Ministry (D Vitale)

March 15, 2023 • 8:00 PM

Ministry (D Vitale)

Bring the book

So I’m going to have you turn with me in your Bible, but before you do, I just want to introduce tonight what we’re going to be looking at. This is something that I hope will be a blessing to us. What we’re going to look at over the next few nights is the Christian’s longing. Now, you don’t really need a PowerPoint for this, but it does make it a little bit easier because I’m going to put a lot of scriptures up on the wall here.

But the Christian’s longing. Now, there’s a reason we chose that word, and you’re going to see that in a minute. But there’s just something about this aspect. This word is used nine times in the New Testament during a time when you and I, as children of God, actually deep down have a longing. Okay? And there’s something very unique about this, and we’re going to try to open that up over the next few nights, starting with tonight.

Now, just so you can follow along, I’m going to put the five headings up. For the next few sessions, tonight we’re going to look at this. I’ve called it “Bring the Book,” and tomorrow night, “In the Beginning.” Then we’re going to look at the following night, “After the Water Brook.” So, you can kind of get the theme here. On Saturday night, we’re going to look at “Refer to the Beginning and Reject,” and you’ll see that. Finally, on Sunday, we’ll dive into “Realize, Run, and Reflect.”

Again, here’s a little photo of a man reading his Bible. I don’t know if you can see it clearly here, but he’s sitting in the quietness with a little light, and this is where we’re going to start. Right? This is the Christian’s longing.

Now, we’re not really going to get to the verse that I’m going to show you here, but we’re going to start tonight by reading it together in 1 Peter, chapter 2. You can tell by the picture where this verse is going. But Peter said this very emphatically to the Christians who were scattered in the five areas that he was writing to. He said, “As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” Now that’s going to be our main theme verse. I’m starting with it tonight, but we’re going to segue and go far back in Scripture.

Now let me highlight this again: This is it. “Desire the sincere milk of the Word.” If we’re ever living in a day when we’re lacking, I know for me, life is hectic. Life gets busy. I was calculating some hours the other day for something I was doing for a YouTube video, and I looked at my wife and said, “I’m not going to be a man. But something’s got to give. There aren’t enough hours in the day.” And we all know that, right? Work schedules are crazy. Traffic schedules are crazy.

We don’t have that much traffic where I live, but coming here today, I was telling Dave earlier, when he came here to set up, I’m driving down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and all of a sudden my GPS went off, jumping an hour ahead. A truck tipped or something, and so I had to get off. Traffic! Just think about how many hours a year you spend sitting in a car; it’s unreal.

So just think about this for a minute. We have little time in our lives to have this longing. To change it up from the King James, I like the New American Standard. I like this picture too. But this is what Peter said. He said, “Long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow.” We’re going to get into that verse a little bit later. So longing for the pure milk of the Word. The Christian’s longing.

There’s something unique about this; it is woven through the Old Testament and the New. So we are going to go to the Old Testament tonight for a little bit and see what we can learn from this. We’re going to go to the book of Nehemiah. Now, you can turn to it if you would like. I’m going to put some of the scriptures up, but if you have it open in front of you, you’ll be able to follow along.

I couldn’t get to it in time; I was in Mansfield for the weekend. It was a really busy weekend. I came home, packed my suitcase, and left. So it’s difficult. I wanted more scripture on it, but we’re going to start in the book of Nehemiah.

And we’ve got this little picture here because we’re going to look at some particulars. We’re going to skim through the book, and I wish I had a better mind to go and delve into the depths of the illustrations that God uses through Nehemiah, through Ezra, and through the Levites that spoke, especially in chapter 8. What we’re about to see, read, and learn is just fabulous. It’s just staggering.

So let’s read here. I’ll put it up on the screen: “The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah. And it came to pass in the month of Chislu, in the 20th year”—I’m sure I’m not saying that right—”as I was in Shushan the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, ‘The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.’ And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept and mourned certain days and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

Wow! I’m going to say this again, probably. I was affected by this a lot in the last two weeks in the sense that I was studying mainly for what we took up on the weekend in Mansfield. What we took up was the picture of the glory of Christ in the church. We took that from Revelation, chapter 1.

There were moments that I was sitting in my chair there reading, and I looked at it and it so affects you when you get it. Did you ever read the Bible or hear something, and something in it just strikes you? And we weep.

We were speaking tonight at the supper table about our reverence or our lack of reverence. I don’t mean that as a way to castigate anyone, but how often do we actually have a reverence for the word of God? We’re going to see that as this unfolds here.

Here’s a man; I’m going to try and pull up this kind of homely picture here, but it was the best one I could find to illustrate it. Let’s just start by saying this: Would you like to be used by God in a good work?

What we’re going to look at over the next few minutes from chapters 1 through 8 is that it’s over and over when Nehemiah and others said, “This is a good work.” This leads to something that we’re going to touch on. I’m going to give you just three quick points here:

The person that God uses. Now catch this. This is really clear in the life of Nehemiah. The person that God uses has a deep concern for the people of God. And that is seen all the way through, woven through this book, even past where we’re going to be looking tonight. Just grasp that for a minute. The people of God are precious to the heart of God. And God looked at Nehemiah.
Now, I want to tell you something. For four months, Nehemiah wept and prayed, and we’re going to touch on that in a little bit. So the person that God uses has a deep concern for the people of God, has a prayerful perception of God’s purpose, and thirdly, the person God uses makes a devotional promise to carry out that purpose.
That is so clear in Nehemiah; it’s really beautiful to see it start to develop.

There’s something about Nehemiah’s concern; I’m not going to take time to read it or we’ll be here all night just reading eight chapters. Nehemiah’s concern in chapters 1, especially in verses 4, is why he had that in a separate screen.

