Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Your soul is getting bigger in order to be better. It might be nice to bless you to become an instant success, a scratch-off winner, to have the promised land just handed to you whole hog. But as much as we'd like a shortcut to glory, God doesn't usually dole out his promised lands that way. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, he promised, until you have increased.
Exodus 23.30. Israel needed more people, needed to increase. No point in planting vast fields that they couldn't nourish and protect. It's a blessing that God gives your soul time to grow before dumping all his blessings in a lump sum. You're increasing on the inside so you can handle the vastness of the promised land that God has in mind for you.
Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. We need some people working, some people praying, some people working and praying, but when the trumpet blows, everybody worships. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt.
Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Nehemiah, Dreamer, Builder, Warrior, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. For a limited time, this can be yours for your donation to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org.
That's pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. Again, by phone, 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program, but now let's get started with today's teaching. Here. is Pastor Alan Wright.
Bye. What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that? Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Yes, what they're building, if a fox goes up on it, he'll break down their stone wall. jeering, belittling, mocking. It's what author and teacher Steve Brown says is the kind of language that comes from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke. I was like it when Steve said that, and it smells like smoke in his deep voice.
Because that's a good way to describe spiritual discernment. It's like smell. Your spirit can tell what smells like heaven and what smells like smoke.
So, beloved, if there's a voice that's making you feel smaller or more ashamed or more condemned, that's not the critique that the Holy Spirit uses to make you better. That's the voice of the accuser that's designed to make you. feel discouraged or despaired and give up. The workers had started their work and it was progressing and it's up and going, but it's in the middle of it. And so they're in that unfinished place.
which is most of life. Where there's something that God puts in your heart and you get going on it, and the work is difficult, and there's a lot of r rubble you're dealing with, and a lot of the materials are not good, and and sometimes your zeal is flagging, and it looks like A very small effort that's going on, and the powers of hell love that moment. To wait to belittle and mock right at the moment where the vision is in your heart. and you're in the middle of it, but it looks like in the natural it might not work. And that's the point.
Of greatest temptation when you're in your call and on your journey and have a vision, but you can't absolutely prove by sight that it's going to work because you're living by faith. And that's why the mocking voice came to the cross and sneered: Look, he saved others, he can't save himself.
So easy to criticize and mock an incomplete vision. Because it hasn't proven itself to be a viable vision yet. It's very easy to mock and criticize someone. who's trying something for God. I, for one, never want to mock or criticize anybody that's trying something noble.
Even if from the outside it looks like it's foolish, they'll never get it done. I wouldn't want to mock that. Will Rogers, I love this. He said, even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Okay. I'd rather be the guy's not just sitting there. Famously, Teddy Roosevelt said, It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause.
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
So that is his place. His place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither defeat nor victory. It's easy to mock. That's the nature of hell. Nehemiah's response here, as it is in eight other places in his memoir.
is prayer. One of the things we learn about Nehemiah, he was a man who had an instinct of prayer. He was a leader whose vision was born of prayer and fueled of prayer, and he lived by prayer, and so he prays. But the prayer is unsettling, and there's a part of me that thought about skipping over it, but I can't because here it is. It's what we call a prayer of imprecation.
There are prayers like this in the Psalms, where occasionally there is a worshiper of God who not only prays, save me, but also prays, get them. And it's a little unsettling for us to know what to do with it, especially when you're in the middle of a vision called For the Good. But here it is. And verse 4. Hear, O God, for we are despised.
Turn back their taunt on their own heads, and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders. And you wonder, is this a prayer that God validates, endorses, and answers? Is it just an expression of human flesh? Is it something of both of those?
We don't really know for sure exactly what to do with these, but I will highlight at least two thoughts about this imprecatory type prayer. What Nehemiah is facing is demonic. Direct opposition to the very will of God, and Nehemiah knows it. This is not Mere Natural enemies talking to one another. This is Demonically inspired opposition to the good plan of God.
And So Neumi is on some kind of deep solid ground of saying God Turn back the demonic on itself. And it's a right thing to hate what is evil and to cling what is good, Paul says in Romans. And so there's something righteous about it. These people are directly opposing what you have directly instructed us to do. And so I'm not praying right now that it's going to be a happy day for them.
That's what he says. But I think here's the deeper thing about what to do with some kind of prayer of imprecation like this, and that is that. God loves it. when we come to him with whatever is on our heart. Talk to God.
And if you're angry, And you feel like bringing vengeance on someone else, don't take it to the people, take it to God. Bring it to God. Uh That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Parents, are you ready for some good news?
