Off the Wall

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge, P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. Amen. You may be seated.

Turn with me, if you will, to Nehemiah. That's after Kings and Chronicles. You'll find Ezra and then Nehemiah.

And the title of my message tonight is, Off the Wall. Now, I don't mean that what I'm going to say is off the wall, but the title of my message is off the wall and I'm not trying to be cute. I believe this is a word from the Lord that He does not want His people to come off the wall.

Now, to understand it, turn and let's read three verses in Nehemiah, chapter 6. Now, it came to pass when Sanballat and Tobiah, verse 1, chapter 6, verse 1. ...upon the gates. That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let's have a meeting. Let's meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono.

But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so I cannot come to your meeting. I cannot come down.

Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you? Now, let me read that third verse again and insert a few words. I am doing a great work on the wall, so that I cannot come down off the wall. Why should the work cease while I leave it, while I leave the wall and come to you off the wall? Do you know that the devil wants to get you and me, like Nehemiah, to come down off the wall and bring to a halt the work that God is doing and building in your life? And we'll see in this message that the wall Nehemiah and his coworkers were building was a testimony to an outbreak of a revival of righteousness and holiness.

David read the Scripture from Ezra, as they made sacrifices unto the Lord. And that was the beginning of a revival. And so I believe that the Times Square church, you and I have much in common with that period of time.

Now, there may not be a great revival in the land today. I don't think that we can say that. But the spirit of revival can be taking place in our hearts.

And I believe it is happening here. You see, revival begins with a pouring out of the spirit upon a body that is in danger of becoming a dead corpse. And God is reviving his body.

Revival also takes place when we see God's finger pointing at us. How many times have you seen it happen? You've come into a service, and you thought that the preacher had read your mind that day or knew what was going on that week. He knew your situation because you spelled it all out.

But it was God pointing a finger at you. And that's what he's been doing here. He's been pointing a finger, and he's saying to you and to us, Get ready.

Get your life cleaned up. Shake off those heavy bands. Get your marriage in order.

Get your house in order. Get your life in order. Is that your testimony? I know it is.

I know for some of you it is. D.L. Moody said that revival is nothing else but a new beginning of obedience. Now, whenever this new beginning of obedience takes place, it is important that we do not come down off the wall.

And I want you to consider a people here who dedicated themselves to return, a returning to full surrender to the will and purposes of God. In other words, a new beginning of obedience. And as a sign of their determination to do God's will, they refused any and all invitations to come down off the wall.

And, oh, what an encouragement, what a blessing nearby has been to my own heart as I have chewed on this Word over the last week or so. And the result of their not coming down off the wall is that revival broke out among the people. They were healed from their backsliding.

The Word of the Lord became precious. It became sacred. It became reverent to them.

Gladness and joy broke forth. And the normal religious practices that they had previously forsaken were restored. And a revival took place.

This is a good period in the history of Israel. The historical setting for it takes place in the books of Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as under the prophetic preaching of Haggai and Zechariah.

Now, to give you a further background, Israel was being called back to the Promised Land from exile, from their captivity. And a small group, only a very small group returned. And that small group was called the remnant.

The remnant. And they were so called that because they were so few in number in comparison to the number of Jews that were taken into the captivity, as well as those that were born doing it. Only a very small portion of them chose to go back when the opportunity was given to go to their homeland.

Now, Ezra tells us in the second chapter of the book of Ezra, he tells us exactly how many went back. 42,366 left Babylon to separate themselves from the worldliness or the wickedness of Babylon, as well as this small band had to separate themselves from the majority of the Jews who chose not to go back because they had assimilated themselves in the lifestyle, in the culture, and the worldliness of Babylon, and they did not have a heart for God. Only a minority, which we call a remnant, chose to make that long trek across the wilderness and go and restore the worship and do what God was asking them to do.

And the record was kept. The number, as I said, 42,366, plus it listed the number of servants, and it even said that there were 200 singers. As you know, you can't have a revival without a worship leader and without musicians and without backup singers, and they even gave the number of the singers that went back.