You look at those words: he sits down, he weeps, he mourns, he fasts, and he prays for that span of time. What a sad state he thinks for himself—a sad state in Jerusalem. His prayerful attitude is seen in working with God. Now, if you’re looking at it and you slide down to chapter 2, I’m going to try and put some of the verses up here.

We see what comes out, especially as he says he takes a firsthand inspection. This next picture is going to show us a little bit of that. I can’t really illustrate it with a photo, but here he is. He takes one animal and he goes out.

We’re going to see this on the screen when it comes up, and he takes a few men with him. By night, probably with torches when all the enemies were sound asleep, he goes and makes an inspection. He goes all around the city. You can read it in that chapter, starting with one area and he comes right back to the same area. We’re going to see that over and over again tonight.

He takes a look, and for four months, as he wept and prayed, he thought about all the people there, but especially a work for God. God did something in this man’s heart.

Now, let me tell you something. When it comes to you and I picking up our Bibles, and I said to somebody, so many conversations this weekend; it was really wonderful. There were so many young people there! I was just amazed. I turned to one young man and I said, “Never read your Bible to get to know your Bible.” He looked at me. I said, “We need to read our Bibles to get to know Christ.”

And we’re going to see that as this unfolds. Because if I open my scriptures whenever it is—morning, evening—I like to listen; I like to drive down the road and listen to it audio. I learn a lot from audio. But there’s something that affects the heart. We just don’t want it to affect our heads, right?

What he heard from Hanani about the desperate circumstances affected this man’s heart. Now, look at what it says here: “So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. I arose in the night, I and some few men with me, neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. Neither was there any beast with me save the beast that I rode upon.”

Here’s a man that is letting us know by his own words, here’s the Spirit of God letting us know by recording him in Scripture that this man was affected by God, and God put something in his heart.

So let me just step back from this for a second. It’s nice to ask ourselves questions. It’s nice to be convicted. I like it when I get convicted by the word of God. How often does this happen to me? How often do I come to the word of God or I hear something?

We’re talking tonight about Jim Allen. He came our way, stayed for a week, and had some ministry years ago—well over 30 years ago. I remember some of the things he spoke on, and something I’ll mention in a few moments, but I remember that series of meetings. He had on our way, and it was more than just me. But God put something in our hearts through what we heard.

Now, of course, our brother back then was using the scripture, but God put something in our hearts. You know what’s wonderful? Wouldn’t it be a great thing starting tonight? If tonight and the next four nights, if God would take his word and so adjust our thinking so that it actually got put in my heart?

Right? This is a great thing. Nehemiah had taken it to heart, and God had put something in his heart. So here’s a nice picture here I found.

So here’s Nehemiah. It’s something that he says here. Well, let’s look at it. He says all this; he takes the rulers. He said, “Let’s arise.” The rulers said this; they said, “Let’s arise and build.” So they put their hands to the good work.

Now I say that in particular because of the verse that’s coming up. But isn’t it nice when there’s unity amongst believers, when they hear the word of God taught and they all together say, “Let’s arise, and let’s put our hands to the good work?”

You see, two days before this, two days or a day before Nehemiah got there, they weren’t thinking this way. It wasn’t in their hearts. They weren’t willing to say, “That’s it. Let’s stop everything. Let’s go out and get all the rubble, and let’s build it back up.” Because Nehemiah— they didn’t even know he existed.

So Nehemiah comes; he meets the rulers. They scan the city. They go from gate to gate to gate— all ten of them at that time. They come back to the beginning and they said, “Let’s arise, let’s build.” And they put their hands to the good work. It’s great!

So here’s another picture of Nehemiah kind of looking over the walls. So I’ve got a real fast question to ask us that pops on the screen: Do you think a good work for God will go without opposition? Just try it.

Now, there are a plethora of ways this could be explained. You’ve probably experienced it. I know I have. God moves in an area, and souls start getting saved. We were out west for years preaching, and I tell you what, we were going from colony to colony, and God was saving, and we didn’t even know it.

People were coming out of the woodwork. When the assembly first formed there, there were nine of us that broke bread. In three weeks, there were 65, baptizing over 30 at once in a pond, and God was working. And the opposition came out of the walls, came out of the woodwork.

Every cynical group and their brother came out to try and mess up what God was doing. You just try it. You try and take to heart what God says, and you try and carry out that purpose that God has put in your heart. You do try and be like a Daniel who purposed in his heart not to do this for the honor of God.

And look at the opposition! You might end up in a fire. So I just say that on the side. Do you think a good work for God will go without opposition? And it’s a rhetorical question to which we know the answer.

Because the very next verse, starting immediately, says the enemy begins, right? Here they are, smirking. And this is what the enemy said or was said about them: “But when Samballot, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the Ammonite official, and Geshem, the Arab, heard about it, they mocked us and despised us.” Listen to what they said: “What is this thing that you’re doing?”

You ever hear anybody say that? Like, “What? What are you doing?” We can think about that in a worldly sense. People have said to others, “What is this that you’re doing?” And they end up changing our lives with some fantastic invention, right? We understand that.

These men were against the work of God. And so that’s what they said. But I love that the last verse of chapter 2, if you have it open—you’re looking down at it—the last verse of chapter 2, and this is what we read: “The God of heaven has appointed us for his purpose and will give us success. Therefore, we, his servants, will arise and build.” Haha, that’s awesome!

You can’t get through the first two chapters and realize something: Here’s a man that God was using who energized others. Here’s a man that God knew he had put something in his heart. This man had a purpose that he was going to fulfill, and in it, you’ll find saturated with a word of prayer.

