Alright, we're continuing our
study in Nehemiah chapter 3 if you'd like to turn there. Tonight,
picking up where I left off Sunday night on the horse gate, these
ten gates of the city of Jerusalem that were being rebuilt and repaired
under the direction of Nehemiah the governor, that type of Christ
who is the great governor, the king, the potentate of the universe,
who builds his church upon the rock of himself. That's who Nehemiah
typifies. These ten gates are so significant
in what they represent and symbolize. Every gate, each gate had a particular
purpose for the city. And that's no, and the horse
gate is no different. As we've looked, this is the
eighth gate. This was the gate that Solomon constructed. and
was originally attached to the king's palace where the royal
horses were kept. And just like horses always in
history and in literature and also in the scriptures were always
used in battle, they became symbols of war and warfare. And that's
exactly what this gate symbolizes. It symbolizes the spiritual warfare
in which the church collectively And individual Christians are
engaged every day of our life in these last days until the
Lord comes back again. The purpose of this horse gate,
as we saw last time, and I can't go over everything. Now, if you
didn't hear Sunday night's message, get the tape or the CD, because
if I go over everything that I went over then, I'll run out
of time tonight, too. And I don't want to run out of
time tonight. I want to finish this horse gate. I want to finish
this part up. But let me just remind you of
this. This part of the city where this horse gate was, it was the
royal part of the city. It was the king's part. There's
where the king's house, the king's garden, the sepulchers, we learned
that from even the gate before. It was kind of like a military
center where the king's horsemen lived and they could prepare
and defend the city or leave for battle at a moment's notice.
And that's why this horse gate was constructed. And that symbolizes
the continual battle, the continual warfare, which is waged against
the church, against believers, by the world, the flesh, and
the devil. And I think one of the reasons
I ran out of time, I spent so much time talking about our enemies.
But you know what? I mean, you know, any good general
will tell you that 50% or more of winning a battle is knowing
your enemy. Knowing who it is, because if
you don't even know your enemy, then how can you fight this battle?
How can you fight the warfare? I heard a man say one time, he's
quoting somebody and I don't know who, but he said that Satan's
greatest act of deception, Satan's greatest triumph was convincing
a lot of people, the majority of the world, that he did not
exist. And you know that? You know,
anybody who denies the existence of Satan, that's satanic itself.
Certainly anybody who denies the existence of God. But he
said that's one of Satan's greatest victories, is convincing the
world that he doesn't exist. Well, we know he does exist.
We know, because the Scripture tells us, God's Word tells us
He exists, and not only does it tell us He exists, it describes
us who He is, what He does, why He does it, how He does it. We're
not ignorant of His wiles and His deceits. Satan is a subtle
devil, and he's one of our greatest enemies. But as I said last week,
We have to understand first and foremost about this spiritual
battle that we're engaged in, is that the battle is the Lord's.
And I think there's something significant in this one verse,
verse 28 of Nehemiah chapter 3, that points that out glaringly.
Look at it again. It says, from above the horse
gate repaired who? The priest. Now, who are the
priest? Well, they were the priest of
Levi who attended the temple. The high priest of the temple
is typical of Christ, our great high priest. And then the other
priests, they typify the church, the people of God, who are in
attendance with the high priest. And what he's showing us here,
how do you become a priest? You don't go to seminary and
go through some kind of a ritual. The priests of God are believers. sinners saved by the grace of
God, and they're called priests because they have full, free,
uninterrupted access into the very presence
of the holiest of all, the presence of God through Christ, our great
High Priest. And so the very fact that the
priests are the ones who attended this horse game, And it says
there, it says that everyone over against his house, that
means these same priests were responsible for repairing the
wall that was in between the horse gate and the last gate
that was in front of their house. And someone said, well, that's
teaching a lesson that this spiritual battle begins at home. And it
does, doesn't it? It's a spiritual battle in every
realm of life, especially in our homes, in our church services,
in our gatherings, in any way, in any work, every aspect of
life. It's a battle because the world,
the flesh, and the devil is always against us. But the priests are
the ones who attend to it. They're the ones who do battle
spiritually, God's priest, the ones whom He's made priest because
of the work of the great high priest. the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that's something, isn't it? So there's a warfare to be fought,
and we saw that. And this warfare, I want to remind
you of this, this warfare is not a warfare we fight in order
to be saved. Now that's important. Now again,
who fights this battle? Well, spiritual battle. God's
priest. And we're made priest by the
work of the great high priest. This is not a battle we're fighting
in order to be saved. It's a battle we're fighting
because we already are saved. You see, we don't enter into
this spiritual battle until God brings us into the Kingdom by
virtue of the shed blood and imputed righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's why He fought that battle
on Calvary. There's a battle that's already
been fought and completely won. It was fought by our Lord on
Calvary. He said it's finished. That means
the victory is over. He won victory over sin on the
cross. Behold the Lamb of God which
does what to our sin? Bears it away. That means takes
it away. It was imputed, charged to him,
and he drank damnation dry. He fulfilled all. He made an
end of sin. He finished the transgression
and brought in everlasting righteousness. He fought that battle with sin
and he won. Now, you can't do that, and I
can't do that. That's why the victory is His. You see, He made
an end of sin. Now, without Christ, you know
what would happen to us? Sin would make an end of us.
