Good evening. I got thinking as Todd was praying that we're going to have to practice, you know, something we do every year when the calendar turns over to January the first time. Most of you may not write checks anymore except for the contribution. So it's that new Sunday of the new year, you know, when you have to put the new number 25 instead of 24. We'll be doing that, but we're going to be doing something harder.
And we're going to be all watching, aren't we, to see who's the one that's going to say Lehman Avenue when we're over there at Cumberland Trace. Start practicing now just a couple of times a day. Jim says he thinks it's going to be him. Well, we're not laying odds. We don't do that kind of stuff, but we'll see. We'll see who that is. If you were paying attention a few moments ago, then you probably know something that every one of us, this preacher's students, did not know as we sat in the classroom, a Bible class classroom in 1988.
You know at least something, something about the planes of Ono. Did you pay attention? Did you see that? I remember that Brother Winkler was teaching us an expository preaching class and he made mention in passing about the planes of Ono and he must have been able to tell by the blank stares on our faces that we had no idea what he was talking about.
He went on to the side telling us how important it was for us to be students of the word. And I made it my business to know something a little bit more about Ohno. You'll notice the title of the lesson and ideas. How do we stay out of Ohno? This idea of the plains of Ohno is a geographical place in the villages surrounding the area of Jerusalem.
And we read about it as we just saw a moment ago. Appreciate Dawson. We went over some of the names of the that are appeared there. He did a flawless job. I thought in that as you look in me and my chapter six specifically, we see about Oh, no.
It's a place where sand ballad and tabaya and gesham, the arabah and all the other enemies had understood that the wall was rebuilt and there were no breaches in it except he said that I had not hung the doors on the gates at that time. They said to him that is sand ballad and gesham said let's meet together in the shepherim or in the villages in the plains of Ono.
Nehemiah said, I knew that they intended harm for me. When we think about valleys, valleys often have associations, don't they? In the Bible times and in our times, we may frequently think of valleys as being associated with sorrow and even death. Who does it think about perhaps the valley of the shadow of death? As the psalmist David speaks of it in Psalm chapter 23.
And so when we think of valleys, we think of low times. We think about times of adversity in our lives. But the valleys that we see in the Bible aren't just about sorrow and death, but they can also be about opposition. It seems that what we read here is a literal valley that represents what me and mine is brethren were facing at this time.
They were coming back into the land. They were trying to do what God had told them to do. And part of what they had to do was to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem and to rebuild the wall meant that they had a job to take care of the gates that were so often present around the perimeter of the city. And there had to be doors that were secure from enemies that would come. And so in this very exhaustive project, there were people who had been around in the land there and they did not want that work to succeed.
And so we see this valley of opposition. You know, I think they can very well represent the devil and the world as the people of God are engaged in doing the will and the work of the Lord. We're going to face the same kind of opposition that Nehemiah did in the book that bears his name. We remind ourselves that Nehemiah is a Jew, but he is one of the Jews who have been serving up in the Persian Empire. He was a royal official.
in the cabinet of the king of the most powerful nation on earth, Artaxerxes, and as he's serving there as the royal cut bear to the king, he hears about the terrible circumstances that the walls around Jerusalem were destroyed, and that the gates had been burned with fire.
And he says, you see what a terrible case that we're in. He says, let's end this disgrace. Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 17. And Nehemiah was able to persuade the people and they began to rebuild the work. Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 18, the wall begins to get done and the gates are hung, even though the doors still had to be done by the time we get to Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 1.
When we look at what's taking place, says, we read in our text in EMI chapter 6, we are reminded that the devil will stand against everything we seek to do if we're trying to do his work and his will. We all are familiar, perhaps, with 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8. Be sober, be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. And when we think about that, we see this imagery.
And perhaps there are sometimes things in the current or the events of history that underlined illustrate what we see in the Bible. In 1898, the British were trying to build a railroad through Kenya. And as they did, they had made their way through the plains of Savo. And they knew that they had to build a bridge across the Savo River. And so out of the jungle during this particular project emerged a threat so legendary that three movies were made about it.
As they were building that bridge, they tried everything they could to deter these two huge male lions. And for some reason, they became man-eaters. And at the end of the day, when the workers retreated to their tents and they slept at night, the lions would come and they would snatch them one by one evening after evening out of those tents and killed a great many of them. In fact, the threat became so great that men walked off the job and fled from this project.
