BUILD THE WALL

 BUILD THE WALL

 

ME  I love to watch movies of medieval warfare like The Ring Trioligy or Braveheart. Often victory would involve getting through the walls of a city. Many tactics were used: ladders, scaling, catapults, or trickery, as in The Trojan Horse. The gates were often breached because they were the weak points in the wall. A city with no walls, broken walls, or broken gates was easily defeated. 

 

WE Many people today are fighting battles with unseen enemies. There are multiple reasons for this and the book of Proverbs has many things to say about it. This one verse has always spoken to me 

 

Proverbs 25:28 Whoever has no rule over his own spirit Is like a city broken down, without walls.

 

Just as cities with broken walls are easily defeated, Christians without spiritual walls are easily defeated.  Today, the title of my sermon is “Build the Wall”. Now this has nothing to do with politics! I want to talk about building a wall of spiritual protection around our lives and shutting our gates to the enemy. 

 

GOD Last week we looked at the return of God’s people to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. Some years later another group returns to rebuild the walls and gates that have broken down. That pilgrimage home was under the leadership of Nehemiah.

 

Nehemiah 1:1-3 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”

 

This is a terrible situation. Nehemiah knows that Jerusalem is easy prey for their enemies. How did Nehemiah respond?

 

Nehemiah 1:4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

 

He was broken over the condition of the city. He responded with fasting and prayer. This was his prayer. It is one of the greatest prayer in all Scripture. 

 

Nehemiah 1:5-11 And I said: “I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” For I was the king’s cupbearer.

 

He confessed their sin; he claimed their covenant; he called for God’s blessing. God would indeed prosper him as he rebuilt the walls and hung the gates. Let’s see the steps he took and make spiritual application to our lives.

 

Nehemiah 2:11-13 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode. And I went out by night through the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire.

 

Where is your wall broken?

1.    Where are you struggling?

2.    What are your besetting sins?

3.    Where are you being attacked?

4.    May need others to see blind spots.

 

What are your broken gates? Enemy access points

 

Proverbs 26:2 Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, So a curse without cause shall not alight.

 

Ephesians 4:27 Don’t give place to the devil.

 

An open gate is any violation of God’s Word: 

1.    Any impurity or addiction

2.    Wrong covenants/promises, friendship with the world

3.    Bitterness, unforgiveness, resentment

4.    Bitter root judgment

5.    Generational curses and iniquities, familiar spirits

6.    Spiritual Schizophrenia, double-minded

 

Sin spiral: external trigger, thought, temptation, sin, habit, stronghold, demon...

 

How do we repair broken walls and gates?

 

1.    Decide to rebuild. 

 

Nehemiah 2:17-18 Then I said to them, “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.” And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, “Let us rise up and build.” Then they set their hands to this good work.

 

2.    Use your weapons

 

Nehemiah 4:13 Therefore I positioned men behind the lower parts of the wall, at the openings; and I set the people according to their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows.

 

2 Corinthians 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, (NASB the destruction of fortresses) 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

 

Word, Worship, Witness, Work

 

Nehemiah 4:6 So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

 

One of the contemporary prophets said this:

 

Haggai 2:4 “Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the LORD; ‘and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the LORD,‘ and work; for I am with you,’ says the LORD of hosts.” 

 

3.    Stay in process…

 

1.    Identify the open gate, the cause, the root.  

 

         a. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any door you have opened to the enemy either knowingly or unknowingly. The enemy doesn’t play fair.

 

         b. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any ground you have yielded to the devil either knowingly or unknowingly. 

 

2. Ask Jesus to come, forgive, and close the gate.

 

3. Pray and declare. 

 

         a. I close every door I have opened to you either knowingly or unknowingly.

 

         b. I take back all ground I have yielded to you either knowingly or unknowingly.

 

         c. I break all generational curses and familiar spirits. 

 

         d. I break all iniquities and roots in my life…

 

         e. I renounce all covenants with the world; my friendship with the world.

 

         f. I declare that I belong to Jesus and the enemy is trespassing on private property.  I command him to go in Jesus' Name!

 

         g. Father, come and fill me right now. Jesus, come and fill me right now. Holy Spirit, come and fill me right now. Fill and possess every room of my heart.

 

The work was finished!

 

Nehemiah 6:15-16 So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days. And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God.

 

Now what?

 

Nehemiah 7:1 Then it was, when the wall was built and I had hung the doors…

 

Nehemiah 7:3 And I said to them, “Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot; and while they stand guard, let them shut and bar the doors; and appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, one at his watch station and another in front of his own house.”

 

Keep the gates shut and stand watch at work and at home.

 

MINISTRY TIME