But the fact that Ezra and Nehemiah take the time and space to list the heads of the families and clans that returned is remarkable in itself. You can see it in Nehemiah, the 7th chapter. It's in the 2nd chapter of Ezra.

You see, God always takes notice of a people who separate themselves from Babylon to return and serve him. He recorded for all of history the names of those who with a willing heart went back to erect the house of God, it says, for the house of the Lord to be set up in its place. Now, some of those names are meaningless, and I used to pass over them until I really looked into it and saw what God was doing here.

Some of them are hard to pronounce, but the fact that God lists them shows that he does not forget our works of righteousness. Hallelujah. Nobody goes unnoticed in the kingdom of God.

Nothing that we do for God goes unnoticed. He has it recorded, and little did any of those Jews, devoted Jews in Ezra, they ever think that God would preserve a record of their names to be handed down all through history so that in every Bible it takes up space and it lists their names because he places a high value upon people who have a heart for him and a people who want to go back and start in a new beginning of obedience unto him and for the glory of his name. Now, there were three important works that the Jews undertook when they went back.

They set up an altar, they rebuilt the temple, and they repaired the broken-down walls of the city. And all three of these deeds were signs of their spiritual restoration and also they were conditions that had to be fulfilled before the revival could break out and before they could be right with God. Now, the building the altar was necessary in order to reinstate the sacrifices and therefore offer repentance and confession to sin.

And of course, this is always the first step to God. The temple had to be rebuilt in order to reaffirm the covenant promises and the fact that there was still a dwelling place of God in their midst. Thirdly, the repairing of the wall was to demonstrate the separation between Israel and the other peoples and nations and their practices that were back in the land, that were already there in the land.

And so a wall was erected around the city intended to keep Israel in and to keep the world out, a type of the believer's separation from evil. Now, it was during the rebuilding of the temple and the repairing of those walls that the remnant came under an attack. And a close look at these attacks reveals very important principles that every one of us can apply tonight to our lives.

Because whenever you try to build something for God, whenever you try to repair the broken altar in your life, whenever you seek to do something about this temple of the Holy Ghost, whenever you begin to build a wall of separation between you and the world, you can be sure that the enemy is going to come and put you under attack and try to bring a halt to that. Satan wants you and I to get off the wall. 1 Thessalonians 2, 18, Paul writes to them and he said, Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us.

Satan is always trying to hinder the building up of the saints. If he can't prevent you from laying the foundation with your salvation, he'll do the next best thing and he'll do everything in his power. The Bible says we must be aware of the wiles of the devil.

He has every conceivable way, every conceivable method to keep you from building once you lay down the foundation. God's purpose is that we might draw up unto him who is the head, that is Christ. Satan wants to keep us infants and babies and weaklings who stay so far away from the headship of Christ as possible so that we will never grow up and mature.

And what we pray as our pastors pray, Oh God, give us a people that will mature in you. Give us strong saints who will not come down off the wall. Hallelujah.

Let me ask you then, how's your walls? How high are they? Are you growing up in him in all things? If you're working on this building, used to be an old course, an old song, working on a building, working on a building, working on a sure foundation. If you've been repairing the altar where confession to sin is made, if you've been trying to erect a strong wall of separation to the world, Satan wants to get you off the wall. And tonight I believe that some of you are in that position.

Some of you are under attack and the devil you know is trying to get you off the wall. Some of you have got to step already back. You've made a major progress and now there is a temptation to go back.

Or as Galatians 5, 7 says, ye did run well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? You started well, you ran well, you started to build but now you've laid down your tools. A brother came to me after, I believe a week ago last Sunday night after Brother Dave gave a prophetic word at the end of his message and he said, oh, he said, that was for me. You know what the devil had to convince me? The devil had convinced me that I had made enough progress now.

