Nehemiah was a great leader of God’s people who coordinated the effort of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. There were enemies of God’s people who did not want to see the wall built. They tried to distract Nehemiah and strike fear into the hearts of those working with him. Sandballat and his cohorts gathered to fight against Jerusalem while the walls were being built (Nehemiah 4:7-8). Nehemiah’s servants used one hand to build and in their other hand they held a weapon to defend (Nehemiah 4:17). Nehemiah encouraged his followers to keep up the work and the fight, saying, “our God shall fight for us” (Nehemiah 4:20).

To the church at Ephesus Paul related that both Jews and Gentiles are one body, the church, the temple of God built upon Jesus, the foundation stone (Ephesians 2:16-22). Yet, while he was mending breaches in the church between Jews and Gentiles, he also had to warn against the attacks of Satan; in Ephesians 6:11, he wrote, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Followers of God in every age have had the double task of building and defending. However, we do not engage in these tasks alone. God builds and fights for us if we follow Him.

We are to build one another up, edifying each other in love (Ephesians 4:12-16). When you think of the word “edify” think of “edifice” — a building. Some things we can do to build up others are visiting widows and orphans in their affliction (James 1:27); teaching one another in singing (Colossians 3:16); and public reading of Scripture, with exhortation and teaching based on that Scripture (1 Timothy 4:13). Jude wrote of the need of Christians to be “building up yourselves on your most holy faith” (Jude 20).

But Jude also wrote of the need to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). Just as Nehemiah and his followers not only had to build but also be on guard against attacks from the enemy, we must not only be engaged in building up others, but also defending the faith against enemies of the truth. Many people gravitate to only doing one or the other. Some give only positive words to others, but are too cowardly to engage in defending against false doctrine. Some are always hunting down false teachers, but rarely give attention to building up their brethren. We must do both.

Some ways to defend the faith are to study God’s word to know what it says (2 Timothy 2:15; Acts 17:11) and to note by name those who are teaching false doctrine and identify what the teaching is and its effect (2 Timothy 2:17-18; cf. Romans 16:17-18). Each congregation should be aware of specifically which false doctrines pose threats to them in their particular time and place (Revelation 2:14-15).

Just as Nehemiah assured his followers that God would fight for them (Nehemiah 4:20), so God has provided the means by which we can edify one another and defend the faith today. The Bible, the Word of God, is able to build us up. To the elders of Ephesus, Paul said, “I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up…” (Acts 20:32). The Bible, the Word of God, is also our defense against the attacks of Satan. Notice the explicit and implied references to God’s word in the description of the armor of God in Ephesians 6:14-17. Will you put God’s word to use to build and defend?

-Mark Day

Amos 7:7-9 presents the image of the Lord with a plumb line in His hand. A plumb line was a weight hung from a string; when held up it would show the standard of what was plumb: true vertical. As a mason would hold this up to measure if the wall was truly perpendicular to the ground or whether it was compromised, so the Lord would hold up His standard on Israel.

When I was growing up, I learned in elementary school about the fear that the Leaning Tower of Pisa may collapse and the efforts that were being made to stabilize it. Towers fell back in Bible times and caused deaths (Luke 13:4). Everyone remembers where they were when they saw the towers of the World Trade Center collapse on September 11, 2001.

Israel in Amos’ day seemed strong financially. Amos 4:1-3 and 6:1-7 show snapshots of the luxury in which those in power lived. Many were accumulating wealth but were also oppressing the poor (2:6); the rich would bribe their way through legal decisions while the poor had no voice (5:12). They were headed for collapse if they did not straighten up. Through Amos, God called for measures to be taken to correct that which was compromised in their behavior and to stand firm on God’s word. He said, “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken” (5:14). The Lord did not want vain worship from people who were mistreating others, instead He pleaded, “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream” (5:24).

However, Israel would not heed. They were not plumb and would not correct the spiritual weaknesses making the wall unsound. So they would fall, “Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant” (Isaiah 30:12-13). Immediately after God pronounced that He will set a plumb line in the midst of Israel, He declared, “And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” (Amos 7:9). The northern kingdom of Israel, with its reigning dynasty of the house of Jereboam would be destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC, about thirty years after the reign Jereboam II.

