The Devil’s Espionage

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI, take it with a grain of salt…

Well, as, uh, last week, in the afternoon service, for those that weren’t here, we opened up and we looked at verse 15 and 16. And, and we considered the, the great calling and great encouragement to be kingdom builders, kingdom builders, that there is a, a great work for us to do, that, that we have all the motivation in the world, and we can be incredibly positive about it.

And as we return to this passage, one of the really important things to remember, ’cause we’re not gonna spend a heap of time on verse 15 and 16. One of the really important things to remember is that until Christ returns, the work of the Kingdom of God must go on. And the reason I say that is that the wall was finished, right? Nehemiah, we’re told in the beginning of the book, returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall, and now the wall is finished. But did you notice that the Book of Nehemiah doesn’t stop in chapter 6? It carries on through to chapter 13. There’s a whole bunch more to this story. Why? Because though the wall is finished, the work of the kingdom is not.

And I think this is just an encouraging reminder to you and I, that no matter how far we think we’ve progressed in our lives and in our seeking Christ, whether as, as an individual or as a church, the work is not complete. And the work will not be complete until the day of our King’s appearing. One day, Jesus will appear, and then our work will truly be done as a church, as the Body of Christ. But until that day, we labor on. And we labor on as a people, verse 16, who have God with them, who have God at their side. And so we need not be afraid.

But what I chiefly want to draw our focus to today is the reality that though we are laboring, or I sh- let me say it differently. The reality that as long as we are laboring, we will have an enemy. We’ve thought quite a bit about the enemy in the Book of Nehemiah, about the devil, about the enemies to God’s Church. It’s a very prevalent feature of the book, and it comes up here again strikingly, and yet in a different way and providentially very fitting to our present situation.

As long as we are doing the work of the kingdom, which is until the return of Christ, which means always, until the return of Christ, we will have an enemy. the devil and principalities that serve under him and evil spirits. And what I want us to consider today is 2 sections. Firstly, the devil’s attack of what you might call espionage, his attack of espionage, and then Christ’s provision to deal with that.

So firstly, the devil’s attack of espionage. You know, fear, fear does different things to different people, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ve heard of people talk about your, your brain stem response to fear. People talk about fight, flight, or freeze mode, right? Maybe you’ve heard that phrase before. Do you respond? When there’s a car accident or when someone breaks into your house, when something tragic happens, what is your immediate response?

We’ve witnessed this a lot in our family with foster children, because foster children, they function basically out of their brain stem constantly because of the abuse that they’ve suffered. They don’t know how to function like a normal person, and so they basically live in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. And so we had one child who w- this child was freeze, which meant whenever anything happened in the home, you dropped a cup, she would just completely freeze. And I’m talking like no one home, she would just stand completely still and you could walk up and be like this. You’d be going, “Eliza, Eliza, Eliza. Sweetie. Sweetie.” And sometimes it would take 5, 10 minutes, she would just stand there absolutely frozen until eventually her body would begin to deal with it and come back out.

Others, it’s fight, right? As soon as something happens, they’re jumping in the middle of it, and other people just run away. As soon as something happens, doesn’t matter what’s going on, they leg it. Fear. Fear generates different responses in all of us, and we see a man here called Tobiah, and fear causes him to fight.

Remember Verse 16, “When all our enemies heard that the wall was completed, all the nations around us were” What? Afraid. And we’re tempted to think to ourselves, well, if all the nations are afraid, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna leave us alone, right? And if the enemy’s afraid of the church, then he’s gonna leave them alone, because when we think about fear, that’s how we generally think about it, right? If I’m afraid of a bully at school, children, what do I do? I stay away from the bully because I don’t wanna get hurt.

That’s not how it works in real life. When people are afraid, many of them will attack, and we run into this wonderful character called Tobiah again. Tobiah, if you’ve, have forgotten, Tobiah was a Jew. He’s a traitor, but he was a Jew. He was a Jew who was serving the Ammonites, who were the enemies of the people of God. He had switched camps effectively. The reason he had switched camps is he could get a really good post, a cushy governor job.

And Tobiah being afraid of what was going on in Jerusalem and being a tool of the devil goes on the attack, but notice the way that he attacks. Previously we’ve seen different forms of attack, haven’t we? We’ve seen derision. Tobiah was one of them. Tobiah is the guy that says, “Hey, if a fox jumps up on the wall, the wall will fall over.” Tobiah is also one of the guys who’s right in the thick of it suggesting, let’s just go and kill them all, but now it’s quite different.