Now it was time just to be an ordinary Christian. And I was going to go back to the church where I came from until I came to realize what a trick of the devil that was. Now I want you to know how Satan attempts to get you down off the wall.

First of all, he does it through ridicule and through mocking. Ridicule and mocking. Look to Ezra chapter four in verse one.

Now, let me say something to you if you're newly saved. If you're a new Christian and if you begin to let people know your life is heading in a new direction, you're going to have some of them get mad at you. How many of you have some sand ballads in your life? How many of you got some on the job? Maybe you're living with one.

And if you really begin to do in your life what God intends you to do, if you really begin to walk in holiness, then at work or at school or at home, immediately a wall, a separation is going to go up and you're going to make people mad. Now, I don't mean that you isolate yourself from them. I don't mean that you don't talk to anybody.

That's not what I'm talking about. When you do not no longer laugh at their jokes, when you no longer participate in their thinking and their lifestyle and you begin to let your light shine, you're going to know what it is to have ridicule and mockery. Let me put it this way.

A true Christian in an ungodly situation, it's like suppose there's a group of people in a room partying and they've got all the lights dimmed or no lights at all and you come in and all of a sudden you turn on the lights in the room, bright lights. Everybody's going to say, what are you doing? Who turned the lights on? Turn the lights off. And you know, when you go, if you are a Christian and you let your light shine and you come into the presence of an ungodly situation, suddenly somebody's going to say, who turned the light on in this office? Turn the light off or don't, you know, don't speak those kinds of things.

Don't say those kinds of things. A holy Christian entering in an unholy place is like turning on a bright light and men love darkness because their deeds are evil. And I don't care, I don't mean just necessarily if you speak out, if you just live your life, you just be what God asks you to be, people are going to know that there's some light there and it's going to bring condemnation on them and guilt on them and they're going to mock you and ridicule you.

I heard of a fellow on the assembly line in Detroit who went to work all week long in order to make a statement. He went in a white tuxedo. I guess he was tired of being called, you know, a grease monkey or a blue collar worker or whatever.

And he went in a white tuxedo and he worked on the assembly line. He did something in the engine. And, you know, it'd come down and he'd work and he worked away and he wanted to prove to everybody that the job that he did, that he wasn't getting dirty and so he wore a white tuxedo.

Well, wearing a white tuxedo, you know, that's the way Christians are. You come on the job and people look at you and say, Who do you think you are wearing a white tuxedo? Wearing a white tuxedo to work is the same reaction as the presence of godliness in an ungodly situation. And you're going to feel the mockery, the ridicule.

And when and if you're having to put up with such ridicule and persecution, I believe in part, in some small part, you are entering into the sufferings of Christ. Listen to what it says in Hebrews 12, 3. It says, For consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, yet be he, lest ye be wearied. Let me start again.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. And I might add, and come down off the wall. And just for good measure, the next scripture says this.

Remember, when you face such ridicule, you face such laughter and you think, Well, this is too much for me. The next verse says, Remember, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. You may have it hard, but remember, you didn't have it hard as our Lord.

But a part of being a follower of Christ is to experience the contradiction of sinners. Now, another source of ridicule or mockery comes from those very close to us sometimes. Beware of a loved one, even a spouse, or other Christians who knowingly or unknowingly will say things to you to get you to come down off the wall.

Matthew 10, 36 says, And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. How often I've seen parents, I see parents, they want their kids safe, but they don't really want them saved.

Or they want them off drugs, or they want to save them from the ills of drug addiction or other gross sin. But then I see their son or daughter get saved and then begin to build a wall. They begin to build a life of true holiness unto the Lord.

And the family looks up at the wall and says to them, Hey, what are you doing up there in heavenly places in Christ Jesus? Is it necessary to always set your affections on things above? Why don't you set them down on things below where we're living? I've seen the parents of converted drug addicts complain. They send their son or daughter to us on drugs and then they come and they get saved. And then they go back and the family's upset because now not only did they get saved, but they built this wall.

