Nehemiah 4:1-14
Amen. Turning your copy of God’s
word, uh, to Nehemiah chapter four, uh, both tonight and next
week, we’ll split up chapter four, uh, into two parts. Uh, tonight we’ll look at the
opposition. Uh, next week we’ll look at the laborers, uh, working
with a sword in one hand and a trowel and the other hand. Nehemiah chapter four, beginning
at verse one. Now, when Sanballat heard that
we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged,
and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of
his brothers and of the army of Samaria, what are these feeble
Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves?
Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day?
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burned
ones at that? Tobiah, the Ammonite, was beside
him and he said, yes, what they are building. If a fox goes up
on it, he will break down their stone wall. Here, O our God,
for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their
own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where
they are captives. Do not cover their guilt and
let not their sin be blotted out from your sight. for they
have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.
So we built the wall and all the wall was joined together
to half its height for the people had a mind to work. But when
Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the
Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was
going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed,
They were very angry and they all plotted together to come
and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And
we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against
them day and night. In Judah, it was said, the strength
of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much
rubble. By ourselves, we will not be
able to rebuild the wall. And our enemies said, they will
not know or see till we come among them and kill them and
stop the work. At that time, the Jews who lived
near them came down from all directions and said to us 10
times, you must return to us. So in the lowest parts of the
space behind the wall and open places, I stationed the people
by their clans with their swords and their spears and their bows.
And I looked and I arose and said to the nobles, to the officials
and to the rest of the people, do not be afraid of them. Remember
the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers,
your sons, your daughters, your wives, and for your homes. Amen. The word of the living
God. I think it’s a faithful saying,
a trustworthy saying that if you are a Christian, if you love
the Lord, and you seek to work in his kingdom, to labor in his
vineyards, whether it be in the home or the church or to labor
faithfully in the marketplace, you will meet opposition. And
I think we are living in times where we will face more fierce
opposition. Perhaps it will be while you’re
in the workplace, you must donate to this cause. It’s a requirement
of employment. You may face it in the family. Why raise your kids in the fear
of the Lord? Why put them in a Christian school?
Why do this or that? You may face it. in the church. If you serve the living God,
you’ve got a target on your back and Satan will come. I think
of previous servants of God who felt this. There was Noah who
built on the ark for 100 years. For 100 years he built the ark
and there were generations mocking him and spurning the gospel that
he preached as he preached salvation through the ark. Only his family,
only his own generations went in that great ark of salvation. Then there was King David, who
pretty much as soon as he was anointed as king was on the run
from Saul, hiding in caves and running from all his enemies
and spears. Peter, the great apostle of our
Lord Jesus, says in one of his little letters, do not be surprised
at the fiery trials that we faced. The apostle James says we should
count it all joy when we face sufferings of any kind. The Lord
Jesus said that suffering and persecution would be inevitable.
But he said, fear not, for I have overcome the world. We remember
the opposition. Certainly he received at the
cross and in his trial, but in his simple ministry, the Pharisees,
they would fuss at him for things like healing on the Sabbath day. Well, there is a war on. These are not peace times. We
remember the church is either the church militant or the church
triumphant. The church triumphant are those
who’ve gone on to be with the Lord in heaven, but we are the
church militant and there is a war on. And as we sing in Martin
Luther’s rendering of Psalm 46, for still our ancient foe does
seek to work us, woe his wrath. and power are great. He is armed
with cruel hate. And so here we have the people
of God furiously at work rebuilding the walls of the city of God. They’re full of zeal. We’ve already
seen what an organized labor party it is. Everybody working
on the portion of the wall outside their home, outside their business.
Everybody pretty much had picked in except the nobles of the Toccoites
we noted in our last study, but there’s a great speed with which
they are working. I think they complete the project
in about 52 days. It’s about 40 days in or so,
some would suggest, in this labor. They’re halfway through, they’re
weary and they’re tired. But there’s a bigger thing going
on. It’s not about bricks and stones and mortar and walls.
