0057S Nehemiah 6: Finish The Gates

Ever felt like a misfit who loves hard truth but can’t stomach church-as-costume? We open the barn doors to real fellowship—worship that feels like family, work that tastes like sweat and soup, and a field guide for finishing what God puts in your hands. From a First Light sunrise to piratey psalms, we frame the longing for a tribe around Nehemiah 6, where enemies switch from open attack to subtle sabotage.

We walk through the Seven Battlefields—faith, family, fitness, fundamentals, finances, fellowship, fidelity—as a deliberate plan for godliness you can live Monday through Saturday. Then the text gets tactical. The walls are up, the gates aren’t hung, and the enemy pivots: ambush invites in the plain of Ono, open letters leaking slander, and hired prophets urging safety by sin. Nehemiah’s answer is a masterclass in leadership under fire: I cannot come down. That is false and invented. O God, strengthen my hands. He guards his calendar, keeps his replies short, audits his counselors, and finishes the mission in fifty-two days so even his critics admit God did it.

Along the way we share the texture of our home church and farm life—Reformation Day plans with wholesome costumes, music that actually moves, and a standing invitation to lock shields on 44 acres. The big takeaway is simple and hard: don’t trade duty for optics or obedience for comfort. Mark your section of the wall, hang your gates, and let your fruit preach. If you’ve been searching for a community that prizes Scripture, courage, and everyday usefulness, you’ll feel at home here.

Subscribe, share this with someone building through opposition, and drop a comment: what gate do you need to hang next? Your story might be the spark another warrior needs.

CWM Intro with Drums

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CWM Outro with drums

Chapters

• 1:07 Wind, Sunrise, And A Misfit’s Heart
• 2:45 A Conference That Didn’t Fit
• 5:50 Tribe, Taste, And Theology
• 9:13 Home Church And The Farm
• 14:36 Reformation Day Plans And Music
• 16:40 Community Events And Farm Updates
• 19:29 The Seven Battlefields Framework
• 24:33 Prayer And The Lord’s Prayer
• 29:52 Nehemiah 1–5 Rapid Review
• 33:20 Gates Unset: The Enemy Shifts Tactics
• 36:17 The Ono Invite And Holy Focus
• 40:10 Open Letters And Information Warfare
• 44:20 Short Prayers Under Pressure
• 46:57 False Safety And Bad Counsel Exposed
• 51:22 Here I Stand: Conscience And Courage
• 55:15 Hired Prophets And Clean Fighting
• 59:11 Fifty-Two Days: God Gets The Glory
• 1:02:12 Flattery, Leaks, And Fear Letters

