16-04-24 - ‘Revival in the Land: Rebuilding the Walls’

In this message from the Midweek Church Service, Reverend Tim Gutmann turns to the book of Nehemiah to bring encouragement for both personal lives and the nation in times of spiritual darkness. Reflecting on broken walls as a picture of breached defences, he warns that sin and iniquity leave individuals and nations vulnerable to attack, yet emphasises that God is still able to restore, strengthen, and rebuild.

Drawing on Nehemiah’s grief over Jerusalem, the sermon highlights the importance of prayer, fasting, repentance, and a renewed commitment to seek the Lord. Reverend Tim applies this not only to personal spiritual life, but also to the condition of the UK and other nations that once knew significant moves of God. He calls the Church to say, “This far and no more,” and to believe again for revival, renewal, and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

A central encouragement comes from Nehemiah 8, where the people are told not to remain in mourning, for “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” The message stresses that faith and joy are closely linked: when believers know who God is and trust in His power, they can rejoice even while rebuilding in difficult times.

The sermon closes with a call to draw near to God, reject condemnation, and trust in His power to save, restore, and revive. With references to Samson and the hope of one more move of God before Christ’s return, the message is both sobering and hopeful.

Listeners can watch the full Midweek Church Service live every Thursday at 7pm on Revelation TV.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

