Rebuilding for God

I want to read with you in the book of Nehemiah, please, chapter 2. Nehemiah in chapter 2. Just back to chapter 1 for a very important verse, chapter 1 and verse 4 of Nehemiah. And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and wept, mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. And now chapter 2, and verse 2, when therefore the king said unto me, why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? But really he was.

He wasn't health sick, he was heart sick. This is nothing else but sorrow of heart, so he says. So suppose just what I have said to you, that he wasn't health sick, but he was heart sick.

Then I was very sore afraid. Now over to chapter 3, chapter 3. And verse number 12, this is the repairing of the gates. And next unto him repaired Shalem the son of Helesh, the ruler of half the part of Jerusalem.

Well, he's a very significant man. He and his daughters. Verse 20, Beric the son of Zipporah earnestly repaired, only man of whom this is said, earnestly repaired the other piece from the turning of the wall into the door of the house of Elisha, the high priest.

And over to chapter 4, please. But it came to pass that when Sanballat heard that we, now notice he includes himself in verse 1, we built the wall. He was wroth and took in great indignation and mocked the Jews.

Verse 6, so built we the wall, and all the wall was joined together, the half thereof for the people had a mine to work. And verse 10, Judah said, the strength of the bearers, the burden is decayed. There's much rubbish so that we are not able to build the wall.

Now, it's a good thing that not everybody thought the same as Nehemiah. Now, chapter 6, verse 1, now it came to pass when Sanballat and Tobiah and Gershom the Arabian and the rest of our enemies heard that I, I, had builted the wall. Now, was he contradicting what he said in verse number 4 when he said, we built the wall? And now he says, I. But we'll come back.

There's a reason why he says that. And there is no breach left therein, though at the time I had not set up the doors upon the gates. Verse 3, I sent messengers unto them saying, I do a great work so that I cannot come down.

Why should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you? And they sent him to me. Notice he didn't give up. Four times.

And of course, he gets the same answer and even unto the fifth time. Now, over to chapter, a very important chapter 8. We're missing that, and I'm not planning on referring to it. But I do want to come with you to chapter 12.

Chapter 12, verse 39. I am from above the gate of Ephraim and above the old gate, and so on. And verse number 42.

Verse 42, Messiah and Shemarah and Eleazar and Uzziah and Johanan and Melchizedek and Elam and Ezer. Good thing I'm not calling these men for supper. The table would be empty.

And here's what I want, the last part of this verse. And the singers sang loud with Jezariah, their overseer. Verse 43, equally important.

Also that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoiced for God had made them rejoice with great joy. Notice the company, brethren and sisters. The brethren are already there.

The wives also. And the children rejoiced. Here are children sharing in their parents' joy.

So that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. Finally, chapter 13, verse 3. Now it came to pass when they had heard the law that they separated from Israel all, the mixed multitude. That will suffice for more reading than I usually do in a ministry meeting or a conference, which you are well aware of.

Not that I expect to totally cover all that I have read this afternoon, but give you the salient points that I have enjoyed about it. The real thrust of what I have upon my heart today is the thrust and the truth of our rebuilding, reconstructing for God. Sometimes, you know, even in a house, and I was with a man not too long, going around his home, and it wasn't that old.

And he said, look, he said, that needs repairing. And of course, he is a man that can do it. He says, you know, that needs to be fixed.

He said, I didn't realize this was happening. You know, the same thing can happen in testimony, brethren and sisters. The same thing can happen in an assembly.

There could be decay. There could be defilement, as we've been hearing. And there could be things happening that, for some reason, are beneath our notice.

Sometimes, we want to blindside them. Other times, we just don't want to face the reality of them. So I would like to challenge the present audience on this.

Are you prepared, not even knowing the assembly, and for a lot, I would, but some, I don't, not even knowing the assembly of which you form a part, how many are in the fellowship, or how many are not? Are you interested in rebuilding, reconstructing? Now, there's no such thing. This is more than a maintenance program here. This is the rebuilding of something that has been ruined.

My, it must have been a hard day, a hard day there at the end of the Chronicles, when you've got the last of those, the reign of those four kings. And I've been just reading it of late. And all four sons of Josiah, a good man, total up their reigns.

Not one of them equaled the reign of Josiah. Four sons of Josiah, one of them, rather, a grandson. They were a disaster.

