Adult Bible Fellowship: Nehemiah (Nehemiah 3:1-4:9, Jeff Kliewer)

All right, let's open with the word of prayer. Who can I call on this morning to open us in prayer? All right, thanks, John.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you, Lord, for this special time, a time that's appointed by need to bring this people together, Lord, to study your word. We just thank you and we love you for that. And we praise you for today and for what it's gonna bring, Lord.

And we just ask that you just help Jeff to speak a special word into each one of us, our hearts, Lord, because you know what we need and it's here today for us. We just thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Nehemiah 3 and the Whole-Circle Rebuilding of the Wall

All right, first thing, a correction at the title of your paper. I actually left the chapter two up from last week, my fault. This is chapter three and following the chapter four, so you can mark that for when you keep these later, you can know what this was meant to be.

Okay, Nehemiah chapter three this week, the rebuilding of the wall. If you'll notice, chapter three, verse one through 32 is the entire third chapter and it deals with the who built what portions of the wall.

So we're not gonna read that in entirety. We're just gonna, I'm gonna direct you to it. We're gonna pull out a few things from it that are worthy of comment. So to begin with, take a look at the map that we have on your paper and notice in which direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, does the author record the story?

Notice there's a scripture reference for each gate as to in what verse we're told that it's rebuilt. Clockwise or counterclockwise? Counterclockwise. Counterclockwise, Claire. Do you know what that means?

Absolutely nothing. I just thought I would point that out to start with. It's just, it goes around. But what I did want to point out is that it goes full circle. And so the first question, in what direction does the author record counterclockwise?

What does this full circle effort say about the side-by-side participation of the many? The whole thing. Yeah. The whole circle. Okay. Would you say this is a lot of people or only a few? A lot of people.

A whole lot of people completing the entire wall. Now, in this part, we won't get it fully rebuilt. It's a half height, I think. But at this point, you have all the way around people working side-by-side.

Next question. Thinking about that, that you had this much participation, this much effort, rebuilding the wall, it turns out to be something like 52 days, I think. I'm not exactly sure. We'll find that in the text.

But what encourages you about ministry or work for the Lord? Is there anything that you find an encouragement or a discouragement in ministry?

I get what you're saying. I think shoulder-to-shoulder with other people is so much more encouraging.

Wow, yeah. I think one of the greatest encouragements in ministry is when brothers in arms are standing side-by-side, like you say, Arlene, and we're working together. When you have a full participation of a church in any kind of project, there's just such an energy about it, right?

There's so much power in it. Hey, how's it going? When it's only one person who's pushing something, it's very discouraging, right? It's this idea of coming together as a body. Okay, so noticing the map again.

Do you think Nehemiah was encouraged or discouraged at this point? Encouraged. He brings this word to rebuild the wall after all of this prayer, and the result is just astronomical. Everybody in Israel throws in their hands, and everybody puts their hands to the work, and every gate around Jerusalem is being worked on, okay?

So this is a very encouraging moment in the text. They're moving forward together, and now the next question, look at verses three, nine, and 12. Chapter three, verse nine and 12. I'll give you a minute.

Actually, I'll have you guys read it. Ryan, you're nine, and then Greg, right? Yeah. 12, so Ryan first. So nine through 11? Just nine, and then we'll jump to 12.

Next to them, Rephiah, the son of her, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired. In verse 12?

Next to him, Shalom, the son of Halash, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired he and his daughters.

Okay, what do you find in common between those two people who are working? Rulers. Rulers, and so the question is, were the ruling class willing to get their hands dirty? Obviously, right? With the exception of, Jane or Denise, do you wanna read three, five for me?

Now, this is a theme that's coming out because we see the repetition. Whenever you see in the text something repeated, the author is trying to draw attention to it. So chapter three, verse five.

Okay, it says, next to them, the Thackawites made repairs, but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of the rulers.

Ah, catch that? But their nobles, so these are the elite, and in my version, the ESV, it says, they would not stoop to serve the Lord. Isn't that an interesting word picture there? It was too low of a work for them, right?

Because they're the elite. They don't get their hands dirty. They don't get dirt under their fingernails. They order other people to do that, right? So what is the message coming out from the author of Nehemiah?

What is he communicating by pointing out chapter three, verse nine, and verse 12, but he also noted the opposite in three, five. What lesson do we drive from that? Something about leadership. By example.

