Haack, Milton: The Gates Of Jerusalem 01 ~ Nehemiah 3:

I'd like to study this morning in the book of Nehemiah. Maybe you could be turning to Nehemiah chapter three, and I will turn to a verse or two in the New Testament. Some years ago, I was speaking from the Old Testament, and after I finished, or after the meeting was over, a man came to me, and he said, didn't you know that the Old Testament was for Old Testament believers, and the New Testament is for New Testament believers? And he indicated that I was wasting my time and wasting his time too by speaking from the Old Testament scriptures. I'd like to just read a verse, uh, in chap- in Roman chapter fifteen while you're turning to Nehemiah, just to give us the permission to turn to the Old Testament to learn some lessons. In Romans chapter fifteen and verse four, it says, for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. There's another scripture in, in First Corinthians chapter ten, very closely related to this, in verse eleven, Paul writes, now all these things happened unto them, and he's referring to the children of Israel. If we were to read the first part of this chapter, we would read some of the experiences of the children of Israel, how they were delivered out of the land of Egypt, how they crossed over the Red Sea, and some of their experiences in the wilderness. And then Paul writes that these things that happened to the children of Israel happened unto them for ensamples or examples, illustrations, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. So we turn to the book of Nehemiah, and we believe that God has, has written the Old Testament scriptures for us to learn some wonderful lessons. Now, as you look at Nehemiah chapter three, I think you can probably, at a glance, you can understand why I am not going to attempt to read the whole chapter through at this time. It has some rather difficult to pronounce names. I believe our brother McKay, uh, remarked on this. I don't know whether you are like I am, when I'm studying in the Word of God and I run across a chapter like this, with a lot of difficult names in it, I sort of have a natural tendency to turn the page over quite quickly to see what the next chapter looks like and sort of bypass it. You know, I think that we miss a blessing when we do something like this, because there is nothing written in the Word of God that is not for our learning. There's a purpose in it. I remember some years ago, I was reading through the, the books of the Chronicles, and probably you remember that there are lots of genealogies and, uh, difficult to pronounce names in the Chronicles, and I was finding myself paging through too rapidly, and I wasn't getting much out of it. And I determined one day that I was going to spend some time in one particular chapter, and it was literally filled with names. And I looked up the meaning of all of the names, and then I tried to study each of the characters as far as I could in the Word of God. And I remember that my heart was really blessed. And I came to the conclusion that sometimes God's golden nuggets and blessings that he wants us to enjoy are not always on the surface. Sometimes we're going to have to dig deep into the Word of God to receive the blessing. Possibly a little background information here in this cha- from this, uh, portion of the Word of God would be helpful. You probably remember the children of Israel had been taken captive and carried down to the land of Babylon, which is known as the seventy years captivity. And while the, uh, children of Israel were taken captive, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple in the city was destroyed, and the walls of the city were broken down, and the children of Israel were taken away, uh, down to the land of Babylon. I think that they figure approximately fourteen years before what we have recorded here in the book of Nehemiah. There was a man named Ezra who brought some men back to the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the temple which had been destroyed. The, uh, record of that is recorded for us in the book of, of Ezra. And now they had the temple rebuilt, and the Jewish people were able to worship the way they really wanted to, at least a remnant of people that had, had come back and were in the city of Jerusalem. They were able to worship the way they believed God wanted them to. But they had a problem. There were enemies around, and the walls of the city were broken down, and these enemies were continually harassing the people of God and interfering, hindering them in their worship the way they wanted to. I think it was approximately fourteen years after Ezra returned to rebuild the temple, we find Nehemiah and a group of men came back to, uh, the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the walls around the city. And so the book of Nehemiah records this experience of Nehemiah as he was rebuilding, as he and his men were rebuilding the walls. Now, Nehemiah chapter three records the rebuilding of ten of the gates of the city of Jerusalem. Now, there are two other gates recorded for us in the, in chapter twelve of Nehemiah, and just exactly why the Lord has been pleased to separate these two gates from the other ten that are recorded here in the third chapter, I'm not really sure. I presume that this is one of the questions that I'll be able to ask when we get to heaven, and I'm sure it's going to be a satisfactory answer. But here in this chapter, we have the record of ten of these gates, and I presume that some of you have had the opportunity to see some of the gates. I'm sure that all of them are not, uh, intact today, but maybe some of you have seen some of the gates and the walls in, uh, in the city of, or around the city of Jerusalem. What we would like to do this morning and this evening, I don't think that we will be able to complete all ten gates, but what we would like to do is take a guided tour around the walls of the city of Jerusalem and stop off at each of these gates and stand and watch Nehemiah and his men as they repair