else, for it
determines the course of your life.
Guard your heart above all else. As I was studying for this, I
never put this scripture, which I've known for many, many, many,
many years and put it in terms of a gate and understanding.
I am the gatekeeper of my own heart.
So if I'm allowing discouragement in, I did that.
If fear gets into my heart, it's because I didn't keep my heart.
If I start to have other thoughts that would be
destructive about me or my future of my life, if they get
into my heart, it's because I allowed them in my heart.
If you don't take radical responsibility for this, you
will blame everybody else for the condition of your own heart,
which the Bible said you're to keep.
This is a tough one right now. I can just feel it.
But this is important because, you know, like God wants you to
have a a, a, a heart that's. Clean and pure and.
Protected that he can mold and shape that he has access to.
And the great thing about a heart that's being kept is you
can let the Holy Spirit in. You can let Jesus into that
heart and Jesus will do a work on you.
He will heal you. He will clean you up.
He will set you right back on your feet.
He is a wonder worker. He cares for us.
He cares for our hearts. But when you're allowing
destructive things in, it'll be rough for you.
When you're guarding your heart, watch what you watch.
Be careful. I've said it before, but you
notice every time I watch one of those HGTV renovation shows,
guess what I want to do? Renovate the house.
Ever noticed that every time I watch a Food Network
competition, guess what I want to do?
Eat. I don't want to cook.
I want to eat. You ever noticed that?
Fascinating to me. You know, I'm around a lot of
ministers and pastors and friends and all of us in the
ministry, and it's wild to me how Lily and I will be around
different people and they'll start to just tell.
Us out of their own mouth what they watch The Bachelor pastors
watching foolishness and you know, let me let me break it
down for you. It's shocking to me.
This happened to me multiple Times Now.
Shocking to me how many wives will be the ones that want to
watch it and they'll let their husbands sit right with them and
watch trash and then when the marriage falls apart, who's
there to tell them? I know where your gate was
breached. Watching Real Housewives of
whatever whatever. It's crazy but those are gates.
When you let that in your gate. Do not be deceived.
God is not mocked. Whatever a man sews that he will
also, that's this. This is not spiritual
suggestion, spiritual principles.
That is a spiritual law that will happen every time, all the
time. So the good news is you get to
guard your heart. So the best way out of that is
the off button. Turn it off.
Well, I'm preaching good. Today I'm in everybody's
business. And I've been around enough
church people that I know the ones that smile the cutest are
the ones who watch the worst stuff.
They just looking around like, so I'm not deceived either.
I know, I know. But you know what?
It's thank God we have the word that will rescue us from our
foolishness, that will tell you, no, no, no, don't watch that.
That's, that's for the unbeliever.
And the unbeliever will reap those results.
But you ought not be reaping the results of unbelievers.
And the, the hard thing about some of these things is some
people will never know what actually they allowed in because
they won't connect the dots. But today I'm connecting dots
for you so that you know the marital strife you're facing
today is because you're watching TLC on the weekend where they
got all these sister wives running around with each other.
Crazy, y'all. This is nuts.
And the world calls it entertainment.
Another area to be a gatekeeper of is your home.
Your home. Your home could be an apartment,
a condo, townhouse, single family home.
It could be an estate. It could be.
It doesn't matter the size of it, but guard it.
Be a gatekeeper. Know what's coming in and what's
going out. Determine right now that you'll
allow no unclean things into your home.
Determine right now you won't. You won't allow unclean things
into your household. Your household.
It should be a place filled with the presence of the Lord.
It should be a place where God dwells.
Well, he's not going to dwell with unclean things.
I'm sorry, you said, well, we're all unclean.
No, no, no, no, no, no. You misunderstand salvation.
When Jesus becomes Lord of your life, it says that now you've
been sanctified. You're no longer unclean.
When you make Jesus Lord of your life and you live as He's
appointed for you to live holy, then now you're no longer
unclean. You are the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus from here on out.
But don't allow unclean things into your house.
Monitor who is coming in and out of your house.
Lily and I are very, very, very, very protective of our children.
We're very protective of our children.
We don't do sleepovers. Why?
Because we're going to protect who is around our children.
And it may not be that I don't trust the parents, but I may not
trust Uncle Joe, who pops by the house every once in a while at
the friend's house. I don't know.
But what am I going to do? I'm going to be a gatekeeper of
my household and I will be unapologetic about it.
And if it hurts feelings, it hurts feelings because you know
why we going to be protected. Hello, You can say Amen to this.
It's good to be a reliable gatekeeper, a capable
gatekeeper. We monitor what's going on on
all the devices in our household.