You can have a low-pressure, high-expectation home by God's grace. If you want your children to be their best without hounding, threatening, or pressuring them, there's good news. God's grace works in parenting. Shame and pressure offer only fleeting motivation while creating long-term, toxic anxiety in a child's heart. But children thrive in the environment of grace.
Now, for the first time, Alan Wright has joined with his wife Ann to produce eight video sessions that blend humor, deep gospel insights, and loads of practical advice to equip parents and grandparents to raise their children in homes filled with grace and blessing. Use the videos for personal growth with your spouse or with your small group. The DVD album comes with a detailed study guide as well. When you make your gift this month, we'll send you the DVD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and start raising kids by the power of grace.
Of the gospel. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Base teaching now continues. Here once again. is Alan Wright.
If you feel like you're just about to explode with anger towards somebody else and you'd really like to go swat them in the face, take that to God. In your hour of temptation, take it to God. When do you come to the throne of grace boldly? In your time of need, the Bible says. Not afterwards, when you've gotten it all figured out and you're finally cooled off.
Just come to God in the midst of it. Come to him with all your sin and imperfections and longings and angers and frustrations and selfishness and just bring it to God and talk to him about it. He's a big God and he's your father. And he'd rather you come talk to him about it. Instead of gossiping to somebody else, talk to him about it.
That's what people of prayer do. I've always been so intrigued by Jacob. He came into the world holding his twin brother's heel as if he's trying to pull himself in the first place. And then he lived his whole life trying to get into first place. He was a struggler.
His name means supplanter. This grasping, striving, struggling. And then he wrestled all night long with an angelic being. He wrestled with God. And afterward, the Lord Said I'm changing your name to Israel.
Because you've struggled with God and lived until today. And Israel, most scholars agree, means struggles with God. or strives with God. Isn't that interesting? that this would be the name God would have for the people of God.
Because after Israel gains his new name, and now Jacob's Israel, this is what the people of God are called. The ones that struggle with God. And now we are engrafted into Israel, and so we're also, we're the ones, who are we? We're the ones that struggle with God. What do you mean by that?
How could it be a blessing for Jacob's name to be changed from Jacob to Israel? It's like his name was changed from struggles with people to struggles with God. I'm like, Lord, he's still a struggler. And I think that's the whole point. But instead of taking your issues to people.
and trying to get one up on them. Or getting vengeance on them, or gossiping with them. And people, people, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. God says, come talk to me about it.
So that day, Nehemiah doesn't feel like blessing his enemy. He feels like saying, let it be turned back on them, God. And he recorded it for us to see. He's a struggler with God. Mm-hmm.
Verse 6, I love this line. Right in the middle of his talking about his prayer to God and his Getting ready to tell us about the discouragement, the people, and all this persecution, it just says, so we built the wall. It's And the wall was joined together at half its height.
Now the people had a mind to work. I love that line. We just built a wall. Chuck Swindahl called his book that he wrote long ago on Nehemiah. Hand me another brick.
I love that. Everybody's opposing. Everything seems like it's only half done. Voices are saying, Who you think that you could do this? If a fox climbed up on there, the wall would fall down.
Nehemiah is having to bring his heartaches to God, and then it just said, Hand me another brick. The best thing to do is to first pray, and the next best thing to do is just keep on doing what God called you to do. Keep on doing what God called you to do until He tells you to do something else. Yeah, then so the building continues. But So does the opposition.
Verse 7: Sambalat and Tobiah and the Arabs and Ammonites and the Ashadites heard of the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem going forward, and the breaches were beginning to be closed, and they were very angry.
So it escalates. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem. And notice this, and to cause confusion in it. Beloved, you just need to know this: that in the spiritual fight, It's pretty customary. The what you thought was going to be easy.
Then you find out there's spiritual opposition and you're feeling it. And you gotta pray through it, and you gotta get people to pray with you. And you think, okay, I'm back to rebuilding. But usually the fight gets worse before it lightens up. It just does.
And notice what they wanted to do. The fight against Jerusalem and cause confusion in it. That's what hell does. Satan is the author of confusion and God is the author of shalom and clarity and light. Jesus is the light of the world.
If there's ever a critique that comes and it's belittling, it's probably devilish. And if there's a critique that just causes your soul to be muddied and confused, it's not from God. Good criticism, even if it stings, lead to clarity of vision, not confusion of direction. Verse 9. And we prayed to our God.
and set a guard as protection against them day and night. What did he do? We just kept praying. But we also set up guards. This is not naive discipleship.
This is spiritual warfare. Verse 10.
Meanwhile, the people in Judah began to get discouraged. And they said, the strength of the laborers is giving out. And there's so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. Also, our enemies said, before they know it or see us, we'll be right there among them and we'll kill them and put an end to the work. Then the Jews who live near them came and told us ten times over wherever you turn.