It was so bad that the work stopped. The project manager led some proactive efforts. They were trying to lay traps and to take proactive measures to keep food and other nuisances away from them. It was only after nine months of tracking and failing that the project manager was able to kill both of those lions that the rain of terror stopped. Having been at Tanzania on several occasions and hearing lions roar and seeing the power of those creatures.
Peter could not have chosen a better image for us to try to have in our minds. You've been to the zoo and you've seen these kings of the jungle. Peter describes the devil's opposition in that way. And yet he comes along right behind it and he says that we can resist the devil and the work that he does in opposition to the will of the Lord. First Peter chapter 5 and verse 9.
As formidable as a foe that he might seem to be, we can stand up to him and when we do, he will flee from us, James chapter 4 and verse 7. But it's not just the devil that opposes our work. When we think about the fact that we as the children of God are trying to spread the values of the gospel, I want you to think about how often the world will hear that and they'll feel judged by that.
and they may try to oppose the things that we say and they have the bigger megaphone and they're able through that to be able to speak against the things that we might share one on one or through any platform in which we're trying to share the gospel be it through our television program through good video programming whatever efforts that we do to try to get the word out it's because our values are opposed to the values of this world
John makes that very clear in 1 John 2 and verse 15 when he says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There's a gulf. There's a contrast between the two. And so what we should do is expect that opposition is going to come. If we are doing the will of God and we're trying to follow the word of God, there are going to be times when others are not happy.
When we look at Nehemiah chapter six, we see some of the distractions and the discouragements that they faced. They faced pretense in Nehemiah chapter six, verse one through three. All the folks that came up to them that we read about just a few moments ago pretended to be for the work, but at the same time they were actually against it. You know, they're going to be some as we interact with them and we're trying to share God's word with them that are going to show us one face and yet
really be or think something else. You'll also find in verses four and five that they engaged in persistent pestering. They kept after them again and again literally four times. They wanted to do all they could maybe by continuing to say the same thing to shut them down. We also see the great pressure that they put on them and the way they did that if you look at verse six through verse 11 was through misinformation.
By misleading them, by misleading others by saying, we're going to tell others that this is what you're trying to do. Then we look at the last part of the chapter in chapter six, verse 12 through 14, it was through preaching a message, a message of intimidation, a message that would inspire fear so that they would not obey God. You see that in verse 12 through 14. And so there's opposition taking place.
It reminds us that we're going to be opposed if we stand for Christ. And yet the book of Nehemiah is not a book about failure. It's a book about success. It's a book about how God's people were able to rise up to the challenges that they faced even when there was opposition. You're going to find in the latter part of Nehemiah, there's opposition from within. And in the first part of the book, there's opposition from without.
and yet through all of it, the same principles applied. Now, I wanted to preach this lesson. I'm sure there are going to be other lessons to follow to talk about how we have gotten this far. We think about all that has been able through God's power and through God's help. We find ourselves where we are. It's an exciting time. We have been literally building. And in the literal building that we're doing, we're also doing figurative building.
We're trying to reach as many people as possible with the gospel. That building over there at 2700 Cumberland Trace is a tool where hopefully we can do that more and more and yet we can think about in this building in recent times we faced opposition and it can come from any direction. We should not think because we change address and if we're striving to do God's will that Satan is going to be happy.
or that the world, and I mean by that, that system of thought that's opposed to the gospel, that they're going to be content to let us do that work without opposition. So I want to see what we can do to keep out of, oh, no. And when I say, oh, no, I want you to think about opposition. And we say, are we going to go into the plains of, oh, no, we can say, oh, no, we're not. And here are some reasons why. Number one, how do we stay out of the plains of, oh, no, we need to focus on the greatness of God's work.
In Nehemiah chapter six and verse three, you have Sam Ballot and Geshim who come and they say, let's meet together in the plains of Ohno. And he said, I knew that they meant me harm. And so he sent a message back to them saying, I am doing great work and I cannot stop. The work will not get done if I come down to you. I want you to see that Nehemiah had proper perspective.
He was not being a snob. He was not saying that they were not worth his time. Nehemiah 6 and verse 2 says, he heard, he got wind of the fact that they were trying to harm him. And so Nehemiah focused on the fact that the work that he done is great work. And that work must not stop. And if he stopped, then the work would go down.
Nehemiah shows us an example of what we're going to see elsewhere in the Bible of how the work is so great that we cannot lose sight of the need to do it. You know, there's so many distractions that keep us from doing that work. Nehemiah had faced distractions earlier.
