Morning, brothers and sisters.
This conference reminds me, in a way, of the book of Acts. In Acts 2, it says, “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day.” Thank the Lord, He continues to add day by day to our number, and we get to experience more of Him and one another.
Let’s turn again to Revelation 3. The verses in this letter to the church in Sardis have been our theme verses.
And to the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars says this:
I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die;
for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.
Remember therefore how you have received and heard;
keep it and repent.
Let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, just as we sang that chorus, there is a simplicity and beauty to it: simply desiring that our eyes would be opened to see You, Lord.
Lord, we do want to put aside the things that would distract. We want to put aside things that would compete for our affections. We want to turn our hearts unto You this morning, Lord, that we could behold You. We could behold the beauty of the Lord.
Lord, we thank You for how You have called each one of us unto Yourself. We thank You for the precious price that You have paid, that we might know You as our heavenly Father. To be in Thy presence, Lord, is good.
Lord, we do not want simply to be here in Your presence. As we offer ourselves unto You today, we desire that Your very life, through Your Spirit, would do a mighty work within each one of us.
Lord, awaken us. Awaken us to see You in the freshness of Your life. Awaken us to see You in Your victory. Awaken us to see You upon Your throne as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and may all other things grow strangely dim in the light of Your glory and grace.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
We have been considering together in the mornings the thought from this letter to the church in Sardis: “Strengthen the things that remain.”
We know that when the Lord wrote these letters, as He looked upon these seven churches, there was one thing He was looking for: the very expression of the life of His Son in His people. That is what He is still looking for in the hour in which we are living. He is looking for that in our lives individually and in our lives together—that the life of His Son would be expressed.
Out of that love letter which He penned to the church in Sardis, He noticed some things, and He called out to them to wake up and strengthen the things that remained. Because of their falling asleep and lethargy, they had become weakened.
It is tragic throughout church history, and even today, how we find ourselves in that weakened condition. But we are so thankful that our Lord does not condemn us or throw us out. In love, He says, “Strengthen those things that remain.”
We know that we are strengthened by one thing: more and more of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is returning to that simplicity and purity of devotion to Him.
We become so complicated, and we forget what we have heard. We forget the great heritage we have. The Lord, in His mercy, says, “Remember. Remember what I have shared with you. Remember not only what I have shared; remember how you heard it.”
Remember that simple heart that was open to receive, to hunger, and to thirst. Now we have received so much that, quite often, we do not sit here as those who hunger and thirst. We sit here as critics, critiquing the message, being connoisseurs, comparing it with the way somebody else said it, or saying that something tasted better another way.
But the Lord’s Word is fresh and new to us every day. May it not become old, and may we not elevate ourselves to think that we know. When we first heard, there was that place down at His feet—a place of humility to receive from Him—because we saw that we did not know, and He alone had the words of life. That was what we desired: that life.
May the Lord continue to bring us back to that. He says, “I have not found your deeds completed.” We are a people of purpose. He has called us with a purpose, yet He says, “I have given you this purpose, but I have not found it completed in My sight.”
You might think you have come a good way in your own sight, but what is our standard? Our standard is Him. It is His sight. He says He has not found it completed. One day all of this will be completed, so thank the Lord that we have today, that we can still be about the call that the Lord has upon our lives.
May we, in this hour, awaken and allow the Holy Spirit within us, in the strength of His life, to strengthen us in a new and fresh way.
We have been using the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as lessons in how the Lord desires to strengthen His people when they are at a time of weakness.
When the book of Ezra opens, the people of God were in Babylon. They were not where they were supposed to be. They were not in the city of God, because they were in Babylon as a result of their unfaithfulness. The Lord had allowed them to be taken into captivity.
We said that Babylon speaks of religious confusion. Babylon itself means confusion. There was so much religion and religiosity in Babylon that the people of God were in a place of confusion.
If we look around today, what is our overall condition? Is there a clarity of Who the Lord is? Is there a clarity of what the Lord desires? Is there that simplicity among the people of God that Jesus Christ is Lord?
No. It is tragic, brothers and sisters, but today we are in a place of great confusion. Yet again, the Lord, in His mercy and loving-kindness, says, “Out of that confusion, return unto Me. Return to Jerusalem to be that testimony. It is the place where I have put My name. Return to this simplicity and purity.”
Why were the people of God to return there? They were called to return to Jerusalem, not simply to live there and create their own little holy huddle.
Yes, they rebuilt the altar, which testified of the cross and spoke of Christ—of all that He had done and of our acceptance in Him. They rebuilt the house, which again speaks of Christ. But it was a house for all to come unto.
