Build Back Godlier - Remember | Sunday, June 19, 2022

Good morning, Cross Connection. It's Pastor Mark here, wishing you a happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. What an awesome and special thing it is to be a dad! We're going to talk a little bit about that this morning.

Pastor Miles asked that I would share with you this morning from Chapter 4 of Nehemiah, so we'll be doing that. Next week, make sure that you tune in; Pastor David Guzik is going to be sharing with us. I think he is one of the finest modern-day Bible commentators. His website gets millions of hits and has taught so many people around the globe. His commentaries are translated into many different languages, from Arabic to Spanish, and are teaching not only people but also pastors. We are very thankful to have him with us, so make sure you tune in.

I'd like to back up a little bit and reflect on what we've been discussing over the last few weeks. In Chapter 2 of Nehemiah, we see what God did. It is about the miracle He performed by sending a servant who fasted and prayed, by order of a pagan king, to come restore Jerusalem and the walls around it. Ultimately, this was part of the restoration of a covenant, and that is what this symbolizes.

In Chapter 3, we observe the personal responsibility that the people took in this process and the accountability they had. It is largely about what the people did in serving God. Today, in Chapter 4, we are going to look at the relationship between God's sovereignty—what God does—and man's responsibility—what man does. We will explore how these two aspects interact with one another and how they work together.

So, join me if you would. Let's pray first and ask the Lord to teach and minister to our hearts. Dear Father, we thank you so much for this opportunity to sit before you, Lord, to be taught from your Word, and to consider the effect that it has on...

We are so thankful for Your servant, Nehemiah, and the story of the restoration of the covenant and the restoration of those walls in Jerusalem, Lord. As part of that, teach us, walk with us, and guide us through this. In Jesus' name, we pray and ask these things. Amen.

So, we'll be in Nehemiah Chapter 4, starting in verse 1. But it so happened, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he was furious and very indignant, and he mocked the Jews. He spoke before his brethren in the army of Samaria and said, "What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish, stones that are burned?"

Now, Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, "Whatever they build, if a fox goes up on it, it will break down their stone wall." This was very discouraging. The enemy of Israel comes to them and tries to threaten and discourage them.

We need to look at some of the language and the situation here. This is a very real threat. Sanballat is doing this before the army, and there are people there who either represent the military or are leaders. They are part of the audience; they have come to observe, and he has invited them to engage in this conversation.

Then he goes into some specific things that the people are going to hear. He asks if they are going to offer sacrifices, and we know they were not allowed to offer sacrifices yet. So, are they going to do something that is against the grain or illegal? Are they going to go against the king? This insinuates that there is a spirit of rebellion there.

He then references the burnt stones, which may be limestone, the material they used in this instance. These stones were unusable and had been there as physical symbols of the tearing down of the wall. This isn't even the first time that this wall had been burnt, and so it was a very significant issue.

This serves as a graphic reminder of the failure of the people. It reminded them of past failures. The comments about the foxes were well-known to them, both from prophecies given earlier in Isaiah and other places in the Word, where it talks about what happens to cities when they are judged and when the people are out of covenant with God. Those cities become abandoned, and it is said that the jackals and the foxes inhabit them. This serves as a reminder, as He talks about a fox climbing up, trying to conjure up that image in these people's hearts and minds.

Point one on your outline: the threats of the enemy are never a good representation of reality for God's people. I think, at times, the state of spiritual affairs is quite exaggerated. I don't believe our own country is actually in rubble. The fact is that God is not losing. Everything is happening, and it is not surprising Him. It may be going according to His plan, but it is not surprising Him. Basically, what is happening is happening, and He is well aware of it.

The narrative that is being put out about the bad news, as we say, is really generated by a minority. It gets the majority of the airplay, so to speak, but it is generated by a minority. The enemy has limitations. One of the mistakes we make, I believe, as believers sometimes, is that we tend to classify the devil as just the opposite of God, as if he has equal powers. He is evil, but he does not have all the same powers as God, and that is simply not true.