The fact that he had to rebuild this wall that had been burnt with fire was a distraction all of its own. And in EMI 213, he looks and he surveys and he sees that it's in great disrepair. He had a huge job in front of him. That by itself, he could have been a great distraction. And then he had to involve a lot of different people. If you look in EMI chapter three,
Here are folks who are coming from all different walks of life. They're in different classes from one another. They have different skillsets. Some would have been white collar workers. Some would have been blue collar workers. And somehow Nehemiah had to bring them all together. And so they get together on the work and almost everybody in the nation that's back in Jerusalem, they're putting their hand to the good work. And one brother was next to his other as they do each section of the wall and the gates.
Then Nehemiah chapter 4 and verse 3, as they began to do that work, in Nehemiah 4 and verse 3, there's the distraction they had to hear as their enemies are making fun of the wall that they're building. In Nehemiah chapter 4, we see in verse 10 that they were trying to discourage and disrupt that work in any way that they could. If you go back to earlier in the book of Nehemiah, you'll see how they had been engaging in this distraction already.
You'll see how they had been intimidating them and how they had been bullying them and how they had been trying to disrupt the work in every way that they could. Nehemiah was trying to do this work with the distraction that was going on. But now he had built the wall and he had built the gates and when we get to Nehemiah chapter 6, it's time to hang the doors. He focused on the work that was to be done.
May I suggest that there is so much distraction in the work that we seek to do in our pursuit of the mission today? I can't be exhausted, but think about some of the distractions that we all face. We face the distraction of entertainment. We face the distraction of our hobbies. We face the distraction of fitness, of church buildings, of controversial issues, of false teaching,
of problems and in problem people all across the board and when we look at these distractions some of these distractions or these things can help support the mission and some of these things undermine the mission but none of these things is the mission.
The early church had distractions and diversions, but they did not lose sight of the prime objective, even when they were pushed out of their homes in Acts chapter 8 and verse 4. They went everywhere preaching the word Acts chapter 8 and verse 4. The Apostle Paul was a man who had a lot of distraction, but he had laser focus on what God wanted him to do.
He says in Philippians chapter three in verse 12, he says, I don't think of myself as having already obtained or I was already perfect, but I press on that I may lay hold of that, which I'm laid hold of of Jesus Christ. He says, brethren, I don't count myself to have obtained it, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind me and reaching forward into those things which are before me, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul understood that his greatest possession was at stake. You remember that the apostle Paul says, do you not know that those who run and erase all run, but one obtains the prize. So run that you may obtain. They that compete for the games, the games, they exercise control or self-control and all things. And this they do to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.
And so I run, not as one who is uncertain. I box, not as one beating the air, but I disciplined my body and I make it my slave less when I have preached to others. I myself should be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9 verse 24 through 27. Nehemiah faced so much distraction, but he focused on God's power to help to fuel his efforts. When we look at Nehemiah, Nehemiah understood what the work was. He understood
who he was. He understood who the enemies were, and he understood who his God was. And it was because of that that he could not leave the work on the wall to come down into the plains of Ohno. And we think about ourselves and the great work that's in front of us. And when we do, we evaluate and see that we must understand what the work is. We must understand who we are.
We need to understand who the enemy is. And of course, it's not. And we need to understand who Christ is. And so as we look at the planes of Ohno, how do we stay out of the planes of opposition? We need to focus on the greatness of God's work. That's number one. Number two, we need to stay consistent. Nehemiah chapter six and verse four.
Nehemiah records for us the fact that there are four times that they come and they speak to him and they say the same thing. I don't know if anybody has ever been in your life that you would consider never out loud, but in your mind a nag. Somebody ever nags you and they were after you over and over again about the same thing. Here's what's taking place. Nehemiah and the brethren are trying to finish God's work.
There are these enemies, these pestering voices, these spiritual nats as they were just coming around over and over again. But I want you to see how Nehemiah responds to that. He says, I gave them the same answer every time. You know, you think about some of those that were pestering in Old Testament times, how they are an example for us. Romans chapter 15 and verse four, I think about Potiphar's wife.
And Genesis 39 and verse 10 says that day after day, she pester Joseph to sleep with her. Or I think about Beylat.
who kept coming back to Balaam again and again and tries to get him to curse the children of Israel numbers 23 and 24. Or I think about Delilah who would day after day come into Samson and try to manipulate him into strong arm him into revealing the source of his strength. Judges chapter 16. So here is Nehemiah who is facing this persistence.
And because of the work that he had to do, he would not let no matter how, you know, I seemed, I would think that if they had come to him 40 times or 400 times that Nehemiah was going to give them the same answer that he does after four, what is he teaching us? We have got to be persistent.
