REBUILDING THE WALL

 We have a very interesting story in the OT book of Nehemiah chapters 3 and 4 about the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. As we know king Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and taken certain captives to his capital city of Babylon, leaving the walls in ruins. Later when Cyrus became king, one of the first things he did was allow the exiles to return to Israel to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed. Nehemiah was not part of the first group who had responded to the offer of King Cyrus, and had started to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. But when he heard from a relative, who had come back from visiting Jerusalem, and told how bad conditions were there, he wept for days. He was the cupbearer to the present king, who saw how sad he was, and asked what was wrong. When told about the problem, he gave Nehemiah permission to go to Jerusalem and check things out for himself. Nehemiah was then able to encourage the people to start to rebuild the walls, so they would be protected from their enemies, while they rebuilt the temple.

 In many ways we in Canada in this 21st century are in a similar position as the people were, in the days of Nehemiah! Many of the spiritual walls that used to protect us have been eroded by secular humanism, materialism, multi-cultureism, and other works of our enemy Satan. How and where do we start to rebuild? It seems that since our problems all have a spiritual root, we should be looking to the church for answers, but sad to say, the church is suffering with the same problems. Our chief enemies are identified in (1 John 2:16) as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life". These enemies lure us away from God and His Word and leave a gap in our protective spiritual walls. In the ODB daily devotional for Jan 31, 2009 the author stated "Let's be alert to what entices us today. A lapse opens the door to sin, which in turn may develop into a habit that overwhelms us. Don't permit a breach in the wall". A careful study of chapters 3 and 4 of Nehemiah could be a proper starting point! Notice the various families rebuilt the section of wall nearest to their home, and there seemed to be perfect unity between them. Then because their enemies opposed them, they had to work with a weapon of defense in one hand, and their working tool in the other. This speaks of our spiritual armor described in (Eph 6:10-18), and the gifts of the Spirit in (1 Cor 12:4-11)!

 As the above quote from ODB states, let's not permit a breach in the wall! This little poem was part of the same devotional

."It may not be some heinous deed

that chills our hearts and chokes the seed;

It's often just a trifling toy

That grabs our eye and steals our joy.---Gustafson

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                           revised 08/07/13