Have a look at Verse 17. “In those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah and Tobiah’s letters came to them, for many in Judah were bound by oath to him because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah, the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam, the son of Berechiah as his wife. Also, they spoke of his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him, and Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid.”

What kind of attack is Tobiah up to? Well, it’s, it’s one of underhanded espionage, isn’t it? He’s, he’s not directly attacking, but he’s coming in the back door. And, and it’s striking, isn’t it? That as, as Nehemiah is seeking the wellbeing of Jerusalem and the people of God, the so-called people of God in Judah are seeking the wellbeing of Tobiah, the Ammonite, outside of Jerusalem. It’s an ugly picture, isn’t it? Uh, w- we’re meant to be one, aren’t we? The people of God are meant to be one people in one body. And as one body, whether we’re talking a local congregation or broadly the Church of Christ, are called to labor together for one purpose, the glory of Jesus and the upbuilding of His kingdom.

And yet, here we find an Old Testament group of saints, a church, where people within the church, who call themselves a part of the church, are proactively laboring to tear down the Church, to tear down God’s appointed ruler and governor. It’s heartbreaking to witness, isn’t it? And yet, brothers and sisters, if we’re completely honest, it doesn’t really surprise us, does it? Because if you’ve been in churches for an extended period of time, you would have seen this yourself. Where, where Christians will intentionally seek to derail a church because they disagree with a policy, or because they disagree with a leader, or because it’s just not their cup of tea. And so, they’ll labor intentionally to cause it not to go well. Or, or at a minimum, they’ll give no intentional effort whatsoever.

And, and, and I’ve seen this in church leaderships before, in, in my own church and in other churches, where, where a leadership will come to a decision, make a decision, and yet there’ll be 2 or 3 people who disagree with the decision, and so they won’t support it. They’ll just stand quietly back and do nothing. And then when it fails, you know what those people do? “I told you so. I didn’t want this to happen anyway. It’s got nothing to do with me.” And what do we see? We see division within the House of God.

And that’s exactly what’s happening here in Jerusalem, right? Jerusalem, sadly, is divided. And they’re divided because of particular types of ties, particular types of ties that are binding them. And so, we’re told the reason they do this is because they’re bound by oath to Tobiah because of marriage ties. You see, what’s happened is, Tobiah has very subtly and very intentionally made marriage alliances with the nobles. Now, if you don’t know what the nobles are, think the upper class elites, the, the lords and ladies of the land. They’re the ones who make the decisions. They’re the important people. They’re the ones that we, as plebs, generally look up to.

And, and the movers and the shakers have begun marrying outside of Israel, outside of Jerusalem, with foreigners. Now, there’s nothing wrong, I hope you know, with marrying people of other ethnicities. But in that particular time, the Israelites were not to marry outside of Israel because those that were not part of Israel were not believers, in the same way that you and I are not to be unequally yoked, and so we’re not to marry outside of the faith. But the problems here is that this marriage alliance is now drawing people away by oath so that they have no option, or at least they feel like they have no option, but to bow down and serve Tobiah.

And, and I think there’s an important lesson for us in this, isn’t there? There’s a lesson for us in the sense that if we are going to be a Christian, that necessitates forsaking all other If we are a Christian, we cut off our relationship with the world. Now, we- we are of the world, which means we have human relationships, but we have left the world, and so we thrive and we strive within a Christian community. And so, you must be very careful if you seek to build close-knit relationships with unbelievers. Because close-knit relationships with unbelievers will always bring intense temptation, and difficulty, and the potential for you being led astray, and that’s exactly what happens with these people here. Because of the closeness of their relationship, this is very intimate, right? This is marriage. But even a friendship, they are led astray, and they are now fighting for the enemy camp.

So be very careful who you make very close to you. I, I know the old saying, “Have your friends close and your enemies closer.” In, in spirituality, that’s not true. In spirituality, have close Christian friends, have close Christian family, and spend much time with them. because bad company will ruin your morals. That good company will spur you on in faithfulness. So, let me encourage you, brothers and sisters, especially you young people: find godly friends, find a godly husband or wife, and spend much time with them, and be an encouragement to them, and let them be an encouragement to you.

But as we, as we see this sort of espionage playing out, I think there’s, there’s a much more telling observation to make here, isn’t there? And that is that the devil can use people that are within the House of God in order to achieve his purposes.

