Determination — B.H. Clendennen

Now, we said there were three essentials to building that gate, participation, you know, preparation, participation, determination. Well, in all of this, I begin with that determination. You know, that has to be the first thing when that man of God, if he's called to that place to build that church, no matter if it's something there that's lost its way, whatever, amen, that if he's called there to renew, to rebuild, he better be determined when he goes.

Determination to Build God's Spiritual House

Because if that's really to be that spiritual house we saw yesterday, that all hell is going to come against that. Because the devil knows that his only antagonism is a truly Holy Ghost filled church, nothing else.

The two of them cannot walk together. It's one or the other. So all of hell has set itself in its determination to make sure you do not succeed. So we go to Nehemiah 19 and verses 20. We stopped with verse 18 in the last, but we come now to verses 19 and 20 in that second chapter of the book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah's Answer to Opposition

But when Sanballat the Hornite, Tobiah the Servant, the Ammonite, and Gishem the Arabian heard it, they laughed us to scorn, that's number one. They despised us and said, what is this thing that you do?

Will you rebel against the king? Then answered I them, this is Nehemiah now answering the devil that's come against him. Then answered I and said to them, the God of heaven, he will prosper us. Therefore we his servants will arise and build.

But you, talking to that devil now, have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem. Hallelujah. Oh, he let the devil know where he was. That devil come with lies, he come at him with the truth.

Amen. So determination. We come now to what we named as the third principle, but I put it in here, number one, rebuilding that gate of ministry. Now the first one we'll talk and deal with in both of these is preparation.

That is, of the head, the hand, and the heart. Preparation. There has to be. The second is cooperation. The things required for that are crisis, challenge, and covenant. But the third thing, determination.

The Cost of Rebuilding Ministry

There's no easy road to rebuilding the total ministry. When you look at how far it's drifted away from what it's intended to be, that voice of God Almighty, that is the mouth of God. That's what it's supposed to be.

You know it's no easy road. The devil's not going to play dead while we build that which spells absolute doom to him. Now, it was 50 years ago, God's message to me was, over 52 years now, I have put you here to restore the message of Pentecost.

I did not know what all that involved, but I told you Tanzania in 1967, it showed me the poverty of those people physically. That I become ill. I actually become ill, but he spoke to me as I prayed about it.

There's 20 million of them. You can't do anything about their poverty, but you have to see it. Because what you see physically in these people is what I see spiritually. The poverty you see in them physically is the poverty I see in my church spiritually.

That's in 1967. What do you think about it today? But he said, I've called you to do something about it. Now, with this message of God's gate, I can see why hell set himself against me and against you when we understand.

I can understand. Looking backward from my personal vantage point, I can see much that I could not see then. When I went there and planted that church, even my own church turned against me. We don't want another church here.

They had three little Pentecostal churches there, assembly of God, and they let me know they didn't want me there. I can understand them. People left the church for no reason. I can see why now. They could see where we were going and somehow the price was more than they wanted to pay.

They could solve. This is not just a neighborhood church. There's not going to be a family dinner. This is going to be a church that's going to challenge hell wherever it finds it. They saw that. I didn't know that myself, but I did know some things about what God had called me to do.

I knew I wasn't there just to build some kind of a Sunday school. I did know I was there to make Christ real in that community. Others came, others went because their own thing, they had their own thing and could not fit into that vision.

But God had put his seed in me for that area at that moment and I wasn't playing games and all hell came against that from every direction. You know, wife and I looked back, no money. There were times we just didn't know.

We hoped we had a quarter to buy a hamburger to split four ways, but God calls ravens somewhere. We'd come out of church, out of church, knew it wasn't nobody in church, be a basket of groceries on the hood of our car.

The checks come from people we never knew. When the time come that that church could support us, all of that stopped. We never had to eat the ravens, they just brought the food. Amen. That's the way it was.

But God supplied. But all of hell was against it. You see, God had put it, we only want people who are with us. We forgot that. We just want people to count. But we can't get nowhere with that. We're carrying a baggage that's going to take up all of your time.