But it didn't make an end of Him. He went to Calvary, and
He made an end of it. He fought the victory over Satan.
He said in John chapter 12, He says, Now is the prince of this
world cast out. What He means by that? Satan
and his in his evil working as he is known as the accuser of
the brethren. He will accuse us before God
day and night, Revelation 12 says. But how do we turn those
accusations back? By the blood of the Lamb. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's Christ. It's God that justifies. Who
is He that condemns? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather. He was risen again. You want
to defeat Satan? Well, he's already been defeated
at the cross. But he's still working. He's
still allowed to work on this earth to attack. He's not going
to win. The gates of hell will never
prevail against the church. He will never be able to pluck
any saved sinner out of the hands of the Father. He said that no
one shall pluck them out of my Father's hands. He cannot do
it. If Christ saved you, Satan cannot get you lost. That's what
I'm saying. He's not that powerful, you see.
And I don't care what any denomination says or what anybody who claims
to preach the gospel says. You cannot be saved one time
and then after that lost again. If that's the case, then my friend,
you've got a weak, pitiful, defeated Savior. But the fact of this
Christian warfare that we're engaged in, symbolized by the
horse gate, engaged by these priests, shows us that we don't
have a weak, defeated, pitiful Savior. We have a victory. We
have a victor. And He is seated at the right
hand of the Father because He has gained victory for us. So
understand that. This battle was waged against
us because of our identification with Christ. We saw that when
we were talking about the world. Now, we have to engage in a warfare
not only against the immoral, openly rebellious part of the
world, but we have to be engaged in the warfare against the false
religious world. And that's why the Lord told
His disciples in John 15, verse 18, marvel not if the world hates
you. He said, they hated me before they hated you. And He went on
to identify the world as the synagogues of Satan. He said,
they'll throw you out of their synagogues. They will not want
you to be part of their worship services because they hate the
God of the Bible. And they'll hate you too. They
hate the God of sovereign grace. They want a God they can manipulate.
That's what they want. That's what this false religious
world wants. They want a God who's at their
bidding, like a genie in a bottle. You rub it three times and you
make a wish. And if you wish hard enough and believe it hard
enough, it's going to come true. Well, my friend, that's not the
God of the Bible. They want a God that men on their own free will
choose, not a God who sovereignly chooses His people from the foundation
of the world. They want a God who saves sinners
because they're good, not a God who saves sinners who are nothing
but sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, whom I am chief, Paul said. They don't want a
God who saves men and women who are undeserving and who cannot
earn His favor. They want a God who will save
them because of what they do. They hate the God of the Bible.
And that's so now. They don't want to hear about
that. They'll bring every accusation against the God of the Bible
and against His people. So we have to do battle with
the religious world too, the false religious world. And then
we come to the flesh. And I want you to look at the
book of Romans chapter 8. We have to do battle with the
flesh. And one of the reasons, now the flesh, You know, sometimes
in the Bible, the word flesh just simply refers to this physical
body. We read that in Philippians chapter
1. And this body is dead because of sin. This physical body feels
the effect. But Christ has a physical body. He was made flesh. The Word was
made what? Flesh. Now, that doesn't mean
the Word was made evil. I know there are those who want
to talk about how He was made evil on the cross, but He was
not. He's perfect. The Word was made what? Flesh. And dwelt among us. He had a
physical body. He told Thomas, when Thomas said,
I won't believe until I see the nail prints in your hand and
the wound in your side. There they were. He had a physical
body, but without sin. So when the Bible refers to the
flesh merely as the physical body, it's not talking about
that which we do battle with. Now the physical body, the flesh,
is subject to the powers of sin and to the sorrows of sin, all
of that. But other times when the Bible
speaks of the flesh, it's speaking of sin within us. Just sin within us. This is what
some people call the old nature. And that's fine. If you don't
take those things too far. Listen. The flesh that I have
to do battle with. Here's what I want you to understand.