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:28

Alright, good evening to everyone. Happy Lord's Day to you. I'm gonna get a sound check and see how I how this goes. Alright, let's see here. Can you hear me? I'm gonna get a sound check. You can. So at least I can hear me. That means for good or bad, you can hear me. So happy Lord's Day to you. I hope you had a wonderful day. Um we had some wind and some power outages and flickers and all kinds of stuff. And um, so it was uh a little interesting day here, and it went from like really mild, like warm, you know, in the mornings, like almost 70, which is really warm here for the mornings this time of year, to like a cold front just came in. So I think we get something in the 30s, which is the first time since last year. This is our first night in the 30s, but we should be back up to probably the 40s, 50s, 60s, uh, not too long after that. So, but I hope wherever you are, it was beautiful. I started this day with my amazing wife looking at the sun coming up over the mountains. And you know, if you don't up early in the morning, um you miss that kaleidoscope of colors when the mountains come up when the when the sun comes over the mountains and just splashes on the clouds, and you know, and it's there for a little bit, and then poof, it's gone, and it's nothing like it. It's nothing like it. So um, but uh, I just got back from my first again, well, not my first, my first is my first horrible experience at a Christian at a Christian um conference. The worst experience I've had as a Christian was at a Christian conference. I went to um Calvary Chapel's uh pastor conference, the deep south or big south or whatever, and that was the end of my walk with them after that. That's how bad that conference was. Um this time I went to I was invited by one of the uh guys from Fight Laugh Feast, Gabe Wrench. Um, I don't know Gabe. We have communicated a couple times through you know, through um email and uh and you know X. But uh he invited me and my family, and because we have a farm, we couldn't go as a family getting coverage for cows and chickens and dogs and livestock guardian dogs and hogs and the whole mess here, um, it was too too uh hard to do before we went there. So it was my first trip to downtown Nashville. Um, I didn't really, you know, I was alone, so I didn't go to anywhere cool or do anything like that. So I went to this conference. And if you're watching this show, then you're probably a little bit like me. You're a misfit in the Christian community. All right. You want truth preached, you're a logic-based thinker. Um, that's what attracted you to probably reform theology like me. And uh, you know, R.C. Sprohl and Vodie Baccom and Paul Washer and uh Doug Wilson and others who I didn't have to turn off my mind. You know, I could I couldn't still embrace, you know, the mind that it gave me. In fact, the scripture calls me to love God with all my mind, right? And so theologically, I align with those guys so much and I respect all of them. Do I agree with everything that every one of them says or does or even believes? No, I don't. Um, I'm not in opposition to many things that they believe. I just, to me, some of this stuff is like I like Italian food and you like Thai, right? And uh, you know, it's a taste thing, it's just like musical preference. You know, music is one of those things just like taste buds, where you don't really have any control over what you like. Either your taste buds dig something or they don't. You hear it and you're like, wow, that stirs my soul, or it's like fingernails across a chalkboard. You know, so I went there to hopefully find my tribe. And I met some really nice people there. Um, you know, I met some great, you know, I'm I I because I'm alone, I mainly talk to some of the vendors, and you know, I try to talk to everyone around me that would uh that would that would talk to me, which no one didn't talk to me, but um it's a was a very different crowd. You had guys like me who are more at home in flannel and you know, and and in jeans or shorts and a t-shirt. Um and then you have what I call the aristocrat wannabes, which are the guys with the bow ties and the you know, the wax beards and wax mustaches curled up in a queue that I just want to choke out. Um I'm sure I repent of that, of course. But yeah, they they drive me crazy with their fancy words and their, you know, trying to be what I don't know what they I don't know what role they think they're playing, distinguished gentlemen or not, but it comes off like a clown show to me. But um I met a lot of good dudes there, even even the guys in the clown suits are great guys. Um, so again, I make jokes with that, but I'm sure like the ones that I did talk to, I could find an awful lot to agree with. But um I don't know, I was in Calvary Chapel, Bangor, Maine, with Ken Graves, who one of my spiritual fathers, who I just my my theology evolved beyond his theology or away from his theology as I my biblical IQ rose, um my beliefs changed. And but I'll tell you that church in Bangor, Maine, um that is what a church would feel like. I walked in there and I felt like family. And I felt like I walked in and this is my tribe, and any one of them could have been my relatives, even though you know it was it was just very familiar. And I don't know if I don't think that that's wrong. You know, it's just I could walk in any of their houses at dinner and fit right in, versus sitting down at a table worrying about which fork or if I cross, well, I don't cross my legs, but if I wanted to be a beta male and cross my legs, I guess I wouldn't even know how to do that and which fork and which spoon to use and blah, blah, blah. Right now, we gotta remember I'm not, you know, despite my very uh street thug vernacular, you know, I have been around the world's elite. I've already gotten the world's elite, I've been around them, I've had to behave, and I can act the role if I have to. It is just a horrible costume that I do not want to wear. And that is not who I want to be in the presence of God. I'm not going to be phony in the presence of God. So, and that may be who they are, I'm sure it is, you know, but I'm just saying that um I think there are guys there that are part of my tribe. I think I imagine maybe 20%, 15%, 10%, I don't know, something like that. Where if I came into their dinner table, it'd be awesome. And, you know, people wouldn't say things like, you know, we're at a conference not too long ago, and you know, like can't remember the exact quote, but Lauren, we were talking about families, and this guy was being nice to Lauren and asked how many kids we had, and Lauren told him, and he asked her. And instead of just saying the number, he had to say, you know, half a baker's dozen plus blank. Which, if you don't know what a baker's dozen is, you're like, what? Like, why on earth would you do that to someone? Other than to try to seem quippy or whatever. You know, this guy's a sweet dude, but he still couldn't help help himself. And we're like, okay, you know, so again, that that is part of that crowd. But again, there's another part of the there's another part there, and again, the the theologically I agree with probably 99.9% of where they're at. And I I also want to say, and I know I'm going long in the intro here, that I had the they they do a lot of singing there of psalms and hymns. And that's typically not my jam. But they did a sailor shanty, which obviously I was a sailor. I've rowed on boats, I've done military cadences and all that stuff. And they are very catchy by design, right? And they had a guy up there who divided everybody by their voice, you know, which how he did that was remarkable. Um, I won't bore you with it, but it was really quick, scorted everyone out. And they sang it sounded like a pirate song, which was probably, you know, either the pirates ripped off that or they ripped off the pirate song. I don't know. I'm gonna say the pirates probably ripped them off and made something like, whoa, ho, you know, blow the man down or whatever, right? But it was really good. And I find myself humming it around and all that stuff. And uh, so, anyways, I want to thank the guys from Fight Laugh Feast. I want to thank the people that were very friendly to me. And uh I'm going to continue to knock on doors to see if there's a place where we belong. Okay. Until then, we're gonna continue to build this community because I know you guys are misfits like me. You guys may not know the 42-syllable, you know, um, terminology to what to call everything in here, but you got it right in your heart. You're living it every day, right? To do what's something, to be doing something's right because God wrote it on your heart. You don't need to be able to pronounce Latin to do it. Okay? I can't think of anything more useless than learning Latin. And I'm willing to debate that with whoever, because there's another skill they could have learned that is much more useful than Latin in the meantime. Those brain cells in this limited bank could be used at something infinitely more useful than a dead language, but it's neither here nor there. So, the longest intro I think I've ever done. But welcome to Christian Warrior Mission, a home church, community, ministry, and farm forging Christian Warriors for today's challenges. Advance on every front, every day, no excuses, no retreats. So, as you guys heard, if this is your first time watching us, this is a home church community. What's that mean? Well, we're a home church, this is our home. Uh, I don't have some big cool building, and this is all real. It's like not AI or any of that stuff. This is just our house, okay? Um, and we have people who are like us who watch from behind enemy lines in Boston, Mass, or