By: Gen. Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD. Welcome to this broadcast, this is another message in the Holy War Series, because that is what God has ordained for this year. He is the One who has given the declaration that He is executing His Holy War, and that it is His desire—that His righteousness/His holiness would be returned to the land.
Now, as you well know, as we all know, that we have experienced a number of years of complete moral deterioration and decay in this land that we live in. WE’VE SEEN THE WICKED ONE WORK OVERTIME THROUGH HIS DEMON POWERS TO BRING MEN AND WOMEN AND CHILDREN INTO SLAVERY, INTO CAPTIVITY, AND INTO BONDAGE TO THE MOST GROSS AND VILE OF SINS.
We’ve seen an increase of perversion, an increase of wanton behavior, and increase of death, and an increase of damnation of human souls. And it is God who has declared war on the demon powers, on the human powers, that have brought forth these wicked things.
Now, we truly consider what a privilege it is to serve the Living God, and that He is our resource. The powers of men, they always look to the resources of what it is that they can do, what it is that can be done if they ally with others, what it is that they wish they had, and maybe go borrow money from other nations: to buy better arms, to buy weapons, to buy this, to buy that, to execute their wars. They train their troops, they work it all up into a big hype, a pitch of excitement over war, and they do all these things. BUT WHEN GOD DECLARES WAR, GOD IS THE ONE WHO PROVIDES FOR THAT. Now, as soldiers in the service to the Living God, we have to realize that He is the One who is our provider, and He provides us with what we need.
Our subject today is, “Take From Him Courage.” So, what we look at is that God can give us courage if we ask Him. God can give us the courage to do what we have to do for Him if we ask Him for that courage. Now, in our carnality, not all of us are brave, not all of us are fearless, not all of us are invincible. In fact, most of us are not, but through God, we can run through a troop, we can leap over a wall, and we can see our God prevail. In other words, it is God who is our empowerment.
Now, the way that it is worded here in the Amplified, I really like, and we’re in Nehemiah chapter 4, and this is verse 14; we’ll go there first and then we’ll go back over this Scripture. But he was talking about rebuilding the wall, and he put the people and families with the swords, spears, and bows, and then it says, “I looked [them over] and rose up and said to the nobles and officials and the other people, Do not be afraid of the enemy;” they were surrounded by the enemy. They could easily be overwhelmed by the enemy, they were being mocked by the enemy; sounds like the times we’re in.
And then it says, “[earnestly] remember the Lord and imprint Him [on your minds], great and terrible, and [take from Him courage to] fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” Take from Him courage. Now, this is what God wants us to realize—that in the times that we are in—in the declaration and the execution of His Holy War—that there are enemies who are enraged at the fact that God is rebuilding the standard, that God is rebuilding the wall of protection around those who will believe upon Him, that God is reestablishing the fact that there is a separation between His people and the world, and that separation is the wall of His Holy standard.
Now, we live in a time when all stops have been pulled out in terms of filth, in terms of moral decay, in terms of utter corruption and wickedness, in terms of greed, in terms of lust, and murderous intent and action. Everybody’s said, “Oh, just let it roll. Let’s just do it.” Do what? Destroy your damned selves. That’s what the message is—DESTROY YOURSELF.
Why? Because the nation has been under the rulership, the covering of death that is found in the Jezebelian set of demons. There’s nothing to look forward to, there’s nothing to hope for, there’s nothing to believe in except idols, and there’s nothing to do except sin against God. What a dismal future! But God is the One who has given the declaration, and has given the commission to REBUILD, AND TO WAR AT THE SAME TIME.
And Nehemiah is encouraging the people here in this chapter—Nehemiah 4, He’s saying, “Take from Him courage.” That means, “Look to God, and He will give you the courage to do what you’ve got to do.” Now, last night I was praying to the Lord for the lesson that He wanted to be brought forth today, and He spoke to me very clearly and He said Nehemiah 4. So I thought, “Well, what is it that You want us to gain out of that?” We’re going to go through it and find out.
