(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you So what are we talking about this morning? We're talking about leadership, right? When the leader's not there, things go bad. So what kind of leadership do we need? Well, first of all, we need leadership that tells us what the Bible says, reads the Bible out loud, speaks the word of God, even maybe more obscure or negative or unpopular parts of the word of God. They put those things on our radar. But also godly leadership knows how to just clean house and to just get rid of things that are wrong. You know what I mean? I remember going to churches before that are supposedly a King James Bible type of a Baptist church. But then you'll see the NIV laying around. You'll see the New American Standard, New King James. Or maybe in the back of the pew, they'll have the hymnal for singing the songs. But then they'll have some New King James mixed in or something. And you bring it up to the pastor like, I thought we're King James. What's the deal? Oh, well, you know, there's some old stuff there we've got to work on. We've got to get rid of that. But look, if I showed up to the church building and instead of the King James replica back there, somebody put some decorative precious moments NIV or something, it's going in the trash. If I showed up and somebody had posted some picture on the wall of some long-haired hippie that they say is Jesus, it's going in the trash. It might even get hurled into the trash. Okay? You know, there's certain things that you just have to just put your foot down as a leader and just say, no, this isn't allowed. And guess what? As a parent, there are some things like that too. Where as a parent, you know, your children might have something ungodly or teenagers might try to bring something ungodly or blasphemous or wicked or sinful into the house. And it might just need to just get hurled into the trash. Whether they spent money on it or not, no matter what it is, because we need to make sure that we don't have anything wicked or satanic or ungodly in our homes. And as fathers, as heads of household, it's our responsibility to clean house. And leadership sometimes involves throwing things in the trash that are not right. Throwing things that are in the trash that are ungodly. Throwing the wrong twisted Bible versions in the trash. Throwing idolatry in the trash. Blasphemous images and videos and things. Throwing them in the trash where they belong. And that's what Nehemiah did. He throws things out. And not only that, he throws people out that don't belong in the house of God as well. He gets the wrong people out. We need to throw the wrong people out of our home. We need to throw the wrong people out of our church. You know, your faggot uncle isn't invited for Thanksgiving. Amen? Throw them out! Nuts to him! You say, well, you know, there's one in every family. Yeah, I know. There is one in every family, but you know what? He doesn't have to come over to your house. He doesn't have to be around your kids. You don't have to let him into your home and just kind of go, oh, I don't know. Hey, be a leader. Put your foot down. You know, I love what my father-in-law said when somebody tried to bring some sodomite relative to his house. He said, you know what? They can come to my house as soon as them and their gay buddy bring the child that they biologically produce with each other, then they can come to my house. And until then, they're not welcome in my house. All right, beloved, let's move on here. It says in verse number 9, Then I commanded and they cleansed the chambers and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God with the meat offering and the frankincense. Verse 10, And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them, for the Levites and the singers that did the work were fled every one to his field. Now, one of the things that we see here is that there's been a vacuum of godliness and godly leadership, and so evil comes in to fill that space. So remember the room that has become Tobiah the Ammonite's apartment? What was it supposed to be for? It was supposed to store up all the tides and offerings. It was supposed to store up food and supplies for the Levites and the singers and all these different workers in the house of God. Well, he shows up and, you know, he throws all this junk out, you know, he throws Tobiah the Ammonite's, you know, Elton John poster and all of his like, all of his household stuff, all of his junk, all of his clothes and whatever out into the street and then he says, okay, now you know, we're going to put in this room what's supposed to go in this room. So let's bring in the food and the supplies and things and when he brings those in it starts, he starts to realize that the reason why this room was empty and available for Tobiah is because of the fact that they haven't been giving the supplies to the Levites who are the workers in the house of God. Those people hadn't been getting paid because they got paid with a lot of those food stuffs and supplies and things like that. It wasn't really cash-based it was more of a barter economy and they're being given actual stuff that they need. And so then what does the Bible say? It says that they were fled, at the end of verse 10 there, that they were fled, everyone to his field. So because the Levites aren't getting paid, they had to go back to their secular job basically. They had to go to their