Why? Because we're gatekeepers.
I don't trust Apple to be the gatekeeper.
There's 30 things that I almost said, but I just kept it back
right there. Now we don't trust them to be
the gatekeeper. We're the gatekeeper.
You're the gatekeeper of your house.
Be watchful over your house and listen to me.
Do not leave your post. Do not leave your post.
Men, do not leave your post.
Do not leave your post. You, you are the chief
gatekeeper of your house. God has graced us as men to be
physically strong. To be aware of what needs to be
protected. He, God, gave us an instinct to
be a protector. Don't, don't, don't leave that
post. Better to give up some sports
stuff so that you can man that post.
Amen. And and we live in, I believe, a
demonic strategy right now where the enemy would have men leave
their post de emasculate men 'cause men to well, that's
toxic, toxic, toxic masculinity. I don't read that anywhere in
Scripture. No, man, your post, man, your
post obviously. And when you're done it in the
love of Jesus, you won't be abusive, you won't be
domineering, you won't be a dictator.
Nowhere in Scripture does it give you permission to be any of
those things. But as a godly man and a godly
husband, it's absolutely your job to protect your family.
And that means sometimes you'd need to tell the whole family,
no, we're not doing that. Nobody said it, man.
Lord. I'm all alone, Lord.
Gatekeeper. You're to be a gatekeeper of
your ministry, of your ministry. Each of you have been given a
ministry. Each of us has been given a
ministry. Watchful.
Be watchful over that ministry and pray over your ministry.
Ask the Lord to give you eyes to see so that you know who is to
come into that ministering and who maybe shouldn't come into
that ministry yet. Know the difference between
wolves and sheep. As a pastor, I often Time Lord,
help me know the difference between people who are supposed
to be the sheepfold in the sheepfold of a rice church and
those who are not part of the sheepfold and in, in a those who
may think and more basic understandings would think,
well, everybody can be a part of the sheepfold.
No, not everybody. Not everyone has God put in the
sheepfold. Just because you visit once
doesn't make you part of the sheepfold.
Lord, help us to know the difference.
Help us as ministers to know, the community of believers
around us to know. Know where, where, where we need
to know their vulnerabilities, areas where we need to help one
another, guard one another to be communicate to one another.
Hey, I see a potential breach over there in your ministry.
We need to be. Humble to have those kinds of
conversations. Could you imagine if a
gatekeeper knows that there's potential issues at another gate
and they just refuse to say anything because the other
gatekeeper is too prideful to hear it?
So we, the whole city suffers because two people can't talk.
That's stupid, that's dumb. But you know how often that
happens in church and it won't happen here in Jesus name.
We're going to talk, we're going to communicate.
The ministries are going to talk to one another.
They're going to play nice together and they're going to
make sure that no matter what conversations we have to do, we
will communicate. Why?
Because we're not the enemy with one another.
The enemy is on the outside. Lastly, we're to be a
gatekeepers of our community, of our community.
To do that, we need to be alert and knowledgeable.
Be alert and knowledgeable. This last Friday night, NO22,
Friday nights ago in downtown Apex, all the businesses, or at
least most of them, decided to collaborate and do what's called
Witches Night. And so on that Friday night,
people came dressed as witches and just walked through the
streets of our town, right down the street here and decided it
would be fun to bring the demonic right downtown to Apex.
I don't know yet who organized it, but I'm concerned for every
business that endorsed it, every business that put signs out on
their window to invite it. I'm concerned for them because
what happened that night was demons came all up in their
territory. And I'm not talking, I'm not
talking about the people who dressed as witches, though I'm
sure literal witches came through doing what they do,
which is to curse and not bless our city.
And if you're unknowledgeable, they these things just happen.
And then we wonder, why is our city seeing such destructive
things? Well, because the gates were
breached, we need to be knowledgeable.
We need to know the state of affairs of our city.
We need to be a gatekeeper through prayer.
We need to pray for our city. Some of you, you, maybe you
don't live in Apex, but you live in Gardner, you live in Raleigh
or you live in Cary. We'll know the state of your
town and your city and be prayerful.
We are we. This church is positioned near
the Northgate of Apex. What do I mean by the Northgate?
Salem Ave. right here goes straight down through downtown
Apex. We're just off of it.
We're positioned just on the north, the very North End of
Apex. So guess what?
We're going to man this gate and through prayer, we're going to
man it through prayer. We're going to be watchful of
what's coming right down into the downtown area of the Apex.
And through prayer, we will see things absolutely shift and
change because now I see it. As I was studying, I just
started to look through where are we?