But before we do that, let’s understand what this word “courage” means. It means, “The attitude of facing and dealing with anything recognized as difficult, dangerous, or painful, instead of withdrawing.” So in other words, you face WHAT IS. Now, for too long, the people of God have refused to face what is, and they have made up fantasies, they have made up delusions, they have followed liars, they have followed deceivers, and like God says, these false shepherds have led His people into ditches, they’ve led them into ravines, they’ve led them into spiritual famine, they’ve led them into prostitution of the integrity of their souls—for vanity; they’ve led them right into the arms of the world which will crush and destroy them.
So, when God says it’s Holy War, that means He’s warring against iniquity, He’s warring against darkness, He’s warring against all the things that hate the purpose of God, and He’s expecting His true ones to be with Him in the war–for us to get our courage, to take from Him courage, COURAGE.
So, instead of withdrawing and getting before a big screen, and living in a fantasy world, WE ARE MEANT TO STAY ACTIVE IN THE BATTLE AND THE REBUILDING FUNCTION OF THE WALL OF SEPARATION between God’s people and the world.
Now, the Church of today has effectively torn down that wall. They have labored day and night not to build the wall, but to tear the wall down. And they have made something like a freeway where the world can drive right in and not be stopped by any force, by any strength, by any truth—because it’s all become one muddled mess, and it’s all headed to destruction because it’s under the wrath of God. It’s under the wrath of God.
People say, “Well, you can’t say that because we’re having a good old time!” Yeah, you’re having a good old time—on your way to Hell–because if we do not keep the holy standard of the Living God, we deceive ourselves, because He is the God who is holy, and He requires that His people be holy because He is holy. SO, IT IS THE TIME TO BUILD, IT IS THE TIME TO FIGHT, IT IS THE TIME TO WAR—FOR THE GREAT KINGDOM OF THE LIVING GOD.
Now, going on with our definition, it says, “…instead of withdrawing.” In other words, instead of finding some way to fake out ourselves!, and that’s what the modern Church is full of: pretension, fakery, hypocrisy, and literal mockery.
Then it means, “quality of being fearless or brave.” Now, how many of you can say you’re fearless? How many of you can say you’re brave? Ok cowards, we’re all in this together! Where do we get our courage? From God. “Take from Him courage.” So, in other words, God’s there to supply, but it’s up to us to petition, it’s up to us to receive and make use of what He gives us.
And then it says, “quality of being fearless or brave, valor, the ability {courage is} the ability to do what is right.” Isn’t that sweet? To do what is right. And that’s what God is encouraging us today—as laborers, as soldiers for His Kingdom—to do what is right before God. Not what is right in the eyes of insane men and women, but what is right before God.
I have to rejoice because we think, “Oh God, why didn’t you do this? And why didn’t you end this? And why did we have to go through that?” Do you know why we go through things? Because God is wanting to build the qualities He wants in us through those things. We’d like to offer to God some sloppy heap of just ooshy-gooshy love like, “Oh yeah I love Him today, and tomorrow I hate Him. I’ll serve God one week and I’ll backslide the next,” and that kind of thing.
And GOD IS WANTING US TO BE SOLID, COMMITTED, STEADFAST, NOT WAVERING, not flipping to the left or right, but drawing from God as our source. Because when we draw from God as our source and our strength, nobody can defeat us; NOBODY CAN DEFEAT US because we are drawing of the Living God. In other words, we are taking from Him the courage to do what is right. And what is right? To serve God with all of our hearts, to see the standard of God returned, to see the holiness that is needed to make a people blessed by God truly blessed by God.
Now there’s been all these hawkers running around telling you that, “You’ll be blessed, blessed, blessed!” and it all has to do with money. It all has to do with the very thing—the love of the filthy lucre—that will ruin your soul. It has nothing to do with the integrity of God. But when we TRULY SERVE God, and we TRULY OBEY God, and we truly keep the standard of God, then we are blessed of God, and we are given what we need in terms of such factors: as courage, as wisdom, as insight, as revelation…in order to proceed with what it is that God desires us to do.
Ok, back to verse 1 of chapter 4 in Nehemiah. And we’ve gone over this years before when we were building the standard of the army of God; and the devil hated it, and raged continually and attacked us, and sent all kinds of disturbances our way, and rioters, and ghouls, and hecklers, and forces of demons. But we’re in a NEW DISPENSATION now and guess what? The enemy’s still squawking, still bellowing out bloated-breathed demons of opposition to the will of God.
