Building the Walls Around the Church

I was thinking of the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament recently. I'd like you to turn for a moment there. Some of these Old Testament books, if you try and understand the spiritual lesson in it, there's a great message there.

And a little history. The children of Israel were sent into captivity around 600 years before Christ because of their disobedience to so many things. But the Lord told them that I will, after 70 years, I'll bring you back.

So some of them came back in the days of Ezra and the temple had all been broken down. The walls of Jerusalem had been broken down. And Ezra came back and initiated building the temple along with Haggai and Zechariah.

And some years after that Nehemiah inquired about how things are going on. So that's the history here in Nehemiah chapter 1. And he says in verse 2, Hanani, one of my brothers, came, sent some men from Judah. See Nehemiah was not in Israel.

He was in the palace of a king, Persian king. And I asked them, how are things going with the Jews who escaped and survived the captivity and gone back to Jerusalem? Are they doing okay? And he said, the remnant there in the province who survived are in great distress and reproach. And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and the gates are burned with fire.

And when I heard these things, I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. And I was fasting and praying for the God of heaven. I've discovered one thing throughout the scripture that whenever God uses a person, anybody, it always starts with a burden he has in his heart for something concerning God's house.

Today it is God's church. In those days, it was the temple and the city of Jerusalem which symbolized the church today. Throughout the Old Testament, wherever people had a burden for that, they would fast and pray and weep because God was not being honored.

And I believe that is the most important requirement for all of us to be effective members of the body of Christ, to have a concern. I'm not talking about how much you fast and pray, that's up to you. But to have a burden and a concern for the state of the church.

That's what Nehemiah had a concern about. What is the condition of Jerusalem? Jerusalem in the Old Testament is always a picture of the church, all the way to Revelation. So if you want to be an effective member of the body of Christ, you have to have a concern.

You know, just like when you say the church is the body of Christ, it's like you have a concern for your body. We have a concern for our body every single day. I mean, even if you have a slight injury somewhere or ache somewhere, we do something about it.

And that is the person whom God can use because there's a person who's concerned about a little injury or ache in the body of Christ. That's the thing that we need to ask ourselves. Very often we, many Christians, just content themselves that I'm going to the meeting regularly.

I'm attending all the meetings and maybe I'm putting some a little offering in the box. That's not what God is looking for primarily. I'll tell you that.

It's a question of, do you have a burden to understand how are things going in the church? Is the church being built together as a body? And that's a burden Nehemiah had. He says, the walls are broken down and the gates are burned. That's what he heard.

The walls are broken down, verse three, and the gates are burned with fire. So everything in the Old Testament has a symbolical meaning. What are the walls and the gates? It's in Isaiah chapter 60.

We read that Isaiah 60 verse 18, I'll call your walls salvation and your gates praise. The wall of the Jerusalem symbolized it being saved from the rest of the world or a wall of separation we can say. Salvation and separation are really the same thing.

When we are saved, we are saved out of the world. So the wall of Jerusalem symbolized a separation from the spirit of the world and the gates we are told symbolizes praise. So applying that, the spirit of separation from the world is broken down in most churches.

And I want to tell you in the United States that those walls are getting broken down more and more and more and more and more. And that is why, I mean it's happened throughout the generations. And that's why every now and then from the beginning of Christian history in the last 2,000 years, wherever such compromises come in, God's raised up somebody or a few people to stand against that and to start something new.

Because they say the old structures cannot be repaired. That's how you have so many churches today. All these churches that you have, you know, Lutherans and Methodists and Baptists, they were not the worldly type of churches we see today when they started.

They started because, think of a man like Martin Luther. He was concerned that people were being taught that you can be saved by giving money to the Pope. And for years and years people believed that.

And poor innocent people who didn't know the Bible, say they wanted to be saved, they'd pray for the dead and give money to the Pope so that some dead person would go to heaven. And when Martin Luther heard that and studied the scripture and he found it was all wrong, he stood against it. God has always stood by those who have the boldness to stand against corruption.

I want to encourage all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, be bold to stand against corruption. Be bold to stand against backsliding, worldliness coming into the church, worldliness coming into your home. It's very, very easy.

It's not just in the way people dress, but the spirit of worldliness can come into a person's home and come into the church very easily. This is the burden with which we started CFC 50 years ago. We felt the walls had broken down and the world had come right in.