The enemy cannot change your future. He cannot get in your head and know what you are thinking; he does not have that ability. He is very limited in his scope and his ability. Many times, the things he uses against us are the things that we freely give him. We have seen this lately in our news, particularly with the purchase of Twitter, as they are finding out that so much of what is posted on social media...

Media is the place where we get our news, the place we often look to for truth, sometimes mistakenly. Much of what we find is generated not by individual people, but actually by computer algorithms. This bad news is repeated, and the more we look at it, the more we see it. In a way, we are being corralled mentally and spiritually into a mindset that suggests God is losing, but that is simply not the truth.

We also need to understand and put into perspective that in areas of discouragement, where we might say we are losing, that is often labeled as depressing. However, that is not the truth at all. In God's economy, sometimes those moments are actually victories. I would remind you of the day when the disciples looked at the cross, at a bruised and bloodied Jesus, as He was buried and put in the ground for three days. To them, that did not look like victory; it probably looked like failure. It seemed like the end and was a cause for despair. It appeared as though God, somehow, had lost. Yet, it could not be further from the truth, because we know that the cross and the grave would not hold Him. He would rise again in three days, and with that, the victory of the cross is declared. The salvation made available to you and me is a victory beyond all victories; it is the greatest victory known to mankind.

We need to think about that and remember it. Sometimes we forget how much God loves us in that sacrifice and what it meant. The proof of how much He loves us is evident. I must say that God's love for us is tremendous. The fact that He honors this covenant with His people and goes to great lengths of forgiveness and grace to uphold it says so much about His love for us.

It's Father's Day, and we often talk about that. I recently had an experience where my daughter was returning a car to a friend's house for her, and I was going to pick her up from the friend's house. As we crossed over Bear Valley Parkway going down Ash, it...

The road goes from two lanes to one lane, and a car passed us on the right side when it became one lane. The normal speed on that piece of road is about 50 to 55 miles an hour. This driver passed us, narrowly missing me, and then narrowly missed my daughter in the bike lane at over 80 miles an hour. His car barely made it around the corner. Instinctively, she honked, and when we came around the corner, she was at the light while this guy was honking at her, raising a ruckus. He literally pulled into the center of the intersection, flung the door open on his vehicle, took his shirt off, and was waving his arms around, threatening her. He was approaching her vehicle, seemingly ready to fight or pull her out of the car.

What he had no idea of was that her father was behind her. I wish I could say that I got to settle things or tried to lead that man to Jesus, but that certainly wasn't the case. I have to admit there was a visceral reaction, an uncontrollable reaction when I saw, first of all, my daughter almost getting into an accident because of this guy. The fact that he was now threatening my daughter triggered a response in me that I could not control. In an instant, he went from being a child of God to an enemy of me and my family.

I stepped out of the kingdom. I was angry. As he was approaching the car, about 30 feet away, I was making some very quick decisions. I thought, am I going to get out and give this guy what for? Am I going to run him over with my truck? I had a lot of options at my disposal to thwart this threat. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I became more protective. The girl who grew up bouncing on my knee, the one I read stories to, the one who does ministry with me and with whom I've written music, was in danger. Something took place in my heart, and it was an anger that I cannot adequately describe.

Thankfully, as she turned and left, this guy was left in the middle of the intersection. It became clear that he was on methamphetamines.

I believe he was out of his mind. As she left the intersection, I just followed her, and it was over. God has a love for His people and a protection for His people. I think that's where that reaction comes from us—us men, us dads. It comes in a way that you can't control. It's something that is so deep and so moving that it can cause us to do things we normally wouldn't think we would do or have to do, and it's there. I believe God put that in us, and I think we forget how much God loves us, the lengths He goes to, and the amount of patience He has.

God will go to war with His enemies, especially when His children are doing the work of God, when they're trying to re-establish a covenant. What that encounter told me is that the proper perspective when we're doing God's work is that many times, as believers, we fear what's going on in the world. We hear the bad news, we see the threat coming towards the car, so to speak. The truth of the matter is that the world and their ignorance, the enemies of God and their ignorance, when they come towards us to threaten us, have no realization that our Heavenly Father is right behind us. He is there.