fields and actually do a bunch of farming and produce their own food because of the fact that they weren't being given the food that was supposed to be given them and so therefore they're no longer doing their job down at the house of God. So the work's not getting done, the music program isn't getting done, the preaching isn't getting done, the menial things at the house of God aren't getting done because these guys aren't there. Because the supplies aren't there because they're not being taken care of. And so it says in verse number 11 then contended I with the rulers. Now the sad thing is that the rulers of Judah should be Nehemiah's allies, they should be his friends, they should be his biggest supporters, but instead he ends up fighting with these people. Because when he's gone, they're the ones who were supposed to keep everything running, but he ends up having to fight with this deacon board or whatever that was in charge while he's gone. These leaders, these elders and he says to them why is the house of God forsaken? And I gather them together and set them in their place. You know you had to put these people in their place because they have allowed God's house to be forsaken. And then once he does this what's the result? Verse 12, then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries. And then he in verse 13 just kind of organizes things and puts people in charge of making sure everybody gets paid and everybody gets taken care of. And he says in verse 14 remember me oh my God concerning this and wipe not out my good deeds that I've done for the house of my God and for the offices thereof. Now this is the really sad verse here, verse 14. And Nehemiah says this throughout the chapter, in fact if you go to the very end of the chapter the last words of the chapter are Nehemiah praying and saying remember me oh my God for good. Now why does he keep praying to God in the middle of this chapter saying God remember what I did and he says wipe not out my good deeds that I've done for the house of my God. I'll tell you why, because he had already done good deeds for the house of God earlier in the book. I mean look in chapter 1 of Nehemiah he heard about how bad things were going in Jerusalem and he said man I'm going to do something about it. And God's hand was on Nehemiah and he shows up in chapter 2 and he just revolutionizes everything in Jerusalem. He gets God's people back on track, he gets the nation back in a position where they can serve God, where they can have peace and prosperity and I mean he turns everything around. But then when he comes back in chapter 13 the work that he had done had been undone. And so he's saying God remember what I did for the house of God because apparently other people aren't going to remember what I've done. Don't wipe out the good deeds that I've done for the house of my God because guess what? After I'm gone the Tobias and the Eliashibs of this world are going to wipe out the good deeds that I've done. Now this is just a fact of our existence here in this world that when we do great things for God, when we have great achievements for God, maybe when we build institutions like families and churches or businesses, after we are gone these things will unfortunately eventually decay. They will degenerate. They will eventually be gone. All throughout the Bible we see it. Look at the book of Judges. You get some godly judge that rises up. He fixes everything but you let a few decades go by and all of his work is undone. He's forgotten. Think about Joshua and all the elders that outlive Joshua but then once they're gone children of Israel forget everything. They go back. It seems a little bit vain then to do anything, right? Why even do anything if everything I accomplish in this life is ultimately going to be undone? What's the point? Why even found a church like Faithful Word or why even pastor a church like this or why even be a member of a church like this and contribute to its success and help the church grow and thrive? Why teach anyone or do anything when it's all going to be gone someday? I mean 100 years from now Faithful Word Baptist Church is probably going to be some super liberal church. I mean I hope not. I hope that this church stands for 300 years. I mean we don't know when Christ is going to return, right? Obviously we don't even know that could be in our lifetime. We don't know when that's going to be. But let's just say for a minute that it didn't happen for a few hundred years. The chances of this church still being a red hot fire breathing soul winning church 100 years from now 150 years from now are virtually zero if we take history as a guide. Could be the exception but let's face it, probably not going to happen. I mean can you imagine Faithful Word Baptist Church and it's just some super liberal watered down church. They have the worst Bible works female pastor and just you know everything's totally different. It's just a complete joke. I mean you can imagine you know yeah I can imagine it because I've seen churches go that way that were once fundamental. And then you know somewhere deep on this church's website in the metaverse or whatever it won't be a website. It'll be like you know some hologram that you see on glasses or something. It'll say like oh you know Faithful Word Baptist Church was founded by a guy named Steven Anderson. Moving right along you know and kind of just you know who's