And they're so far out to distance their parents. The parents may be saved or not saved, but they're so far beyond their parents, they bring conviction on their parents. And one father said, My parents kept hollering at me, You've turned into a fanatic.

Hallelujah is right. He said, What would you rather have, an addict or a fanatic? But on the other hand, I've seen compromising. I've seen sons and daughters cause their parents to compromise because their sons and daughters are living in compromise.

And often I've seen them choose a compromising church. And I've seen parents come down off the wall of holiness in order to appease their kids, in order to keep their kids happy, in order to have them in a happy church rather than a holy church. And listen, my friend, the goal is not to get your kids inside the church, but to get them inside the walls of salvation and to get built up on the wall of salvation, to build up a wall of separation from the world.

Parents, he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. I had a sister from the church called me, and I hope she won't mind, I didn't have a chance to ask her if I could repeat this, but I believe she would grant permission. She called and asked for prayer because they'd been going to another church and the other church had an active youth program, and yet the parents started to come here and God began to do a real change in their lives, and they felt torn between here and the other church for their son.

And one day the mother said to her son, she said, son, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to think about it, and I want you to answer truthfully from your heart. She said, where would you rather us go to church where your parents are going now and really receiving the word? And by the way, I'm not saying this to build up our church or to put down another church. If you think that, you've missed the whole point.

But she said, would you rather have us stay where we are, even though, as you folks know, we don't yet have a youth program? She said to her son, would you rather us stay there and see your parents grow in the Lord as we're growing, or do you want us to go back to the other church? And he thought about it for a few minutes, and he said, well, I guess if God's changing your life, then you ought to stay where you are. I think she made a good decision, and I think he made a good decision. Matthew 10, 38, the very next verse says, and he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.

And listen, one aspect of cross-bearing is staying on the wall, regardless of criticism, regardless of persecution, regardless of mockery, whether it comes outside the house or inside the house, don't come down off the wall because you're being mocked for your faith. Count it a privilege, hallelujah. But especially if it's from within, it's from your own family.

May God give you the grace not to come down off the wall. Now, another method that Satan used here during this period to get them off the wall was fear and intimidation, fear and intimidation. Look at the next verse.

We're still in chapter 4, verse 2. That's right. Good, somebody's following me. You get an A in the class.

Nehemiah chapter 4. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, what do these feeble Jews, what are they doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in one day or will they complete this project in one day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? You see, what Sanballad was saying to Nehemiah and his church on the wall, a church that was being, by the way, that was being constructed right out of the rubbish heap, what Sanballad was saying was this, you're never going to make it. You're never going to get this wall built. You're a bunch of weaklings.

You're a bunch of feeble souls. You're a bunch of broken down, burned out people. It's impossible for you to build a strong wall.

And he tried to put them under fear and intimidation. And I want to ask you tonight, if that is not familiar language to some of you, is the voice of Sanballad heard in some of your ears? Here's how it goes. You're never going to get the wall of salvation and holiness and separation and righteousness built.

You're never going to get it built. You're never going to make it. Look at your past failures.

You're nothing but a burned out heap of stones that God took out of the rubbish. And what makes you think that he can make you into a living stone and to be placed into the church of Jesus Christ? That's what he says to some of you. Job 12 and four says, I am as one mocked of his neighbor who calleth upon God.

And he answered him, the just and the upright man is laughed to scorn. Let me ask you, do you feel sometimes just like that, like a just and upright man, being intimidated, being laughed to scorn, hearing the taunts of the enemy? He says, you're going to fall. You'll never get the job done.

You're never going to fortify yourself against sin. And you're never going to get the wall of holiness built. You might as well give up.

Look at the third verse of chapter four, Nehemiah. Two more intimiders come by. It says, now Tobiah, the Amorite was by him.

And he said, even that which they built, if a fox go up, he shall even break down the stone wall. In other words, here's Tobiah and his friends. Evidently, they may be standing down below the wall.