I mean, what are the odds of some guy in an intersection threatening one of your family members while that girl's dad is right behind her? Astronomical. God has, I believe, that heart for us, and the world doesn't realize it. This leads me to this: our perspective should not be that we are afraid of God's enemies, trembling or shaking in our boots, feeling threatened, and agonizing. That's how the world should feel about us. They should be afraid of the God of the Hebrews. They should have a healthy respect for the protection that God gives us and the success He grants us in His name, especially when we are doing His work.

Why? Not because we're threatening or we're righteous, but because of the righteousness and the investment that God has for us and in us in that cross. And so, we matter very much.

You matter very, very much to God. In chapter 4 of Nehemiah, verse 4, we see a reaction. It says, "Hear, O God, for we are despised. Turn their reproach on their own heads, and give them as plunder to the land of captivity. Do not cover their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out before You, for they have provoked You to anger before the builders."

So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work. Romans 12:19 says, "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."

Point 2 in your outlines is "Pray it back, don't pay it back." If the other kids are being mean, tell Dad. You see, they didn't answer back or fight back when Sanballat and his crew were threatening, making fun of, and despising them. They understood that the reason behind it had nothing to do with them; they were making fun of, challenging, and despising God.

So, they didn't answer back or fight. They did the best thing possible. The best way to handle it was through a situation called imprecatory prayer. Typically, when we pray for people, we pray for their well-being or for a situation to turn out well. We pray that somehow God would intervene and there would be a glorious result.

Imprecatory prayer is a little bit different. In this case, they are taking the situation and telling God about it, even though God has heard the whole thing. They are essentially calling God at His word and applying that word to the threat or the enemy of God. What Nehemiah is doing is saying, "Ha, ha, ha, back at you," and this is how he is doing it.

They are using part of the Deuteronomic blessing and also the curse, along with that agreement, that covenant with God. They recite back some of the same language that, if they failed, this would happen to them.

About being despised, that's in the Deuteronomic promise. Being one of reproach, it going back on their heads is part of the promise. Giving them away as plunder to a land of captivity is also part of the promise in Deuteronomy. The fact that it's not covered, and that it would not be blotted out, means that God would be made well aware of the sin and the threat. Now, it is the outside world that is breaking this covenant. They are using this covenant language, and you can already see some of the despondency, some of the negative feelings that God's people have had towards their failure in the covenant.

You can already see where they've gained some confidence, and they're working their way back into this position of blessing. Now they're seeing this failure for what it was, and they're putting it back on their enemies. It is so cleansing because they're not engaged in the fight; they're handing this fight over to God. The prayer appears to have empowered them to build the wall because that's what it said they did. The very next thing, they went in and did a whole heap of work, and so they went back and built the wall. They built the wall and got it up to about half height, and I think it's great.

One of the things I love about cross-connection is that we'll take a moment out or time out when we come across a piece of scripture that explains a theological argument or difference in God's community. This is one of those areas that explains it very well. For over 500 years, there has been, between theologians, a difference in looking at how we should react to the world. One camp expresses God's sovereignty, that God is all-powerful, and everything happens according to God's time clock. The extreme of that can lead to spiritual laziness, in that if you're going to get saved, you're going to get saved. There are simply some people who will never go to be with God, so why go and be an evangelist to them? At an extreme level, it can lead to that way of thinking. From an evangelical standpoint, it can lead to spiritual laziness if you're not careful.

Because God is ultimately just going to take part in it, many times you'll hear some people say, "Well, I prayed about it, and that's all I needed to do. I just needed to pray about it." There’s that one extreme. On the other hand, there’s another extreme: man's responsibility. Some believe that God has done what He’s going to do, and it’s our responsibility to do all this work. They think it is totally up to us, which can lead to another error. This doer mentality can be so strong that we leave no room for God to act. We may not pray about things or commit them to the Lord; instead, we just do what we feel is right and what Scripture tells us to do.

The truth of the matter is that both sides have great truths to them; they are both right. In fact, it’s not even that they meet in the middle. The truth is that between sovereignty and man's responsibility, they work together. This piece of Scripture demonstrates it so well. People faced an overwhelming threat, something they needed to take very seriously in front of the soldiers and everyone else. Their past was being brought up, and it was all being heaped upon them, which can be very discouraging. They took it because it was a spiritual matter, and they gave it to God in prayer immediately. That was the first thing they did.