We we gather, we honor the word. The word is, you know, this is all scriptures, God grieved, the Bible says, and is useful for teaching, training, correcting, but also this is the word of God. And so let's read tonight. Let's go let's go into it tonight. You know, it says sometimes when we are praying, praying for our nation, or or in our own individual lives, it would seem like we're under a lot of attack. And we've heard that even tonight someone's having bad dreams or this sickness, or it seems like a lot is going wrong. Or you can look on a national level, we talked about Ireland and the anti-Semitism, or we talk about the UK, and it seems like we're living in really dark times. And sometimes when I'm praying, it and I know what the Bible says, it seems like those walls, those metaphorical walls, are broken and the enemy is invading. This can be individually, this can be in our nation. And there's an amazing scripture, it's Isaiah 30, verse 13, and it talks about how our iniquity causes the walls to break down and that the defences to fall. It says, Therefore, this iniquity will be like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. You see, when a city, when a nation, when a person, when the defenses are down, if we are living in sin, you know, if we are deliberately, knowingly walking away from God, we call it backslidden, or before we even submit to Jesus, we have no defenses. We are in the kingdom of darkness. But if we are known by Jesus and we're giving into sin constantly, we're letting those walls crumble down, we're letting those walls breach and the enemy will try and invade, try and attack. Now, don't get me wrong. Listen, no one can take you out of Jesus' hands if you are his, you are his forever. But I'm saying I'm talking about a spiritual place you can be. But nationally, let's think bigger here about the UK. This once was a nation well watered. This once was a nation or a land that would uh saw so much harvest. It was a green and pleasant land, and I'm not talking physically, I'm talking spiritually. There was moves of God, there were various outpourings of the Holy Spirit. In fact, this nation sent so many missionaries all over the world, people from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. And if you're watching from another nation, you will know your nation's spiritual heritage as well. But so many people owe the fact that they heard the gospel to an English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh person, or wherever your people are from. I was even in Colombia and I remember visiting a church conference there, and they said it was an Englishman that brought the gospel here. And then somebody else I heard was uh from Korea said it was an English person, it was a Welsh person that brought the gospel here, and I thought, what a heritage. Yeah. And here we are today, and it seems like the walls are crumbling. And whenever you uh whenever this happens, you look at yourself and you look at the church in a nation or you look at what's going on, and sometimes you just have to humbly come before God and say, Lord, our iniquity has caused the walls to fall. Instead of preaching the gospel, we started to declare that we are God. You know, we started declare there is no God, atheism, we started to uh preach more idolatry and self and the worship of money. We started to preach hedonism and sorcery and all of this kind of stuff, and the walls are crumbling down. And so I want to focus on Nehemiah, which is what I'm reading on tonight, the rebuilding of the walls, and it's encouraging. It's encouraging nationally for your nations, for our nation, or it's encouraging for your life, because God is the one who rebuilds the wall, he strengthens our arms for the world for the for the work. Nehemiah 1, 3 and 4. If you've got your Bibles, it says, They said to me, the remnant there in the province who survived the exile is in trouble. The wall is broken, its gates are destroyed by fire. And as soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned many days, and I fasted and prayed. One of our dear uh church family members said they're starting to pray and fast tomorrow. I believe in the power of prayer and fast, fasting and praying, and sometimes we fast in different ways if we can't do it physically for health reasons. But we it's that's that time of seeking the Lord and saying, you know what? I love what Jehoshaphat prayed. He's like, we're surrounded by an enemy, he's bigger, the armies are bigger, they're better equipped, they're larger. We don't know what to do. And then he prays this Lord, I don't know what to do, so my eyes are on you. Yeah, my eyes are on you, and then somebody encourages him and says, Listen, Jehoshaphat, the battle is not yours, but the Lord's. The battle belongs to the Lord, which I absolutely love. And so Nehemiah comes to his people in Jerusalem and he says, Listen, he says the walls are broken down and he challenges them. He challenges them. And uh in Nehemiah chapter 2, verses 17 and 18, he challenges them as he said, let's rebuild the walls, let's make that decision. This far and no more, when it comes to anti-Semitism in Ireland, in our nations, when it comes to uh sin and uh the enemies attacking your individual life, when it comes to darkness in our land, let's say this far and no more, we as the church, we're gonna rebuild the walls, we're gonna pray, we're gonna seek God, we're gonna believe for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit again, kind of like they saw in Wales in 1906, look kind of like they saw throughout this nation in the days of the Wesleys and Spurgeon or in the Hebrides in 1949. And so he says, Let's rebuild the walls together. And uh as they were doing that, as they were praying and seeking God, as Ezra read the word of the Lord during this time of rebuilding the walls in Jerusalem, the people heard the word and they started to weep. How many times does the enemy use against you like that condemnation? You're a sinner. God doesn't want to hear you. You've let God down. You are like God is angry with you. There's so much condemn, there was so much weeping and sadness and mourning. Look, they were listening to the word and saying, What have we done? We're beyond repair, we're beyond rescue, we're beyond hope. And listen to these incredible words that Nehemiah and the Levites and the priests and Ezra encouraged the people with. And you'll see this in Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 9 and 10. It says, And Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the scribe, and the Levites said to the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God. Don't mourn or weep, because the people were weeping. Verse 10 says, Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine. Send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Yahweh, our Yahweh, and don't be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength. Amazing. So they were weeping, they were hearing the law, they were seeing the state of their city, the walls are broken down. This it would seem so hopeless. But this is what they're encouraged with. Don't think this is hopeless, because you're turning to the Lord, your eyes are on Yahweh, and that means you have faith, and therefore you can rejoice and have joy because your eyes are on Yahweh, because you have faith, you can trust, because your joy, your joy, it comes from faith, and you know, you just know that Yahweh will not disappoint you, He will not leave you nor forsake you, He will not let you down. This is a time to celebrate because faith and joy are closely linked, the joy of the Lord. And I tell you why, because if you don't believe God is there, how are you gonna rejoice in him? And when you believe he's there, therefore you know how big and awesome and mighty our God is, that the name of Jesus is above every name, above every sickness, above those nightmares. You know that Yahweh is Yahweh's savor Yacht, the Lord Almighty, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of angel armies, if you like, heavenly armies. He's the uh the our God is the only God. El alo Yisrael, El great is the God of Israel. Yeshua, the name above every name. When you know that, that you have joy because you just know, hang on. We're praying, we believe our God is bigger than our God is bigger than the enemy, our God is able. We can draw near to God with confidence. And in your own life, if you've been kind of like living your own path and you feel like you you've let God down, let me encourage you today. Listen, don't listen to the condemnation of the enemy. Come back into the arms of Abba, come back into the arms of Yeshua, of Yahweh, because it says this in James 4:8, it says, draw near to God, because when you do, he draws near to you. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, draw near to God, come back to God, don't stay far from God. And we might be in the midst of nations that it feels like the walls are crumbled, and it feels like the enemy is all over the land, and it feels like the enemy's built strong towers, has massive armies, and it feels hopeless. But this is this is a truth that you can hold dear forever, our God is bigger than. Yeah, Jesus challenged the Pharisees, the Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection. He says, Listen, you're an error, and this is in Matthew 22, 29. You're an error because you don't know the scriptures. And here's the thing: you don't know the power of God. Because if you don't believe that God can raise the dead, you don't understand who our God is. Exactly. If you don't believe our God could create the universe in seven days, you don't know the power of God. We can rest and trust in the power of God. Nothing is too difficult, his arm is not too short to save, he's not too it, nothing is impossible for our God. He's mighty, he's awesome, he's limitless, he's incredible. And sometimes I feel I see this, and just as I finish, sometimes it feels like, you know, if you're really low and you feel far from God, or you're praying for your nation and it seems like there's so much wickedness and darkness. And I sometimes liking our nation to once was like in the in the 18th, 19th century, early 20th century, it was like Samson, it was strong in the Lord. But then remember at the end of Samson's life, he was taken by the Philistines, he was blinded, he was mocked, he was scorned, he was ridiculed. Have you ever heard people say, especially people in other countries, the UK is fallen, or whichever country you're from, it's too impossible, they're too far gone. And it seemed like Samson was blind, but he was stood between two pillars and he says, Lord, even at this end of our life, if you'll let your power return, and I pray, Lord, we pray a move of God before you come again, Yeshua. We pray in Jesus' name that you'll restore to us an end time revival.