And sad to say, the kingdom ends. And into captivity they go. But there's a verse that has left five words in my thinking that I can't get out for the last two months.

And you can write it down just as I would read or quote it to you. It's in the last chapter of 2 Chronicles. These are the words.

I know I quoted them in prayer last night. And they mocked, listen, and they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused the prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against them. Five words, till there was no remedy.

That's solemn. No remedy, no prophet, no priest, no capable man. All the prophets, think of them, mighty men.

And God has spoken and he said, no remedy. Do you know, even in a declining scene at the end of the book of the Revelation, with the seven letters that are given to the churches in Asia, I know there's differences about them and the way in which they are found and recovery. One thing was necessary.

They had to listen. They had to have ears to hear. But there was hope.

In other words, it's unlike what we read here. There is remedy. So, brethren and sisters, we don't give up.

There are things that are happening likely too close to us, too close to us, a lot of us, that we don't appreciate. And we're not thankful for. They break our hearts.

I want to say today, not like I'm speaking for the state here, I am thankful that the men whose ministry I sat under and learned under and developed whatever under, leaders in the assembly, elders, preachers, I'm thankful they're in heaven so they don't have to see what's going on in some parts today. It would break their hearts, break their hearts. What they gave their life to build up has been torn down overnight.

Don't you see that in the reign of a Josiah? What a marvelous recovery it was in Josiah's day. I used one of the conferences over here, I last spoke on Josiah. As you thought, this is unstoppable.

The sun will never quit shining. And how short-lived it was. You know, brethren and sisters, there's a need for a little reviving amongst us, a little recovery, a little restoring.

And you know what will be the result of that? Rejoicing, rejoicing. That's the result of what's going on here. I mean, listen, so you step back, you listen to Judah.

Of all people, Judah. And they say, there's too much rubbish. We can't handle this.

We're out. Not everybody thought that way. The secret to this book, the secret to this work is the secret to our work, brethren.

The joy of the Lord is your strength. If I get preoccupied with what I think is declension and departure and decay on every hand, two things are happening. It's robbing me of my own joy and I'm not realizing it in my own heart.

But here's a man, Nehemiah by name. And Ezra, contemporaries. Men that knew very little, very little about construction.

They likely knew more than I know. The only thing I know about construction, fixing things, I know good men that could do it. So I call up Dieter.

I said, Dieter, he said, what do you want fixed? And I have called up Scott McLeod too. These guys are good with their hands. They can fix, that's not me, okay? I can break it.

But what comes to fix it? So how about it when it comes to the assembly? Some things that are broken down in your company? Things that have happened, maybe out of your control and beyond it. I want to tell you, we can be very thankful for exercise sisters. Sisters that have the courage to write.

Brethren as well. I'm looking at the faces of some of this very audience today. And I want to tell you, brethren and sisters, they're prepared to stand, cost what it might.

I just say there's some boys out there because they're hardly men. If you put their legs in sauna tubes and poured concrete in them, they still couldn't stand. Serious.

Having done all the stand, what's it mean? That you get on this one wave break and you're up and every time you speak or say anything, you're thundering the same thing. No, no, just quietly standing, okay? And you're prepared to take whatever the cost might be for the honor of God. That was what this man, Nehemiah, had his eyes upon.

So here's a man and he's in the King's presence. I want to think about four things about this man. There'll be a lot of other things I want to think about him.

First of all, his appearance, his affection, his allegiance and his appreciation. First of all, his appearance. Here's a man and it was not natural for him to look the way that he did.

Now, you and I know it. There are certain believers that something happens, you know, you look, you say, hey, something's bothering them and they're maybe a friend and you'll take them aside and kindly say, hey, something I can help you with, something's wrong. And they'll admit what the problem is.

Not like one case, I had to say to a brother, I said, excuse me, but what's eating him? I said, he's always that way, forget about it. That's not you, is it? I do not mean that we have to go around with some silly kind of a smile on all the time, but let's advertise what is a joy to our hearts. Come on, it's done.

I know Christians that back our way that in the workplace, others have said it to me and I've gone and told them personally, they said, you know, we always tell when she comes on the floor to work, there's just something about it. She brings something, there's a presence that she brings, there's a happiness. Other people you know, they've gone through trials that we know nothing of.

