Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Crema Chaj podcast.
[00:00:06] Great. Thank you.
[00:00:09] Take a seat.
[00:00:11] I don't know.
[00:00:13] You hear the holiday adventure stories.
[00:00:17] You know, when our children were younger and when they were all good and dressed nicely, they were our children.
[00:00:26] But when they're naughty, they're your children.
[00:00:29] Have you noticed? The same with the car.
[00:00:32] When my car breaks down, it's my car. Okay. When it's running nicely, it's our car.
[00:00:37] The reason we were in my car and not her car is that her car only fits one person in.
[00:00:44] Okay. Tiny little thing. My car fits the whole family in there.
[00:00:52] Just defending myself.
[00:00:54] But it's all good. It's all working again. Now has four wheels, as opposed to three, which always works much better. Okay, let me give you a little building update because we've been a little quiet. We're like two thirds in. Okay. So I don't mean we're 2/3 of getting the money. I mean we're 2/3 of. In the time.
[00:01:19] So we said 12 weeks, we're 8 weeks where we've raised so far about 1.5 million. So that's good.
[00:01:34] That we need to raise a lot more. We need at least five.
[00:01:40] We're giving and God is providing.
[00:01:44] Tuesday at revival prayer, we're going to fast and pray. Well, actually, you can fast and pray all day. If it's just revival prayer, that's kind of fasting between meals, isn't it? Which we don't do.
[00:01:56] So we're going to fast and pray for the financial breakthrough.
[00:02:02] A few times I thought we were there. We talked to large donors, but a number of times they've fallen through. But what I've got, kind of every time, it's been really interesting. The last few weeks, just before we were on holiday, I think for two of the weeks, there were people in church that could actually write the check for 5 million.
[00:02:24] And each time the Lord says, I can do this whenever I want.
[00:02:28] This is not difficult for me.
[00:02:32] But what he's teaching us is about sowing and reaping.
[00:02:36] And so as we. As we sow, he multiplies it.
[00:02:41] And so, you know, I keep hearing testimonies, which I love. One of the testimonies, you know, somebody sowed 50 pounds and they then literally that week, 2,500 came in.
[00:02:53] So what do you do? Well, now you sow 250 pounds.
[00:02:57] Because what the Lord is doing is he's teaching us to get into a cycle of blessing.
[00:03:04] So it isn't that we sow 50, we get 2,500 go, oh, that's great. Or we sow a thousand and we get 10,000. We keep sowing, and as we keep going, we get into a cycle of blessing and the favor of God comes across people. That's what he wants to teach us.
[00:03:23] Some of you are now learning about offerings over your tithe. Why? Because God has blessed you so you have resources and you're able to give. I remember when we started, we were younger, we didn't have any resources. We were buying our home. We had young children, so we would often give out of our home. That's what it's always been.
[00:03:42] You know, as we were buying, we would buy and sell houses. We would buy a house and we would take some of that and put into the offering of the Lord because we wanted him to keep blessing us. All our spare money was tied up, but we had a heart of giving. That's what he taught us. And so as we do that, the Lord will multiply what we have and we will see the miracle.
[00:04:10] So we were at solicitors Thursday, I think, and the Cutoff date is the 14th of August.
[00:04:19] So what am I asking you to do? Well, firstly, show up on Tuesday and we're going to pray for financial breakthrough, but keep giving the money. Do you know, Let me just say one more thing. We're going to have a shorter talk.
[00:04:32] One of the things that have truly blessed me is a number of churches have given that are connected with us and some that aren't. I've just seen what God is doing here and wanted to bless us. And that is an incredible, credible thing of the unity of the body of Christ.
[00:04:49] So what am I asking you to do? Keep giving, keep praying. But more than anything else, keep believing for the miracle of God.
[00:04:58] Okay. He's taking us into the classroom of the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:04] Okay. This is not difficult for the Lord.
[00:05:08] So on Tuesday, we're going to pray some more. Right, let's jump back into Nehemiah. Nehemiah and Ezra are books about revival. How God brings his people out of exile into renewal. And that's what the UK needs.
[00:05:25] We are one. The UK is one of the first countries ever, really, that is post Christian. The UK and Europe, we have seen God move. We've seen him change our laws and bless us as a nation. But we have moved away from God's principles and are turning away from Him. So we are post Christian. But God will not forget his goodness.