They were not to return to Jerusalem simply to have their own little communal life together. They were to be a testimony upon the earth in that time and in that hour.
That was actually one of the failings of the nation of Israel. When God chose them, were they merely supposed to be an isolated little nation, set apart to enjoy the Lord? No. They were to be a testimony of the life of the Lord upon this earth, that many would be brought in.
But Israel failed in that. They remained isolated to themselves. It is tragic how many of us, in the days in which we are living, are creating our own little holy huddles—our own little groups so that we can be comfortable, us and the Lord, and there it is.
We can forget that we are here upon this earth not only individually, but collectively as the people of God, to be a testimony unto Jesus Christ. We are to be the very expression of His life upon this earth in the hour in which we are living.
We are to express to the world of darkness that there is a light which can take them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son. How we need to return to the simplicity of being that testimony.
We thank the Lord how, in His sovereignty, He turned the heart of a heathen king, Cyrus, so that the people of God were free to return to Jerusalem.
It is tragic that even though millions were there and all were free, some chose the comfort of Babylon. They had their homes, their businesses, and their little religious life. They had a good life, and they were going to stay there.
But there were those who knew where their heart was. Their heart was in Jerusalem, and they made the choice to rise up, put behind them the things of Babylon, and return to Jerusalem—not for their own sake, but for His sake.
Brothers and sisters, when we first get saved, we think everything is for our sake, and praise God, that is a wonderful feeling. He has loved us and saved us. But as the Lord works within us, He wants our eyes to be opened to see that the whole world does not center around us.
The whole world is to center around Christ, and we are here to serve Him, to serve His purpose, and to be that testimony—to be that expression of His life.
Is His life expressed through our assemblies? When people look upon our assemblies, what are they seeing? Do they see the beauty of the Lord?
Thank the Lord that we have this hour, that we can stop at times like this, reconsider, and allow the Lord to draw our hearts back to that simplicity.
We thank the Lord that there were those who returned. As we said, they rebuilt the altar and rebuilt the house. But the Lord was not done there.
He raised up Ezra, one skilled in the law of God—a scribe who had the very Word of God within his heart. In Ezra 7:10, we see that Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Why had Ezra done that? Was it simply for his own sake? No. Ezra had upon his heart what we read later in Ezra 7:27. He returned to Jerusalem with the living Word of God upon his heart so that the house of God could be strengthened, beautified, and adorned.
There would be a greater display of the life of Christ—if we could use those New Testament terms back then—a greater expression of His life among the people of God. The Lord still desires that His house would show forth the beauty of the Lord.
Ezra was not one who merely talked the talk; he walked the walk. His walk and his talk were in unison. This is what the Lord desires: that the message and the messenger would be united, and that the life of Christ would come forth from His messengers.
We were reminded that we are all messengers of God. Whether we are in our homes, neighborhoods, assemblies, workplaces, or schools, we are all messengers of God.
What we have to ask with honesty before the Lord is this: “Lord, what message am I carrying? What message am I carrying?”
I remember—and some of you have heard this testimony before—I have been in business for about thirty years. At one time, one of my partners passed away, and I had the opportunity to share at his funeral.
Often, you hope for opportunities to share the gospel and testify of Jesus Christ among your coworkers. The Lord opened this door. All of our coworkers, clients, and many from the community were there.
My partner, thank the Lord, had come to know the Lord in the last year of his life. I was able to share how he was saved, and I was very thankful for that privilege.
Afterward, at the reception—I guess you call it a reception; I do not know what you call the gathering after a funeral—a person from another office in the company came up to me and said, “Max, I’m so happy to know you’re a Christian. I’m a Christian too.”
It was a joyful moment, but then he said something else. He said, “Zach, I always knew you were a good person, but I never knew you were a Christian.”
He meant that as a compliment. He was saying something nice. But, boy, did that pierce my heart.
What do we know and have? What is our message? Do we simply want to be known as moral people, good people in a bad world? Or do we want people to know that we are Christians?
When he said that, I had trouble keeping a straight face. You know, you have to keep the façade at that time. Dana talked about the pride of man last night. I had to keep the façade during that time, but when I got home, the Lord worked with me.
I thank the Lord for that brother who said those words. As we give ourselves to the Lord and have this desire, He will provide opportunities like that. The Holy Spirit, speaking through one another, can pierce things within our hearts that we are totally unconscious of.
It is a wonderful, liberating thing to be set free in the Lord and to allow His life to come forth, if we really will seek Him.