They'll attack us. Do you see that language in verse 10? There's so much raw bowl. We cannot. Rebuilt.
The voice of discouragement. We're losing strength. Too much has been broken. I don't think we can do it. This is the kind of moment in spiritual warfare where the soul gets discouraged.
and things start looking impossible. Beware of such moments. Because there's something inside of our soul that is tempted to start agreeing with hell. that we cannot do what God has called us to do. But if God has called us, Then we can.
Regardless of the rubble. and the mockery of hell. But they're discouraged. And watch Nehemiah's leadership, a beautiful, wonderful leader in response to the fear and discouragement. In verse 13, So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall and open places, I stationed the people by their clans with their swords, their spears, and their bows.
He put warriors out there. And I looked. And arose and said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people, do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. And fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.
The first thing he did was he put people Warriors in between the workers and the enemy. There's a name for the people that stand in between the workers of the mission and the enemy. It is called an intercessor.
Someone who stands in the gap.
Someone who stands in the breach.
Someone who says the work must go on and there standing in the power of God.
So he puts intercessors, intermediaries. people in their place to do warfare as it's needed. And he turned their attention to God, remember the Lord who's great and awesome. And look at this. I want you to see this.
Remember the Lord who's great and awesome, and then fight for your brothers. Fight for your sons, fight for your daughters, fight for your wives, and fight for your homes. There's something that happens eventually inside the mature spiritual warrior that is a boldness that arises and says, I'm going to hold on to and lay claim to and fight in the spirit for what has been purchased for me in Christ. This joy is in my inheritance. This peace is my inheritance.
This call is a gift from God. This family is a gift to God. My marriage is a gift from him, and I'm going to fight for it. I'm not going to let the devil have it. It's mine.
There's something of ownership that must happen inside every Christian's heart where we who have been liberated from bondage are liberated not just to our freedom, but to take ownership in the kingdom of God. And when that gets a hold of you, down deep in your spirit, there's something defiant in you that says no to the powers of hell. And greater is he that's in you than he's in the world. And that's where triumph begins. Fight!
I've watched it so many times. I've seen great saints where the devil's been all over their marriage. And they've said, God brought us together. And I'll just meet with them and remind them how God had been in their lives, and He's great, and He's awesome, and all things are possible, and something happens. They said, We're going to fight for this.
People who have a Son or a daughter who's gone wayward and they're grieving and they think, oh, he's lost, and they get horrible. Hold of some intercessors to get with him and said, No, this is not this child's destiny. I'm going to fight in the spirit for this. Do not be afraid, Nehemiah said, and remember the Lord. And fight.
Pastor Alan Wright and our good news message: Overcoming Spiritual Opposition from the series Nehemiah. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in just a moment, sharing his parting good news thought for the day. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing.
If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's Daily Blessing. It's free and just a click away at pastorAlan.org. I don't want to pressure my kids and I sure don't want to shame them, but I do want them to try hard and be all they can be. That's the desire of every well-meaning parent. For over a decade, Alan Wright has been teaching all over the nation about the toxic effects of shame and the amazing power of the gospel of grace to heal and set free.
Now, for the first time, Alan has been joined by his wife Ann to produce a video series about shame-free parenting. It's called Good News for Parents: Raising Grace-Filled Kids in a Pressure-Filled World. The eight DVD video sessions are chock full of humor, deep gospel insight, and loads of practical advice. Use them for personal growth or with your spouse. They're also perfect for use in your small group.
The DVD album comes with a detailed step-by-step study guide as well. When you make your gift this month, we'll send you the DVD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and start raising kids by the power of the gospel. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give to day, we will send you to day's special offer.
We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen. org.
Back here now sitting with Pastor Alan and overcoming spiritual opposition, our teaching for the day, I think you would very quickly speak into this and say God has not given us a spirit of fear.
So it's nothing to tremble and fear over. Our God is in control. Again, that word from Isaiah chapter 49, cannot a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I've engraved you on the palms of my hands.
Your walls are continually before me So Nehemiah has his eyes on rebuilding this wall, but God says it's like the walls that protect you. or before God, If you think that Nehemiah had a passion to rebuild the walls so that Jerusalem would no longer be vulnerable. then how much more so your Father in heaven who is watching over you and So though there is a spiritual fight. In the end, it's a fight that has already been won. And Jesus is strong.
and he's with you, and he's a warrior. and he has for you the kind of love And the kind of spiritual weapons that through the gospel you can actually tear down strongholds.
So. Be encouraged in this fight. The fact that you're in it and you're experiencing spiritual opposition doesn't mean you're losing, it's not a cause for despair. It's a time instead to know that God must really be at work. Thanks for listening today.
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