these gates. I believe that God would have a lesson, spiritual lessons for us as we stand and watch them repair these gates. Now I say a guided tour. I want you to know that it is only as the Holy Spirit of God would be our guide and direct us on such a tour, it is only then that we could expect to receive a blessing. So we would like to start out on this guided tour, the Holy Spirit of God being our guide and directing us, uh, around the walls of the city of Jerusalem. The special feature of the tour, of course, would be the ten gates that are recorded in this chapter. Notice the first gate that the Spirit of God directs us to is in verse one. and it is the sheep gate. Then Elisha the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded the sheep gate. They sanctified it and set up the doors of it, even unto the tower of Mia. They sanctified it unto the tower of Hananeel. Now the sheep gate apparently was the gate in which the sheep and the sacrificial animals passed through on their way to the courtyard of the temple where they were going to be offered, where they were going to be sacrificed on the Jewish altars. No doubt thousands upon thousands of animals would have passed through this gate. This would have been a tremendous scene to be able to stand by this gate and watch the animals as they were on their way to the altars. I have no doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was in Jerusalem on different occasions, I have no doubt that he would have had opportunity to stand at this gate and watch the animals as they were passing through. He would have known the, uh, the reason for all of this. He would have known why they were passing through. He would have known where they were going to and what was going to happen to these animals. I'm sure that as the Lord Jesus would have watched these animals pass through, it would have taken his mind to that beautiful prophecy in Isaiah chapter fifty three, where it says that he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. I'm sure it would have reminded the Lord Jesus, who was the, was the antitype of these types, of these lambs and of these sheep that were passing through. I'm sure it would have reminded him of the very purpose of his coming into this world to go on to the cross at Calvary and to be sacrificed for sinners there. This sheep gate, I believe, could remind us this morning of Calvary. It would remind us this morning of the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made when he died for sinners on the cross. Isn't this what John the Baptist was referring to in John's Gospel, chapter one as he was standing and talking to two of his disciples, and the Lord Jesus was passing by, and John the Baptist points to the Lord Jesus as he is talking to the disciples, and he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Referring to the sheep gate, referring to Calvary. I'd like you to notice also, and I think that it must be significant, that this gate, the sheep gate, if it speaks of Calvary and Christ's death on the cross for us, and I am personally satisfied that it does. Is it not interesting that the Spirit of God directs us to this gate first, before any of the other gates? Why would that be? Because I believe of its immense importance. There are other gates that we want to study, but you know, unless you have been to this gate, the other gates will be meaningless. Unless you have been to Calvary, unless you as a sinner have received Christ as your savior, repented of sin, and turned from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ, the rest of the gates that we will be studying will be meaningless to you. I wonder if it is possible that we're speaking to someone here this morning. I'm sure the great majority are born again Christian believers. I'm sure that most of you can point to a time in your life when you received Christ as Savior and Lord. But if there is one that has never been to the Sheep Gate, you've never been to Calvary for the cleansing. The precious blood of Christ can wash away all of your sins. We plead with you this morning, before we move on to the next gate, that you repent and believe in Christ. Believe that he died for you. He died for your sins to give you eternal life. Before we leave this gate, I'd like to remind you of one more thing. As we move on to the other gates, we're going to notice that Nehemiah and his men not only repaired the gates, but they also repaired the locks and the bars on the gates. You will notice that in relation to the sheep gate, there is no mention of the locks and the bars. I am not suggesting that there weren't any locks and bars on it, but I'd like to suggest a possibility that the reason they're not mentioned here is because the sheep gate speaks of salvation, and there are no restrictions to this gate. It is for whosoever will. God never holds anyone back here. Anyone who is willing to repent, anyone who is willing to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, he can come to this gate, and he can be forgiven. The second gate is the fish gate, and this we find in verse three. But the fish gate did the sons of Hassaneah build, who also laid the beams thereof and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof. Notice here we have the locks and the bars thereof. Now the fish gate. It's possible that this fish gate was used by the fishermen. It seems to be rather obvious, and probably it was the gate that was in the direction of the, uh, lakes and rivers where the fishermen could catch the fish, and they would very likely bring their catch of fish through this, through the fish gate, and then probably taken to the, the marketplace for sale. But nevertheless, one of the principles of Bible study is to compare scripture with scripture. And if we were to look up the word fish in the, in a concordance and study this in the Word of God, I think that we could come up with some thoughts concerning the fish gate. You remember on one occasion the Lord Jesus was talking to his disciples, and he told his disciples that if they would follow