By example, right. Not just by word or command. You get out, if you want to lead an army, Alexander the Great, did he stay back in Greece? Or did he advance at the front of the army? Not that he was a great example.

I don't know that, but he's a conqueror. But he got out in front with his troops and led that way. So he was willing to do that. So in anything that we endeavor to do, we need to be willing to get in there and get dirty.

Next, what does the rebuilt wall and gates do for individual homes? This is another theme that I see coming out in chapter three as they're rebuilding together. Arlene, could you look at the paper? We'll do 10, Rick, 21, Emily, 23.

Claire, 28. And John, 30. Just one verse at a time,.

Just to see this theme coming out. Okay, 10. Yes. Next to them, Jediah, the son of Hawkei. Harimoth, repaired opposite his house. And next to him, Hathosh, the son of Ashaniah, repaired.

So if you could notice the theme. Yeah. After him, Marimoth, the son of Uriah, son of Hakaz, repaired another section from the door of the house of Eliashib to the end of the house of Eliashib.

I just wanted to hear you guys pronounce these words, actually.

Beyond them, Benjamin and Hashub made repairs in front of their house. And next to them, Azariah, son of Masahiah, the son of Aniah, made repairs beside his house. Good. And next to them.

Above the horse gate, the priests repaired, each one opposite his own house. Okay.

John. After him, Hananiah, the son of Shelmiah, and Hanan, the sixth son of Zalath, repaired another section. After him, Meshulam, the son of Barakiah, made repairs in front of his dwelling. Hmm.

So one thing you learn from that is I have a few more possible names if we ever have another kid. Yeah. It could be Zalath or Barakiah or Meshulam, that's a good one, yeah. You would never forgive me.

So the names are crazy, but what's the recurring theme noted by the author?

They're repairing the walls by their homes.

By their homes, opposite their house. So why do you think that is? Why do you think the author points that out?

Protection, I mean, it's gonna give them more. Yeah. You're gonna be more diligent with working on what's gonna protect you.

You see the benefit of it there, right? Anything else? You're gonna take pride in your work. You gotta stare out your window.

Right. You don't have to look shabby. Yeah. You're not gonna wanna just do shoddy work or get it done because it's your protection. Yeah. It's your view.

Yeah, it's your view, I like that. I never thought about your view, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, correct. So, in the church, how do we correspond that to the building of the church and the building of our homes?

If you work on things that are ownership. Excellent, okay. It's your foundation, it's your home.

Yeah. The church is a home in a sense, right? Okay, that's good. Let's picture a kid growing up in a church. If he watches a bunch of drama, a bunch of fighting, a bunch of disunity, and then graduates from high school, what do you think he'd be more prone to do?

Wander. Shake the dust off his feet, say, I'm glad I'm done with that drama, right? And move on. Versus a church that's unified, teaching the word of God, compassionate, merciful, sticking together. He goes off to college and that church is his foundation, right?

The point I wanna make is, it's easy to focus on our homes, right? Because that's Haggai, the whole story of, they were focused on building their houses, whereas God's temple remained in ruins, right?

But one of the things that our kids need most is a church that's solid to grow up in. A church that teaches the word. They need a church family just as much as they need a home family. Well, I don't know about just as much, but both are essential.

They need a church home to grow up in that represents Christ well. So how do we raise godly kids? How do we raise kids to know the Lord? It starts in the home, right? But it includes Sunday school. It includes the vacation Bible schools that we did.

And it's also true for us as adults. We need the church. It benefits us in our homes to be part of something that's solid. So an investment in the church is an investment in your home life. It's an investment in your kids.

Pouring ourselves into ministry benefits us too. Now, is that the main reason why we do it? No, I see you nodding your head, Ryan. What's the main reason?

Well, we do it because God has given us. So there's this consistency then.

Between us serving him and the blessing that comes back on us. So that means if we serve the Lord, we're going to get rich, right? Like the prosperity preachers say? No, not at all, not at all. But there is a blessing that comes with being part of the church, being part of the body of Christ.

So in this way, I noticed the author of Nehemiah, which could have been Nehemiah himself, noting that people are working opposite their house, opposite their house. They're strengthening the wall that surrounds it.

