Stay The Course – Part 4 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

  Welcome friends of the broadcast, and I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. I have my wife, Barbara, with me, and we are talking about staying the course and we’ve been sharing on this all week. We talked about the power of the word of God, giving us a foundation for the course. We talked about how we need the power of the Holy Spirit, and today we’re talking about a man who fulfilled God’s purpose and did amazing things. His name is Nehemiah. Stay tuned and you will be blessed. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us. I’m so glad to have Barbara here. We’re actually talking about staying the course. And earlier this week we talked about, first of all, we gotta have a foundation. And the foundation is the Word of God and the truth of the Word of God. But then we have to have the ability, and we talked about having God’s spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit. And without the Holy Spirit, we cannot ultimately accomplish what God has called us to do. You know, if God has called you to do something, it’s so big that you can’t do it in yourself. So you need the Holy Spirit to help you. And we’re gonna go really to a great example that you have of that, and that is to the Book of Nehemiah. And God called Nehemiah to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but he needed the power of God to do that. And there’s a number of things that we’ll see as we go through this. But you know, go ahead Barbara, and just share from this. Nehemiah is a great example of staying the course. You know, he had all kinds of people come against him. Just because God called you to do something, doesn’t mean that everybody is gonna celebrate it. You know, David, God called David to do something and there’s times in David’s life that everybody talked about stoning him, but he just stayed connected to God and ultimately he got done what God called him to do. And if we stay connected to God, we can get done what God’s called us to do. And so Nehemiah’s, his plan, I mean, his heart was to rebuild the city of God, to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And he ultimately did it, but it wasn’t without challenges.

 

  So we’re gonna look at Nehemiah 2:4 5. We’re gonna look at a number of scriptures and I know you have some more powerful things to share, but if you have your Bibles, if you have a notepad and a pen, you can write these things down. I know you’ll wanna look it up for yourself and read over even more. But Nehemiah 2:4 5 says, “Then the king said to me, ‘What do you request?’ So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, and if your request has found favor in your site, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father’s tombs, that I may rebuild it.'” And before we go on to, I’m gonna have you read verse 10, but I believe it’s also in here. You talked about, you know, he took time to pray, to talk to God. He was passionate. But I believe when he visited, he went and looked around for three days and considered the cost of what it was gonna take. I believe that’s really important, that when we are gonna stay the course, what God has us called to do is really understand what you’re getting into and count the cost.

 

  Yeah, and so, you know, when Nehemiah went before the king, the king asked him something, and first of all, the king said, you know, he said, “I wanna rebuild the city of God.” But then the king said, “Well, set me a time.” And you know, Nehemiah had a purpose, but he had to have a plan. And I’ve heard this before, that having a purpose without a plan is just like a pipe dream. And there are people that have, you know, they have an idea of what God wants them to do, but they have no idea of ultimately how to accomplish that. And, you know, we need a plan that comes from God. And we can get a plan that comes from God. There’s a number of ways that we can do that. But I believe that Nehemiah had practical steps that he laid before the king. And I believe ultimately when Nehemiah prayed, he prayed to God for favor. And I believe the reason that Nehemiah had so much favor with this king, with governors, with different people, and with the people, was because he had a plan. He had a practical application way to get it done. And you know what, if you don’t have a plan, you’re not gonna get a lot of favor. Go to the bank sometime and try to get money without a plan. They’ll laugh at you.

 

  Yeah. I was gonna have you read verse 10. So this is Nehemiah 2, and I’m gonna have you read verse 10.

 

  In verse 10, it says, “When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.” Do you know there are people today that they’re grieved over people who seek the welfare of the children of Israel. There are people just like Sanballat and Tobiah. I’m appalled that in this nation, the people that will chant sayings, even some of our people in high offices in the government, from the river to the sea, you know what that means? They wanna wipe Israel off the face of the planet. And these Muslim countries, actually, they own property that’s over 600 times the land space of Israel. But they wanna wipe Israel off the face of the planet. And people do things, they don’t even know what they’re doing. But I’m telling you, God is for Israel.

 

  Yes.