Today the church of Christ is the Israel of God (Galatian 6:16). Christians are living stones built upon Jesus Christ the solid foundation and cornerstone (1 Peter 2:5-7). We are the spiritual house of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, who fulfilled the prophecy of 2 Samuel 7:13. How do we measure up against the plumb line? Are we a solid, steady pillar that supports the truth (1 Timothy 3:15)? Are we “an holy temple in the Lord” where God dwells among us (Ephesians 2:20-21)? Or have we compromised with the world, seeking sin instead of righteousness? Judgment will come to the house of God that does not stand plumb on His truth just as it did on Israel in the Old Testament and to the temple in the first century AD (1 Peter 4:17).

-Mark Day

Far too much preaching in many religious circles today neglects the subject of the Judgment. People want Jesus to be their friend to help them have their best life now, but what about the message of Jesus being appointed as the Judge of the living and the dead on that final day (Acts 10:42; 17:31)? Judgment is not popular; the masses who want their ears scratched have no appetite for it, but if they do not repent and love His appearing they will not receive a crown of life from Jesus, the righteousness judge (2 Tim. 4:1, 3, 8).

To remove the doctrine of the final judgment from our teaching about Jesus undermines His mission and identity. Jesus is to be taken seriously in regard to final judgment. He said, “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (Jn. 12:48). C

onsider John 5:22-23, where Jesus said, “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.” Jesus cannot be cast aside as just another religious teacher, or someone we may or may not choose to have as a friend. What we do with Jesus is of ultimate importance. If we do not believe He is the I AM, we will die in our sins (Jn. 8:24). Whether or not we confess Him before men will determine whether He confesses our name before the Father to grant us access into eternal fellowship with God, eternal bliss (Mt. 10:32-33).

However, many who claim to follow Jesus only focus on the blessings He can give in this life; they are like the masses who came to be fed with bread but had no appetite for His hard sayings (Jn. 6). Think about how integral final judgment was to Jesus’ teaching. Take the book of Matthew for example: to the persecuted for His sake, Jesus promised blessings in heaven (5:11-12); to those who claim to follow Him, but do not do His will, He warned of that day when He will say, “I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (7:21-23); He taught fear for Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell rather than fearing those who can only kill the body (10:28); He warned entire cities of their great fall in the day of judgment (11:20-24); He alerted people to the fact that in the day of judgment, they shall give an account of every idle word they have spoken (12:36-37); He gave the vivid illustrations of the wheat being separated from the tares on that day (13:29-30), the good fish from the bad (13:47-51), and the sheep from the goats (25:31-46); in plainer terms, He showed how the faithful servants would be separated from those who abused their master’s trust (24:45-51), and that a reckoning would be made of how the master’s goods were used (25:14-30); He warned the false religious leaders of their path toward eternal damnation (23:13-33), and He appealed to all men concerning that final day, His marriage to His bride, the church—that they be ready instead of being caught without a wedding garment (22:1-14) or not having enough oil to be ready if the bridegroom tarries (25:1-13).

Ultimately, Jesus came to die to save us on that final day (Mt. 18:11). We come together to remember His death in the Lord’s supper and look forward to that final day (Mt. 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 11:26). Yes, He can help us in this life, but our focus should be on what He has done so that we can go into life eternal on the day of judgment rather than getting our deserved everlasting punishment (Mt. 25:46). – Mark Day

The church is essential in God’s eternal plan of redeeming man. God’s wisdom is shown through the eternal plan He had for the establishment of Christ’s church, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11). Jesus came to the earth to fulfill this plan and promised to build His church (Matthew 16:18). Jesus functions as its foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11) and head (Colossians 1:18). The church was so essential that Christ shed His blood to purchase it (Acts 20:28). Jesus gave Himself, His very life, for the church (Ephesians 5:25). When He returns one day He will present her to His heavenly home as a husband who brings home His bride (Ephesians 5:27).