You go to cheer them up and you've come away cheered. That's the kind of a man here, and this was risky business to look sad in the King's presence, especially to want time to leave. Because you remember, he's the cupbearer, he's the man that samples or tests to make sure nothing gets through to the King.

That will affect his life. On a lighter note, she has the same name as my wife. She wasn't too pleasant neighbor when she moved in, but she's got better and friendly.

The only problem is she claims she has gone through three husbands, they've all died. And she's got a boyfriend now, she's not a bad sort of fella. I'm talking people our age.

My wife won't let me because I want to tell them, hey, bud, watch the cereal. This is risky business because this man tested what was for the King. Now look, brethren and sisters, remember what we do.

Now, brethren, relax, you're theologians about the King, okay, relax. What we do ultimately has to be for the honor of the King. And we're called upon to test certain things in my own life personally.

That's what, this became a personal thing. I mean, Nehemiah wasn't, I say here, so I'm tired of trying this, you test it. No, his judgment wasn't to be tested, that was his work because the King trusted him.

Does the King trust you? Could the King trust you? You know why I know that the King trusted him? Because he let him go. He says, if you've got that work to do, meaning so much upon your heart, he would let him go. Of course, that's the question that we often preach in the gospel, how long shall I journey be? So am I speaking to one today, and I'm not here trying to be hard on some that have had trials and difficulties and have come to a stage in life where you hardly know what's next.

And I know that that can wear and show evidence on a person's countenance. And I have to say that I've never been there yet. I do sympathize with you, but we're building.

Now it is, not only do we see in this here his appearance, but I wanna think of his affection, okay? You see, what we read in chapter one, the reason I picked that verse up, you'll notice that before he prayed, he wept. Before he prayed, he wept. So it's very clear that here's a man that had a deep, not just an emotional passing, but a deep affection for what he was involved in.

Let me ask you, does your affection for the testimony and the honor of the Lord's name such that it could lead you to tears? Tears? Really? If it happened in the assembly that broke your heart, does it in the family? If something happened in the testimony, in the assembly, are you such a part of it that it would actually tear at your heart? And so before this man prayed, it says he wept. Ellen Redpath, I haven't read a lot of his, I picked up some of his sayings, which are very good, but he made a statement. He says, you'd never lighten the load of others until you first felt the weight in your own soul.

Okay? You never lighten the load of others until you have felt the weight in your own soul. That was so true. This man loved it dearly.

Trust me, brothers and sisters, it broke the heart of the Almighty to see that city burned and destroyed. God got no pleasure in that, but it had to happen. To see it lying in ruins, the gates broken down.

The natural eye would look upon it and say, never, can't be rebuilt. Can't go back on this. But there's a man by the name of Nehemiah and Ezra, and they're saying in the language of William Williams, it can be done.

It can be done. Regardless of how difficult and hard the way may be when it comes to that local church of which you form a part that discourages you at times, dear sister, it can be done. If it can't, God is not his throne, because ultimately the lampstand belongs to him.

Here's a man. And like I say, the effect, the charred ruins are the remains of his love city. You know, I had a very encouraging part, a little personal reference to a young brother that I've known for a while.

And you know, he went through years of growing up, but maybe took just a little longer than others did. He's got married, he got a good wife, and he's living out there in Fort McMurray, Alberta. And the house that they were about to buy was burned in a fire, and the city was burned.

His job was gone because the place where he worked was burned. And Scott knows of whom I speak. And the hall that they were building, a new gospel hall, there were some difficulties without me going into details there, Fort McMurray, Alberta, just so you understand.

And it delayed the building of the hall. But they finally, they worked together. They came together.

And you know what they said? We could rebuild, we could do it. Well, look at this city. Look at oil prices.

Nobody's coming here for work anymore. We're gonna be left here with a hole in our hands. That was not their thinking.

None of the ones, and I've had sisters that have written me from the assembly there. And told me how encouraging it has been to work with these other brethren. Younger and older, but older brethren too.

See them all involved in the work. And it was last Sunday. I mean, they've invited me there, but their conference is at a wrong time of year for me.

In August, I haven't been able to make it up there. Scott and others have made it there, that's fine. But they were, just to see they're rejoicing.

Of course, what was making me smile is they got a chart. And this younger brother there wrote me. He says, we are an official gospel hall now.