The second thing they did was look at their responsibilities and their accountability in the covenant. It says they went to work. If we can learn these disciplines, it is one of the key aspects of our Christian maturity. If we can learn to take these matters into the spiritual realm first, pray about them, and invite God to use His sovereign power in our problems, then we can look at that and, under the direction of God, do what He would have us do. By taking the correct, right action, we could accomplish so much.

I think of where we are now, in our state of California. In November, on the 8th, we have our elections. We will be looking at the governorship and many other offices, and those elections are going to happen four and a half months from now.

That's how long, approximately, Nehemiah prayed before he went to the king, or rather, before the king came to him to commission him ultimately to give him everything he needed to go and rebuild Jerusalem. The finances, the direction, the time off—so to speak—the king was behind him. Coincidentally, we have about four and a half months until our election.

So how does this sovereignty and responsibility work in a situation like this? When you're there, and I'll give you a little hint, we can do this together. When you're putting $7 a gallon gas in your car, and that was just a few days ago, you might be grumbling and upset about that. California has the highest gas prices in the nation, and I am thankful that even at that, I can put gas in my car. However, I know so many people who are living so close to the margins, so close on their budgets, that there are a lot of people who can't afford that $7 a gallon gas. My heart breaks for them; it's very hurtful and very hard.

So what can we do about it? While you're pumping that $7 a gallon gas, take that time to pray for the next four and a half months. Pray, fast from something, but appeal to God's sovereignty for your brothers and sisters out there. Pray for the people who don't know the Lord, and ask God to somehow fix this issue, this problem.

Then, practically, what do you do about it? We have the opportunity in this nation—a beautiful and great right—to vote. So, go and vote. I will never tell you who to vote for, but vote for God's candidate, so to speak. Take your Bible out, look at it, and move forward with that. That is your responsibility; that is what you can do.

There are other things you can do as well. When you hear about these crazy bills being put forth, like California being made a sanctuary state for abortion, you have the ability to write in. These politicians are all about public opinion.

That's what they live for. When the public comes up and they hear from people, they take that seriously, and you can bend their will by doing that. Sending those emails to your representatives and letting them know not only how you feel, but how God feels about this situation, are good, practical things. I would encourage you to reach out to your politicians and representatives, as they are often just the representatives of who we are as a people.

I think of our own governor in our state. Can you imagine if somehow the governor of our state were to give his heart to Jesus in a great and mighty way, in a transforming way? If you don't believe that can happen, you only need to look back at the situation with Saul of Tarsus to see how God changed his heart. He was one of the biggest enemies of the gospel and of Jesus, yet God turned his heart, and he became one of the greatest soldiers for Christ. He wrote most of the New Testament and did some of the greatest things ever to encourage us and lead us. God can do that.

Praying for your representatives can change the world. I would encourage you in that.

Now, let's look at Nehemiah chapter 4, starting in verse 7. It says, "And there was so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall." Our adversaries said, "And I looked and arose and said to the nobles, to the leaders, and to the rest of the people."

Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses. These are very wise words.

Point number three in your outline is that the best way to stay on course is to remember why we fight. Nehemiah gives us those reasons and shared them with his people. I believe this is a transformative moment for the people as they begin to feel a little discouraged in their work. They are starting to slow down, and the threats keep coming. He tells them to remember the great and awesome Lord.

So, remember your position. Remember the sacrifice He has made for you. Recall His history in conquering threats and defeating your enemies. Remember what He has done. God's reputation and His love for us are paramount. Then, remember your brethren—your brothers and the people around you, not just your relatives, but your neighborhood and community.

Next, remember your sons, your daughters, and your wives. For God's people, when they talk of inheritance, they do not refer to money. Typically, they are speaking of their families, their lineage, their sons, and their daughters. This is very important to them, so they must protect these things. Lastly, remember your houses—where you live and what you own.