[00:05:54] Okay? And God is sending a revival on our land. And we can see the early fruits of it. You can see it A little bit in the news as you talk with other churches, the salvation is in the air. There is a stirring. God is doing something.
[00:06:09] And so when we talk about revival and buildings, buildings are easy to God, okay? Reform is much more difficult because reform requires us to change our thinking and our ways to his thinking and his ways. So if you've got your Bibles, turn to Nehemiah 13.
[00:06:31] All right. Right at the end of Nehemiah. If you don't know where Nehemiah is, it's just after Ezra and Chronicles. So we're going to stand again Nehemiah 13 as we read the Word of God.
[00:06:45] Now, before this Eliaship, the priest having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God, was allied with Tobiah. And he had prepared for him a large room where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil which were commanded to be given to the Levites and the singers and. And the gatekeepers and the offerings for the priests. But during all this I was not in Jerusalem. For in the 32nd year of Artax Circuses King of Babylon, I had returned to the king.
[00:07:22] Then, after certain days, I obtained leave from the king and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliaship had done for Tobiah in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me bitterly. Therefore, I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms. And I bought back into them the articles of the house of God with the grain offering and the frankincense. I also realized that the portions of the Levites had not been given them. Each of the Levites and the singers who did the work had gone back to his field. So I contended with the rulers and said, why is the house of God forsaken?
[00:08:07] And I gathered them together and set them in their place. Then all Judah brought the tithe of grain and the new wine and the oil to the storehouse. And I appointed as treasurers over the storehouse Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and the Levites, and some of them that I can't pronounce their names, for they were considered faithful, and their task was to distribute to their brethren.
[00:08:33] Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for its services.
[00:08:43] Amen. Take a seat.
[00:08:46] Okay.
[00:08:49] As we've been going through Nehemiah, what are we learning?
[00:08:53] Firstly, for revival to take root, the house of God must be established. And we see the temple under Ezra and the walls being rebuilt under Nehemiah.
[00:09:06] Do not compromise with the world to obtain the things of God. That's the big temptation, okay? If we just do it as the world does, we'll obtain what God wants. No, when it is hard, stay in the presence. Don't go back to the fields. We're going to read about that. We've just read about that. And then keep the Sabbath holy unto the Lord. We'll do that in the next few weeks. And Jesus didn't die for clean air, okay? One of the problems was that as Jerusalem, the walls were being built, as God was moving in Jerusalem, not everyone wanted to move back to Jerusalem. They wanted to be by the beach. They wanted to live in the nice countryside. But God was moving in the cities.
[00:09:50] And one of the things that I've learned is that God didn't die for clean air. He died for people.
[00:09:55] And he moves in cities.
[00:09:57] And he died. He gave his life for where the people are. So we need to be where the people are, and we need to preach the Gospel to where the people are. And it's lovely living out into the countryside. And God bless you if you live in the countryside. And I want to live in the countryside with her car, okay?
[00:10:15] But in the countryside there are sheep. There are not people.
[00:10:19] And Jesus didn't die for sheep.
[00:10:21] He died for people. He died on the cross for them. Okay?
[00:10:24] Do not compromise with the world. That's what I want to talk to you about. Whether in your own personal life or building the church, do not compromise.
[00:10:34] If you have given your life to Jesus, now live for him.
[00:10:40] If he is worth following, he's worth following the whole way.
[00:10:44] Let's live all out for Jesus. And this passage we read is about a man called Tobiah who was an irritant to Nehemiah for the whole rebuilding of the walls and the restoration of Jerusalem. He's called Tobiah, the Ammonite servant. But his name means Yahweh is good.
[00:11:07] So the Ammonites were distant cousins of Israel. They descended from Lot.
[00:11:14] But they were people that always kept a distance from God's plan. During the Exodus, they refused to help.
[00:11:23] But no nation is without hope. And so before Babylon invades the whole territory, Jeremiah prophesied this. I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites.
[00:11:37] But what you have to understand is when you get a prophetic word, it is an invitation, okay? When God says, you know, maybe, you know, have ever some of you received prophetic words through, you know, your journey? Walk with Jesus? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You understand their invitations, right?
[00:11:54] God is inviting you into something. There is a response.
[00:11:58] And so when Jeremiah says, I will restore the fortune of the Ammonites, there is a response.
[00:12:07] But it looks like God has kept his word. Cause Tobiah is an ammonite.
[00:12:14] He has risen in the realms of power and the courts and influence of the king.