Let them preach. You can bring them in there, you can bus them in there, you can bring them in there with games and tricks, but I can tell you all that's going to do is take up all of your time. If they're not with us, they must leave.

But we must let them know who we are, what we're doing, where we're going. That must come. You'll never get the cooperation out of people unless you find the people that can have the same vision you do.

With that three, four, 10, 12, 20 or 100, that has nothing to do with God. We just keep plowing. God knows what he's building, why we're here. We remain true to God all the way through it all. So that determination, verse 19 and 20, when Sanballat the Hornite, to abide the servant and Geshem the Arabian heard it, they did three things.

The Enemy's Three Tactics: Intimidation, Despising, and Lies

Now here is the enemy's strategy against the man of God and his people. He never changes. He never. He's not as smart as we think he is. It's his way. To know this, though, is to be prepared. To know this is to be prepared.

Number one, they left us to score intimidation. Who are you to be here? Amen. Who are you? Who do you think you are? You know, you're not educated. You're not a theologian. You never had this advantage.

You don't have this. Always that intimidation. He always comes in that way. The enemy gets nine out of 10 preachers right here. They settle down just to play games instead of moving on with God because the vision has not been birthed really in their bosom.

It hadn't really been birthed. So the enemy has very little trouble intimidating. But once that vision is truly birthed, then the devil is up against it. That's the reason that we must at all costs put that in the people that God gives us.

That vision must be put. Now they still see the ruins. Those people that the vision has not really been birthed, they still see the ruins. They see the enemy's authority. But the man of God has to birth that vision in every true child of God's heart as to where we are.

Now the enemy will bring up every failure and weakness of you. He'll bring it up and in pointing it out, he'll laugh at the man of God. Tell him, I'm going to expose you to everybody that's concerned.

Every failure, everything you've ever done, all that's ever happened. And most then back away. Why? Because they know what the devil said is true. I mean we've all, we haven't committed adultery, murdered nobody, but it's been that.

What the Christian must know, there's a greater truth and that truth is the blood cleanses me and keeps cleansing me. They answered him with the blood of that lamb and the word of the testimony when he began to come against them to intimidate.

We are not coming out against the devil in the goodness of the flesh. We're coming in the redemptive blood and the authority of God's son, Jesus Christ. You know, Martin Luther, the great reformation preacher, tells us Satan came to him with a long scroll that listed every sin, every failure of the monk, everything of Luther.

Luther said he read every one of them. Evidently he had some kind of a vision. The devil come right into his office, said the more he read, the sicker I got because it was true. Every failure. When Satan finished, he threw the scroll at Luther's feet and said, there it is, Luther.

It's all true. We have, we have, we've got the goods. It's all true. What have you got to say about that? Luther said he stepped on that manuscript and said to the devil, true Luther, Lucifer, but you left out the bottom line.

The devil said to him, what's the bottom line, Mr. Lucifer? He said, the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed me from all that you just mentioned. Hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Amen. Oh, my. What a gospel. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We must never allow the devil to intimidate us by ridiculing laughter. The scripture said the second thing, they loathed them. They hated them.

That's what it means. He despised them. Through these men, that's the devil there. He despised. He said, look what I've got against you. I'll expose you. I'll ruin you because you're not perfect. That's all.

I'm not preaching a loose life. You know that. I believe in holiness. God cannot and will not use the unholy, but none of us are absolutely perfect before God. None of us. But we should not allow the devil to intimidate us.

We do not come against him in our name, our character. We come in the character of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of Christ. Satan plants those evil thoughts in your mind, then uses them against you.

Nobody in this room, I don't care how pure you are, that some kind of an immoral thought doesn't find its way into there. That just tells you the devil's darts fly everywhere. Amen. He plants them there, then accuses you.

But you've not sinned, but if you pet them, you've sinned. You know, if you pet them, entertain those evil things, then they become sin in your mind, but otherwise they do not. These thoughts do not come out of your spirit.

They come in on the wings of Beelzebub. I mean, they fly in, demon spirit, fly into that mind, come in with some immoral thought, then accuse you with them right off. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of God will raise up a standard against him.