 

  And he’s gonna stand with them, and so, you know what, Sanballat and Tobiah, ultimately they were defeated, but not after, they caused a lot of trouble. And ultimately, they gained some people with them. Geshem the Arabian. I have this saying that misery loves company. So just because you’ve been called by God, anointed by God, appointed by God to do something, and maybe you got a few people helping you do it, and some people that are standing, doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna have problems.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And sometimes the people who come against you seem like they’re credible.

 

  Well, I heard a very inter, amazing and interesting testimony from a wonderful missionary friend that we support. She came and ministered at Flourish for us. And I love what she said. She said, you know, she grew up in Africa and she talked about her and her brother walking to where their mother worked and waiting for their parent. And they saw some fruit on the trees and it was high up, and they were trying to get to the fruit. So they were throwing rocks at that fruit, trying to get that fruit down before they were told to quit doing that and got in trouble and ran off. But she said that’s a lot like how people are, you know, we’re talking about Nehemiah here and what these people did to Nehemiah. She said sometimes people are jealous about the fruit in your life, and so they want it, and they might throw rocks at you, but ultimately, they’re jealous about the fruit in your life. And so that’s a great example that you read in verse 10. I’m gonna read in verse 19 and 20, it says, “But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us and said, ‘What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?’ So I answered them and said to them, ‘The God of heaven himself will prosper us, therefore we, His servants, will raise and build. But you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem.'”

 

  Yeah. And so this is the right thing. He said, “God will prosper us and we will arise and build. But you have no portion nor right.” You know, they tried to mock them, they tried to do all these things. They tried to, they scorned them. They actually lied about them and told things that were just complete lies. But ultimately, all that came to nothing. But Nehemiah had to be fixed on this course, on this purpose, on this plan from God. And he stayed at it. And you know what, when you get into chapter three, they built, first of all, the sheep gate. You know, this is a platform, really, for ministry. First of all, Jesus told Peter, “Feed my sheep. We need to take care of the sheep. Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” Then they built the fish gate. The fish gate, we need to, Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” And you know, Nehemiah had this purpose that came from God and he had a very good plan and he got all kinds of people. He got rulers, he got business people, he got servants, he got men, he got women, he got ministers of the gospel. You know, he got all kinds of people to come and stand with him to accomplish the purpose of God. But in the beginning, notice everybody wasn’t with him. And you know what, they didn’t give up easy.

 

  That’s right, we’re gonna go on now to Nehemiah 4:1. I like what you shared and summarized in chapter three, but again, Nehemiah 4:1 says, “But it so happened when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall that he was furious and very indignant and mocked the Jews.” Isn’t that something? He was furious.

 

  Yeah. And you know, you’re not gonna make everybody happy when you’re doing the will of God. There are gonna be some people that are gonna come and oppose you and they might violently oppose you. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not God’s plan and God’s will for you to do that. So you need to just keep at what God called you to do.

 

  We’re gonna go on down now. We’re still in Nehemiah 4:7 9. It says 

 

  Well let, we gotta read verse six.

 

  I’m gonna let you read verse six, go for it.

 

  So verse six is one of the key verses in this whole book. And I love it. Of course this is my heritage. But it says, “So we built the wall and the wall was joined together under the half thereof for the people had a mind to work.” You know, we live in a time when a lot of people don’t have a mind to work. And my dad taught me, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. And that’s a New Testament scripture. Somebody said, “How’s that fit in with grace?” I said, “I don’t know, but it’s in the New Testament. So I know it fits in with grace.” But it takes work to accomplish the plan of God. We call it the work of the ministry. And you know, they could not stop these people because they, number one, they knew what God called them to do. And number two, they were joined together in unity to do it. And number three, they had a mind to work. They weren’t afraid of working. And you know what, if you’ll get up early and go to bed late and keep working, if you’ll keep going to work, good things happen to people that keep going to work.

 

  Amen, well go ahead and read seven through nine.

