As Nehemiah faced the time that they kept the Feast of Tabernacles (Nehemiah 8:10) he refused to let them mourn or to be grieved. He said, the joy of the Lord was your strength, pointing out that it was in the rejoicing and the appropriation of God’s fullness, not in their deep continued introspection and awareness of the shortcoming that God was going to have the Feast of Tabernacles really kept.
So, they were obedient, and they had great mirth and great rejoicing. even sensing their unworthiness, where they knew that God’s sufficiency would come to meet their unworthiness. And that was the basis of the Feast of Tabernacles.
There’s another thing that preceded this eighth chapter. Actually, Nehemiah chapter 4 to 6 speaks about the great conflict that came in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And I want to concentrate on it for just a minute or two. In the 91st Psalm was a promise that Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
It seems often that our foes are of different natures. Nehemiah 4, 5 and 6 seems to follow that category. There was the lion, then there was the adder, then there was the dragon. Nehemiah 4, 5 and 6 seems to follow in that order. In the fourth chapter, it was an open raging against them like a lion. They were quite bold and open. But the enemy used more subtle tactics in Nehemiah, the fifth chapter, because it was an internal thing, a thing that you couldn’t see, an adder, like something hidden, ready to hit you unaware.
If you step on it, it will poison you, and you had no way to fight it because it was something you couldn’t defend against. And then the last one, the dragon, was the amazing distractions and accusations that Satan brought, it was just like the raging’s of a dragon, but when you looked carefully, you found that it was an illusion.
Dragons can strike terror to our hearts when we are in fear, and this was exactly the case in Nehemiah 6. Spiritual warfare is the key of Nehemiah 4, 5, and 6. I think at least we could begin to read some of the fourth chapter and see how the enemy raged against Nehemiah as they were rebuilding the wall. Satanic power did not war very much against them when they were building the temple. There was an edict that delayed it for fifteen years, but actually the temple was rebuilt over a course of years, and it was unmolested.
The enemy didn’t worry about that as long as the walls were down and the gates were burned with fire. It is when Zion becomes a fortified city and our resistance is perfected in Christ against Satan that He really rages because He can come into the temple that’s rebuilt and constantly frustrate and tether you.
But He can’t even interfere with your worship when the walls come up again. Now, in the fourth chapter, we actually see God’s people enter a twofold role. They are both warriors and they’re workers. And that is a ministry that I want you to notice, it is so amazing here. They come into a time of spiritual warfare. To understand the significance, we’re only going to read a few verses here and see if it doesn’t open up some doors for you. Now it came to pass when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews. He spake before his brethren, and the army of Samaria said, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in the day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing that they are burned?
The first thing was ridicule. That was an open assault against them of just plain ridicule. You’ll be surprised how effective that is. Will they make an end in a day? When you stop to think of the reasonableness of what we’re doing, it’s fantastic. Do we think that God’s going to pick up people like us in this day and age and restore the church, restore the great the great fortress of Zion to us? Will we make an end in a day? Is this thing going to be done that quick? Can we really believe that God’s going to restore the church to us and all of its power and glory?
Of course, the enemy begins to ridicule you. Who are you to think that you’re going to do this thing? Begins to point out how unworthy we are. This same thing happened again. If you remember in the book of Zechariah, when Joshua, the high priest, connected with the restoration, stood in the filthy garments, and Satan was at his right hand ready to accuse him, and said, Look at him. He didn’t even have the proper robes to be a high priest. How could he do it?
But the Lord was there saying, The Lord rebuke thee. The Lord was there to rebuke Satan because it was the Lord that was creating Joshua, making him what he was to be. This is to be a very sovereign act of God. And in case you begin to wonder about the Restoration, let me point out something to you. National Zion lay waste for 142 years, and the walls were rebuilt in 52 days. You’ve read that in the Word, I’m sure. Now, do you get what the ratio of that is? The time to rebuild in relationship to the time that it lay waste was one year to 997, almost one to 1,000. In other words, if you take about 1,800 years that the church has been devastated and brought low, or even 1,900 years, you come to the conclusion that at the same ratio of 1 to 997, or 1 to 1,000, or something for rough figures, it would take one year and ten months for the spiritual land to be rebuilt.