[00:12:23] But Tobiah has chosen the Ammonite way, not God's way.
[00:12:30] And one of the things I want to say to you is, you can have the name, but serve the wrong God.
[00:12:36] You can look good, you can know all the right people, but serve the wrong God. And the church is full of people who look good, who have power and influence. They speak as if they are gods, but they compromise with the world and bring the world's ways into the church. There is only one way to follow Jesus.
[00:12:59] Pick up your cross and follow him. It will cost you everything.
[00:13:06] But if you're willing to lay down your life, you will gain eternal life with Jesus.
[00:13:13] There is no other way.
[00:13:15] We come to the cross, we pick it up, and we walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:13:22] And Tobiah, the ammonite servant, represents compromise, discouragement, and worldly influence and persistent opposition. And if you're going to become a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are going to experience all these things.
[00:13:41] Jesus says, in the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.
[00:13:52] Say to the person next to you, all right. In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
[00:14:05] Jesus has overcome the world.
[00:14:09] Remember that good church.
[00:14:16] You see?
[00:14:17] What does compromise look like? Well, hath God really said.
[00:14:21] That's what the devil says when he tempts us. Hath God really said. Did he really say that?
[00:14:26] You know, I really. I desperately. You know, it's marriage season again, isn't it? There's like a wedding every 10 minutes at the moment. I know.
[00:14:34] So I'm pleased you're excited about it.
[00:14:39] But no, I'm excited as well.
[00:14:44] I'm excited. There's just a lot of them at the moment, don't marry. But God has said, you know, marry Christians, don't marry a non Christian.
[00:14:56] You see, Tobiah, somewhere along the line, had intermarried. It's one of the problems Nehemiah's dealing with.
[00:15:04] Then you say to me, but, Steve, you don't understand that.
[00:15:07] I feel like I'M fishing in a puddle, not a lake. There's not enough men. There's not enough women who are always telling me that there's not enough men. There's not enough women. There's men and women everywhere.
[00:15:18] Marry one of them.
[00:15:21] And he said, but I don't want to be alone.
[00:15:24] Let me say this. You're never going to be alone because the Holy Spirit has made his life in you.
[00:15:30] You're not marrying, so you're not alone.
[00:15:34] Because I can prom. Oh, I'm going off my notes and it's one o'. Clock. Let me.
[00:15:44] Anyone got married here? Did anyone get married? Own up. Are you? Anyone married? Come on, own up.
[00:15:50] Do you remember before you were married, there was that big empty loneliness and then you got married and it went for two weeks.
[00:16:04] And then on week three, it was back. And you're like, I married the wrong person.
[00:16:10] No, you didn't.
[00:16:11] You didn't marry the wrong person. The person you married cannot fill that hole. Only the Holy Spirit can.
[00:16:17] It's he who comes into your life and enables you not to be alone. And you see, the enemy will tell you a bad marriage is better than no marriage.
[00:16:32] What I'm saying is it's God's will that you're married. He wants you to be married. It's a command of God. But if you don't marry, he is sufficient for you.
[00:16:43] His Holy Spirit is sufficient for you. He will come and he will fulfill your life.
[00:16:52] Don't compromise discouragement. You know, my prayer didn't get answered how I thought it was, or it didn't answer quickly enough. You know, Bob got healed, but so far I haven't. And I understand why Bob is healed and I'm not healed because I know his life and he doesn't deserve to be healed. And I'm a good guy and I do deserve to be healed. And I don't know if he's got enough faith, but I've got faith. And you know, the discouragement can sometimes come in. But the story of Nehemiah and Ezra is the revival takes time. God is very patient.
[00:17:25] God works his purposes.
[00:17:27] And I want you to know Juliet and I have given our lives to this thing that God is going to move in this land.
[00:17:34] We've believed it, every part, every stage of our married lives together.
[00:17:41] And I'm telling you, there'll be times when you want to give up.
[00:17:45] But the thing that stops us giving up is the hope that God has put into us. Now, biblical hope is different from the way we use hope Today, you know, biblical hope is when, not if.
[00:17:58] We tend to, oh, hope I'll win the lottery.
[00:18:02] Yeah, I'm always hoping I'll win the lottery. I've never entered the lottery, but I'm hoping somebody will do a ticket for me and I'll just win. It's not gonna happen.