In a nutshell, he is telling them to remember what we trust, who we trust, what we love, and what we own. I believe this message galvanizes and transforms God's people in this situation, lifting them from a place of discouragement. Physical and spiritual weariness is setting in among God's people, and they are feeling very low.

Judah, which is typically the place where all the warriors and important figures of Israel come from, is very significant. The tribe of Judah is a top tribe, one that everyone looks to. It holds great importance.

Judah itself is putting out a negative narrative, one that is a little depressing and discouraging. It is not doing anything to encourage the people, and even the leaders are starting to fail. I want to encourage you, leaders and dads, that it is very important that this is not our narrative. We must remember why we are doing this and who we are doing this for. The Bible tells us to take heed. We don't want the enemy to control our narrative, our hearts, our attitudes, and our minds, leading us to discouragement.

Rest is so important. Sometimes, you can't take the real rest that you want, and so that rest takes the form of sitting and praying for a while. But that rest is essential. I know this summer it was important for some of us. Pastor Miles is taking that rest, which is so important, and we want to support that. Some of the other pastors will also be taking vacations and getting that rest. This is a time of year when we sit back and consider the things of God to recharge and replenish ourselves as we enter into fall. In church, we all start to gather more again, and we begin to move forward.

I really encourage you to take that rest and enter into the rest of the Lord. There is a famous quote in my house: "The truer you hold your course, the quicker you get to your destination." You travel faster and farther in a straight line. When you know your heading, write it down and keep your eyes on the compass. This wisdom was given to me by none other than my own father, a merchant mariner and commercial fisherman.

We had a small 20-foot boat, a Blackman fish machine. I started fishing with my dad on this boat when I was about 12 or 13 years old. We would go commercial fishing on it, sometimes taking this 20-foot boat 60 miles offshore. In those days, there was no GPS available for small crafts, and handheld GPS devices did not exist. They didn't even have Loran units.

The navigation units that would tell you where you are were not available. Everything had to be done with good old-fashioned navigation, using paper charts, numbers, time, and speed. You would go on a compass heading. I remember my dad telling me that I had to steer the boat super straight. I had to look at that compass and pay attention to it. When you were heading toward your destination, you would get there a lot faster, a lot straighter, and with a lot less gas if you could just keep the boat straight and not veer off course.

I recall one particular instance when we were over 15 miles from San Diego, heading in a southerly direction. We were tuna fishing on some of the banks down in Mexico. While we were about 50 miles down in this little 20-foot boat, we were probably 30 miles off the beach of Mexico. Our boat had about 50 gallons of gas, but there was never enough gas for these trips. Even when you're 50 nautical miles away and 50 back, it's way more than 100 miles because you're fishing and things. So, we took four five-gallon gas cans along with us to supplement our fuel. We would pour those in as we went.

I remember this particular time when we were fishing down there. We had our heading, and after a day of fishing, we were coming back. It was getting very rough. The boat would get just under four nautical miles per gallon, so we had to calculate how much fuel we had left. As we were coming back, it was very rough, and we weren't making speed. We were definitely using more fuel. I could tell that things weren't perfect. We were looking at our watches, and we should have seen the Coronado Islands by then. The Coronado Islands are about 14 miles from San Diego, so when you see those islands, you know you're about 14 or 15 miles from San Diego.

When you go past that island, you hook a slight right on your way back, allowing you to go right into Point Loma. We should have seen the islands, but we didn't. We kept looking for them, and as we did, we noticed that our gas was getting low, and things were getting a little hairy.

And you can't see the islands. We couldn't see the islands, and somehow we thought perhaps we were off course. It was fairly overcast and very foggy. As the fuel was going down, my dad and I looked at one another, wondering what was going to happen. You have a radio, and perhaps somebody hears that radio, but nobody wants to be adrift off the coast and drift into Mexico. It's just not a good thing.

As we continued to look, we had been paying attention to the compass, but it was getting to the point where it was a little scary because we were running out of gas. We never saw the islands. Almost 45 minutes to an hour after we should have seen them, and after 45 minutes of wondering what was going on and what was going to happen, we finally saw the point of Point Loma. There was a cheer and a high five, but the point was that we were on course. We couldn't necessarily see all the indicators that we were going the right way, except for looking at that compass and calculating our gas.

