An Old Testament Revival - Part 2 — David Ravenhill

With you. It's been a little bit of a forming away, but that's a sign of the times, I guess. Did you have your Bible tonight? Turn with me again to 2 Chronicles. I want to continue on in the life of Hezekiah.

A different situation that we find him in. Hezekiah is one of these Bible characters that, no Bible character was perfect, but he was a man of God, and his life is summarized for us at the end of chapter 31.

So if you have your Bible, 2 Chronicles chapter 31 and verse 20. It says, and thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah. He did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in order, and he prospered.

I think that's a pretty good summary of somebody's life. I have told my wife on more than one occasion, if I go first and there's enough money left in the kitty to afford a tombstone, I would like those two verses up.

Now obviously it would have to be modified a little bit. It would read like this, and thus David did throughout all America. He did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all of his heart, and he prospered.

I think you would agree that that is quite a summary of somebody's life. Everything this man did, God put his blessing behind. One of my pet peeves as a Bible teacher are chapter divisions. As you know, they were not in the original.

And so let me just keep reading. I'll go back to verse 21. Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all of his heart, and he prospered.

And after these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib, who is the enemy, the king of Assyria came, and David Judah besieged the fortified cities and thought to break into them for himself. Notice, after these acts of faithfulness, the enemy comes.

Not after these acts of rebellion, not after these acts of perversion, not after these acts of disobedience, but after these acts of faithfulness. A good sign that you are prospering spiritually is that you are under the attack of the enemy.

Let me say that again. A good sign that you're prospering spiritually is that you are under the attack of the enemy. In fact, if the enemy is not attacking you, you should be asking the question, why?

Why am I no longer a threat to the enemy? My father went to Bible school for one year, to which he credits his success, I think. He didn't have to unlearn a lot of things. But he went to an old Methodist school run by a godly man by the name of Samuel Chatwick in England.

And Chatwick was a real revivalist, a real man of prayer. And on the weekends, they would be sent out on preaching assignments. It was an all-male school. There were no distractions. But they'd be given a preaching assignment to go to some little Methodist church and sort of flap their wings a little bit and get some experience.

And Chatwick would give them a word of exhortation. He would get them into the chapel, give them a word of exhortation. And then my father said he would pray. And at the end of his prayer, he would pause.

And after the benediction, he would pause again and he would say, go and may the devil go with you. And then he would pause again and say, because if the devil doesn't go with you, you're not worth sending.

And that was good Methodist. In other words, your job as a believer is to give the devil a headache, to ransack the enemy's camp, so to speak, to go in and plunder his kingdom. Whether it's going and testifying to somebody or whether it's on your knees in the closet or whatever.

And if the enemy doesn't fight back, you know that you're not too much of a threat. Isn't that right? We are not very much concerned about Tahiti being a major threat to America because it's a little tiny island down there in the South Pacific.

They don't have any, you know, weapons of war or anything. We are more concerned about Russia. We're more concerned about China because they are a major force. And when we become a major force, spiritually speaking, then the enemy gets upset.

And here is a man that is doing everything that is right and true in the sight of God. And as a result, it says that after these acts of faithfulness, if you like, after these successful acts, the enemy comes.

We're going to look tonight at how to resist or how to overcome the enemy. Last night we talked about revival. It's one thing to experience revival. It's a personal revival. But it's another thing to maintain that because invariably when we begin to move in the spiritual realm and make advances, the enemy will counteract.

He will try and distract us, bring down the fear and other things into our life to try and get us off track. And so we're going to look at how Hezekiah now resisted the enemy. Now before we do that, I want to take you to two verses.

God’s Training Through Conflict

So keep your finger there. But if you go back to Exodus chapter 13, Exodus 13 and verse 17. Now it came about when Pharaoh had let the people go, people being the children of Israel, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was closer and nearer.

For God said, lest the people change their minds when they see war. And they returned to Egypt. Now God, as you well know, delivered the children of Israel out of the bondage of the Egyptians out of the house of bondage.

And His purpose was to take them through the wilderness and eventually into the promised land. And the straightest distance between the two points obviously is a straight line, or the shortest distance I should say, is a straight line.