You know, when the walls are broken down, people in the world can come right in. There's no big difference between Jerusalem and the rest of the world. And you see that today in a lot of Christendom.

There's divorce in the world and there's divorce in the church. Even though Jesus said committing divorce is like committing adultery. And a woman who commits adultery, is divorced, is in Romans 7 says she shall be called an adulteress.

Which church preaches that? Which church preaches that a woman who's divorced from her husband is called an adulteress. Do you know that in Romans chapter 7? Let me show it to you. Romans 7 verse 3. If a woman, while her husband is living, is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

Do you think that's being preached in Christianity today? It's not only not being preached. There are pastors whose wives are divorced. Pastors who themselves are divorced.

Nobody bothers. It's a complete, God's Word says that. I couldn't care less for what God's Word says.

That's what I mean by the walls are broken down. And like that, different things, you know, like people were baptizing babies and saying they become children of God automatically till somebody stood against it. And so that's not how you become a child of God.

You have to be born again and immersed in water. But there are even today, there are churches where they sprinkle babies and say it's a child of God. So all Christians are not the same.

That's why there's always been separation, separation, separation. And then we seek to keep ourselves pure, but that spirit of the world can come in. It may not be in terms of divorce.

We've kept ourselves free from that. But in other ways, you have to make sure the walls remain erect. I was looking at Revelation chapter 21 and seeing how, I don't know whether you noticed it.

There's a picture of Jerusalem, the church there. And it's all symbolic in Revelation and says here in Revelation 21 16, the city is a picture of the church. It's like a square length and width and height are equal.

Now there's a meaning even in that. That means what you see in the front has got equal depth as what you see in front. In other words, if it's the length and breadth, it's got the same amount of depth.

That means no hypocrisy. See, a lot of people, what you see in front is very big. But you look and there's no depth there.

It's all hollow. But here it says the length and breadth and width are the same. It's 1,500 miles.

This is a picture of the church, 1,500 miles this way, 1,500 miles, 1,500 miles this way, and 1,500 miles high. And then it's got a wall. The wall speaks of separation.

We're 17. And you know how thick the wall is? 216 feet thick. I hadn't noticed it for a long time that the thickness of the wall.

Have you ever heard of a wall 216 feet thick all around? What is God trying to say through all this? The Lord wants a tremendous spirit of separation of the church from the spirit of the world. And if you read the Old Testament chronicles and kings and judges and Joshua, you find that what the Lord punished Israel for was always because they allowed the world to come in. And then they would lose out to their enemies.

And the Old Testament is full of stories of how some prophet would arise and gather all the people together or some wholehearted king. And then a little while later, the next king would come and they'd bring the world right in. This is the continuous history of Israel in the Old Testament.

And if you read church history in the last 2,000 years, it's been pretty much the same. Somebody would rise up and stand for something and bring holiness and righteousness. Even someone like John Wesley who started the Methodist Church.

But that's not, Methodist Church is nothing like it was in John Wesley's day. The walls are broken down. Or take the Salvation Army.

I mean, the man who started, it was such a godly man. And he and his wife, they stood together, William Booth and Catherine, and had a concern for the poor. But it's such a compromised organization today.

So throughout the centuries, God's raised up one church after the other. And I believe this church is raised up in the same way. There were other churches in this Bay Area, or 14 or 15 years ago, whenever they started.

Why did God raise another church here? Why couldn't people just go to existing churches? There was a reason. It was standing for certain truths, particularly the fact that we could walk in the footsteps of Jesus and be like him, not just be saved and go to heaven. That's what a lot of churches preach.

You're saved, and then you're ready to go to heaven. Whereas we emphasize from the beginning, what Jesus said so clearly. Let me show you that.

Matthew chapter 7. Even a child can understand here. Even a 10 year old can understand this. Matthew 7 verse 14.

The gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life. And there are very few who find it. There are a number of things you can learn just from that verse.

And that's the reason why sometimes a new church had to be started. Some people eliminated the way completely. It's as if Jesus said, the gate is small that leads to life.

That's it. Half the verse is cut out. You accept Christ and you found life.

But let's read carefully. The gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life. You know, you ask a little child.

So what all are there to get to life? Gate plus way. But that way is not mentioned in many churches. You say, oh, once you come in, you got life.

And you can never lose it. And that's what we stood against, right from the beginning. That's what we stood against in India when CFC started.

