You've tuned in to a mega church.
We are people hungry to encounter God through worship
and His. Hallelujah, that's good.
I don't need to ask a second time, so that's really good.
How many of you have come having read Nehemiah Chapter 4 1234?
So 4 chocolates give some somebody give chocolates to
those who have come. You know, why do we encourage
it? Why should you read and come?
Because that will help you to understand the passage better.
When I talk about it because you read and come, it really helps.
This is the culture we want to develop.
For few weeks I did not do it, but I apologize for that.
Every week we would like to do that again because there are no
surprises. If we finish Chapter 4, next
week we will do Chapter 5. It is very simple like that.
So we said one thing in the past message that the story of
Jerusalem being rebuilt by during the time is symbolic of
every family, Christian family, and symbolic of every local
church. The rebuilding of the temple at
the walls of Jerusalem is symbolic of every Christian home
and every local church. Keep this in mind, write it in
your mind. That's the way to look at it.
And when you look at it, then we have something to talk about.
So when the work is going on, so basically the enemies, enemies
of Judah were really alarmed when the work is going on very
fast. So you got, you got imagine in
your mind, let's say you got Judah and then you got Sun
Balat, he who is basically coming from the Northside from
some area. And then you got another guy
that is the Tobiah, the Ammonite is coming from the east side and
you got Geshem the Arab from the South.
So you got so many directions, the enemies are coming and
you've got astronaut on the on the West and that is the
Philippine, Philippines, not Philippines.
Philistines, sorry, is going so too far.
I said why am I using the Philippines?
So it is the Philistines as that was a very popular and very
populous at the same time, powerful center of the
Philistines, which is the Palestine today, of course.
So you got the Gaza on the South, southwest.
So you got enemies coming from 5 directions, 5 directions.
And has the situation changed today?
No, we got enemies attacking Israel in seven directions.
Now you got from Syria, you got Iran, you got Iraq, you got
Hamas, you got the Gaza Strip and West Bank and the South side
from every direction, you got the Israel being attacked.
And is my voice clear? OK, good.
So the when? When the work of God is
happening, when the church, when the Church of God is being
rebuilt, you will feel the heat of the enemy, you will feel the
hatred of the Satan and he doesn't like the church to be
rebuilt. Its the same thing that
happening for when the walls were being rebuilt.
Sun ballots shows up and what does he do?
He became angry and was greatly incensed.
You know the 2 words there, just one word would have been enough,
isn't it? Why does the Nehemiah use 2
words? Because he was greatly angry.
Sorry, was angry and greatly incensed.
So much of stirring up is happening inside emotionally.
He stirred up and he is being aroused to attack, come and
insult and bring down these people.
So it's greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews.
Everybody use the word ridicule. What is ridicule?
You put down somebody, you, you just try to say, hey, sometimes
you, you see kids also, they use this ridiculing, they'll catch
over one boy and say you are a girl.
That's how it happens in the school.
And if it goes deep into the spirit, that boy will be
affected. So you can be 1 can be ridiculed
and that can change the person completely.
Ridicule is very, very powerful. Ridicule very powerful.
So we should not allow the enemy to ridiculous.
He can put you down, he can say things to you to discourage you,
to make you lose hope and to make you feel weak when you are
actually strong. So that is the part the enemy
plays. So Sun Ballad came and he
ridiculed the Jews in the presence of his associates and
the army of Samaria. Now he came with the army.
Now this is very important for you to understand.
Unless you stop and think, the Scripture does not speak to you.
Now here you have Sun Ballot and you got Nehemiah and the people
working hard, and now this guy comes to Jerusalem with the army
of Samaria. What is he trying to do with the
army of Samaria? Think of a gang and think of a
rival gang. Why would a rival gang walk into
another gang with all their members, with their swords and
whatever they have equipment? What, what, what are they trying
to do? They are challenging them to
fight. The challenge of challenging
them to fight. That is the strategy of Sun
Ballot he. They don't want to fight.
They are busy building the walls of Jerusalem and they are
building. We want to set up the gates of
the Jerusalem. That's what they are focusing
on. And now they are coming with the
army comes and stands surrounding and this guy
standing and speaking to the people, ridiculing them.
They thought they can start up Nehemiah and his people to begin
to fight, and they can take an upper hand and fight them again.