And it’s not even about Jerusalem. No, it’s about God and His glory. It’s about God and His work in
the hearts of the people of God. Yes, they come and rebuild the
temple. Yes, they come and reestablish the law of God, the reading of
His word and the doing of His word. And yes, they come build
the walls. But ultimately, it’s the people
of God reestablishing themselves in the promised land. It’s repairing
the ruins that we’re part of God’s judgment on them for their
disobedience. It’s advancing the gospel. It’s
advancing the kingdom. And their work in the ministry
has been noticed. It’s been noticed by the enemies.
And you wanna pause there and think for a moment. Are we trying
to do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way? Or are we trying
to do the Lord’s work in the world’s ways? If you’re doing
the Lord’s work in the world’s way, Satan is going to leave
you alone. His work is already done for
him. You’ve gotten off the beaten
path. He can put his feet up on the beach chair, on the sand
and doesn’t have to do a thing. But if you’re doing the Lord’s
work in the Lord’s way, expect it to be noticed and expect to
receive opposition. Well, Israel’s existence in the
promised land is something that uh, is not liked by those who’ve
noticed. And I don’t, I don’t know if
you caught it. Um, when it speaks on verse seven of sand ballot,
Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, the Ashdodites, all the people
heard and they basically came running. It’s everybody North,
South and East and West, all the surrounding peoples, all
the surrounding enemies. come running to Jerusalem and
to Judah to oppose the work of Almighty God. And remember, if
you’re a mother, a father, if you’re raising children, if you’re
working hard for Jesus in the marketplace, if you are serving
the church, the same opposition, the same antagonism could come
to you. And so the call that comes from this passage is a
call to respond well. It’s a call to stand firm and
to hold fast and to press on and to keep the faith. I want
to think about a couple of things from the passage. One is the
opposition that comes. And I can’t help but think of
the story of Job where in the heavenly courts, God is on his
throne and Job, or I’m sorry, Satan comes into the heavenly
courts and God says to Job, or I’m mixing it up here, God says
to Satan, where have you been? Oh, I’ve been out. Your parents
ask you on Friday night, where you been? Out. That’s very satanic. Been out looking for trouble.
Going to and fro. Looking for trouble. That’s Sam
Ballard and Tobiah, isn’t it? They’re out looking for trouble.
They are doing Satan’s work. And verses one through three
kind of give us the sinister sense of their labor against
God’s people. When they heard that the wall
was being built, you could say when they heard that Israel’s
existence was looking more like a reality, they were building
these walls that could not be penetrated. They were angry. They were greatly enraged and
they jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of
his brothers, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they
restore the city for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they
finish up in a day? Will they revive stones out of
the heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that? And then good old
Tobiah says, this wall they build won’t even hold a fox. If a fox
gets up on this wall, it will. it will fall over. They have
heard of the people of God and their work and they’re hot, they’re
angry, they’re enraged, they’re incensed, their faces are red,
they’re frustrated, and they’re jeering and these rhetorical
questions show How how angry they are at the work of God’s
people, and it’s it’s in a sense antiphonal. During their surrounding
the city and what did the worker bees, the women and the Children
and the. the perfumers and the, remember
the jewelers? Everybody’s doing work. What
do they see when they look out of the crack in the wall that’s
near their home? They look out and they see the
enemies coming. They hear the enemies jeering. It’s like the wolves circling
the prey. And you can imagine their fear. You can imagine the sinister
feeling that must be coming among them. It’s a dark, and stormy
night, we might say. It’s like Genesis 3. The serpent
was more crafty than any other beast of the field. And Tobiah,
one of the enemies, seems to say this wall is nothing. It’s flimsy. Even a little fox
could knock it over. Well, immediately, um, Nehemiah
goes into prayer and we’re going to cover his prayer in a moment,
but I want to look at the rest of the enemy’s work. Look at
verse seven, Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, the
Ashdodites. These are all their ancient enemies.
A thousand years later, still wreaking havoc. Um, they were,
hearing that the breaches in the wall were beginning to close
and they were angry and they plotted together. They came and
fought. They came to fight together against
Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. They wanted to cause chaos. They wanted to hurt the faithful.