And we’re going to see that as well. The God of heaven will give us success. That’s a wonderful thing. How often have we prayed like that? We read those words here. We read them in Joshua. Sometimes we don’t like to attribute a word that we use in business to the things of God—success— all through scripture.

I’m just saying that kind of as an aside: They were doing a work for God, and he will give them success. So I want to look down at chapter 3. Matter of fact, I put another screen here just for us.

This is in scripture, but it basically says this at the end of chapters 2 and starting in 3: The building of the wall and the setting up the gates begins. All right. So all that takes place from the moment he’s in the palace and from the moment he is serving the king.

This king looks at his face. We get a chance to read it all: “Why are you so downcast? Why are you so disheartened?” He tells him about his people. God opens the heart of the king, right? Everything takes place. He gets here with all the supplies that the king provided. We’re in touch on that in a minute; it’s just fabulous when all this happens.

Here we are breaking into chapter 3, and the work begins now. The walls are starting and the names are given. I’m going to show you. This is a homely picture. I pulled this offline; I turned it sideways because it’s north and south, and here it’s laying down.

But this is a— I tried to add some black to it to make it clear. But there’s the wall. There it is, about two and a half miles around. If you were to walk across the top of that wall, it’s about two and a half miles. I’ve never been there.

So we read the list of names; it’s incredible. We wouldn’t take time to read them and I couldn’t pronounce them. They start with the walls around the sheep gate and they worked that area for all that mileage. It says that they went 20 feet high, by the way. The average height of that wall is 39 feet.

Now just picture this. Two and a half miles of 39 feet high, eight and a half to nine feet wide. One report I read said there are some areas that were 23 feet wide. Now, you talk to people who are in the building work today, and we’re going to find out how God helped and moved and how this got done in such a few days. Just phenomenal.

But I want to take a few minutes to—and I know a lot of this will be conjecture on my part, but you’ll see the picture—I want to take a few minutes and I want to look at the gates because I find a lot of instruction in these gates.

We’re going to take a look at them because he starts at the sheep gate, and that’s what you find in chapter 3. So right there, the sheep gate—if this was turned this way, you’d see it on the north side—and he starts to work there.

I like to suggest that this gate speaks of salvation. This is where the sheep came in and out. This is where they brought the sacrifices to the temple, right? For the sins of the people. By the way, this is the only gate that is recorded to have been sanctified. It never says that about any other gate that we’re going to read about.

Oh, by the way, there are no locks and there are no bars on this gate. The sheep gate was never locked. It was readily accessible. It was always open. What a beautiful picture of salvation.

We’re going to find something here that he starts here and ends here; this is a beautiful thing. You know, in our lives, my life didn’t really begin in 1959, but my life really didn’t begin for 10 years.

Because the moment I came to know the Lord Jesus and the Word of God starts to open, right? We start to live, and we start to read and we start to obey the Word of God. That’s when life really begins. Salvation starts at the sheep gate.

You can almost take this and preach the gospel from it because it was God’s lamb. We were speaking the other night out west in Ohio, and there’s the picture; there’s John, and he takes a look and he says, “Look,” he says, “the Lamb of God.”

It so bothered the people that he said, “Takes away the sin of the world.” It’s not the lamb of God that atoned for sin. It’s the lamb of God that takes away sin. This was a powerful gate.

It was sanctified; no locks, no bars, always open. What an encouragement! That’s where Nehemiah began. Guided by God, we’re kind of saying it’s conjecture because we’re not exactly sure. But what a beautiful picture it is of the salvation of God.

But then he moves quickly to the fish gate. Now, I don’t know what you think about this gate or how you’ve applied it if you’ve been reading it at all, but I like to look at it from the standpoint of this is kind of our telling forth of the salvation that we have, right? We’re telling people.

A young man at home recently got saved, and he came up. He’s only like eight or nine—sharp kid. He came up to me the other night and he called me Uncle. He calls me Uncle Dale; I have no relation at all.

He asked me about somebody I knew. He knows. He said, “Are they saved? We need to tell him,” he says, a young guy. We went to a conference together and I ordered a Bible bag because the one I got here, the last one I had, I got 40 years ago. It’s falling apart.

So I tried to get exactly the same. He looked at me, he said, “I want one too.” It’s so nice to see that eagerness to tell forth, right? So the sheep gate could speak to us about the telling forth of our salvation, right? The Lord called his disciples and he said, “I will make you what? Fishers of men,” right?

So much more could be said about that, but the fish were brought in and out of the city through here. Real quick, I’ll get bogged down here. Then they turn the corner and they come to the old gate, verse 6 of chapter 3.

The old gate really speaks to us of God’s ways. If I can say it that way: because God’s ways do not change. I just want to linger there for a minute; God’s ways do not change no matter what time frame we’re living in.

Now we could take and apply that—I’m not going to say anything that touches on the world events and anything political, but you get the gist, right? God’s ways never change, and really every believer needs to experience this gate.

I need to experience the old gate, not only the putting to death of the old man but learning the old ways of truth. They don’t change. Isaiah made that pretty clear when he records these words. God said, “I am the Lord, and I change not.”

It’s a very, very clear picture. It really speaks to me of the character of God that never changes. I want to tell you something. You just have to live a little bit in this life and have a few difficulties, and you know what you’re going to rest on?

You’re going to rest on the character of God that never changes and His Word that never changes. You get down— you have a difficulty coming into your life, and we’re going to be touching on it in one of these gates coming up—this awesome reality, God says, “Here I am; I haven’t changed from eternity till now.”