Look at the chart that's up. Well, he sent me a picture. And quit kicking Facebook.

Somebody told me it was on Facebook. That's when Facebook is a good thing, okay? Just for that moment. And don't you be kicking Facebook if your wife's on it.

Okay, we're gonna save more on there. But here's a man with a real affection too. Let me ask you today.

What do I mean when I say affection for the place? Not necessarily the love of the building, the love of the people that meet in the building. That you have a genuine care for them, for their family, for their children. Whatever they need, whatever you can be to them, you are that person.

And you can be that person. Oh, you see, that's just, it's just not me. You know, things, choices that we make in life.

Now, I have to say to you, even though I've got a son in the audience today, which usually I don't have that handicap of when I'm out here, but they would call their father a rut man. And they're truthful. Because I gotta admit, because I found the rut very comfortable, if you don't mind.

I'm a bit like the man that was driving out in Northern Alberta a number of years ago after spring had come and the snow and the roads were broken and you come to a definite why on the road. And one look, one road didn't look any better than the other. But somebody had put up a sign, looked very professional.

It was not the Department of Highways. It said this, choose your rut well, because you're going to be in it for the next 25 miles. Well, I've been there for quite a few years.

I don't want to tell you how many years I've been saved during the assembly fellowship to think I'm an old man. Choose your rut well. Can I allow it, just apply it this way? This is all he thought.

He wasn't interested in coming out of this until his job was done. He was interested in seeing it right through. But you know, he's got some great people in there to work with.

Let me touch on one in particular that I've enjoyed. And that's that man that we read about there back in chapter three by the name of Shalem. Shalem, half ruler of the city of Jerusalem.

Very significant man. And he's building, but notice what it says, and his daughters. Brethren, in God's name, there's nothing like having daughters that'll build with you.

It's a heartbreak when they take another path and they're not building with you. You have a daughter that'll build with you? You know what I mean? She'll support what you're doing. She may not always agree with dad's work or the way he approaches it, the way he does it, but she's prepared to build with her father.

Let me ask you, are you that kind of a daughter today? Sure you are. I wouldn't be here, the conference wouldn't be on if there wasn't daughters like that in this state and at the Stout Conference. Are you that kind of a daughter that will build with her father? Because there are daughters here that have had to build without a father like that.

They didn't have a man like Shalem. He wasn't really interested in the reconstruction or the rebuilding or the maintenance of testimony. He was interested in other things, mainly himself.

And I've seen those daughters. I met one just last week. Sorry, this week, I guess at a funeral in Sarnia.

Not a relative of mine, but a relative of mine. Just hard to be in Sarnia and not be a relative of mine, but there are some that aren't relatives. And there she is, now in her 70s, and she's had to build alone.

Now let me come to you, father, okay? Are you a father that your daughter can build with? You say, what do you mean by that? Did you ever tell your girl that you love her? You care for her? Did you ever tell her what she means to the family? Oh, you say, her mother does that. It's not what I'm asking you. Shame on you if you haven't.

Can she look up with respect and spiritual admiration to a man who is her father? And she's only, if saved by God's grace, only too willing to build with that father. By her appearance, by her attitude, by her attendance at the things of God, it's evident she's building with her father. I'm looking at daughters today in this assembly, in this company, and you're doing that to your sister? Keep at it.

I know you take the scorn, maybe of even other fellow believers, professed believers. I know they don't have the same interest that you do. You're at the conference, they've gone somewhere else.

And you're not maybe even conscious of it until you read a chapter like this. But you're building with your father. He's thrilled at what you're doing.

Not your dad, you make sure you tell that girl that. Don't you wait till, before the sun goes down, put your arm around her in a proper way. Tell her you appreciate her.

And you're thankful that she is prepared to build with you. Because you be that father. You be that father that a daughter can build with.

A man in his 40s with a broken heart told me long ago, the number of years ago his father sat him down when he first came into the assembly fellowship. And said, now listen, there's two ways you can go. He named some others.

He says, you can go with them. They're part of the assembly. He said, there are things that are commendable about them.

But then he said, on the other hand, here's some other men over here. And he named other men. He said, I'd advise you, you go with them.

That boy made a choice. That's who he went with. Lord, I have to tell you today, I'm afraid if his father had to make that choice over again, he'd go with the other group.