Spiritual Opposition, Prayer First, and the Armor of God

So good times in chapter three, right? Everything's groovy, it's all good. We're building, we're working together. Everybody's on the same page. But then chapter four, verse one. And here, I want us to notice that when you study a book of the Bible, it's not just to grab snippets from here and there.

Think about Bible study in terms of book by book. You always want to trace the meaning of a book from the beginning to the end, because there's a theme that will run through it. There's many ideas that carry over.

And what you want to do is begin to follow the flow of the text. Notice what the author is trying to communicate in the book to get the meaning of it. Otherwise, what happens is we'll proof text. We'll grab one little verse out of context here and another one there, and we'll string together a theology that matches what we already think.

But Bible study is about following the author's intent. Now, we've noticed earlier that you have, in the first chapter, Nehemiah's confronted with a problem, right? Which is that the wall is torn down, everything's a wreck.

So the first thing he does is pray. And that theme of prayer begins to emerge, right? And then in the second chapter, he has to pray in his spirit real quick before he talks to the king, who notices that he's sad.

And they go back to rebuild, and immediately, even before they start the building, there's what? Opposition.

Opposition. And who were they? Anybody remember the names? Sam Ballat and Tobiah, I don't know. That's it. Yeah, don't name your kids that.

Those are bad names. Tobiah and Sam Ballat, and Geshem, I think, is the third guy. These scoundrels are just popping up now for the first time. But here again, we're gonna see them arise, and they're beginning to typify spiritual opposition.

The enemy is stirred up against the advance of the kingdom of God. So he said this last time, that whenever the kingdom of God advances, there are spiritual forces in heavenly places that oppose the work of God.

Remember, we mentioned Daniel when he was praying and was about to receive this great revelation that the prince of the power of the air over Persia resisted Gabriel from coming, probably Gabriel, until Michael was sent to help him break through.

So there were spiritual things happening that were unseen until it was revealed to Daniel that that happened in that 10th chapter of Daniel. So the point is, whenever we advance in the kingdom of God, Satan notices and resists.

He deploys forces. And so here we go again. Chapter four, verses, we'll do one to three. I think we're up to Alex, right? Okay. Now on Sanbalat, heard that they were building a wall.

He was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria,.

What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones of the heaps of rubbish and burn the ones at that? Hmm. Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, yes. They are building. The fox goes up on it.

He will break down their stone wall.

Don't you guys just want to do that fake laugh like, oh, very funny, Tobiah. Tobiah makes a joke, right? What is his joke? Catch it? It's not going to stand. Yeah, he's like, this thing is weak. This is, if a fox got on your wall, the whole thing's going to crumble, right?

A little fox. So he's making fun of them. He's ridicule, mocking them. I noticed something when I was thinking about that. How much just, when you're flipping through the channels, maybe you're watching a sports game and a commercial comes on.

How much of humor in our culture is built upon ridicule and mockery and just putting other people down? A lot of it, right? So much of it. You talk about these roasts that people do where the whole line of the humor is knocking everybody else down, just tearing into people, destroying them.

Well, that's what Tobiah is doing here. He's tearing in. But notice, what are Sanbalat and Tobiah really intoxicated with? I think the answer's in the first verse. Mm, rage. They're intoxicated with rage.

They're overcome with this anger that's filling their heart. Take it a step deeper. What is the source of their rage?

That the Jews are rebelling. Yeah.

And there's been a lot of rage against Jewish people over the centuries, right? Go back to a little earlier, before they came out of captivity, Esther. Remember the story of Esther? The scoundrels then were bent on destroying, completely annihilating the Jewish people.

What is the source of that kind of rage? Did the Jewish people do anything to Haman? I think in this case,.

It is a matter of their insecurities. Often people who are... Interesting, yeah. And I think that's the case with...

Okay, so insecurity, right? Okay, so there's something in the natural there, right? They feel like they're threatened because the wall's being rebuilt and now there could be a strong city that could oppose them.

I think there's something more than that, though. Because look at verse one. Now, when Sanbalat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews. There's something spiritual going on, right?

So in Proverbs 20, verse one, it says, wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler. It's not wise to get drunk, is kind of the concept there. But then if you went to the New Testament, I've noted for you Ephesians 5, 18.

We are commanded, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. In that text, we're not talking about drunkenness per se, but that's only the analogy for something positive, right?