And as God looked at that straight line, it went right through the land of the Philistines. And then He looked at the spiritual condition of these children. And let's face it, in typology, they were just redeemed by the blood of land.

They were babes in Christ. They didn't really know this God very much. Moses was one that was setting an example. They'd seen the power of God, but they really didn't know this God very much. And so they were little babes in Christ.

And God looked at their condition and said, if I take them the shortest route, going right through the Philistines, there's going to be warfare. They are children. They don't know how to overcome the enemy.

And so God bypassed the problem. He went the long way around so they didn't have to face the problem. And we do that as parents. Those of you who've got children, especially little children, grandchildren, maybe a one-year-old or a two-year-old that's just barely walking, you know, you don't go down to the major intersection here in Finlay where there's all those traffic lights and Mack trucks and so on, and send that little toddler across the street by himself.

Well, maybe you can in Finlay, but you know, let's say Chicago. Instead, you cradle that little one in your arms and you walk them across that treacherous crossing, put them down on the other side. As a parent, you recognize, for a grandparent, my one-year-old or two-year-old is not mature enough to go across that major intersection with buses and trucks and everything else.

God does the same thing. He says, my children are not ready to fight, and so I will bypass the conflict. Now, turn with me to the book of Judges for a moment. Judges chapter 3. I'm reading from verse 1.

Now, these are the nations which the Lord left. Let me say that again. Now, these are the nations which the Lord left to test Israel by them. That is, all who had not experienced the wars of Canaan, in order that the generation of the sons of Israel might be taught war.

Those who had not experienced it formally. These nations are, and notice number one, the Philistines. In other words, there is a time when God will bypass the Philistines. There is another time when God will place a Philistine directly in your path because he wants you to learn how to fight.

There's been times, I'm no longer pastoring, but I pastored for many, many years, and I knew my congregation pretty well, and so somebody would make an appointment to see me, and I knew what they were wanting.

They were wanting some sort of quick answer for me to lay hands on them and impart something or epart something, whatever the case may be, and ten minutes later they walked out and their problem was solved.

And I would look at them from time to time, if I knew them well enough, and I'd say, listen, I'm not going to pray for you because I believe God has left you with a Philistine, and you are wanting me to kill your Philistine, and God is wanting you to grow up and learn how to kill the Philistine yourself.

And so you need to go and learn to fast and pray and use a concordance or whatever it is and get on your face before God and cry out for help and so on, because if I keep killing your Philistines for you, you will never mature.

As I write, our oldest daughter is a missionary in China. She's been there now for 20, 25 years, something like that, and her first year of school was in New Guinea. We were missionaries there in the early 70s, and I remember her coming home with her first assignment from school.

It was a sheet of problems, math problems, 2 plus 2 equals 3 plus 1 equals 4 minus 1 equals, and so on, and she came to me saying, Daddy, I need help with my homework with this assignment, and I could have sat down and literally in 30 seconds done all of those problems, handed her the sheet of paper, and said, Lisa, here, you can go play.

But I realized she was in a new phase of her life. She was no longer at home playing with the dolls and so on. She was now in school getting an education, and so I said to her, Lisa, you need to work these problems out.

What is 3 plus 2? I don't know that yet. And I made her face her Philistine, if you like, and about five minutes later, she killed it. You know, 3 plus 2 is 5. Well done. Okay, what's 7 minus 2 and so on?

She has a degree today. I don't, but imagine if when she got to college, she was sending me letters every week. Dear Dad, here's your next assignment. It needs to be in by the end of the month, and by the way, there's a major project due at the end of the semester, and I want to give you plenty of time, so my next correspondence, I'll be laying out all the details so that you've got plenty of time to work on it.

Now, we laugh at such a thing, and yet that's what we employ people like these two on the front row to do. To do their, to do your assignment, and as a result, we never really mature. We never really grow.

And yet, my Bible tells me that God is looking for overcomes. Isn't that right? The whole book of Revelation is about, at least the first part of it, to him that overcomes, to him that overcomes, even as I overcame, she said.

It may interest you to know that when the bride comes down in the form of a city, in the book of Revelation, it says that the way into that city is through one of the 12 gates, and those 12 gates are made of what?