Very simply. The flesh that I have to do battle
with is not another person inside of me. It's me. That's what I
want you to know. I am my worst enemy. Now that's so. It's not a little imp sitting
on my shoulder just trying to get me to sin. It's me! And your greatest enemy is you.
That's all of us. We still have to do battle with
our sinful selves. And we have to do it every day.
And the reason I say this is the worst enemy is because of
this. I want you to think about this. You know, sometimes you
can go into a room and shut the door and lock it and be quiet
and you can kind of shut out the world. And sometimes Satan will leave
you alone. Now listen, let me tell you something. Now Satan
is not omnipresent. There are people today who speak
of Satan like he's everywhere. He is not everywhere. He is a
created being. He's limited. He's a powerful
being. I'm not trying to put that down. He's powerful. But he still can't
be everywhere. So sometimes you can shut yourselves
off from the world. Sometimes Satan will leave you
alone. But I want to tell you someone you can't get away from.
You. I cannot get away from me. I
can't get away from those thoughts that come into my mind that are
in opposition to God's Word and to the gospel and to holiness.
I can't get away. when the desires of the flesh. That's what Paul's talking about
in Romans chapter 7, when he says, I'm carnal, sold under
sin. What he's simply saying there
is, I can't get away from myself. It's not that I can't get away
from this thing inside me. I can't get away from me. You say, well, what about regeneration?
We've been regenerated by the Spirit, and the Spirit indwells
us. We'll see that in just a moment. But look here at Romans chapter
8. Look at verse 1. He says, "...there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." That is, we walk
not after the natural desires of the flesh, but after the Spirit
of God. He says, "...for the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death." How? How did it make me free? Well,
for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
You see, he was not sent in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of
sinful flesh. I mean, he looked just like a
man. Christ did. We don't know what he looked
like. Exactly. You know, all these paintings
you see, that's what Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci thought
he looked like. But that's not what he looked
like. We don't know. There were no photographs back
then. But we know this, he looked like a man. Because he was a
man. But without sin. Without sin. And so, and for sin, condemn
sin in the flesh. Now that's how we're made free
from the law of sin and death, by the death of Christ. And so
he says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. Now, what does that mean? The righteousness of the law
fulfilled in us. Well, does that mean that he
plants within me a perfection? The answer is no. That's a stretch, anybody who
thinks that. Does that mean that he enables
me to be righteous in all that I do and think and say in my
character and conduct? No, if that's true, I dare say
that every one of us, if we're being honest, would have to just
close the book and go home. What does it mean to have the
righteousness of the law fulfilled in us? In us as we are in Christ. You see, Christ identified with
his people in our name and in our human nature without sin.
When he died on the cross, who did he die for? For himself?
No, for us. He was cut off, but not for Himself,
Daniel chapter 9 says. And so the righteousness of the
law was fulfilled in us when Christ as a man, God-man, died
on that cross and fulfilled the righteousness of the law. And
so He says, "...who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit." He says in verse 5, "...for they that are after the
flesh do mind the things of the flesh." That's talking about
sin. That's what he's talking about there. He's talking about
unbelievers there. But they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. Now he's talking about regenerated
people. And so he's showing the contrast.
He says, for to be carnally minded is death. In other words, here's
a person who has not been born again. He has no spiritual mind. He has no heart for Christ. He
is totally eat up with the carnal mind, the fleshly mind. Unbelief. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. That's regenerated by the Spirit. He says, because the carnal mind
is enmity against God. Here's an unregenerate person.
Now, they may claim to be saved, they may claim to be religious,
but they hate the true and living God. That's what enmity means.
For it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
You know, when a sinner becomes subject to the law of God, It's
when by the power of the Holy Spirit that sinner sees his sinfulness,
his depravity, and the impossibility of salvation by his deeds under
the law. And he's driven to Christ for
all righteousness. That's when you become subject
to the law. You can spend your life trying to keep the law in
order to be saved. You're not subject to the law.