him, he would make them fishers of men. What did the Lord Jesus mean when he said he would make them fishers of men? He would make them witnesses for him. He would make them missionaries for him, that they would go out and tell men and women about the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation, and they would win these men to the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to suggest that if the first gate speaks of salvation, the second gate would speak of witness. And I think that it is significant that it would be the second gate if it speaks of witness. What was the first thing you did after you came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior? I rather think it was you went out and told someone about it. Gave my testimony last evening, and I reminded the folks that as soon as I got saved, I went back to the PT boat, and I sat down, and I wrote a letter to dad and mom about my experience of being at the Sheep Gate, my experience of being at Calvary, of receiving Christ as personal savior. I think this is a normal, uh, reaction, is it not? I think this happened when you were saved. In some way, you were anxious to share this good news of the sheep gate with someone. You remember the Lord Jesus when he was talking to the woman at the well in John's Gospel, chapter four. You remember she came to the well to get a drink of water, a literal water, and you remember the Lord Jesus gave to her that day a drink of living water whereby she would never thirst again. It was a spiritual drink. In other words, that spiritual drink of water, I believe, was the sheep gate, wasn't it? That's when she was converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's when she received eternal life. What did the woman do? She had a water pot. She put that water pot down just as quick as she could. She left it there. She completely forgot about, uh, her water pot, and she went into the city, and she told the men about the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the sheep ga- that was the fish gate, wasn't it? She was a witness for her Savior. You remember again when the Lord Jesus, uh, healed the demoniac, or actually cast the demons out of this, uh, this man. After he was saved, you remember he wanted to follow the Lord Jesus over the Sea of Galilee. He wanted to immediately become a, uh, overseas missionary. And the Lord Jesus said to him, I want you to go home, and I want you to tell what great things God has done for you. That's the fish gate, isn't it? That's the fish gate. I want you to be a witness. I want you to go home. I want you to start in Jerusalem at your home and to, to witness and tell about the great things that God has done for you. Maybe we could look at verse five for a moment. Here was a group of people who were working next to the fish gate. Actually, they weren't actually repairing the fish gate, but they were right next onto the fish gate. Verse five, and the next onto them, the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles, and notice who they are, these are the high class folks, the society folks, the nobles put not their necks to the work of the Lord. What do you suppose this means? They put not their necks to the work of the Lord. They were shirking, weren't they? They weren't doing their duty. They weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. And isn't this quite normal to be right next to the fish gate, not witnessing the way they should? It's interesting also that the fish was a symbol of witness in the early church. In the second and third century, when the Christians had to hide out in the catacombs for fear of the, of the, uh, the rulers and so on, they would put a, a sign of a fish on the, um, entrance of the caves and so on, and this was a symbol of witness. This was to tell the people that they were Christians, that they were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, we have the sheep gate, we have the fish gate, and the third gate is in verse six. Moreover, the old gate repaired Jehoiada, the son of Pesha, and some more hard to pronounce names. They laid the beams thereof and set up the doors thereof and the locks thereof and the bars thereof. The old gate. It seems quite difficult to come to any definite conclusion as to why this might have been called the old gate, possibly because it was the, the oldest gate, but we don't have any real evidence of, of why it might be called the Old Gate. But certainly, if we were to study the subject of, uh, of old in the Word of God, certainly we would not be without, uh, without lessons. I believe that old in scripture would speak to us of experience and maturity. You know, God wants us to mature. One of the problems of the Christians in First Corinthians was that they had been saved for a number of years, but they were not maturing. They were remaining little babes, and Paul seems to rebuke them there for remaining little babes. Here they had been saved for many years, but they were not apparently getting into the word of God, and because they weren't getting into the word of God, they were getting into trouble, and they were remaining little babes, and they were not going on, and they were not maturing in the things of the Lord. Jeremiah speaks of the old paths. Possibly these old paths, uh, extended from the old gate, we don't know, but he speaks of the old paths. What do you suppose Jeremiah would mean by the old paths? It would seem to me that it would, it would be the paths that were trod by the heroes of the faith, those men and women of God in the Old Testament scriptures that walked these old paths, they stood solid in the things of God. We have a list of these in Hebrews chapter eleven. It would thrill your heart to go through the, the chapter and just study these, these heroes of the faith and to consider the old paths that those men and women of God trod. We read in the Old Testament scriptures of the old corn of the land. This was the mature food that the people of God were to eat after they arrived in the land of Canaan. While they were still