Ladies and girls, thank you. They're not made of rods or brass or aluminum or steel. They're made of pearl. What is a pearl? A pearl is a problem that's being overcome. Isn't that right? In other words, at the center of every genuine pearl, there is a problem.

I think God, in his infinite wisdom, knew he could have made those gates out of anything, but he was looking for a company of overcomers. Those that are going to make up the bride of Christ have got to be an overcoming people, overcome sin, overcome doubt, overcome fear, overcome whatever it is, to him that overcomes.

You know, I will grant this and I will grant that. And so we're looking now, if we're back here in the two chronicles, we're looking at the way in which Hezekiah overcame the enemy. So let's go back again, and we'll pick it up in verse 2.

Recognizing the Adversary and Choosing Whom to Serve

When Hezekiah saw that the enemy, Sennacherib, had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem, the first thing that Hezekiah does, he recognizes that he has a problem. He has an adversary. You and I need to be aware of the fact that we have an adversary.

The Bible says your adversary, the devil. Your adversary. Not the person on the left of you, the person on the right of you, not the person behind you, in front of you, but your adversary. Hezekiah goes around seeking to destroy, seeking to undermine the work of grace in your life, seeking to bring doubt and fear and insecurity, seeking to lure you back into sin and carnality and all of those things.

And so the first thing we have to do is recognize that we have an adversary. The second thing is, it says in verse 1, that he intended to break into the city of Jerusalem for himself. There are two people that want your life.

God and Satan. And they both want you for their purposes. God wants you for his purpose. He wants you for himself. The enemy wants you for himself. And again, we've got to choose. Choose you this day who you're going to serve.

But the third thing that Hezekiah does, he decides to do something about it. Notice in verse 3, he decided with his officers and his warriors. In other words, he recognizes the enemy is coming and he doesn't sort of sit back, get back in his hammock or whatever and say, well, Keisar Aserail, whatever will be, will be.

He makes plans. I cannot allow the enemy to come into my city. You'll notice that the enemy has already besieged certain cities that were in Judah. Verse 1 again. After these acts of fatalness, Nechrut the king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and besieged the fortified cities.

So he's already taken over, seemingly, some territory. Even though these cities are somewhat fortified, he's gone in and he's besieged the fortified cities. He's now heading towards the big city Jerusalem where Hezekiah obviously was dwelling because he was the king.

And so Hezekiah decides to do something. Again, he makes up his mind with his officers and his warriors. And the first thing they do, they cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city and they helped him.

And many people assembled and they stuffed up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region saying, Why should the king of Assyria come and find an abundance of water? Now one of the strategies of war, obviously in the old testament and possibly still in some parts of the world, is to cut off the water supply.

If you can cut off the water supply, then you, that person will not be able to exist in that territory because they can only exist for maybe one day or two days or whatever. But then they're going to have to go and find a fresh water supply while they're away, of course, you can take over.

Remember what they did to Abraham? They filled in the wells of Abraham. That was part of a strategy to get Abraham to leave where he was in order to take over his land, his territory. And so Hezekiah says, listen, if the enemy comes, there is an abundance of water.

Around the city we have numerous springs, not just puddles because of the latest rain, but springs. There's light, there's water coming up out of the ground. Not only that, but there is a river that flows through the region.

And if the enemy comes, there will be an abundance of water. If there's an abundance of water, we'll never get rid of him because he can camp indefinitely around the city. And no matter how well we are fortified, as long as the enemy can remain there, we are under siege and eventually we'll need to go out of the gates to go out to get our crops and so on.

We can only exist for so long. And so if the enemy comes, we've got to cut off that which will supply life to the enemy. What we call again in the New Testament repentance. Cutting off that which supplies life to the enemy.

In other words, you know, if I have a problem with pornography, I need to get rid of my playboard magazines. Because that is supplying life to the enemy. If I'm on the internet, I need to get a filter and so on.

In other words, anything that flows out of me that can feed the enemy and sustain the life of the enemy has to be cut off. Now I tell people I am a more of a teacher than an evangelist, so I'll tell you the truth.

I say that jokingly, but you know evangelists come along and they put a nice spin on everything and you can't help but resist coming forward and getting saved. And us teachers sit there thinking, boy, they don't know what we're in for.