But you look at the wisdom of Nehemiah here.
Then what? What else He did?
What He used ridiculing. How did he ridicule?
What are these feeble Jews doing?
First he is telling them they are very few in number and they
are weak, feeble Jews. You are so weak, what are you
going to do? That's a challenge.
And then what does he say? Will they restore their wall?
Will they offer sacrifices? I tell you, these are the
ridicule words of ridiculing. When you look at it, it just
shatters our own understanding. What is he trying to say is you
guys, are you going to offer sacrifices?
Are you going to pray successfully?
Now we are praying for 21 days. This can be words of some of
some of you may be hearing the state and say, ah, you're going
every day, 9 kilometers, you're driving 15 kilometers, you're
driving to go to the prayer meeting.
What is going to happen there? What do you expect is going to
happen? Nothing is going to happen.
You can hear the words of enemy taunting or saying to you, why
do you do what you are doing? But there's power in prayer.
There's power in prayer. You, you cannot win the
spiritual warfare with the physical force.
It can be done only with the spiritual force which comes by
prayer. There is no alternative, my
friends. There is no another tool by
which you can beat the enemy. So he is asking, can you build
the walls? Can you offer sacrifices?
Will they finish in a day? Now this is nearly nearly when
you see little further, you see the half of the wall is rebuilt.
They took 52 days to build the rebuild the walls.
They are working six days in a week, so roughly six days or 48.
So it is about 8 weeks and half. So it is right now half the
string, the walls have now come up to half the height means it
must be now 26 days or 24 days has already happened.
And they are saying can you build in a day?
What have you done in 20-4 days? So this is how the enemy
attacks, this is how enemy ridicules, this is how enemy
wants to hit at your strength and make you feel weak.
And then what does he say again? Will they finish in a day?
Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of
rubble burned as they are now? They were, they were burnt, the
stones were burnt, they were thrown down.
But they are not totally. Every stone is not become
useless. There are large kind of, I mean
huge quantity of stones which can be reused.
So that's what Neymar did. He did not go and get the stones
for every single stone has to be replaced.
He didn't. He didn't do that.
But he is ridiculing him and saying you think this burned
stones can be reused. Can you rebuild the wall in a
day? You think you got strong?
No, you cannot do any of these things.
That's the many times in your spiritual life you may be
feeling tired, you may be feeling defeated, particularly
besetting sins since that are coming again and again again and
make you fall in the same area. Sometimes I always wonder about
the way the devil comes to people and make them do the same
sin. 1000 times you have been defeated in the same area and
1001 time and you know where it is going to happen and after a
day you look back and say oh, 1001 time I have fallen again.
Why? Because that is how enemy wants
to keep you down, defeating you in the pet sins.
Small sins, they are not big sins.
We don't even murder somebody, we don't even loot the shop or
take a gun. And none of those things we do
little, little sins that defile your conscience, that defile and
make you feel guilty so that you will not be effective in the
Kingdom of God. It is little sins.
So that is how he comes against you.
So he is saying can you reuse his rubble?
The stones are burnt, are you going to reuse them again?
Yeah, we can reuse them again. But this is how Sun Ballot had
said it. And then Toby the Ammonite who
was at his side said what they are building, if even a fox
climbed upon it, he would break down their wall of stones.
This is ridiculing again. Well putting them down saying
what are you doing guys? Even if a fox jumps on the wall
it is going to bring down the wall.
How heavy is a fox? I'm sure it is lighter than a
sheep. I never seen a robust muscular
fox anytime the emotional time. They are very skinny and you
know very tiny. The only power they have is in
their teeth. And so even if a little fox
climbs on the wall, it is going to bring down the wall.
And that is just ridiculing. So you got Sun Ballot.
And beside him standing Tobiah, who is an Ammonite.
And interestingly, Tobiah is a Hebrew name, but then it is
owned by Ammonite. He is not a Jewish man, and he
is ridiculing. The people say, hey, even if fox
jumps on, it's going to come down.
What are you doing? You're wasting your time.
And then what happened? Nehemiah replied.
You look at the response of Nehemiah from verses four and
five here as our God, our Lord, oh our God, for we are despised.
Turn their incest back on their own heads.
Give them over a splendor in a land of captivity.
Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your
sight. But they have thrown insults in
the face of the builders. Can we pray like that?
Can we pray like Neymar prayed? Can we say bring down them in
their own traps, Whatever trap they said, let them fall in the
same trap. Oh, take them captive.
Let them be carried away to another country, into captivity.
Can we pray like that? Basically, as Christians, the
way we do things is different. Now this is the Old Testament
you see that teeth for tooth for tooth, I for I that kind of a
justice they had. The system of justice was
different, but now we had to forgive our enemies and love
them. So the point I am trying to make
here is Nehemiah right in praying a prayer like that
accord to his culture, accord to his understanding of the word,
He is right. He is not doing anything wrong
because they knew that they were a nation that is called by God.
There is a special calling of Israel and a special king to
rule over them. But now because they are opposed
to God, it's not about they are opposed to Jewish people.
They are opposed to God. They are opposing the work of
God. When you oppose the work of God,
that is a time you can pray a prayer like this.
But mostly you only see Sun, Bala, Tobiah, the Ghesham, the
Arab, and all these kind of people, people Asdad and other
people. They are only the people you see
outside, but inside is the devil who is turning, stirring them up
to do those things. So right now when we pray the
spiritual warfare prayer, you can pray the same kind of a
prayer. You can pray the same kind of a
prayer because that is going to knock them down in the power of
the Holy Ghost. We can pray such prayers and
that is why we we are trying to say yesterday we talked in the
prayer meeting about taking position of the gates of your
enemy. That is, you take position of
the center of power from where they rule you take it over.
That means you make them, you subdue them, you defeat them,
you make them to serve you, and that is how we do the spiritual
warfare. So Nehemiah, he has prayed like
this. First he says is they are
despising us. Turn their insects back on their
own head. Give them over a splendor in the
land of Cap Rooty. Do not cover up their guilt
blotter, nor all brought out their sins from your sight.
But they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.
They are trying to discourage the builders.
They are trying to make them feel weak and feeble.
So don't forget them. But you take up the cause and
you fight them. I think there's a place for
prayer like that. You will pray like that with
passion when you feel the project is yours.
If it is, if you think the battle is somewhere else is
happening, somewhere in somewhere in Israel, somewhere
in Iran, Iran, Iraq, somewhere it is happening, you are not
involved in it. But when the battle is yours,
you feel it personally, that's the time you will begin to pray
like Neo Mad did whole This is the whole game changer is why
our prayers are not effective, why there is no passion in our
prayers Because you think that's not your problem.
Whatever you are praying about, you think that is not your
problem. And you just want to pray
because somebody says, let's pray now for this, this, this,
let's pray for revival. That's not your passion.
Let's pray for healing. Oh, I am healthy, somebody sick,
I don't care. Well, he says, let us pray for
healing. So let's pray for healing.
But you know, are we passionate for the glory of God?
Are we passionate that if somebody healed, God's name is
glorified, then the desire comes, God, I want the blind
eyes to be opened. I want the deaf eyes to be
opened. I want the dumb to speak, lame
to walk, dead to be raised. That passion comes from inside.
When that problem becomes your personal problem, until you are
involved, the prayer is there is no passion in the prayer.
There is no fire in the prayer. So that's the reason why many
Christians are very lukewarm. So we rebuild the wall till all
of it reached half its height. For the people worked with all
their heart, say they worked with all their heart.
That's the secret. That is the secret for revival.
Secret for revival is working with all your heart.
So many times our heart, we keep it at home.
When we come to prayer meeting, that prayer meeting will be the
most cold prayer meeting. It will be most unconnected
prayer meeting. You are not involved in it.
So many times I say let's pray in tongues.
I say 10 minutes and after 4 minutes is just dying down.
When I say 10 minutes, why are you keeping quiet after 4
minutes? Because a heart has to be there.
I'm not condemning anybody. I'm just stirring up, stirring
up the passion inside so that you will next time.
I say let's pray in times for 10 minutes.
You are going to pray until 11 minutes.
I had to say no, let's stop now. That is passion going before.
And if it is stopping after 4 minutes, then that means there's
no passion there. Your heart is not in the issue.
So that's the thing they prayed, they they rebuilt it because
they worked with all their heart.