Let me give you an illustration of this. I- I- I know a woman who was a missionary overseas, and, uh, married, and she came back and her husband stayed on the mission field. She came back for some stuff she had to get done back in her home country, and as she went back for home assignment, one of her children was going a bit astray. And as she came home, someone said to her, “It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault because you went to the mission field. If you hadn’t have gone to the mission field, none of your children would be rebelling or causing problems.” And this, this woman told me that all of a sudden, she felt tempted to, to give up the mission, to give up the work that God had called her to do.

And so what w- what was really happening here was the devil was using a believer in an attempt to distract someone from the calling that God had placed upon their life. And this can happen to all of us, can’t it? Sometimes even well-meaning believers will be used in order to distract and dissuade us from doing what God wants us to do.

Now, hear me very carefully, let me just make sure you understand a, a sort of bracketed condition here. I’m not saying the devil takes over unbelievers, okay? I’m not saying they’re possessed by the devil and then they go out and he uses them to do these things, like they’re puppets. N- No, no, the, the believers do it by their own desire, by their own fallen flesh, by their own sinful hearts, by their own rebellion, and the devil simply suggests things because the devil seeks nothing more but to tear down the people of God.

And so, the devil will do everything he can to try and convince the people of God to give up their callings, to give up what God has given them, to lead them astray, and if at all possible, he will use those who are in the House of God.

Now, there’s 2 types of people within the House of God that will be used for this. There are true believers who will err, and who will repent, and who will acknowledge that they’ve done wrong. And sometimes that’s us, isn’t it? Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we have not been an encouragement, but rather a discouragement to brothers and sisters. Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we have not promoted the advancement of the Kingdom of God in our church or in our community, but instead, we have caused it to decline, either by sins of omission, failing to do what we ought to do I mean, an example of this is just failing to go to church, right? That is a discouragement to all the brethren around us. Or a sin of commission when we do something, when we say a snarky, harsh word to a believer and cut them down, and they’re discouraged in their walk with God.

These are ways that we, as believers, can be used in order to tear down God’s kingdom rather than build it up, and when that happens, we must be very quick to repent. And so, there’s that first class, and that’s you and I. And we should be sensitive to that, shouldn’t we? We should guard against that. We should seek to walk in godliness and righteousness with one another so that we wouldn’t be found to be doing that.

But there’s a second class of pe- people, and these are far more insidious and far more difficult to spot. A foolish believer who makes a mistake is easy to spot. A false believer is a lot harder. Paul says they come to us as what? Wolves in sheep’s clothing. They look like sheep. Everything about them looks like sheep. Or they’re dressed up like angels of light, we’re told. False believers and false teachers are the most insidious, because everyone believes they’re probably the most godly person in the room. And they come in amongst us, and they seek to promote spirituality.

A great example of this is what’s going on in the Church of Colossae. When Paul writes to Colossae, there’s 2 major errors that the false teachers are promoting, one of a- a- a- isaic life, so don’t do anything. Everything’s bad. Don’t eat. Don’t drink. Don’t enjoy life. And the other, one of sumptuous life. Your body doesn’t matter, so do whatever you want. False teachers that lead the people astray, and the, and the New Testament’s filled with examples of this. 3 John, third John talks about Diotrephes, who’s condemning the apostles in front of the congregation. Acts 20, remember that warning to the Ephesian elders? Some of your own number. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Some of your own elders are going to act like wolves, and they are going to devour the sheep.

That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Brothers and sisters, Jesus tells us how to spot these people. How do you spot them? Do you remember His Sermon on the Mount and His teaching in the Gospels? You judge a tree according to its fruit, right? According to what it produces. And you see the, the one telltale mark of a false believer and a false teacher is that they will never produce godliness. They may fake godliness for a time, but they will never produce lasting fruit of godliness. And so, you judge by looking at their pattern of life and what their preaching and teaching and lives produce in others. And false believers will always produce unrighteousness in other people.

And so, you must have eyes that are trained by the Word of God to discern, to look and see and understand that there are false elders, there are false deacons, there are false professors, believers. And they sneak into churches, as Paul says, and they consume widows. They’re the shepherds of the Old Testament who fleece the sheep. You know what it means to fleece the sheep? It means to, to take all the wool and the milk and the meat and never care for them, never feed them, never deal with their, with their f- fly-blown diseases and everything else, to take all the benefit with none of the responsibility or accountability w- leadership brings with it.