that? Oh it's just some guy hundreds of years ago that started this church. It was totally different back then. Don't ask. So you say you know what's the point? Well here's the point. Number one God remembers. God remembers everything that you do is something that matters because it matters to God. Right? Because the Bible says your labor is not in vain in the Lord. But not only that the lives that we touch the people that we win to Christ the lives that are changed, the lives that are transformed the people that are discipled, the children that are raised up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Those are eternal souls that will go on forever and so our work will never be erased or destroyed in that sense. But physically on this earth our work will eventually be erased just as Nehemiah saw that it's going to all be erased. And here's why this is so important is that we need to realize that we constantly need men like Ezra, Nehemiah, and later John the Baptist to basically push a reset button. Every generation has to re-dig those wells from the previous generation. You know you think about Abraham dug all these wells all over the promised land but then the enemy stopped up the wells. And so Isaac had to re-dig the wells that Abraham had dug. And then Jacob is going to have to re-dig those wells. And every generation has to re-dig those wells. And so Nehemiah straightens out God's people then he leaves for a while comes back and it's a mess again. Alright here we go again. He has to straighten things out once again but in the process he's realizing wait a minute the work that I do on this earth is not permanent. The work that I do in God's house isn't permanent. The reforms that I make amongst God's people they're not permanent. And after I'm gone it's all going to go bad. What did the Apostle Paul say in the New Testament? He said I know that after my departing grievous wolves will come in. Not sparing the flock. He said I know for a fact that when I'm gone bad people are going to come in and take over and ruin things eventually. It happens all throughout the book of Judges. It happens throughout the monarchy in Israel. It's something that the New Testament explains is going to happen. And that's why we need constant new fresh leadership coming in and saying thus saith the Lord let's reopen. Look 50 years from now if Faithful Word Baptist Church is willing to still be serving God there's going to have to be a man hopefully it's still me at age 91. But let's say 60 years from now. Well maybe it still will be me. No I'm just kidding. I hope so. But anyway if we were to go in the future if this church is still going to be serving God 80 years from now, because I'll for sure be dead at 80 years, 100% 80 years from now there's going to have to be some man up here who says look we need to go back to the Bible. We're going to read the Bible. We're going to go back to what the Bible says. We're going to figure out what it says and we're going to do it. We're going to follow it. We're going to fix things. Not just well we're just kind of coasting on what they did back in the 20s is what they'll say right? Back in the 20s and 30s we're just kind of riding on what no no it's going to have to be fresh. It's going to have to be new. It's going to have to be reduct. And this is part of the problem with the old IFB is that you know what the old IFB needs? They need some young leather lung preachers in the old IFB to rise up and raise hell in the old IFB and fix things and preach hard and be inspirations to a new generation instead of just still dusting off the old tired sermons from 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. And look I'm very thankful for the great preaching that was done 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. The heroes of the faith from back then. But you know what? The heroes of the faith back then they're not helping me right now though are they? No we need people now today. Hey we can all sit around and talk about how great it was when Ezra first came on the scene and we can sit around and talk about how great it was back in the days of Nehemiah being here. Well no no no we need to get Nehemiah back here or we need to get another Nehemiah we need to get somebody that will actually fire things up again and get things going. You know in your home you might need to push a spiritual reset button and say hey we haven't been reading the Bible but you know what we're going to start reading the Bible again in our house. Let's everybody get back to reading the Bible. You know January 1st we all had that Bible reading plan and then you know March ah still in Genesis hey it's time to fire that thing up and not to wait till next year. Why don't you get on like the Hebrew calendar or something that just starts in March and ends in March. Now normally I'm totally against the Hebrew calendar. But you may need to use the Chinese New Year for crying out loud. You need to figure something out and you need to push a reset button and restart the Bible reading in your house. Hey we haven't been praying let's get back to praying. Hey I haven't been going to church time to get back in church time to get back out soul winning. Hey you need to push that reset button and sometimes it takes a leader to push that reset button. And again I'm not talking about somebody who has a position necessarily or a title that says hello my name is the leader