November 9, 2014
Scripture:
Hymn 355 - Safe in Christ, the weakest child
Prayer
Nehemiah 2:17-22
Nehemiah has gone back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. We saw that when he rode around the walls, he found they were broken down to the point that his horse couldn’t get through the rubble. Nehemiah spoke to the people about the walls and how they were broken down and the enemy could get in. Nehemiah told them how God had blessed him and how God had let the king give him permission to come back and given him materials to build the walls. The people agreed with Nehemiah. He revived and encouraged them. It says, “So they strengthened their hands for this good work.”
But Sanballat and Tobiah were against Nehemiah. They laughed at him, and accused him for rebelling against the king. But Nehemiah didn’t listen to them. He wasn’t afraid of them. He said God would prosper him and that the people would rise and build the walls.
We must build walls in our own spiritual lives. What must we do to build the walls? Who is our enemy, and what are we protecting ourselves from? We have three enemies. The first is our flesh. We see that from even a very young age, we are self-centred. A baby, when it wakes up in the night feeling hungry, doesn’t think “Mommy and everyone else is asleep so I’ll just lie here quietly until the morning.” We are born with a flesh that has anger, jealousy, and envy. They are part of the old nature. When we take the Lord as our Saviour we are given a new nature.
Read Galatians 5:22 & 23. We can use these characteristics to defend ourselves. The Holy Spirit has these qualities; therefore, we must have the Holy Spirit in our spiritual wall.
Our second enemy is the world. There are things in this world that the child of God should not be involved in. Things we watch, read, or see fill our thoughts with things that are not of God. We must learn to joy in the things of God (1 John 5:4). This faith is in the enjoyment of the Lord’s things. The things of the world should grow dim to us, and we should desire the Lord and His things.
The third is Satan. Satan is the father of lies. He tries to get us to disobey. He even tempted Jesus. To protect ourselves from him we must use God’s Word. By memorizing and meditating we can use God’s Word as our weapon.
So we can use these three weapons—the Spirit, Faith, and the Bible—to protect ourselves from the flesh, the world, and Satan. They are part of the armour of God (Ephesians 6:17).
Next time, we will get to see how Nehemiah began to build the walls. But what about us? Do we have some building or repairing to do on our walls to protect ourselves from the enemy?
Acts 20
After the uproar at Ephesus—an external attack from the enemy—Paul called the disciples together. He had been with them a long time, and hesitated to leave them. He had to, though, and so embraced them all and headed for Macedonia. His heart was with the Lord’s people.
It’s interesting to see Paul’s discipleship methods. He gathered those that loved the Lord together and exhorted them. We usually see Hebrews 10:25 as the passage that tells us to go to meeting (“Forsaking not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is”), but the second half of the verse instructs us to “exhort one another”. We need to get to meeting; but, when there, we should exhort one another. What does it mean to exhort someone? One resource gave two definitions:
Exhort is therefore a big word! Paul had a word of exhortation for each believer. We Christians need each other, and we need what each other has been enjoying from the word. We need to exhort—instruct, comfort, encourage, beseech—each other, sharing what we have gleaned.
Exhortation is just as important as going to meeting, if not more important. Some people have come out to meeting, only to stop later. Why? Was there a time someone should have admonished them? Or maybe encouraged or comforted them, but didn’t? It’s a sobering thought.
Paul traveled through Macedonia exhorting the brethren before he came to Greece. After staying there, he determined to go back to Syria (Israel area) through Macedonia. That’s the long way round, and we’ll look at it next week.
Hymn 367 – When He cometh, when He cometh
Prayer