When Faced with Opposition
Notes
Transcript
The last few weeks, we have been looking at the story of Nehemiah
He receives news that the walls around Jerusalem were still in ruins and had a burden and passion to see them rebuilt
After praying for several days, he approaches the king and get his help to go and rebuild the walls
Last week we looked briefly at some of those who were coming against him
And then we talked about all of the people that were helping to build the wall!
We talked about how we are in a war and it’s better to be a battle ship with all hands on deck than a cruise ship in a war
This week, we are going to look a little deeper into the opposition that came to the rebuilding - we will be in chapters 4-6 if you want to flip there
Last week, we looked at this image showing where this opposition was coming from
Sanballat the Horonite was the governor of Samaria to the north
Tobiah was an official in Ammon - possible the governor - in the east
Geshem the Arab in the south
Basically Jerusalem was surrounded
This morning we are going to look a little more at the opposition coming against Nehemiah and Jeremiah
As we walk through these chapters I want to take notice of some of the tactics of the opposition and enemy
1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, 2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?” 3 Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!”
As we are looking at tactics of the enemy, we see that these people are obvious working against God and what He wants!
I don’t want us to compare ourselves to these people, but I do want us to recognize that the tactics of the enemy are often the same for these guys as they are in us.
As we look at the tactics of the enemy here, let’s see if we recognize these happening sometimes in our lives!
I want to get a bit of a disclaimer here that not everything is of the enemy! Many tactics of the enemy aren’t simply from him, but also because we walk in a broken world and still have our flesh.
Sometimes, these things can also be caused by us!
But, sometimes it directly is the enemy and helps us to be aware of what the enemy might be trying to do!
The first tactic I notice here is:
1. Anger
1. Anger
How often do we get angry and make poor choices when we are angry?
Now, anger in itself is an emotion given to us by God and the purpose of it is an identifier of a problem.
We see that something is not right and anger begins!
Anger should lead us to action, but action always begins in our prayer closet!
Nehemiah’s first reaction to anger was prayer:
4 Hear us, our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity.
Prayer gives us the opportunity to connect with the God who is much bigger than us!
He sees the whole picture and is full of wisdom!
The opposers here were not just a little bit angry, they were “very angry” the Hebrew word means an “abundance or exceedingly” angry
They were angry enough to plot against them to come and fight them
If we find that we are getting angry, there is something wrong! The anger should lead us first to our prayer closet
It should secondly lead us to deal with it:
26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
Paul is writing in the context of the church and when we get angry with each other, but the truth is, when we get angry, we should deal with it so that the enemy has foothold, or ground in our lives!
So the first tactic of the enemy was anger…the second is found in verse 10:
10 Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, “The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.”
As we see, they begin to get tired! Exhaustion, like anger is not always a direct result of the enemy, but it if not handled well, the enemy can certainly use it
2. Exhaustion
2. Exhaustion
Some of the exhaustion here came from them working to get the wall rebuilt and some of it came from their enemies coming against them
6 So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.
They were working hard, with all their heart!
And in:
11 Also our enemies said, “Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.” 12 Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.”
That would certainly wear a fella out. You’re working hard to rebuild the wall and constantly being threatened! Probably physical and mental exhaustion
What Nehemiah does here is he reorders things and puts them into place to help!
13 Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. 14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
If the enemy is coming after us and we are tired and exhausted, maybe we need to reorder things in our lives!
The first thing here is Nehemiah recognized the weak points and placed people there!
The enemy will often attack you at your weakest point!
Be aware of these areas and seek the help that you need!
And then Nehemiah comes back to the focus!
Remember God, He’s fighting for you! And your families!
Sometimes we need to remember who has our back!
Sometimes we need the speech to pep us up, to refocus our minds on who our God is!
I am not going to read every scripture so follow along in your bible, but he divides the work in
Some people were building and some people were protecting!
They also took shift work and they were always alert and aware! He posted a trumpeter so if trouble was coming, they could all hear and gather together!
I don’t want to lose sight of the story here in comparison to our lives, but we know the rebuilding only took 52 days, so roughly a month and a half!
