FBC Morning Light – March 24, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Again, just a reminder of what's happening at our church on this coming

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Lord's Day. Gordon Taylor is going to be speaking in the morning service. He's spoken in our church before, and of course the services will be live -streamed, and so if you can attend in person,

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I encourage you to do that and to be here for Sunday morning service. If for whatever reason you're not able to get out to church on the

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Lord's Day, then encourage you to watch the morning service at 10 .30 this

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Sunday morning, and Gordon Taylor will be speaking. And again, next week, the morning light devotionals,

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I'm not sure what the status of those is going to be and what they're going to look like, if I'll be doing those somewhere while I'm on vacation, or if you'll be seeing reruns or what, but I do intend to have the morning light continue next week, even though I'm getting away for a few days of some rest and refreshment.

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Well, today, we're again in the book of Nehemiah, and a couple things stand out. One of them in chapter three that really struck me when

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I read through that chapter, and it may be one of those chapters that is tedious for you to read through, because it's really kind of a list of names, and where they worked, and what part of the wall they worked on, and they were building, and they set up the gates, and here, and da -da -da, and that may seem a little,

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I don't know, tedious to work through. But one thing that strikes me about that is the point that God's people, a good measure of the unity of God's people, is when everyone, regardless of their so -called social status, works together to accomplish that goal, and they do their part.

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They do what they can in that process, and that may be different for different people.

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There may be, even in Nehemiah's rebuilding the wall, certainly there were people who had physical limitations, and were limited in how big a stone they could carry, or something of that nature, what exactly they could do in the construction process.

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But everybody got involved in the way that they could, and that's a good indicator of unity among God's people, and it's always a blessing when you see that in the work of the

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Lord. How good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity, the psalmist says.

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And indeed it is, to see people young and old, rich and poor, come together and be united on a project that needs to be done in the work of the

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Lord. But as we've seen already in Nehemiah, even though that project is worthwhile, and there's great unity among God's people, it doesn't mean it'll be without opposition.

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Because those who do not have a heart for God, and really don't have a heart for God's people, and the welfare of the unity of God's people, will do what they can to undermine that unity and that project, that goal that is being held out.

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Again, we see this in Sanballat in chapter 4, when he speaks before the people, and he says, what are these feeble

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Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? And Tobiah joins in as well, and he says, whatever they build, even if a fox goes up on the wall, it'll break down their stone wall.

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You know, mockery can be a great debilitating force, to be belittled and be derided.

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It can be discouraging. And this is, of course, exactly what Sanballat and Tobiah wanted to do.

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The question then comes up, how do we handle that? What do we do when there are those who want to undermine the unity of God's people?

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And want to tear God's people apart, and to stop God's people from working on the project that is laid out before them, that God has given them to do?

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How do we handle that? Well, Nehemiah shows us. Nehemiah says in verse 4 of chapter 4, here,

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O our God, for we are despised. Turn their reproach on their own heads, and give them as plunder to a land of captivity.

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In other words, what do we do? We take it to the Lord. We take it to him and let him handle it.

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Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. We let him repay. We let him deal with it. Now, there may be occasions where certain things have to be done to protect

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God's people. But only under the leadership of God's Word and God's Spirit should those things be done.

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And, you know, in the New Testament, for example, there are plenty of instructions on what to do about the divisive brother who wants to sow discord among the brethren and so forth, and how to handle them and so forth.

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But the thing is, God's given us instruction in that. So when these kinds of things come up, this kind of opposition comes up, we turn to God.

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Lord, have you given us some instruction here? What should we do? How should we handle this? And if there is no clear instruction, no clear direction in that, then we hand it over to the

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Lord. You know, just as in another place, Paul says, I handed him over to Satan, that the body may be destroyed, but maybe the soul will be saved.

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And you just turn that person over to the Lord. This is what Nehemiah does. He just turns that opposition over to the

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Lord. So another thing to point out and just to be aware of, and we see this in chapter 5, is that it seems that any good crisis gives an opportunity for someone to take advantage of that crisis.

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And this comes out in chapter 5, verses 1 to 9, when some nobles are willing to take advantage of the crisis for their own personal gain.

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Well, we see that, we see that even in our own world today, don't we? I mean, how many times have we heard in the last couple of years this little idea, well, so -and -so or such -and -such a group of people don't want to let a good crisis go to waste.

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And if I recall correctly, well, I won't even name the name because I'm maybe not exactly sure of it.

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But I remember one top democratic strategist, if I can just use it generally like that, who made that very statement.

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He said, we don't want to let a good crisis go to waste. We want to take advantage of this crisis. And some will take advantage of a crisis to the hurt and the oppression of others.

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And that's exactly what happens in chapter 5. Well, for most of us, we just need to be aware of that potential.

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That that can happen. For some of us, we need to be careful that we're not oppressors.

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We're not taking advantage of other people when they face a crisis. Instead, we want to come alongside them and help them out of that crisis and make their lives easier in that crisis.

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And that's exactly what Nehemiah does. We want to follow his pattern. All right, so some good thoughts to keep in mind from the book of Nehemiah today.

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Let's ask God to bless them to our hearts. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for these encouraging ideas from your word today.

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And we pray that we would not be discouraged by critics who want to undermine the unity of God's people.

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But instead, we as your people would rally around the work of the Lord and be faithful in doing our part in it.

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Regardless, regardless of who we are, where we are in life, may we do our part.

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And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your