You're opposed to it. You've not bowed yet. But God
the Holy Spirit brings His people to bow. So he says in verse 8,
so then they that are in the flesh, that's unregenerate, without
faith, unbelief, cannot please God. But look at verse 9. He
says, but you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Now one of
the old writers said, we're not in the flesh, but the flesh is
in us. And that's so. We're not in the
flesh. That means we're not in a state
of unregenerate, deadness. We're not in a state of unbelief. Now, we have to fight unbelief.
It's there. It's in us. Lord, I believe. Help thou my what? Unbelief. Doubts and fears assail. But
you see, we have the Spirit of Christ, and He's given us life
within, spiritual life, heavenly life, and He's brought us in
heart and mind and will to Christ. So he says, if so be the Spirit
of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now, with that in mind,
go over to Galatians chapter 5. Now, my point is this, when we
fight this spiritual battle, symbolized by the horse gate,
we've got to understand that it's only The regenerate, it's
only the believer who can fight that battle. You know, unbelievers
fight a lot of battles, even battles within themselves. They
can have battles of conscience, they can have battles among themselves,
they can have battles of the mind, but they don't have spiritual
battles. Only the regenerate, those who
are not in the flesh, but still have the flesh in them who can
fight this spiritual battle. Look at verse 16 of Galatians
5. He says, This I say then, walk
in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust, the unlawful
desire of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to the other. The sinful flesh is contrary
to the Spirit of God. They're not in union, they're
not in agreement. It's a warfare within. And so
he says, and these are contrary to the one, so that you cannot
do the things that you would. Somebody said that's on two sides.
You cannot do the good things that you would, be perfectly
conformed to Christ, you cannot be perfect in yourself yet. But
then you can't go the full swing of depravity, of the sinful flesh
too, because God holds you. And He keeps you. So you see
that constant warfare. He says in verse 18, but if you
be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. What is it
to be led of the Spirit? It's to rest in Christ. You're
not condemned. So even though we have this sinful
flesh to battle with, we're not condemned. We're saved by the
grace of God. And this is our battle. This is part of it. On the same
token, we have to do battle with the best of the flesh too. That's
why Paul said we're the circumcision which worship God in spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. The
best that the flesh can do or motivate us to do, we cannot
have any confidence in. Our confidence is in Christ,
in Him alone. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
10. Now this is a spiritual battle. It's not an earthly battle. It's
not to be fought with earthly weapons. Yes, this horse gate
now that Solomon built, it had earthly horses, physical horses
in it. But that's the symbol, you see. So it's a spiritual
battle. Look at verse 3. He says, for
though we walk in the flesh. Now here he's talking about flesh
as the physical body. He says, we do not war after
the flesh. Our weapons, our warfare is not
physical. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Here's the field of battle. Casting
down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against
the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought.
to the obedience of Christ. This is a battle of the mind.
It's a battle of the heart. It's a battle of the will. It's
a spiritual battle. You know what the weapons of
our warfare are? The truth. The truth. The gospel of God's
grace in Christ. That's why we preach Christ.
This is our sword, you see, by which we engage in this battle. I want you to look back in the
Old Testament at the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter
17. See if you can find Deuteronomy
17. I have every confidence that
you can find it. When we're going through this
spiritual battle, there are some dangers. There are some pitfalls
that we have to be watching. Watchful, again. We have an illustration
of this when, here in Deuteronomy 17, in the Law of Moses, the duty
of a king is laid forth here. And somebody says, well, that
might be kind of strange because they didn't have a king then.
Well, God knows what's going to happen. Not because he looked
down through a crystal ball or through a telescope of time,
but because he determined what's going to happen. That's what
he's doing here. Look at verse 14. I want you
to see this. He writes, "...when thou art
come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and
shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will
set a king over me." Now, you know they did that. And God gave
them a king of their choice. That was King Saul, and he was
a bad choice. That's man's depravity. All of our choices on our own
by nature are bad choices in the kingdom of God as God sees
them. But he says, and you say, I will set a king over me like
as all the nations that are about me. That was a problem there.