Oh! We have a God who never changes. We sing about that with the children, right? The God who never changes. I forget the song right now. The God that lived in Moses’ time is just the same today. We used to love singing that when we were kids.

So that’s the old gate. There’s a whole lot more that can be said about that, but I don’t want to linger because I want to watch the clock at the same time trying to transfer to you the things that I’ve enjoyed from this.

He leaves the old gate and he comes to the valley gate. I don’t know the exact distance; I haven’t measured it. But if this is to scale, it’s probably the longest distance. The valley gate can easily speak to us of the difficulties in our lives. Valleys.

We like to be on the mountaintop, right? I often would hike. We’d take some of the folks who had gotten saved out west, and we’d hike up in Glacier National Park. It’s just beautiful, staggering.

Has anybody ever been there? Raise your hand. Has anybody ever been to Glacier National Park? Oh, you haven’t lived! I mean, or you can go over to the border to Banff, same place. But I never forget the first time I went. I took a bunch of guys with us, and it took us 45 minutes to hike.

We finally got to the top and looked over the edge. Where’s Daniel? I think I mentioned this at the conference on Saturday. And I looked down and gasp! The waters looked like the Caribbean and they were like 39 degrees; this rich turquoise blue, all the animals and the rams bucking heads and all the white mountain goats.

You looked around and the next time I went, I took my son. He was between deployments, and he came out and had this military bag on. We hiked up there; he’s running uphill and I’m heaving. We get to the top and he sits down, looks over, and I look over, and he’s got tears in his eyes.

I said, “It’s quite a place, huh?” He said, “Now I know what I’m fighting for.” There’s something about a mountaintop experience that is great for us, it’s emotional, it moves us. We love the mountaintop, but we don’t like the valleys.

Can I tell you something? I’ve been to some high mountains. I’ve taken a whole group of young people; we’ve been hunting elk way up at 9,200 feet in a scapegoat wilderness where we were in a cabin tent up in no man’s land. No cell phones; nothing worked up there.

And there we are far up there. Can I tell you something? Very little grows on the top of the mountain. There are some things—some unique flowers, but come down to the valley, it’s rich and lush— the waters, the protection.

Here’s Nehemiah with these folks. They built all this way, and they come to the valley gate, and the valley gate tells me about trials. Can I tell you something? We mentioned this again on Saturday.

There’s a portion in God’s Word, which is the very first portion in the New Testament that was ever written chronologically. That’s James, chapter 1. Now, as James begins, he writes to the 12 scattered tribes. But you know what verse 2 said?

The very first words that are recorded for us chronologically in the New Testament are these: “Count it all joy when you are encamped about with trials of various kinds.” I talked to a young man recently, and he said, “I haven’t had a trial.” I said, “You will; your book is being written, but that chapter has yet to be written.”

I’m looking at the faces of some that I’ve recognized over the years. I might not have talked to you for 26 years since I’ve been here for more than a day. But I want to tell you something: Life is filled; life is riddled with times of difficulty.

But can I tell you something? You’ll grow. You’ll grow in the valley. I put my arms around a young man; he’s a doctor, a doctor of physical therapy. He was my son’s physical therapist for quite a few years. He moved on to another hospital—great guy, had difficulties in the family.

He’d pull me over and say, “Could you pray with me?” We’d run into the chapel there and I’d pray with him. I don’t believe he’s yet come to know Christ. He looked at me; he points to my son over there on an exercise table. Half his brain is gone; he can’t speak, he can’t eat, he can’t drink; he’s blinding one eye; he’s got no legs.

He said, “Here I am, I’m working on your son three days a week. How do you do this?” I looked at him. I put my arms around him and said, “Josh, I want you to understand something. That was a valley experience.”

I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what we saw him go through and what it took us all through. But one thing I can tell you is I would never want to be the same I was before; you know why? Because in the valley we can grow. And the wealth of nutrients that are found in a valley are far greater than they’ll ever be on any mountaintop.

So Nehemiah comes to the valley gate and they go through this experience. There’s something about this growth that is hard to express because this is what happens: He goes to the next gate. It’s the dung gate.

Something unique happened at the dung gate, and I’ll just rein in by saying this. At the dung gate, which speaks of cleansing, really it’s a stripping off— it’s really getting rid of the rubbish in our lives that the valley experience revealed. Did you catch that?

How often is there something in my life or my mind or whatever it might have been? Then after the valley experience, and after we started to see some progress, finally, after 26 months, we said goodbye to a hospital and we walked out, and things started to look a little bit brighter.

You know what? The things that meant so much 26 months before mean nothing today. They mean nothing. There’s something about getting to the dung gate as a Christian. These people, they built all the way around. They got to the dung gate. After working so hard in the heat of the valley, something took place.

The valley experience reveals the rubbish and the stripping off begins. I didn’t even—we don’t even realize that the rubbish is there. sigh I had the solemn responsibility last week of burying a friend. What a friend! You say, “Was he your age?” No, he was not; he was 95.

The guy was a semi-pro football player in his early days. God came in and saved that man at the age of 47, and God gave him 48 more years. He was the oldest living individual in that small assembly that I’m part of.

He would tell me over and over and over, we got him out of the rehab hospital. He’d gotten sick with the flu back in November, early December. He came home and looked at me, and he said, “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to break bread again. I can hardly get out of this chair. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back.”

Okay. He said, “You know, everything in my life, my home is gone. My wife is gone. My finances are gone. My health is gone. Basically, everything I have is in the pocket of this little walker.”

He said, “When I look back on my life and everything that I’ve been able to accomplish and enjoy with my family, here it is. It’s all reduced to this little plastic bag hanging on the side of my walker and my Bible.”