Thank the Lord that Ezra was one concerning whom there was no question who he stood for. There was no question concerning his call or the message within his life.
We see in Ezra that when he returned as a priest, he brought the Lord before the people, and he brought the people before the Lord.
Yesterday we stopped in Ezra 9, so I would like us to read the verses with which we ended: Ezra 9:1-5.
Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying,
“The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations: those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites.
For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness.”When I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard, and sat down appalled.
Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening offering.
But at the evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the Lord my God.
As Ezra brought the Word of God in, as Ezra brought the very presence of the Lord in, what impact did it have? Ezra had not said a thing, but the very presence of the Lord brought a convicting spirit. People knew that they had sinned.
They knew that, as it says in Ezra 9:2, the holy race had intermingled with the peoples of the land. There was not separation; there was intermingling and intermarriage with the people of the land.
They were a holy race. Brothers and sisters, in the hour in which we are living, what are we? We are a holy people. We are a holy priesthood. We are called out to be separated.
The very name by which we go—saints—means those called out and separated unto the Lord. Brothers and sisters, within our testimony, are we those who are separated, or are we those who have intermingled with the things of this world?
I appreciate the testimony of Ezra here. Again, he did not come in and beat the people up. He simply brought the Lord into the situation, and the Holy Spirit brought conviction in the presence of the Lord.
As you look throughout history during times of great revival, it is the presence of God and the movement of His Holy Spirit among people that brings believers back to their knees and allows them to return to that place of holiness unto Him.
In all honesty, if we looked at all the vocabulary of Christian language and ranked our favorite words, how often would we put holiness at the top?
We love “love,” “grace,” and “mercy.” We could go on and on. But where is holiness? It is not a popular topic, because somehow the enemy has deceived us into thinking that holiness is bondage and legalism.
But holiness is actually the greatest liberation we will ever experience, because we are set free from ourselves to enjoy the goodness of the Lord.
What are we set apart from? We are set apart from the tyranny of this world to enjoy the life of God. We are set apart from the bondage of ourselves and our own sin so that we can enjoy His goodness.
The enemy has done a great job of sending the wrong message about holiness. Quite frankly, we as believers have done a pretty lousy job too.
If we say that someone wants to live a holy life, we think, first of all, they have to wear black. You can tell a holy person when they walk in the room: their shoulders are bent, they bow a little, and they walk real slow. Holy people never walk fast; they are very deliberate.
We have this concept of holiness that starts from the outside and goes in. But if the Holy Spirit could open our eyes to see that holiness is the greatest liberation we will ever experience after we have been saved, we would enjoy the goodness of the Lord that we sing about.
We sing all these choruses about enjoying His goodness, yet we leave and feel miserable because we are entangled. But the Lord calls us back to Himself to set us free.
In holiness, we see the beauty of holiness, splendor, and majesty. Oh, what liberation there is in the Lord. May the concepts of the enemy be shattered, that we would not be ashamed or timid to say, “Yes, we are a holy people in Christ, and we are free.”
May the Lord help us there.
This is what was occurring with these people. As the Holy Spirit and the Word of God came in, conviction was brought upon them. We see how those in Jerusalem had intermarried with those of the land; they had these foreign wives.
What are we talking about when we speak of foreign wives, and how does that apply to us? We are not saying that if somebody is from another country, you should divorce them. We are making a spiritual application here.
But it can be pretty simple. Again, we try to complicate things so much. What is a foreign person? A foreigner is someone whose origin comes from a different country. They were born in a different kingdom. Their origin is different. That is all it is.
What is a wife? A wife is someone to whom you are joined, someone with whom you are intimate, someone to whom you have given yourself.
These people had given themselves and joined intimately with those of the land. How did this come about?
Generally, these things come about through a slow, gradual falling away from first love with Him. The love of many will wax cold. There is a slow cooling-off process.
If you look back at Ezra 4, these very same people—the adversaries—came and said, “Let us help you build the building. Let us help you build that house of God.” What was the response? Because they were in a place of first love with the Lord, they said, “No, we have nothing in common with you. You cannot come in. We are separate from you.”
But then, as that love waxed cold, they began intermingling and intermarrying with them. It brought dissipation and distraction.
We know from the testimony of Solomon’s life that when Solomon reached the zenith, the turning point came when he married foreign women. They stole his heart away, and it opened a way for the enemy to come in and bring down the kingdom.
It gave that crack through which the enemy could come in. The one who was greatest upon the earth ended up losing the kingdom during his son’s time because of his sins.
