Answer this question- What wins games? If you said defense, you are correct. Have you ever watched someone run a touchdown or make a fast break with no defense to guard them? Easy points! Why? Because if we don’t play defense, the offense has no problem scoring against us.
Spiritually we can learn a lot about good defense. In biblical times, cities would build great defenses with walls. When a city wasn’t fortified, an army could come in and easily plunder it. This analogy is extremely applicable to us today. How many of you feel like your walls are broken down? Maybe you feel vulnerable to every attack of the enemy!
Are you spiritually guarded with a good defense, or are your walls broken down? Isiah 30:12-14 states:
12 Therefore the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message and have trusted in oppression and deceit, and have depended on them, 13 this iniquity of yours will be like a crumbling gap, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse will come in an instant — suddenly! 14 Its collapse will be like the shattering of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces, so that not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains — no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth or scoop water from a cistern.” -- Isaiah 30:12-14 (CSB)
This is a powerful picture of what sin can do to us. It can destroy us.
In the book of Nehemiah (1:3-9) The city of Jerusalem had great walls to protect itself from threats outside. Nehemiah repents in prayer on behalf of the people of Israel. Their sin brought destruction on the whole city. Scripture shows us a powerful metaphor of how the people of Israel allowed sin to run rampant in their lives to the point that it literally destroyed the city. We set up walls in our lives to protect us from the pain and suffering sin brings. The more we entertain it, the more it chips away at our defenses. Eventually, like Jerusalem, we crumble and are defenseless to sin. Sin may be attractive in the moment, but it will always end in destruction.
Sin will break down your walls
Like Nehemiah, we must turn to God in prayer and repent over our sin. Imagine your life as a great city. What’s the condition of your walls? Are you protected from sin, or do you see destruction happening all around you? Before God can ever rebuild us, we first must repent over the sin we’ve allowed into our lives. Many times, God allows our walls to be destroyed when we give ourselves to sin for the purpose of surrender. Once we repent, God can begin to rebuild
Don’t allow sin to live inside your city walls any longer. In time, sin will destroy your defenses and keep you vulnerable to the attack of the enemy.
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