They wanted to stop the work. And maybe you’ve been in Christian
work and you’ve been discouraged. You feel like quitting. You feel
like nobody’s listening. You feel like, um, there’s just
so much opposition, you can’t bear up under it. I imagine they
were under the great pressure here that perhaps some of you
have felt before. Verse 11 seems to indicate a
surprise attack. They will not know, they will
not see until we come among them and kill them and stop the work. We’re gonna raid the city. So
you can imagine the people of God, they’re paranoid. They’re
harassed. It’s hard to bear fruit under
duress. It’s hard to bear up under hardship. But God tells us if we’re going
to do the Christian life, we’re going to do the Christian ministry.
If we’re going to do the Christian family, we’re going to do the
godly things. We better have our minds and our hearts firmed
up for these things. I love the old story told in
an introduction to the Shorter Catechism about the two soldiers
that were passing each other on the street during the world
war. And there were bombs whizzing by and exploding and all kinds
of chaos. And these two men passed each
other, their eyes met. And when they walked past, they
both turned around and they both walked right up to one another.
One stuck his finger in the other’s chest and says, what is man’s
chief end? And he said, man’s chief end
is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And he said, I knew
you were a shorter catechism boy by the look on your face.
And we can only be firmed up in this world when we know the
truth, when we hide the scriptures in our heart, when we know the
truths about who God is and what he’s done, his promises. If we
don’t eat our Wheaties, as it were, if we don’t pump our spiritual
iron, we’ll be flabby Christians and we’ll run away from the hard
things, not be able to endure them. And that leads us to the
second thing that this passage, I think, shows us. Well, the
first thing was the opposition. Now we want to see the prayer. What do you do in hardship? Well,
you pray and Nehemiah leads the people. This is an attack on
God. God is being slighted. It’s his glory. It’s his people. We just sang Psalm 48. Uh, God
loves his city. God loves the citadels. God loves
the walls, the ramparts. Um, the walls are great, but
it’s God who is the God of the city and he’s the one being harassed. And notice Nehemiah’s prayer
in verse four here. “‘Oh, our God, for we are despised. “‘Turn back their taunt on their
own heads. “‘Give them up to be plundered
in a land “‘where they are captives. “‘Do not cover their guilt. “‘Do
not let their sin be blotted out from your sight, “‘for they
have provoked you to anger “‘in the presence of the builders.'”
This is one of those prayers that’s, well, it’s a tough one
to swallow. It’s not one of the toughest
in the Bible to swallow, but it’s one of the prayers we call
the imprecatory prayers. We call down curses on our enemies. Now, when I was a kid, our family,
we had all these kind of funny sayings at the dinner table.
And if there was somebody we didn’t like, you know, maybe
we’re sitting at the dinner table and somebody said, you know,
somebody’s being mean to me at school. My mom would joke and
say, well, do you want me to pray? They’ll get the hemorrhoids.
Yeah, wow. Never thought you’d hear that
on Sunday night, but that was a family. That was a family joke. Pray
down a curse on them, right? Would that Nehemiah was only
praying for that. Do you catch what he says in
verse four? Turn back their taunt on their
own heads. Give them up to be plundered
in a land. We just came from captivity.
You send them off to captivity. That’s a pretty big curse. It
gets worse. Do not cover their guilt. Let them go to hell. Do
not blot out their sin. Make them pay for it themselves. What a difficulty. You know,
there’s some Psalms, dash their babies against the rocks. Some
of you who’ve been around a while, you’ll remember that we went
through all the Psalms Probably in the first five or six years
that I was here, I guess we finished in about six years, took some
breaks. But one Sunday night, we were going through one of
the imprecatory Psalms. I can’t remember which one it was. And
somebody audibly out loud said, I can’t believe that. And that
really should be the response. Why would you wish something
hard or hateful Uh, but here he says, Lord, they’ve attacked
you. They’ve slighted you. They brought
dishonor on you. And so his prayer is urgent.
It’s honest. It’s, it’s passionate. It’s realistic. There’s a lot at stake here and
there’s a lot of ultimate things at stake here. It’s the glory
of God. It’s the wellbeing of his, of
his saints. Uh, they want vindication. They
want justice. And maybe you say, well, this
is Old Testament stuff. Go to the New Testament and we
get nicer in the New Testament. Well, lest you think so, read
the book of Revelation chapter six. And it speaks of the altar
up in heaven where the incense is burning. It’s the prayers.
