The Power In The Watergate

3:13 -- The Valley Gate

3:14 -- The Dung Gate

3:15 -- The Gate of the Fountain

3:26 -- The Water Gate

3:38 -- The Horse Gate

-All of these gates were necessary to the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem. Yet within all of the description of these gates, there is a very subtle thing that I must admit that I had overlooked over the years.

-It is found in Nehemiah 3:26 and there is no mention at all of the “water gate” having the need to be repaired. Then by the time that you get to Nehemiah 8, the walls have been completed and they meet again at the “water gate” for the reading of the Law.

-This was a pattern that had been understood throughout the all the times that the walls and temple were in shambles. The dwellers of Jerusalem had still continued to meet at the “water gate” to have the Word of the Law read to them.

-For some unknown reason the “water gate” had managed to remain intact during the destruction of Jerusalem. It was at the “water gate” that Israel went in the darkest hours to hear the reading of the Law. The “water gate” was associated with the preaching and the reading of the Word of God.

-The “water gate” was what allowed water to course through from the Gibeon spring to the people. It brought relief to their thirsty body. Consider what Paul wrote the church at Ephesus:

Ephesians 5:26 KJV That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

-In the midst of captivity, that word at the “water gate” held much life for the captive nation. It does not matter how dark that the times may get, there will always be a powerful word that comes from the Word of God.

C. Wanted: A Man of God

-This church ought to elevate preaching and praying to a top shelf value. It was prayer and the ministry of the Word that the early church practiced. Nothing is more important than that practice in the local church.

-This was quoted in a sermon from John MacArthur entitled "How To Make A Man Of God." It stirred within me a greater desire to proclaim the Truth. It also stirred within me a passion for those people that I preach to every week. May God help us to awaken our own sleepy souls. . . . .

Fling him into his office. Tear the “Office” sign from the door and nail on the sign, “Study.” Take him off the mailing list. Lock him up with his books and his typewriter and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before texts and broken hearts and the flock of lives of a superficial flock and a holy God. Force him to be the one man in our surfeited communities who knows about God.

Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all the night through. And let him come out only when he’s bruised and beaten into being a blessing.

Shut his mouth forever spouting remarks, and stop his tongue forever tripping lightly over every nonessential. Require him to have something to say before he dares break the silence.

Bend his knees in the lonesome valley. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry for God. And make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the glory of God.