in the wilderness, they were eating the manna, which was the food for the younger. It was the food for the immature believer. But as they got into the land of Canaan, their, their diet was changed, and they were to eat the old corn of the land, something that was, uh, mature. Both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, with the children of Israel in the Old Testament and with the church in the New Testament, God has provided elders as leaders of the people of God, human leaders of the people of God. And I believe that this is a very, very important aspect of the local church, of the, of the Lord's work in this our day. To be able to, uh, recognize the elders of the local church, to respect them, and to, to know what the word of God has to say about them. We do not have too many, uh, younger people in the audience this morning. There are a few, but I'd like to just for a few moments sort of stand between the younger and the older. You know, we're living in a day when there is a very unfortunate generation gap. This is in the non-Christian world. There's a generation gap standing between the young people and the old people, and the young people accuse the old people, and the old people accuse the young people, and it's a very unfortunate situation. We can sort of expect something like this in the non-Christian world, but when it creeps into the, into the Christian world, this is a sad story then, is it not? Possibly in some cases, the elders are erring. Possibly in some cases, the young people are erring. But I want to be used of God, if possible, to break down this generation gap that stands between the young people and the older people. What we're seeing in Christendom today, as a result of this generation gap, we're seeing the younger Christians dissatisfied with what is going on, and so they go off and they start their own little assembly, and the elders in the assembly are in their twenties or something like that, and they're really not qualified to carry on the, the leadership of the church. There's something wrong with this. God tells us about the elder. He gives us the qualifications of the elders in First Timothy chapter three and Titus chapter one. And I believe that we should become very well acquainted with this. Let me just quickly go over, it's nothing new, but let me quickly go over, uh, four or five factors of the elders in the, in the, uh, New Testament, the Word of God. First of all, we are to know them, according to, um, First Thessalonians five. We are to know the elders. And there seems to be a real struggle today as to how can we know the elders? Well, Paul goes on to tell how we can know the elders by their work, by their labor. If there is a, if there is an elder, uh, man in your assembly, and he comes up to the qualifications of, uh, of, uh, First Thessalonians, or First Timothy, rather, chapter three and so on, if he comes up to those qualifications and he has a desire to do the work of the elder, there is an elder. You don't have to, you don't have to have a, a, an election to decide who's the most popular. Oh no. We can know them by their qualifications. We can know them by their desire to, to act and to, uh, serve the Lord in this capacity. And then we are to esteem them. Esteem them. I suppose this means that we should love them. We should express our love to them and our appreciation to them, and then we are to remember them, remember them in prayer, remember the counsel that they have given to us, and to consider it very, very carefully. We are to obey them, to be in submission to them, to cooperate with them in every way. Then we are to salute them, according to Hebrews thirteen. In other words, we are to, to greet them and respect them. And we notice also, it says that they must give a- an account. Very responsible position. Any Christian who would desire the work of an elder in a local assembly, he must give account. It's a tremendously responsible position. Younger Christians, make sure that you pray for the elders. Make sure that the, that you pray that the Lord would guide them and direct them. They don't want to be dictators. That's not what a true elder is. He wants to be a shepherd. He wants to be, he wants to be a shepherd that leads and guides the flock in the ways and in the things of the Lord. So we see the old gate, the old gate would suggest to us the experience and maturity of the Christian, and especially the, the elders and the leadership of the local assembly and so on. We come to the next gate, number four, and this is the valley gate. The valley gate is in verse thirteen. And the valley gate repaired Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah. They built it and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof, and a thousand cubits on the wall unto the dung gate. Here we have the valley gate. Apparently this gate led out into a valley, and again, if we were to compare scripture with scripture and study the word of God, I think that we could come up with a number of lessons from the valley gate. Believe that it would suggest, first of all, humility. Humility. Willingness to take the low place. The Lord Jesus spoke of this, did he not? Willing to take the low place, and when we are willing to take the low place, then the Lord would give us the high place, suggesting humility. You remember the, uh, beautiful verse in two Chronicles seven and fourteen? It speaks of the children of Israel, and God said to the children of Israel, if you will humble yourselves, turn from your wicked ways and so on, then I will, uh, bless you. Then I will bring my blessing upon you. The victory of the children of Israel was dependent upon humbling themselves, and as long as they refused to humble themselves, why, they were not victorious, they were not, uh, going on in the things of the Lord. Not only humility, but I think that it would suggest the place of trials and testings in life. I'm sure that many have gone through some real severe testings, and God has his reason for permitting this, sometimes very difficult trials. But, you know, God