The Lord says He’s going to do a quick work on the earth. If there is a ratio, it would mean in less than two years’ time, we could see a church with walls around it, with the enemy actually defeated. We could watch that thing come up and watch the glory of the Lord be visited upon it again and watch how all power of the enemy would be repulsed.
It is no wonder to me that when the enemy came against it, he came more against the building of the walls than he did any other phase of the restoration. More against the time of us really moving into the place where we know how to war, we know how to fend off the enemy, and we know how to aggressively go ahead and do the will of God. That’s the thing Satan hates.
As long as you keep coming to church badly bent, beat up, bruised, and you come to get ministered to and help, he doesn’t care because he’s going to hit you tomorrow the same way. When you come by and you’re on top and the enemy hasn’t been able to get to you and you start that united rejoicing and united worship of the Lord, you don’t have to come to church to get dug out of a hole, but you come to church and begin to lay some more bricks on. You’re really sailing on.
Oh, Satan hates that because then his doom is sealed, you see. As long as we build up and then get kicked down then all the church resembles a sort of a first aid station. You come and lay down and bleed a while so you can get up and fight some more. You’re kind of getting some band-aids put over all of the bruises that you get. And as long as the church remains that kind of a thing, we’re not doing the will of the Lord. It’s a defensive action.
It’s when we come into this time of being both workers and warriors that the church takes on another complexion, and that’s exactly what the Lord is bringing. If we want to read here, the ridicule was the first thing. What was their answer to it? Verse 4-6 was the answer to it.
Hear, O our God, for we are despised, and turn back their reproach upon their own head, and give them up for a spoil in the land of captivity, and covering up their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted up from before thee, for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders. So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together unto half the height thereof, for the people at a mind to work brother what happened what happened here you say that sounds bloodthirsty don’t let their sins be covered and so on you you may think sometimes we’re on the defensive but these boys were were on the aggressive so they just prayed prayed they covering off the sin you know you we get the idea sometimes that um it’s the devil that’s going around exposing people you couldn’t be more wrong the devil wants to cover up every bit of sin he can he It’s God that exposes the sin of people. It’s not the devil. And so they said something here, we just believe God to expose these boys. Boy, you know, have you ever lifted up a rock and see how everything runs for cover that’s underneath it? Because it loves the darkness. And our weapon is the light, and the light that’ll expose. Whether the day will come that every voice is lifted up against you. God will give you wisdom. God will give you an anointing and revelation. You’ll find instead of you being on the defensive, you’ll be on the aggressive. Maybe a man that stands to judge you will find himself before the judgment seat and the Lord exposing him. There’s something really tremendous in the way the builders went about this. Actually, what they did is they rejected and they just sent it back. Have you ever realized how effective that is? because there’s so many things that have the power of a boomerang. Now, let me take a jealous spirit, for instance. What is your weapon against a jealous spirit? If someone begins to become jealous against you, you’ll be aware that in every realm, a spirit of jealousy has more access to hurt you than anything else. If someone is jealous of you, I don’t care who you are, it’ll hurt you. It seems to have a power that’ll come until like a fiery dart hits you, you can feel the impulse of it. You can actually feel the impulse of it. I’m going to tell you something. People that have someone jealous of them or waging jealousy at them can be hurt. You can be crippled in your health and in your spirit in your mind. But this is one thing. When you reject that and you put yourself under the blood of Jesus Christ and you reject the assault of it, it’s like a boomerang. It’ll turn back and it’ll hit the one that sent it. Have you noticed how many times did Saul throw a spear at David? he died on his own spear. It always reacts the same way. It will come back and be so deadly, it could actually destroy the one that sent it. So the believer has his protection in that. Now, when the warfare began to come, they didn’t react to that ridicule, as you might suspect, but they sent it back. And it came back upon the enemy, uncovering their own iniquity and bringing the discovery of their own sin out before the world. There is a way of warring in the