Do not get drunk on wine. What happens when you're drunk on wine? Right, the wine is taking some control over you, right? When you're drunk, right? So it's saying do not get drunk on wine. So it's not per se saying you can't ever drink wine, but do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.

Instead, here's the parallelism, what? Be filled with the Holy Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit takes you over, when he's controlling you, he's leading you into righteousness. He's leading you into the things that he wants you to do.

So on the positive side, we can be controlled by the Holy Spirit, just like a drunk person is controlled by wine. Here, Sanbalat and Tobiah are being controlled by rage, just like a drunk person is controlled by wine.

They're drunk, they're intoxicated with their rage, they're filled, they're stirred. And notice in 4 .1, it's not just that they were angry. He was angry and greatly enraged. I see an intoxication here.

And the point is, this is something supernatural. There is a spirit behind this kind of rage, okay?

As in the verse, all they're doing is rebuilding a wall. That's all they're doing. Yeah, why are they so filled with rage?

Yeah, yeah, it could be a threat, you know, eventually. But they're ridiculing like they have plenty of power, you know, and they're the rulers of the province, but they're so filled with rage. There's something spiritual behind that.

Demonic. Don't you think like with,.

That they know that God is with the Jews? Because, I mean, the king let them come and rebuild, first of all, and they were upset about that. And now everybody's pitching in and working out and they're like, what in the world?

What are these Jews doing? Like they must have somebody really, you know, working for them, you know what I mean? Like who's making their path a little easier.

I often wonder that. Do you think that people, let's say in our culture, who rage against God, do you think they know that God is with us and that he's against them? Kind of like Satan does, and Satan's time is running out?

Or do you think that they're so deluded that they actually think they can oppose and resist God's work? Or they don't see that there is a God? I think probably the best place to look for that would be Romans chapter one, where it says that the truth is made manifest.

They know, but they suppress the truth in ungodliness. So I always picture that like taking a beach ball and holding it underwater. You know, the natural thing is for that air to bring the ball out. You have to actively suppress that ball to hold it down.

And I think the knowledge of God, the knowledge of truth is there, but there's an active suppression of truth. It's turning away, exchanging the glory of God for a lie. I think that's what's happening to them, that somewhere deep down, they know that God is with them.

I mean, the evidence is right before them, the hand of God's favor with the king, they're sent back to rebuild, but they so hate that idea. They so hate the God of Israel that they push that out of their mind, they don't want that thought and they suppress it in order to persecute.

So here's the enemy. They're jeering, they're mocking. And now again, this is the lesson I think, we're talking about a theme throughout Nehemiah, right? Guys, don't miss the way Nehemiah responds. It's consistent with what we saw earlier.

Who's up? Christine, right? Okay, you're up verse four and five.

Hear, O our God, how we are despised. Return their reproach on their own heads and give them up for plunder in the land of captivity. Do not forgive their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before you for they have demoralized the builders.

Okay, once again, Nehemiah teaches us to pray first and act second, right? But I've already mentioned it, so I'll just ask you guys. In chapter one, verses four to 11, what did we see Nehemiah do? What's the context there?

Yeah, he gets the bad news and all that is is a recording of his prayer, right? It's him turning to the Lord, not taking matters into his own hands right away. What about two, four? What do you remember from that verse?

Yeah, very quickly. So what was the context there? He was talking to the king and he just, before he responded, he quickly.

Yes, the text notes that, right? So the author makes note of that, don't miss it. He's in a conversation, just like us talking right now. And before he answers, it says he prayed. So it's in his spirit, it's quick, but he's praying before he does anything.

And then the third example was chapter two, verses 11 to 16. The text doesn't explicitly say that it was a prayer ride, but what was the context here? Before he speaks to the people, what happened? Didn't he ride around and he?

Yeah. In the middle of the night, he goes all around this. So before he calls the people to action, he's going from spot to spot. I picture him just praying over every gate and just saying, Lord, can we do this?

And gaining strength from God. We noted Mark 1 .35. Jesus would have these all night prayer meetings with God, just him and God. He would go out and spend an entire night talking to his father. Amazing, isn't it?

What does that say for us? We should do that from time to time. Or we mentioned last week, if you wake up in the middle of the night, instead of just saying, oh, I can't sleep, say, oh, God's waking me to pray.