We made it back to Point Loma and got that boat on the trailer with some albacore. It was something we looked back on as a great trip after we had been through it, but it didn't seem like a great trip at the time. Trusting when you can't see is really a discipline that we need to have. Fathers, we teach that to our children.

In Nehemiah 4, verse 15, it happened when our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had brought their plot to nothing, that all of us returned to the wall, everyone to his work. From that time on, half of my servants worked on the construction while the other half held the spears, the shields, the bows, and war armor. The leaders were behind all the house of Judah. Those who built on the wall and those who carried burdens loaded themselves so that one hand worked at construction while the other held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built, and one who sounded the trumpet was beside me.

Then I said to the nobles, rulers, and the rest of the people, "The work is great and extensive, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." So we labored in the work, and half the men held the spears from daybreak until the stars appeared.

At the same time, I also said to the people, "Let each man and his servant stay at night in Jerusalem, and they be our guard at night and a working party by day." So neither I, my brethren, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me took off our clothes, except that everyone took them off for washing. They were washing, and that was good.

Not too long ago, I got back from a trip with my son. We went to Idaho to a place called Hell's Canyon. It is aptly named because it is straight up and down, and it has a reputation for being one of the hardest places to hunt in North America. It seemed like a pretty good idea to be in those mountains. I had never been there before, and the challenge of the terrain, along with the marksmanship required to harvest an animal there, presented a real challenge. It is well known in the hunting community.

So we went, my son and I, along with one active duty Marine and another Marine who had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and was going to his next mission, so to speak. He was going back to school. They were great guys, very physically fit. As we arrived and started to look at the terrain, what had seemed like a great idea back at home—sitting on my couch reading about Hell's Canyon and the bear hunting there—started to look a little more daunting when the task was before me. It made me wonder if this was a good idea at all.

As we progressed in this hunt, they say the thing about Idaho is, if you don't like the weather, don't worry; it will change in the next 15 minutes. Boy, was that true! As we were glassing these canyons, we would go up to 6,500 feet to glass down into these canyons that were 2,000 feet below us. In the course of an hour and a half, the weather changed from rain to so much sun that we had to take our jackets off, then to snow and fog. The weather was really rough. As the wind started to blow off the snowbanks while we were glassing in the canyons, it just got unbearably cold.

After a couple of days, the strength of the investment in this mission was starting to wane a little bit. Thankfully, we did harvest a bear, and it was great. However, it was an experience that I will never forget because it went from something that was going to be a lot of fun to something that was really a challenge.

Being in that situation, in an environment I'm not used to, was quite a shift. I'm a Southern California guy, so dealing with that white stuff flying out of the sky was a new experience for me. Walking in snow was also a new thing, and it proved to be quite a challenge. But at the time, it seemed like a great idea.

Point four on your outline: the proof of our commitment is the length of our obedience. Long obedience is a term that comes down to this: what you actually do is what you believe. For example, if you work out and are very consistent about it, that consistency reflects a core value you hold. We know that because you do it.

Long obedience, as we strive to do the right thing for a very long time, can be a challenge for many. As a father, I know that sometimes it appears there is no reward in that role. It may not seem glamorous; it can feel like drudgery, and we might feel taken advantage of. We can easily focus on the wrong aspects rather than recognizing it as an honor and a privilege to be a father.

Ultimately, what we are measured by is that long obedience. That is what brings us success with our families. Long obedience is not necessarily exciting. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but it is something that continues on and on. Therefore, being empowered to maintain that long obedience is very important.

I want to show you a picture. In this picture, you see three teenage girls. The way they are dressed, they could look like they are going out to spend the day, have lunch, go clothes shopping, or just enjoy a great time together as they cross the street. However, if you notice closely, there are M16 carbine machine guns hanging over their shoulders.

And we know by that picture; I instantly knew where that was, and it's in Israel. This is modern times, where being in the Army is compulsory for young people. It's part of what they do; they are required to serve. Even when they are not on duty, they are required to have their weapons with them. It is a nation that is still very much at war. It still has the sword and the trowel mentality, so to speak.