This is the secret. This is the secret of revival is
when people pray with passion. When people pray with passion,
revival come. Otherwise what happens is we are
just prayed one of those prayers like thank you God for the
breakfast, Thank you God for the lunch.
You know there's no passion there and sometimes you look at
the color of the food on the table.
Its the smell is enticing and then you say, oh thank you God
for the wonderful meal that's waiting.
Why, why that the why those words come because now you are
something is stirring you up by looking at the food and spelling
the food the same thing. There has to be passion in
prayer. So.
But when Sunbala, Tobiah, the Arabs, Ammonites, the men of
Asad heard that the repairs to Jerusalem was had gone ahead and
that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry.
See this word very angry comes up again and again.
Very angry comes up again and again.
But you you, you see that the word angry used for Nehemiah
only once in the whole book. He became angry when he saw
people commit sin, when he saw people getting married, mixed
marriages, he saw people doing business on Sabbath day.
He when the people are breaking the law, he was angry.
And these people are very angry because they are doing a good
thing. And Neymar was angry because
they were doing a bad thing. So we should know when to feel
angry at the right Causeway. You should feel angry, not the
wrong Causeway. So now again, in summarizing,
when Sun ballot, Tobiah Arabs, the Ammonite men of Asad heard
that the repairs of Jerusalem walls had gone ahead.
And this place, Asad, where it is, it is from Jerusalem.
You look on the West, you have got the seaport Asador.
It is about 62 kilometers and it is one of the main seaports of
Israel. Today 60% of all imports happen
in the port of Astor. But those days it was under the
Philistines power, not under Israel.
Now it is in in Israel. So when they saw when the gaps
are being filled up, walls have risen up, they were very angry.
So now what they are doing is they are going one step ahead of
their enmity. What is the one step that is
they are going ahead? Is they all plotted together to
come up and fight against Jerusalem and start up trouble
against it. They all plotted together.
The Gray, the Hebrew word used is that they are bound together.
Like you take some glue, take an Arab, you take Tobiah and put
some glue between them, they become one.
So all these people have become one.
They have glued together with one purpose, to fight against
Israel. In Christian circles, among
Christians there is no unity. Believers are divided on
doctrine, but the enemies are united.
Enemies have unity because they have one common purpose, to
fight against the church. So they all plotted together to
come and fight against Jerusalem, a stir up trouble
against it. What is the strategy of Nehemiah
is again, but we pray to our God.
We pray to our God. That should be our response.
Whatever happens in your life, the first response should be
pray. You have to pray to our God.
And secondly, and posted a God day and night to meet this
threat. They posted God.
We will see more in detail how he did it.
So now prayer and action go together.
Many of us are divided in our minds.
Sometimes we think if you pray, we don't need to do anything
about it. That may not work.
That may not work so many times in the in the people generally,
you know, we, we come across in the Christian circles, one
cliche word is God told me this. When God has said something,
that's the end of discussion. I will not question it.
I don't want to have an argument with the person who says God has
said it to me. But you look at the life.
Has God said it? Does the rest of the life prove
that the words they are claiming are from God?
There has to be a cohesion. There has to be a harmony
between the words and the life. If there is no harmony between
profession and the life, we know God has not spoken in some
cases. In some cases like God can say
something and may take long time to fulfill.
It may be 15 years, 20 years. In that case, the people are
observing will say I don't think God has spoken, but may be God
really spoke. It takes time to fulfill it.
There are only two scenarios, but it is up to the individual
person who says God has spoken to me to decide whether it is
really God or he thinks God has spoken.
He or she thinks it's God has spoken.
Because this is one of the things that I have time and I
can come. It's a sensitive matter.
It's very sensitive. I cannot just speak and say
something and say hurt somebody. No, that's not my point here.
I want to encourage people to hear genuinely from God.
And when it is God who speaks, he will stand up for you and he
will fulfill the word for you, but it doesn't mean you cannot
do anything about it. So here they prayed and they
also took action. And today in the Christian
circles, the the IT is you have prayed, you are very, very
spiritual and you speak about it.
That is it, no action. And that is not the right way to
lead a Christian life. That is all I understand.
Next thing is meanwhile the people in Judah said the
strength of laborers is giving out and there is so much rubble
that we cannot rebuild the wall. So this is one of the things
that to discourage people you have attack from outside, words
of ridicule from outside, undermining their faith,
undermining their commitment, undermining their purpose.