Brothers and sisters, the, the New Testament’s very clear, and the Old Testament. We must be on guard, on guard against them, lest they sneak in among us and seek to take us over and capture us.

think there’s an encouragement in that for us, isn’t there? Firstly, to check our own hearts. The Apostle Paul writes and says to the Thessalonians, I think it is, “Test yourselves, whether you be of God.” Test yourself. Let me ask you a question. As you sit here today, are you a false professor? Are you a false believer? Do you confess with your mouth, “Oh, yes, Jesus is my Lord,” and yet you don’t produce anything in keeping with righteousness? Well, that would be a false profession, right? Do you confess with your mouth and yet your heart worships yourself? Check yourself. Test yourself before the Lord. Ah, it’s not me that you need to be concerned with. It’s not my opinion. It’s the opinion of God, isn’t it? It’s God’s thoughts. Turn your heart to God, even in this moment, and ask yourself, ah, “Am I a true believer? Have I done what the Apostle Paul said? Have I believed in my heart and confessed with my mouth that Jesus is Lord?”

Well, if you have, then you have nothing to fear from this. You have no fears to have. But if you haven’t done that, well, I, I plead with you to do it. Acknowledge your sin, acknowledge your fault, acknowledge your rebellious heart, and come to Jesus Christ. And, and with Thomas, say, “My Lord and my God,” to Jesus. Because that’s what he is. It’s a covenantal phrase. He is my Lord, not just a lord, not someone’s lord. He’s my Lord and he’s my God, because he’s died for me, and because he’s my king. Well, is he your king? Are you his citizen, his subject? It’s an encouragement for us to test our hearts, isn’t it?

And I think it’s also a strong warning for us to be very aware of the devil, who would delight in nothing more but to come into this place, into this church, and derail us. To lead us astray through teachers, and through brethren. And so take up the Word and measure everything with the book. And if your teachers stand up here and they say things that aren’t in the book, well, get rid of them. You may like me, and I appreciate that. But if I don’t teach the book, get rid of me or flee for your life, because we’re not just talking about the paint on your roof. We’re talking about the eternal wellbeing of your soul. And false teachers lead people not to physical death, but to eternal death, and so have nothing to do with false teaching and false brethren.

You know, these letters that go back and forth, they’re a challenge for us, aren’t they? Because all of these letters, all of these words that are brought by Nehemia- to Nehemiah, you know, i- in verse 19, these, these good deeds in the presence reported, all of them are in order to make Nehemiah afraid. Why would they want to make Nehemiah afraid? Because they want to derail his work, don’t they? Brothers and sisters, I, I think as we talked about on Wednesday night that that’s how we have to interpret what we received. Not, not because that was how they that wrote it intended it, but because the devil wants nothing more than to distract us and to stop us seeking first the kingdom of God. And he will use things like that to draw us away from him.

We’re open to attack. We always are. As long as the devil’s prowling, we’re open to be attacked. And yet, just as while we wait for Christ, we labor, and while we labor, the devil attacks, until Christ returns, our Lord has provided us with a way to deal with this.

In chapter 7, verse 1 to 4, this is not just some randed, uh, random appended section. Now, later on, we’re gonna hear of Nehemiah returning back to Persia again for a season, before coming back to Jerusalem, okay? And at that time, he’s going to hand over leadership. That’s not what’s happening here. Nehemiah, in his life and diary, is recording for us effectively what he did in the midst of all of this pressure.

What did Nehemiah do? Nehemiah is surrounded by false professors, false difficulties, problems, enemies, people writing letters back and forth, traitors in his midst. Firstly, he gets on with work. And so we’re told in verse one, “I set up the doors, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Levites.” Everyone’s appointed, everyone’s put in place. There’s work to be done. I’m not spending my time and energy on these people that are sellouts. There’s just no time for it.

And I think this is a reminder for you and I, even as we think about the letter we received. Brothers and sisters, there’s work to be done. There’s work to be done. Let people write their letters. Let people say what they want. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. It’s the words of Joshua, right? We will serve the Lord.

But notice what else he does in particular. “I gave my brother Hanani” Now, if you don’t remember Hanani, that’s the guy right in the very beginning in chapter one, his brother who comes to him in Persia to tell him about the state of Jerusalem. So, Hanani, “And Hanani the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem.” He’s not saying he made them governor in his place. He’s saying he’s giving them charge, he’s giving them duty under him as the governor.