 

  Okay. Verse seven to nine. “It came to pass when Sanballat, Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the,” see again, misery loves company, “Heard the walls of Jerusalem were made up and the breaches began to be stopped. Then they were very angry.” Do you know some people get mad when they see what God’s doing. “And they conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it. Nevertheless, we made our prayer to God and set a watch against them day and night because of them.” So man, they just kept praying to God and kept going.

 

  They had to keep 

 

  And they worked day and night.

 

  They had to keep a watch over some of these people. And in verse eight, the translation I have, the New King James brings it out this way. They tried to create confusion.

 

  This was their enemies.

 

  Yeah, but to create confusion, isn’t that just crazy? I think that’s just nuts.

 

  Well, the devil is the author of confusion and he’ll try to do all kind of stuff. But if you’ll stay at what God called you to do and get a few people to get behind you, that got God’s heart. You know, some people, not everybody’s gonna know the truth and not everybody’s gonna follow the truth, but some people do know the truth and some people will stay the course of time and stay the test of time. And I thank God for the ones that have.

 

  Now, I was gonna go on to Nehemiah 6, but is there some things you wanted to share before we go there?

 

  No, I mean, that’s fine. They worked together, they fought together. You know what they did? They got these people that had trumpets and when their enemies would come, they would blow the trumpet and then the people that were working on the wall would come to where their enemies were and fight together and run their enemies off. And they worked, actually it says in verse 21, “They labored in the work, half of them held spears from the rising of the morning, when the sun came up, till the stars appeared.” They just worked nearly day and night and they stayed at it. And you know, if you just get at it and stay at it and keep going to work, good things happen. Praise God. You can go on to chapter six.

 

  Okay, so we are gonna look at Nehemiah 6:3 9. “So I sent messengers to them saying, ‘I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to,'” you know, they kept wanting to pester them with meetings and meetings and meetings,

 

  You know, and Nehemiah didn’t get involved. We’re gonna come back and talk about this after a short break. So you’ll want to stay tuned. It’s gonna be great information that we share when we come back. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back. Blessings. Friends, we’ve been teaching from Barbara’s teaching on Stay the Course. And you know what, if you don’t quit, you’ll win in the realm of faith. So you can go to our website at CharisChristianCenter.com, you can get this downloadable audio, downloadable video, and hundreds of other teachings absolutely free of charge. Blessings. You know, my grandmother told me when I was just a little bitty child, she told me, “Birds of a feather flock together. And then a preacher told me a few years later, “Flocks fly the same place.” You know, there’s some flocks you fly with, you’re not gonna get what you want. And so you wanna hang around the right people. It’s very important the relationships that you have. Friends, we’re glad that you stayed with us and we’re gonna continue to share on Nehemiah. And we were just talking about how Nehemiah had a plan that came from God. He was fulfilling God’s purpose. He had people that were with him. But at the same point in time, there were people that came against him. And so you gotta just stay at doing what God called you to do.

 

  Amen, so we are in Nehemiah 6, and it talks about how they thought only to do harm, but in verse three, we’re gonna look at three through nine. Again, this is Nehemiah 6:3 9, “So I sent messengers to them saying, ‘I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease why I leave it and go down to you?'” They kept demanding these meetings with Nehemiah. “But they sent me this message four times and I answered them in the same manner. Then Sanballat sent his servant to me as before the fifth time with an open letter in his hand. In it was written, ‘It is reported among the nations and Geshem says that you and the Jews plan to rebel. Therefore, according to these rumors, you’re rebuilding the wall that you may be their king.'” Verse seven, “‘And you have also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning your Jerusalem saying there is a king in Judah, now these matters will be reported to the king. So come therefore and let us consult together.'” You know, we talked about earlier how they were trying to create confusion and strife, and verse eight and nine, I love it. “Then I sent to him saying, ‘No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart,’ for they were all trying to make us afraid, saying their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not be done.” Isn’t this amazing?