spirit that’s really coming. The thing is not to let your spirit be drawn into it. The minute that your spirit rises up, you’re defeated. The only way I can describe it is this. Let me see. It takes two to tangle. When one rises up and brings an accusation, the spirit of the other rises up, then you have conflict. But if there’s no spirit in you that rises up, but you just continue to rejoice and praise the Lord, that thing will boomerang right back on the one that sends it. The best way to victory is to learn to just rejoice in the Lord, just to praise the Lord, just to glorify Him and not to be distracted from that. Because whenever your spirit rises up against another antagonistic spirit, it’s spirit against spirit. And remember what the word says. If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. It has a powerful effect. No one wins in that kind of a thing. The thing is to study this until you can stand with your own spirit, absolutely free and clean. There’s no response in your spirit except to rejoice and praise the Lord. Have you noticed how the Lord brought that out in the Sermon on the Mount? The blessedness, the Beatitudes, when they say, All manner of evil against you, you’re to rejoice, be exceedingly glad. Boy, he’s just not kidding. Rejoice in the exceeding light. Keep worshiping the Lord, because whenever they come at you and say, All manner of evil against you falsely, if your spirit rises up in vindication, you’ve had it, you’re finished, because then your spirit is against their spirit. But whenever you just continue to rejoice and praise the Lord, then the spirit that comes against you just boomerangs back upon them. And in every instance, it’ll boomerang. I hope we’ve learned something about spiritual warfare right there. Don’t let your spirit arise. That’s why the Lord teaches us against self-defense. He says we’re not to try to defend ourselves. We’re not to try to rise up because when you do, your own spirit rises up. Your own spirit rises up. People have said, Well, the first principle is self-preservation. I don’t know. Self-preservation in the realm of the spirit doesn’t work. But he that would save his life shall lose it. Whenever you rise up for self-preservation or defense, you’re done, you’re finished. But whenever you say, I’m not going to rise to defend myself, but I’m just going to rejoice in the Lord. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. It is always a principle. It works. Now, what happened next? Well, let’s read just a few more verses because I think this is something we need. What has been taught to us so far? Whatever anyone says, no matter how it comes, you keep rejoicing. You see, just send it back. Just keep rejoicing, praising the Lord. The next one, verse seven. But it came to pass that when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdenites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth. They conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion therein. You notice that the one thing they wanted to do was to create opposition and confusion. What was the answer to that? Verse 9: We made our prayer unto the Lord and set a watch against them day and night because of them. Whenever the enemy cannot gain by ridicule, he strives to bring the weapon of confusion, an opposing confusion, against you. And that confusion has to have its defense. You set your prayer and you set your watchings in the Spirit. Remember how Paul wrote of the ministry that he had and he said in watchings often, in fasts and so on. What would he mean in watchings? He was talking about a great ministry to the early church. There was times that they would gather to pray. There’s times as they gathered to worship and praise the Lord. But whenever there would become a confusion or a problem that they didn’t know how to answer it, then they would give themselves watchings. It’d have to be the ministry of prophets and the ministry of people who had deep spiritual perception in the church and gifts, that they’d just gather themselves for watchings. Paul said he was in watchings off when he didn’t know what was taking place, but he knew the enemy was coming against him. What would he do? He would just sit there and let the Lord discover the enemy. They would not be ignorant of Satan’s devices. They’d just sit there and wave upon the Lord and look to the Lord, and God would let them see everything. the enemy was doing so they would know what was taking place. And Paul was able to thwart the enemy because by his watchings, he could perceive exactly the strategy and what was taking place. Amen. So when the opposition and the confusion came, they just opened their heart with prayer and watchings. So day and night, we set a watch against them. And the result was that they were able to perceive God would show them ahead of time just exactly what the enemy was doing. I like that. I like it. Now, verse 10, The strength of the bearers of the burden is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so they were not able to build the wall. And our adversary