You know, one of the principles that we are taught in the New Testament, that part of living the Christian life, living out what it is that we believe, what it is we study in God's Word, what it is we express to God in prayer, is that patient endurance has to be a part of who we are. Of all the people that listen to the gospel, in Luke chapter eight and verse 15, the good and honest heart is the one that hears the word of God. And in a good and honest heart, they bear fruit.
with patience. Or I think about in Romans chapter two and verse seven, where each one is going to be judged according to their works, but the one who with patience seeks glory and honor and immortality, they'll be given eternal life. Or I think about in Romans chapter five, verse two and three, how in the midst of our suffering, that is through patience that a character is built and character produces hope.
Or in James, chapter one, verse two through four, James says, my brethren, counted all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the trials of your faith produces endurance or patience and let patience have its perfect work. That you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And so this principle is taught again and again, 34 times that particular word is used throughout the New Testament, encouraging us as Christians to keep enduring.
what it is we have to face. But you know, that's not glamorous work. It comes dressed in work clothes so often. It doesn't necessarily show itself as those shiny opportunities. Great book that we read about that we can read called a chop wood and carry water. Joshua Medcalf wrote that book and it was about a young man named John.
who decided that he wanted to be a skilled archer. And so he went into a community of those skilled archers and the job that he gave when he went there at the age of 18 was he had to chop the wood and he had to carry the water. He was frustrated at that because he did not see how it was going to help him to achieve the aim of becoming a skilled archer.
But he was providing heat and he was providing water for all the other archers. Not only was he doing that, but he was demonstrating his foundation for the much harder tasks that he was going to do. You know, there's point A and there's point B, but sometimes it can be very hard for us to draw the line between the two. All of us want the recognition of achievement, but sometimes it's hard for us to put in the work in order for achievement to be a reality.
I think all of us would like the results of self-control, but it's very difficult for us to go through what it takes to demonstrate that. We may think about how we would love to know the Bible and we would love to share God's word with others, but we've got to put in the sweat equity in order for that to be a reality. Nehemiah stays at the task and he shows us that when opposition comes in persistence and patience and endurance,
That's how we're going to succeed and keep ourselves out of the plains of Ohno. But then third, if we are going to stay out of the valley of opposition, the valley of Ohno, we do not or we cannot be held captive by people's assumptions. It's a pretty dirty trick that they play in the Amai chapter eight verse five through verse eight. They engage in rumor and gossip and hearsay and speculation.
These enemies of the work, they say, we're going to write this the fifth time you see in verse five, they sent out this letter and they're saying, we're going to tell others, we're going to try to use intimidation to tell them what's not true in order to stop this work. And Nehemiah says that these things that you are saying have not been done, but you have invented them in your own mind.
I don't know what gets your dander up and what makes you riled by injustice. But isn't it when somebody says something about somebody and you know the facts and you hear them saying something and you know that what's being said is not consistent with the truth? We sometimes can be so frustrated by that that it becomes a distraction.
Or maybe we say, if I'm going to be treated so unfairly, if I am trying to do what's right and people are saying things that aren't true and spreading rumors or whatever it may be, I'm just going to quit. I think about what happens in Joshua 22. A lesser known story occurs that can teach us a lot.
In Joshua 22, Joshua had led the children of Israel to conquer the land of Canaan. So all the land had been handed out. Do you remember that Hiram talked about the key passage of Joshua? Joshua 21, 43 through 45. God kept his word. Everything you promised took place and they got the land. And so now in Joshua 22, what happens is all the tribes are going home. They're going back to their territories. All the war is done. It's time for them to settle down.
And it's at that time that Gad and Ruben and Manasseh do that very thing. They finished fighting. They were on the east side of the Jordan. So they're going back home and they're going to finally settle in that land. And they make a decision when they cross the river, the tabernacle is going to be on the other side. And so is the altar that they are going to build an altar by the Jordan River. That's all the text says.
That's all the Israelites knew. But you know what happens next? The very first thing that happens when they assemble those facts is that they get together a war tribunal. These other nine tribes are saying they're being idolatrous. And we're going to go over there and we're going to fight them.