You know, by the time they get saved, God's going to slap them down on that wheel as a master potter, spin them until they don't know which way is up, apply pressure on the inside of all of them and conform them to the image of Christ and so on.

But if we told you that from the get-go, you'd never get saved. So the evangelist comes along with a sort of rosy picture of how great it's going to be, you know. But listen, this is not an easy thing is what I'm saying.

It is not easy to cut off the supply of water. There is a river, it says, or a stream that flowed through the region. Have you ever tried to divert a stream? Come out here, maybe to some little brook somewhere, take the kids when they're small, you know, try and make a little wading pool and you take the rocks and you know, it's almost impossible, but water just seems to pour through and so on.

Here they were so determined to block up every single supply of water. This takes tremendous determination, tremendous effort. And spiritually, when it comes to fighting the enemy, we've got to give him that sort of, you know, determination.

That's why the Bible says we wrestle, you know, we wrestle. We've got this sort of name and acclaim sort of thing. Sometimes there is an almighty battle going on where it's my will and the will of God coming against the powers of darkness and so on.

But anyway, he cuts off that which supplies life to the enemy. And we have got to do the same thing. As long as there is something in my life or your life that is out of sync, if you like, with the word of God, that thing has to be dealt with.

I'm sure that some of you here, some of the older folk anyway, like myself, you know, on a cold winter's morning, you've gone outside, maybe opened the door to do something, and there is a little kitten, a little bundle of fur that's got, you know, lost.

And you take pity on it because, you know, it's one of those beautiful balmy 40 degree below days here in North Dakota. And you decide that you'll go to the refrigerator and pour a little bowl of milk and you put it down there.

That poor little thing, you know, laps it up and looks at you like, thank you so much. The problem is, every time you open the door from then on, you have a problem sitting right there. That bundle of fur, you fed it to try and get rid of it.

And the same thing is true, spiritually speaking. When you feed the enemy, you will never ever get rid of it. You've got to take drastic measures. I've got to cut off that which supplies life to the enemy.

Rebuilding the Walls of Spiritual Protection

The next thing that he does, in verse 5, he says he took courage and he rebuilt the wall that had been broken down. Now both of these things, and all of these things for that matter, require honesty. In other words, Hezekiah, I've got to thank you.

Listen, my city is surrounded with a water supply. And when the enemy comes, he's going to be able to camp indefinitely if there's a source of life there. And so I've got to cut off the supply. Then he had to inspect the walls.

If the enemy comes, there's a hole spot right there. Here's another area where all the rocks are loose. Here's another area where there's a big gaping hole. Here's another area. In other words, like Nehemiah, I don't think it was quite as bad as Nehemiah's day, but he has to go around and determine, listen, these are areas where we are vulnerable.

These are areas of weakness in the wall that unless we strengthen those areas of vulnerability, those areas of weakness, the enemy is going to come in and destroy it. And so he had to set time aside along with these workers, obviously, to rebuild the wall that had broken down.

Now the book of Proverbs tells us something interesting. Proverbs 28, I think. There's a 25, 28, somewhere thereabouts. It says, like a city that is broken in two without walls is a man or a woman who has no control over her own spirit.

In other words, the Bible likens us to cities with walls or without walls. You can tell by my accent that I wasn't born in Texas. I grew up in England and there is a city there called the City of York.

And it is one of the old cities and it still has part of the original wall around it. Of course, you go back hundreds of years. Germany's got numerous ones. I've seen them, these old cities with these beautiful old walls around them.

That was their protection. And as long as that wall was intact, intact, you could go to bed at night and put your head on the pillow and sleep soundly knowing that you were protected in your city because of that that wall.

But if the wall was full of holes and low spots, then obviously the enemy could come in through those areas of weakness and vulnerability and take control of that city. And instead of you being in control of the city, you were being controlled.

And Proverbs says, like a man or a woman who has no control over her own spirit, is a person, again, like a city with a broken down wall. And I remember when I passed it again, the Bible says, know the condition of your heart.

I could sort of know my congregation with walls, without walls, with walls, without walls, with walls. You get to know this person, you know, is under the control of alcohol or this person's under control of anger or this person's under the control of this, this person's in control.

