Praising God at the Dung Gate

My name is Dr. Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. Anybody can praise at the old gate. Anybody can praise at the fish gate. Anybody can praise at the sheep gate.

But not very many can praise at the dung gate. Oh no. Oh no. When things are not going well. When the doctor's report is not good. When you hate getting on the subway and going to work in the morning.

No, no, no. Not everybody can worship there. God has put you there for a special reason. Welcome to the weekly program, A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. We're so glad you've joined us, and we hope to make this your place each week for a powerful insight from God's Word.

Now, let's join Carter with today's message. Nehemiah chapter 12. If you'll go there, please, Nehemiah chapter 12. The people of this day have been given special permission to go home and rebuild the ruins. Now, their lives and their testimony had laid in ruins for a long, long time because they had dealt really unfaithfully. Somebody in the past, not necessarily all of these people who came back, but somebody before them had dealt unfaithfully with the things of God, and because of that they were taken into a place of captivity. After 70 years in captivity, suddenly a Medo-Persian king called Cyrus issued a decree allowing the people to go home in different batches as it was. They went home in thirds, but he allowed them to go back and start to rebuild the testimony that had fallen down. Under a butler called Nehemiah, who came back to Jerusalem, the people worked hard and they rebuilt the wall around about Jerusalem. And in spite of the opposition to the rebuilding, because they prayed, they were miraculously enabled to do something that even their enemies had to admit the hand of God was with them.

I want to challenge you with that. If you pray, even your enemies will have to admit that what happens to you, only God could have done for you. God is still a God of miracles. He's still a God of deliverance. He's still a God of victory. He still gives sight to the blind. He still opens prison doors. He still gives strength to the weak. He still gives resource to those that are too poor in themselves to make any difference. He's still God. He's still all powerful.

He's still all merciful. And the power of the cross of Jesus Christ is still available to you. I think of all of the requests that we see online of people who seem to be in what you consider to be hopeless places. The people came back and they began to rebuild. Just as many of you have, you're coming back to rebuild the testimony of what was lost maybe through neglect in the past or whatever your circumstance or situation was. And after 52 days, they literally had a miracle.

Out of the ruins, they were able to rebuild a wall. And it was a beginnings of a testimony that in a sense that had been lost through the former neglect. And so now it was time to give God thanks.

And so this is where we begin. Nehemiah chapter 12 and verse 27. Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought out the Levites in all their places to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgiving and singing, with cymbals and stringed instruments and harps. And the sons of the singers gathered together from the countryside around Jerusalem, from the villages of the Nephilites, from the house of Gilgal, from the fields of Geban, Asmava, for the singers had built themselves villages all around Jerusalem.

Then the priests and the Levites purified themselves and purified the people, the gates and the wall. So I brought the leaders of Judah up on the wall. Now this wall is quite wide. It's quite big. And you've got to picture this now. He's brought all the leaders, this is Nehemiah, of Judah up on the wall and appointed two large thanksgiving choirs.

This is amazing. We're going to give God thanks on the wall and we're going to march all the way around the wall and when we get to the other side, we're going to meet in the temple and you talk about a shout of glory that's going to be in that place. And the scripture says one went to the right hand and the other on the wall towards the refuge gate or actually in the original King James, I like it better, it says towards the dung gate. So you can just imagine, Nehemiah gets all the worshipers together and says we're going to give God thanks for the miracle of rebuilding that he's begun to do through our lives.

And the testimony that's being reestablished and we're going to form two big choirs and we're going to sing and we're going to shout, we're going to praise. Okay, you, you head to the dung gate and you start praising there. And the other half, it says in verse 38, went the opposite way. And they were assigned to the old gate, the fish gate, the tower gate, the sheep gate, the gate of the prison. Like it's all really high, like high status gates, you know, like the old gate is like celebrating the old time faithfulness of God. The fish gate, getting involved in evangelism, the sheep gate, just ministering to the body of Christ, the prison gate, going to those who are in prison with the good news of Jesus Christ. And so this is kind of like the portion of one choir and the other choir, they said, you start at the dung gate. Nobody wants to praise God at the dung gate.

Let me just say it straight up. The dung gate is exactly what it sounds like. There was no plumbing in Jerusalem at this time. So all of the excrement, all the urine, all the garbage, all the trash, everything went through the dung gate. You took it through the dung gate. Nobody wanted to live in that vicinity.

Can you imagine? Hey, my house is not hard to find. Just go to the dung gate, turn left 100 feet, that's where I live. Nobody wanted to live there.