He said, “All the things in this life that I once considered to be so necessary and so great and so wonderful, they don’t mean anything.” He told me the last time I was there, it was on a Wednesday night before prayer meeting, and he looked at me and said, “I can hardly move from this chair. My shoulders are killing me. But every time I sit down here and I start to fade off, I say, ‘Maybe today, Lord, I just want to reach out and take the Lord’s hand.’”

Do you know it wasn’t a couple days later? His grandson called me and said, “We found Papap.” He took the food off his tray that they had brought in and he put it on the end table next to him.

He said his hand was reaching out and his head was on the tray. He said, “He’s home with the Lord!” I thought to myself, everything he accomplished in this life—after ninety-five years—all he wanted to do was take the hand of the Lord.

Do you know that we can take the Lord’s hand every time we open his word? There’s something about the valley gates; there’s something about the dung gate that makes the things in the valley and the things we once thought were so great become so little, right?

So here’s the believer, and he’s at the dung gate, and the things are being stripped off. What does he do here? Oh, he turns a corner. I like that. I wish I could— you know, I wish I had a real picture, but they turned the corner and there’s a fountain gate, right? What a beautiful thing.

There it is in verse 15 of chapter 3. The fountain gate speaks to us of the waters of cleansing, right? I’ve been through the valley; I’ve had that experience. I’ve gotten rid of the refuse in my life, and now I’m at the fountain, and the fountain gate pictures that—the waters of cleansing.

It’s not so much the word of God, we’ll see that in a second, but the waters of cleansing by the Spirit of God. Then, they have a chance to flow; then they have a chance to really do their work. All the rubbish is gone. Now I’m just giving you kind of a rough picture.

The next gate’s right down the road here. It’s the water gate. There’s a lot that could be said about that in verse 26. The water gate—oh, by the way, the water gate—there are no words that speak about its repair. It was never repaired. I thought that was pretty interesting.

It wasn’t even rebuilt. There was nothing that needed to be done to the water gate, and there are no locks and there are no bars. The water gate speaks of God’s Word. Now, more on that in a second. I want to get to the next gate.

Right up here is the horse gate, verse 28. If we were taking weeks on this and had Bible study, we’d be reading it and talking about it a little bit differently. The horse gate really reminds us of a spiritual warfare because this is where the horses would come and be made ready.

They would go get their water and they would go to this gate. The horses were made ready, and all the equestrian work was done at the horse gate. Everything basically speaks of preparation for battle, right? Right?

Especially after filling up on water and all the stuff was ready to go, they were fortified by the word of God when they came to the horse gate, and the battle preparations were made. Then he moves on to the east gate.

The east gate really speaks of the coming of our Lord Jesus. It’s not so much the rapture, but the coming to reign and to rule. Without getting deep into that, we know the picture of the Lord Jesus coming in and entering this gate riding a donkey, right? All the people cried, “Hosanna in the highest,” right?

You know, in a coming day, the Lord Jesus is going to come down from the Mount of Olives, and he’s going to come through this gate again. Back in 1541, when you read the history, there was a sultan that bought it, and he smeared it shut. You can look at the pictures. One side is all mortared shut.

I can tell you, brick and mortar is nothing for the Lord. He’s going to come through that gate. Psalm 24 tells us, “Lift up the heads of the gates,” right? “And the King of glory is going to come in.” There’s something about this east gate that tells me that the Lord is going to come, and what a prospect that is!

The Lord Jesus is going to come back. Matter of fact, he’s actually going to come back here. He’s coming to reign in a future day. But let’s move through here because this one here, this last gate kills me.

Now let me explain that. It’s called the inspection gate—or in your Bible, depending on the version, it’s called the mikvah gate. I’m sure I’m not pronouncing that right. I don’t have that Hebrew way of saying it, but the gate mikvah— they called it.

There’s something about this gate because really it’s the gate of inspection. But if you look it up in all your dictionaries and concordances, you’ll find that the name or the word mikvah means “the appointed place.”

As a matter of fact, if you zoomed in on it and looked at real pictures, this is the gate that kind of led into the courtyard, right? I’ve seen many drawings on it, but it kind of led into the courtyard of this appointed place and really speaks of God’s presence.

Now, a quick history of this, which is just staggering, and I hope I don’t do this injustice. But if you were to read the history of this location, 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24, which is the last chapter, you’ll find—I’m not going to touch on it that much except to say this: that was the story recorded for us where David sinned.

In David’s sin, he took a census; he counted the people. As a matter of fact, if you remember the story, it says it very clearly in both those chapters. He tells Joab and his men, “Go out and count the people,” especially those that could draw a sword. Joab looked at him and said, “Are you kidding me? Why would you want to do this, David?”

He says, “What is this that’s in your heart? I’m not reference.” David, he says, “Don’t bring this guilt upon God’s people.” The Bible tells us in those accounts that David was adamant—

“Go count the people.” I find it interesting. I listened to it again driving up here. I find it interesting. I don’t know how long it would have taken, but it took nine months and 20 days for Joab to count the people. I’m sure he could have done it quicker. Joab had more sense about David’s sin than David had about his own sin.

You say, “Why are you saying that?” Well, not to elaborate on the story, but God—how can I say this?—David directly disobeyed God’s word. God had said, “Don’t do this.” In David’s arrogance, or his pride at that moment, he did it, and the result of David’s transgression in numbering the armies was judgment from God.

It’s staggering when you read it. But in grace, and in kindness—I’m being tender to say this—in grace and in kindness, God stopped David and God stopped the angel’s hand at the threshing floor of Ornan, or Arnon, however you say it, Arnon’s threshing floor.