They said, oh, that's nice. That's a nice thing that you're doing there, Nehemiah. But he said, even if you get the wall down, what kind of wall is it? My goodness, he said, a little fox will come along and make a hole in it and it'll get right through your wall.

And that's just like the devil. He says, go ahead, build your wall, but it'll never hold up. It'll never last.

He said, I'm going to come along and I'm going to outfox you and I'm going to break down your faith and sin is going to come right back into your life. And that's the lies that the devil has been telling some of you. Now, there's one more method that the devil uses, Satan uses.

He makes an offer to help you. He said, okay, you don't want to come down off the wall? All right, let me come up on the wall and let me help you. This is the end of side one.

You may now turn the tape. Then Sanballat and Geshem sent unto him, saying, come and let us meet together in some place. Let us meet together in some village in the plain of Olno.

But they thought to do him mischief. You see, Nehemiah discerned that Sanballat was up to no good. And the reason that he was suspicious is because Sanballat and Tobiah were Samaritans.

And listen, whenever, listen to me carefully. We're going to follow this through. Whenever the Holy Ghost, wherever a strong Holy Ghost church is being built, there will always be a group of Samaritans that will come along and say, let us help you build your church.

And they want to infiltrate and be a part of it. Now go back to the fourth chapter of the book of Ezra because there we see it also, the picture of what we're talking about. Fourth chapter of Ezra.

When he was building the temple, he also had a delegation of Samaritans who came and offered assistance. Ezra chapter 4, verse 1 and 2. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity built of the temple unto the Lord God of Israel, then they came to Zerubbabel and to the chief of the fathers and said unto them, let us help build with you for we seek your God as you do and we do sacrifice unto him as well. Now listen to me, be careful, beware of giving permission to Samaritans to join you and to give you assistance because they will bring you to ruin.

Now who were the Samaritans? Go with me back just a few to II Kings, back a few pages as it were to II Kings chapter 17. And you see what happened was this, when the children of Ezra went into the Babylonian captivity, when they vacated their territory and their cities and their homes, what the kings did, what their captors did was to take other nations, other foreign people and put them in their place like an exchange program. And we pick it up at II Kings chapter 17 and verse 24.

It says, And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Kuthah and from Ava and from Hamath and from Zeph for them and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. And they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was in the beginning of their dwelling there that they feared not the Lord.

In other words, they practiced their own heathen religions. Therefore the Lord sent among them, sent lions among them which slew some of them. Therefore they spake to the king of Syria saying, The nations which thou hast removed and placed in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God of the land.

Therefore he has sent lions among them and behold they slay them because they know not the manner of the God of the land. And so the king of Assyria commanded and saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence and let them go and dwell there and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord.

However, there was no reality to their fear of the Lord. It was all a show. It was all an attempt to try to get on good terms with any and all gods, including the God of Israel.

And look at verse 33, it says, So they feared the Lord and served their own gods after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. In other words, there was no true conversion. They merely adopted the outward religious form, but never had a change of heart.

They acted like Israelites, but they were not an Israelite. That was the Samaritans. They're like, I knew a fellow one time who, you know, when people used to put these things on their dashboard, the Virgin Mary, he had the Virgin Mary, a cross, and a Star of David on his dashboard.

And I said, Hey, what do you got all three of them there for? He said, Well, I don't know which one's a true religion, and I'm just covering all my bases, that's all. And that's what these Samaritans did. They had these lions attack, and they said, Well, let's try to adopt their religious form.

And when Ezra was approached by these Samaritans now, these descendants of the Samaritans, and they asked, Let us build with you. He called them adversaries and rightly so. They were the descendants of the Samaritans from 2 Kings 17.

