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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

Nehemiahs Needed Now

Father in heaven today, may we recognize that we are on earth's final moments of history.

May we recognize today that more than ever, Jesus, as the song, our special music said, needs to be the ruler of our hearts.

May we recognize today more than ever that we need faith like never before.

We need to be men and women of prayer like never before.

We need to be men and women of perseverance like never before.

Men and women of obedience like never before.

And Lord, may we understand that these times in which we live are serious.

We're living in the final closing scenes of the book of Revelation.

And may we know what it means to walk with our God.

May we know what it means to put every idol away.

May we know what it means to stand firmly for the truth in this day and age.

To be shining lights, to be clear channels for the Spirit of God to use us to reach the world for Christ before He returns.

Lord, today may we be Nehemiahs, standing in the midst of the people, standing in the midst of this world, crying out that Jesus is coming soon.

And may it be, Lord, the desire of our hearts, the decision of our hearts today to be ready for Jesus when He comes.

May we put away all nonsense, all foolishness, and May our eye be single today to the glory of God.

May our faces, Lord, be set like a flint to know Jesus, to walk with Him, and to know personally in our lives the power of His resurrection.

And we ask, Lord, today that you would focus our eyes upon your word.

Much could be said about Nehemiah, a man of God, a reformer of his day, a man who took faith seriously, who took the work of God by the horns, and he wrestled with God until he wrestled with the work and he was victorious in doing a task that to the rest of the world seemed impossible.

In fact, not only did the rest of the world the Nehemiah's day say and believe that the work God had given him to be impossible, but they ridiculed him and they attacked him and they set themselves against that work.

We have a similar work today because Jesus has called every 1 of us to be disciples of Him and to carry the gospel into all the world.

And we are a people who believe that through the power of God it is possible to preach the gospel into all the world.

It is a work that God has called us to do to rebuild those places that have been laid waste through the ages because of spiritual apostasy and compromise.

And God has called His people in these days to rise up and build the wall.

In Isaiah chapter 58 God calls us to be repairers of the breach.

He calls his people in the last days to not compromise, to stand for truth, and to rebuild those places that have been torn down.

How many of you believe today that God has called you personally to that challenge?

God is not just simply called others He's called you, He's called me.

In Nehemiah chapter 1, I'm not going to read from here, but I'm just going to summarize.

But Nehemiah begins to hear the words that Jerusalem was laying in ruins and it was in captivity.

In Nehemiah in chapter 1 and 2, he begins to weep over the condition of the city of Jerusalem.

And today, friends, we ought to be weeping over the condition of God's church.

We ought to be weeping that God's church lays in the state of Laodicea.

But I believe today it's not going to lay there for long.

In fact, I believe today it's beginning to awaken.

And do you know where the church is beginning to awaken?

With Grow Michigan and the revival and reformation that's been taking place all across the conference, it's beginning to spread to other places.

He's beginning to say to his people, now's the time to arise and build.

And in verse 17 it says, Then I said to them, you see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies in waste, and its gates are burned with fire.

Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach.

Nehemiah says the gates are burned with fire, the city is laid in ruins and I would propose to you today that this world's gates are burned with fire.

This world's gates and this world's walls are laying in waste and the people of the earth are desperate to hear a message of hope and rebuilding.

And let me tell you something today, they are not going to hear it from Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

They're going to hear it from the Word of God and from your lips and my lips.

The only way to make America great again is to put Jesus as the Lord of our lives.

And God is calling us to recognize that this world is at its end.

And he says, Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.

Do you understand today that the Christian church as a whole to the world is a reproach?

It is full of weakness because people have not stood for truth.

People have not wrestled with the God of heaven through prayer.

They have been hypocrites and we are all guilty.

The world stands, the church stands before the world in reproach.

But in the last days God is looking for Nehemiahs.

And as the title of the message is called, Nehemiahs are needed now.

God is calling and looking for Nehemiah's to stand up in Isaiah 58 and rebuild that wall so that the God's church, the Seventh-day Adventist church, may not be in reproach to the world.

But when the world looks to God's church, it sees a church full of purity, full of power, full of hope, full of peace, and full of truth.

God is calling for His people to rise up and build.

Verse 18, I told them the hand of my God which had been good upon me and also the King's word that had been spoken to me.

If you notice something dear friends that that response came from who?

The people said, let us rise up and what?

They were not looking to a preacher to tell them what to do.

They were not looking to Nehemiah to do the work.

Let me tell you, the only lasting movement that's gonna take place in the last days, that's going to be lasting and fulfilling is when it's coming, the call to rise up and build is coming not from always the leadership, not from the pastor, not from the conference president, or bless his heart, who's here with us today, the personal ministries director of the conference.

It's gonna have to come from the bottom up.

It's going to have to be a stirring of the Spirit of God in the hearts of God's people to rise up and build.

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Nehemiahs Needed Now

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