And the second is internally the come it comes, oh, I'm working
now for since 4 weeks, but I still see everywhere rubble, big
stones. I see such a valley here.
I see there's such an open space here.
What have I done in this four weeks?
Nothing. So look at the, they look at the
work in the Judah. They were saying strength of the
laborers is giving out. And there's so much rubble that
we cannot rebuild the wall. So the work looks too big.
The challenge becomes too big. But you know what?
This is where we need to be very careful.
We should this Goliath versus David, a David versus Goliath.
This situation comes in every Christian's life.
It's not just David had a Goliath to fight once for all
over. No, every Christian will have a
Goliath in his life. The problem will look too big.
How am I going to fight this big problem?
How am I going to defeat the enemy?
How am I going to overcome the financial trouble?
How am I going to bring harmony in the family?
It looks too big. It looks too big.
But I tell you what, Jesus gave us the answer.
Speak to the mountain. What did he say?
He did not say go get your crowbar, get your machine and
start digging. He didn't say that, He said
speak to the mountain. The first response should be
prayer of faith and commanding the big problem to become
smaller one or to nonexistent problem.
So here before they knew that is what the problem was.
So that was discouraging the people.
When you make the problem big, it will demotivate you, it will
discourage you. This is very simple, is not a
very difficult thing to understand.
When we say make our problem too big, it's too big, it's too big,
I can't do it, it's too big. You are defeating yourself by
those words before you even attempt.
You are defeated in your position and you cannot win with
that kind of attitude. That's the reason why we need to
be very careful about when we talk about problems.
Don't magnify the problems because the God that is on our
side is bigger than the problem. Cool.
What is Lebanon worse? This is psychological warfare.
Everybody says psychological warfare.
What is psychological warfare? Also enemy said before they know
it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill
them and put an end to the work. This is sending fear.
Ah, you guys are thinking you are rebuilding the walls.
No, no, no, no, Before even you know, ah, there is somebody
here. You turn before that, before
even turn your head, the sword is going to come and push, push
you down. He is going to Pierce you.
We are going to kill you. This is enemy's tactic.
Now the psychological warfare. Psychological warfare goes one
step ahead in the next verse. Then the Jews who lived near
them came and told us 10 times over wherever you turn, wherever
you turn, whether you wherever you turn, they will attack us.
How many times they told 10 * / I tell you this is a Hebrew we
are saying many times. You know Jesus talked about
forgiving somebody 7 times or 7070 * 7.
He said four. That is just numberless number
of numberless way of times. So that is a Hebrew expression
to say that the enemies for coming and telling again and
again and again, we are going to kill you, we are going to finish
you, we are going to kill you, we are going to finish you.
And this is one of those things that make people lose hope.
So many times we pray for deliverance for some people you
are standing in front of them in the name of Jesus be lose, be
set free. And you are shouting for 30
minutes. And then the man says, I can
hear a voice in my head saying, you are not going to be set
free, huh. You heard a voice.
How dare he speak that word? I have the power to push that
spirit out of your body now, to trample it down.
I'll kick out that spirit right now.
So that is how we get charged. And I tell you, the man who is
receiving prayer should be able to say, I don't care what the
spirit is saying. I want to be free.
This is how you approach the problem.
But do you? When you agree with the problem,
you are empowering the problem. No, we are not here to accept
defeat before even you fight. No.
So 10 times over they were told. Yeah, weird.
Wherever you turn, they will attack us.
Now Neymars action comes in worse 13 onwards 13 and 14.
Therefore a station, some of the people behind the lowest points
of the wall at exposed places, posting them by families with
their swords, Spears and bows. Now you see two things he's
doing 1. He has identified the lowest
points. OK, that's about 2.4 kilometers
is a perimeter or the circumference of the walls of
Jerusalem. So what is he trying to do?
He surveyed the whole city. Here we have low exposed places.
There is an exposed place. There is an exposed place here.
And some of the times enemy attacks in the weakest link.
That is his strategy. He has always won.
What is the weakest link in a family?
Whoever is not connected to God is the weakest point.
Whoever is not a believer is the weakest point.
Sometimes it can be children. So if he, if both husband and
wife are praying, praying, praying, and they're very strong
and he suddenly put fever on the child to discourage you, to
distract you, to make you ineffective.