They were a mixed multitude who would pretend to serve and fear the Lord, but they still clung to their own gods, and had Nehemiah permitted them to come up and build the temple, or had Zerubbabel permitted them to join in with him, it wouldn't be long until they would have infiltrated and they would have brought a stop to the real move of God that was going on. And what that means for us, my friend, is that whenever there is a remnant building a church without spot or wrinkle, there is always a Samaritan present who says, Let us build with you, for we seek the Lord as you do. But the truth is that they say they fear the Lord, but they still cling to their gods of self and success and soulishness and do not belong in the house of the Lord.

And I'm afraid that in some measure today the church has been infiltrated with Samaritans and Samaritan methods, and I think the swelling numbers in some cases of the church is the fact that we have a mixed multitude in the pew and Christianity has simply become another added god to serve along with your other gods. And these Samaritans have brought into the church their own music, their own entertainment, a New Age gospel that you can have Jesus and still cling to the heathen gods. You can bow in prayer while you toast a drink to the devil.

I think of a good example of it, inviting the Samaritans to help build God's work, some of you may know about the popular Christian singer, a young lady who tried to cross over to secular popularity. And you know what her husband, her manager said? He said, think of all the young people she could reach if she only had a number one hit on the secular chart, as if God's work was in trouble. And we needed this dear young lady to have a number one hit in order to help us out.

I saw an article in one of the large Pentecostal denomination magazines that disturbed me. It was entitled, What Major Corporations in America Can Teach the Church. And here was a list of all the things that corporations do that said we ought to be doing in the church.

And my goodness, I read that and I thought, I thought it was the other way around. I thought it was the church that had to say something to the church, to the world and to corporations. You see, Samaritan compromisers always want inside the walls of the church because the flesh hates to be accounted unfit to take part in what is of God.

Carnal men, however little place they have for the truth in their own souls, they resent being given the place that truth puts them in. And they always want to come in and build. But I want you to note what Nehemiah and Zerubbabel's reaction to the temptation to come down off the wall.

Look at Ezra chapter 4 and verse 3. It says, But Zerubbabel and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God, but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel. You see, the work of God cannot ever be built if we have an unholy alliance. And if the devil cannot get you up to come down off the wall, he'll send somebody along.

He'll send a Samaritan along who pretends to fear the Lord but is still serving their own God to get you up on the wall. And if you enter in that unholy alliance, they'll drag you down. It won't be long.

Listen to 2 Corinthians 6.14. Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. Let me ask you tonight, are you in an unholy alliance or relationship? If you are, get out of it as soon as you can. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord or agreement or harmony hath Christ with Bilal? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of God.

Therefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and stay up on the wall, and I will receive you. Hallelujah. If you're in a relationship with someone or anyone that is pulling you off the wall, as I said, get out of it as fast as you possibly can.

Exodus 32 and 12 says, Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land, or they will be a snare unto you. And if you trace the history of Israel, one of the number one reasons why they backslid is they did not comply with this, and they married other gods, they brought in their religion, they didn't drive them out, and were in an unholy alliance with them. Let your declaration be that of Zerubbabel and the chief of the fathers of Israel who said to these idolaters and the unrighteous, You have nothing to do with us.

Take your position and stand. Hallelujah. Now notice also that Nehemiah also refused to come off the wall.

He withstood ridicule, intimidation, and satanic attack. When Shamballot invited him to come off the wall for a meeting on neutral ground, look at it back in chapter 6. He said, Come and let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Olno. And Nehemiah said, Oh no, you're not going to get me to the village of Olno.

I'm not moving off the wall. And he made four attempts, four attempts to get Nehemiah off the wall and it didn't work. In fact, he tried a fifth time.

And you know what Shamballot's name means? It means thorn in secret. A thorn in secret. And my friend, if you've got a Shamballot that you've been coming off the wall to meet with every once in a while, believe me, it's going to put a thorn in you and you'll never get that wall built.

Not only did Shamballot try four times, he followed up by another attempt to assassinate Nehemiah's character and to discredit him before his own people. They even arranged to have him, they even worked from within the temple, within the city. Shamballot had a connection inside the city and they tried to set it up so that Nehemiah would come and said, well, if we can't get him outside the city, we'll make an arrangement for him and come into the temple.