This was an undesirable place. But the first choir is sent there and they are told to begin to praise God there. Now one of the main steps to victory in the Christian life is learning to praise God exactly where you are, not where you'd like to be. You know, a lot of people even maybe wrote in a prayer quest and the underlying thought in the prayer quest is, God, get me out of here and I'll be the best praiser you ever had in your house. I will pray, I'll clap my hands and I'll shout and God says to you tonight, no, I want you to learn to praise me right where you are. If your praise is circumstance dependent, then it will always be open to being stifled or changed every time hardship comes into your life.

Your song will die. You've got to learn to praise me now right where you are with all your heart, your soul and your mind and your strength. That's one of the keys to victory. We need to stop and get out of this mentality that if you just change this, I will worship you. If you just do this for me, I will praise you. God says, no, I did enough for you on the cross. I died on the cross for you. I shed my blood for you.

I gave my life for you. I redeemed you from sin and now I'm just asking you to praise me exactly where you are. Now, if I choose to change your location, that still is God's choice, but God says I may not change it.

I may leave you exactly where you are for reasons that maybe you don't fully understand, but you will understand one day when you get to the throne of God. The psalmist says in Psalm 77, I cried out to God with my voice, says verse one of Psalm 77, and he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble, I sought, in other words, I lifted my voice to God and I know he heard me. You could say, God, I know you.

I know you hear me. Why are you not answering me? Now, who are you to tell God that he's not answering you? Maybe his answer is, I'll meet you right where you are.

We don't have to go anywhere else. You can learn to praise me right where you are. I cried to God with my voice and he gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord.

My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing. In other words, God, I've been crying out to you. And then the psalmist says, my soul refused to be comforted.

In other words, God, I will not be comforted until I get the answer to my prayer. I remembered God and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed. And many, many people today, you're overwhelmed because you've allowed a complaining to get into your heart against God and against your circumstance, against your job, against where you are, against what you consider your lot in life, against where you've been assigned to worship God. I start thinking of all these people in the days of Nehemiah that were sent to start to, it would be hard to praise God at the dunk gate. I mean, all you're looking at just garbage and excrement being carried out of the gate and you're supposed to give God praise for this gate and in this place.

It seems almost, it seems almost like an oxymoron, but it's not. God says, you've got to learn to praise me everywhere. No matter what your lot in life is, you've got to learn to praise me there. You can think of the numbers of people who try to get out of that and join the other choir or they probably have their scripture. Didn't he say, let's go to the other side. So I'm going to the other side. I'm going with the fish gate people. I'm going with those that are going the other way.

I'm not, I'm not going this way with this crowd. I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed. Have you ever considered that victory can be found right where you are? When the people of Israel went into captivity and now these are supposed to be the people of God. They had a promise through their ancestor, Abraham, that they were going to be so blessed by God that they would become a blessing to people all throughout the world because of the blessing that had come upon them. And yet now, this is previous to the Nehemiah's day, they found themselves in captivity. They found themselves swallowed by a foreign nation and they're supposed to be the people of God, yet they're being corralled, yet they're being taken to a place they don't want to go. And you would think, now there were false prophets there saying to the people, no, God's going to get you out of here, won't be very long. But that was a false prophecy. The truer from God was that you're going to be 70 years in this place, an entire generation really. Jeremiah, the true prophet of God says in chapter 29 verse 4, thus says the Lord of hosts, God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I've caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and dwell in them.

Plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give to your daughters, to husbands, so they may bear sons and daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I've caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace.

So the word of God actually to these people was not that I'm going to take you out of this place, but I want you to learn to bloom where you're planted. I have put you there for a season. I want you to build houses there. I want you to plant gardens there and eat the fruit. I want you to take wives. I want you to have your children, have your families there. I want you to gather. I want you to share.

I want you to celebrate meals. I want you to grow in numbers there and not be diminished. I want you to pray for the peace of the place where I've caused you to be carried away captive.

Pray for it, for the Lord will give it peace because of your prayer and in it you too will find peace. Paul the Apostle said in Philippians chapter 4 verses 11 to 13, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I've both learned to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul said I've learned, I've learned. I guess the question is today with all of the Christian history and all that we're supposed to know, have we really learned much? Or are we still in that place of infancy where we say, God, if you get me out of here, I'll praise you.