Shame on us. Something I have preached. I'm not sure from this platform or not.

That I somehow can understand having children of our own and grandchildren. How there might be the desire for something different. Just let me put it like that, okay? There might be the desire for that.

But what I cannot understand. When I was in the UK, they say, what I cannot get my head around is people my age are caving into these things. God, I was the only one that ever said it.

Until I listened to a tape. 52 years ago, a man from Scotland said it word for word, what I've just said to you. 52 years ago.

So you're interested in building? You be a sheller. You build. If you've got a daughter, daughters that are building with you, you appreciate them.

You thank God for them on your knees. Don't be afraid to tell them. Daughters too.

Don't you be afraid to tell dad. I'm thankful. I can build with you.

Listen, I never in my life, even in unconverted days, you know, I've had, sorry, but I've had some say, oh, the way we were raised. And they're my relatives. Okay.

Whatever. And yang, yang. I'm thankful for the way that I was raised.

I'm grateful to God. My parents are in heaven. So what if my dad did go inside of the box on a few things? So what? My babysitter's here in the audience this afternoon.

She'll tell you. She maybe thought he went out of the box a bit too. But did it kill me? No, obviously it didn't.

And it won't kill you either. I never wanted anybody else for my father. I never wanted anybody else for my mother.

That's who I wanted. That's who I loved. That's who I wanted to build with.

I've told you enough times, sitting in the back on a Lord's day morning in the winter time, having dragged the car through the snow with a farm all in. Some of you know what I'm talking about. No cab.

Huddled up there with mom's scarf around his neck. Dragging the car through the snow and the neighbors thought he was crazy. We get the meeting.

We had chickens at home. Water pipes to unthaw and everything else. And let me put this in because you know it'll come from me.

And we were the first ones there. Some of the Christians lived right in the town. Some of them were the last ones there.

But I saw before my eyes with a little company up above a drugstore sitting and I'm looking at eight, 10, 12 people committed. And I have found in the years, even though it may be in times when I'm sorry I had to disagree with my dad. In times maybe when he wasn't right and I wasn't right, but he's still a man I could build with.

I'm looking at the faces of some of you who've had that same kind of a parent too. They're in glory today. Don't you wish you'd have told them more then? I know he made mistakes, but God raised amongst us men like Shalom that can build like that.

Now, when you come to chapter three, I do have a question for you. I'm going to come back to Nehemiah in a minute. There's two gates and there's one man's name that's not mentioned in chapter three.

Now some of you get a little draggy, it'll wake you up. Might not wait till after and ask you then. There's two gates, one man that's not mentioned in chapter three, who is it? Well, you say the two gates are the gate of Ephraim and the prison gate.

We read about them in chapter eight and again, chapter 12, significant. Who else is not mentioned in chapter three? May I say the main man, Nehemiah, his name's not there. And these two gates aren't there.

You say, what do you take from that? A man doesn't have to talk about his own work. Well, you say, how do you know that he was building the wall? Go to the next chapter. He said, we built the wall.

We built the wall. Can he say that and not do it? Then he says, I built the wall. That was not a stroke of pride at all.

You know what it was? It was a personal responsibility that he felt in his own soul. And listen to your brother. Nobody else is going to build with you till you feel that personal responsibility in your own soul, as if you're the only one doing it, brother, did you hear that? If you're the only one.

Nevermind this, nobody else will stand with me. He says, so I built it, I the wall. Now you see, you got two gates.

Who repaired those gates? Now, there isn't a commentary around that's gonna say anything about it. Now, I don't have anybody to disagree with me because unless somebody just wanted this afternoon, we can talk about that later. If I read chapter, if I watch those chapters closely, you know who built those two walls, two gates rather than not mention in chapter three that we have a chapter eight and chapter 12? The prison gate and the gate of Ephraim? I believe Nehemiah did.

Why? Nobody else wanted to build those walls. Do you want to build for Ephraim? That discontent tribe that would ever express any appreciation, always murmuring, always, who said whining today? Brandon did. Whining.

Almost stole another message I have, haven't given yet. Two questions, weaned or whining? Ephraim. No, they're not gonna build that gate.

Here's a man, just allow me. Maybe I'm working my imagination over time at the moment, would you allow it? I just think he quietly went ahead and he did it. What about the noble? Those nobles of Tekoa that put not their necks to the work.