And they said to him, if you go into the temple and hide yourself, you'll be safe and you won't be killed. In verse 12, look at verse 12 of chapter 6. And it says, You get the picture? The devil will stop at nothing. I say it again, the devil will stop at nothing to get you off the wall.

Now how did Nehemiah, how was he able to handle these attacks? Why did he stay on the wall? Well, listen to his prayer. Look at verse 9. And they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.

Do you know what they actually did on the wall? They had, one of them worked with the tools and the other one had weapons. They watched and they prayed. And they sought the face of God and he strengthened their hands.

And God kept them on the wall. And God can keep you on the wall. Hallelujah.

Psalm 62,4, listen to it. They only consult to cast him down from his excellence. They delight in lies.

They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. My soul, wait thou upon God, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation.

He is my defense. I shall not be moved. Hallelujah.

In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. You see friends, because Satan knows that when you are standing on the wall and you are standing in Christ, he has no power over you. The only device, the only weapon that is left for him is fear and intimidation.

And if the devil can get you to think he has power, then it's as if, as if he actually has it. But the devil's power is simply in his fear to inflict upon you. And this is why we are admonished, resist the devil and he has to flee from you when you're on the wall.

Hallelujah. Listen to Job. You don't need to turn to there.

Listen to Job 11, 14 and 15. It says, And if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame. You will stand firm and without fear.

Let me read that again. If you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame and you will stand firm and without fear. You see, the answer, my friend, to whatever the attack is that the devil has against you, the answer is very simple.

Nehemiah said it. I am doing a great work on the wall and I cannot come down off the wall. Psalms 18 and 6 says, The Lord is on my side.

I will not fear. What can man do unto me? Hallelujah. Matthew 10, 22 says, All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm on the wall to the end will be saved.

Job 17, 9 says, Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways and those with clean hands will grow stronger. Now, there's one more thing and I'm going to close with this. Look at chapter 6 of Nehemiah again.

Well, verse 15. Look at verse 15 first of all. And it says, And so the wall was finished.

So the wall was finished. God's building a wall. God's building a wall in your life and he wants to finish it and he wants to complete it.

He wants no gap. He wants nothing where Satan can enter in. And if you'll stay on the wall, God will give you the strength to complete it.

Hallelujah. But you know what's interesting to me is that when Sanballat came, look at verse 1 of chapter 6 again of Nehemiah. It says, He heard that I had built the wall and there was no breach left.

They were almost finished. They were almost finished except, he said, we had not put in the doors yet. And you know what the doors stand for? You see, the purpose of the wall that we put up is not to isolate ourselves from the world.

There's a difference between separation, isolation and separation. And the purpose and one of the problems that there's been in the past with people who want to walk in holiness is that they become very exclusive. It becomes us four and no more or acts two four and no more or whatever you want to say.

And many times the people that walk, they get so caught up in building the wall that they start building wall upon wall and they start getting into all kinds of, other kinds of doctrine. But it says, He came along just about the time the wall was finished and the gates were going to put in because the purpose of the gates was to not keep themselves totally isolated but to open the gates so that people could come in and know the God of Israel and get involved in evangelism and get involved in outreach and get involved in reaching the world. And just about the time they had the wall complete, Sanballat came along and he said, We got it almost all complete except we don't have the doors on.

That's just the next step. And my friend, I believe that that's right where this church is right now. God wants you to close in the wall.

He wants no gap. He wants nothing so that no sin can get in there and then he's going to put doors up, hallelujah, so that others can come in and taste and see that the Lord is good and he's going to have us involved. But Sanballat comes just along, just about that time when you get the wall finished and just before you're ready to move on to the next step.

And if that's the case in some of your lives tonight, the word of the Lord to you is this, Don't come down off the wall. Don't come down off the wall. Shall we bow in prayer?