There is a gate, and there's a way that leads to life. So here's the gate, here's the way, and there's life. Life is not here.

It's a gate and a way that leads to life. And there are very few who find it. So just because the church has got 10,000 people, in fact, I would doubt very much whether they are on the way.

Because there are very few who really find the gate and the way. So these are the little, little things in which compromise comes in. Or take something like the foundation.

What is the foundation of the Christian life? I'm just trying to show you the places where this 216 thick wall has been broken down, broken down to broken down, and made one foot or one inch, and then is finally broken down altogether. God made it such a thick wall around this church of truth, and it's broken down. You know, there's a song which says, the foolish man built his house upon the rock, and the children sing that song.

The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, Christ is the foundation.

But let's read carefully. Let's turn to Luke's Gospel in chapter 6. I'm just trying to show you how compromise comes in. And if you're not careful, it can come in here too.

Luke chapter 6, Jesus said, the wise man and the foolish man. In the beginning, I thought the wise man was a man who found a rocky area and built his house there. And the foolish man was a man who found a sandy area and built his house there, easier to build.

Let's read Luke chapter 6, verse 46. Luke 6 46. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what I say? That's a very relevant word to every Christian today.

If you read through the New Testament and see anything that Jesus said, and you're not doing it, anything, the Lord will ask you why you call me Lord if you don't do what I say. And everyone who comes to me and hears my word and does them, he's like a man who built his house. And listen to this.

He didn't go to a rocky area. He dug deep, went through the sand and hit rock and built. The other guy next to him, he didn't go dig deep.

That was the only difference. He was just next door. He built it on the superficial sand.

And what is the difference between the two? One heard and did. The other person heard, verse 49, and did not do. Now all of us are hearing God's word in the meeting.

But there's a division even here. There are those who hear and read God's word and do it exactly. They are the ones in secret.

Nobody sees it. They dig deep and hit rock. And I'll tell you what that rock is that has to be blasted.

That rock is what we call my will. If this thing called my will is not blasted, we will never build on this rock foundation. What is the thing that brings conflict between husband and wife? It's my will.

Husband says my will and wife says my will and they clash over something and argue about something. But if that my will is not blasted, you will never build on the rock. But that's not taught.

You're taught that you've accepted trash, you've got the foundation. Yeah, it says that in 1 Corinthians 3, the foundation is Christ. But when it comes to what Jesus said here, if you hear what I've taught and you don't do it, and he's talking about the Sermon on the Mount, and in that in the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about things like, if you'd look at a woman and lust in your heart, you'll go to hell.

I have almost never, you turn to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. I personally believe that that Matthew chapter 5, 6 and 7 is one part of this 216 foot thick wall around the church. And I want to tell you, a lot of it has been broken down, just like in Nehemiah's day. And Nehemiah wept when he heard that.

And he went, surveyed the whole area at night, and gathered together people and built the wall in 52 days, even though there was a lot of opposition. You read the book of Nehemiah sometimes, very interesting, such a lot of opposition. And he built it.

There are lessons for us today. God needs people like Nehemiah today, brothers and sisters. So when you read Matthew chapter 5, I mean, you've heard me speak on it umpteen times.

The difference between old covenant and new covenant, we call ourselves new covenant Christian fellowship. What is the difference between an old covenant Jewish fellowship and a new covenant Christian fellowship? Well, Jesus explained it. The old covenant law was Matthew 5, 21, don't commit murder.

So the old covenant Jewish fellowship is don't commit murder. In the new covenant Christian fellowship, it is, I don't, verse 22, you don't lust after women. This is the exact equivalent of the old testament law of don't commit murder.

How many churches teach that? That as serious as murder was, sorry, not lusting after, it is anger. As serious as murder was in the old covenant is anger in the new covenant. See that I say to you, this is new covenant verse 22.

If you're angry, you're guilty. You see the contrast between old covenant and new covenant? Have you heard it in some other church? Have you heard any preacher tell you that the old covenant murder thou shall not murder is in new covenant, you shall not get angry. I never heard it in 60 years of being a Christian in any church or any preacher.

It's a pretty thick wall. It's been broken down. It says you'll be guilty and how guilty if you commit murder in the old testament, you go to hell.

Here he says also verse 22, the last part, you'll go to hell. How many Christians do you think believe that anger can take a person to hell? I don't think I've met any Christian outside of CFC churches who believe that. They laugh at it.