[00:18:09] That's not biblical hope. Biblical hope is something that we're absolutely sure.
[00:18:18] So it's when, not if.
[00:18:21] So, Anna, the prophetess, remember, Jesus is presented at the temple. She had biblical hope because she'd gone through life, she had married, she'd lost, her husband had died, she was still worshiping at the temple. And finally they present Jesus. And she says, I've lived for this. This is the hope that I would see the Messiah.
[00:18:44] This is what my life has been about. It wasn't about marriage, it wasn't about her life. It was so that she would see the Messiah. Jesus, I have been fulfilled in my biblical hope. And God puts. That's the hope God puts in us.
[00:19:01] You see, discouragement says, God has failed, he can't.
[00:19:08] He's run out of juice for me.
[00:19:10] But our living hope says Jesus is raised that I have an inheritance in heaven and that I live by his power and faith, that his purposes are revealed. That's what 1 Peter 1:4 says. You see, our hope anchors our lives to heaven, not earth.
[00:19:32] So no matter what happens, this is what Jesus when the troubles come, we're anchored there, not there.
[00:19:37] That's what we're talking about, worldly influence. The greatest temptation for the church today is to come in line with the world and the ways of the world. You know, I've talked to lots of people. Well, not lots of people. I've talked to a number of people that literally, you know, we're trying to buy a building. We don't have enough money. And they could write a cheque for £5 million. And for some of them, it'd be petty cash.
[00:20:03] But they want to make a business out of church.
[00:20:07] You know, we want to. You know, how can we make money out of this?
[00:20:11] You know, even this building, they're going, why aren't you renting it out?
[00:20:16] And you could make money. I'll tell you why we're not renting it out. Because there's so much going on here, we don't have time to rent it out.
[00:20:23] But even if we could, Jesus says, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.
[00:20:33] You see, God wants to establish houses of prayer, not houses of business.
[00:20:41] Now, Trust me. I believe he believes in business, and I believe in business. And I want you to be blessed and abundant and make money. But what God first establishes is his house of prayer and worship.
[00:20:55] You see, the church is for him, not us. This building is for him, not us. And we gather for him, not us. And anything we build is for him, not us.
[00:21:07] I don't want a business model for college court. I want a prayer model.
[00:21:12] What would it look like to pray God's blessing and favor over our new home?
[00:21:26] So Tobias symbolizes so many of the things that got them into exile in the first place. And look, I don't know. I may be up the wall, all right?
[00:21:39] But I would prefer as a church, as us to be outside and homeless, loving him, than to compromise with the world and lose him.
[00:21:55] That's the journey we're on.
[00:21:58] So this Tobiah, this problem of Nehemiah has.
[00:22:05] I love the Bible because it's so real. It just made me laugh when I read this. It's tragic. It's not funny at all. But my sense of humor. Do you know what they do with Tobiah? They give him an office.
[00:22:16] And they don't give him any office. They give him the office where the tithes and the worship and the frankincense and all the offerings to the Lord are meant to be. And they clear all those out and they give to buy an office.
[00:22:35] What were they thinking?
[00:22:41] That's why Malachi says, you're robbing God.
[00:22:44] Suddenly Malachi makes sense, right?
[00:22:47] When the prophet's going, you're robbing God. People aren't just robbing God.
[00:22:53] They gave the guy who was attacking them in office, in the tithe barn.
[00:22:59] And Nehemiah said. Nehemiah. I mean, there is a point where he pulls their hair out, but we're not out there.
[00:23:05] It grieved me bitterly. Therefore, I threw all the household goods of Tobias out of the room. Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms. And I brought back into them the articles of the house of God and the grain offing and the frankincense. What did Jesus do when he came? He cleansed the temple. What does the Holy Spirit do? He cleanses the temple. You and us. Nehemiah brings back all the articles of the house of God. The frankincense was the fragrance of prayer and worship. Psalm 100.
[00:23:34] Let my prayer be set before you as incense. The lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
[00:23:41] What am I trying to say?
[00:23:44] We want to see the city and our nation revived for Jesus.
[00:23:48] It's going to cost you everything, your whole life.
[00:23:52] Yes, you will get blessed on the way, but you will also battle with the Tobias who will want you to compromise. They will discourage you and they will encourage you in earthly ways.
[00:24:07] They will look good and they will have the right name. But they are serving the wrong God.
