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—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!”
4 Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. 5 Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.
6 So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.
7 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. 8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. 9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.
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.”
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.”
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 brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.
16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
19 Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!”
21 So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. 22 At that time I also said to the people, “Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day.” 23 Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water.
You
may remember the terrible genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The Hutus slaughtered the
Tutsis using a machete as the weapon of choice. Neighbors rose up and
slaughtered their fellow neighbors. Under normal circumstances, these neighbors
would not have walked out of their house and chopped up their next door neighbor
with a machete. That would have been unthinkable. But this genocide did not
happen with individuals rising up against individuals. Mobs of angry people
fulminated into a furious rage which was more than enough fuel to lead to the
massacre of almost a million people in three months. Fifteen percent of the
country’s population was killed in three months. We can put this massacre into
perspective by comparing it to the U.S. If that many people were slaughtered in
our country, it would wipe out twenty four of the least populated states—every
man, woman and child—all dead. At least part of the evil power behind the
genocide was a mob mentality. People who otherwise might never commit such
atrocious crimes morphed into bloodthirsty killers when gathered into an angry
mob.
Something similar almost happened in the fourth chapter of Nehemiah. A casual reading of the chapter shows that the wall builders led by Nehemiah faced some difficult opposition from their surrounding neighbors. The task of rebuilding that enormous wall was difficult enough without the Jews worrying about some nosey neighbors giving them trouble. This is the way I have always understood this chapter and this may be how you have read it, but this simple summary is not an accurate picture of the opposition. By the middle of the chapter, the city of Jerusalem is surrounded by angry mobs and assembled armies which were all bent on their destruction. I can’t say for certain that there would have been a total annihilation of the city, but Israel’s enemies were obviously prepared to launch a genocide against the defenseless Jews. It was a Rwanda in waiting.
It begins in verse one with Sanballat. He begins to ridicule the Jews with along string of verbal attacks. He was angry that the Jews were starting to rebuild the wall, because up until that time, Jerusalem was a weak nation of people that presented no threat whatsoever to the surrounding nations. Remember we learned last week that the walls had been broken down 140 years earlier by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The walls had lain in ruins for 140 years and the last seventy years the city had been repopulated by the Jewish exiles. Sanballat was the leader of the Samaritans, Israel’s northern neighbor. In this chapter we learn that he had assembled his army outside the walls and was ridiculing the Jews in their presence. The description here is quite tame, but we can imagine the drama that played out. Sanballat probably taunted the Jews in much the same way that a high school cheerleader gets the home team riled up. “
“What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall?” Then the whole army responds, “No!”
“Will they offer sacrifices?” “no!”
Will they finish in a day?” “No!”
“Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble?” “No!”
Sanballat and his army were ridiculing the Jews and their work of rebuilding because they could not afford for them to build these walls of defense. As long as the wall lay in ruins, the Jews were easy pickins’ for Israel’s enemies. Sanballat knew that he could march over the broken walls and decimate the Jews any time he wished to do so, but the tough talking Sanballat was threatened by the building program, so he became angry, threatened them with his army and ridiculed the work.
Shakespeare called ridicule “paper bullets of the brain,” but those bullets have slain many a warrior. Thankfully we cannot make any comparisons to our building project because no one is ridiculing us. In fact, just the opposite is true. I have had people I have never met who find out that I am the pastor of Grace Church and immediately ask me, “How’s your church coming along?” There us a good buzz surrounding this project, which is very encouraging. But ridicule comes at us in the most unexpected and deceptive ways. Of course I am referring to our unseen enemy, the devil. Satan’s two most powerful weapons are deception and accusation—he deceives us and he accuses us.
At least Sanballat and his army were incredibly obvious. You would expect that such an obvious enemy would want to deceive and accuse you. I am sure that his taunts and ridicules had a negative effect on the Jews, but at least you could see the source of the problem and take this into consideration. Of course your enemy wants to defeat you so of course he is going to try to deceive you, accuse you and weaken your spirit with lies. But imagine if Sanballat was an invisible enemy. What if he and his army could sneak undetected into Jerusalem, walk up to every man, woman and child in the city and secretly speak these same words of ridicule into their minds?
