Build with Weapons and Tools

I am happy, honored because I can participate with you in this challenge that the Lord has given you. In the Bible we find the history of the people of Israel and we see that in God's dealings with Israel God challenges the people constantly.

You remember, and I do not have to repeat the whole story, but remember that the people of Israel, after having been established in their land, build the temple, the temple in Jerusalem, first they had raised the tabernacle in the desert, the Lord asked His people : Bring things to raise the tabernacle, he also told the people: Bring things, in due time, to build the temple, and the Lord wanted to dwell in the midst of the people, and a House was built for the Lord.

This morning I said in the first service: do you think that God needs a place to be with His people? no, but it gives us the privilege that He wants to dwell with us and dwell among us, and have communion among us, for that is why He said to His people: Build a House for me where I can be with you.

Over time, the people know that they disobeyed the Lord and the Lord has His way of rebuking, and the most interesting thing is that the rebuking that the Lord does is always with love. And we see this because the Lord, if I had been Moses, and I am not, do you remember what happened when Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the tablets of the law? the others say: hmm Moisés is taking a long time. Shall we have a barbecue in the meantime? I don't know if they are Argentine or not, we make a goat, a leg, no. But it was delayed.

And then they can't think of a better thing to say than to say: we don't know this God, why don't we make ourselves a God? and they make a golden calf. And when Moses comes down he is angry, inflamed, indignant because the people of God, to whom God fifty days before, because when the people receive the law it is exactly 50 days after the departure from Egypt, and the Lord could have told them: Ah, I treat them like this, I release them and this is how they treat me? I forget, it's over, I'm going to another town. I will choose the Persians, I will choose the Greeks, I will choose the Romans.

No. What does the Lord do? The Lord punishes and forgives, and gives them a new opportunity. And the lesson we learn, if there is anything we learn from the Word of God, is that God's relationship with His people is a love relationship based not on what the people deserve but on God's eternal love. To such an extent is His love for us that He gives us the privilege of being participants in His Work.

And as I said this morning: do you think that God needs us? He owns the universe, but he gives us the opportunity to show our love and appreciation by participating in the Lord's Work and being visionaries. And this is how the people sinned many times and God allowed it, we find in the Bible that God commands the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, destroy the temple, destroy Jerusalem, the people of Israel are taken into captivity and seventy years pass, and the people repent, and a group returns to Jerusalem from captivity.

And then they begin to build, we find in the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah that they return from the captivity of Babylon and begin to build the temple, their houses, their vineyards, their temples, their barns, and after having built for a while a little remained: ta' enough, this is enough, and they did not finish completing the building and construction of the House of God and the walls of Jerusalem.

To the point that Nehemiah listens, he comes to him, he was the king's cupbearer in Persia, and he hears that the people of God who returned to Jerusalem began to get discouraged and did not continue working on the work as God had asked them, as God expected . So Nehemiah prays to the Lord and finally the king says: what's wrong with you? He says: I am a little sad, I am a little sad because I have received news that my people in Jerusalem are losing their vision, they are losing their strength.

And then the king tells him: maybe you have to go there, and it was the work of the Lord. And Nehemiah once again encourages the people to continue with the work, and he did not tell them: things are going to be easy, the problems are going to be solved, but he tells them on behalf of the Lord how they should continue working to fulfill their goals. the command of the Lord. And this morning I want to share the minutes that I have left: the mandate of the Lord is sending us, you and me, so that we continue working with all boldness in the Work of the Lord.

And brothers, this connector is not a connector simply to connect two buildings. It is a connector that indicates that the Work of the Lord continues and that we have not finished. And hopefully in five years Roberto says to me: David, are you coming to preach? because we are going to make such a new building, and in twenty years when I come with my crutch moving the wheelchair: David I want you to preach to me because we are going to make such a building; and as long as the Lord gives me strength we will continue, because until the Lord says enough is enough, we cannot stop. Sometimes the brothers say: And Pastor, when are you going to retire? I can't find the word retirement in the Bible (laughs) so as long as the Lord gives us strength we will continue on.

And this morning I want to read a passage that we find in the Book of Nehemiah, which is the exhortation that Nehemiah gives to the people when he comes back and sees that the people are getting a little discouraged. I don't think they are getting discouraged but I want us to understand that the vision that the Lord is sending us to make the connector and move forward is a vision of the Lord, it is something that the Lord wants. It is something practical, but it is what the people of God are carrying out to carry out the Work of the Lord.