So what? I’m not going to get into the threshing floor, but at that location, you read the story. David turns and looks. He sees the angel as he turned to smite Jerusalem. The Lord said, “That is enough.”

God particularly showed grace to David and to the people that day. Get my laser out here; that’s where it happened, right there. Before David could amass the goods to put this together, right out there was where it took place—at that location. None of this was even done.

David was inspected by God, and the inspection that David got at the appointed place was, “What did you do with my word?”

You see, at that location, David had to give an account to God for what he had done with his word. Oh! I often think, and I don’t even have this you know jotted down in my notes, but I often think of the terms that James uses when he says, “Be not many teachers.”

I often wonder, and I talk about this with others of us that teach the word of God and preach the gospel. You know, I’m going to have to give an account for what I have done with God’s word—so aren’t you?

That day, David stood in that location to give an account to God for God’s word. And then he turns to Arnon, and he says, “I want to buy this. I want to buy the threshing floor.”

Arnon says, “No, no, no, no, you just take it. Matter of fact, take the oxen, he says, and take all the wood and take the flooring, dig the whole thing up, offer sacrifice to God. It’s yours, David; it’s all yours from my heart.”

David says, “I will not make an offering of that which costs me nothing.”

You see, there’s a great cost when I disobey God’s word. This gate, in my mind, speaks of a future day. We talk about the judgment seat of Christ that will follow his return.

I’m encouraged when I read carefully, in spite of all our waywardness and disobedience, God still desires to show us grace. You know what it says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 4? “Then shall every man have praise of God.”

That’s staggering. David is the only man who is referred to as a man after God’s own heart. Even though here at that location, he failed miserably as to what he did with God’s word. Because of his disobedience, he wasn’t able to build the house. We all know that story.

And I would just say this, and this touches me: My disobedience to God’s word and my motives in that will someday be inspected. Now, I forgot.

I don’t know if I put this in here or not. Yeah. But we prayed to our God, and because of them, we set up a guard against him day and night.

We’re coming up on that. I thought I had something in between. I want to just finish that little thought before moving on to chapter 4, and I’m looking at the clock, so I’m going to speed up a little bit here.

My disobedience to the word of God and my motives in that will someday be inspected by the Lord, and here’s how it affects me. This massive cost—this is how it affects me. And I just line this up with what David was not able to do, right?

I believe this: My capacity to enjoy the Lord eternally will have been hindered just like David’s was. The depths of joy and appreciation that could have been will not be my portion as much as others who obeyed.

That’s a sobering thought. We were mentioning Jim Allen before because he gave me something that week he was with us years ago. It was a poem. I remember him standing in the pulpit; he might have done it here. You know the poem.

Yeah, yeah. I wept when he quoted it and I wrote it down because I had the cassette player at the back. I’ll tell you that’s dating it. He said this:

“When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and he shows me his plans for me, the plans for my life as it might have been, had he had his way, and I see how I blocked him here and checked him there, and I would not yield my will. Will there be tears in my Savior’s eyes, tears though he loves me still?

I shall bury my face in my empty hands; I will bow my uncrowned head, while my sobbing heart will well-nigh break with the tears that I cannot shed.”

At that point, Mr. Allen’s voice broke, and he said, “O Lord, of the years that are left to me, I yield them to Thy hand. Take me, make me, mold me to the pattern Thou hast planned.”

You see, there is coming a day, it’s a solemn day when we’re going to stand before the Lord. Like David stood before Him and was inspected for what he did about God’s word, where he miserably failed.

David lost the joy; he lost the joy of what we read about in Solomon’s day and all the splendor of all that took place with the house of God.

Now, I want to move on real quick to chapter 4 because something unique takes place in chapter 4. The enemies are at work, right? Right. They pop up in chapter 2 and they start joking. They say, “Hey, you know what? If a fox should jump on this wall, it’ll break it down.”

Kind of cynical, right? But Nehemiah simply responds. How does he respond? Does he pull his sword out? He could have; there were a lot of swords there— a lot of spears. We’re going to see that.

David responds by praying. He prays and he went on with the work that God had put in his heart. Verse 6 says, “So he built the wall, and the whole wall was joined together to half its height.” That’s 20 feet, for the people had a heart for the work.

I think that’s pretty cool. I didn’t put this verse up, I don’t think. So the enemy goes further, unites to fight against them. The enemy actually united. Isn’t that funny? Sometimes we can’t get Christians to decide what side of the refrigerator to stack apple pies!

But the enemy’s united, right? The workers began to be discouraged, but we prayed to our God, and because of them, we set up a guard against them day and night.

The chapter ends; it basically says in chapter 4 that they worked with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. It says they were fortified by the word of God and one another.

I thought that was pretty good. They were fortified by God and by one another. In chapter 5, I’m just going to leave that picture up here for a minute.

In chapter 5, a problem arises. Without getting into the depths of it, there were those who were in position, and there were those who were more wealthy, and they started to take their goods and services that they provided. They started to tax the other Jews to death.

So Nehemiah comes together with them and says, “What are you doing? The workers are united. They’re working night and day. They’re hardly taking their clothes off except to wash them.”

That’s very clear in here, except to wash them. He says, “You’re hindering the work by what you’re doing. Put it away. Don’t be foolish.”

When he was done in chapter 5, it was absolute unity, right? Chapter 6, the enemy tries to destroy Nehemiah. Without getting into all the depths of that, five times.

It’s unique because five times speaks of God’s grace. Now let me just say something here, and this ties into the New Testament. When we come to the writings of the Apostle Paul, when he speaks about believers that gather together like this, Ephesians chapter 4, first two, three verses, you know what he says?