So the rest of the men of Tekoa say, they're not doing it, I'm not doing it either. That's it, I'm done. They just silently went out and they did it too.

I love people in the assembly that do that. They'll take whatever shifts left over. They'll put their name on whatever's at the convenience week to clean the hall.

They will pick up the job and do nothing, say nothing about it. Don't you love that? We got them. Come on, you've got them in Iowa, Wisconsin.

I've been there. People that'll go out and do it, then you may not get any thanks. One of our dear brothers, he's a good friend of mine.

My grandson, I plow the snow at the hall. He came one day and look, he says, could you plow it? He's telling me how to plow it. I said, I'll tell you what, sir.

I got, of course, you have to take the farming on me. That's why I still got, my boys just hate it. I still got a couple of John Deere tractors around the place.

I said, I'll tell you, I'll give you the key and you go and plow just as you like it. It'll all come part my car. Fair enough? Fair enough.

I'll tell you what, he never complained again. Because it's pretty early to get up in the morning and go down there and get it all plowed up for the Christians. So you do that, brother? Or you do that for the old man to sweep the snow off the steps? It doesn't snow where you live, does it? Well, you say, boy, you're hitting us pretty hard.

I gotta admit, I've gone off the rails here a little bit, but I'll just mention a few things. Here's a man, he would, you know why? If you had one gate that wasn't prepared, the rest of them wouldn't work either. There had to be a completeness about it.

Now there's another gate. Not only that gate of Ephraim, but if you read chapter 12 and I didn't take it, it's on the north side. The north side's always the hard side to work.

There's no sun on that side, it's cold. That's where the wind blows. That's where adversity is.

But you know as well as I do, those that have had to build an adversity, those who have had to build when they had nothing are the ones that come out the winners. And I believe that when we come to the end of that chapter, we have a man that worked on those two gates. Whether he delegated it to others, nevermind, he still says, we built the wall, I built the wall, now there's a prison gate.

He built that wall too. Much could be said about the prison gate. But I want to come quickly, I'm just going to have to cover a lot of this here, to what we have right at the end of the chapter, of the book rather, in chapter, as we read there in chapter 13.

It says in verse number 42, and the singers sang, that would be enough. To think that people will actually sing after all this. You think, excuse me, I'm not going to no sing.

No, listen, don't give me out sings because I've got some of the audience that would say, hey, he don't come to sing at my house either. I walked to a sing the other night at the house, they said, whew, what are you doing here? Anyhow, we won't go there just now, but let me say this. Singing wasn't easy.

Here were people that had worked hard, calluses on their hands, not the equipment that we have today. But it says not only did they sing, but they sang loud. I don't believe that we should be shouting in our singing.

I was very disappointed to find out that a young man, and he has a good voice, I've heard him sing. Another brother actually told me he's singing too loud. Boy, if I could catch that guy.

Singing too loud. Well, do say. I haven't heard anybody yet blast the ears off me.

No eardrums broken here. They sang loud. Why? They're joyful people.

Come on, brother, we get with our children, don't we? At the Sunday school, we kind of pumped them a bit and said, come on, you gotta sing better than that. We should start doing that in our ministry meetings, really, some of our assembly, because we're a little dead, to be honest with you. Herb Harris, a number of years ago, I only know this from Mr. Ramsey, and his brother was not quite like Herb was.

And he was, Russell was his name, quieter man, just the opposite of Herb Harris, what I heard. He was inside, and they were singing, and Herb came in late, and he stood outside. It was the hull down River Heberts, where it was.

You've been there, you know where it is. And it about drove Herb out of his mind, spoiled the whole meeting for him. He got tired of waiting until the meeting was over.

He got ahold of his brother, Russell, and said, hey, you, what are you doing in there? He said, when? We're having a meeting. You were there? No, he said, well, you started it, what were you doing? We gave it to him. Is that what it was, he says.

It was him. What are you doing with it? No, he said, you're destroying it. So, brethren and sisters, I'm not criticizing the singing here.

God knows I'm not. I have to admit that I likely have been falling off the wagon a bit myself, maybe looking at the notes when I should have been singing. But since they sang loud, I want to tell you something.

If this conference sends us back to our assemblies with just the octave of our singing, just up a bit, it's a well-worth conference. Because there happens to be one in heaven that delights with the singing. The songs of his people.