And the second thing they do is they go over to those three tribes, to Gad, to Ruben, and Manasseh. And they say, you're being unfaithful, the Lord's your God, you're rebelling against the Lord's your God, you're making for yourselves and altar. They had no clue, but they thought that they did, verse 16. Now, what Gad and Ruben and Manasseh do is they appeal to the all knowing God.
saying he knows that our motives and our heart is right, verse 22. And they explained that what they're doing is they're building a monument, a memorial. And that monument and memorial is for their children and it is not meant to replace the tabernacle at all. It wasn't a place of worship, it was a place of remembrance. And I want to say to the credit of those other nine tribes, when they heard that answer, cooler heads prevailed.
They left and that was the end of the story and a crisis was averted. So what can we learn from Joshua chapter 22? I think we need to learn from this that we need to be very careful about drawing conclusions based on assumption without the facts of the matter. Usually there are factors or things that we don't know in addition to what we believe that we do.
Not only that, I think we learned from this, that before we just go off the rails, we need to do what the Bible says. And instead, before we ever talk about someone, we need to go to talk to them. God gives us a pattern, doesn't He? When we believe that there's a problem going on, that we go to them and we confront them directly. Matthew 18 and verse 15, now Galatians 6 and verse 1 tells us how it is that we go about doing that with a spirit of gentleness.
In our court systems, one is considered to be innocent until proven guilty. If we're not careful, we find ourselves in the other way that we assume someone is guilty before we can see that they prove themselves innocent. Sometimes what we do is that we judge the person in front of us based on maybe what we knew about them in the past. We give no allowance for the fact that maybe they're growing and they're changing and maybe there are areas where they used to struggle where they're making progress and they're not what they used to be.
I think if we're going to keep to the work, we've got to make sure that we're not crippled and shut down by the assumptions that others are making about the work that we're trying to do. If anybody has ever misjudged you and the work that you're doing for the Lord, I want you to take encouragement from the fact that God's great leaders often went through the same thing. Nehemiah did.
And you have zero control over what people say about your motives, your heart, or the reason why you're doing what you're doing. But don't let that shut you down from doing the work of the Lord. Nehemiah did not. As we look at the valley of opposition, fourth, if we're going to stay out of that, we need to recognize the landmines of discouragement.
In Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 9, Nehemiah knows what's going on. He says, they meant to frighten us so that this work would not continue.
Remember what we said a moment ago that these enemies, this variety of people, that they had been actively discouraging this work all the way through. They were doing all that they could to keep them from doing the work. They, they majored in their, they may have seen their spiritual gift as discouragement, but the work did not need that. And Nehemiah recognizes those particular things. You know, there are two inevitable facts that we learned in this context.
about discouragement. In Job chapter 3, after Job has lost everything, he has lost all of his possessions, he's lost his children, he's lost even his health. In a very understated way, I love the way that King James says it in Job 3 and verse 26, and yet trouble came.
But I love the fact that you have this phrase in the Bible many, many, many times. In fact, it's found 59 times just in the book of Nehemiah alone. And that phrase is it came to pass. I want us to consider when it comes to the discouragement that we will encounter in trying to work for the Lord that is going to come. Count on it. You're going to face valleys of discouragement.
But will you also take heart in the fact that as it was then, so it will be with you that it will come to pass. It is we, the medieval blacksmiths tried something that was a new tactic in war that was really one that was not very appreciated if you were on the receiving end of it. They tried to alter the way that they shod their horses.
Instead of having the smooth oval shoe for the draft animals, they instead would make their shoes with projecting points and cutting edges. And remarks from the battlefield was, if you were a dying man lying there, there was nothing more frightening than to see a rough shod stallion that was coming your way.
And it's from this idea that somebody was verbally or physically brutal to someone else is said to be running roughshod over them. They're going to be times when you're seeking to work for the Lord and you're going to be run, the folks are going to run roughshod over you through harsh and thoughtless words. The Apostle Paul gives us the remedy for that. Do not be weary in well-doing. For in due season you will reap if you do not faint.
And as you have therefore opportunity, let us do good into all men, especially into those who are the household of faith, Galatians 6, 9 and 10. And he would add this note of encouragement and Colossians 3, 24, you serve the Lord Christ. It would be nice, wouldn't it? If we were doing what was right and we never had to face discouragement in the face of trying to do it, but it's just going to be the case. As you have tried to bring somebody to church, have you had discouraging results?
As you've tried to share with folks about the good things that are going on at church, maybe got less than a desirable response. Do you have loved ones? Do you have family members who you're trying to either reach or retrieve and you've been rejected and doing the Lord's work, you're going to be discouraged, but don't let them be landmines that blow up your good works.