It is tragic, if you ever look chronologically, to see the amount of time between Solomon and Jezebel. Sometimes you read it and think it was hundreds and hundreds of years. It was not that long—there were not that many generations between Solomon and Jezebel.
That should be warning enough to us. We need to be those who constantly allow our relationship with the Lord to be freshened day by day.
Remember, the people we are speaking of here were in Jerusalem. They had left Babylon. They had come back. They were living in Jerusalem to be a testimony to the Lord, yet they allowed themselves to enter into unholy alliances.
One of the greatest privileges we have is gathering with brothers and sisters who have the desire to meet and be a testimony unto the Lord in the simplicity of His life. But your greatest blessing can also become your greatest weakness if you begin taking that blessing for granted.
Most of my life, in high school, college, and the military, I played sports. One tactic in sports is that when a team has someone who is especially strong on defense, you may try to go around that person. But one way to attack someone’s greatest strength is to go straight at them.
Sometimes our strength is that we have the Word of God and the blessing of fellowship together. The enemy can come right at that strength, and we start taking everything for granted. We are lulled to sleep in all the goodness we have.
That is why He comes along and says, “Wake up. Wake up, because the hour in which you are living is drawing near.”
How does this matter of foreign wives apply to us today? The Lord is speaking to our hearts. We are seeing pictures here, but as we apply this to our hearts, we have to ask: What have our hearts been joined intimately with that is not of the Lord?
What have our hearts joined intimately with that belongs to another kingdom or to the world? What unholy alliances have we made? What are the foreign wives today?
We can begin naming them. It can be things such as our work. How many times do we hear the phrase, “He’s married to his work,” or, “She’s married to her career”? That speaks a lot.
Our foreign wives can be our educational desires, family, or whatever else comes in to distract and dissipate us from our life with the Lord.
One sign of having an unholy alliance or affiliation with something of the world is that we find ourselves living a dual life.
We say, “This is my life with the Lord, and this is my work life. This is my life with the Lord, and this is my school life. This is my life with the Lord, and this is my personal life, where I can enjoy all that I want.”
Subtly, we begin to separate our time. We know enough to give the Lord His time, and we fall into this duality of life.
There is another characteristic of a wife. Normally, a wife takes the name of her husband. I used to be able to say that absolutely; now you have to say “normally.”
Today, if you look around, many things have taken the name “Christian.” Does that make them of Christ merely because they have the name Christian on them? What is their origin?
We have Christian aerobics, Christian soccer leagues, Christian drama clubs, Christian music—it goes on and on.
Back home, in fairly conservative Richmond, there was an advertisement for a Christian yoga club. It caught me off guard. I thought, “How does Christian yoga work?”
Someone said, “We are just involved in the physical side. We do not touch the other side.” But you may think you are separating the two; the powers and principalities are not separating the two.
We fall into subtle traps. Often, there are things that we like, so we clean them up, polish them up, ease our conscience, stick the name Christian on them, and say, “Now it is acceptable.”
Brothers and sisters, just because a group of Christians does something does not make it a Christian function. What is the issue? The issue is the origin. Is it of the Lord, or is it of the world?
I do not want to go to an extreme here. The issue is not whether you are involved in, for example, a drama club or not. The issue is whether we are trying to put the name Christian on it and somehow make it good.
That is the heart issue. Quite frankly, if something has the word “Christian” on it, many of us just walk right into it. We need to be awakened for the hour in which we are living.
It is interesting, brothers and sisters, how we as the people of God sing wonderful songs and choruses about the Lord: “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures forevermore.” “Lord, I’m captured by Your beauty.” “Lord, You are all my delight.”
Then where do we go for our fun? Why do we always go to the world for fun?
Again, we have this dual life. We think, “I have my Christian life, and I am going to be serious. But if I want to have some fun, I need my time, so I am going over here to the world.”
We fall into this trap, and the message we send is that there is no fun in the Lord.
There is an interesting phrase: imitation is the greatest form of flattery. It is tragic today how many of us as believers imitate the world and its activities instead of the world imitating us.
What message are we sending? Brothers and sisters, there is a joy and a delight in the Lord that we have been robbed of.
The world says, “Come here. I will give you pleasure. You can delight in this and delight in that.” But the Lord wants us to testify that He is our all in all.
Yet often we put a “but” on the end of it: “But I am going to go over here and have my fun.”