So weakest link, that's what he does.
So he looked at the weak points and stationed people by
families. Now that's a bold statement and
a bold approach for Nehemiah to do.
Why would you put a family when he says families?
What is he trying to do? It is a man and a wife and
children and a man has a brother and his family and they have a
sister and a family. They are all one family.
So he put that family there and said, now you take care of this
area, this weak area, you take care of it.
You protect it, you fight it, and they will fight.
Why? For the sake of their wives, for
the sake of this children, for the sake of their daughters and
sons, they are going to fight. That's the strategy of Nehemiah.
He did not say, oh, we need very big weapons.
We need some automated weapons to throw stones and descend.
He didn't do all that. He said, OK, do you have a
spear? Use it.
Do you have sword? Use it.
You got a bow? Use it.
He equipped them, he supplied them with weapons and said, now
this is your job. You will protect this weak part.
And I tell you, we need to learn the strategy.
We have to learn the strategy all the time.
Once in a while you have to, when you have your coffee and
sit in your chair, ask the question, what is the weak point
in my family? Who is the weak link in my
family? And cover them with the blood of
Christ. Put the blood of Christ upon the
spiritual and body. Put the blood of Christ upon the
spiritual and body. I tell you, any other strategy
may fail, but this strategy will not fail.
Put the blood of Christ. It does not require a PhD to say
those things. You don't need to study for
seven years or 10 years to come up with the statement.
Put the blood of Jesus on the spiritual and body and that weak
link will come strong. We have shared the secret with
some people who are struggling with children having some kind
of ADHD or something like that, autism and things like different
people. We shared and now after two
months after we came back from US, they are telling us what are
they saying that is working? What is working?
Put the blood of crash on the children.
The children are changing situation in the dynamics in the
family is changing. That strategy will not fail.
Put the bread of Christ. So then what did they do?
After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles
and officials and the rest of the people, don't be afraid of
them. Remember the Lord for your
brothers and your sons and your daughters, your wives and your
homes. You fight.
Remember your family and fight for them.
But before that, what he said is remember the Lord.
Everybody said remember the Lord.
Why our prayer is not effective? Because the Lord, our God, you
worship who, who saved you is very small.
God is very, very small in your eyes.
Your understanding of God is very, very small.
That's reason why prayer is ineffective and you lose the
battle. Remember the Lord, awesome God,
terrible God, He is powerful souring, He is the creator of
visible invisible realities. When you remember this God, the
prayer, the punch in the prayer, when you think God is very
small, He wasn't 6 foot, He needed only 6 foot place to bury
him after he died. That prayer will not go
anywhere. You need to think big about God.
I was just sharing with somebody.
Oh, I was thinking about God. And I said, I thank you, Lord
Jesus, for you are the Lamb of God that is slain before the
foundation of the world. And I said to the Lord God, the
whole creation has come out of that blood because you shed that
blood and then you created the world.
And I shared it with a friend of mine and he said that's very
awesome. Yes, it is awesome.
But I had never known known it for 40 years.
Only today I have realized it and said, Oh God, you are God
who shed the powerful bread. The creation came out of that
blood, salvation came out of that blood, and healing comes
from that blood. Deliverance comes from that
blood, blessing comes from that blood.
I tell you, I have magnified the bread of Jesus, and I will not
lose my battle against the enemy, because that bread has
overcome the enemy. When our enemies heard that we
were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we
all returned to the wall, each to his own work.
When you know that there's a battle against the enemy, when
you know that the enemy is attacking you, that knowledge
itself will make the battle small.
It will have the battle because the enemy knows that you know
him. You know his plan.
He's defeated half already. One of the main problems of the
church today is we do not know our enemy.
We do not know who is Satan. If you know he has been defeated
by Jesus, and if you know that you have authority over him,
your life is going to change 360°.
It will not be the same. It will not be the same.
You need to know who is devil
and more than that, you need to know who is your God.
When you know your God problem is already half solved.
So from that day on half my when see this is you see the strategy
of Nehemiah changing quickly. Now what did you do from was 16
from that day on, half my men. I must finish it now.
From the day on, half my men did the work while the other half
were equip his spear, Shields, bows and armor.
