REPAIRER OF BREACHES

Robert Taylor

Isaiah 58: 9-12; Nehemiah 1: 2-7, 11; 2: 11-18; 3: 1, 15; 4: 4-6; 11: 1,2; 12: 31-40

I would seek grace from the Lord to speak about building, and especially about repairing the breaches. It is a needed service in these days, and I would seek to enlist every one of the brethren in the work. The sisters have part in it – indeed at the end of the book of Ruth it speaks of two sisters, “which two did build the house of Israel”, Ruth 4: 11. Nehemiah will show us – his day is very much like our own when the enemy has sought to make great inroads into the fellowship of God’s Son, to spoil what there is here on this earth for the pleasure of God. But in spite of all that has happened in the history of time, our Lord Jesus Christ has come in to repair the damage that sin has done, to make a way back to God that no law or works of man could ever effectuate. It says as to Him when He was here “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”, 2 Cor 5: 19. I wonder at the majesty of that verse, “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. Had it not become lost? Had not Satan had his way in the world so early to spoil the fair creation? The law, coming in, only magnified the great distance there was between God and man, but there in such a dark background, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. God was not going to be robbed as to His thoughts of the assembly as the vessel in which His praise is secured. May the Lord speak to us at this hour to encourage our hearts to have a living part today in the great praises of God.

The Lord has been the great Builder. He says, “on this rock I will build”, Matt 16: 18. There is what He has built that has never broken down and never can break down, “on this rock I will build my assembly”. I trust that every one of us is conscious of having a part in what He refers to as “my assembly”. That is certainly not what is abroad today, that men would call ‘the church’. It is not what is seen publicly, but it is known, and very precious to those who know it. I trust that what the Lord speaks of as “my assembly” is cherished by every heart in this room. He says further, as if to reassure our hearts, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”, Matt 16: 18. That word is for you and for me, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. It may seem, as you look at the public side of things, that it has, but it has not, and I trust that every one here knows something of having a living, vital, part in “my assembly”. You say, Where is it? Well come here on Lord’s day morning and you will see it functioning, if you have never seen it before – “in the midst of the assembly with I sing thy praises”, Heb 2: 12. In spite of the breakdown, there is nothing more precious to an assembly-minded person, whatever the outward conditions and however small things may be, than to have part in what there is here for the heart of Christ, that He can employ in service to God. That is “my assembly”. You will not see an outward show. You will not see a choir and an organ or great pretension or a prayer book or an arranged system, but you will see something, I would trust in character, of the assembly functioning. May our hearts be exercised to have our living part in it. That is what the Lord is building. As I say, He says for us, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. You say, Where is it? I say to you, Seek it. The Lord does not make light promises, nor are His words to be taken lightly, but if you soberly seek it, He will lead you to have a living part in it and to see it in function. There is some expression of it today in this country, in this town, to be experienced by eyes that are open to see it and hearts that are exercised to have their part in it. But then there is another side to it, of which we have read in Isaiah and Nehemiah. There is what has been committed to man’s responsibility and sadly most of us in this room would take our part and say, We have had our part in the failure and in the sorrow and the breakdown that has come in. I trust we all acknowledge that feelingly before God, to make room for divine grace outshining.