And why? And this is in regards to Hanani. “For he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.” Now, Nehemiah doesn’t say anything about his brother Hanani. Why? He doesn’t need to. Because when we met him in chapter one, we met a God-fearing man. We met a man who loves the Kingdom of God. Why? Because he was prepared to get on his horse, or his feet, whichever it was, and travel all the way to Persia in order to tell Nehemiah and try and raise up help for Jerusalem. Hanani is a man that breathes the Kingdom of God. He bleeds kingdom.

Hanani, we haven’t met before. We don’t know who he is, but Nehemiah tells us he was a more God-fearing man than most. Now, why is this put here? Why is Jeremiah, uh, Nehemiah telling us this? Because the solution to false teachers and the solution to false brethren and the espionage of the devil is godly elders and deacons. It’s godly leaders. It’s godly shepherds.

This is why the Apostle Paul writes to Titus, and in chapter one, he says to them, to Titus, on Crete, “This is what I want you to do.” first things first, appoint elders. Get elders in the church. And not just any elder, right? But godly elders. And he lists off a set of qualifications. This has got to be above reproach, and they’ve, they’ve got to be husbands of one wife, and he lists off all these different things. And yet, isn’t it striking that if we look in recent church history, as well as previous church history, but in recent church history, the methodology of appointing elders has been, and continues to be in many churches, does he manage his business well? He seems like a pretty reasonable guy. Well, he can be an elder then. Is he willing? Does he breathe? Great. Let’s make him an elder.

How many people, how many churches seriously sit down with a list of qualifications and say, “Does this man stack up in godliness?” Maybe he’s not that gifted. Maybe he’s not that eloquent. Maybe he’s not that quick. Maybe he’s not that good at his job. Maybe a whole bunch of different things. But is he a more God-fearing man than most? I mean, that should be the first question.

You know, 1, one of the things that I have done in the past is I have rung up people’s employers when we’re checking a person for eldership. I ring up his boss. It’s always a really funny conversation. So I ring up the boss, and the boss will say hi, and I’ll say, “Hey, I know Steve, Bob Jones. I’m at his church and we’re thinking about putting him in leadership. What do you think about him?” Why? Because I want to know, is, is this man’s godliness on display on Sunday and Monday? does God-fearing-ness ooze out of him.

Why? Because it is through the leadership of God’s church that you are kept safe. And if your leaders are not godly, if your leaders do not honor Christ and Christ’s kingdom above everything else, you are all in perilous danger. Why? Because you’re sheep. I don’t mean that disregardingly. It’s what Jesus calls you, right? And sheep are vulnerable. That’s why sheep need shepherds. They’re given shepherds to protect them, and to feed them, and to tend them, because there are wolves, and there are lions, and there are hunters who want to devour the sheep.

And so, the Lord gives you shepherds. And underneath Christ, just like under Nehemiah, under-shepherds are appointed under the good shepherd to minister to the sheep and to protect them. And this is really important for us, brothers and sisters.

And I think, I think there’s a few, few helpful instructions that come from this for you and I. Firstly, pray that God would raise up leaders in our midst, not well-to-do leaders, but godly leaders. Pray that we would have more elders. Pray that we would have more deacons. Pray that we would see young men growing in godliness, so that we would have too many men to pick from for eldership. And isn’t it sad that so often in churches, you feel like it’s, it’s hard to find even one person that’s appropriate? Shouldn’t it be that we have lots of options? Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if we were putting forward every man’s name in the church for eldership? And we were saying, “Well, we only need 3 guys, but we’re putting forward every name. Pick 3. Vote on, vote for 3.” Wouldn’t that be a wonderful problem?

So, so pray that God would raise up elders and deacons in our midst a- and, and pray that our young men would grow in godliness and our old men would grow in godliness, and that through things like the men’s training, we would see more being raised up in our midst.

There’s another instruction here, and I think that-that’s to pray for your current leaders. By God’s grace, you’ve been given Matthew and Rob and myself. Pray for us. The task is not easy. It is a burden, not in the sense of a joyless thing, but in the sense of a serious, solemn task. Remember the words of the apostle where he says that you should submit to your elders and make it easy for them, make it a joy for them? You realize that your leaders have to give an account to God for every one of your souls one day? It’s very hard to comprehend the weightiness of that.

I think as fathers and as mothers, we can comprehend it a little bit, right? When, when you as a mother or a father take a new child in your arms and you have a dawning recognition that this child in your arms, you are accountable before God for. Or as a father over a home, well, can you imagine giving an account to God for this whole church? That’s an ominous task, right?