The invisible army whispers, “Will you restore your wall?” Then the heart and mind of that Jewish man responds, “No, I don’t think we can do it.”
Again, the invisible army ridicules, “Will you offer sacrifices?” The heart of that Jewish woman says to herself, “No, we will never worship in safety inside the walls!”
Another silent messenger questions, “Will you finish in a day?” “No, that’s impossible.”
“Can you bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble?” “No, we cannot. This is a lost cause!”
If Sanballat had that kind of power and ability, do you think he would have been more successful in discouraging the Jews from building? Every enemy seeks the advantage of a surprise attack. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack on Israel. Syria attacked from the north and Egypt attacked from the south and because Israel was not expecting a war, let alone a two-pronged surprise attack, they were very nearly defeated. Sanballat did not have the luxury of being able to ridicule and accuse in a secretive way, but Satan does have this power. He possesses the invisible, continual, hate-filled power to fire paper bullets into our brains.
You probably all know these Scriptures, but let me remind you of a few ways that Satan is described by God.
“The accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night.” (Rev. 12:10)
“When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
If an invisible Sanballat could defeat the Jews, don’t you think an invisible Satan can defeat us? Satan longs for our destruction far more than Sanballat wanted the Jews destroyed. He is the invisible enemy who hates us with a perfect hatred and receives perverse pleasure from causing us harm. Whether or not we se it, we all face difficult spiritual warfare on a daily basis. The accusations come like rapid gunfire. You haven’t lived up to your expectations. No one likes you. You failed again. You’re not successful enough. You don’t make enough money. Your kids don’t behave very well. You’re not even a Christian.
First,
let’s return to our text for to better understand what was happening to Nehemiah
and company. We have Sanballat to the north. Verse three mentions Tobiah again,
who was the leader of the Ammonites to the east. He added his own ridicule to
Sanballat’s. “What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would
break down their wall of stones!” But all of their accusations and ridicule
did not stop the wall from being built. Verse six tells us that they built the
wall until it was half its original height. This was good news for the Jews but
bad news for her enemies. Sanballat and Tobiah were threatened by the start of
rebuilding, how much more were they afraid when the wall was half built. We see
their reaction in verse seven. 7 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the
Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s
walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry.
8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and
stir up trouble against it.
Here we see two more enemies not mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. Arabs occupied the land south of Jerusalem and the men of Ashdod were Philistines to the west of Jerusalem. Can you see what this means? It means that Israel was completely surrounded by her enemies. They were threatened by the progress on the wall, they were very angry at their early success and they planned to join together to fight against the Jews. In the Yom Kippur War I mentioned earlier, Syria knew they were not strong enough to fight Israel to the north, even with a surprise attack and Egypt knew that they were not strong enough to fight Israel from the south. But Syria and Egypt reasoned that if they joined together and were successful in a surprise attack, they might be able to defeat Israel. In the same way, there were not two nations, but four nations of people, who under normal circumstances probably did not trust on another, were willing to join together to annihilate their common enemy, the Jews.
Verse ten describes the full force of their dilemma. 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.”
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.” There were three main problems at the halfway point of the rebuilding project.
There were two barriers from within:
1. The strength of the laborers is giving out.
2. There is so much rubble we cannot rebuild.
Under the best of circumstances, rebuilding the wall was nearly a human impossibility. Maybe the constant ridicule of her enemies was beginning to take a toll. Whatever the reason, they were overwhelmed with the project. There was far too much work to be done and far too little strength to get it done.
Added to this problem inside the walls was the enemy facing them from outside the walls.
