24 February 2008  8AM
Teacher Anton De Gruchy

Ezra 9:9
What was so important about the wall, and what is its purpose?

It is for protection, that's why we have gates and electric fencing. It's all for protection. With a wall you need a gate. The purpose of a gate is to regulate inflow and outflow.

What about walls in our own lives?
Prov 25:28 – if you have control over your own spirit and are able to maintain your spirit, it's like having a wall around your life. We can build walls in our own lives to protect ourselves from what life is throwing at us.

Job 1:10 – God had put a hedge around Job and his household, and the devil couldn't get to him. He had a wall of protection around his life, and the devil couldn't touch him.

How do we go about building a wall and strengthening our lives that we may have a layer of protection against what the world throws at us?

We need a wall that built upon the foundations of apostles and prophets. If our walls are going to have the wrong foundations, we are going to have wrong walls. Eph 2:20

Rev 21:14 – 20: the wall of the New Jerusalem is built on the names of the apostles of Jesus.

The foundations of our lives are very important. If it is built correctly, you can build a strong building upward from that foundation. If the foundation is built incorrectly, the building will crack and crumble, and fall.
It's very important to know what you are building and what you are building on.

Amos 7:7 – We need to build straight.

What is our wall and what provides our protection?

Faith is part of our wall; along with righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).
This needs to be established in our lives because that alone gives us an incredible amount of stability and protection against the world.
When righteousness is established you will not waver when the world tries to throw guilt at you. If you don't know where your joy is rooted and if you don't have that wall of protection, the world will easily be able to steal your joy with difficult circumstances.

The armor of God is part of our protection (Eph 5).

Submission also gives us protection.

Gates regulate what goes in and what comes out.
Mt 12:33-35 – out of the abundance of the heart, a man speaks.
Prov 23:7 – as a man thinks in his heart so is he.

What you put into your life is what will come out.

Phil 4:8-9 – what are you meditating on? What are you allowing into your life? What we read and what we see affects the way we think, the way we speak, and the way we act.
Unfortunately, we often open the gate to one thing and anther thing happens. When you open the door in your life for certain things, do you know what else you're opening to door unto?
Computer games is a good example, especially first person shooter games. Role playing games is also dangerous. What do you expose yourself to regarding books, movies, programs, toys your kids play with? Who do you associate with and where you do associate with them? Clubs, bars etc. what are these people speaking into your life or are you speaking the Word into their lives? It's okay for you to minister to people, but you have to have your wall of protection up so that they do not over power and influence you. That's why is often not a good idea to go back into the area where you have come from lest you be drawn back.

Be careful what medication you take – certain drugs that are meant to help people often help produce psychotic mad-men. If you break an arm and keep taking pain killers, have you dealt with the broken arm? No. If you are depressed and keep taking anti-depressants, have you dealt with the depression? No. Anti-depressants are psychological pain killers. They numb the depression, they don't deal with the cause of it.

What is the wall of protection relating to the body of Christ?
We often hear that you victory is ours and your defeat is ours. We feel your victory and we feel your defeat.
There's a wall in the body that we all stand together. When someone is down, it's fine but then someone in the wall needs to cover that area and pick the person up. If you are not pulling your weight, your side is easy to be taken out.

The skin is your protection on a physical body. For the body of Christ, our protection is to stand together and resist together. This we do in households ('homecells').
It is also within the body that we can learn to develop strongholds of faith. This is done through discipleship, teaching, preaching, impartation of gifts.

1 Sam 25:16 –     David's men were a wall to Nabal's shepherds in the field.
That is what we can be to each other. We can be a wall of protection to each other.

We get taught in the body, how to regulate our gates. We are taught to discern.
Leadership regulates who teaches and what is taught. This way we are not tossed to and fro by winds of doctrine. If something false is taught it gets corrected. This is part of the protection of being a body.
There are watchmen in the towers. There are people who pick up what's going on in the spiritual realm and warn the body of things to come.

What happens when we're trapped inside our own walls?
What happens when we've built walls for ourselves as protection from life but then have ended up building a prison? How do we break out of that? How d owe go about breaking down that wall?
You have got to tear down wrong strongholds in your life, and you have to build up new strongholds of faith so that you are protected by the Word of God and by the body and not by your own ways.

Josh 6:5 – they took down the wall of Jericho by faith.
A shout is a brilliant way to break out of the walls you have built. Most importantly, it is by faith that we shout and break down strongholds. If you are on the inside of your walls, you have to be prepared to let people help you.

Neh 13:15 – where is your focus on a Sunday? Sunday should be set aside for God, but also to rest, relax from the previous week and regroup for the week ahead. If church is optional for you on a sunday, then you are missing out on something. Plan Sunday's activities around church.
Christ is our sabbath, but there is a sense that we need to rest from interacting with the world.
We get polluted enough for 6 days of the week; one day of the week we need to do our washing.

If you don't have a wall, what is the point of a gate? Sundays are important to build walls for our lives by studying and hearing the Word of God. Being active in the church build walls in your lives so that when the devil throws darts at you, it just hits the wall.

How good is your firewall that protects you?