New Hampshire, or Maine, or Oregon, or Washington, California, heck, even not so far behind any lines in Texas and and you know, but others in Minnesota and you know, Florida and everywhere else. So, anyways, that's where we are. Um, we have 44 acres here in Johnson City, Tennessee, where we work hard every day as a family, and anyone in our community is welcome to come here and work alongside us. Um, we'd love to have you be a part of this. We'd love to live life with you, celebrate your victories, help you know, lift you up in your defeats, and do true fellowship where iron sharpens iron, where we lift each other up to higher standards, where we invest in each other and each other's families. That's what this is about. So, some announcements. We have Reformation Day coming up on October 31st, that the pagans call Halloween, but we call it a Reformation Day, the day when Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door of the Catholic Church, and thus began the first step of uh the Reformation, which is Protestantism. We will have wholesome costumes, so you need to be in something wholesome, okay? No sexiness, or you know, I don't want to see boobs and butts, okay. We want like Lauren's a milkmaid, okay. I'm gonna be a crusader, okay. Uh Yaya is gonna be Joan of Arc. Um, B is a princess, and Gus is gonna be a cow. Okay, so either be a hero of you know, of somebody you look up to in the church. You can be an old, you know, you can be a cow, you can be whatever. Just nothing dark, nothing undead, only good, only good righteous things, okay? Um, and we're gonna have, you know, worship, we're gonna have songs cranking out there, which let me tell you some other good news. So, as you know, my primary one of my primary beeps with Christian music is that a lot of it is terrible. A friend of mine turned me on to a list that was Psalms and blues and said it was made by AI. And I don't care if it was made by AI. I'm not even a blues guy. I put that on, and every song was a banger. It was awesome. And then that turned me on to other artists, some of them composers using AI, and others just artists. And I'm just like, man, this is like country and rock blended together. It's exactly what I wanted. Like exactly what I wanted. I got workout tracks coming out of my eyes now, you know, and uh so great stuff, and we'll be playing all kinds of great things. Um, we'll have games for the kids, we'll have treats for the kids, we'll have food. So please, please, please, RSVP on Christian Warrior Missions um Facebook page. Go to our Facebook page, you'll see events and RSVP there. I've only it doesn't let me uh invite 700 people anymore. I only get like 50 invites or whatever, and I just took the first 50 on my list, and I've got like thousands of friends. So um I didn't know that I had to be selective, so I was just like click click click send, and then I'm like, why won't this do anything? So it's not that you didn't make my first cut, it's just alphabetically, however Facebook does it, um you weren't in the first 50 clicks till I ran out. So, whatever that was all about that. We're also processing Karen on Wednesday. So we gotta go get a um trailer on Tuesday, so the day after tomorrow. And then I'm going to uh I'm going to take her in, and we're gonna finally have steaks again, homegrown steaks. It's been a long drought here. So, and then we're gonna be doing pork chop shortly thereafter, and I think we're picking up two friends of ours deciding to get out of the farming business, and so they're selling some freezers, and we're gonna get their 25-foot cubic freezer that we're gonna buy from them, and then a standing freezer on top of the other five freezers we have here full of meat, whatever. So, all right, and then after that, I'm gonna let the cold weather do its job, and then we're gonna go up and do a cross field day. I'm gonna go up there with some thick gloves, chainsaws, and weed whackers and edgers, and blowtorches and everything. And we are going to reclaim that hillside from the jungle where the pavilion is. I need some strong lads to come help me lift up the pavilion. We had a serious windstorm that lifted up our giant, like our big pavilion and moved it over, um, like a really bad storm last year. And I need to get some strong dudes here, at least four, well, three plus me, to grab each, to grab a you know, leg and lift it up and move it over. And then we'll be back in business up at the cross. You know, I've got a lot of trimming to do um because of last year of my leg, but it's gonna be a good time. So, anyways, come there and you guys know if you come here and you do anything here, we feed you. Whether it's we get pieces delivered or Lauren makes something or whatever, but we take care of you when you come here. So, that being said, some things that separate that are that we do um that we do. We do, we believe in the seven battlefields. Okay, or or actually that's not the right way to say that. Um for lack of a better way of understanding of explaining this, is I suck at anything that I don't deliberately do. And this Christian walk is the hardest thing to do, period. So if I am not trying or aiming, if I don't have a target to aim at and I don't or a destination to drive to, and I'm not actively trying to drive that way. Well, I don't know where I'm going or where I'm shooting. So we deliberately pursue godliness in seven aspects of our life, which is your whole life. Faith, we put faith first, we pursue a relationship with God through reading scripture, studying catechism, and prayer. Two, we deliberately pursue better relationships with our family. We choose people from our family to sacrificially serve every day and pour the love of Christ in them and let them know that you see them, you love them, and that God loves them. Okay. Three, we do fitness, we deliberately try to take care of these bodies by getting enough sleep, by eating well, eating healthy, and getting active. You don't have to win a best body contest, but you should be able to hit and you should be able to move. Okay, you should be functional, being a good minister of this body. And I am on my way down and I'm happy about it. And hopefully I get down there and I stay down, God will. Fundamentals, we believe in being useful. So we deliberately pursue being useful and acquiring skills and sharpening skills every day. Finances, we believe in trying to stay debt-free if possible, you know, depending on when you jump into this, and uh leaving a legacy for your kids, but also using your orchestra for God and not you, and to um not get trapped and caught up in materialism. You know, you won't see us driving a Ferrari or a wear carrying a Louis Vuitton bag or whatever the new Gucci thing is now, right? You're not gonna see me rocking a roly, okay. Um after finances comes fellowship. We deliberately pursue relationships with godly people. That's what I was at fighting last piece for. Okay, godly people who lift you up to heaven instead of ungodly people who drag you to hell. And the last is fidelity, and that is being loyal to God, your spouse, and your word, reclaiming your word, being a man of your word. So that's what we do here, okay? Uh, we do that on you know uh an accountability board. Okay, we built a community online where you're welcome to join us, where you can come in, join a bunch of brothers and sisters. We call our brother's shield brothers and our women's shield maidens, who all are there to invest in you and you and them. They're there to pray for you when your kid's sick. They're there to help you solve problems when your knee hurts, or you're trying to repair a relationship, or you don't know what to do. They're also there to come alongside with fellowship and to learn with you and to share skills. I can't know everything, but together we can know a lot. Okay. So that's what we do there. And we are also building out courses online for you to take courses or everything from how to choose a firearm, how to clean a firearm, how to cite in a red dot, how to process a chicken, how to make farm fresh cheese, uh, basic carpentry, basic electrical, building all that stuff up so that if you come on there, you can do it. Now, in the meantime, I might go find a bunch of other playlists from other people who are doing it great, and I might just put it together on the website. And things that are missing, I'll add to it. You know, as you guys know, I don't like putting out content without tying it to God. So um, even my active shooter training, we got God on every slide. You know, we tie it all in because that's what we're doing. We are deliberately pursuing Him. Okay. So, enough about all that. Let's go ahead and pray in um Do this. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you. We thank you for waking up this morning. We thank you for blessing us with another day to get it right. Lord, we thank you for these bodies and the trillions of cells that we have that worked perfect for us to be here today. Lord, we also thank you for the cells in our bodies that aren't working so right. As we age and acquire injuries, you know, the body starts breaking down, and we we thank you for those because they make us more dependent on you. You are made per your strength is made perfect in weakness. So, Lord, as challenges come across us, draw us deeper into you so your strength can be made perfect. Lord, we also thank you for your common grace, for your creation. The sun, the heavens, the earth, the moon, the stars, this earth, everything from the top of you know, Mount Everest all the way down to the deepest trench in the ocean. And everything in between, all the fish, all the animals, all the plants and trees and the landscapes, environments, Lord, we thank you for it all. That is all good.