3. Our enemies plan to kill us.
OK, you are Nehemiah. How do you handle these massive problems from within and from without? How do you fight a battle on two fronts—the internal battle of discouragement and exhaustion and the external battle of four armies seeking your destruction? In so many ways, our building project is the perfect storm for a whole host of problems. First, we will have, if we don’t already, the same problems—the strength of our laborers will wear out and it will seem as I the project is too big for us. I don’t want to make light of the situation that Nehemiah faced, because his problems and project were a hundred times greater than ours, but to a lesser degree, we are facing the same issues. It is the perfect storm for discouragement, exhaustion and it is the ideal battle ground for Satan’s victories. Satan is busy firing the paper bullets of discouragement, accusation and ridicule, but he will also be continuously active planting invisible bombs of strife and anger among one another.
Building this church facility will not be the most God honoring thing that we will ever do. We all know that it is just a tool for ministry, so on one hand it is not as if Satan will want to work overtime to stop us from building, as if this building were the last hope for Viroqua. On the other hand, if there was ever a time when Satan could divide us, it will be during the next four to six months. When you add probable discouragement and exhaustion on top of our sinful nature, you have a powder keg that could blow at any moment. If you haven’t already, you will become irritated with someone or something during the construction phase. If you don’t get irritated, then either you have already achieved sinless perfection or else you are not sufficiently engaged in the process. I am not the type of person who blames Satan for all of our problems and I am not about to start doing that now, but we are foolish if we think that this is not the most vulnerable time our church has ever faced. The conflicts that will come are not all Satan’s fault, but we must remember that our sinful nature is like dry kindling—Satan only needs to toss in an invisible spark to turn it into a raging fire. We already have conflict and selfishness brewing in our heart and Satan would have to be a fool not to take advantage of the situation.
We have the same three problems as Nehemiah and company faced.
This is the problem, but what is the solution? What should we do? How do we overcome?
I am suggesting that we use the same strategy to solve these problems as Nehemiah used. You see his strategy sprinkled all throughout this chapter, but it is most obvious in verse sixteen. 16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.
(Holding up sword and hammer…) I am suggesting that we as the Jews did—that we all carry a tool in one hand and carry a sword in the other. The hammer, the nail gun, the paintbrush, or whatever it is, is to be used for the work of building. We need everyone engaged in this process. We need all hands using tools as often as possible. If not, the strength of the laborers will definitely give out and the work will be too much to handle.
Use those tools every chance you can get, but we also need to carry our swords with us at all times. So tell me—who is the intended target of our swords? It’s not each other! Tony is not my enemy. Chris is not my enemy. The contractors are not our enemies—even if we feel that are not being fair to us. Our battle is not with flesh and blood. The real enemy that seeks to destroy us is the devil and his army, not the guy I am working next to. Carry a sword at all times, but don’t point it at your fellow worker, your fellow member of the body of Christ. And if you do happen to poke someone with it, go and heal that wound immediately. If you have a conflict with someone, resolve it immediately. Do not let the wound fester. Do not let the anger grow. Do not let our enemies win this battle. But most of all, keep your swords pointed at the real enemy.
So what we have with a tool in one hand and a sword in the other is a balance of physical work and spiritual work. Ultimately, Nehemiah’s goal was not to build a wall, but to build the kingdom of God. Remember the theme of this book? A vision for building, but I told you that Nehemiah had a different kind of a vision and a different kind of a building. He had a vision for the glory of God which became a vision to build the wall. Nehemiah had a passion to build the kingdom of God which became a passion to build a wall. Nehemiah helped to establish a perfect balance of physical work and spiritual work and is wonderfully seen in verse nine. But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. They didn’t just pray and they didn’t just post a guard. Instead, they prayed earnestly—which they did throughout this chapter—but they also stationed a guard day and night. They had this perfect balance of spiritual work and physical work.
I’d like to leave you with Nehemiah battle cry in verse fourteen. Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” But now I will change it just a little to match our situation. Don’t be afraid (or discouraged). Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight (and build) for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your (community).
Rich Maurer
August 3, 2008