Think of all the nonsense and noise that is heard in the world today. That brings nothing to the nostrils of God but a stench. Yet he looks down and he sees that gathered company for their, okay, that might get me in trouble, their traditional stout conference.

He says, listen to them singing there. Listen to that. Thrills his heart.

It's worship, brethren. These people sang loudly. Not finished yet.

Verse 43. It's interesting. Verse 43, I'm referring to chapter 12.

Also that day they offered great sacrifice. Rejoice for God had made them rejoice with great joy. Voices just, one tumbling upon the other, one building upon another.

In other words, you're just telling us they couldn't be any happier. How about you, brother? Could you be happier in the assembly than you are today? Could you? Well, you say, you know, that brother over there would bother you. I just wanna ask you, could you be happier than you are today? Yeah, you back there.

You'd be happier than you are today? I need to ask your wife? Your mother? Need to ask the brethren? He a happy believer? Hard to take down a man that's happy in the things of the Lord and enjoying them and rejoicing in them. But here's what I loved when I read this about a week or so ago. It says, the wives and the children rejoiced so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off.

The joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off. They say, well, the wives, the children, no, no, no, they were down at the peewee ball game. Grandma's down there hooting for them, hooting, no, he'll hit a home run.

So they're saying, no, no. Pardon me for that one, okay? No, no, no, no, brethren. Like we are today.

The men, the wives, and the children. That's how Nehemiah's concluding his ministry. Pardon me, it's in the book.

You will find nothing. I challenge you today to find anything in this book that divides and separates God's people. It is not there, just the opposite, okay? That's why they're gathered together as they are.

And it rests with the blessing of God. And it always will. So we make up our mind as we think of this.

And we come to chapter 13, just one last thing in verse number three. Now it came to pass, verse three of chapter 13. Now it came to pass when they had heard the law that they, they separated from Israel, all the mixed multitude.

Boy, if you went on to later on in chapter, at the end of the chapter, you'd find the disastrous result of a mixed multitude. Marrying people that were never born again. Not a genuine Jew, never had divine life.

Listen, brethren, let me speak to my overseers today. A brother said to me not too long ago, he said, listen, you can hardly say anything today. We're leaving.

Sorry, I don't say drive them away. They're likely going to leave anyhow. They'll likely leave anyhow, unfortunately.

And I'm not saying that everybody that leaves us was never saved. But I want to quote a man by the name of Mr. Jack Hunter that I listened to minister 40 years ago. And he said this, he said, the majority of our problems are what they ever have been.

They come from the unregenerate amongst us that are not content with divine truth, divine gatherings, people of God, and have never been born again. He says we can never satisfy those people. What they do, he said, as they affect those that do want to honor him, to bring glory to him.

So think of it. Think of what they started with. And I know there's much to be ministered.

I've just given you a skim overview, if you like. As I see it in the book of Nehemiah, what's been an enjoyment and a blessing to my own soul. My prayer is that it would be the same to you and an encouragement to you as you seek to build.

Chapter three, a delightful chapter. You should go through that and see one working right beside the other. Here's a man, he's working right next to him.

You've heard men take that up. Wonderful ministry. I have to confess you, first time I've ever taken it up.

So you can't say it's an old one he tried to thrash at us. And if you hear it again miles from here, that's not my fault, that's yours. So as I conclude, let me just speak to you.

You and I were the only two in the room. Okay, brother? What are you going to do? Not because I'm saying it. Do you want to build or do you not want to build? Just content with the decay, with the departure, with the coldness? Be like a Nehemiah.

First, he gets it right in his own soul. He spends time in divine presence. That's chapter one.

Weeps before the Lord, prays before God. Now he will go to the king, not after. Okay? That's that first.

Goes to the king, makes his request. And the king has one question. Why the change in your account? So a little different wasn't in the change of, am I reminded, am I not as I speak of Jacob? What he said to his wives, those that would become his wives.

He said, the countenance of your father isn't quite the same toward me as it was. Well, I think if I was Laban, pardon me, but the way Jacob was carrying on, I'd looked at him a little different too. And sometimes there are times when you do that.

Brethren, do things that can grieve us, can upset us. But remember, what's the key to the whole book? The joy of the Lord is your strength.