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Nehemiah 4
Defeating Discouragement
Are you familiar with Murphy’s Law?
The original “Murphy” was an engineer who conducted an experiment to test human acceleration tolerances.
Unfortunately for him, he installed 16 motion sensors the wrong way, leading to the now famous quotation,
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong"
Here are some other laws blamed on poor Mr. Murphy:
· Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
· Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
· Everything takes longer than you think.
· You will never find a lost article until you replace it.
· Everything goes wrong all at once.
· If everything seems to be going well, you’ve obviously overlooked something.
As we come to Nehemiah 4, everything seems to be going wrong all at once.
In chapter one we looked at how Nehemiah prayed, in chapter two we saw how God moved him from the place in Persia to the desolation of Jerusalem.
Last week, we were introduced to the wall workers and discovered that in kingdom work, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.
But when we come to chapter 4, things start to get more complicated for Nehemiah.
Mr. Murphy shows up and reminds Nehemiah that when everything seems to be going well, something will go wrong.
And when things go wrong, discouragement often sets in which is still a big problem for us today.
And that’s because:
· None of us are immune to discouragement.
We’ve all been discouraged at some time.
· Being discouraged once does not give you immunity to it.
You can be discouraged over and over again.
· Discouragement spreads by contact.
Others can become discouraged because you are or you can be because other people are discouraged.
So, this morning we’re going to focus on both the causes and cures for discouragement in Nehemiah chapter 4 where we will really focus on the first 15 verses.
Pray!
Discouragement can come at us from two directions - one from the outside and the other on the inside.
Let’s look first at the outside.
The wall workers were excited at first and began the work with great anticipation and joy.
Things were going well, the people were excited, and the wall was going up.
Then something happened.
Getting the work started on the wall was a major accomplishment, but keeping the workers working proved to be a much tougher job.
Where God is at work, the enemy is also at work.
Rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem was certainly no exception to this.
When people take kingdom priorities seriously, Satan stirs up people to block the work of God.
These enemies used two types of external forces.
The first one is ridicule.
Ridicule
We see this in verse 1:
1 Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.
This is the third time in the book that we come across Sanballat, who was Nehemiah’s stiffest opponent.
Every time we read about him he is standing against the work of God, rejecting and ridiculing everything that Nehemiah is trying to accomplish.
The enemy often insults God’s servants.
Goliath mocked David when he met him with only a sling in his hand.
The soldiers mocked Jesus during his trial and the crowd mocked Him while he was hanging on the cross.
Sanballat and his buddies had begun to ridicule the workers even before the work started in 2:19: “…they jeered at us and despised us…” Here in chapter 4, he is making a speech before the army of Samaria.
He asks, “What are these feeble Jews doing?” and then asks some mocking questions.
Will they restore it for themselves?
That must have made the Samaritans fall over laughing.
How could this feeble group of Jews hope to build a wall strong enough to protect the city from their army?
Will they sacrifice?
It will take more than prayer and worship to rebuild the city.
Will they finish up in a day?
The workers have no idea how difficult the job was and would soon give up.
Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?
The building materials were so old and damaged that they couldn’t possibly be used to make a strong wall.
In verse 3, it was Tobiah’s turn to make fun of the workers, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”
The workers became the punch line of every joke, and everyone laughed at their expense.
Tobiah hoped that his sarcasm would make the builders think twice about their work and would become discouraged and give up.
Listen, whenever you attempt to get involved in the work of God, you will always face ridicule.
Expect it, but don’t stop working.
The second cause of their external discouragement was resistance in verses 7-8.
Resistance
The enemies have moved from being bothered by the Jews to being angry.
They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it.
Warren Wiersbe writes,
“God’s people sometimes have difficulty working together, but the people of the world have no problem uniting in opposition to the work of the Lord.”
Verse 7 shows that they were facing opposition from every direction.
· Sanballat and the Samaritans to the north
· Ashdod to the west
· Tobiah and the Ammonites to the east
· Geshem and the Arabs to the south
The workers were surrounded and living in constant fear of being attacked.
Pressures from outside often create problems inside.
Opposition outside can lead to depression on the inside.
It wasn’t the voice of the enemy that was the most persistent; it was the voice of God’s own people.
And, just like today, it’s so easy to take the words of the enemy to heart and feel like giving up.
When we face resistance on the outside we can find ourselves becoming discouraged.
Discouragement can happen because of external issues like ridicule and resistance but also because of internal ones.
The first cause of internal discouragement is exhaustion.
Exhaustion
Verse 10 reads,
10 In Judah it was said, “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing.”
The workers were tired.
They were hitting it hard and needed some rest.
When you are physically drained, it is very easy to become discouraged at the slightest problem.
The workers get tired and discouraged midway through when the wall was halfway done.
Often when we start a new project the first half goes fast because we’re excited about achieving the goal.
But, when the newness wears off and the work becomes routine and boring, then it’s easy to become exhausted.
And when you’re tired it’s easy to become discouraged and to begin to think that you will never finish the job.
Verse 10 says: “…we will not be able to rebuild the wall.”
They were ready to throw in the towel.
Watch out if you’re exhausted today.
Tiredness can lead to discouragement.
You can’t burn the candle at both ends on a long-term basis.
Sometimes, the most helpful thing to do is to go to bed.
The second cause is frustration.
Frustration
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