Change the way of thinking. So yeah, so this is Nehemiah's MO, right? He is a prayer warrior. He prays first and then he acts. He doesn't get that reversed. Somebody read for me, and I think you're up, Kimberly, right?

Ephesians 6, 18 to 20.

And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains.

Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Awesome.

So somebody who knows the context of Ephesians 6, where do those verses come in that passage? What's the context of Ephesians 6, 10 to 20? It's immediately after the armor of God, right? So our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but what?

Spiritual forces, principalities in heavenly places, in the spiritual forces of darkness, okay? And so because that's where our struggle really is, not against the earthly, it's against the spiritual forces.

What are we to do? We're to take on the full armor of God. Name some pieces of that armor. Breastplate of righteousness. Breastplate of righteousness. What else? Helmet of salvation. Sword of the spirit.

Sword of the spirit. What else? Helmet of salvation. Shield of truth. Helmet of salvation. Shield of faith, right? The belt of truth, yeah. Right, I think we got them all. And then it culminates in that passage in Ephesians 6, that whole idea of putting on spiritual armor culminates and pray and pray and pray, right?

Pray for me, pray for the gospel, pray. So this is what we're called to. In Nehemiah, he was a prayer warrior. Do you think Nehemiah understood what he was up against? I think from the evidence of his actions, he knew what he was up against.

There was something demonic about these men. Remember how the first time he spoke to him, how he just, boom, called it out. You have no part in this. That's all he said. He's like, we're going to rebuild.

He didn't even explain that he has orders from the king. He takes it as a spiritual opposition and he directly confronts it head on. Man, we need to think more like that sometimes, right? Well, a better question.

Do you think Sanballat and Tobiah realized what they were up against? They didn't, you think they really got who they were up against? No, they're there sitting back, you know, making fun. Yeah, if a fox climbed on your wall, it would crumble.

Right, just laughing, patting each other on the back, hooting it up. They didn't know what they were up against. Who were they truly up against? The God of Israel. Nehemiah is representing the God of Israel and the hand of the God of Israel is upon Nehemiah.

When they resist Nehemiah, they are resisting God. That's the force that powers him. So another great verse, Ephesians 119. Give you a second to find that. So the point is, we seek God in prayer because our God is greater than our foes.

And if we go there, if we go to the spiritual, instead of just getting in the flesh and you know, when something bad happens, we just try to take it into our own hands. But if we go to prayer first, we're dealing with a power that's far superior to whoever our foe is.

You ready with it? Ephesians 119, think about this for a second.

And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might? And keep reading the next phrase. That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

So Paul here is giving kind of a prayer over us that our eyes would be open to know. And he says here in verse 19, Ephesians 119. What is the greatness of his power that's at work in us? And what kind of power is at work in us?

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. So do we really have anything to fear? If God is for us, who can be against us? No one, right? So we have opponents like these that will come up, won't we?

In our work, in our families, in our friendships, in our lives, we will oppose people and people will oppose us, I should say. But greater is he that is in us. If we'll recognize who is on our side, we turn to him instead of just trying to fight our own battles.

Man, there is power in that. So in 4 .6, we get the wall built to half its height. Mary, you read and Shirley, would you like to read that for us?

Oh, Shannon, I'm sorry. Shannon,. 4 .6. Among God and father of all, who is over all and through all in all. That's Ephesians, right?

Okay, back, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Back to the book of Nehemiah, chapter four, verse six. Sorry about that, I put you on the spot there and I had you in the wrong book and then I had to flip you back over here.

So we rebuilt the wall so all of it is reached half its height for the people who worked with all their heart.

Made me interested to see that. They got it built to half its height because everybody was, there's this initial burst of optimism, right? Everybody on board, they're just building together but we're gonna notice is now some discouragement is gonna set in because after that initial burst, now their resources are running dry, their energy is running out, their supply lines are not being restored and so they're running out of steam.

What would that mean for us as a church? It's possible to have a great burst of energy but to recognize that it can get tiring and we can't settle for half done. It would have been really easy and hadn't Israel had a past of doing that?

They started to rebuild the temple but what happened? Discouragement set in, opposition set in and they scrapped it. 15 years, they're like, forget it, too hard and they went back to dealing with their own houses, right?

So that's something we can also be prone to but here they've made it halfway. They've made it halfway. That's encouraging on one hand but discouraging to the same degree, right? The glass is either half full or half empty, yeah.