In this passage in Isaiah, the Lord is rebuking them. He says, Is this what you call a fast? Men proclaim their fasts, they try to afflict their soul, and so on; He says, Is that what you call a fast? You will find persons who would do these things and think that that is the way through the breakdown, but God is saying, That is not what I call a fast. He says, “Then shalt thou call, and Jehovah will answer; thou shalt cry, and he will say, Here I am”. How sweet those words! How near He would make Himself to exercised hearts to say, “Here I am” to lead you, and what He leads them to in this passage is the joy of the new covenant, the way into the great system of blessing. The new covenant, the way into the great system of blessing. The new covenant is based not on the law, but on the work of Christ and all that He has accomplished for God, that, because of the work of Jesus and what has been effectuated in His death and rising again, God is able to come out with His hands outstretched in blessing to men. That is what he is referring to here, “And they that come to thee shall build the old waste places”. This is what is needed today, as we will see in Nehemiah, persons who are conscious of all that has happened, and see that apart from God in His mercy and in His grace there is no hope and no power. But in the great ways of God and His wisdom He is coming out in this attitude so that the foundations will be raised up. Thank God they have not gone! “The firm foundation of God stands”, 2 Tim 2: 19. This is something that man has not been able to interfere with, “the firm foundation of God stands … The Lord knows those that are his”. If things were normal we should know them, but things are so broken we do not know them all. But the Lord knows those that are His, the Lord knows. He would cause us to be exercised to find them too. We cannot just take things altogether at face value. There is a great system of profession around, so there are many we have to leave on that account: yet “The Lord knows those that are His” and “the firm foundation of God stands”. He calls on us to come into this line of things to be a repairer of the breaches. As I said, it refers to the Lord Jesus, but there is a call to us in this passage to be a “Repairer of the breaches, restorer of frequented paths”. Generally when there is breakdown, men try and start something else. That is what has happened all around. There has been departure and breakdown, and men have started something else that is short of the fellowship of God’s Son; but here it says that they will be a “restorer of frequented paths”. Nehemiah did that. He did not try to start something new that would accommodate the wishes of the people. The wall broke down but there were still foundations, and Nehemiah too used the stones that had been there before: it says, after they were burned; the fire had done its work. How wonderful to think of these stones being set up again! There they are, a heap of rubble. On one side of things you see that publicly today, a heap of rubble, but as those stones are revived, after they were burned, they are fitted into their place. Think of the sheep-gate and the valley-gate being built of stones that had been revived. May the Lord revive our hearts today to be stones that are suitable to come into the building.