said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come into the midst of them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease. And it came to pass, that when the Jews that dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times from all places, Ye must return unto us. Therefore set I in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in the open places, I set there the people after their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, and your wives, and your house. And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to that we returned all of us to the wall, everyone unto his work. Now notice that the enemy tried to set an ambush and it was not effective because the preparation was made there, a spiritual readiness for the conflict. And Lukey is there, remember the Lord your God. The key of it was not to dwell upon the enemy, but you remember the Lord and the readiness to fight, the readiness for conflict automatically came and they were able to to fight for their families and so forth. There is a great deal in this that if you dwell upon the devil, your faith begins to shrink. But if you keep remembering the Lord and His Word, your faith mounts up. It’s a great deal of where you’re putting your emphasis, where you’re looking to, because the enemy is capable of creating an ambush. He is capable of plotting against you and bringing great trouble to you. And if you begin to wonder, I wonder what the devil can pull next. I wonder what dirty trick he can play on me next. You begin to dwell upon that, and the next thing you know, all those things will happen to you. I think that the mind has a quality of a magnet. It draws to itself what it thinks upon. Have you ever seen that? In the spiritual realm, the mind has a magnetic quality. Do you remember what the Lord said to the wicked and the prophet? He said, Their own fears shall come upon them. You bring the fears upon them. When you begin to fear something, it has a magnetic quality. It’ll just draw it to you. If you want to overcome the enemy, you say, I want something that’ll ward it off. You know how a magnet works. One pole will draw one way, but you can take two magnets and bring around like poles and they repel each other. Is that right? Opposite poles attract. I think that’s the principle of a natural magnet. Now, if you want to attract good things to you, then you let your mind dwell upon the Lord, dwell upon the Lord. There are some people that have bad things always happening to them. Well, I tell you, they’ve got a great big devil. He gets bigger every year because they keep feeding him, feeding him with their thought, keeping with their mind. The Lord says, we’re not to be anxious for anything, but everything, prayer, supplication, let a request be made known unto God with thanksgiving. With thanksgiving, we’re to let those requests be made known under God. And it goes on and says, now, whatsoever things are pure. and so on. Those are things you need to think on. You see? Those are things you need to think of. You set your mind on the Lord. You see? Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on thee. Trust in the Lord, for in the Lord is everlasting strength. You see? That’s it. We set our mind upon the Lord. Our mind has stayed on Him. And of course, we’re kept in perfect peace. If your mind has stayed on the enemy, that’s what happens to you. The quickest way then to avoid an ambush to the enemy is not to think about an of the enemy, but think of the Lord. Let it dwell upon the Lord. It comes right back to the same principle of warfare. If you want to avoid an ambush, you want to avoid disaster, keep rejoicing in the Lord. Let your mind be stayed on Him. Rejoice evermore. In everything, give thanks. Keep praising the Lord. Keep rejoicing in the Lord. The man that gives thanks to God always has something to give thanks for. The man that’s afraid of trouble always has some trouble to worry about. You see? It’s a principle of spiritual warfare. You say, well, I mean, if I close my eyes and look the other way, it’ll go away. Just about that true. Just about that true. You’d be surprised how many of these things you have built up yourself. You’ve built them up yourself. You’ll be accepted to certain things. The enemy says, boo, and so you start running. And all of a sudden, you’ve got an army pursuing you. You do it yourself. When he says, boo, you say, glory. You begin to praise the Lord. That’s the way you do it. One more thing. Notice with what watchfulness they were there. If you get the idea that this warfare is a simple thing, don’t underestimate it. This word that I’m giving you is very true. Spiritual warfare is something we must learn in this end time. If we don’t learn how to battle the enemy, if we don’t learn this successfully, we’re going to be failures at this thing. The enemy will come in and destroy us. I don’t think we should become demon conscious. I think that we should become very Christ conscious and continue to be exalting and rejoicing in Him. We will discern the enemy, but the more