SPEAKER_01: 26:03

We thank you for the people. Lord, help us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love one another as you loved us. Lord, help us to be present with one another.

SPEAKER_02: 26:25

Help us to put down the phone and not listen for the beeps and the boops, and to just be with one another, to look in each other's eyes, to hold a hand, to hear pain, to see pain, to really observe how we're all doing and drink it in. Because at the end of our lives, when we're laying in our deathbed, we're not gonna wish we stared at TVs anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 26:51

We're gonna wish we looked on each other's faces so much more and heard each other's voices. When I think of all the people I love that are gone, Lord, I wish I had more time with them.

SPEAKER_02: 27:07

And I repent of all the time that I didn't spend with them, and I wasn't present. Help us to learn that lesson and to be present every moment of every day with the ones around us. Lord, we thank you for the sunrise and the sunset. We thank you for bird song in the morning and children laughing. Thank you for the sound of waves against the shore. The smell of fresh mountain air in Tennessee. The smell of coffee brewing in the morning, a fresh pot of soup simmering on the stove.

SPEAKER_01: 27:45

We thank you for a warm fire on a cold night, cool breeze on a hot day.

SPEAKER_02: 27:55

Most of all, we thank you for your divine grace, for choosing us before the foundations of the earth and writing our names into the book of life. Lord, we stand in awe of your love. But you chose us before we chose you. So we pray that this time would glorify you, Lord, that you would hear our heart, that you would feel us reaching out with all that we are. And I pray that you would strengthen us to love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, will, mind, body, will, with all that we are.