Your brother Zack, you're making the standard so high nobody will ever get in. Yeah, I'm sorry to say the wall is 216 feet thick and it's broken down. And we need a few Nehemiahs who are burdened and weep about it and restore it to the same size.

If that was old covenant, this is a new covenant. Otherwise, to call ourselves new covenant Christian fellowship. Thou shall not murder, you shall not get angry.

This is the equivalent. Many people say, oh, this is too high a wall or too thick a wall. Brother, there are many other churches.

You can sit there all your life and go to hell. I'm not stopping you. But if you come here, we're going to tell you the truth because we don't want your blood on our hands in the day of judgment.

I believe that people will be judged according to what Jesus taught here. Okay, here is another Old Testament commandment. Old covenant Jewish fellowship.

Verse 27, you shall not commit adultery. New covenant Christian fellowship. Verse 28, you shall not lust after a woman.

That will lead you to hell in the old covenant. Adultery. This, according to verse 29, last part, will take you to hell in the new covenant.

And never taught. That's what I mean by saying the walls are broken down. And I believe those who preach that blood of these people is on their hands.

If they are guilty of not warning people, this will take you to hell. I don't believe anybody's blood is in my hands. I preach this for 50 years.

That this is new covenant and that is old covenant. And I've also taught this in the old covenant. It said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

The guy knocks here, knocks out one tooth of yours. Don't knock out two of his teeth. You're permitted to knock out one.

That is old covenant. If you knock out two teeth, you're guilty. He took out one tooth of yours, knock out one tooth of his.

Verse 38, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That's old covenant. In the new covenant, don't resist somebody who comes and fights with you.

Don't get in an argument. If he slaps you on the right cheek, forgive him. And if you don't forgive, turn to chapter six, verse 15.

What if somebody knocks out one tooth of mine and I don't forgive him? I don't knock out his tooth. I mean, I say I'm better than the old covenant. I don't knock out his tooth, but I don't forgive him.

The guy knocked out my tooth. I'm not going to forgive him. Okay, there's a verse for that.

Verse chapter six, verse 15. If you don't forgive others, your heavenly father will not forgive you. New covenant.

Where do you go if God does not forgive your sin? I'm preaching the gospel. I'm trying to save people from hell. It's a slightly different gospel from, accept Christ as your savior and you're on your way to heaven.

Well, I want to say to you, that's not the gospel that Jesus preached. He preached a lot more than that. To receive Christ means to receive his life.

And that's why I believe there's so much confusion concerning the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I was so surprised to hear that somebody in one of our churches went around preaching that you don't need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Anyway, he's no longer an elder today, so it's okay.

We removed him from eldership. Imagine going around telling Christians you don't need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So when you're born again, the Spirit has come.

I agree. But you're not filled with the Spirit. It's like a house.

The light came into one room. Forgiveness of sins. Forgiven.

So many other rooms are empty. For example, the way I use my eyes, the way I react to people who hurt me. You know, if you read the Sermon on the Mount and you say, Lord, what a standard this is.

That's why there are people in the Brethren Assemblies who teach the reason why Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount was to teach you it is impossible to ever get to heaven that way. That's why you come and say, Lord, Jesus died for my sins. I accept him and you're saved.

So you mean Jesus spent three chapters just to tell you that you don't have to keep any of this, but just to show you that you can't keep it and you have to be converted. It's one of the fantastic deceptions. Now, if you don't believe me, you go and ask any Brethren person.

They'll tell you. That's exactly. I was with them for seven, eight years and I know.

Deception. The walls are broken down. You don't have to keep Matthew 5, 6 and 7. And what did Jesus say about a person who doesn't keep it? He's built his house on sand.

All those who ignore Matthew 5, 6 and 7, any worse than it. For example, this one, if you don't forgive others, Matthew 6, 16, your father will not, N-O-T, forgive your transgressions. If you don't preach that, you're breaking down the wall.

The 216 foot thick wall is broken down. There's hardly anything left. And Nehemiah, when he heard the walls were broken down, he wept.

And he had a burden. He took leave from his job and he returned back to Nehemiah. He was an amazing man.

He wanted to raise the standard back to where the God had made it. And it says here, Nehemiah chapter 3, he appointed different people to build that wall again. The high priest, chapter 3 verse 1, he had to get his hands dirty and build.