we talk about him, the more credit we give him, the more we put him in a position to do harm to us. So it came to pass from that time forth, that half of my servants wrought on the work, half of them held the spears, and shields, and bows, and coats of mail, and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They that builded the wall, and they that bear their burdens, laded themselves. Every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other held his weapon. And the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me. And I said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large. We are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place soever ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us, for our God will fight for us. You notice, our God will fight for us. They didn’t even say, Now, we’ll all come together, we’ll fight. But they said, We’ll come together and the Lord will fight for us. It was in the united attention to every need, diligence to it, but it was the Lord that will fight for us. All the way through the Word of God, we read that God is the God of battles. And because we keep speaking of warfare, people get the idea that they are in the warfare. The battle is the battle of faith. The Word tells us, Fight the good fight of faith. We are never to engage in warfare against the enemy. We are constantly to recognize Him as a defeated foe. And it’s our faith to apply Christ’s victory, not our faith to fight. It’s our faith to apply Christ’s victory that becomes our warfare. In the Old Testament, there were many types of that where the Lord would say, You’ll not need to fight in this battle. Only stand still and see the glory of the Lord. One of the greatest examples I think we could point to spiritual warfare was in 2 Chronicles the 20th chapter, where Jehoshaphat found that Judah was being invaded by a number of nations surrounding them that had come together to invade them. When they came, they said the enemy was invading them, Joshua began to pray, Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. And all Jews gathered together to fast and pray to seek the Lord, even with their little ones, even the children gathered, and they began to pray. And as they prayed and called upon the Lord, he began to remind the Lord all that God had given. He says, now you see what’s happening. They’re coming to cast us out of the inheritance, Lord, that you’ve given us. And then the word came upon Hazael wasn’t the prophet, and he stood up and began to prophesy. He said, this isn’t your battle. This is the Lord’s battle. You’re not going to need to fight in this. This is going to be God’s battle. And so Jehoshaphat stood up and he says, now you’re going to have to believe the prophets and you’re going to prosper. If you’re going to believe what they tell you, then we’ll come out all right. So he appointed singers that were to go before the army. And they started down through, they were even directed by the prophet down in the wilderness of Tekwa. They were to go and they would find the enemy. So in 2 Chronicles the 20th chapter says they it out. Early in the morning, hear the people going before all the singers, praising the Lord, praising the Lord. They put the choir out in front. And I admit, in many churches, the choirs are the best battlers of all, the best fighters in the church. that you could ever find. It’s usually found in the choir. But they were picked for another reason, not because they were the scrupiest bunch, but because God was using real spiritual warfare there. The more that they’d worship the Lord, the more they would praise the Lord, the better the chances of that army would be. So the singers went out before the Lord, praising the Lord in the beauty of His holiness that His mercy endures forever. They kept reminding God that He’s full of grace. Reminding of grace. They weren’t saying, Lord, we deserve you to help us. We said, Lord, your mercy endures forever. They’re just worshiping the for His mercy, for His grace. And as they came down, it says, when they got to the enemy, they found they were all dead men falling on the ground and not one escaped. And that would have been a peculiar thing to see how that happened. I would give a nickel to see that thing enacted before me again. Wouldn’t you like to have some way to roll back and see that on a television screen, see just how that happened? That they began to hear things or feel things and begin to fight one another until everybody was dead except the last two men, and they both stuck each other at the same time and they both fell over. It couldn’t be one win and take off. It says they were all dead men. They all fell to the ground. It wasn’t one escape, not one. And the Lord had actually brought such confusion. And here comes the choir singing, and they come up there and everybody lay down on the ground, dead. See, they’d murdered them, just murdered them with praise, just singing the glory of God. And so they were three days gathering the spoil. It was so much, three days. They come back just