Look at the Psalms. One thing I appreciate about the psalmist is his heart. David says in Psalm 37:4, “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”
Do we believe that? Or do we think, “Oh, that is some old fogey religious guy. He does not really have any desires anyway, so it is no big deal”?
Does that apply to us younger people? Us younger people?
Do we ever say, “Lord, You said that if I delight in You, You will give me the desires of my heart”? What we find is that, as we begin delighting in Him, our heart begins changing.
What becomes our desire? More of Him, more of the brothers and sisters, and a joy into which we enter.
The psalmist also wrote, “I delight to do Thy will.” We sing songs about delighting to do the will of God, but when it is set before us, are we delighting in it?
Turn over to Psalm 119. I really appreciate Psalm 119:92.
As you are turning there, Psalm 94 says:
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Thy consolations delight my soul.
When anxious thoughts multiply within us, do we believe that His consolations delight our souls? Or do we have to go somewhere else for the consolation of our souls?
Now look at Psalm 119:92.
Unless Thy law had been my delight,
I would then have perished in mine affliction.
What a precious promise: delighting in the Lord and in His law—the Word of God. Otherwise, I would have perished.
I would like everyone, sometime, to take Psalm 119. We know Psalm 119 is about the Word of God, and it uses many different terms for it. We also know that the living Word of God is our Lord Jesus. He became flesh and tabernacled among us.
Read Psalm 119, and instead of the praise for the Word of God, put the name Jesus there. Let us do that with a few verses.
We are not talking about legalism. When we read “law,” we often think, “Ooh, legalism. We are free from the law.” But we know that He was the Word made flesh, so let us put His name there.
If Jesus had not been my delight,
Then I would have perished in my affliction.I will never forget Jesus,
For by Him Thou hast revived me.I am Thine, save me,
For I have sought Jesus.The wicked wait for me to destroy me;
I shall diligently consider Jesus.
Oh, how that will open up this psalm in a wonderful way, and we can enter into the delight that there is in Him.
The enemy robs us of so much, and we fall into so many things. Brothers and sisters, who are we imitating? Who are we flattering in the hour in which we are living?
We sing about how they will know that we are Christians by our love and by the life they see. Would that we, as the people of God, really shine forth the name of Jesus and the life of Jesus.
Even if we find ourselves in this situation, one thing the Holy Spirit says is, “Test Me and prove Me.” Have we ever tested the Lord in this way—in a right way?
“Lord, You said You would be my delight, that all my springs of joy could be found in You. I have been getting my springs of joy and delight in many other things of this world, but Lord, I want to find my springs of joy and my delight in You.”
If we go to the Lord with that honest heart, He will show us more of Himself. He will reveal more and more of Himself so that we can be set free from the bondages and unholy alliances and affiliations we have made with this world.
May we be those who answer the call upon the people in Ezra: to be separated and to be that holy people. May we not be afraid of being a holy people in this hour.
Where did these foreign wives come from? If you read the list in Ezra 9, they were people whom Israel had already conquered and driven out of the land. They had defeated them. They had come out of Egypt, and these people had been defeated.
But somehow they had allowed them to come back in. They knew victory over them, but as time went on, there was a slow, gradual process of things coming back in and coming back in.
This can happen so easily in our lives, particularly as we have a few years in the Lord. The enemy will lie to us and say, “You can handle that. You are mature enough now to handle that situation.”
He says, “Sure, when you were a young Christian, you could not handle being in that environment. Sure, when you were a young Christian, you could not handle watching that type of movie. Sure, when you were a young Christian, you could not hang around those kinds of people. But now that you are a mature Christian of four years, you can handle that.”
Then he says, “Look at Jesus. He went and ate with sinners. Look at all He did.” But he never tells the rest of the story. Jesus wanted to be with sinners, but what did He do? He did not join in with them. He shared the gospel.
Somehow, we fall into the trap of thinking, “I can handle it. It will not hurt me.” We think that is a sign of strength, but brothers and sisters, it is actually a sign of weakness.
It is a sign of weakness in our conscience. When we can be in a situation, in an environment, or watching a movie where cursing is going on and the Lord’s name is being profaned throughout the whole thing, and we are not affected, that is not the sign of a strong Christian.
That is a sign of somebody with a weak conscience. We need our conscience awakened.
The world tells us we need to be tolerant of sin, that we need to tolerate all these things. That is a bunch of baloney. We do not have to be tolerant of sin. We do not have to tolerate people profaning the name of our Lord.
We love the sinner, yes, but we hate the sin. The tragedy today is that we as believers have embraced sin too much and have tried to be too tolerant in order to appease the world, so that we will be considered open-minded and not hate-mongers.