But first of all I wanted to speak about the kind of man that is a restorer of the breaches, the kind of man that is able to come in and build these frequented paths. You see him here in Nehemiah. His name, as you will see in the footnote, means ‘Comfort of Jehovah’. What a man to be builder, to be a restorer of these paths. What delight God had that there was a man, Nehemiah, and may it be in you and me in our measure, who has come to seek the welfare of his brethren. That is what is said about him later. The enemies were annoyed that there was a man who had come to seek the welfare of his brethren, and there he is a man who is a ‘Comfort of Jehovah’. God had looked on that ruin that had come in through failure in man’s responsibility. But here is a man who valued what God had put in his heart to do for Jerusalem. He would give us all something to do, primarily in our local place: he would give you something to do to repair the breaches, to restore these frequented paths. Here is the kind of man that can do it, a man who cried to God when he saw the confusion. He did not start talking about all the trouble that was there; far less did he send letters abroad or go on the Internet and speak about the confusion that has come in among the brethren. No, he went before God on his knees in prayer night and day. He says, “I sat and wept, and mourned for days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of the heavens, and said, I beseech thee, Jehovah, God of the heavens”. Dear brother, dear sister, have you in any measure done that about the sorrows of the present time? I leave the question with you, Have you in any measure been before God about the confusion and the sorrow, and told God that you contributed to it? Not what So-and-So did or how wrong others are, but you; and maybe you will find somebody next to you on their knees about the same thing, and there is a wonderful bond to start and build on the foundations, the foundations that have been laid. Nehemiah is the kind of man that rallies the brethren. He has influence through having wept, and prayed, and been before God about all the sorrow. Now he rises up. He does not remain there, I may say, longer than needed, though he carried it with him all the time. In chapter 9 he goes over his prayer again – three outstanding prayers that are easily remembered, and I commend them to you: Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and Daniel 9. You can easily remember that, and read them, and you will see men in whose hearts God had put something about Jerusalem. The kind of men that God can trust to be builders and repairers of the breaches, men who were fasting before God, crying out in their need, as Nehemiah here. He becomes desperate in his appeal to God, and dear brethren, we need to be that in all our localities, and especially in this country where what came out in the light of the temple was quite distinctive. Are there now persons prepared to be with God like a Nehemiah, like an Ezra, like a Daniel, to be a repairer of the breaches? You say, What can I do? Well, this started with one man. The book ends with two great choirs on the wall, but it all started with one man. He could have said, Well what can I do? The breakdown is too great for me; and so it is, but it is not so for God. He has a man like Nehemiah with these feelings who wept, cried and yet in his heart all the time (you will see as you go through these prayers, especially these chapter nines to which I have referred), they never lost sight of the purpose of God. In the faith of their souls there was enshrined in their prayers, that in spite of the ruin, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”, Matt 16: 18. In principle they said, Lord show me it. And He did. So he finds others with him. In these exercises the Lord would soon add as He sees persons who have something in their heart that God has placed there. He says, he did not tell any man what God had put in his heart to do for Jerusalem, but he went himself, three days’ journey. These three days of scripture, as the brethren know, are very interesting. They bring us on to resurrection ground, to see how God has dealt with the breakdown and the confusion. He has raised Christ in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen (see 2 Cor 1: 20). What a beautiful scripture to cling to! It says, “For whatever promises of God there are” – and what promises He had made to you and to me – they are all Yea and Amen in Christ, the glorious Son of God. These men laid hold of that in their prayers. May I encourage our hearts to lay hold of the promises and the purpose of God amidst all the confusion there is? The three days bring you to see that the promises are all centred in Christ, the Man of God’s choice at His right hand. He says, “I told no man what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem”. May God put it into your heart tonight, if never before, to come to see something of what God is ready to do for Jerusalem, what He is ready to bring in as to that holy city. Oh how beautiful it was in Nehemiah’s eyes! In spite of it being rubble he clung tenaciously to God’s thoughts in purpose, “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. He goes through these gates – how he must have wept! – the valley-gate, the jackal-fountain and the dung-gate. It is very interesting that he refers to these three gates; there were others, they were in ruins. They had forgotten, they had despised these principles of going down. In Deborah’s day certain roads were unused (Judg 5: 6). That is what has happened today; you say, That is only Paul. That is despising these gates, despising these frequented paths, but Nehemiah, he goes over them. He sees the dung-gate, the jackal-fountain and the valley-gate. He sees them in ruins. Have we forgotten, dear brethren, how to judge ourselves? Have we forgotten to see that things are settled through going down? Christ made Himself of no reputation. He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”, Phil 2: 7. That is how things were settled. The whole sin question and all that had come into the race, He has settled in “taking a bondman’s form … becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. What that meant for Him our hearts could find no language to express, but there it is. It is the way he went to meet the confusion that has come into the race. I say again, Have we forgotten how to judge ourselves? Have we forgotten the principles that are there to establish recovery? Paul brings that home to them in Corinth, the cross and all that has effected there to make way for the liberty of the Spirit in chapter 2. Here is Nehemiah going through these places. He says, “Ye see the distress that we are in, that Jerusalem lies waste”. He does not minimise the difficulty, how great it is, but he says, “Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach”. Well, there is reproach round about, and what we have done has caused reproach and we have to leave that, but let us come and build, that the persons who may reproach us may see that there is something positive, that, in spite of all that has come in through our failure, these stones having been burned are now serviceable. They had become unserviceable at one time, but now through repentance and through faith in God and what Christ has done, the stones are serviceable to be rebuilt into this wall in view of the great choir. That is the great end of the wall. The wall has a reference to the fellowship: it is there to protect the city. Ezra gives us the building of the city, the inward side of it, and for that it says that God raised up Cyrus. God has raised up Christ to bring in that side of things, but here in Nehemiah it is what is in man’s hand, the responsibility that there is as in the fellowship to build and repair the breaches that there may be something that is no longer a reproach. So he says, “Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem”. Are we ready, dear brethren, at cost, sacrifice to ourselves, to come and build up the wall? As they built it, they did not build independently. They did not scrap what had been there before. Rather, as it says in Isaiah, “restorer of frequented paths”. They did not say, We will start something new, we will start another meeting where these principles are not emphasised. They did not speak on that line, they did not remove the ancient landmarks. There are ancient landmarks that have been laid down, that is the apostles’ teaching. Even in the public domain the removal of ancient landmarks has caused tremendous confusion. The breakdown in family life, the breakdown in principles of government, allowing things that in our fathers’ day persons were put in jail for, the government is now sanctioning them. There are the ancient landmarks being removed and it is bringing in tremendous confusion universally. Let us respect the ancient landmarks. Some of them - I speak advisedly and the brethren I trust would be sympathetic in how I speak of it - were re-established in the recovery in the 1800s, through which in grace we have been called to have part. There was then a great movement of the Spirit of God, when persons were liberated from a system in which the Holy Spirit of God was shut out, to come to see that the ancient landmarks were restored, and that there is a Head in heaven and a body here; Christ’s body. These are part of the ancient landmarks, and there is a danger among us of saying, Well, that is old-fashioned, things have changed. But those ancient landmarks are good until the day when the church is raptured. The commandments of the Lord and the ancient landmarks stand there as a guide to us, to keep us in that holy path, that when the beloved Bridegroom comes for His bride, she is ready. She has respected the ancient landmarks, she has walked in the commandments that were referred to at the close of the reading, so that she is there when He comes. When He calls, what an answer there will be! There are some beautiful references to it in some of the hymns:

O Lord, with our ears and hearts open,

Awaiting Thy shout would we be.        (Hymn 131)

There is a man amid all the ruin who had respected the ancient landmarks and was kept in the freshness and buoyancy of his affections for Christ. Nehemiah is on that principle. He does not give them new names. The priest comes to build first, “Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they built the sheep-gate”. They are beginning to think about the brethren, thinking of all those sheep. Do you ever mourn about them? Do you ever sing the song of the bow? What a song! If ever a man had a right to rejoice over the death of Saul it was David, but he composed the song of the bow. “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their lives”, 2 Sam 1: 23. Do we miss the brethren who are no longer available to us? Nehemiah and these priests were carrying them in their heart before God. So they rose up to build the sheep-gate. The men that God has helped have been shepherds, they have thought about the sheep. In the steps of the great Shepherd they have laid down their lives for the sheep, they have trodden the path to stand between them and the foe. Have you ever done that - prepared to stand between the foe and what the brethren may be facing? The sheep-gate is what they start with. You would want to make a place of safety for the brethren. There is not time to go into these great matters, but it says, “The valley-gate repaired … they built it, and set up its doors, its locks and its bars”, Neh 3: 13. They want to make the thing secure; they go all the way. They do not just take half measures but they go all the way about the repairing of the breaches. You know, if there is the least centimetre left exposed the devil gets in. May our hearts be guarded! May we go all the way in the repairing of the breaches as these priests did, and these men who repaired the valley-gate, the dung-gate, the fountain-gate. What would they think about? Oh, I think they would think about Solomon’s time, of the city in all its glory. You may be labouring at the sheep-gate, maybe the dung-gate, but you do it in the light of the whole assembly; you are doing it in the light of how precious it is to God. It says later on that they were joined. I wonder if your repairing can join with my repairing. That is the test. You get a plumb line coming to the wall, and if I have been a bit loose in my building, it will not measure up with yours that has been straight and has gone by the pattern. Maybe I have allowed things in my circumstances that have deviated from those ancient landmarks, from the Lord’s commandments and what has been laid down to guide us. Then we will not join up. Let us value the ancient landmarks and keep to these ancient paths, that as we come together in the work that we are doing it can join together. It says, “we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together to the half thereof; for the people had a mind to work”. They put their backs into it. They did not say, Well, I think I have done enough. Some people took a second part. How pleasurable that must have been to God that they took on a second part! As you look over these passages in detail you will see there were goldsmiths doing labouring work, there were perfumers doing the work; there are not specialists in this kind of work. It is like Paul, “bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle”, Rom 1: 1. These are the builders, the bondmen, persons who have been captivated in their affections for Christ and drawn into committal to Him and His interests here, so that the building goes on. It says later that it was completed in fifty-two days; the whole was joined and it was completed. How quickly God turned the captivity as there were persons in whom repentance toward God was working. How quickly He turns the captivity and brings in the restoration of Jerusalem, that beloved city.