Now, chapter 4, “BUT WHEN Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and in a great rage, and he ridiculed the Jews.” When I read that last night I thought, “That sounds exactly like what is going on in the United States of America at this time.” And when we align ourselves with what God wants to do, we can expect Sanballat will be angry at us, that he will be billowing out his rage, that he will be so disturbed in his pride that he will have to ridicule any and all who are standing for the standard, and rebuilding the standard of God.
And then it says, “And he said before his brethren and the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing?” Like, “Who are these fools?!” The people of God. THE PEOPLE OF GOD. THE PEOPLE OF GOD. Did you know the devil hates the fact that God has a true people, that God has people who will honor Him, and respect Him, and obey Him? And he’s always trying to ridicule that, undermine that, make it appear that that’s inconsequential…it’s stupid.
“What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things [at will and by themselves]? Will they [try to bribe their God] with sacrifices? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned?” Did you know that that’s what God is building with right now?—that He is pulling stones out of the heaps of rubble. Are you hearing me? Living stones out of the heaps of rubble, of deterioration, of demoralization, of destruction, of defecation—filth that has come in under the Jezebelian rule…and God is pulling stones out of that–STONES TO REBUILD THAT WALL. In other words, don’t expect the stones to be perfect, don’t expect the stones to be newly cut, expect them to be dirty, expect them to be covered in the rubbish, expect them to have the char of being burned upon them.
Then it says, “Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him, and he said, What they build—if a fox climbs upon it, he will break down their stone wall.” In other words, “It’s so weak what these so-called ‘God people’ are doing, it’s so feeble, that even if a fox just leaped up there, the whole thing would collapse.” A fox is a lightweight animal, very swift. So, what he’s doing is he’s mocking, he’s joining the Sanballat—Tobiah the Ammonite is. “Hey, let’s mock God, let’s put these fools down, let’s ridicule them.”
We see that going on nationally. You have the media—the leftist media—ridiculing any attempt to put a stop against the invasion of evil that has transpired. And name-calling, abusive reporting, “racism,” trying to kindle up all kind of evil intents and accusations. Why? To mock the effort—that it will not continue.
Did you know that’s one of the devil’s favorite tricks? “You are such a stupid fool for doing what God wants. HA HA HA. That’s what God wants you to do? Come on. You are so feeble. You are so feeble, you are so weak, you are so dumb. SO DUMB.” AND NO, WE’RE NOT DUMB IF WE OBEY GOD, WE ARE IN THE WILL OF GOD.
So going on it says, “[And Nehemiah prayed] Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their taunts upon their own heads, and give them for a prey in a land of their captivity. Cover not their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before You, for they have vexed [with alarm] the builders and provoked You.”
So then it says after Nehemiah prayed, “So we built the wall, and all [of it] was joined together to half its height, for the people had a heart and mind to work.” Now you see this is the second time we’ve seen the essence of work. We had a lesson last week out of Haggai, chapter 2, it was, “Work and Fear Not,” and now we’re into “GET YOUR COURAGE FROM GOD AND GET TO WORK!”
“But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were going up and that the breaches were being closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem, to injure and cause confusion and failure in it.” We’re seeing that right now—there’s people that literally HATE each other, but they’re all coming together to confuse the effort to bring forth the holy standard of God once again, and to cause it to fail.
And we’ve seen that time and again in our own lives—as followers of God—that the enemy will seek to bring the work of God down! Always undermine it, injure it, destroy it, remove all possibility of resource unto it, defame it, defile it, take it to the law, and do anything to keep the will and the work of God from going forward.
Then it goes on and it says, “But because of them we made our prayer to our God and set a watch against them day and night. And [the leaders of] Judah said, The strength of the burden bearers is weakening, and there is much rubbish; we are not able to work on the wall. And our enemies said, They will not know or see till we come into their midst and kill them and stop the work.”
So you see that the ultimate intent was not just having a little fun jesting and mocking these Jews, the intent was to murder them and STOP the will of God. That’s what’s going on now. That’s what we’ve seen with the enemies that oppose us—they would rather murder you and have your blood pouring out than to have the will of God go forth. That is hatred, that is rage, and that is murder / destruction manifest.