Sometimes we have seasons where we have to work hard to get a job done!
I totally get that and understand!
But for many of us, the work is ongoing and never ending!
We should work hard, but it seems in our culture that there is an unspoken competition to see who works the hardest! And again, at times, we need to do this!
But, we can’t lose sight of the importance of rest!
God created the world and then rested!
Then He had to command that people rest!
So, make sure that part of your plan to refocus when you are exhausted includes rest!
Figure out what is important and needs to be done and then figure out how you can build times of rest in your lives!
I’ve talked about our family sabbath some as we typically take from Friday night to Saturday night to rest. We set aside our phones - so if you try to call or message me during this time, I won’t get back to you until Saturday night.
The first few weekends, it drove me nuts! Worrying about all that needed to get done, and what if someone needs something, etc.
But now, I love the time of rest and look forward to it!
You certainly don’t have to do it the same way that we do, but build in some rest in your lives!
The next tactic of the enemy is in the beginning of chapter 5:
1 Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.
Basically what is happening is the nobles and officials are charging their own people interest and when they couldn’t pay, there children were being sold
So, the tactic of the enemy here is to get them to:
3. Fight Among Each Other
3. Fight Among Each Other
How often does this happen?
The enemy is trying to destroy your marriage, your family, and your church!
It is against everything that he stands for!
Nehemiah calls them out!
9 So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? 10 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest! 11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.”
He clearly states what they are doing wrong and points them back to God!
Shouldn’t we remember the bigger picture and what God is doing?
We can’t fight our enemies if we are not united!
I believe one of the greatest tricks of the enemy is to get the church fighting about non-essentials!
Did you know there are roughly 45,000 christian denominations in the world? Some argue that this number might be inflated some due to how they are estimated, but still!
Even if the accurate number is half that - 22,000
or 1/10 - 4,500
or 1/1000 - 450
You see the point! Even 450 different denominations is a bit crazy to me!
We can find 450 things in scripture to disagree with so much that we start another denomination?
When I was in Arkansas I attended a pastors weekly prayer meeting - I called it the Baptist Prayer Association - there were about 8-10 pastors that met - I was the Nazarene guy and there was a methodist guy and the rest were baptist - but all different flavors
In fact, we met at the second baptist church and the pastor of the first baptist church was there - I bet you can’t guess why one was first and one was second!
Yup! A church split many years ago!
here’s what’s crazy, I don’t know the full story on that one, but I would bet there doctrine is almost identical!
I could be wrong, but I would guess they agree 100% on primary doctrines and even most secondary doctrines. It was likely a secondary or tertiary belief that separated them
Often times we get upset about something and can’t figure it out, so we separate!
If this is happening, let’s remember what Nehemiah did, call out exactly what was wrong and point back to the greater focus!
We, unlike in Nehemiah’s time, have the indwelling Holy Spirit in every believer, and the canonized scriptures!
We should be able to work it out!
If we would just remember, and live out, chapter 4 of Ephesians, that would likely solve a lot of issues
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
And then he continues on!
Let’s walk in love, and humility, and grace and remember our greater purpose!
The last tactic of the enemy for this morning is pretty much chapter 6
Basically what happens is the enemies decided to kill Nehemiah so they set up a couple of fake meeting to kill him.
One of the ways was through his own people in verse 10.
Nehemiah knows it is a trap and doesn’t go!
So the tactic of the enemy here is:
4. Lies
4. Lies
If the enemy can get us to believe a lie and for us to not walk in the truth, he can destroy what we are trying to do!
How often does conflict happen because the truth is not out?
Either someone is intentionally being deceptive or there is a misunderstanding!
Paul tells us how to deal with this in multiple places, often we refer to
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
So, we fight by recognizing the things of God! Take every thought captive and ask, is it true or not?
And in relationship with each other, we have, again:
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
Come together, united in Christ, and walk in love, humility, grace, and truth!
A call to prayer:
Where do you see anger popping up in your life?
Where are you exhausted?
Do you see fighting among each other in your marriage, family, or church?
Where do you see lies in your life or the life of others?