There was no difference between high priest and the sweeper on the streets. They all joined in. That's the church of Jesus Christ, where there's no difference between what you call, they call them reverend and rabbi, things that Jesus said, you must never use such titles.

The high priest was the first person who arose and started to build the gate. And different, different ones. You read that whole chapter, all the way down, there was no gap.

Nehemiah ensured that there's no gap in the wall. And he built the wall and he, this thing that was broken down, it was one man who did the whole thing. And you read that they completed the wall in 52 days.

The preparation for that was a man called Ezra. And that's in the previous chapter. Now there's a tremendous, these two men were the one who restored Jerusalem, which is a picture of the church, back to the way God wanted it.

And there's a big difference between Ezra and Nehemiah. It's amazing to see how God keeps, brings workers together. Ezra was a very gracious, gentle type of person.

Nehemiah was a firm, strict, no-nonsense type of person. But he was also strict with himself. For example, I want you to see something about Nehemiah's personal habits.

It says here, Nehemiah was very careful in Nehemiah chapter 5. Just a little thing you notice. All the work that he did in the last part of verse 18, Nehemiah 5 verse 18, he was the governor. I did not, you see Nehemiah 5 18, I did not demand the governor's food allowance.

He wouldn't take any money for himself, even for food. That's to be preached today to Christian people who think every preacher must be paid. Pastors have to be paid.

Pastors go from one church to another, wherever they can get a higher salary. That's not Christianity. That's a broken down wall.

These paid pastors and people. Jesus said don't ever be called rabbi. Today's equivalent of rabbi is reverend.

Don't ever be called reverend. You think people care for that? People don't care for the words of Jesus. And there are so many believers who just sort of sit back and say it's okay.

Nehemiah was not like that. He didn't sit back and say it's okay. He said I'm going to do something about it.

I did not use the governor's food allowance. That means he paid out of his own pocket. He didn't take any advantage of, even though he did such a lot of work for the whole city of Jerusalem, he wouldn't take any allowance for it.

And that's the type of person who God uses even today. That's how Paul was. Paul refused to take money from people.

He said he supported himself. He worked and took care of himself. That's how Jesus was.

If people gave him a gift, he took it. But he never made it known that I must get a salary of that type of nonsense. A Christian preacher getting a salary? Absolutely unheard of in the days of the apostles.

It's happening all over today. Do you think anybody's bothered? The people accept it. Those are the people who are not like Nehemiah.

They have no burden. That the walls are broken down. The wall of Christian workers do not get a salary.

That wall's been broken down. How many of you are disturbed by that? How many of you would go calling people reverend so-and-so and all that? You completely ignore what Jesus said. Don't call anybody rabbi or reverend.

I'm just giving you some examples. You see, it's a small thing. Jesus said, even a small dot in the law, if you break it, you're guilty.

So if we don't take these things seriously, I believe we will not be able to build a new covenant church. You can call it New Covenant. There are people who give all types of fancy names.

But if you want to know what New Covenant Church is, this is what it is. I remember when we started CFC 50 years ago. There were two passages of scripture we founded CFC on.

Before I get there, I want to show you the difference between Ezra and Nehemiah for just a moment, because that's also important. In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, one of the serious sins was that the Jewish people had married heathen wives. So when Ezra confronts that, and Ezra hears that the people have married heathen wives in Ezra chapter 9. Ezra chapter 9 verse 1. The princes approached me saying, the people of Israel and Levi's have not separated themselves.

They are married. The daughters were taken as wives, people from other nations. Ezra chapter 9 verse 2. What did he do? You know what he did? Chapter 10 verse 1. He prayed and wept, prostrating himself before God and said, oh God, we have sinned.

We have let you down. Our people have got married to heathen wives. Okay, that was Ezra's temperament.

Now Nehemiah, who came a few years later, he heard the same thing. I want you to see Nehemiah 13. That he also heard that the people had married heathen wives.

Nehemiah chapter 13 in verse 23. In those days I saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and their children spoke half this language and that language. What did he do? He didn't weep.

It says in verse 25, he cursed them and struck and pulled out people's hair and said, how dare you do that? Two completely different people and they worked together for the glory of God. That's how God selected Paul and Barnabas in the New Testament. Barnabas was like Ezra.

He was called a son of encouragement. Paul was the fiery person who would not compromise on anything. And I'll give you one example of it, how they reacted differently.