And it says under the altar, it’s the prayers of the souls
of those who have been persecuted. How many people, countless people
have been persecuted for the name of Jesus. I mean, there’s
St. Paul under there, lost his head to Nero. There’s St. Peter
under there who’s crucified upside down because he didn’t think
He deserved to be crucified right side up as his Lord did, and
on down through history, all the people, all the souls of
those who’ve been raised up into heaven and are awaiting the return
of Jesus, their prayer is this, according to Revelation 6, how
long, O Lord, till you avenge our deaths? And that heavenly
answer is, there’s more deaths to come. There’s more persecution
to come. There’s more hardship to come,
but, but they’ll get theirs. Don’t you worry. And then you
fast forward in revelation to chapter 19. There’s the great
hallelujah section where the scripture says rather triumphantly,
hallelujah, salvation and power belong to our God. His judgments
are true and just. He has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality. And he has avenged
on her the blood of his servants. Once more, they cried out, hallelujah. The smoke from her goes up forever
and ever. It’s in the New Testament too,
isn’t it? I just got a book the other day that I ordered called,
I’m making up the title, but it’s something like this. Why
is the Old Testament so nasty? Well, the New Testament is too.
God does not forget those who hurt his people, who hurt his
own glory and never repent. And it’s appropriate at times. I believe it’s appropriate to
pray yes for people’s conversion. It’s appropriate to pray that
they would come to faith in Jesus Christ and love him and call
on his name and repent of their evil things, even if they are
a wicked person. but it’s also appropriate to
pray that God would avenge the deaths of those who suffered
injustice. You watch the news and you see,
you see some sick things that have taken place locally, nationally,
internationally. It’s a, it’s a crazy six sin
filled world and your heart should say, Oh Lord, make it right.
Come again and make all things new. Judge the wicked and the
unrepentant and protect the righteous. Uh, we, we think of that often
with these, atrocities that we see in the news. Well, Nehemiah
is not the only one who prays here. If you jump down to verse
nine, it says, we prayed to our God and we set a guard as protection
against them day and night. The people of God were surrounded.
There was a plot against them. And it was necessary for them
to pray. When was the last time the people
of God were surrounded? Well, the Babylonians laid siege
to the city and they surrounded it. They cut off their water
supply. They cut off their food supply. They cut off their natural
gas and their electricity and their cable and their internet.
And I mean, you get the idea. They smoked them out as it were. They began to burn the gates
and destroy the city. And so for these people to be
surrounded yet again, was quite a scary thing and it drove them
to prayer. It drove them to a corporate
or a body-wide, church-wide reliance on God. They were discouraged.
They were fearful. They were vulnerable. They were
deprived. They were having it hard. And
perhaps they didn’t say a whole lot. And maybe you get hemmed
in sometimes from all sides. Lord, I’m in a tough spot. Having
it hard, Lord. Think of the hymn we like. What
a friend we have in Jesus. All we have to do is look up.
You know, we may be surrounded on all sides, but we look up
and we can still see the heavens. We can still see God Almighty.
Well, the third thing that our passage shows us is action. There’s opposition, there’s prayer,
but there’s also action. And it doesn’t take rocket science
to figure out what to do next. Love. the quotation that Elizabeth
Elliot came, she didn’t come up with it. She was reciting
an old poem, I think, but after her husband and fellow missionaries
death, she said, you just do the next thing. You keep working,
you keep laboring in the kingdom. And so you find the people here
watching and working, watching out for their backs, but working
on the wall, the faster the wall went up, the sooner the breaches
were filled, the quicker the gates were hung and locked. They
could rest and their wives and their children and their homes
and their lives would be protected. And so there’s something in this
for us. What do you do on Monday morning?
What do you do on Tuesday morning? What do you do on Wednesday morning?
You watch and you work, you roll out the trash, you do the laundry,
you do the dishes, you just keep up with life. Maybe it’s mundane
in your eyes, but it is kingdom work. And so we watch and we
work. We are the church militant and
we must get it in our minds. We must get it in our hearts.
We must do the duty that has been given to us for our hands
to carry on despite opposition. Who will pick up if we quit?