SPEAKER_01: 28:32

Now, as everyone who's watching this and participating, that you would feel us reaching out at once, craving you, loving you, glorifying you.

SPEAKER_02: 28:48

I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Now that was a very long-winded prayer. I will say the Lord's prayer. I won't teach it because my intro has been ridiculously long today. So when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, this is what he said in Matthew 6, 9 through 13. Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. If you're ever looking for a model of prayer, that is the perfect prayer. But there's also two other ones that I really love. God, help, and then the great Paul Washer.

SPEAKER_01: 29:39

God, you know. You know, you know. You know, and because you know, I can trust it all to you.

SPEAKER_02: 29:56

Amen. Right? That's a man with a lot on his head, and I probably butchered it, but it's pretty close to that. Amen. I really admire. All right, so we are in Nehemiah 6. We've gone from one to six. I'm gonna recap one through five, and then we'll drive on to six. So the framework of this is the Persian Empire under our Texerces I, 465 to 424 BC. Nehemiah begins in Susa. The trek to Jerusalem is about 900 miles, which takes about three to four months in the ancient world. Judah is a tax Persian province with a hostile neighbors. That's Sunbalat, that is a character that we all hear about in Samaria. Tobiah the Ammonite, an official with Judah ties that we'll hear, and Geshem, an Aaron, the Arab who controls the southern trade routes. Okay, in Nehemiah 1, this is a rapid review. Nehemiah learns of the ruin, he fasts, repents, and um covenentially, right? He starts with the repentance and then intercession. Two, he gains favor with our taxeres. He does to send him on his journey and with supplies and notes, because Nehemiah is very wise. Like, I can't wait to meet this dude in heaven. He's a genius and a tactical genius and a leadership guru that would put all the clowns that are out there with their deep voices trying to sound all authoritative, you know, and all this garbage that I see all over my feeds. And it's like everyone is ripping off the Bible. Just do what the Bible says. Just do what the Bible says. You don't need to go to a leadership course, you don't need to spend money. With any super special dude to teach you how to lead. God tells you everything right here. Just do it. Save your money. So he gains favor with Artex Xerxes, does a night recon, unannounced night recon to see when it's most vulnerable. He rallies everyone to build. He asks boldly, gathers intel, quietly answers taunts with theology and jurisdiction, takes ownership of it, and then shares that ownership with the people. In E3, he gets household to repair names sections to God's standards. Not what they want to do, but to God's standards. Build your section, quality matters. What you do, everything you do, you do for the Lord. You know, and the SEAL teams uh instructor I really admired said how you do anything is how you do everything in the end, right? Which is very true if you because when you like if you do something when you like it to a certain standard, you're not always gonna like it and you're gonna fall to the standard that you do when you don't like it. But if you do everything for the Lord, then you're gonna do it like you like it. You love it because you represent the Lord in all you do, okay? So Nehemiah 4, enemies escalate. Nehemiah prays and plans, guards by family, sword and trial posture, trumpet rally SOP, dawn the stars readiness, worship, work, warfare. Our God will fight with us. Nehemiah 5, they're making progress, they solved the external threat for a time, and now we're finding out that the nobles have been preying upon the people. Internal oppression confronted, restitution and leadership, self-denial modeled. Leading from the front. Boy, does Nehemiah do that. Fear God, free your brother, leaders lead, not, or that leaders feed, not fleece.

SPEAKER_01: 33:53

So the bridge to six.