but I'm saying it could just mean that you know you and your friends just say hey remember we used to go soul winning? Let's go soul winning again. It could be a couple of friends that used to go soul winning together and they haven't been in a while and one of them says to the other hey let's go soul winning. Let's get back into it. Hey you want to keep me accountable on my Bible reading? I'll keep you accountable. Let's get back to reading our Bible. Let's get back faithful to church. Hey we used to go to the evening service. Let's get back into the evening services. Let's get back involved like we once were getting fired up because you need that constant reboot and a reset. What are we reading in Nehemiah 13? It's a reboot. And it's a boot to Tobiah's backside is a reboot that's needed but it's a reboot. We need the same thing. Now ultimately we know that this reboot that Nehemiah does in chapter 13 didn't last forever but does that surprise us? That's why he says God remember all the stuff I'm doing. Don't wipe away my good deeds because physically on this earth my good deeds are going to be wiped away. There will be no trace of them. Okay what happens when Jesus Christ comes on the scene? The children of Israel are in a terrible place spiritually when Jesus comes on the scene. That's why God had to raise up whom to come before Jesus? John the Baptist right? And John the Baptist is raised up because the people need to be prepared for the coming of Jesus. And he wants to make people that are ready for Jesus Christ to come on the scene. And so John the Baptist comes in and his job is to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Turn the hearts of the children to their fathers. Right? Get parents loving their children. Get children honoring their parents. Make straight a highway in the desert for our God. And make straight paths and to straighten out some of the sinful things and wrong things because frankly the Pharisees and the Sadducees weren't getting it done. Now look, maybe when the Pharisees first started out for sure when the Sadducees first started out, you know what? They started out as being groups of godly men. I mean the Sadducees are named after a guy named Zadok who's a great guy. You know the Sadducees aren't Zadok though. Right? And so just because you maybe had a great founder or you had some great men in the past, you know those things degenerate over time. And they may still keep the name but they're no good anymore. And so the Sadducees and the Pharisees are both rotten by the time Jesus shows up and when Jesus talks about them it's pretty much woe unto you Pharisees. Woe unto you Sadducees. He's rebuking them. He's ripping on them. He's preaching against them. What were for sure in the case of the Sadducees possibly in the case of the Pharisees even, you know maybe these started out in some ways as being godly movements or godly people. But at that time they sure aren't. You know the children of Israel in the days of Nehemiah is serving God. But when John the Baptist shows up, man they needed a serious reboot didn't they? Serious reset button. And so we as leaders, whether it's leaders in the home, leaders in business, and look it's the same thing with business by the way. Businesses have to have a reboot or they just slowly get worse. A business will start out being good and then their quality just goes down, down, down. You know what I guarantee you if we got at a time machine and we went back in time to Los Angeles, California back you know 70 years ago, I think that McDonald's would have been awesome. I'm serious. It would have been awesome. Like if I got a time machine and went back I'd be like let's go to McDonald's. Let's do it. And you know it probably would have been a pretty good burger because it would have been locally raised beef. Okay. And you know they're using machines to crank it out and it's all mass produced and everything. But it probably would have been a beautiful milkshake, a beautiful cheeseburger. Probably would have been great. But you know what I don't want to go to McDonald's this afternoon. It's junk. It's garbage. It's not the same. It's gone down in quality. But here's the thing. You know there are companies that just keep declining and declining until they're just gone. And you start looking at them and they look like their logo is from like 40 years ago and it's all faded. Everything's out of style. You go inside. Everything feels all janky. And you're just like man I need to find a new place to shop. This place you know. But then other companies they kind of like rebrand themselves and they get a fresh logo. They clean things up. They change the menu. They change things in a good way and actually stay relevant. Okay. Well here's the thing. We have to do the same thing as a church except we're not trying to market ourselves to what people want or make money or something like that. What we're trying to do is push a reset button to get back to the Word of God. Get God's power and God's blessing back on the ministry by constantly re-digging those wells and constantly going to the Word of God and preaching what needs to be done. Fixing problems. Having new exciting missions and soul winning trips and programs and things to keep things going. Because if we just coast then eventually we're going to run out of steam. We're going to run out of energy. The friction is going to slow us down. And it's going