When I was pastoring with our church in Anaheim in California,
I noticed we were on this little jolt like it just this little
square annex of Anaheim. And it was on the North End of
Anaheim. Interesting N on both parts in
the North End of Anaheim. And I recognize at that time,
oh, we're a gate. And as gatekeepers, we get to
decide what comes in and out if we man our post.
If you're not manning your post, you have no say.
And so in our community, we must man our post.
It takes time, it takes intentionality, it takes being a
little nosy sometimes to find out who did that and which
council members voted for that and which one showed up to
witch's night. I want to know because
gatekeepers are not aloof and they're not naive.
We are in the loop. Apex is not only, you know, not
only we're here, but Apex is the southwest gate of Wake County.
So if you're thinking about if you want to come into Wake
County Southwest, you're going to have to go through Apex.
And basically it's not the the official part of Apex, but the
your address Apex changes just as you crossed 64, just a little
bit on this side. Of Jordan Lake.
That's when Apex begins, but that's also when Wake County
begins. So as soon as you come into Wake
County from that angle, you're in Apex.
So not only are we positioned in our own town as a gate to Apex,
our church right here, but Apex is positioned as a gate to Wake
County. Well, let's go a little further.
Wake County is the gate to North Carolina.
Wake County is the seat of the North Carolina legislature and
the governor and obviously the the capital of Raleigh.
If you don't know where God's positioned you, you cannot men
your post and you cannot fulfill your assignment.
So today I'm just announcing to you now we know our assignment
because we know where we've been positioned.
God chose somehow, some way, talk to the people who built the
building right here that we were to be positioned right here.
It's not by chance, it's not random, but we're in the right
place at the right time. And now God's opening up our
eyes and opening up our understandings so that now we
know we're not just a little outpost where we're just
protecting ourselves over here. No, we're here to pray through
and to begin to man our posts of what's coming in and out of
Apex, which effects what's coming in and out of Wake
County, which effects what's coming in and out of North
Carolina. Do you see this now?
I'm not making any of this, this up.
It's right here. It's on the maps, by a map, and
you can see it. Hello.
Could it be that you need to pay attention to where did God place
you in your neighborhood? Where are you positioned?
Where's your house at? Where's your neighborhood at?
Very, very, very important. When Lily and I were living in
Maryland, we were the first house as you came into the back
end of our neighborhood. And I immediately knew when we
were there. Oh, where the gate?
And I'm, I love that because you know why?
Because I'll man that gate and ain't no crazy coming in or out.
And I didn't announce it. I didn't tell people.
I just made a spiritual declaration that I'm the
gatekeeper of this community and nothing evil can come into this
community and I will choose what good comes into this community.
And some of you are like, I don't understand.
You'll get it. Once you go home and you start
to see that you've been living at the gate all along, but you
just haven't been manning it. It's time to man the gate.
Are y'all see what I'm saying this morning?
These are spiritual things. I'm not talking about going down
there and putting on a ancient Israeli, you know, suit or
whatever costume and make pretend no, this This Is Us
fulfilling our assignment. This is for filling our
assignment. Robin team, if you'll come, I
want to just hit on a couple other scriptures and I want us
to know this as we wrap up today.
Acts chapter 20 verse 28 says take care and be on guard for
yourselves and for the whole flock over which the Holy Spirit
has appointed you as overseers to shepherd tend feed guide.
This is out of the amplified version.
The Church of God which has He has bought with His own blood.
I know that I am. After I am gone, false teachers,
like ferocious wolves, will come in among you, not sparing the
flock even from among your own selves.
Men will arise speaking perverse and distorted things to draw
away the disciples after themselves as their followers.
Therefore, be continually alert, remembering that for three
years, night or day, I did not stop admonishing and advising
each of you with tears. This is so, so important that we
understand. This is the language of the
Bible. This is assignments.
And it's very easy for people to think, oh, I want to be in the
ministry or I want to be a pastor because they think
preaching is just easy breezy. But you know, when I stand up as
preaching like I am this morning, I see myself as a
gatekeeper. I see myself communicating this
is what's going on in our city. There's Witches night in our own
city, and I'm not OK with that. So Lord gives give us strategies
not to curse the people who did it, but to become such a
blessing to the city that they won't want that nonsense, that
the business owners will become awakened to the fact, oh, you
know what, ever since we had that witch's night, our business
went down. Maybe we shouldn't do the
witch's night anymore. Oh, we know how to pray.
I can. I know how to pray.
Supply lines cut off because I'm a gatekeeper.
Gatekeepers control what's coming in and out, commerce
that's coming in and out through prayer.