Why would you put me here? Listen, have you ever thought if you weren't in that place, how would the people there find out about Jesus Christ? How would they ever know that there's a redeemer if God, we're not called just to all be at the sheep gate. There's other gates around the city and people live there and God in his sovereign knowledge will put us exactly where we need to be at the time that we need to be there. So that we can lift our voices in praise to him. Imagine the people who lived in that vicinity watching a choir come to the dung gate to praise.

I don't know about you, but if I lived there and I was outside of the kingdom of that time, I might be inclined to say, surely there must be a God in Israel. I mean, how could these people be singing in such an inglorious place? Nothing glorious goes on here.

Day after day, the same mundane taking out of things that don't belong in the city and putting them on the trash heap and doing whatever they did with it after they did that. Can you just imagine it's an inglorious place, but oh God, if we can find our song in the inglorious places that we might find ourselves in this world, what a testimony that is for the keeping power of God, then we can say, I've learned like Paul in whatever state I am there with to be content. I don't have to change my location to sing and to worship. I've learned to be content where God has placed me. God knows where I am and if he wants to change that location, that's up to him, but I'm going to praise him right where I am. I'm not letting my song be taken away from me. I'm going to give God glory no matter where I live, no matter what my circumstances or my situation is. Whether I'm healthy or whether I'm sick, whether I'm rich or whether I'm poor, whether I love my job or whether I'd rather give it to my enemy, it makes no difference to me. I'm going to praise God right where I am.

My song will not be taken away. I'm going to give God glory. There's people online, you live in a Dungate neighborhood, you're on a Dungate job. Maybe you're in a, what do you think to be a Dungate marriage? Maybe you think your family is just like all the leftovers put together into one big, grand, glorious mess and you're just, God, get me out of here. God says, no, get me into where you are. Hallelujah. That's where the victory is. It's not you getting out.

It's me getting in. Open your mouth in praise. Open your heart to my redemption. Open your mind to the reality that I have a plan for you that's bigger than what you understand. It's bigger than what you know.

It's bigger than what you can see. Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 11, the people in captivity. The Lord said to these people, he said, I know the thoughts that I think towards you. To bring thoughts of peace and not of evil. To give you a future and to give you a hope.

I'm thinking something about you. I'm going to give you a future and a hope. God says it might not be what you think it is.

It might not be what you'd like it to be. You know, the whole generation taken into Babylon died there. Most of those, there were very few left when they finally were given the release to go back.

If you're taken into captivity at 10 years old, at 70 years later, or 80, there's not that many left at this time. They had to learn to build, to plant, to build families, to pray for the city where they were. They had to learn. A friend of mine once said, it's so unjust, he said, you finally get it right and you die. And he was right. He died two years later when he got it right. But you finally figure it out when you get old.

When finally there's no itches left to scratch. And it's just all about Christ and about his church and about the people. What a lovely place to dwell.

I think I've got my foot in the door right now. I feel it in my spirit. God, what a place this is. What a place this is where I can praise him when I feel sick and I praise him when I feel well. I praise him when I get up and I can hardly come down the stairs because my knees are so sore. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. Just telling you the way it sometimes is. Then in Nehemiah, at the end of this whole parade, where the people started out at the dungate, and the other folks started out at the old gate.

I just love that. Some people have a dungate life and others people have a fish gate and a tower gate, glory gate. And you're coming into church on Sunday and it's just like dungate, dungate again. You're lifting your hands. My life is a mess. My family's a mess.

My mind is a mess. And God says, I want you to praise me there. I want you to lift your hands to me. I want you to declare me to be faithful. And I'm going to do something through your life because anybody can praise at the old gate. Anybody can praise at the fish gate. Anybody can praise at the sheep gate.

But not very many can praise at the dungate. Oh no. Oh no. When things are not going well. When the doctor's report is not good. When the job is a job you don't like. When the neighborhood you'd rather get out of than even have to go back there one more day. When you hate getting on the subway and going to work in the morning or wherever it is that you have to go. Or you just even hate going down to the unemployment office looking for a job one more day.

No, no, no. Not everybody can worship there. God has put you there for a special reason.

It's time. Learn to praise God in whatever situation you happen to be in. Nehemiah chapter 12 at verse 40 it says, So the two thanksgiving choirs stood in the house of God. Likewise I and half of the rulers with me. And verse 43 it says, That day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced for God had made them rejoice with great joy.

The women and the children also rejoiced so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. You see there's a day coming when we're going to meet in the temple of God. We're going to meet at the throne of God. Until that day you've got to go your way. I've got to go mine or maybe you and I are going together. I don't know how it's going to go.