In Acts chapter 13 is where Paul, God selected, God selected Ezra and Nehemiah, a completely different person. One person will weep when things are going wrong. The other person will just slap people and pull out the hairs from their head.

That's how they dealt with people in the Old Testament. Acts 13, the Lord says in verse 2, separate me Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas, by the way, was not his real name.

His name was Joseph. And Barnabas means son of encouragement. The apostles changed his name.

You are no longer Joseph. We call you son of encouragement because you're such a wonderful brother, encouraging everybody all the time. So the son of encouragement was joined up with Paul and they went to a place called Cyprus.

And there we read, there was a magician in verse 8, Acts 13 verse 8, who was opposing the pro-council from turning to the faith. Acts 13 verse 8. And Saul, look how he talks to him. This reminds me of Nehemiah.

Verse 10, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, won't you stop making crooked the straight of the Lord? The hand of the Lord is upon you and you'll be blind for a time. That's Paul. Now, if you had asked Barnabas to handle this magician, how do you think he would have handled it? I think he would have put his arm around him and say, hey, let's have a talk.

I don't want to tell you. This is not a very good thing. Why are you doing all this? Nothing would have happened.

That's why God chose a Paul and a Barnabas and they work together. What I want to say, the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. That's the balance.

It's two legs. That is Ezra and Nehemiah. That is Barnabas and Paul.

It's always like that. Don't imitate another. I've often told people, don't ever try to preach the way I preach.

God's given me a particular calling. I stick to it. You got to go according to your calling.

But in every new covenant church, there must be this balance of grace and truth. The ministry of Ezra and Nehemiah, Paul and Barnabas. That's the only way the wall will be built strong.

We don't need two Pauls. We don't need two Nehemiahs. We need a Paul and a Barnabas.

And we need a Nehemiah and Ezra. That's how it was with Jesus. He could touch the leper and heal him.

And with the same hand, he could take a whip and chase the money changers out of the temple. Jesus was the whole everything in himself. But today in the body of Christ, one person fulfills this function.

The other person fulfills the other function. That's the only way we can keep the wall 216 feet thick around NCCF and preserve it from all the spirit of the world coming in. It could come into your homes.

It could come in the way you allow your daughters to dress when they grow up. It's very easy. So everybody else is dressing that way.

Okay. Well, if you feel you, I, you know, when people ask me in Bangalore, some sisters, how shall I dress? This is what I told them. I said, if Jesus said to you tomorrow morning, I want to go for a walk with you in the marketplace 10 o'clock.

If Jesus was living in Bangalore and said, I'd like you to come to my house, let's go for a walk in the marketplace. How would you dress if you were walking in the marketplace of Jesus? That's how you should dress all the time. That's all I said.

I said, I don't have a measuring tape to go around checking what's the length of anybody's dress. I'm not that type of person. I said, you ask yourself, if Jesus were coming to your house and taking you for a walk, what, how would you dress? And don't you want Jesus to be with you when you go to the office, when you go to college, when you go to school? Well, if you want him to go with you, go in a way that he would not be ashamed to say, this is my sister, the way she's dressed.

This is a sister of Jesus Christ. So if we keep those standards that the Bible says, of course, we'll be, we'll be unpopular. Of course we'll be unpopular.

Jesus was the most unpopular person in his time. He was so unpopular that they killed him. And most of the apostles were unpopular.

That's why most of them, all of them were killed. So we're not facing persecution these days. But I say that compromise is much worse.

So let's bear that in mind and say, Lord, let me have a concern in my heart like Nehemiah had. Are the walls being broken down? Are we keeping the wall as high and as wide and strong as they should be? Each of us has a responsibility in our home first, and then to the measure in which you have a responsibility in the church to be an example to others. Even if you don't have a responsibility as an elder, the way you conduct yourself and the way you bring up your children, you have a responsibility to the church.

Let's pray. So while I heads about in prayer, let's ask the Lord, what does it mean for me to keep the wall of separation high and wide and strong in my home? And what responsibility do I have with my family as we come to this church? Heavenly Father, we don't live by rules. We believe your Holy Spirit will guide us in all these matters.

We only want to please you in everything. We want to come to the end of our life and say we spent our life pleasing you, whatever other people may have said or thought. Help us, Lord, in every area to be upright, and to honor you.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.