Pray for your leaders, that they would be faithful. Every day, lift them up before the throne of God. God, give them grace. Help Brother Rob to serve the flock of God as a deacon, and to honor you. Help Matthew and Logan to rule well and to teach well. Logan as he labors in preaching and teaching. Pray for us. We need your prayers, brothers and sisters.

But also, encourage your leaders. Come alongside them. I mean, when you get up in the morning, or it’s the middle of the week and all of a sudden you remember that Matthew’s going to be doing a devotion at prayer meeting on Wednesday. Send him a text and say, “Matthew, I just want you to know, I love you and I thank you for what you do. You are an encouragement to my heart and I you.” It’s so small, and yet it makes the world of difference.

Pastoral leadership can be incredibly disheartening and discouraging, I assure you. And yet the smallest token of love can make up for so much pain. I, I remember recently listening to Derek Thomas at a preachers conference, and he was talking about a special book that he has in his office, in his study. He has a special book that he calls the blue book. And in this blue book is every piece of encouragement he’s ever received in the ministry. And every time he gets a letter, or he gets a little message, or a card, he just throws it in this folder. And when he’s feeling discouraged, he opens up his folder and he pulls something out and he reads it, and a smile builds on his face.

I’ve got one of these books. I tell you, at times they’re a lifeline, to know that your people love you and cherish you. So encourage your leaders, brothers and sisters. Submit to them. Make it easy for them. Pray that they might grow in faith.

Brothers and sisters, we desperately need godly leaders, but we also, we also need godly leaders to faithfully do what they’re called to do. And we see that, don’t we? ‘Cause Nehemiah, he doesn’t just appoint the leaders and, and then not really care what they get up to. He tells them what to do. And in this sense, the, it’s almost like a picture for us of the way leadership is set up within the Church of Jesus Christ. The leaders of Christ’s Church don’t get to do what they want. They are men under instruction, and they must serve according to the grace and the rule that Christ establishes.

And so here, Nehemiah, having appointed these 2 men, he gives them instructions about how the gates are to be set up, how the guards are to be set up, how things are to function in order to keep everyone safe and healthy. And I think this is a reminder for you and I that the only way the leaders can function in our midst in a way that’s good for you is if they do it according to the book.

We all have preferences, don’t we? Some of us love psalms. Some of us are learning psalms. Some of us love newer songs, some of us are not used to older songs. Some of us prefer more reading, some of us less readings. There are many different preferences in the church. And you know the worst thing for you would be for the leaders to say, “What do our people want? Let’s do that.” The greatest thing your leaders can do for you, and this is how we, this is how we truly fight false professors and false leaders in the church. It’s when we take up the book and we say, “This is how we order our house. This is how we govern. This is how we serve. This is how we lead. This is how we worship.”

And I think there, there’s a challenge here, for, for Matthew and for Rob and for myself, and for any other future aspiring leaders. Firstly, how well do we know the book? Because if we know not the book, we are all in terrible danger. Secondly, are we ruling and applying based upon the word alone, or upon our every whim, which blows like the wind, right? You see, God has raised up leaders in our midst, Ephesians 4, so that the bride might be brought to maturity. That’s how it works.

The enemy will always be present. My dear friends, do you realize the enemy will always be present? He’s not going away. Well, he will one When Jesus returns, he will be gone for good. But until that day, like a, like a chip on the shoulder, like a crook knee, he will always be present. He is far more tireless than you are. He is incredibly energetic. He is more faithfully devoted to his cause than we are. Wow.

And yet Christ has given us everything we need to stand firm. Amen. And Christ himself will make us stand. Jude is a wonderful example of this, in the Book of Jude. Do you remember that blessing we often use? “He who is able to make you stand” Right? “He who is able to make you stand” The whole book is about false teachers. And what Jude is saying is, “You must beware of false teachers, beware of false teachers, beware of false teachers, beware of false teachers. Christ will make you stand.”

And one of his means of grace, to call it that, lowercase means of grace, is God’s leaders to fight false wolves, to fice, fight false brethren, to protect the sheep, and to spur us on to faithfulness.

So Lord, may the Lord grant us not to be discouraged, not to despair when letters fly, when slander is voiced, but to look to God, look to Christ, and trust those that the Lord has raised up in our midst and serve faithfully in his kingdom.

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