to be over. And so it says in verse number 15 in those days, Si and Judah some treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves. And of course this is the Old Testament. They're commanded to keep the Sabbath. And there are all these people violating the Sabbath. They've got all kinds of foreigners coming in and everything's open on Sunday. Obviously it wasn't Sunday back then. But in our modern day equivalent they're just coming in and having all of this activity on the day that under the Old Covenant is supposed to be a day of rest. And so of course Nehemiah puts a stop to this. And then people are pushing back against Nehemiah and they keep trying to get in there and operate on the Sabbath and finally he just threatens them and says if you guys come back I'm going to lay hands on you. And he doesn't say we. Everything with Nehemiah is I. I'm going to lay hands on you. I'm personally going to kick your butts if you keep coming back here. And again obviously we as New Testament Christians should never get physical. We should never get violent because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. But the idea here is that a leader takes the steps necessary whether it's throwing Tobias stuff outside or whether it's threatening to get physical with these guys. Obviously in the New Testament we're not going to do that. But we need to actually back up what we say. Right? You know it's one thing as a parent or as a pastor or as a leader to get up and say hey this is how things are. And then it's another thing to actually back those things up. You know like if I said hey you know my daughters are not going to be wearing short skirts. You know they need to wear skirts that go down to the knee. They're not going to go out of here in Daisy Dukes or something. They're not going to go out in short shorts. And then what if my daughter is just like okay bye dad and she's just walking out and I'm just like I told her not to do it. You know those kind of things have to be enforced. Okay? You know we could just get up at our church and just say things but some of those things need to be enforced. And we have to say hey this is how it is. And I'm not talking about necessarily just arbitrary things. Although in your home you are allowed to have arbitrary rules. At church we don't typically have arbitrary rules but sometimes we might need to have arbitrary rules at church. And those things sometimes need to be enforced. And you know that's part of what it means to actually have leadership is that the rules mean something. And that they're not just spoken as hey don't wear this scanty clothing out of the house and then they just they're allowed to wear whatever they want. You know some of that clothing might just need to go into the trash. Oh I can't find my little short skirt. Well it's in the trash honey. And I'm sorry you wasted your money on that but guess what you shouldn't be buying stuff that you know is not allowed in this house. And so he does some enforcement in chapter 13. I got to hurry I'm almost out of time but jump down to verse 23 it says in those days saw Jews that had married wives of Ashdod. And Ashdod is one of the main cities of the Philistines of Ammon and of Moab and we've already talked about them earlier in the chapter. And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews language but according to the language of each people. Now why is this a problem? Because God's Word is in the Jews language. And these people they've become so mixed with the heathen that they can't even understand the language anymore of the Jews. And so this is where Nehemiah really loses it verse 25. This is probably the most extreme verse in the chapter. And I contended with them and cursed them and smote certain of them and plucked off their hair. I did some stuff. He said I contended with them and cursed them and smote certain of them. Look I didn't hit everybody okay. I only hit a few people. And plucked off their hair and made them swear by God saying you shall not give your daughters unto their sons nor take their daughters unto your sons or for yourselves. Now again remember when we're reading the historical books of the Bible everything that people do in the story is not automatically right even if they're the good guy. All throughout the historical books good guys do things that are good and bad. Bad guys do things that are good and bad. You have to use discernment study the rest of the Bible. Obviously this is not appropriate for him to just be just punching these people and ripping their hair out and chasing them and cursing them and everything like that. But he's frustrated. He's angry. He's just losing his temper. He's losing his cool. Because he didn't understand how bad things could get with him being gone. Like really I'm just gone for a few years and this is what happens. I mean Moses is in the mouth for 40 days and 40 nights and they're worshipping the golden calf. They just crossed the Red Sea. And it takes 40 days of Moses being gone and they're worshipping the golden calf. You can see why these guys get frustrated. You can see why he broke the Ten Commandments. You can see why these guys are frustrated even if we don't approve of it. You can see where they're coming from. And so he's plucking off their hair. He's chasing people. He's just slapping them. He's just really mad at this point. And he brings up to them all the reasons why they're