[00:24:14] And I want you to hear this, especially the next generation. You cannot bring the world into the church. Management techniques, business practices, self help seminars. The only person you want to bring into the church is he who whom fills it. The Holy Spirit.
[00:24:34] And that is whom we've gathered around the last 10 years.
[00:24:39] This is why we don't compromise in our own personal lives. Because he is in us.
[00:24:44] Why do I choose to live for Jesus? Because the Holy Spirit is within me. Why must I love? Because he loves. Why must I be sexually pure? Because he is holy. Why do I not marry a non Christian? Because what has light to do with darkness? Jesus was without compromise, refused worldly influence and overcame discouragement by the hope that was set before him. You and I, that's why Paul says the Corinthians, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
[00:25:19] Therefore, most gladly I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
[00:25:30] Therefore, this is a promise we don't claim very often. I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
[00:25:50] You see, God has no interest in buildings except buildings that are filled with prayer and worship.
[00:25:56] If you put anything else in, what happens is that the Levites and the singers go back to the field. That's what Nehemiah had seen.
[00:26:05] But when his house is established, when the frankincense is returned to his house, when the incense rises up to heaven, which is the prayers of God's people, His house is established.
[00:26:23] And as we gathered around his presence, the singers and dancers came from the fields.
[00:26:32] If you want to avoid compromise, stay in prayer and worship.
[00:26:40] If you want to overcome discouragement, hold onto your eternal hope.
[00:26:45] If you want to stay on fire for Jesus, resist worldly influence.
[00:26:50] You see, it's time to take the articles of God, the things that are precious to him, and bring them back into his house.
[00:27:02] And that's what he's doing. I mean, I'm going to finish with one quick story.
[00:27:08] When I was a young pastor, I was about 28, 29, homeless guy came into our church, gave his life to Jesus, just like People are here and probably will in a moment.
[00:27:24] We helped him get on his feet, brushed him down, taught him to worship.
[00:27:31] He was homeless. He even stayed in my flat for a while. So we housed him and we closed him. One night.
[00:27:38] I think he went to a party or something. Got paralytic drunk. Climbed onto the roof of our church building, fell asleep.
[00:27:48] Rolled off the roof in his sleep and broke both legs.
[00:27:56] He then sued me for loss of income.
[00:28:02] He never worked a day in his life.
[00:28:06] I was not pleased.
[00:28:10] You know, we had the insurance company down, everyone's around. And he would sit in the church, worshiping away. Cause what happened was he'd watch one of these programs. Have you been injured? Was it not your fault? So he phoned the number.
[00:28:25] I was not happy this week. This last week, I was out with a friend. We're walking along Southend Seafram. We're just chatting. He said, I'm going to use his real name. Because he deserves to be shamed.
[00:28:41] He said, do you remember Tony?
[00:28:44] Tony? It rose up in me. I said, yes, I do remember Tony.
[00:28:49] He's the one that sued me. He actually sued the church, but it felt like me, okay.
[00:28:55] And he said, yeah, that's him. That's him. He said, do you know he's back in church?
[00:29:00] And do you know he's now got a credit card?
[00:29:04] So I assume he's got a job.
[00:29:06] And you know, he comes and pays his tithe every single week. And this week, for some reason, the card machine wasn't working.
[00:29:15] So he wanted me to come to the cash machine with him. So he could get the cash out and give his gifts to God.
[00:29:24] What a God.
[00:29:28] I did ask. I said, does he paid it all back?
[00:29:35] You see, God takes people that are messed up, that are screwed up, that are sinners, that go this way and that way. And they disappoint us and they discourage us. And we want to. We want to give up and we want to go, Lord, I can't do this anymore. Why can't you just send revival and everything would all be okay?
[00:29:58] But God is working the wrong plan.
[00:30:02] And he takes a man who's homeless, who doesn't know any better.
[00:30:07] And 30 years later, he's working his purposes.
[00:30:13] What a God, you see, He's a God who restores the fortunes.
[00:30:23] He's a God who prophesies and says, I will restore your fortunes. If you will turn to me, the Ammonites, the people of Leicester. I will restore your fortunes. You see, God is calling us into his presence. He's calling us to see revival in this land.
[00:30:42] And he calls us together as a people. And together as a people, we say, yes, we will walk with you, Lord. I'm done. Go on, stand up.
[00:30:55] Thanks for listening to the Chroma Charge podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Chroma Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship, and how to donate, visit our website at Chroma Church.