SPEAKER_02: 33:59

After external attacks and internal repair, the enemy turns to psychological warfare and infiltrating, infiltration, meetings that murder time, letters that light rumors, and profits for higher. This is like this book crushes Game of Thrones. Um, you know, and we'll we'll we'll talk about that here because Nehemiah is the character that uh that George R.R. Martin could not kill if he wanted to. So uh this is out of the ESV today, okay? Verse one. Now, when Sam Balin and Tobiah, the Geshem and Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it. So they had built all the wall, not the gates, but all the wall. Although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates. Built the wall, the continuous curtain is is standing. No breaches left means that gaps are closed. What remains is gate hardware, door, door, you know, doors and all everything, all that other parts, right? And a city without doors is an open city, it's a border. Okay, it's an old wide open border, easy to raid and impossible to govern. And there's a tension. Although not set up the doors between um, by not having the doors at the gates of a city, that's where government is conducted. And there is no security and no government business, and everything's just just remember life under Biden here, okay? Where, you know, and imagine you're a small border town being invaded. That was basically what they were dealing with. Enemy Intel, when they heard, shows constant enemy intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. As the work advances, adversaries pivot from force to finesse. The gate is where justice sits and leadership speaks. Until doors hang with bars and bolts. Jerusalem's worship, commerce, and courts remain exposed. Finishing the gates is spiritual and civic obedience. Okay, so now during this time, you know, and when you think about this in your life, if you're getting close to the end of something, that's not the time to let up. Right? That's the time to double the guard in the gates. You don't need them everywhere else anymore. Double them at the gates, okay? Split teams into door teams. All right. Maintain Don Nastar's posture until every gate is barred, until the job is done. Get it done. Okay. Spurgeon said, By perseverance, the snail reached the ark. I love that. So the next verse, 6-2. Sembalat and Geshem sent to me saying, Come and let us meet together at Hakapharim in the plain of Ono. But they intended to do me harm. The plain of Ono lies in the coastal lowlands, near Lod, outside of Jerusalem's secure zones, and under hostile influence. Moving Nehemiah, the leader there, likens travel, thins his escort, and puts him on their ground. And the note on the Hebrew here is means that in the villages, the Bach Karaf Kepharim or the Typonim Kepharim. Either way, the setting exposes a uh poses, sorry, it poses as casual or neutral. But Nehemiah is smart. He sees what this is. This is an ambush, an attempt to kidnap him or kill him. Come let us be, poses as peacemaking, but aims to separate the shepherd, stall the wall, and enable an ambush. They intend to do me harm. When force fails, the enemies attempt calendar capture. If they can't stop the wall, they'll stop the builder. So, you know, as we try to take this and apply it to our lives, when you were vulnerable and you were dealing with things, don't meet the enemy on their turf. Finish your job. Decline meanings. Do not pause critical work.

SPEAKER_01: 38:54

Okay, do not pause your critical work.

SPEAKER_02: 39:01

And one of my favorite quotes of all time from Martin Luther Peace of possible, truth at all costs. Okay, 6-3, holy focus. And I sent messages to them saying, I am doing great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave and come down to you? This is brilliant. Delegation at a distance. Great work tied to God's assignment. He flips the rhetorical question, the burdens of proof on them. Come down signals that leaving a high, he's leaving high ground. It literally is higher ground, but I'm a defensible position. Why should I come here and stop the work to come meet with you? Send specifics in writing. We'll review after completion, block building windows, answer once in writing, mute everything else. This is taking the lessons of Nehemiah when he's on this critical thing. When you have critical things and your enemies are trying to get you to do things, when the people who are working against you, competitive businesses, family member disputes, take everything you learn here from Neah. Nehemiah is the master of dealing with fake news and communication.

SPEAKER_01: 40:25

He gives them nothing. Gives them nothing.

SPEAKER_02: 40:32

And they sent to me four times in this way. And I answered them in the same manner. The design, nutrition, testing boundaries, and fatigue, right? They are constantly trying to wear him down and get him to come out. Consistency models policy. Nehemiah controls the temple. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 40:53

He responds in the same exact way, doesn't change a word. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 40:59

He basically said doesn't give them anything new to comment on. Okay. And you'll see that over and over. Oh, and 6-5. In the same way, Sam Balat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. The open letter signifies information warfare. He's leaking while this letter's coming, because he wants the people to know what's in the letter. That's why it's open. This is the shift, the public perception in the battle. In it was written, it is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. That is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports, you wish to become their king. Full stop. So they are trying to sow dissent between the king who sent, who showed kindness to Nehemiah, gave him supplies, gave him leave, gave him authority to come here to do this, and they're starting to spin the fake news. Right? They're starting to say, okay, we're gonna try to separate Nehemiah from the king. We're gonna try to sow a false narrative. And this was Game of the Thrones. The king would send assassins and kill Nehemiah right now. But he didn't, God did. And watch how amazing Nehemiah is with this. Again, which would be treason at that point. Verse 7, and you have also sent up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem. There is a king in Judah, and now the king will hear these reports. So now come and let us counsel together. So I just called you a treasonous wretch. Come talk to me now, or I'm gonna keep spreading these rumors. He's trying to scare him. And he puts religious varnish on slander, right? Because he has, you know, you're gonna find out later that there are prophets saying this that have been bought. Blackmailed by rumor, and the table, and a table that presumes guilt, and an open letter shared throughout the countryside. 6-8. Then I sent to him saying, No such thing as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind. Okay, that's all he says. Strategy, brevity, denial, and diagnosis. Not true, you're inventing these things in your head. Two-line template. That is false. It was invented. We're continuing the work. Awesome. Avoid long receipts and screenshots and all this stuff. No, that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01: 44:19

You're making this up in your own head. Done.

SPEAKER_02: 44:24

Now, for all they wanted, for they all wanted to frighten us, right? Of course. Imagine the Persian Empire come crashing down on this little clan of Judah trying to build the walls, right? They wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work and it will not be done.

SPEAKER_01: 44:45

But now, oh God, strengthen my hands. There's a battlefield prayer right there. There it just. Oh God, strengthen my hands.

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

The psyops aim, weakened hands. Response, a field prayer that interrupts fear and returns the body to its mission.