And going on it says, “And when the Jews who lived near them came, they said to us ten times, You must return [to guard our little villages]; from all places where they dwell they will be upon us. So I set [armed men] behind the wall in places where it was least protected; I even thus used the people as families with their swords, spears, and bows. I looked [them over] and rose up and said to the nobles and officials and the other people, Do not be afraid of the enemy; [earnestly] remember the Lord and imprint Him [on your minds], great and terrible, and [take from Him courage to] fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
Did you know that if we don’t fight for the standard of God, we will have none of those things? We’ll be destitute, we’ll be taken into captivity, we’ll be killed, we’ll be taken into slavery, we’ll be turned over to bondage, our children will be sold as slaves—all kinds of slaves including sex-slaves, all manner of perversion will rule, and all manner of filthiness will reign over the land. So, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE TAKE FROM HIM THE COURAGE THAT WE NEED to fight, and to finish the wall that God wants built up.
Going on, “And when our enemies heard that their plot was known to us and that God had frustrated their purpose, we all returned to the wall, everyone to his work. And from that time forth, half of my servants worked at the task, and the other half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail; and the leaders stood behind all the house of Judah. Those who built the wall and those who bore burdens loaded themselves so that everyone worked with one hand and held a weapon with the other hand.”
Now you think about that—on one side you have a sword, and on the other side you’re scooping up mortar to put on the wall; then trying to lift a stone with one hand and trying to stick it into place, and the other side you have your sword, or you have a shield, or you have a spear; that’s not easy–because most of the tasks that you do that are hand labor, you use both of your hands. And I don’t know about you, but if you try to carry something in one arm, and you don’t have a balance of an equal weight in the other, you feel totally twisted in your torso, and you wished somehow you had a yoke that you could carry both things with ease.
So when you’re now putting both hands to the task, you could imagine how much more difficult that was. But see, they had two functions simultaneously: THEY HAD TO REBUILD, AND THEY HAD TO BE READY FOR WAR AND DEFENSE, AND EVEN ATTACK IF NEED BE. So they had to be working, building, and soldiering simultaneously. See, they didn’t just have the privilege of going to war against the enemies, they had to rebuild the wall at the same time, and be on continual guard because the enemy’s intent was to murder them.
Now is it any different? No. And is it appropriate that God says we need to have a review of this chapter and realize that we must work, and we must build, and we must war at the same time? See, what the Church did, they didn’t build the standard of God, they built their own dreams, and they quit warring completely. They gave up protecting the flock, they gave up protecting the standard, they gave up rebuilding what had been torn down. In fact, they helped to tear it down and get rid of the old ways so that they could have their NEW way—of damnation.
And then it goes on and it says, “and held a weapon with the other hand, And every builder had his sword girded by his side, and so worked.” And even that would be a bit clumsy because those swords in those days were very long, and they probably had it somewhat strapped to their hip, somewhat strapped to either their thigh or by their knee so whenever they bent down to do something that cumbersome thing was in their way. Go get a stick today and strap it on your side and on your hip—a long stick—and see how comfortable you are, and try to do your work with that. And every time you move, that thing will poke you in the ribs, or the point will try to hit into your leg. But that’s the way they had to labor.
So, do we always have to demand of God that we want the perfect conditions? No. We’d better go to war, and go to work in whatever conditions God ordains—because otherwise there will be no wall, otherwise there will be no people of God, and otherwise there will be no nation, because the enemy is in full array.
“And I said to the nobles and officials and the rest of the people, The work is great and scattered, and we are separated on the wall, one far from another. In whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us. So we labored at the work while half of them held the spears from dawn until the stars came out. At that time also I said to the people, Let everyone with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that at night they may be a guard to us and a laborer during the day. So none of us—I, my kinsmen, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me—took off our clothes; each kept his weapon [in his hand for days].”
So, it wasn’t a fiesta, it wasn’t some great explosive praise festival, IT WAS HARD WORK, AND HARD WAR, and it was faithfulness to rebuild, to bring up again, what God wanted. Amen.