13 minute read
My pulpit message notes: Family |Re-centre your defence
from TT 178
by TIMES TODAY
Re-centre your Defence
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God singles a man, one man, and his family to build the Jewish people, the chosen people, not to exclude others, but to include all. If you read the instructions that are given to Abraham, he is given a blessing in the book of Genesis 12 that he will be blessed to become a blessing to all the families of the earth. And you know that God kept His promise to Abraham and that promise was so that Abraham would be blessed, but that blessing would cascade to your family and my family, to all the families of the earth.
So we go to the patriachs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then we go to the judges like Mrs. Deborah, Gideon, Samson and Samuel. Then we go to the kings. The great in stature one - King Saul, the great in fame - King David, the great in wisdom - King Solomon and then this kingdom is split, the northern kingdom that is overtaken by the Assyrians because of their sin and about 135 years later, the southern kingdom also taken over by Babylon. They go into exile as a way of judging their sin and God remembers His people and in waves brings them back from the exile to the promised land.
And that promise of Abraham still remains that they were a chosen, not just for themselves, but a blessing that would bless all the families of the earth. When they return to the chosen land, the last lot brought in by Ezra in this return, they find a lot of spiritual despondency. They have lived so far from knowing the LORD that when they return to the land of the LORD, they have forgotten God and His ways.
So God quickens the statehouse comptroller to the Persian King Nehemiah and not just him alone, but together with others like Ezrael to bring about revival to God’s people. And therefore it is no surprise in verse 14 when Nehemiah tells them, “fight for your families”, because it has been a family affair from Genesis and He will bring these families to His conclusion as we see in the book of Revelation, where John sees a number that no man could number and you and I are there, but in between we are there, we are charged to fight for our families.
Challenges that the people of God were going through (Nehemiah 4)
- “When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, 2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?” (Nehemiah 4:1-2)
Enemies that were coming against these families
External Enemies
1. Sanballat - verse 1,2
2. Infrastructural enemy - They did not have correct constructional material because the stones had become heaps of rubble and burned. verses 2b
3. Tobiah the Ammonite - verse 3 “Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!”
It’s a good thing that the wall had been built all around and had reached half way, but half full means half empty.
- This was a technical / infrastructural enemy because at that time the only protection that was offered to a city was its walls. If a city was not walled then it was vulnerable to the enemies. Today, the secular state of Israel has a lot more sophisticated walls than the walls we are seeing that are being rebuild by Nehemiah. They have the iron dome, surface to air anti-missile protection etc.
But at that time you needed a wall. At that time the cities had such huge walls that snipers would be able to defend the city from the wall. But they were also so wide that horses and chariots would ride on the wall as part of the protection of the city. You can imagine the ridicule how stinging it was to be told that the stones are burned and in ruin.
- The history of this time was very complicated. Nehemiah has been given permission by the prince of Persia to rebuild the wall, but for the neighbours they knew that the strength of Jerusalem meant that they would no longer take advantage of that city. So as much as they could not outrightly wage war because Nehemiah and associates had state permission to rebuild the wall, they had to do it by ridicule, by bringing them down and guerrilla attacks here and there. So their threats were not empty, though they could not come up in open warfare. It had to be in hiding / covert.
- When you see the amount of anger and vitriol that they had, you realise how tough it was. - Verse 8 “They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it.”
Internal Enemies- Verse 10
Not only do they have the external enemies, they had an internal enemy of discouragement.
- They had worked all the way to half point rebuilding this wall, but physically they were fatigued and emotionally completely exhausted. Then there is so much verbal that ‘we cannot rebuild the wall’.
- Verse 11,The external enemies
- “1 Also our enemies said,
- Verse 12, The internal fragmentation
Do you get a picture of the forces that were against them? The kind of fortifications and enemies that were plotted against them? Do you see how they were surrounded and in much jeopardy, externally, infrastructurally and internally losing hope?
- That’s the same thing. Don’t we open up our papers and read this family member kills this family member? Don’t we read things about families whether extended, or nuclear that just makes us think it’s too much.? We have built the wall to half way, but we are done, our strength is over.
With the kind of enemies that Nehemiah had, did he have a strategy? I suggest that they had three Fs.