SPEAKER_01: 45:10

I mean, me and mine is just amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 45:13

And Charles Spurgeon said, a short prayer is long enough. So now, when I went into the house, I'm gonna read this because I can see this got short over here, it got shortened. So I didn't catch that. Oh boy, I don't have my glasses. This is gonna be interesting. Now, when I went to the house of Shemea, the son of Delia Deleah, son of Mahetabel, and again I can barely see what I'm reading here, who was confined to his home, he said, Let us meet together in this house of God within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night.

SPEAKER_01: 46:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 46:05

Private house, shut in posture, and now, right? This guy's in a private house, he's locked away. He's telling Nehemiah to violate temple law, to violate God's law. To violate, he's not a priest, he can't go in there. The shun in, the vice to violate temple law. Fear lever by night. So now it's even worse. They're gonna come kill you at night, the worst case scenario. What do we do with this? We do what Nehemiah is about to do. Do not seek safety by sin. You must ask yourself when you're being counseled by people or about to make a decision and ask yourself two questions. Is it biblical? If you want to live a biblical worldview, that's the question you should be asking. Is this God honoring? Does the Bible say I can do this? Okay. And is it and if it is, show me in chapter and verse where I can do that. If it requires breaking God's word or your role, your word as an honorable person, it is bad counsel.

SPEAKER_01: 47:12

Consequences. Will this keep me obedient?

SPEAKER_02: 47:16

If it makes you lie, hide, neglect your post, or take the fear shortcut, don't do it. So safety that requires sin is not safety at all. Calvin said, our safety is to obey God. He's right. Buying a few more moments to suffer for eternity. No thanks. So 611, and again, I missed that. Ah, here we go. Oh, hang on with me, my eyes. But I said, should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? Again, he knows the law. He can't go into the temple and live.

SPEAKER_01: 48:07

I will not go in. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 48:14

As governor and a layman, not a priest, he remembers sanctioned for unlawful entry. He can't go in there.

SPEAKER_01: 48:25

And he resolves this publicly. I won't go in there.

SPEAKER_02: 48:29

So the warrior application is know your office. And the lesson here for all of us who aren't as good as Nehemiah is practice predecisions. Say what you will and won't do. Don't wait for adrenaline to hit you before you start asking yourself hard questions. Particularly when you're going into negotiations or you're dealing with a kid, you know, a life and death with your kid or any of that other stuff. If you're not used to making life and death decisions, they are very hard, and you don't want to do that shaking. One of the most amazing things about Martin Luther is this story here from the Deed of Worms in 1521. The setting is before Emperor Charles V, German princes and Popal envoys, envoys of the Pope, Luther was ordered to recant his books, his works. He refused appealing to Scripture and conscience. And this is what he said, expecting death. Unless I am convicted by the testimony of scriptures or by clear reason, for I do not trust either in the Pope or in the councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I mean, saying that to the king's face. I am bound by the scriptures. I have quoted, I'm bound by the scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen. Holy smokes. God was a monster. And in 612, again, I gotta get myself a large print book for when these things happen, these things happen. Or find my glasses. And I understood and I saw that God had not sent him, because this was supposed to be a prophet or a priest talking to him, right? But he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Dobiah and Sam Balad had hired him. Holy smokes. What?

SPEAKER_01: 50:48

Hired him? Hired a priest of God to betray him? This is mercenary prophecy, right? So audit your counselors and remove the compromised voices. So 613, the aim of the scheme.

SPEAKER_02: 51:21

That I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, right? That's what they wanted. They want to discredit him. And so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. The chain is this fear, sin, smear, aim, discredit leader and the mission. Refuse panic pathways. Pray, verify, obey. Guard holiness as ballistic armor. In 614, imprecatory appeal, and I'll explain that what that is to you because that's one of those words that most people don't know what it is. Remember, Zekar is a covenantal judicial appeal to take note and deal justly according to their deeds. Nehemiah, oh sorry, I didn't read it. Remember, this is Nehemiah saying, Remember Tobi and Sobet Sembalat, oh my God. According to these things they did. And also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid. Who are we to fear? Only God. He has nothing to fear. But they're trying to make him fear afraid. Okay, so here, remember, the word he used remember, which is what started it, remember, Tobiah and Zembalat, is a covenantal judicial appeal. It means to take note and deal justly according to their deeds. So it's to remember and judge. Okay. Nehemiah names offenders, Tobiah, Zembalat, Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, exposing a networked effort to make him afraid and entrusting justice to God rather than taking personal retaliation. So warrior's application. Call in God's fire. Do not be afraid to pray against your enemies and to bring God into this. Pray the imprecatory psalms. Imprecatory Psalms are the Bible. Here's that word imprecatory again, right? Are the Bible's justice prayers. Psalms that ask God to judge, stop, and overturn evil, vindicate his people and protect the innocent. Imprecate means to call down judgment. These are not tantrums, they are lawful fire missions called into the king, not street justice by us.

unknown: 53:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 53:56

So fight clean and legal, pursue justice through lawful channels.

