Rebuilding the Walls (Surveying the Wall)
Teacher’s Guide Page
A. Nehemiah Survey’s the Wall
Nehemiah knew that if they were going to rebuild the wall, they would first have to survey the damage to see just how much work needed to be done and the condition of the wall that had been there before.
1. Explain that just as God was with Nehemiah, guiding his steps in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, He is with each one of us as His children. He has called every one who belongs to Him through Christ to rise up and be wise and to have Spiritual walls around this temple.
He has called us to build these strong walls so that we can live a life of victory against Satan, our adversary, the thief that comes to destroy. It is not the will of God that we be oppressed by sin and death! He has called us into new life, eternal life, an abundant life!
John 10:10 “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundtantly.”
We cannot live an abundant life for Christ if we allow Satan to come in and take over our minds and make us slaves to sin. We can have a life of victory by walking in the Spirit. We learned in the first lesson of this series that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Romans 12:1)
2. Explain that we cannot do this alone! We must allow God to do this in us. He has begun a work in each and every child of God that will be completed. We must be a faithful and willing servant and surrender to His hand and allow Him to create in us a pure heart and a heart to serve Him and obey His ways. (Psalm 51:10; Philippians 1:6)
3. Explain that like Nehemiah we must survey the walls. We must begin to take a very close and honest look at our own lives and see the weak areas in which the enemy continues to attack. Those are the area where he can get us every time if we do not take surveillance and allow God to build up strong walls around those areas so that we are not vulnerable to oppression and strongholds of sin in those areas. We must not ignore these weak places for fear that will seem bad. We must look closely at those weak areas and know that Satan WILL NOT IGNORE THEM! In fact, he surveys our walls very closely so that he knows what areas he can sneak in and attack! (Revelation 3:2)
The exiles in Nehemiah’s day, had come back to Jerusalem and met with opposition and had just stopped the rebuilding. They risked everyday attacks from enemies and that meant risking once again being enslaved. We risk the same things when we do not have spiritual strong walls. We must survey the walls so that we can strengthen the things that remain, so that we can make strong those weak places. (Luke 14:27-31)