And then he says they did their work with one hand, held a
weapon in the other hand. So these are the different
strategies. Half people are working, half
people are standing guard and next strategy was that they
would work with one hand. They are working with one hand
holding the weapon. That is another strategy, and
those who are builders, they hung their sword by the side
because they need both their hands to lift the stone.
So they are working with the hand, but the sword is hanging
by their side. Any second they know the enemy
is nearby, comes out the sword. How many of us are even equipped
with the sword? What is the sword for a
Christian? The word of God?
When the enemy puts a trouble into your life, what should pop
up in your mind? The Word of God.
When you stand on the Word of God, enemy will be defeated.
I tell you, if you request 100 hours of praying just to get one
word to solve your problem, it's worth those 100 hours of prayer.
One word God speaks into your spirit is going to make you a
David and a Goliath is going to come down.
That's the reason why we believe that there's a Rhema word, a
word that God speaks in season through His word, the Bible, and
through His spirit. In your mind, in your spirit, He
can speak. And we need that word because
that word is going to change the game.
That is a game changer. And then what did he do?
He said in verse 16, it was 18. But the man who sounded the
trumpet stayed with me. So he and each of the builders
wore his sword is at his side as he worked.
But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
Now this is very important when Nehemiah is the guy who is now
trying to look out over 1.72 point, 4 kilometers of, I mean a
perimeter of the wall. He may be standing here and some
other place the enemy may come. So he needs to be in the He
should be anticipating and be there.
Wherever the problem is going to come, he should anticipate and
be there. And then he wanted the man who
blows his trumpet to be next to him.
If the trumpet sounding man is not next to him and is somewhere
else, can he sound a trumpet? He cannot.
Secondly, sometimes they can sound a trumpet.
False alarm, when the enemy not come and not attack, he thought
some he may be seeing bushes move and he think there is a man
been standing behind him with a sword and he blows the trumpet.
False alarm. So leader must know to sound the
alarm at the right time, not you false alarm.
So he kept the man, the trumpet next to him all the time.
And then what did he do? And he told them, wherever you
hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there.
Our God will fight for us. Is he saying we are going to
fight or not? They are going to fight, but who
is fighting for them? God will fight for them.
It is both is not just only God S many times we think we just
pray. That's enough.
We don't have to do anything. We are praying for revival.
So is that enough?
We have to do something about it.
Action must follow the prayer and then it is going to work.
Now the people had people had a strategy and they had brought
people from outside Jerusalem to work.
So they were not sent back. Once the work is over, they
don't go back home. They're sleeping inside the city
so they can be available to fight if required.
And one of the most important thing is was 23, neither I nor
my brothers nor my men, nor the gods with with me took off our
clothes. Each had his weapon.
Even when he went for water, they didn't even take off their
clothes for 52 days. That is commitment, That is
commitment, that is vision, that is everything.
And when you have a commitment like that, the walls will be
rebuilt. No wonder it was done in 52
days. No wonder it was done in 52
days. Because there is a leader who is
committed. And when you see the leader, the
people follow the leader. When you see the leader is not
taking off clothes, he's having a sword by him.
He has a trumpeter with the one who blows trumpet beside him,
and he has organized things. And people are not going back to
their places. They're sleeping inside families
of station. At lowest points, everybody is
prepared with the spear, sword and whatever weapon they have.
I tell you, you can breathe the tension in Jerusalem.
You cannot just breathe the air and don't feel the tension
there. Christian life has to be like
that and when you do that your life will be different and
outcome will be different. The Lord bless you guys for
that. I think I overshot my time a
little bit, but let's have the communion straight away.
Let us ask the Lord to prepare our hearts for the part.
Partake in His body and the blood.
Thank you, Jesus, Father, as we are going to partake, I pray
right now that will prepare our hearts, give us that kind of a
burden, that kind of a commitment that Nehemiah and the
people of Jerusalem had to rebuild the walls.
Lord, prepare our hearts to protect our families, to protect
the church, to protect our God, your Kingdom, or to work for
your Kingdom, to expect that revival is coming and pray with
expectation because our God is great and he is going to do it.
So, Father, we commit ours into hands, prepare our hearts that
we may partake it worthily to the glory of your name.
In Jesus name we ask, Amen. Thanks for joining us at Omega.
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