Who will carry on if we stop? And so we need faith. We need
unity. We need energy. We need calm. And verse nine tells us, we prayed
to our God, we set a guard as protection against these enemies
day and night. There’s faith and there’s action. This isn’t a group of people
who let go and let God, right? Let’s put God to the test. No,
we take action. And verse 13 tells us, In the lowest parts of the space,
behind the wall in the open places, Nehemiah says, I stationed people
by their clans with their swords, with their spears, and with their
bows. What a interesting picture we
have here of the people watching, working, and guarding, and protecting
the enemies, the nations, the Goliaths, the Herods, the Satans. Oh, they circle around. Well,
one last thing we find in this passage, and it’s in verse 14,
and I think it’s really the sweetest verse. perhaps in the whole book
of Nehemiah. It’s a verse of encouragement. Do not be afraid of them. Remember
the Lord, who is great, who is awesome, and fight for your brothers,
for your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. Why is encouragement needed here?
Well, they’re halfway through building the wall. They’re circled
around by enemies. You know, there’s all kinds of
circumstances, I think, have befallen them and thank
the Lord for a guy like Nehemiah. He sees beyond the rubble, right? He sees beyond the broken places.
He sees beyond the enemies. He sees the forest and not the
trees, as we say, and he’s able to encourage them. They’re dead
tired, we might say. They’ve been working night and
day. They’re overwhelmed. They’re
halfway through. This is like a chain gang, a
prison gang. This is pretty hard work dealing
with the rocks and the stone and the rubble. And so they’re
dead tired, but also they need encouragement because they’re
under constant threat. You can only physically and psychologically
handle so much emotionally. You can only handle so much.
And so these folks are vulnerable. They are easy prey, as it were. They’re surrounded and they are
unnerved. And so Nehemiah speaks to them
a practical word. He speaks to them a word of encouragement. Don’t
overestimate Satan. That’s something we ought to
keep in mind, isn’t it? That’s not Nehemiah’s words. Looking
for that in the verse, it’s not in there. But don’t ever overestimate
Satan. Remember, he’s God’s devil. In
the case of Job, he had asked permission. You can skin for
skin, but you don’t take his life. He’s God’s devil. He’s chained. He is under the sovereign one. But we should never underestimate
Satan. He’s a formidable enemy, isn’t
he? He can do great harm to God’s people. He can take their lives.
But God says, I think Martin Luther says it so well in verse,
one little word shall fail him. And so we should fight. We should
fight for the crown of King Jesus, for the covenant of Almighty
God. And we should take encouragement. Do not be afraid of them. Remember
the Lord. I think of echoes of Ephesians
6. Be strong in the Lord and in
the strength of his might. And then the word stand. Here
it’s the word work, but in Ephesians it’s take a stand. And so the
task, work of the kingdom. Yes, it comes with opposition.
Yes, we can lose heart. Yes, we may be feeble. We may
be despised. We may be scared. We may be on
our knees in prayer. We may be working hard and getting
encouragement, but it’s a swirl of hard things. And the chief
of all these is to remember the Lord. Remember the Lord, he that
keepeth Israel does not slumber, nor does he sleep. I think of
Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer who was known for fits
of despondency. And in one of his stretches of
despondency, his wife, Katie, came into his study all dressed
in black, all in funeral garb. And she was mourning, she was
weeping and mourning, and he said, oh, what is wrong? And she says, God is dead. That’s ridiculous, he says. God is not dead. And she says,
yes, but you act as if he is. And so let us remember the Lord,
our God. He is alive and well and will
fight for his people. And he’s shown us that he will
through thick and thin, most of all through Jesus Christ.
Jesus has won the battle, won the victory, and he sits in heaven
cheering us on and we will land there safely one day. Let’s do
pray together. Our God, we thank you for the
truth of your word and pray that it would sink deep in our hearts.
In the days to come, it would be called to our minds that we
would remember the Lord, that we would not be afraid, that
we would remember you were great and you were awesome. And so
we can fight, we can work, we can watch, we can pray, we can
serve because you are with us. Help us and hear us now as we
make our prayer in Christ’s name, amen.