You know, you get to know people after a while and you know what controls them, what habits control them and so on. And we've got to learn to rebuild the walls of our life. Now, how do we do that? Let me jump over to the New Testament for a moment.

If you, again, are following me, turn with me to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4. And we'll pick it up in verse 27. And do not give the devil an opportunity. In other words, don't give the devil, my margin says literally, don't give the devil a place.

In other words, don't provide the enemy with any grounds of access into your life. Verse 28, let him that steals, steal no longer. Now, here is a person, obviously, who's vulnerable in the area of theft.

And it's, then Paul says, listen, stop stealing. You don't need to steal, stop stealing. But when you stop stealing, that doesn't rebuild the wall, that just identifies what the problem is. Instead, he says, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good.

In other words, this person was not just somebody that was stealing for the sake of showing off, you know, maybe some teenagers hanging around on a street corner on a Friday night. They had nothing else to do.

And another teenager says, I bet you can't go into the store then, you know, swipe some cigarettes or something. The guy, you know, he thinks, I'm going to show him I can do that. You know, five minutes later, he comes out with flashes of cigarettes, you know, obviously that's wrong.

But this person was stealing rather than working. In other words, he, if he needed something, he waited till his neighbor went off to work and broke into the house and took whatever he wanted. That was his lifestyle.

Paul says, stop doing it, get yourself a job. And then he says, performing with your own hands what is good. In order that, notice that little phrase, in order that he may have something to share with the one who has a need.

In other words, learn to give. You've spent your life ripping people off, basically. Now learn to start giving back. Imagine the devastation that happens when somebody is stealing. My wife and I began our ministry in Teen Challenge in New York City.

Right in the early days with David Wilkerson. I had one night, one day a week, another friend and I, we had a prison ministry. We go to a place called Rikers Island. There were about 6 ,000 inmates. And 90 of them were in there for a heroin addiction, drug addiction.

And they estimated, this is back in the early 60s, they estimated that the average addict would steal between $100 and $200 a day material in order to support his habit. Now if you steal something and only get $200 for it, it means you had to steal something worth at least, you know, three or four or five hundred dollars.

So they would break into a church, for instance, and they'd steal a drum set. Maybe that drum set, you know, cost you $600. But on the street, it's only worth $200. And here were 6 ,000 addicts, which was just the tip of the iceberg.

I mean, there were literally tens of thousands of addicts in New York City. Imagine the devastation in just one day from all of those addicts. I mean hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars a year stolen.

And so what Paul is saying here, listen, you've been ripping people off basically, taking things from them. Now that you've got a job, start giving back. That's how you rebuild. You do the opposite spirit from what you're doing.

Instead of hurting people, now you're blessing people. The next problem is there in verse 29. We're still in the book of Ephesians. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. This person isn't a a thief.

This person is just a person in the congregation that loves to, you know, be the gossiper and tell everybody what's going on. But it says here, let no unwholesome word, my margin says literally, it's the word rotten.

Let no rotten word proceed out of your mouth. But only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those that hear. In other words, instead of running everybody down, instead of ruining everybody's reputation, start building people up.

Start, you know, calling your neighbor and say, isn't salsa wonderful? And that if there is a crisis of some sort, listen, we need to pray for salsa. Don't need to go into details and say, you know, you know, the daughter's pregnant and this is the second one, blah, blah, blah.

Isn't that terrible? And the news starts going around town. It's all not, you know, you get on the phone and say, listen, salsa's going through a very difficult time. Let's pray for her right now. Let's uphold her in prayer.

Let's uphold the family, whatever it is, you know, don't tear down. But you rather build up. And then verse 30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? Verse 31. By allowing bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and all of these things to come out of our mouth.

And it says, put those things away along with all malice and be kind one towards another, tender-hearted, forgiving. In other words, instead of all that bitterness and resentment and vengeance and trying to repay and get even with a person, forgive.

Be tender-hearted, forgive. That's the way you rebuild a wall. You do the very opposite of what you've been doing. If you've been stealing, start giving. If you've been gossiping, start blessing. You know, if you're being cruel and harsh with people, start forgiving them and so on.

And so we go back now to Hezekiah and it says he took courage and he rebuilt the wall that had been broken down. You see, the enemy knows your area of vulnerability. He knows your wall. He knows the condition of your wall.