Back in chapter two, verse 17, come let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. They're gonna suffer derision whether they complete it or whether they don't and they might as well do what God wants them to do and experience derision for a good reason rather than because they haven't been able to build it.

Right, right, yeah and the point here in 2 .17 is, look, our torn down wall is a source of mockery. This God's people decimated, conquered, right? And so it was a source of derision against them and it was good for them to build it but you're right, no matter what, they're gonna get derision.

If it's not for that one thing, it's gonna be for something else. And we have to expect that. We have to expect that, right? That's first Peter. In this world, we're gonna have trouble, we're gonna suffer, but we take heart because Christ has overcome and we expect that but we overcome through Christ.

The Intensifying Opposition and the Need to Pray and Set a Guard

All right, getting close to the end here. Seven and eight, we're back to the beginning, right? We're Nehemiah chapter four verses seven and eight.

But when Shemuel and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Aptodites heard that the repairing of the wall of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry and they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in them.

Okay, and yeah, verse eight, stop there. Okay, so they keep going despite the opposition, right? And yet, do the opposers just quit? Or what do they do? They unify. They unify and they ramp it up, right?

Banning together. Notice now it's not just Sambalat and Tobiah sitting back in their lawn chairs making fun. Now it's the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashtonites all joining with them, joining forces.

This is like, this is getting real now. This isn't just laughing matter. Isn't that true of our spiritual lives? The more ground we take for the kingdom, the more we'll be opposed. I just heard today about a group called Afterschool Satan.

Afterschool Satan is in a number, Satan is in a number of different states right now where they're trying to get afterschool Satan clubs. What's their rationale? Their rationale is the good news Bible clubs that are meeting after school are unconstitutional, separation of church and state.

Now what they don't acknowledge is that all groups have the freedom to meet, okay? In fact, it wasn't allowed that Christian groups could meet in schools until other groups gained that right back and it was activists, mostly homosexual groups that demanded the right and because the door got open to them, Christian clubs were allowed back in, back in the 1990s I believe it was.

So Christian clubs are constitutionally allowed to meet after school. But here's what I notice. They wouldn't be doing this if those good news Bible clubs weren't reaching kids. So they're organizing this.

They actually don't believe there is a Satan. There are a bunch of rationalists that think that there is no such thing as Satan or God and that they're making a point. It's kind of a satirical point, but they're actually going to meet as an afterschool Satan club.

Well, what does that tell you? That tells you that when you advance the gospel, when you advance the kingdom, Satan is stirred up. There's a hornet's nest that gets stirred up when the gospel begins to run.

What does that tell you about what's happening in the Middle East right now? I was writing a sentence here and somehow I cut off the actual sentence. You guys notice that? That way you can fill in the blanks.

What do you think that tells us? Could there be a connection between the fact that this is the largest revival or the largest turning of Muslims to Christ in the history of the world and the fact that there's so much terrorism?

Do you think those two things are related? They say hundreds of thousands of Iranians have come to know Christ. That has never happened in the history of the world. And yet Iran is still intent on destruction as a nation, even more so, right?

And the whole nuclear program and all of that stuff. North Korea, Kim Jong-un, whatever his name is, just keeps getting worse and worse. Now he's pushing the envelope farther and farther, right? Could it be that missionaries are there?

Oh, he would never admit it, but could it be that there's North Koreans? He admits to like a few thousand Christians in North Korea, but some Christian estimates are that there's hundreds of thousands.

I think there's a connection between his rage and the advance of the kingdom, right? So this is common to see people in Muslim extremists, terrorists, that are threatening. I think it's reactionary to the gospel advancing, almost for the first time in some of these places, where the walls of Islam are beginning to crumble.

And yeah, so it makes sense. So there again, we have it in 8 and 9, or verse 8. It's not just gonna stop, it has to be overcome. And verse 9, we're gonna close with that. Greg, would you mind reading that for us?

Yes, we pray to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

Okay, and the final point there, Nehemiah doesn't stop with praying, he starts with praying. You catch that? So we pray, but what else? What does it say? And set a guard, set a guard. We as Christians pray first, but we also defend.

We also defend. What are ways that we are wise to protect ourselves as a church right now, and just in general? What are some ways that we would be wise to protect ourselves? How do we defend ourselves in this America.