What we must do, keep our eyes on that standard. Don't let him took us off out there what we used to do or did do, hallelujah. The third thing the devil used against him was lying. Lying, laughing, loathing, that's the three things, laughing, loathing, lying.

Rejecting Distractions from the Gospel's Mission

Now they said to Nehemiah, what is this thing that you do? Now the word thing there is from the Hebrew word dobar. That's a Hebrew word for the Greek word rhema. He said, look at this. The enemy said, look at this.

The enemy of God said to the sons of God, what is this rhema that you do? Will you rebel against the king? He tried to lie and twist the purpose and make them to do something other than plant ministry in that city, always.

That's a devil's trick with a preacher. It's always. People call and say, come down here, help us with this anti-abortion crusade. My response is, I hate abortion. I preach against abortion. No woman ever born again will ever have another one if she had one before she got here.

I hate abortion, but the church of Jesus Christ is not in this city to serve any purpose other than the establishment of the kingdom of God. And if I establish this kingdom, women will come in, we'll stop abortion.

We'll stop. Otherwise, you're just down there trying to get the devil to do right and he's not going to do right. We're not there. That's not. We must not allow God's rhema for us in taking the city and to rebuild God's kingdom to be used up on any humanistic approach.

We preach against those things, but we must never allow ourselves to be drawn into that kind of a thing. They brought that Jesus Christ superstar. Amen. I don't know what it was, but it pictured Christ terribly, whatever it was.

And they wanted me, you know, to come down there and help them. They're going to protest against the theaters and all of that. And I said, I can tell you, I met a Christ a lot of years ago, don't need my protection.

They'll all be in hell. He'll still be God. And they're going to go right on trying to do all this. He don't need me to protect him. I just preach him. I worship him. I proclaim him. That's all he ever asked me to do.

We're not the servant of a group against abortion, war, drugs. The rhema of God is to rebuild the kingdom wherever we find ourselves. And the people come into this kingdom, all of that's passe. All the energies of the church must be built around that and that alone.

We'll speak to the others, but the church is greater than any single social cause on this earth. And until we get God in people, we're not going to make a better people. That part of them has to die. We're not going to make it.

If that could be possible, then we would not ever, Christ would not have to die. The enemy tried to twist the truth. Expend the energies on the man of God and get him out there on some kind of a side strength.

Now we must not let it happen to the man of God. We must identify, we'll be in God's gate, where God meets man and man meets God, where heaven comes down and kisses the earth. We must know that's where we are.

This is the place. If you want God, you can find him right here with us. Now, how did Nehemiah, the man of God, come against the enemy? They told a lie. He told the truth. Told the truth three times. Devil lied to him three times.

Nehemiah's Threefold Testimony of God's Authority

He told the truth three times. Told the truth about God, verse 20. He said, the God of heaven will prosper us. Doesn't matter what you think about it. The God of heaven. Now, the word prosper means God will give us a smooth road to the end of our destination.

That means if the devil stands in the way, then God's going to knock him off the road or else going to make him a part of the road. But one way or another, God's going to make it possible for this to happen.

God's going to make it. When the disciples said to Jesus, even devils are subject, Jesus answered, behold, I've given you authority. That word authority is exousia. Amen. Exousia. That's how it's pronounced.

It's spelled X-E-X-O-U-S-I-A. But Strong gives you that. It's pronounced E-X-O-S-E-O-X-O-U-S-I-A. Ex is out of. Ousia is being. He said, out of the being of God, we're here. That's what he said.

That's what Nehemiah said to the devil. We represent God in the city and we are out of God. We're out of the essence of God. Behold, I give you power to tread on snakes and scorpion. Now you know a snake is a temptation.

Follow through the scripture. It's the left hand of the devil. Scorpions are trauma, trouble, trial, tribulation. The sting of the scorpion, the poison of the snake. He said, I give you power over scorpions, serpents, over all the power of the enemy.

Nothing shall by any means hurt you because you are moving in God's authority. Because you're moving in God's authority. Nothing gonna hurt you. They're gonna be all hell come against you, but nothing gonna stop you from doing it.