Let me read the passage that we find in the Book of Nehemiah chapter 4, I think I've given you a little bit of historical context, this is approximately 400 B.C., probably almost 100 years after the first Jews returned from Babylonian captivity. and they began to rebuild everything because they were already calm.

Then he says: "The enemies of the people of Israel began to worry because the people of Israel continued to work. When Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he became very angry and enraged and made fun of the Jews; and he spoke in front of his brothers of the army of Samaria" remember that at this time Samaria was the enemy of the people of Israel, "and he said: what are these weak Jews doing, will they be allowed to offer sacrifices again? will they be finished in one day? will they rise from the heaps of dust the stones that were burned? And Tobias the Ammonite stood by him and said: "Those who build the stone wall, if a fox climbs it, it will tear it down" were making a mockery of what the people of God could do.

"Then Nehemiah says: oh, hear our God that we are objects of their contempt and return their shame on their heads, and deliver them as plunder in the land of their captivity. Do not cover their iniquity or their sin, be erased from before because they were angry with the builders."

Verse 6: "So we were building the wall and the whole wall was finished up to half its height because the people had courage to work; the walls of Jerusalem were being repaired because the gates were already beginning to be closed, they became very angry, and they conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem."

Verse 13: "Then in the lower parts of the place, behind the wall, and in the open places I placed the people by families with their swords, with their spears, and with their bows. Then I looked and stood up, and said to the nobles and to the officers, and the rest of the people: do not fear before them. Remember the Lord, great and terrible, and fight for your brothers, for your sons, for your daughters, for your wives and for your houses" I loved what they said here : we are not building this for ourselves; our children, our grandchildren will one day continue to use what we are raising. Let us remember that what we are doing is not for us, it is for the Lord to use it, not only for us but for those from generation to generation.

Verse 15: "And when our enemies heard what we had understood and what God" how? what we had understood because they had to understand, the people of Israel had to understand the vision that God was giving them because sometimes, brothers, we do not realize it and the Lord has to explain it to us. Maybe we need a Pastor, a leader, a servant, someone who comes to us, because the Lord gives him a vision, he has to transmit it. I thank the Lord because God continues to raise up leaders like Pastor Miranda who explain to us the vision they receive from the Lord.

God uses. I am celebrating 50 years in the ministry, I don't know how many churches I built, how many missions, how many constructions I did, but someone with vision is always needed and to make others understand the vision that the Lord is giving us.

Verse 16: "From that day half of my servants worked on the site and the other half had spears, shields, bows and breastplates, and behind them were the heads of all the houses of that city. Those who built the wall, those who carried, those who carried with one hand worked on the work and in the other had the sword, because those who built each had the sword girded on their loins and thus built. The one who blew the trumpet was next to me."

"And I said to the nobles and the officials, and to the rest of the people: the work is great and extensive. And we were separated on the wall far from each other. In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet meet there with us, because our God will fight for us."

What do we find in this verse? most of it already explained. But the Lord is calling His people here to continue a work that they had continued, to continue a work that they had begun. Not all people in Nehemiah's time were aware of God's mandate and vision. God needed to awaken in the people a mission that they were forgetting.

Today for many of Christianity, the Church, we were talking with Mercedes, with the Pastor between the two cults, and I believe that we are reaching a moment when the Church of Christ, the Truth of the Church is going to be shaken. I wish I could tell them otherwise and I wish I could come here and preach to them, and tell them that things are going to be better, that the world is going to accept us, that everything is going to be nice, it's not like that.

What I was commenting on is: for the first time in the history of this country of the United States, for the first time in the history of this country there is not a single believer in the Supreme Court of the United States. And all of our laws that are being made against colleges like Gordon College and these things are trying to limit our faith, it ends up in the courts and it ends up in the Supreme Court, there won't be a single Supreme Court justice that I love or respect. the Word of God. We will be on trial.

And God wants us to put our faith not in man but our faith in the Lord. But here he does not tell the people: rest, the Lord is going to fight, no, no. The Lord is going to fight but you are going to work. The tools on one side and the weapons on the other side.