staggering on them, just loaded. Now, the gathering of the spoil, the blessing, that’s one thing about being in the army of the Lord. He does the fighting and you get the gravy. That’s the one thing about this. We get all the blessing. Now this spiritual warfare teaches us that we are not to do the battling, we’re to do the praising and the rejoicing because God is the God of battles. The more you can praise the Lord, the more you can rejoice in the Lord, the more His hand is bare. It is in His victory that you’re going to stand. You are not going to meet Satan and tangle with him as Christ did in the wilderness. He did that for you. You’re not going to go on the cross and die. He did that. He did that. You’re not going to shed any blood in order to atone for your sin or to defeat Satan. He’s already done that. He took your place. He appropriated it fully. He was standing in your stead when he won that battle. And so then you just position yourself and God with rejoicing. Every time the enemy comes against you, you are just enacting and enforcing a little bit more of the victory Christ gave to you. That’s an unlimited thing. And it is God’s will that you be more than conqueror through Him that loves you. It’s through Christ that you’re to be more than a conqueror. This principle is so necessary because the minute that you look at a need in your life or a problem and you roll up your sleeves, I’m going to solve that, you’re heading for one of the biggest defeats you’ve ever known. But the minute that you can learn how, say, I see this problem, I see this need, and the Lord has met it. And so you begin to look to the Lord with joy and rejoicing in your heart. You don’t touch it. You let God smite the thing and He’ll bring it down. It’ll be a slain foal before you and have no more power. Praise the name of the Lord. Now, this is a great secret of spiritual warfare. The man that controls the air is the man that controls the ground. They’ve got to take care of the air over the enemy. And so they go over and they knock down the other planes, and they begin to bomb and soften up the territories as much as they can. Then, in the wake of that, the armies can come in. Already the planes have been knocked out of the way, and there’s the air support. Now, in this, it’s pretty much the same way. We must recognize that we actually gain the supremacy over the prince of the power of the air. There’s many a city, there’s many an area where the demonic powers are so great you could have all revival meetings and special meetings you wanted and nothing had ever happened because they’re going at it wrong. The enemy controls the atmosphere there, controls everything. And we’re trying to go and ****** your souls and God does a little work, but it seems the enemy takes them back almost at will. So we’ve got to find something to clear the air. That’s one reason why I think Charles Finney had a great idea of spiritual conflict. And he had a man who was a tremendous prayer warrior. He would go in and begin to pray for days and weeks ahead of Charles Finney. Sometimes the atmosphere had been so cleared that Finney was known to just walk into a factory or something and everything just fell apart. People began to cry. The conviction was so great. It wasn’t him. He knew the answer. He knew it was the prayer that had gone before that had gained supremacy. You can find somebody that can begin to praise and worship the Lord. They’ll come intercessors in the spirit, but they’ll be moving differently than you imagined. Maybe two or three people will be sent into an area and say we’re going to have a revival here. They’re going in the middle of that thing. They begin to rejoice, begin to pray, begin to believe God, and things will begin to happen. That whole atmosphere will be cleared. Time comes the minister will walk in, begin to preach the word, and you won’t understand how tremendous that victory comes. You clear the air out first. In other words, you get the dominion over the demonic powers that seem to to reign over an area, then you can loose the souls. Didn’t the Lord teach you that principle? He said, if you’re going to plunder the house of a strong man, you must first bind the strong man. You must first bind the power of the enemy if you’re going to go and take the prey. And so that’s exactly what we have to do. We have to see that power bound or broken before we can go in and win the precious souls out in the name of the Lord. This is one of the first essentials of spiritual warfare that we have to learn. Praise the Lord. That’s what they do about the throne. continually praise and worship the Lord there in heaven rejoicing in him rejoicing him what we do actually is we link our forces with them so that the prayers that are going up around the throne of God are the same prayers that we’re going holy holy holy Lord God Almighty and we’re worshiping and praising him and the result is that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven because the same kind of worship and same kind of praise is continually coming forth amen