 

  Yeah. And there’s so many things that we can teach about leadership from this. First of all, you know, one way to kill a project is put a committee in charge of it. And you know, I had a good friend, he went to a traditional church, but he was in a committee and they wanted to get this very simple thing and all it amounted to was buying a VCR and mounting it. And they had meetings about it like three or four times. And this guy was an engineer, he was very highly paid, he was actually a genius. And he worked in the military, US military. And he just said, “Guys,” after about the third meeting, “I’m gonna take care of this.” And it was costing him way more in time than it was that he just went down and bought this VCR and mounted it himself and took care of it. And you know, sometimes people want to have all these meetings, and in fact, I’ve seen some structured type of ministry, and there are times to have meetings that are good and they’re productive where you’re pointing people in a direction and you get real good fruit from that. But there are times, sometimes people just have meetings about nothing that accomplished nothing. And you know, this was not Nehemiah wanting these meetings, this was his enemies requesting him to come down to a meeting and they were just full of lies. And you know, I love it that Nehemiah did not bow. He just absolutely said, you know, this is just all a lie that you’ve come up with in your own mind.

 

  What I’ve learned over the course of time with us in ministry, you really have to do, need to set boundaries around yourself, and you do need to be careful about who you allow to steal your time and energy.

 

  Right.

 

  If it’s not life giving, sometimes you just need to say no. I know a lot of times people will call and wanna have meetings and I always wanna know, “What is this meeting about?”

 

  Right.

 

  And I find this so interesting that it talks about five times they’re wanting to have a meeting. And I remember there was a time this person kept wanting to have meetings with you and they wouldn’t tell your assistant what it was about. And finally, when they said it was the fifth meeting, I went in with you and they had all these accusations and charges, and I just said, “None of that’s even true.” And it just reminded me, you know, the devil is the same, whomever he uses. And it’s so interesting when you see something in the Old Testament that’s still trying to regurge itself. And I love what it goes on to say in verse 16. “And it happened when all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw these things that they were very disheartened in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was done by God.” I love it that when we’re called to do something, his plans and purposes 

 

  Amen.

 

  Ultimately, God is to get the glory.

 

  Amen.

 

  And that’s just what happened here.

 

  Yeah, and you know, you’re talking about this instance and it was a miserable experience with these people and it was terrible the people that they got to follow ’em and all this challenge and difficulty. But I’m glad I can smile about it today. But you know, this just shows me, this was a person. And I said, “Well, they’re in this place, so I’m gonna give them a meeting.” And finally you set your foot down. You said, “You’re not having a meeting unless I go there.” And boy, they started bringing up these lies and you just said, “That’s an absolute lie.” And you just told ’em right to their face. And you know, but still, they seemed like, and that’s like these people that were fighting Nehemiah.

 

  Yeah.

 

  They seemed like they were credible, but you know what, even with all the disruption and all the mess those people called, when a work is of God, you cannot stop it. And I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that exact instance. And you know, recently, I needed to have just a short question answered from Andrew Wommack, but I value his time. And do you know what? I sent his secretary a very nice, respectful email, told her exactly what I was being challenged with, exactly what the issues were. And she called me and she answered most of it herself. And I thanked her and I said, “You know what? If he doesn’t even wanna call me, it’s okay.” I said, “It’s fine, you have answered it well enough and I understand that he knows what’s going on.” But Andrew actually called me. I said, “We don’t need to have a meeting,” but if Andrew wants to call me, he can. And he called me, but you know, I respect him enough to tell him exactly beforehand exactly what that was gonna be about. And you know, this person plainly didn’t have respect and they had had about four meetings and they’d come in and just regurgitate this stuff that was nothing but a bunch of lies and somebody had sewn strife into them. And you know what? You need to really be careful about accusations and stuff that are not true and all these different things. But at the same point in time, I can laugh about it now because you know what, I’ve told this to you, and I said it earlier this week in the broadcast that, you know what, if God has to bring the ravens to bring me bread and flesh in the morning, God’s gonna take care of me. And God has ultimately taken care of us. And even with all those problems that those people called thinking, you know, they seem credible. Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arabian and these wicked people seem credible, but they were full of the devil. And sometimes people can think they’re right, but they’re full of the devil.