And if we here in Boston are going to build the work of the Lord, we are going to do it with both hands and awake, and alert, knowing that we are going to be attacked. Brothers: I wish I could preach another message to you but the Word of God does not allow me, because I believe that the Church of Christ is being attacked. It is being attacked by the courts, by a society that does not understand us, because now it is not politically correct to follow the Gospel and the doctrines that we have been taught, and the Word of God is not politically correct, and as I said this morning in an article I recently wrote: here we have two options: either we are politically correct for the world or we are politically correct for God and the two are not compatible.

I wish I could say that the courts are changing and society is changing, and we are more accepted, and are more tolerant of the Word of the Gospel or the foundation of our sound doctrine, but it is not like that, it is the other way around. But God wants this people to be found faithful. God requires that His people be found faithful.

But there are not only external enemies, there are also internal enemies, sometimes discouragement is an enemy in the Church, right? I am already entering with my wife, we have passed 40 years of Pastorate now, sometimes there is discouragement. Again and another effort to build more, and another. There is discouragement.

Sometimes we don't understand each other. Sometimes everyone seems to want their little work and here what happened is this, and Nehemías said: sometimes it seems that we are separated, the wall seems very big. I'm doing my little job there, the other is doing his job here, I'm on the fourth floor, on the second floor, you're over there, I'm here, no, no, just be careful: we're both in the same room Hey?

And he says: we are separated along the wall but we are all on the wall. We can be separated in our different ministries but we are all in the ministry, so he says: when you hear the sound of the trumpet come because the Lord is with us. No fighting, no victory. God's people have to be on their guard. While the people around us are going to look at our weaknesses, our faith must be placed in the Lord.

We just built and finished this week, thank God, a building in the heart of Brooklyn, New York, it is the Charles Filmberg Messianic Center where we have our seminary graduate school of Messianic Jewish studies. Brooklyn is the largest Orthodox city in the world. To give you an idea: in Jerusalem there are 120,000, in Brooklyn there are 400,000. Brooklyn's Jewish population is 750,000, Brooklyn, I'm not talking about Manhattan or anything, huh? Brooklyn. The center of religious Judaism is Brooklyn, and there in the heart like a thorn in the flesh we have built a center for the glory of God.

Brothers: there is not a day that we are not attacked. From: I have been put on the internet as a child molester so far next week we have the curator of the dead sea scrolls from israel and the director of the jerusalem bible museum from the state of israel as our guest to give a conference, and already the whole community of New York is writing letters and threats to him, to come and join us who believe in Jesus, but the Lord gives us the victory.

I was telling you, a few years ago we had the joy of having a messianic center in Jerusalem. I am the one who signs the papers and goes to our ministry's jail and when I signed, the moment we signed the contract for the purchase of our property in Jerusalem that day, that same day we were sued four times, and they continue from there, right? ? and there is opposition. But Lord, we went to court and by law, and we have won in Israel! We have won every trial.

Because what does it say here? "He" who will fight here? "our God will fight for us." But like, then, do I have to put down the sword, do I have to put down the weapon, do I have to put down the tool? no no. "Look, I command you to make an effort and be brave, and I will be with you." "In the world you will have afflictions, but take heart."

See how this works. The Lord tells me to do something that seems impossible but then he tells me: it will be difficult. I am going to say: no but then you are sending me to failure. No, I am sending you to victory, because they believed they had won when they crucified My Son Jesus and in hell they were celebrating, because at the moment Jesus says: Father, into Your Hands I commend My Spirit, Satan gathered everyone their princes: let's celebrate, we win! and they were in pure spree and in pure party; and on the third day, who comes walking among them? ruined the party.

He says: I am the one who was dead and lives, and I live forever and ever. That is the one who promises that in the midst of the fight he will always be with us. If God is with us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, is he not going to give us the famous connector together with Him? because this is not a monument to the Church, it is a monument to the Work and integrity of the Lord.

And when I sometimes wondered this morning: why? Julia reminds me, do you remember how difficult it is here when winter sets in, to walk outside? yes I will remember One time when I was a student at Harvard I was taking between the exit of the train, from the train to my classroom, I fell on the ice, I broke my leg, I wish there had been a brother to help me right?

God gives us things, but more than anything he gives us a vision. In this vision the Lord tells me: You make the effort that I will be with you, but have weapons on one side and tools on the other.

And I want to end by offering a distinction because here the Lord makes a distinction between a weapon and a tool. Many times we think that we are going to win spiritual battles with earthly weapons, no. We are going to win the spiritual battles with spiritual weapons that are: prayer, the study of the Word, right? Those are the weapons with which the Lord has equipped us to fight and fight, and He will give us victory if we use them.