“The enemies have surrounded us”, Nehemiah said. The Job is great and our strength is small. We’re doing the best with what we have, is the report from the scene. Then he says some really ridiculous things:
1. Fear not
2. Forget not
3. Fight on
Fear not
- This verse was very encouraging to me, “Fight on”, but something bothered me about this verse. The beginning is ridiculous, “After I looked things over”. There are external enemies, infrastructural enemies, internal enemies. There was danger all over and the first thing Nehemiah tells them is ‘Fear not’.
- In the Bible there are at least 365 verses, it is suggested one for each day, for us not to fear. ‘Do not fear. One of my favourites is Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
- With all that is going on in our families, with all that was going on with the families that Nehemiah was taking care of, he tells them, fight for your families, but the order of the play, the diamond for 3-2-2. was this; ‘fear not’.
- Fear can be so debilitating. No wonder someone called it, F.E.A.R the acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real. Maybe the ridicule that you have heard has made you so scared and you have been told, your family, it will never work. The word of God comes to you and says, ‘Fear not’.
- We have people in our families trying to re-centre and defend them is so hard, because they are not in a stable mind. What is that to God? He tells Nehemiah the word that gives him strength to tell the people, and it is all the people that are listening, ‘Fear not’.
- If you and I are going to fight for our families, we need to shed off ‘fear’. Fear when you hear that someone is in addiction, or someone is depressed or when you hear the word ‘cancer’, or age is increasing. Nehemiah told them, ‘Fear not’. Do not be afraid of them.
- Had Nehemiah calculated the risk? Yes he had. But he looked at all those things and says this is evidence, but it is false evidence appearing real.
Forget not
- So many times you and I forget Who is on our side. After being told ‘fear not’ we are told ‘Remember the LORD.” The antidote for fear is remembering the LORD. You and I have no idea what power is besides us in the Lord Jesus Christ, even in that family where they do witchcraft. ‘Remember the Lord.’.
- Remembering the LORD did not make Sanballat’s words fewer. The evidence was not reduced. Remembering the LORD did not make the wall automatically
go up by itself. But it brought a perspective that the people would go to the third ‘F’, to fight on. - Nehemiah tells them fear not, forget not, and he chooses two attributes of God that can help them at this time as they fortfy themselves to fight for their families, he says ‘Remember the LORD who is great, expansive, powerful, awesome.’
- One of the challenges of modern Christianity is that we are running out of vocabulary to describe God is because when you are asked how your day was, ‘it was amazing’ then when singing ‘amazing grace’ you have cheapened the grace of God. We have cheapened the vocabulary of God for mundane things. How is your boyfriend? answer: He’s so awesome. If your boyfriend was awesome you wouldn’t be dating him.
The word used for awesome, the root is fear. One who is blinding. One who instils fear and inspires reverence. - Can you imagine what it meant to them when they were told, fear not, forget not the LORD, the one who does to their enemies, they cant see. His brilliance is excess. They were saying that a fox can topple the wall, but their God is great, but also so awesome, one who instils fear, inspires reverence, one whom when you see, like the Christmas carol when we go into in the next few weeks, ‘Fall on your knees, …” because of His awesomeness.
Fight on
Lastly he tells them, ‘Fight on’ “fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
-This is not an obscure part of Scripture. We have seen what Psalm 144 says, “He trains my fingers for battle,…”. Jeremiah 51:20 says, “You are my war club, and with you will I shutter the nations.”
I like the war attitude that Moses has in the penultimate plague when Pharaoh tells him - actually, I now let you go, but not with your livestock cause that means you are now going forever. Exodus 10:26 Moses tells him, “Not a hoof will remain behind.” Joshua said in Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house…”
- Some of us need to go and look for the verses that talk about the attributes of God, because there is an attribute of God that is relevant to your particular situation.
- Some of us need to put on our fighting gear. You need to take on this diamond formation to fight for your family. To fear not, no matter how great the challenges are, to forget not,
- it amazing that our families are being attacked daily, but we are not in the word daily to know the God who is with us. God who when He is next next to us is great that a chime of money coming in our phones in the form of MPESA.
- Some of us need to put on our boxing gloves and fight for our families. Some of the ways we can fight of them are:
i. Pray for them.
ii. Presence - You can choose to be present in their lives
iii. Protection. You can be a protection for them.
iv. Praise. You can have a word of praise for each one. Send a message just praising them for one thing or the other.
v. Provision. Making provision for them.
Verse 19-20
- This is not a solo fight. If yo are in a family where things are tough, come to the larger family of God and let us pray victory for you. Sound the trumpet and we will all gather there and fight with you.