 

  Well, I like what Nehemiah said, “I do not have time to come down from the wall and listen to your nonsense.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And I love what Matthew 5:11 12 says, you know, we’re talking about when we do the will of the Lord, not everyone celebrates it. In fact, the Bible says, “Blessed are you when you are persecuted.” And I feel like we really need to bring this out so people aren’t so shocked and stunned that it says, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Isn’t that interesting? Like rejoice and be happy!

 

  Amen. You know, Barbara, I’ve built three churches. And the way we operate here in Colorado Springs, we built two of ’em, is completely different than how we operated 

 

  Right.

 

  In Kit Carson when we were there. But we got through the building program in Kit Carson relatively well, and actually phenomenally, and we’ve done really well in the two programs that we’ve had here. But before I did that, I was involved in another church, a full gospel church, and I actually went to that church for seven years. I have great respect for the pastor, but we were in a building program and while we were in that, there were these people that had meetings and they got nothing accomplished. And not one of those people that came to those meetings showed up when we actually got in the building project and actually did the work. And in that case, we did a lot of the work ourselves, but it was a whole different group of people that showed up and actually worked and accomplished something. But some of these people, they just spend time in meetings. I’ve seen this, I’ve seen some of these ministry structures where people have meetings and meetings, and you know what? They do stuff and they think they’re accomplishing something and it’s accomplishing zero. But you know, some of these people think, “Well, if we keep the people busy doing nothing, at least they’ll think they’re doing something.” And you know what they’re accomplishing? Nothing in the light of eternity. It is a complete waste of time, a complete waste of energy. And you know what, I am not gonna do it just to appease people’s emotions.

 

  I like what you brought up, the importance of leadership, and we have just enough time to end something that I feel is really important to share, and that’s to stay renewed, stay renewed in the things of the Lord. And you talked about this earlier, but it’s worth repeating again. This is Isaiah 40:28 31. It says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, never faints, nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak and those who have no might. He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” It’s important that you wait on the Lord and stay renewed in Him.

 

  Amen, and you know, when you look at Nehemiah, Nehemiah did that.

 

  Mm hmm.

 

  He relied on the spirit of God, and ultimately, you know what? He rebuilt the wall, he restored the government, he restored the church, the word of God being read, and the priesthood. And there were amazing things that Nehemiah actually accomplished doing the will of God because he would not be deterred by the enemy. And you know, sometimes the enemy, again, looks credible. But you just don’t need to be deterred. You just need to stay doing what God called you to do. Amen. We used to sing this song, Sharon Daugherty, Billy Joe Daugherty’s wife, sang it years ago. “Don’t come down off the wall, you’re building for the Lord. Don’t come down from praying and standing on God’s word. Don’t come down, for ultimately you’re going to finish and you’re going to accomplish God’s plan and purpose.” Barbara, before we go off the air, we got about a minute left. I want you to pray for the people really quickly and then I’ll close out.

 

  Well dear Heavenly Father, we come to you in the precious name of Jesus. And we pray for those watching right now, that they are stirred up and getting revelation and understanding what you’ve called them to do. Lord, I thank you for sending the right people, the right Godly leadership to come alongside them, and Lord God that they rejoice, and with thanksgiving, let the request be made known to you that you are ordering their steps in Jesus’ name.

 

  Amen, friends, I wanna just tell you, thanks for being with us this week. Thanks for being with us today on the broadcast. You can go to our website. We actually have these broadcasts and we have hundreds and hundreds of hours of teaching. We have a free children’s curriculum. And they’re downloadable and they’re free of charge, and my partners make this available to you. So go there, and if you can, attend services physically this coming Sunday. If you can’t, you could watch us online at CharisChristianCenter.com, blessings. Friends, we don’t want to leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. Pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died for my sins and you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now, I surrender my life to your lordship. In Jesus’ name, amen. Friends, the scripture says, “If you will continue in the word of God, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” The word of God has blessed me so much and I want to make this word that I’ve received available to you. If you go to our website at CharisChristianCenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website as you watch ’em, as you listen, absolutely free of charge. And we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. I hope you’ve enjoyed the message today, enjoyed the word of God, and I believe that the word that has freed me will free you, blessings.

 

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