Brothers: spiritual battles cannot be won with earthly weapons. Do you remember when they came to take Jesus Christ in Gethsemane, Peter drew a sword and wanted to defend Jesus? And what does Jesus say, how lucky Peter that you brought the sword? Pedro, who commanded you to bring a sword? My struggles are going to be fought with my weapons and brothers, let us have faith that the Lord is going to equip us, he is going to give us the weapons we need to carry out this work, but he also gives us tools that are different.

It says that here while they were building the walls of Jerusalem, raising that city, it says that on one side they had the weapons and on the other side the tools. He gives us spiritual weapons, what are the tools? The tools are: health, work, effort, the gifts that the Lord has given you, the possibility of contributing to the Work of the Lord.

And this morning we have been given a challenge, a challenge to continue working, to make the connector possible, and that when the connector is finished, the Lord give him the vision to do something else; I don't know what you are going to do, the Lord does know, but don't stop having visions, don't stop having great things because until the Lord says: Enough, we will continue working in the Work of the Lord. Until the last person who does not know Christ has entered the Book of Life, we and the León de Judá Congregation Church will continue to work faithfully for the Work of the Lord. If the Lord doesn't say enough, don't stop working, amen?

Brethren, we have a challenge. The challenge is to share the vision of what God wants, keep working, keep working. Don't let discouragement enter. That we do not trust our own accounts because the Lord will make it possible not for our glory, but for the glory of the Lord. I know that just as the Lord has blessed you to this day, the Lord will continue to bless you until the Lord calls us into His Presence and tells us: Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in a little, in much I will put you, enter the glory of your Lord, amen? May the Lord bless us (applause).

Pastor Miranda: While we are there brothers we are going to prepare ourselves, prepare your heart for this moment to give to the Lord, come to the end and we are going to do something very simple. You already have your offering prepared or your promise prepared, in a few minutes we are just going to invite you to come forward here, these tables are going to be placed a little to the front, so we are going to ask that the brothers according to the position of the different tables, the one closest to you, come and bring your offering.

But let me just put a full stop to this precious and accurate Word from our brother David Sedaca. The Lord brought a thought to my mind and that is: many times God is present in a very specific and prophetic way, not in the generic way in which He is present in all things because He is ubiquitous and is present in everything, but in a very specific, very prophetic, very immediate way.

And God brought to my mind the words of Jacob when he had that dream and he saw that ladder that connected earth to heaven, and angels were going up and down that ladder. And when Jacob saw this and finished his dream, he said something very interesting, he said: how terrible this place is, God is here and I didn't know it.

And many times we find ourselves in moments of history, moments of our pilgrimage or moments in the life of our Church or personal moments in which God is moving in a very specific way in something and we sometimes do not discern that Presence, that move. specific of God in something, like that, the supernatural move of God.

And my mind has always been occupied with the fact that we build this life that we lead from the time we were in Cambridge to this moment and God called us into the ministry, and all these things. I always live possessed by the idea that there is something more that God has at stake, that we not only build for everyday purposes, how nice it would be, if a Church simply existed here, a blessed, integral Church, that's nice, but I believe that we under a prophetic mantle of the Lord and I hope that we intuit this with all humility, because the Lord does His things and sometimes they choose those who deserve less precisely because He always wants to seek glory, not because they deserve it more.

But I believe that we are building. Someone asked me the other days about construction and I said: look, I'm like Noah who builds an ark without having seen rain yet, for when the rain comes. We build because we do it in the context of a move that God wants to have on Earth.

We prepare these buildings, this physical plant to be a place that can contain the glory of God. I believe that God has a very specific purpose for this Congregation, and we build in a very specific context, where humanity is preparing for things that we cannot even understand. The nations are in tribulation and anguish, this creation is convulsed because it wants to give birth to something and we do not fully understand what it is.

But we are building here in the context of great and mighty movements of God in history and I feel that we are going to be part of that move of God beyond what is seen in this city. And that's why I dare to do the things I do. I did not have the strength to undertake this connector or to undertake this building, but I do it because I feel that God has told me: Build me up and prepare something for my glory.

And I feel that, look: if all we manage to do in the rest of our lives is simply to have a beautiful Church that blesses our city and that generates a blessed generation, glory to God, but I believe that there is something else that God wants to do, there is something else and that is in a cosmic context I almost dare to say, and that is why we are building.