is desirous that each of us would come out as pure, refined gold. And when he permits us to go into the furnace of testing, he has a, he has a reason for it. And sometimes it might be a persecution. Some of our Christian friends in the Philippines, they go through persecution as a result of, of receiving Christ as Savior and standing for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we aren't persecuted very much today, are we? When you read the book of Acts and you read about how the early Christians were persecuted, what would we, what conclusion would we come to? Are things better today than they were back there in the early church? Is that why we're not being persecuted? Is the world better today? You know, I doubt it very much. You know, when Paul was writing to, to Timothy, he touched upon this subject of persecution. He said, they that will live godly shall suffer persecution. That's a promise. That's one of the beautiful promises in the word of God. If you live godly, you're going to suffer persecution. What would the opposite be? If you don't live godly, you're not going to suffer much persecution? It would seem so. And I wonder, is the reason that we're not being persecuted today is because we're not living as godly as we should be living? We're not living as close to the Lord as we should be. If we were living as close to the Lord as the early Christians in the book of Acts were living, I wonder if maybe we wouldn't be, uh, suffering persecution and going through the valley ourselves. But not only humility and testings and trials of life, but it could also speak of the valley of the shadow of death. The psalmist speaks of this in Psalm twenty three very beautifully, the valley of the shadow of death. And you know, if the Lord tarries any length of time, well, all of us could face this valley. All of us could be walking through this valley. But you know, there's some wonderful comfort in walking through this valley too. If you read in Psalm twenty three, you will find that we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but then it goes on to say, Thou art with me. We don't have to be afraid of the valley of the shadow of death when we know that we're walking hand in hand with the one who is the resurrection and the life. Now do we? And so the valley gate would speak to us of the, of the valley of the shadow of death. Now the next gate, and this will be the last gate that we will consider this morning. We won't have time to cover all ten of the gates. Uh, Lord willing, we'd like to finish the other five gates in our lesson this evening. But the next gate, very frankly, humanly speaking, I would kinda like to omit it. I would kinda like to, uh, ask for a little bit of a leave of absence and say, well, now, um, I will just, uh, relax here while you folks go on and visit the dung gate. It's not a pleasant gate, is it? It's a gate that we would like to, like to miss, we'd like to avoid. Apparently, this was the, the city dump. This was the garbage disposal. A lot of flies, bad smell, very unpleasant, but a must, a must. Any city that would get along without the Dung Gate certainly would have the pollution problem. The world has a lot of pollution problem, but I think the Dung Gate is the solution to the pollution problem, isn't it? We need the Dung Gate, and though it is a very unpleasant place, it is an important place. It's a place that we should, we should consider. I'd like to suggest that as we stand here at the Dung Gate, and as we watch Nehemiah and his men repairing the Dung Gate, I'd like to suggest that it would speak to us of a self-examination, examining our hearts, and see if there is some refuse, if there is some spiritual refuse there that needs to be removed. You know, the Word of God speaks of self-examination, and it speaks of self-judgment. And Paul writing in First Corinthians chapter eleven, he tells the Christians there that if we examine ourselves and we judge ourselves, if we bring this judgment against ourselves, we will not be judged along with the world. And I think this is what we are learning at the, at the dung gate. Remember Paul, or at least the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, remember he tells us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us. Here is the picture of the runner out on the racetrack, and he has things weighting him down, hindering in the race, holding him back from running the race the way he should. And I wonder, Christian, if we sometimes are trying to run the Christian race with some weights. It may not necessarily be sin, or it may not necess- necessarily be sinful. He says, let us lay aside every weight and the sin. They're two different things. I guess we could identify the sin quite easily. We would know what the sin is. We could identify that. But how about the weight? Is there something hindering? Is there something holding us back and keeping us from running the race the way we should run? And when we recognize this, are we really willing to bring self-judgment here at the dung gate, to examine our hearts and to remove anything that is hindering us in the Christian race? Our time is up, and so we will continue the, the study of the ten gates this evening in the will of the Lord. Maybe we could bow together in a word of prayer. Father, we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee that he is the sacrifice that was offered on the cross at Calvary. We thank thee for each one this morning that has been to the sheep gate and has a personal experience of conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for sins forgiven. We thank thee for the joy of eternal life. And it is our prayer that if there should be someone this morning that does not know thee as Savior, that even now, this very moment, they will come to the sheep gate, come to Christ, and believe that he died for them. So we thank thee for our Savior. We just ask thee to bless and lead and guide, and pray that the remainder of the day will bring honor to our blessed Savior, because we pray in his worthy name. Amen.