It Ain't Over Til It's Over

Introduction

Continue in the series in Nehemiah.

Thus far we watched Nehemiah develop a strategy, implement it despite opposition from within and without.

And yet once the walls are finished they weren’t done, they still had the gates to go.

Let’s think about where the Jews have come thus far.

In Ezra 1-6 they rebuilt the temple

In Ezra 7-10 the people were renewed or they rebuilt the community

In Nehemiah 1-6 the Jews rebuilt the walls

In Nehemiah 7-13 again we see community and people renewal

Perseverance is the key here and in our church as well.

Perseverance Through Overt Opposition 6:1-9

You ever start a project, get well into and begin to wonder why you started it to begin with.

I do a lot.

Kitchen sink and had to call a plumber.

Losing weight

The problem is often we just don’t persevere through the tough times and we give up too easily.

We’ve already seen how Nehemiah and the Jews faced opposition from their enemies and from issues within their community and overcame them.

Today we are to discover that opposition was just the first salvo.

After completing the walls, they are ready to put up the gates.

By doing that, the Jews would have control of their own destiny.

Remember Sanballat and Tobiah, they’re back!

Read Verses 1-9

They see the progress and realize that for them to regain control of the city would be through either a siege or a direct attack.

Before now, they weren’t worried, but now it’s a different story.

So they try to get Nehemiah to meet with them to set up a “peace treaty.”

However, he knew what was at stake, they were not pursuing God’s kingdom like he was.

He knew that they intended to do harm to him.

Nehemiah was called to do a significant work for God and didn’t have time for petty distractions.

So he replied by telling that he was doing a great work and didn’t have time to meet.

It was a great work because it was God’s work

It made a difference, it was a great work, it was an important project because God’s name was at stake in Jerusalem.

Those walls were going to protect God’s people.

That’s what made what Nehemiah was doing in Jerusalem a great work.

Because it was such great work, he was able to stay focused and not distracted by the messengers that Sanballat and Tobiah and the others kept sending to him.

They were trying to intimidate and bully him, but his steadfastness enabled him to persevere in the work before him

Finally, the enemies send an open letter full of rumors about Nehemiah leading a revolution against Artaxerxes and set himself up as king.

Yet, Nehemiah rejected their false accusations and kept right on working.

They were doing God’s will and the Jews with Nehemiah knew it as well.

Look at what he did in verse 9, He had diagnosed the motive behind the rumors and committed his cause to prayer.

Again we see the importance of prayer when we are working for God.

We need his help to overcome our enemies.

He stood firm and continued the work.

Now, for us as a church as we move forward on the work of revitalizing our church, rebuilding our temple through worship, renewing our people through discipleship, and rebuilding our walls within our community through ministry we will face opposition.

Satan is our number one enemy.

He uses sins to confront us and intends to harm us as we work for God.

He uses petty differences to slow or stop our progress,

He brings other good ideas to us that will cause to change course away from God’s will for us.

He will cause us to find other worldly things outside of the church to take away from working in the church to make disciples and gather to worship Him.

We must be vigilant and not allow those kind of issues take our focus off our calling.

When rumors begin to circulate, we must stand for the truth and not become discouraged.

We need to think carefully, analyze deliberately, and seek wise counsel before we react.

Like Nehemiah, as a church we need to pray for God’s intervention with our enemies and strengthen our hands as we do the work.

Perseverance Through Covert Opposition 6:10-14

That was opposition from the outside, but now in these verses Nehemiah again faces covert opposition from within.

To me, this is worse than any overt opposition that a church can deal with.

There are those people in churches that Satan will use to disrupt the fellowship, unity, work, and every aspect of the church’s life.

If left unchecked, these people can destroy a church and its mission

Often it takes out the pastor and other leaders and leaves the church flailing about like a flag in the wind.

And Satan wins!

Look at verses 10-14.

We know that this Shemaiah is some kind of prophet.

He is regarded in the community as being able to declare the will of God.

Now he tells Nehemiah that there is a threat on his life and he should take refuge in the temple.

How will Nehemiah respond to this man who has a reputation as a prophet?

He tells him to run and hide in the temple

Nehemiah knew the Scripture and knew that only priest were allowed to into the temple and if he did go in, he would die!

Turns out that Shemaiah was hired by Tobiah and Sanballat to trick Nehemiah.

In other words, he took money to oppose God and God’s agenda

Just a note, be very careful and don’t be someone who will sell what is most valuable because someone will give you money or a benefit from their money.

It’s not worth it.

Once again, we see Nehemiah turn to prayer.

He believes there will be a judgment

He believes God will do justice, and wants God’s justice to be seen

God will reward people according to what they have done.

Perseverance Through The Project With The People 6:15-19

They started the work in August, and they finished it in October.

Fifty-two days passed, and in that time they rebuilt the wall.

Can I encourage you not to underestimate what you or we the church can accomplish if God has called you, if you are serving Him, and if you persevere?

Often things don’t happen simply because people don’t start doing them and if they do they don’t persevere in them.

Nehemiah had the right perspective: God has been aiding the work all along or helping them by working on their behalf.

God will do the same for us as a church as we seek to follow His will for us.

We want to be people who do things that can only be done because God is helping us.

We don’t want to be people who do things that can be explained away by ordinary human effort.

We don’t want the world to look at what we have done and say, “Anybody with financial means, market savvy, and cultural sensitivity could pull that off.”

We don’t want that.

We want people looking at our church, at our gospel efforts, and saying, “Only God could bring those people together. I knew some of those people before they got converted; only God could make them as loving as they are now.”

We want people looking at us and being shocked that so many people of such disparate backgrounds and interests love one another the way we do.

Only God can do this.

Only God can produce true conversion.

Only God can convince people that the Bible is true in the face of the lies and myths of the culture.

Only God can make sinners love one another.

Sin Is Always A Threat

We see that once again the people needed to be renewed due to intermarriage with other groups or races.

Now the wall is built, Nehemiah will turn his attention to the sin in the people.

For them to experience the blessing of Abraham and to be the blessing of all the families of the earth, they have to be holy.

They have to be set apart to God. In order for them to be holy they have to know who they are as a people.

That’s why these genealogical lists of names matter, and that’s why the problem of intermarriage threatens everything the returnees are trying to accomplish.

Nehemiah concludes with a list or census of all those people who were pure Jews.

They have to be a holy people.

They must be a holy nation

So Nehemiah uses the census to see who belonged and who didn’t.

This is a work that also has its correspondence in what we are doing here as a church, as we are doing what we can to preserve a believer’s church.

Jeremiah 31 says that everyone in the new covenant will know God (Jer 31:31-34), and in this church we participate in the new covenant.

We want all members of the church to know God.

If people show by their unrepentant sin that they do not know God, we want to obey what Jesus said to do in order to remove them from church membership so that they are under no illusion about their standing before God

Let’s pray