I beg you to connect all this construction that we are doing, do not see it simply as: ok we are building for something that is in itself great, no, go further. Believe God that you are part of a mighty move of God in the world, and one day I hope you will remember these kinds of words and say: wow, Pastor Miranda sensed something great that God wanted to do.

I only leave you with a text from the Scripture that always motivates me, Haggai is one of my favorite books in many ways, it talks about the construction or reconstruction of the temple just as Nehemiah also talks about the construction of the walls at that time when the God's people returned.

And in that context of a call to the people, because it is important, sometimes people look to the leader, but a leader without partners and followers is useless. I can have all the vision in the world but if I do not have a people that supports it, it is of no use to me, you are the expression of a vision, I am simply here to facilitate it. But the ones who truly do the Work are you, you have the resources to do the things that we are doing for the glory of God.

But then there in the Book of Haggai in chapter 2 the Lord says this to the people after calling them to build: "Don't worry so much about your houses" he says "but about my House, because if you worry about My House I I will worry about their houses." Then God says: "As the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt, so my Spirit will be in your midst, do not fear." The same God who blessed David, Moses, Jacob, Daniel, Paul when he was doing his constructions, the great constructions throughout history that the Church has undertaken, that same God is with us, in your daily life.

He says: "For thus says the Lord of Hosts" listen to me: what we are doing is in the context of great historical movements of God and we are connected to those movements although we have not yet seen them in all their manifestation, but one day you will see that what we are building and those buildings are all part of something much greater that God has for us. God is here and we can't see him yet but it is a terrible move of God. I beg you to see that supernatural dimension of what you are experiencing and not just see a daily movement of a Church in a city.

God says, in the context of that call to build the temple: "For thus says the Lord of Hosts: For in a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations , and the Desired of all nations will come; And I will fill this House with glory, says the Lord of Hosts."

The construction of that sanctuary two or three thousand years ago was probably almost something prophetic and it is clear that this prophetic writing goes back to the construction of that sanctuary, and other sanctuaries, and it is in the context of the last times. It says: "And the Desired of all nations will come" you know who is the desired of all nations, Christ Jesus and will shake the heavens and the earth. The heavens and the earth are shaking right now, "everything that can be moved" says "it will be shaken" says the writer of Hebrews in another passage splicing this passage with its time, but I also see it in this time that is the time of the Coming of Christ.

The nations are in turmoil right now. Ebola, Isis, names that have already become familiar. China, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, nations are arming, rearming, Russia. We thought it had already happened but the world is preparing for something, the nations are arming themselves, all of them. Germany does not want to arm itself but it is going to have to. Japan doesn't want to arm itself, but it's going to have to, too. Russia that seemed like a sleeping giant is waking up again, China.

The nations are preparing for something and we are here in Boston, Massachusetts building for something that God has in the future, alright? get ready. Give to the Lord, be a part of something mighty. Many people die and can never say that they were part of something extraordinary, you can be. Give generously to the Lord, believe God. If you want to believe that I am prophesying, believe it, receive it as a prophetic Word from God and connect with that mighty move of God.

Believe God this afternoon, conceive in your heart a gesture that connects you with millions of men and women of God throughout history who have believed God for something that He wants to do on Earth and that He deigns to allow us that we cooperate with him.

Lower your head, receive grace from God. Everything you give will be used for only one thing, entirely for the construction of this connector and the advancement of God's millennial purposes on Earth. I bless your life, I declare prosperity, I declare growth, I declare God's grace upon you, your children, your family, your work, your body, your mind, your emotions, your will, your brain, your nervous system, I declare God's grace about this community and I rejoice seeing what God is already doing and is going to do in us and through us, we will see His glory manifested and we will be happy because we have had the privilege of being part of something great.

Receive Grace from the Lord and return home with a promise in your hands from your God to whom you have promised this afternoon. I bless you in the Name of Christ Jesus, glory to the Lord, amen. Now come on, go ahead and hand over your card. Remember that it can be a promise or it can be money that you give already prepared for the Lord, glory to God, and during these next months we declare victory. My heart wants that by December 31, like last year, we said: consolidation, we have that connector made for the glory of the Lord, and we are going to cross it from here to there and from there to here in the Name of God, we will see His Glory manifested.