He says, “You endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” You want success? Scripture speaks about success. You want success in the local gathering? You want there to be honor to the person of Christ?

When we look at all these things about the gates of the building and this rubble that’s all around there, starting to put it all back together, there needs to be diligence. That’s the word for endeavor—a diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

I just want to get that off my mind.

So God speaks five times; the enemies do everything they can to stop Nehemiah. One time he says in verse 3 of chapter 6, he says, “I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you?”

That’s a great, great phrase, right? The enemies tried slanderous charges. They said to Nehemiah, “You’re going against the king.” And he never budged.

You know why? Nehemiah had had intimate talks with the king and the king had made every provision. You know, I think I need more intimate talks with the king; just say that on the side.

A false prophet was hired to plot against his life. “You got to come down here, take a hold of the horns of the altar.” Nehemiah said, “I’d rather die than enter in where there’s only room for the priests.”

There’s a lot that could be said here. I just want to take the next few minutes and I want to move through chapter 7 quickly. There’s a lot that was done here. They meet. Everything’s starting to take shape—the walls are done. 52 days!

This amazing feat of building could probably take years today if you had to go through the whole thing, the whole process of today’s standards and logistics. They were discouraged. They stopped the discouragement.

The enemy had been thwarted. The people came united together in chapter 7. An old registry is found; the people were counted. The chiefs and the fathers and many of the people dug into their pockets; they provided gold and silver and a large amount of priestly garments.

Everything was made ready. But God—something was missing. I should have left more time for this. The people gathered around.

Let’s read this: “All the people gathered as one man at the public square, which was in front of the Watergate. They asked Ezra the scribe to, what? We want to try on those garments?” That’s right, brother, you got us.

They said this, “Bring the book.” We’ve done all this; it started with Nehemiah. God put something in Nehemiah’s heart, and all of this is taking place. Look at the walls, 39 feet average height, two and a half miles around, eight and a half feet thick. The gates are hung; the bars and locks are in, except for those few gates.

Everything is here. What an amazing feat! They come together on this day. We’re going to talk about that in a second and try and get through this in a few minutes.

They said, “Wait a minute. Just bring the book,” because something’s really missing. Yeah, we’re about to see revival in the rubble. This is amazing!

You say, “Well, wait a minute! Wouldn’t you call revival what happened to the gates?” Well, just hang on a minute! Let me dig into this for a second. There’s a date to this gathering. We’re told it was the first day of the seventh month, a special day when no one was to work; that’s why they all came together.

The Feast of Trumpets marked the beginning of 10 days of consecration and repentance before God. Now just hang on to this for a second because this is fabulous! It not only commemorated the end of the agricultural and festival year, but it also looked forward to the Day of Atonement that fell on the tenth day of this month, and trumpets are involved.

The blowing of the trumpets on the first day of the month heralded a solemn time, and that solemn time was preparation for the Day of Atonement. This preparation was called the Days of Awe.

Did you catch that? Days of awe, or the 10 days of repentance, as some record it. All the people came together; that verse tells me, the verse we read before, all the people came together as one man. And then it says this, and they cried from their hearts, united as one man. “Ezra, bring the book.”

They were realizing something. Everything that was done was wonderful. Nehemiah had worked; the walls are done. There’s more that can be said about this for the sake of time.

They realized this: The enemy’s been stopped, right? Great unity had been brought about. The reinstating and the putting aside of usury automatically reinstated the unity that was so needed. And though everything had been given, they come down to one thing.

“We need the Word of God.” We need the Word of God!

Now, not to get into numbers, but sometimes numbers are important. The number of people is given: 42,360 people; 7,337 singers; 245 singers. You add this number up, and Ezra stands up, and they read the book.

I just want you to picture it: You would kill me and never want me back if I started to read for six hours! And that’s what he did. Matter of fact, it gets better than that because he read the book.

When he read the book, he would stop, and the Levites would give the sense of it, and they did it distinctly. This wasn’t a Bible study; this was a teaching session, right? Read the book! They gave a sense of it distinctly.

And as they did this, you know what the people did? It doesn’t say that; it says they lifted up their hands and they bowed their heads to the ground; they wept.
And there you are—forty-nine thousand nine hundred and forty-two people weeping.

You ever been in a room where people are weeping? I’m sure you have. I have. The whole one side of our floor at the Walter Reed Hospital were parents weeping. You could hear them sobbing and weeping.

Can you imagine almost 50,000 people weeping? They weren’t weeping because someone had died or been hurt. It wasn’t some devastating thing that took away their livelihood; they were weeping because they heard the word of God. This is amazing!

So there’s Nehemiah, and he has to say something. He jumps up and says, “Listen,” he’s speaking with the Levites as well. “Don’t weep! This is a joyful time.” You know the verse, right?

“Go eat, share with those that don’t have, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” I used to think, “What a fabulous verse!” I had it on the wall in my home. Is that the best verse in that chapter?

I’m going to help you replace that verse in the next few minutes. I want you to follow this for a second.

He says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength; so go,” he says. “Don’t be mourning over what you’ve heard. Instead, let it have a joyful effect.” I wish we had time to spend on that because the word of God does have a joyful effect on us.

He said, “This day is holy. It is set apart to God.” What made it holy? I’ll just stop for a minute. What made this day holy?

I’d like to suggest to you that it wasn’t the blowing of the trumpet; at that point, that was almost behind them. What made it holy was the reading of the Word of God, right? They found direction there.

You see, revival was taking place. There are always two elements of biblical revival, and I’m going to give them to you; they’re just very simple. This is just something that I’ve come up with through studying this.