I know how to cut down communication lines through
prayer. I know how to talk to God and
ask him to send Angel armies and say, Lord, will you go and man
the post that I can't reach yet? Will you go and send Angel
armies to push back all this darkness that somehow breached
itself in our own city? See, I believe this stuff.
I believe the word of God, but I want you to know this.
Not only are we to be a gatekeeper, but the Lord is also
our gatekeeper. The Lord himself says, in fact,
in Psalm 127, David says it about him.
Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who
build it. Unless the Lord guards the city,
the Watchmen stay awake in vain. Psalm 121 verse 3 says He will
not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not
slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper.
He is your guard, the Holy One of Israel.
He never leaves His post for you.
He will guard you, He will alert you, He will talk to you, He
will communicate to you. He will allow provisions to you
on time, every time. He is a great gatekeeper.
Glory to God. Philippians chapter 4 verse 7
says be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests.
Be made known to God. I prayed this earlier and the
peace of God which passes all understanding will what will
guard your heart and your mind. Yep, heart and mind.
God commits his peace towards you so that it'll actually be a
gatekeeper over your heart and mind where those anxious
thoughts try to come. And you might say, you know
what? Every night I've been sleepless.
I can't sleep. I just get overwhelmed with
these thoughts. Well, may the peace of God
become your gatekeeper. And so when those thoughts think
they're coming your direction, you can know that he who neither
neither slumbers nor sleeps is watching over me.
He's keeping me. He's bringing peace to me.
Oh, this is important. And not only is the Lord our
gatekeeper, Father God, but Jesus is also the door and the
doorkeeper. In John chapter 10 verse one
says this most assuredly. I say to you, he who does not
enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up another way, the
same as a thief and a robber. By the way, I know who the Lord
has brought to our church many times because they come in the
right way. Usually people who have foul
means or I'll intent, they try to sneak in another way.
They'll try to talk to someone else to come talk to me because
they won't come through the right way.
That's how I usually know, Oh no, you're off and you can't
come in here. Verse 2.
But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and
the sheep follow him, for they know his own voice.
Jesus is the door and the doorkeeper.
That's why he says I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except by me.
Why? Because he's the door and the
doorkeeper. So when you make Jesus Lord of
your life, he says, come on in, come on in, come on in, come on
in, come on in. When you make Jesus Lord of your
life, the door swings wide open for you.
But there's no other way in except through the door.
That is the gate that you must enter.
In Jesus. Name.
I want to end with this. This is how important gates are
to even our prophetic future. As far as believers, I want to
put up on this picture. This is the picture of a sealed
gate. It's called the Golden Gate.
It's the Eastgate in Jerusalem. This is a modern day picture as
it stands today. Ezekiel prophesized that Jesus
the Messiah will come back and guess where he's going through
those gates. And those gates, Ezekiel said,
would be sealed. These gates have been sealed for
many centuries now and guess what?
The Muslims sealed them up. The Muslims sealed it up and put
a cemetery right in front of it because they knew this is what
this is literally no knowledge. They knew that the Messiah would
be coming, is prophesied, would be coming through that gate.
So they thought if we just put a cemetery there, then he won't
come because the Messiah would never go through unclean,
unclean place. But what they don't know is that
when Jesus returns, that even the dead will become living and
that space will no longer be unclean.
And so the end, the end will come when Jesus himself returns
as the triumphant ruler, as the Messiah, and he will go through
those gates. So if the gates matter that much
to God, and that's even where it all will come down to, that's no
wonder he talks about gates. All through scripture.
No wonder he wants you to guard your gates, Guard your heart,
guard your ears, guard your mind.
Oh, this is important. This is important.
Why don't you close your eyes right where you're at?
First of all, if there's anyone here who you've never made Jesus
Lord of your life, today's the day.
He's the only way to eternal life.
There is no other name by which man may be saved, only the name
of Jesus. And maybe you have prayed a
prayer before, but you really haven't followed the Lord.
And today you can sense the Lord pulling you, your heart longing
for this. Either way, if it's your first
time or if you just know I need to give my life back to God,
would you raise your hand right here where you're at?
And I'm going to pray for you. And we're going to pray for you
this morning. Raise your hand right where
you're at. Yes, yes.
Anyone else? Yes, praise the Lord.
Before we go on, let's pray with those who just raised their
hand. In fact, let's all repeat this
after me and pray it with them, Say Father God.
We want to thank you again for joining us for the Arise Church
podcast. We hope you were encouraged by
what you heard today. You can find
us.online@arisechurchn-c.com and on Instagram at Arise Church NC.
If you need prayer or support or are interested in learning more
about Arise Church, we encourage you to connect with us online or
in person at our Sunday morning service.
Thank you and God bless.