There's another thing I think that we can do in order to stay out of the valley of opposition that the text presents for us. And that is that you've got a combat fear in Nehemiah chapter six verse nine through 14. Five times Nehemiah mentions the fears that they feel in doing this work. I think it's a great thing for us to acknowledge that sometimes in striving to do God's work as his people that we're going to be made afraid.
Nehemiah is very frank that it had that effect on him. Nehemiah chapter six and verse nine, and he says it happened more than one time. Nehemiah chapter six and verse 19. And not only that, it seemed like so many folks were against him. It made him afraid and look at verse 14 where we see it was sand ballad and it was tabiah and it was Noah dia, this prophetess and all the prophets. These seem like important and influential people and it may be seeing like everybody around them was against the work that they were doing.
Nehemiah confesses, I was afraid. I'd like to tell you that whenever I stand and have to preach a subject that is unpopular, that the Bible teaches, that runs completely contrary to the culture, I would like to tell you that I feel such boldness of heart that there's not a twinge of nervousness or fear. It's never been the case. The longer I preach, I figured it would get better. It doesn't. If anything, it maybe gets a little worse.
It's fearful. And yet the Bible says we can't give into it. In Revelation chapter 21 verse 8, we read that among that group of people who are going to miss the glory of heaven are going to be the cowardly who find their place in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death revelation 21 8. And the same word used for cowardly is the word that Paul uses. In 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7,
where he says that God is not given to us a spirit of timidity. And if God's not giving us to it to us, where is it coming from? How does Nehemiah and his brethren, how do they fight that fear? How do they overcome it? There are two answers before we get to it. I thought about how it's important to make that some application about how the fear that we may feel.
How about if we preach the truth? We're going to run people off. Isn't that a fear that we may face? Or how about if we practice the truth? People are going to think we're strange. Or what about the idea is that if in pursuing God's will, if we try to do Bible things in Bible ways that we may run everybody off and we get over there to the new facility.
Or if we strive to do something that's new, that's thoroughly God honoring, but it's not something that we have done before that maybe we'll bring trouble on ourselves. We've got to combat fear wherever it comes. How do we do it? How did they do it in Nehemiah's day? First of all, the work got done. It's incredible to see in Nehemiah chapter six that he says that the wall was completed in 52 days.
That's incredible that this magnitude of this project was so great. So many were involved near my three that in less than two months, they got it done and it was the way they silenced their critics. Look at verse 16 where it says our enemies when they heard it and when all the nations around us saw it, they lost their confidence because they recognized that we had done this with the strength of our God. The best way to silence our critics is to just keep on working.
Get the work done. I didn't mention the second one on the PowerPoint, but the second one is we have got to constantly go to God in prayer. Nehemiah, it's a rich study just to study the prayers of Nehemiah in that book. All great leaders spend so much time in prayer.
But in this context, I want you to notice how he says in Nehemiah six and verse nine, as if in the middle of all that's going on, where he answers and he says that all of this is in your mind, he says, strengthen my hands, oh God. Then in Nehemiah chapter six and verse 14, he says, remember them. Oh my God, the enemies, remember what they've done. How do you fight fears? Nehemiah says, you fight it best on your knees.
When we look at what happens in EMI chapter six, they stay to the work, they keep going. They stay out of the plains of, oh no, they stay out of the plains of opposition. And they do so by keeping a laser focus on the greatness of God's work of all that we have going on in our lives and that we're trying to accomplish in the heart and the center of it all is God's work.
And as we focus on all else in our life, we've got to put our greatest focus on that and it'll keep us working. And we have got to stay consistent. Even as we're pestered and others are persistent, we have to be as persistent and we can't worry about the assumptions that people make about us. You know, it was George Bailey, the great gospel preacher who was fond of saying, what does the moon do with all the little dogs or barking at it? It just keeps shining. And that's what God wants us to do.
Watch the landmines of discouragement that will come and combat fear how get the work done and pray. Aren't you excited about the great work that's to be done? I don't believe we begun to touch the hem of the garment of all that we can do and that God wants us to do in this city and county and throughout the world. And it begins with us staying out of the plains of Oh, no.
This evening, it may be that you find yourself in a position where you need to join the work, to put your shoulder to the good work, to put your hands to that good work. If you need to respond to heaven's invitation by acting on your faith in Jesus as the Son of God, repenting and being baptized, we can help you to do that tonight. If you're a child of God, who has let discouragement or the things of this world and this life to overwhelm you and overcome you and you find yourself in that valley.
Let's help you out of that. If we can encourage you in any way, we urge you to come right now as we stand and sing.