The first element of revival is this: the exposition of God’s word, period. And secondly, the mobilization of the people that are affected by it.

He said, “Now wait a minute! What about when God comes in and saves a whole bunch of people? Isn’t that revival?”

I’m sorry. That’s not revival; that’s salvation. God does not need me and does not need you.

As a matter of fact, in Ephesians, chapter 4, that wonderful chapter ends by saying this: “God saves souls for Christ’s sake, not for yours.” Did you catch that? That’s an eye-opener!

You go somewhere and you preach; you can preach off the back of your hand or off a hymn book, as they say. God comes in and it’s a great work and people start to come to know Christ. You say, “What a revival!”

That’s not a revival. I want you to get this. These two elements that we’re looking at here— they verse 6 says, they worship, verse 9 says they wept, and then the real activity begins.

And I want to make it clear that revival has to do with these things: the exposition of God’s word and the mobilization of the people affected by that word.

You know, I think I have something here. Yeah, revival. Let’s put this screen up. This is just my conglomeration of words in conjunction with that.

When God’s people are motivated by God’s word, and they begin to worship and to weep and to move in response to what they have heard and to what they have come to know, then revival can follow.

I’ve seen that; maybe you’ve seen that. This is just fabulous!

In response to what they’ve come to hear, I want you to, if you have your Bible still open, to look down at verse 12. We really need to understand that the mobilization and the movement of God’s people here in verse 12 caused them to go their way and to eat and drink, send portions to one another, and to make great mirth.

It was not because they had heard that the joy of the Lord was their strength.

As wonderful as that is, now let me say that again. All of this was not done by the people and enjoyed by the people because Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” the verse we have in our homes.

Look at verse 12: “Because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.” Tchoo! The greatest motivation in all the world to a child of God is a clear contextual teaching and preaching of God’s holy word.

When that takes place, revival is soon to follow.

Real quick, Nehemiah, chapter 8, verse 12. I’m just putting this up here for us to read it. Because they had understood the words that were declared unto them, period.

That hits me; that impresses me because there are times when I don’t have joy; there are times when I’m overwhelmed with difficulties and sadness. I can come to the word of God and I can read, wherever I’m reading, and the spirit of God can direct it to me; that’s where I get my strength!

That’s where joy comes from! Chapter eight—where is this here? Yeah. They began to do right because they heard right.

That’s something interesting! You know, I could take this a little bit further; let me try and wrap this up as quick as I can.

They began to do right because they heard right. I’ll say it like this: the greatest motivational technique that God ever gave to His people—and listen, we’ve all been in business, right?

When I had my business back in the early 80s, I’d come in there in the morning, and I couldn’t motivate my 16 employees. They said, “We’re waiting for the coffee truck.”

I had a sign put up on the wall that said, “You ought to see how motivated people get when it comes time for the closing bell.” You know? It’s just, you know— but there’s no greater motivational technique that God ever gave His people than the distinct reading and understanding of His word.

You say, “How do you know that?” Because if you look down at—I’m not telling you to do that now—but if you read verses 13 through 18, you see the outworking of it, right? Great result! They returned the second day.

They basically said, “We want more.” As a matter of fact, I think I put this up here. They said, “We want more”—in verse 18.

Also, “Day by day, from the first day until the last day, he read in the book of the law; they kept the feast seven days. On the eighth day was a solemn assembly according to the manner.” But they’re not done; it’s like this.

You know, this isn’t a slap on the back. This isn’t a pep talk that’s only good for now. This was something that so affected them. They began to do right because they heard right, and the result was they went out—maybe you know the story.

They came back for the word of God to be read. They heard about the feast of tabernacles. They went out and they gathered sticks, built these huts. It says there had never been such a thing since Joshua’s day. I won’t go too much further, but this is what God intends.

I guess our question or what I take from it is, will I allow the word of God to take hold of me like this? To have its corrective effect, right? Will we rejoice so much so that we share it? That’s what they did. That’s what it speaks of—talking about it with one another.

This is what God intends. Now, I’m sorry I went a couple of minutes over, but you know, some time ago I had written it down, but I found this goofy poem—not goofy; it’s kind of odd the way it was written.

But it has to do with this. So I’ll just read this and try to put this together. It says this:

“That Ezra stood at the water gate. The people gathered ’round. Oh, read to us the Word of God that our faith may be sound. So Ezra brought the scrolls and read from early morn till noon.

And no one cared that the time wore on; the morn was gone so soon. Do we desire the word like they? Then give it just one hour? The benediction said at 12, or our faces have gone sour.

Morning worship from 6 to 12? How many would there be? Do we love the word of God? How many really care?

This guy doesn’t seem to rhyme. Prostrate upon the ground, they fell, and sobs; their bodies shook. Arise, don’t weep, the Levites said. There’s peace within this book, for sadness has no place today. It’s holy joy we feel.

Leave now, go home and celebrate and share a festive meal. The path ahead looms rough and steep; can man victorious be? The joy of God shall be my strength, His life lived out through me.

The leaders came again the next day to search for guidance too. Is there anything that we can read? Is there anything that we can read?

That we have failed to do? Isn’t that cool?” That’s basically what they said.

“Cut branches; they read. Build some huts. Live there for seven days. Not since the time of Joshua had this ever been done!”

I won’t go too much further, but this is what God intends. I guess our question or what I take from it is, will I allow the word of God to take hold of me like this?

To have its corrective effect, right? Will we rejoice so much so that we share it? That’s what they did. That’s what it speaks of—talking about it with one another. This is what God intends.

Now, I’m sorry I went a couple of minutes over, but you know, some time ago I had written it down, but I found this goofy poem—not goofy; it’s kind of odd the way it was written.