Oh, would the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see how we need to be awakened, that our conscience would be strong, and that we would not be known as those who are so tolerant.
It is tough. I am not going to say it is not. Within our family, we have a young brother who is homosexual.
You can use cute little phrases such as, “Hate the sin and love the sinner.” But when you begin applying that daily with someone who is a practicing homosexual in your life, it gets tough. I am not saying it is easy.
But the Lord is making a way for us so that we do not have to be found condoning and putting up with so much of the sin that is arrogantly thrown at us by the enemy in the hour in which we are living.
We are only fooling ourselves if we think it has no effect upon us. May our conscience be strengthened in this hour to know the difference between the holy and the profane.
Ezra was a scribe skilled in the law. He knew what was holy and what was profane.
Brothers and sisters, as those alive in Christ, as saints—His holy ones—do we know within our lives the things that are holy and the things which are profane?
As we offer ourselves to the Lord, may the Lord, in His wonderful loving way, bring about conviction to set us free.
One of the tragic effects of this is seen toward the end of the book of Nehemiah. Turn to Nehemiah 13.
Once again, in Nehemiah, even though Ezra had done this work in his time, people had entered in. The holy seed had intermingled with people of this world.
We see in Nehemiah 13:24 one of the most tragic verses in Scripture. It speaks of the people of God and their children.
As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people.
None of them was able to speak the language of Judah. Brothers and sisters, what language are our children speaking? What language are our young people speaking?
As we see our lives lived out, what language are we teaching them? When we speak of language here, we are speaking of the language of the heart—the language with which you express your love.
Stella and I are frequently in Brazil. I have been studying Portuguese and can carry on a conversation. But if I ever want to express worship, prayer, or heart affection, I always have to go back to my native language.
What is the native language of our children’s hearts? What is the native language? What is the origin of the language within our lives?
Do we merely have a Christian language that we put on for meetings and when we are around believers, while our native language comes out when we are with others?
In this country, we have many ESL programs. But I wonder whether, in Christianity, we have many CSLs. Is Christianity a secondary language, or is it the first language of our hearts?
Would the Lord show us? We find out what language is upon our hearts in a time of testing and trial. What language do we revert to when we express our true feelings? When something happens, what comes forth?
I know what happens with me sometimes when something happens. I know what comes forth. Thank the Lord for the blood of the Lamb that cleanses us of our sins.
Would He work within each one of us in a fuller way, so that the native language within us and within our children would be the language of the Lord—that love language unto Him which is, in a right way, very natural to them?
May it not be something we put on only when we are around other believers.
Sometimes we think that things we are involved in do not have many consequences, but we are only kidding ourselves. Anything not of the Lord, outside of His realm, has tragic consequences.
May we, particularly as we speak about these last days, be awakened to that. Are we willing to be different? Are we willing to be those set apart unto Him?
I thank the Lord that Ezra was able to come into this situation and bring the Lord in. May we be those who bring the Lord into situations, so that people are set free in a greater way to follow Him more fully day by day.
What did Ezra do in this situation? We see back in Ezra 9 that Ezra fell upon the ground. He humbled himself. He fell down appalled before the Lord in prayer.
We touched on this yesterday: Ezra did not elevate himself above others. He did not look down on them or condemn them, but he identified with them.
There are many things we can learn from these prayers. For the trivia people, in the post-exile books—Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah—chapter 9 is always the prayer chapter.
If you are trying to remember when Daniel prayed, it is Daniel 9. When did Ezra pray? Ezra 9. Nehemiah? Nehemiah 9. Some things are simple—the simplicity of Christ. Chapter 9.
Let us glean a few points on this matter of prayer. There are similarities between these prayers. There are four overall points I would like to consider. This is not a formula, and they do not always appear in the same order, but they are points for us to observe.
As we are back in Ezra 9, we read verses 3 through 5, and we see how Ezra falls into that place of humility. In Nehemiah, he is in sackcloth. Daniel falls on his face before the Lord.
When was the last time we looked upon the condition of the people of God and it brought us to our knees before God?
We love to stand up and raise our hands in praise. We are up all the time, and we can do that. But how often do we kneel? What is the ratio in our lives between standing up and kneeling?
In my own life, it is a pretty lousy ratio. I am not going to stand up here and act as though I am on my knees all the time, but it is something I want the Lord to teach me so that I can be strengthened.
As I looked at Ezra and Nehemiah this time, I was captured in a fresh way by the prayers of these dear ones and their burdens for the people of God. I was so convicted.