They wanted to be like other nations. Now, we've been talking
about this spiritual battle. We're in a battle, we're in a
warfare against the world. And as I read last week, Paul
wrote in Romans 12, 2, be not conformed to the world. You see,
that's part of the problem with the apostasy, the falling away
of the church today. It's when the church desires
to be like the world and use the methods of the world. That's
why you have more entertainment and activity in churches, what
they call churches today, rather than the preaching of the gospel,
the preaching of the word. Because they want to be like
the world, that's successful, draws a crowd. We'll get them
in first and then we'll preach the gospel to them. And the gospel
gets thrown to the background, gets denied. So they said, well,
he says here, when you say I'll set a king over me, like as all
the nations that are about me, verse 15, he says, thou shalt
in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall
choose. Well, we know who God chose.
He chose David, the anointed one. That tribe of Judah, the
sector, you see, and the type of Christ. And he says, one from
among thy brethren, shalt thou set king over thee, and thou
mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother."
But listen to verse 16, "...but he shall not multiply horses
to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end,
or for the purpose that he should multiply horses." Go to Egypt
and get a bunch of horses. For as much as the Lord hath
said unto you, ye shall henceforth turn no more that way, neither
shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away,
neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold."
Now you see that? He's not going to multiply horses
because back then if you had a lot of horses that means you
had a lot of defense, a lot of army there. You had a strong
army. Well, they weren't to depend
on horses and chariots for their sake. They were to look to God.
Who's our defense? Who's our high tower? Who's our
rock? Christ is. Not the things of
the world. Well, look over at 1 Kings. Now see if you can find 1 Kings
chapter 10. 1 Kings chapter 10. Now this is talking about King
Solomon, David's son. Look at verse 20 of 1 Kings chapter
10. I'm sorry, verse 26, I'm sorry. It says, gathered together chariots and
horsemen, and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots and
twelve thousand horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for
chariots, and with the king of Jerusalem. And the king made
silver to be in Jerusalem as stones." Well, that's a rich
kingdom. Silver was like a bunch of rocks.
"'And cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in
the vale for abundance. And Solomon had horses brought
out of," where? Egypt, where the law said not
to go get them, back there in Deuteronomy. And linen yarn,
and king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price, and
a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver,
and a horse for 150. And so for all the kings of the
Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out
by their means? And look at verse 1 of chapter
11, But King Solomon loved many strange women. That's foreign
women now. Some old smart-ass creature I
was listening to, he said, well, I thought all women were strange,
but that's not what this says. This is foreign. And he says,
together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the... You
see what's happening there? He trusted in horses and chariots.
He broke the law of God. He didn't lead the people in
the law of God. Solomon disobeyed the Lord. And he misused the horse gate
and leaned to his own understanding, his own power, and his own wisdom
and innovations. What's the lesson of this? As
we fight this battle symbolized by this horse gate, we must never
trust in the arm of the flesh. We must never trust our own power. We must fight, as Paul said,
the good fight of what? Faith. Resting in Christ, in
the strength and wisdom of the Lord. Now, lastly, turn to Jeremiah
31. I want you to see this, and I'll
close with this. Look at verse 37 of Jeremiah
31. Here's a promise regarding the
horse gate. Jeremiah 31, verse 37. It says, Thus saith the Lord,
if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of
Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord. Now, you
know what he's saying there? He's simply saying, I'm not going
to cast off Israel. Now, physically, that had an
application to the nation during the time of the old covenant.
But ultimately, spiritually and eternally, it has application
only to spiritual Israel. God will never cast us off. He
said, all that the Lord giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. But look at verse
38. Here is the promise supported.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall
be built to the Lord, from the tower of Hananiel," you remember
that? That was at the Sheep Gate, "...and unto the gate of the
corner, and the measuring line shall yet go forth over against
it upon the hill of Gerob, and shall compass about to Goath,
and the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and
of all the fields, and to the brook of Kidron, unto the corner
of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the
Lord. It shall not be plucked up, nor
thrown down any more forever." You know what he's saying there?
He's saying the reason that we're going to win this battle, the
reason that we'll never be defeated ultimately, is because of our
Savior who comes like a warrior to fight our battles and defeat
our foes. That's why he mentions the horse
game. You know, most of the time when
we get into trouble, It's because we're trying to fight our own
battles instead of leaning and resting upon the arm of the Lord. This promise goes further. Blessings
that's forever for spiritual Israel and Christ. The church
will be forever. Do you know why the gates of
hell will not prevail against it? Because of our Savior who
comes through that horse gate like a warrior. Always, always
protecting. Always gaining victory. for his
people.