And the way he knows that is he is not omniscient like God is that knows everything, but he knows everything there is to know about you. And the way he finds out is the enemy is a fisherman. How many fishermen are here?

We won't have an all-day call. I like to fish too and I get a chance. But you know, you go to the lake and you've got your tackle box and in that tackle box you've got a variety of lures. And you put a lure on the end of that line and you cast it into the lake and you, you know, troll it through and do that three, four, five, maybe six or ten times and there's nothing happening.

And you think, well, you know, they don't seem to be attracted to this particular lure. I'll try another one. And you put that lure on and, you know, first cast, wow, you got it. You know, maybe two or three casts more.

They are going for this particular lure. The enemy long ago figured out what lures attract you. He's cast things into your mind and he's watched your reaction. And he writes down in his little palm pad or iPad or whatever, you know, so-and-so lust.

This person, anger. This person, pride. This person, bitterness. This person, jealousy. This person, whatever. And that's why he constantly fishes with the same lure in your lake or in your mind. You think, why does the enemy always torment me with this particular problem?

Why is it that it's always this one thing? Because the enemy has figured out long ago you're besetting sin. And until you learn to master that thing, until you overcome that thing, until the day you die, he'll fish with that lure because he knows that's where he's going to get you.

I mean, why waste time fishing with something that's not going to, you're not going to go after? Isn't that right? In other words, the enemy's intelligent and he's got his wiles that we need to be aware of and he knows what he's doing and he's a master of what he does and he knows exactly how to bring you down, how to defeat you.

And it's only when we rise up and say, you know, I'm sick and tired of this thing being a problem in our life. By the grace of God, I'm going to start resisting the enemy on this particular point. Let's go back to verse five.

He took courage and he rebuilt the wall that had been broken down and he erected towers on it. Now, I don't know if Hezekiah was the first one. I need to do a little bit of research as to who was the originator of the towers.

It could be that Hezekiah was the first one to build towers on the walls of Jerusalem. But the towers were where the watchmen stood. I understand, I'm not that familiar with this neck of the woods that you live in, but I understand that, you know, 20 or 30 years ago this area again had major satellite dishes that were constantly scanning the heavens in case Russia launched an attack on America.

And there was an early warning system all across sort of North America, these huge satellite dishes and watching for that missile and, you know, being able then to hopefully counteract the attack and blast it out of the air somewhere and that's all.

Now, obviously when we go back into the Old Testament, they didn't have that sort of sophisticated electronic system, but instead they had watchmen. And the watchman's job was to be there in the watchtower and he had a certain area that he had to constantly keep under surveillance.

And if there was a cloud of dust on the horizon, then he had to determine, is this the weather changing, the wind blowing, and dust coming, or is this a bunch of merchants coming to sell their words in the local marketplace, or is this an advancing army?

Once he determined that this is an advancing army, then he would pick up his trumpet or his ram's horn or whatever, and he would blast away. And if it was daylight, of course, people would be out in the fields and they would hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm, and they would make their way back into the city, close the gates, and so on, and there would be safety.

Why? Because the watchman was doing his job. If the watchman fell asleep, then obviously the enemy could creep right up and besiege the city. And the Bible says, of course, when it comes to you and I, that we are to watch and pray.

Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, goes about his roaring might. In other words, we should be vigilant spiritually. America, prior to year 2001, was basically sleeping on the job. We were invincible.

We're the greatest nation on earth. We've got the greatest weaponry, greatest air force, and so on and so forth, and yet all of a sudden we're attacked. Twin towers come down and so on, and the whole nation now has changed as a result.

I do a lot of flying and, you know, I have to face the fact that this is all a result. I've got to take my belt off and my shoes off and so on. Most of the time I can take a shortcut and not have to do that anymore.

But most of the time, you know, you've got to go through that screening process. Why? Because we are now vigilant. We are aware that we could be under attack again. And spiritually we need to do the same thing.

We need to be vigilant. We need to constantly be alert to the devices of the enemy, the ways of the enemy. We're not to be ignorant, the Bible says, in which the ways in which the enemy works. And so we need to erect some towers, if you like, spiritually speaking.