Nehemiah told the truth about God. The God of the heavenly host who has all the host of heaven with him will knock whatever's in your road out of the way. If they get too close, if they get too close, you'll walk on them.

Amen, but God says, this is the way it's gonna be if you walk with me. The second thing, Nehemiah told the truth about himself and his people. He told them, said, we are his servants. Now that Hebrew word is douloos, a servant who serves without pay.

He gives up his last name, cannot own anything. You know, that's what happened. That's what happened when a man, a Hebrew servant, was to be released after seven years. But if he loved that master and didn't want to leave, he'd go to him and he'd say to him, you know, I want to stay here.

I don't want to leave you. I love you and I want to stay here and work. Well, he took him to the temple, bored a hole in his ear, first of all. Then he expunged his name off of the record. He had no last name.

That meant he can't own anything. If you don't have a last name, you can't own anything. That's the reason we must function in the name of Jesus. We don't own anything. We must function in that name, governing everything that we do.

Nehemiah was saying, we're not doing this for capital. No, no, we're not down here trying to make money in this rebuilding program. We can't own anything. We don't have a last name. We have to sign his name every time.

That's where we are. Now, it is in the progressive. If you notice, if you look at the grammar, it's in the progressive. We, his servants, is what he said, are gonna keep on rising and keep on building.

You knock us down once, we'll get up once. Knock us down 10 times, we'll get up 11. Amen, we're just gonna get up. Does not matter what people think about us. It's a kingdom of God that matters. So we'll keep on rising, keep on building.

We will establish the kingdom of God. That's our only purpose. Finally, Nehemiah told the truth about the enemy. Nehemiah said to the enemy, you have no portion, no right, no memorial here. You're the squatter, not us.

The Enemy Has No Inheritance or Legal Right

First of all, he said, you have no portion. Now, the word portion means allotment or inherited. Satan has no inheritance in the city since God put you there. They have no inheritance. He is one, he's trying.

He's losing, he knows he is. If he don't get you out of there in the final analysis, it's over with with him. He knows it, he knows more about it than we do. Now, so God gave it to you as a birthright.

Now he says, drive out the enemy. Second, Nehemiah told the truth about the devil. You have no right here. You're no right here. The word right means permission. You know, in that ancient city, and under Jeffersonian democracy, the only people that voted was the people that paid taxes.

That's all. I believe that kind of democracy. I don't believe anybody living off of welfare ought to tell me how much money I gotta give them. I believe helping the poor. But Jeffersonian democracy said that only taxpayers, you know, only taxpayers voted.

Amen. When you, you know, you can't allow people to determine when you do, it's over with. Determine how much you got to give them. The Bible said you work or don't eat. We must take care of the infirm and all of that.

But in that ancient city, only landowners had a right to speak in legal matters of that city, because they're the ones paid it. Satan doesn't own any territory if you're here. If you're truly here in the name of the Lord, where you are, then he doesn't own nothing there.

If God has planted you there and you know it, Satan then has no legal right over the souls in that city. We're not talking about just territory. We're talking about the souls in that city. Third Nehemiah said, you have no memorial here.

Revival and the Removal of Satan's Influence

When the church is truly in control, when revival truly comes, you'll find Satan is forgotten. All, you know, when revival came to the Hebrides, the courts were processing scores and scores of things every day, you know, from theft to murder.

But when that revival broke out, they could almost dismiss the police force. They ain't nobody. I mean, the crime almost come to a complete stop. That's the way it was in London. When the revival come, there'd never been a more wicked city.

They had little step ladders for four and five year old children to climb up the bar to drink alcohol. Child abuse was rampant everywhere, everything. But when that revival come, all of that become almost distinguished, extinguished.

I mean, when the light shine, amen, the devil has no rights now. He has a hard time finding people to do his work. When we're there in control, then the devil has soon forgotten. Hallelujah. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I said, blessed be the name of the Lord. Determination, determined to be here, determined to see what God wants, not to get a bigger salary, but determined to be here. Whatever God provides, I'll be happy with, but I want to see this gate of ministry rebuilt, a place where God can flow through to touch this city, touch this nation, amen, and those people touched can come back through and find this great God in all of his reality.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.