I can stand up and raise my hands. You do not raise your hands on the West Coast—I am sorry. You stand up sometimes. I had to get one dig in.
But we like to stand up a lot. Are we really on our knees? Are we really in that place of humility before the Lord? Would the Lord teach us that?
Look over at Nehemiah 9. Let us consider a second aspect: acknowledging Who the Lord is and His rights.
It is wonderful to see how, in verse 1, Nehemiah is fasting and wearing sackcloth, but then we come to verse 5 and see the wonderful way he sees and acknowledges Who the Lord is.
Bless the Lord your God forever and ever.
O may Thy glorious name be blessed
And exalted above all blessing and praise!
Thou alone art the Lord.
Thou hast made the heavens,
The heaven of heavens with all their host.
He goes on: “Thou art the Lord who chose Abraham.” He recounts how the Lord saw the affliction of those in Egypt, performed signs, divided the sea, and did everything for them.
Is that not the picture we have of our beloved Savior? He has done everything for us. There was nothing on their part. “You have done everything.”
How we need to see that when we come into these times, we come on the basis of all that Christ has done for us.
Then look at the end of Nehemiah 9:33. In all that they had been through, what was Nehemiah’s testimony of the Lord?
However, Thou art just in all that has come upon us;
For Thou hast dealt faithfully,
But we have acted wickedly.
All the affliction they had been through—the Lord was just. He had dealt faithfully with them, but they had acted wickedly.
They acknowledged Who He is, and they acknowledged their true condition. Again, Nehemiah identifies with them: “We have acted wickedly.” There is no excuse.
You will notice in the prayers of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel that there are no excuses for the way they acted. They say, “We sinned. We disobeyed You. You gave us the law. You set it before us. You provided everything. We did not listen to Your prophets. We ignored You, rebelled, and did our own thing.”
“We have sinned.” That is accepting responsibility—not a popular phrase in modern society.
They accepted responsibility. God had provided everything for them, and they neglected and rejected it.
How we need to see that we are in the same category. When we sit here and look at all God has provided for us—if the only thing He had provided besides Himself, which is everything, were simply this conference—look back at the twenty years of this conference.
Think of the treasure, the feast, and the banquets that have been set before us. Oh, the Lord has poured out His heart, and we neglect it.
May the Lord awaken us in this hour. Again, much of this is coming out of personal conviction. When was the last time we picked up a conference tape from 1985 and listened to it?
I do not even know what the message from 1985 was. But when was the last time we went back to 1995, when the Lord spoke? We were so sure that year that the Lord had spoken to us. He moved. He came and touched our hearts.
It was wonderful how the Lord wove the message together between the speakers. Oh, how great it was. But what did the Lord say then? What was His message? Do we bring it to remembrance? Do we go back and allow it to stay fresh within our hearts?
David said his heritage was beautiful to him. Is our heritage beautiful to us? We have such a great heritage. Is it beautiful to us?
As some of us get a little older, we appreciate our heritage a little more. But there is treasure there, and we need to re-dig those wells.
We need to re-dig some of the wells of our fathers. The enemy has covered them up and said, “There is nothing under there. Do not fool with it. It is too much work to dig those rocks out.”
No, we need to do some digging. Maybe a cassette tape will not fit on our MP3 player because it is so old, but somebody will lend you a cassette player so that you can listen to one of those old tapes.
We can enter into the heritage that we have in Him.
Turn now to Daniel 9. We will glean a couple of points from Daniel about how he acknowledged the true sin of the people.
In Daniel 9:4, he begins by acknowledging Who God is:
Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God,
Who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Then he says, “We have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly, and rebelled.” All through the prayer, he is specific, falling before the Lord for mercy.
One thing we notice about these prayers—and something the Lord needs to teach us in this hour—is that they not only repented of their actions regarding sin; they repented of the motives that brought about the sin.
Often, when we sin, we ask forgiveness for our actions, and we should. But behind the action, there was something within us that caused it.
It may be self-love, pride, greed, or something else. We need to come back to the Lord and confess that. We need to acknowledge it before Him.
“Lord, in my personal ambition, I mistreated that other brother and said he could not do this because I wanted the glory.” Personal ambition.
There is always a cause for our actions. So often, again, I confess, we ask forgiveness for our actions, but we need to go beyond that.
These people were praying for the people of God, and they fell into the hands of the merciful God—not for themselves, but for His interest.
Look at Daniel 9:17.
So now, O our God, listen to the prayer of Thy servant and to his supplications, and for Thy sake, O Lord, let Thy face shine on Thy desolate sanctuary.