In chapter 11 it says a call went out, “cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem, the holy city”. There it is. You say, Had it not been in ruins? Here it is, “the holy city”. Divine thoughts about it are going through. There have been the repairers of breaches, the builders of the wall, persons who have worked according to the commandments and the pattern, and here now is a place to dwell in, persons to dwell in Jerusalem. The safety, the security, of the city is dependent on persons prepared to dwell in it. We often speak about assembly-minded persons; that would be these persons who are prepared to dwell in Jerusalem. Yes, they had to do their work, they had responsibilities in righteousness, but their heart was in the holy city. They gave themselves to the work, and here they are to bring one in ten to dwell in Jerusalem. It says, “the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell in Jerusalem”. Well, it is a place to live in now; and that is what has come to us through faithful men, that there is a place to live in. They could not live in it in Nehemiah’s time. There was no wall: it was a dangerous place, but, through one man being committed like this, it is now a place to dwell in. And that is true in our time. Are we prepared to be one in ten? Are we prepared, in spite of what there may be abroad, to commit ourselves to dwell in it, for our blessing but primarily to dwell in it for God’s glory and praise?

I only wanted to speak about these two choirs. Who would have thought that those stones that were a pile of ruin and rubble in chapter 1 are now supporting the great praises of God. It says, “I brought up the princes of Judah”. There they are, persons shining in their grandeur. Dear brethren, the whole point of the wall was these choirs. One point of it was to keep evil out – that is true – but primarily it was to enclose the city, to protect Christ’s assembly, to keep out what would harm. The fellowship does that. There is the protective side to it. It is anxious to keep out what would spoil what is for the heart of Christ. These builders now on that very wall are singing the high praises of God. It does not just say ‘two choirs’, but there was enough for “two great choirs”, and then the “processions … upon the wall”. They go through those gates, the dung-gate; they halted in the prison-gate. How they would feel all that had come in! They went through these gates, each of them, and stood still in some of them, feeling the sorrows and the breakdown, but that did not hinder the great service of praise. We have been taught that if having been engaged in the conflict we lose sight of, or are not able to have our part in, the praise of God, there is something wrong. The conflict is not an end in itself. It has to be faced, but in the midst of it the service and praise of God is the great object, and it was the great secret in Nehemiah’s mind. You say, He did not speak of it in chapter 1. No, but the great thing in his mind was that there would be something secured in which the service of God could go out, the praises of God could go out in all their fullness. So it says, “They went up by the stairs of the city of David”. Oh, these were well-worn steps. It alludes to the way that Christ has gone, the steps that He has taken, the way He has ascended. “They went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David”. They are not giving new names, as I said already, but they are falling back on God’s great thoughts in His promises, and are seeing that in spite of a broken day they are workable, and the praises of God are continuing. So these choirs go forth, one under Ezra. There is much teaching that we have not time to go in to, but Ezra represents a spiritual line of praises, as it were, and Nehemiah represents a moral road to the same end. It says, they “went in the opposite direction”. There are not only the stairs of the city of David but there is a moral path through “the tower of the furnaces … the gate of Ephraim … the old wall … the fish-gate … the sheep-gate; and they stood still in the prison-gate”. There is the breakdown, and yet the praises of God are going on, “both choirs stood in the house of God”. There is the great end, dear brethren. May we be encouraged to find our place in the house of God. The firm foundation of God stands. The house of God is there to be enjoyed by those who would commit themselves to the path. May I appeal again, dear brethren, for us all to take our part in being a repairer of the breaches, to restore the ancient paths, to commit ourselves afresh to the building up of what is here protecting the interests of Christ, and on the other hand to have in our hearts to make room for the praise of God, for Christ’s Name’s sake.

MELBOURNE

2 April 1999

This address will be printed also with the notes of the extended meetings at which it was given.