SPEAKER_01: 54:03

Call down fire missions from God. Six fifteen, the finish line.

SPEAKER_02: 54:28

Elul, in fifty-two days. And when our enemy heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly. And they fell greatly in their own esteem. For they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. They're like, there's nothing. Everyone knew that there's no way that they could have built that wall in 52 days without God. So God's on their side, and now they're crushed. The timestamp, the miraculous nature of this, God's magnifies God help and team discipline. Right?

SPEAKER_01: 55:03

God did it and he used amazing Nehemiah and these men to do it with.

SPEAKER_02: 55:12

The application here is mark the finish lines, clear the debris, build, and then when you're done, celebrate. Give the God all the glory. And Charles Spurgeon said best. To God be all the glory.

SPEAKER_01: 55:31

Six sixteen.

SPEAKER_00: 55:45

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_02: 55:45

Yeah, I already for they fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. Enemy morale drops, outcome becomes apologetic. Now they're apologizing, right? But it's still not over. So as warriors, let our fruit preach, let the results speak, guard against pride, give God the credit. Let him see what you do, not hear what you do. Okay. Um Ryal said, Let your light so shine that men see, not hear your good works. So in 617, ongoing letters. So here we go. This is traitors amongst them. Moreover, in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them. For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shekaniah, the son of Arah, and the son of Jehona had taken the daughter of Meshulam, the son of Barekiah, as his wife. Again, sorry, I'm barely seeing these words. Um again, moreover, in those days, the nobles of Judah, the nobles are leaking. They are working, they are doing espionage against him. Judah's elites keep passing letters to Tobiah, and he's running back. So they're freely communicating. We must train our families and our people to be loyal to God first. God is our first loyalty.

SPEAKER_01: 57:31

Then family.

SPEAKER_02: 57:37

As for many in Judah abound to him, right? So ultimately, they had a shadow government going on. A shadow government where Tobiah and all these people with the walls down, where they could do whatever and exploiting corruption and all the stuff and oppressing the people. Now there's this, he's exposing this entire shadow cabal of people who are working against him. As warriors, we must untangle loyalties. And we must cut out corruption around us. Remember, Christ over everything, including clan. So verse 19 now. Also, they spoke of his good deeds in my presence. They're praising his enemy and reported my words to him. So they are praising their enemy or Nehemiah's enemy to Nehemiah's face and then reporting back what Nehemiah is saying to them about him. And Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid. Two tactics in one worse. Flattery propaganda inside the camp. Nobles praise Tobiah to Nehemiah's face to soften him. A leak channel that some same circle reports Nehemiah's words back to Tobiah. And then intimidation returns. Tobiah answers with fear letters. Intimidation.

SPEAKER_01: 59:07

The loop, praise, leak, threat.

SPEAKER_02: 59:13

They launder the enemy's image, siphon intel, and try to chill their leaders' resolves. They have divided loyalties, the behavior flows from oath marriage ties to Tobiah. The good deeds are likely cherry-picked or transactional. And the aim is to pressure not his pressure, not truth. The goal is to isolate Nehemiah, shape his perception, Tobiah is not so bad, and erode his will to act. As warriors, we know that flattery is praised used to control you. Don't buy it, don't echo it. We evaluate by deeds, we evaluate deeds by truth, not PR. Charles Burger said, beware of the paint of praise. So finally, now to wrap this up. The enemy's playbook, distraction with the Ono invites, and to try to capture. Slander in the open letter in verses five through nine. Deception and false counsel in a hired prophet in verses 10 through 14. Our response, focus. I cannot come down. 6.3. Truthful brevity, that is false and invented. 6.8. Obedience with discernment. Do not seek safety by sin. 6 or 11 verses 11 and 12. Prayer under pressure, but now strengthen my hands. 9. Verse 9. Finish. Hang the gates, close the loop. Verses 15 and 16. Guard your calendar and comms. Always. Route fear letters. Get rid of them. Anchor decisions into scripture and office. And then mark completions and celebrate them and give God the glory. Charge, lock shields, keep building, finish. Distractions will call you to Ono. Slander will call, will clarify your focus. False counsel will baptize cowardice, but the fear of God steals the spine. Truth distills rumors. Set your face to the work God put in your hands and finish. So the watching world says, God has done it. So some famous quotes to underscore tonight. Martin Luther Peace, if possible, truth and all. All costs. Is it any wonder I named my son Magnus Luther? And then John Calvin, this is a paraphrase. True wisdom is to submit wholly to God's word, resisting the sway of men. And then JC Rile, the only safe rule is the Bible. This is the only book you need on how to live. All right. So we're not doing communion today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:16

So let us close it out.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:25

May the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance to you and give you peace. Soldiers of Christ, go under the king's blessing, stand firm, lock shields, keep the watch, finish your section of the wall. Fear God, free your brother, advance his kingdom with courage, love, and steady hands. God bless you, and we'll see you tomorrow for Bible study.