However, many have a concept that removes the church from being essential to salvation. A common teaching that has circulated throughout the religious world for years is the concept that one is saved and then joins the church of one’s choice. In Acts 2, there were not multiple denominations with various beliefs and practices that served as options for those wanting to follow Christ. There was but one church: Christ’s church. When men felt the guilt of their sins, they asked what to do (Acts 2:37). They were told to repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins (Acts 2:38). Those who gladly received this instruction were baptized and added by the Lord to the number (Acts 2:41); after all, the Lord adds the saved to the church (Acts 2:47). This one church “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Multiple doctrines and fellowships were not a part of the Lord’s plan; His plan was for His followers to be one, united in one body (John 17:20-21; Ephesians 4:3-6).

Today when many people think of a church, they think of a building or a denomination; however, the New Testament never alludes to the church in these ways. It speaks of the church being a body of people: men and women. When Saul persecuted the church, he was entering into houses and dragging of men and women to prison (Acts 8:1-4). To do this to Christ’s saved body was tantamount to doing this to Christ Himself (Acts 9:4). First Corinthians 12 uses the illustration of a physical body to highlight the roles of individual members in the body of Christ. As the head controls the body, Christ rules over the church. God’s eternal plan called for such and He fulfilled it in that He, “hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23). God did not design different churches for the Jews and Gentiles, different though they were, but rather designated that reconciliation to Him would be found in the one body, the church of Christ (Ephesians 2:16).

Instead of pulling down the church from its essential place in God’s plan of salvation to an optional matter to suit one’s personal desires, the exalted and essential place of Christ’s church as revealed in God’s Word ought to be recognized. We are not here to “improve” upon God’s plan for the church, but to recognize how His plan is superior to the mess men often create.

 

-Mark Day

When Jesus was about to leave this world by His death on the cross, He prayed to the Father for His disciples, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14-16). While Jesus’ death and resurrection would spell defeat for the prince of this world (John 12:31), the devil can still lure the disciples of the Lord into eternal ruin. Christ’s victory will be consummated at the end when He delivers up the kingdom to the Father and death, the last enemy, is destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:24-26). In the meantime, children of God must still live in a world that lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19).

While Christ’s followers are to be distinct from the world just as He was not of the world (John 17:16; cf. Romans 12:2), He does not desire that they be removed from the world. Our task is to fight a cosmic conflict. Our Lord has not commissioned that we be withdrawn from the world, but rather go out and engage the world with the Gospel (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47). We must confront the world while not being confused with the world. The Pharisees so separated themselves that they despised Jesus for eating with publicans and sinners; He did not participate in their sin with them, but as a physician heals the sick He brought them to repentance (Matthew 9:9-13). Matthew himself was one of these. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, holding up the truth for the world, that men may be saved by coming to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4; 3:15).

Jesus identified His followers as salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). Salt preserves and purifies. It was used in sacrifices and offerings (Leviticus 2:13; Ezekiel 43:24; Mark 9:49). Elisha used salt to purify poisoned waters of Jericho (2 Kings 2:19-22). Christians are the chief preserving agents of righteousness in the world. Without them the world would look like it did before the Flood—God’s universal punishment. Then the wickedness of man was great on the earth, men’s hearts were only imagining evil continually, and the earth was filled with violence; the only exception was Noah—the preacher of righteousness—and his family, the eight souls who were saved by water while the ungodly were drowned (Genesis 6:5, 11; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5). Light shines in the darkness and stands out. Paul’s desire for Christians at Philippi was not that they would be identified with the world, nor be removed from the world, but, as he writes, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life” (Philippians 2:15-16a).

Salt can lose its savor and light can grow dim; beware, this world can contaminate the Christian. However, let us also remember that the devil came to our Lord while He was alone in the wilderness (Mark 1:13). Conflict with the spiritual powers of darkness is part of the Christian life; we must stand wearing the armor of God instead of turning our backs and retreating (Ephesians 6:10-18).

-Mark Day