God Will See Us Through The Fight!
Notes
Transcript
The Enemies Threaten Verses 1-3
The Enemies Threaten Verses 1-3
Continue in the series on Rebuilding the Walls by looking at Nehemiah
Chapter 1 we saw Nehemiah receiving a report on the situation in Jerusalem, then praying for God to allow him to go to Jerusalem and lead in the repair.
Chapter 2, he gets permission and returns to Jerusalem and surveys the situation for himself, then he shares with the people his vision.
Chapter 3 showed the people’s response to Nehemiah’s call to action and the start of the work.
Chapter 4, we discover that this project was carried out in the face of ruthless and unrelenting opposition.
We meet up with the rivals of Sanballat, Tobiah, and some others.
Essentially, everyone surrounding Jerusalem as opponents.
These people were angry at the restoration of the walls because it posed a threat to them and their economic status.
Also anger will often be the world’s response to God’s work because it challenges worldviews and values.
With Jerusalem once more a well-protected city, its very location will attract trade and Samaria would lose it’s economic stability.
King Artaxerxes had given Nehemiah and the others protection, so Sanballat could only hurl ridicule to them.
The only thing they could do was to intimidate the Israelites by bullying them.
They are just selfish and childlike in their actions.
Nehemiah’s Response Verses 4-6
Nehemiah’s Response Verses 4-6
How did Nehemiah respond, look at verses 4-6
He prayed at this critical moment.
The future of the building undertaking was in the balance, so he did what he always did and that was to pray.
Prayer was the instinctive reaction of Nehemiah when confronted with a crisis, unlike many people who only pray in desperation when everything else has failed.
Nehemiah poured out his heart to God rather than entering into futile arguments with his opponents.
He believed that the rebuilding of the wall was God’s work and he would bring it to a successful end.
Nehemiah is calling on God to conquer His enemies.
He calls on God to do justice against their sin.
God’s justice against them might lead to their repentance, but Nehemiah leaves that implicit and unstated.
What he explicitly states is his desire for God to do justice against them.
He wants God to triumph over them.
We can take encouragement from Nehemiah’s prayer.
When we are offended or our church is ridiculed, we need to remember that we are precious to God and He is offended when some unbeliever pokes fun at us.
The secret to overcoming opposition lies in our relationship with the Lord.
Nehemiah wouldn’t let the Israelites to sit around and wait.
He urged them to pick up their trowels and start building again.
Today, if we are busy doing God’s work, we will not have time to fret about the taunts of the ungodly.
Let God take care of the opposition, we need to focus on His calling for our lives and our church.
As we move to revitalize, to renew our church, we will face opposition.
It may in the form of being told we can’t do that.
Or it will cost too much.
Or you will have to have this permit, etc.
The first thing we need to do is to pray and let God take of it because we have the Lord of Hosts or Lord of God’s Army on our side.
The People’s Reaction Verses 7-15
The People’s Reaction Verses 7-15
That was the people’s response - to pray
There was prayer and perspiration!
Prayer without work is presumption, and work without prayer is self-confidence.
We must pray because we accomplish nothing without God’s power, but at the same time we are to labor for God as if everything depended on our efforts.
We, too, face challenges to our faith like the Israelites in verse 10.
There is faithless talk withing and enemy talk without so Nehemiah writes that the strength of the laborers fails
Morale get low and the people want to give up.
Though they prayed for God’s help they were still overwhelmed.
The people seem too weak, the task seems too big, and the people recognize that they cannot do this by themselves.
They are right, but what those who speak this way fail to remember is that they are not doing this by themselves.
God has promised to enable the effort, and the good hand of God is upon Nehemiah.
The builders continued to be bombarded with menacing words from the adversaries in verse 11.
There were those Jews that had believed the propaganda of the enemies would flee.
When we are drained of energy and prone to fear and depression we must not give up serving the Lord lest we lose the fruit of our strenuous labor over many years.
Let me ask you, are there things in your life that you fear?
Are there doubts lurking in your mind about your ability to do what God has called you to do?
Take your eyes off your inability and fix them on the One for whom nothing is impossible.
As you contemplate the greatness of God, do the next thing.
Look at the weak points and reinforce them, and when you reinforce them, do so with the recognition that you need armed defenders.
With these circumstances, Nehemiah takes steps to strengthen and encourage the people
Nehemiah neither frets nor flees but takes action.
He identifies the most vulnerable locations in the work, and he strategically locates people near those, grouping defenders with those to whom they are emotionally connected.
Not only are they next to those for whom they care deeply, for whom they will fight, but they are armed.
In verse 14 it says, “Don’t be afraid of them.”
The fear of the Lord is the cure for the fear of man.
Renewed strength was derived from God to fight on behalf of their families and homes.
So Nehemiah records in verse 15, “When our enemies heard that we knew their scheme and that God had frustrated it, every one of us returned to his own work on the wall.”
God Will Fight For Us! Verses 16-23
God Will Fight For Us! Verses 16-23
The entire city of Jerusalem became an armed camp of workers.
Nehemiah arranged them into 2 groups: those that did the work and those that stood guard.
Everyone was a part of this effort and no one went home at night.
Each person kept an ear open for the warning sound of the trumpet to spring into fighting mode.
You see, the business of the Jews was so urgent and the danger of a raid so pressing that they did not even have time to change their clothes or to sleep.
As we seek to revitalize our church and renew it as we move into a new era during the pandemic and afterward, we need to know that we are in a war.
First and foremost, we need to pray for our church, it’s ministries, its rebuilding the temple of worship, the renewing of the people, and the resetting of the walls of our identity in the community around us.
We have enemies all around us
Society that is becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity.
People that don’t want to see us succeed and help those who are really in need
And, believe or not, from within - those that have given up, are afraid to step out and join God in the battle, and those that just want to flee when it gets tough.
We are engaged in a warfare, ‘not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12).
The apostle Paul’s teaching in this verse is that behind all human antagonism to the gospel message and against ourselves as Christians is the might of Satan and his powerful regiment of demons.
But the Lord who has enlisted us in his army is more powerful than the devil.
Our divine Captain equips us with armour and gives us strength to conquer (Eph. 6:10–11).
In the language of Nehemiah, ‘Our God will fight for us!’ God’s work, then and now, is accomplished by faith—‘Our God will fight for us’ (4:20)—and hard work—‘So we continued the work’ (4:21).
Let’s pray!