The thing to remember is that this fight never stops. You pace yourself and keep in mind that this fight continues. The wall would have been completed in half the time, by my best estimate, if they didn't have to carry a gun, so to speak. Their attention was split between these two worlds. From the sovereignty of the work and the practicality of it, they had to deal with this ongoing fight. This distraction took away time and attention from the actual building itself.

Despite these challenges, they finished quite remarkably and quickly, especially for people who were perfumers and goldsmiths. They were not professionals, yet they completed the work in just over 50 days. However, they could have finished in less than a month had they not had to worry about the threats against them. They had weapons for a reason. God could have sovereignly protected them, as He has done so many times before, but they had weapons for a few reasons.

I believe one of the reasons was physical. Having something to hold on to made them feel more comfortable. It provided them with a sense of security beyond just knowing that God was there for them and that they were doing a holy work. They were prepared.

Like it or not, the year 2020 was one of the most worrisome and scary years for many people. Not coincidentally, federal background checks for firearms reached 39 million. This number does not represent just one weapon; it can represent a dozen if the person so chooses.

The NICS federal background check received over 39 million requests for background checks. It was a record, they say, by about 10 million, I believe. You can look at the figures. The fact is that people were worried, scared, and wanted a physical manifestation, something in their hand to protect them. It was a scary time for people. In fact, they believe over 10 million of these background checks were by people who had never owned a weapon before. That tells you the state of people's being, so to speak, the fear and the level of fear that they had.

I believe that part of their preparation, as seen in Nehemiah, was allowed by God for them to have something to hold on to and to remember this. Their swords served that purpose. The second part is very spiritual. The enemy knew that they would use them. The history and background of Israel is littered with people who came against God. God's people often outnumbered those who opposed them, yet tribes with far more weapons and greater numbers were defeated by the Israelites using very simple weapons. They were not warriors, so to speak, nor did they outnumber the enemy, but God used these people and their crude weapons to achieve victory.

The reputation was that when the God of the Hebrews armed His people, their enemies would be defeated. When you're a dad, and I've been a father now for, what, 33 years, that job never ends. Ever. You are always a dad; you never stop being one. I am still a father to my adult children. They still come to me for advice. Sometimes, I even give them advice they may not be asking for. I try not to do that, but it happens. When you're a dad, you never stop being a dad. It is a responsibility, a joy, and a mission that lasts a very long time. The same goes for when you're a mom; you are still a parent.

You're still a mom to even your adult kids. When you're a Christian, it's a long thing. It's not a short-term thing; it's a long-haul thing. Even when you're an architect, you have these jobs and these stations in life. Even when you stop doing them, you still do them. Even when your primary responsibility is gone, you still do them.

It's the same in God's kingdom. As we serve the Lord, we never, ever just arrive. We never get to a place of serenity, so to speak, of peace, where the fight is over. We don't get to that point where we stop being part of the equation or stop being part of the story. However, we do reach a level of maturity in our relationships.

It's where we recognize that it's not being away from the storm or the fight that gives us peace and shelter. It's being sheltered during the fight and being sheltered during the storm. No matter how scary and hard it looks, having that peace as the world comes apart around us is essential. We know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much that He paid the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation in the New Covenant—the giving of His Son and the rising of His Son for the forgiveness of our sins.

God bless you. For you dads out there, I pray you have a blessed day, that your children adore you, and that they treat you well. I hope you don't have to pay for lunch today. I hope that works out for you.

Now, next week, I really encourage you to tune in and see Pastor David. I think you will be blessed. So, God bless you.

Let's pray. Dear Father, I thank you so much for our online congregation, Lord. I know that for whatever reason they can't be there with us, but Lord, they are. We care about them, so please encourage them, lead them, and direct them. Thank you for letting me teach these last three weeks, Lord, and for going through the Word. I've learned so much as I've looked at God's Word and His promises—not only to His people back then but His promise now.

So, Father, lead us and guide us. May we be missionaries to the world, Lord, to our neighbors and to our families. In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen. God bless you guys.