wrong. He says, did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there no king like him who was beloved of his God and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives? And one of the I love this verse. One of the sons of Joita, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And this is another guy that's like Tobiah. Sanballat is Tobiah's buddy. Therefore, I chased him from me. You know, it's just like, He's like, wait a minute. You're the son-in-law? You, hold on. Let me get this straight. You married Sanballat's daughter? You know, the guy's just like, I mean, he didn't even have a chance to smite this guy. He didn't even have a chance to pull out his hair because the guy just the guy took off. So he said, well, I chased him from me. I chased him off. Look, you see what you see what this guy's forfeiting? I mean, this guy's the grandson of the high priest. He should be in that priestly succession. He should be the next guy to pick up the torch and serve the Lord in a very honorable position. But instead, he gets chased off by Nehemiah for being a bozo and marrying Sanballat's daughter for being unequally yoked. And, you know, again, the New Testament application of this is that we're not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And so we don't want our young people marrying unbelievers. We don't want them marrying ungodly people. We want them to be equally yoked with other Bible-believing Christians. But what we see Nehemiah doing here is chasing from him people who are put in a position that's hereditary when they themselves are not seeking holiness and righteousness and biblical separation. You know, this is another thing that the old IFB needs to do. Pastors' sons that are not interested in serving God and preaching hard and being Fundamental Baptist should not be put into positions of leadership, period. No position in the New Testament Church should ever be hereditary. In the Old Testament, certain things are hereditary. The priesthood's hereditary. The monarchy's hereditary. But guess what? We're not living in the Old Testament. We're living in the New Testament. And you know what we need is we need pastors and church staff that are put in those positions because of their godliness, not because of family relationships. It shouldn't just be, oh, it's the pastor's son. Well, then he's automatically just has all of these doors and ministry open unto him. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because of the fact that just being the son of doesn't make you like that person necessarily when it comes to your love for God, your service for God. That needs to be judged on an individual basis because we all have our own personal decisions to make about whether or not we're going to serve God. The fact that my parents serve God did not guarantee that I'm going to serve God. We have to make sure that we put people in charge not just because, oh, it's a famous preacher's son. It's a famous preacher's grandson. And look, all of us have the same human nature, don't we? When we hear that somebody is the son of a famous preacher, we automatically have a higher view of that person, don't we? Automatically. I mean, we're automatically going to just think, oh, wow, this person is you know, I was thinking about and this is not a criticism of him because I saw a great video of him this week really preaching well. But, you know, you think about like Tony Hudson. You know, you might be like, who's this guy? But that's like, oh, this is Curtis Hudson's son. Oh, wow. You know, I mean, that's just kind of human nature because, you know, you admire the man, Curtis Hudson. So then you think, oh, well, this is his son. Wow. You know, and there was a great video that somebody posted on Facebook this week of Tony Hudson preaching the reprobate doctrine. And so I did enjoy that. Somebody said it was an old video, though, from like 2008 or something or 2000 when was it from? 2016. Sorry, not that old. They said it was a video from 2016. I was hoping that it was from like last week or something, you know, it's kind of excited, like, yeah, the old IFP is coming around. But, yeah, this is 2016. So it's time for the rest of the old IFP to catch up on that doctrine. But the point is, though, that when you've got a guy who's the grandson of so-and-so or the son of so-and-so, you know what, he needs to be evaluated on his own individual merits. And if he's allied with God's enemies, if he's a wicked person, if he's like this guy who's the son-in-law of Sam Ballot, the horror knight, you know, we need to chase those people from us. They need to be chased away from us. Okay. They need to not be holding that position of high priest because, let's face it, even though the position of priest in the Old Testament was hereditary, right, the sons of Aaron, even though the monarchy was hereditary, you know, the sons of David, does that necessarily mean that it's going to be a certain son of David or a certain son of Aaron? No. Because remember when a certain branch of Aaron's family went sideways, what happened? They got cut off from the priesthood and we went with the good Zadok side, right, and we got rid of that bad side where Abimelech and Haimeaz and that crowd, Abiathar had gone the wrong direction. We went with the Zadok side and that ended up being the side that we go with. I mean, look at David. David had sons like Adonijah, nope. Absalom, nope. Amnon, nope. Solomon. Right? And