We go in different directions but we do come around in a circle and we're going to meet one day at the throne of God. And what rejoicing there's going to be there. What rejoicing that we choose. We chose not to give up. We chose not to quit.

We chose not to give in to complaining. We chose to praise God in the place where he had praised us. We chose to learn. Paul said I've learned.

That means there was a school involved. Maybe he wasn't content in the beginning but he said I've learned to be content in all things. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I don't need to change my environment to praise God. He proved that in the book of Acts when he and Silas went into the inner prison. Beaten to a pulp and laying on cold stone. And at midnight could lift their hands in that dungate prison and give God praise.

And the whole place began to shake and the prisoners bands fell off and all the doors began to open. Oh praise God. I don't want that just to be a biblical lesson in my life. I want that to be a reality in my heart and in my life. I don't want circumstance to dictate my song.

I want my song to triumph over my circumstance. My praise to be higher than what I see with my natural eyes. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. Praise be to God.

Praise be to God. And then one day we'll be home. One day we'll be home.

You with your life and me with mine. And we will understand all things. Mysteries will be resolved.

Questions will be answered. We will be forever in the presence of God. And there will be a shout of glory. My God there will be a shout of glory there. It says the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. I don't know how far in the universe our voices will be carried but they will be carried along.

I think God will put them on heaven's microphone and the whole of whatever is out there will begin to hear us. Praise God. You and me. You and me who had to go through this life. You and me who had to sometimes be blessed and sometimes be abased. Sometimes abound and sometimes have nothing. Sometimes be filled with pleasures. Other times filled with pain. But our song was not taken away by our circumstance.

And I want to challenge you. Don't let your song of praise to God be taken away by your circumstance. Begin this journey to a new song by opening your heart to the salvation that God offers through his son Jesus Christ. He went to a cross and he paid the price for all the wrong that you've done. The Bible calls that sin so that you might be forgiven. And if you will open your heart, he will come into your life and he will cleanse you of the wrong that you have done and restore you into a living relationship with the living God. And you will become a new creation the scripture says.

Forgiven of your sins. Connected back to your creator. And then you start on the journey of becoming everything that God has destined your life to be. Everything that God has destined your life to be. Not what you think it should be, but what God has destined your life to be. And there will be a new song within your heart.

A song of praise unto God. And people will see it, as David the King once said, and fear themselves and begin to trust in God. And then one day, as you give your life to Jesus Christ, you will find out that God is faithful. He will not fail you. He will not forsake you. And one day you will be home. We'll all be there.

And what a day that's going to be. Hallelujah. If you opened your heart to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the promise to you is that the moment you call out to Him, He will save you. He will cleanse you. He will receive you to Himself. And it opens the way to what the Bible calls being born again by the Spirit of God.

That means brought into a newness of life by the power of God and the promise of God within you. And yes, He may take you out of where you are, but He may not. But I promise you this one thing. He'll give you a new song right where you are. And you'll be able to praise Him. And people around you will look at you and say, how can you praise God in the midst of this place? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And you'll be able to say, because soon and very soon, I'm going to see the King.

I have a promise in my heart that when I die, heaven is going to be my eternal home. And yes, life may be easy at times and it may be hard at other times, but that's not going to take away my song because I'm going through, I'm going to the other side. Can you imagine them at the done gate? I'm going through. I'm going through. I'll pay the price, whatever others do. I'll take the way of my Lord's anointed few.

And I started out with Jesus and I'm going through. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. You know, I feel in my heart after a lot of years of walking with God, and after all these years, the one thing I know for sure is that God doesn't owe me anything. He owes me nothing. He saved me by His blood. He wrote my name in a book in heaven called the Book of Life. He promised me eternity with Him. Eternity is forever and it's a very, very, very, very long time. It's a very long time.

It never ends. He said, I have a mansion in glory. He talked about He will take me to a place where there's no more sign, no more tears, no more dying, no more lying, no more neighbors playing lousy music. All that's going to be over. Thank God. What a day that's going to be.

What a day that's going to be. There's an inward presence of God available to you that will lift you to a place where you can give God praise in spite of where you live, in spite of what you have to go through, in spite of your struggles and trials and difficulties. There's a higher place to live. Hallelujah. Somebody has to praise God at the dung gate. Somebody has to stop there and praise God. And it takes a special kind of person. God can't send just anybody there.

It takes a special kind of worshiper. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.