O my God, incline Thine ear and hear! Open Thine eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Thy name.
For we are not presenting our supplications before Thee on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Thy great compassion.
O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Thine own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name.
They were there for the Lord’s sake. “Lord, for Your sake, raise us up. For Your sake, draw us back to You.”
As the Lord captures us more and more, putting more of His heart’s desire upon us, may we be those who, when we find ourselves in situations, throw ourselves on the mercy of the Lord for His sake, that His name might be honored in the hour in which we are living.
I thank the Lord for Ezra and Nehemiah because they were people who came into situations and faced them head-on.
Today, as was mentioned last night, too many of us are chicken-hearted. We see a tough situation and get going.
Ezra and Nehemiah came into a situation, faced it head-on, and brought the Lord into the situation.
In New Testament terms, Ezra and Nehemiah were peacemakers.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
The son has the father’s interests at heart. Ezra and Nehemiah saw the situation, and it was not for their own sake, but for the sake of their Father. They wanted to see reconciliation.
There was a breach. They brought the Lord in, and they brought healing to the situation. Blessed are the peacemakers.
We do not have time today, but one of the greatest needs in the church of God is for peacemakers. We have too many peacekeepers among us.
I love being a peacekeeper. You just separate the two people: “You sit over here. You sit over here.” They come to the meeting, smile, and walk out the door hating each other’s guts.
A peacemaker faces the situation head-on in the Lord. You are not doing it in your own strength, but you bring the Lord into the situation and find His way for that situation.
When the peacekeeper leaves, the two people start fighting again.
Thank the Lord that He made peace. Thank the Lord that we can celebrate that tonight at His table, declare His victory, and declare that He has made peace so that we might be one with each other.
How we need to repent and come with hearts prepared, because we are often those who are tearing the peace apart.
He has come and laid down His life that we might be one. He has made every provision for us through the victory of Calvary that we remember tonight.
Oh, would the Lord raise up peacemakers within the house of God in this hour.
We thank the Lord that when Ezra and Nehemiah came in, the people responded. They repented, separated themselves, and though there were many tears and much anguish, they separated themselves from the unholy alliances and continued on in the Lord.
As we stand here today and consider these things, as the Lord touches our hearts, some of the things we have joined ourselves to are not easy to separate from.
I am not talking about divorce. We are talking about spiritual application here. I have been in business for many years, and some of us may have been married to our businesses.
As the Lord touches us and wants us to bring things back into a right foundation and perspective, it is difficult. In fact, it is impossible in ourselves, because it will involve denying ourselves.
But He knows our situation. As He calls us back to Himself and calls us to wake up, He sees the situation we are in.
Maybe we have mortgaged our house to the hilt to keep a business going. Maybe we keep refinancing all the time. We say, “I cannot change now because I cannot afford to.”
We cannot afford not to change.
Often, when we speak with people in business or provide personal financial counsel, people say, “I cannot afford to do that.” What it often means is, “I am not willing to pay the price to do that.”
It might cost us public humiliation. It might cost us something that makes us say, “Well, my children are not going to have this, and they are not going to have that.”
What is the greatest gift we can give our children? Is it all of this and that? Or is it when a child looks up and sees his father putting many things aside so that the Lord would have first place in his life?
What counts in eternity? We cannot afford not to pay the price, because He has already paid it all.
It is sad how many of us have allowed so much that is not of Him to come in and dictate our lives. As we have these opportunities, may the Lord really work within us.
This is how the house of God is strengthened: as His life is brought in among us, His testimony is strengthened.
What is the beauty of the house? It is Christ. We see Christ as He is shown forth in a fuller and greater way.
He is our Lord. His return is hastened, and we are the people who are about His business.
So we pray that in this hour in which we are living, we would present ourselves to Him. Where we have aspects and areas of life that He wants to touch and deal with, to separate us and bring us back to Himself, may we have an honest relationship with Him and give Him the right to do that.
We thank the Lord that there was one like Ezra. Thank the Lord for the way the people of God responded. Thank the Lord for those prayer warriors and intercessors pleading for God’s interests among the people of God.
Would the Lord touch our hearts in a greater way to raise up those like Ezra, those peacemakers, and those intercessors among the people of God today?
Last evening, as Dana closed, he opened it up for prayer. We want to do that again this morning—that we could take a few moments, consider the Word of God within our hearts, and allow the Lord to speak. Then, as the Lord leads, a few could lead out in prayer, and Mike will close.