so there's still a choice. So it's not to say that the pastor's son could never be a great man of God. You know, there could be, so I'm not criticizing every church that hands off the ministry to their son, although I will, I've gone on the record saying I will never do that because I've seen it go bad too many times. If any of my sons ever decides to go into the ministry, they're going to be ordained somewhere else. You know, just because I've seen it too much in my life, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the nepotism. They need to stand on their own merits and they need to climb the ladder somewhere else. But the thing is, I'm not criticizing every single situation because there could be lots of great examples we could point to of a pastor who passes on the ministry to his son and the son's a godly man, a righteous man, and continues the great work that his father did. And we have some examples of that in the Bible, don't we? But we also have a lot of bad examples in real life and in the Bible. And so what I'm saying is that it should be based upon merit. And these hereditary people, sons of this pastor or that preacher, hey, if they are wicked, chase them from us. We need godly leadership, not leadership with a famous last name. Remember them, verse 29, oh my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites. Thus cleansed I them from all strangers and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, everyone in his business, and for the wood offering at times appointed and for the first fruits. Remember me, oh my God, for good. And what's he saying? He's saying, look, just so you know everybody, I'm writing this down because Nehemiah is the author of the book of Nehemiah. Everything's first person. Chapter one, he says, I this, I that, I this, I that, all the way to chapter 13. So he's writing this himself, and he's saying in these last couple of verses, hey, just so you know, when I left, everything was good. When I died, everything was good. When I left, everything was happening. Why is he writing this? Because he knows for a fact that people who are going to read this book later are going to be like, whoa, that's not how it is now. Not how things are now. We're, we got Ammonites everywhere we look. We, we got the Mobites. We got all these wicked people surrounding us. The Levites aren't getting paid. They're out working secular jobs. They're not able to do the work that they need to do. And so again, our work on this earth is going to be erased, but the spiritual work that we do can never be erased. Just as Nehemiah's spiritual legacy is never erased. Every single person that we win to the Lord is going to lead to heaven. Nothing can change that. Every single person whom we influence in a godly way and who we teach the word of God, every child that is brought up in our church for the nurture and admonition of the Lord will last forever. The building's not going to last forever. The institution's not going to last forever. Eventually, it's going to be faithful word community church. Okay. And it's going to be totally different, but that's never going to change what we're accomplishing right here, right now. The souls that are won out, soul winning this afternoon, today are going to last forever. The missions trips that are run this year are going to last forever. The children that are hearing this sermon right now and deciding to serve God with their lives right now, that's going to last forever. So invest in something that's going to last forever and don't be married to an institution. Be married to the truth. Be married to the word of God and holiness and righteousness. Not a name, not a building, not an institution, not a personality, not a family, not a certain church or organization or denomination, but you've got to be with the Lord and wherever that cloudy pillar goes, that's where you go. And don't always expect it to stay in the same place. And there's always going to need to be a new preacher, a new leader, and people to stand up even in their own homes and have a new regime. And some of you in your homes need to push a reset button and say, hey, starting today, I don't care what March 5th, it's New Year's somewhere in some culture. Hey, March 5th, let's make a change. And enforce it and get it done. And we need to get back to the Lord in this country and it means that we need a whole bunch of Nehemiahs and John the Baptist in their homes, in their churches, in their communities to stand up and lead with biblical leadership. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for Nehemiah, Lord, and we thank you so much for all of the reforms that he made, Lord, even though Israel today is a complete mess and you'd never know that a guy like Nehemiah had ever even been there in 2023. But Lord, the spiritual legacy of Nehemiah lives on. And Nehemiah is even a blessing to us on this Sunday morning in 2023, Lord. Help us to learn from his successes, maybe learn from his mistakes a little bit. And Lord, God, help us to also be willing to push that reset button, help us to fill roles of leadership, not necessarily because we've been given a fancy title, but maybe we could just lead our friends and loved ones and families to greater service for you, Lord. Help us to clean house spiritually in our own lives and in the institutions that we run. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.