Reading: Nehemiah chapter 4 verses 1-23.
Ill:
• A mother of eight children came home one day;
• To find her youngest five children huddled intently in the middle of the floor.
• She walked over to see what the centre of attraction was;
• And to her horror, she discovered they were playing with five baby skunks.
• Panic-stricken, she shouted, "Run, children, run!"
• And run the children did-each clutching one terrified skunk!
• Can you imagine five kids with skunks, all running in different directions?
• And the farther each child ran, the louder the mother probably shouted,
• Causing all five to panic and squeeze their skunk;
• And skunks of course don't like to be squeezed!
• In trying to solve the problem;
• The mother had created five new ones!
All of us at times have had a problem blow up in our face and end up as a stinking mess.
• Those situations can knock the wind right out of our confidence;
• And leave us feeling flat and discouraged.
• Nehemiah found this out when he took on a seemingly simple task;
• Only to find that it would turn into a sizable problem.
• He set out to build a wall, sounds a simple project;
• But he soon found himself facing opposition and discouragement.
Background:
• In 586 B.C., the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah
• And took the Hebrew people into exile,
• Ever since then the walls of Jerusalem had been in disarray.
• Now in the book of Nehemiah, it’s 142 years later,
• Judah was beginning to dust herself off after her great spiritual fall;
• And start walking with God again.
• And so God wanted Nehemiah to oversee the task of rebuilding the wall around the city.
• What might seem a fairly straight-forward task, it would be anything but!
• As we start looking at chapter 4 the job of rebuilding has been so far, so good.
• Nehemiah’s boss had given him time off to oversee the project.
• He provided him with some much-needed materials for the project;
• And he even arranged for him to have safe-passage to Jerusalem.
• The people of Jerusalem have willingly fallen in with his plans to rebuild,
• And they have been working diligently,
• So when we get to chapter 4 it has been so far so good!
• There have been no major snags, everything has gone better than planned.
Now in chapter 4 the picture changes;
• And for the first time in the narrative;
• Nehemiah will face real opposition and discouragement.
The main aggressor in the story is a man called ‘Sanballat’:
• Verse 7 tells us that he had actually united four different enemies together;
• In order to stop the work of rebuilding the walls.
• To the north were Sanballat and the Samaritans.
• To the east, Tobiah and the Ammonites.
• To the south, Geeshem and the Arabs;
• And to the west, the Ashdidites.
• The people of Judah were surrounded by the enemy;
• An enemy that wanted to see them destroyed.
Question: Why such hatred?
Answer:
• In his commentary on Nehemiah, Dr. Cyril Barber;
• Explains why Sanballat and the wealthy men of Samaria opposed Nehemiah's work.
• "Put bluntly, 'a powerful Jerusalem means a depressed Samaria.'
• One of the main highways linking the Tigris Euphrates river valley
• To the north with Egypt in the south and Philistia to the west,
• Passes through Jerusalem.
• With Jerusalem once more a well-protected city, its very location will attract trade;
• And gone will be Samaria's economic supremacy in 'the land beyond the river.'"
• Simple answer: Money and power;
• A strong Jerusalem meant a poorer Samaria and a less powerful Sanballat.
Reasons for discouragement:
(1). Loss of dignity (verse 1-3).
“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 (Lit: means mob – bully boys) 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!"”
Sanballat and his mob used ridicule to cause discouragement among the people of Jerusalem.
• British critic and author Thomas Carlyle called ridicule;
• “The language of the devil”.
• Shakespeare called ridicule;
• “Paper bullets of the brain”. But these bullets have slain many a warrior.
• Proverbs chapter 27 verse 3:
• “Sand is heavy, and sand a burden, but provocation by a fool is heavier than both”
Sanballat and his friends:
• Had began a verbal onslaught against the Jews even before work on the wall had begun:
• Chapter 2 verse 19 reads; “They laughed us to scorn and despised us”.
• Here in chapter 4 we see just how cruel his ridicule was;
• His ridicule was twofold.
FIRST: HE MOCKED THE WORKERS (VERSE 2):
• Verse 2 he calls them “feeble”, the word means “withered”.
• Ill: Cut flowers that are past their best, droopy and life-less, just fading away.
• From a human perspective;
• The rebuilding of the wall with these workers was an impossible task;
• But Sanballat and his mob had not realised the peoples spiritual resource – God!
• “When we are weak, we are strong” (2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1-10).
SECOND: HE MOCKED THE WORK (VERSE 2).
He ridicules the work itself by asking three taunting questions.
• Ridicule one: “Will THEY (mixed bunch of volunteers) restore their walls?”
• Fair to say that there was not many craftsmen & women among them.
• How could a bunch of amateurs hope to secure a city like Jerusalem;
• From a efficient military power?
• His remark probably evoked gales of laughter from the Samaritan army.
• Quote: “Experts built the Titanic, but amateurs built the ark!”
• Ridicule two: “Will they offer sacrifices?”
• The idea being it will take more than prayer and worship to get the job done.
• He has no belief in the power and help of God;
• And in mocking their worship he is actually mocking their God! A dangerous thing to do!
• Ridicule three: He mocks the materials they are working with.
• Stones that were old and damaged and abandoned on local rubbish heaps.
• Verse 3: Tobiah the Ammonite ridiculed the finished product.
• You don’t need an army to knock down the wall, a single fox can do that.
Note: Much of what they said was true:
• From a human perspective this Jewish remnant was weak and poor.
• The work was too great for them to complete.
• And the materials they were using were substandard.
• But they only looked at it through the eyes of men.
• Nehemiah looked at it from another perspective – God was on his side!
(2). Loss of Strength (verse 10a):
“Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, "The strength of the labourers is giving out."
• The very first thing this passage mentions is that the people were burned out physically;
• The original text says they were "stumbling, tottering, staggering under the load."
Ill:
• The cheetah survives on the African plains by running down its prey.
• The big cat can sprint up to seventy miles per hour.
• But the cheetah cannot sustain that pace for long.
• Within its long, sleek body is a disproportionately small heart!
• This small heart causes the cheetah to tire quickly.
• Unless the cheetah catches its prey in the first flurry, it must abandon the chase.
Nehemiah’s crew seem to have the cheetah’s approach to service:
• They sped into the project with great energy.
• But they are now lacking the heart for sustained effort, they were fizzling before the finish.
• One of the main reasons for rebuilding the wall was for protection.
• But in their haste, they had neglected to protect themselves from enemies within-exhaustion.
• They had started strong,
• But due to fatigue they were now too tired to finish.
Ill:
The principle of the unstrung bow.
• If you keep a bow always bent, it will break eventually;
• But if you let it go slack, it will be more fit for use when you want it.”
(2). Loss of Vision (verse 10b):
“…….and there is so much rubble…."
• The Hebrew word for rubbish means "dry earth, debris."
• The people were tired; they had done a lot of work.
• But instead of being encouraged to go on by what they had already accomplished,
• They saw only the huge task before them and couldn't imagine the wall ever being completed.
Quote:
• Nehemiah's crew started with confidence and faith and bags of enthusiasm;
• They we were like the fellow Tim Hansel describes in ‘Eating Problems for Breakfast’:
"He was the sort of man who would go after Moby Dick with a row boat, a harpoon,
and a jar of tartar sauce."
• But it doesn't take long for that picture to change:
• Now Nehemiah's crew are starting to feel swamped and discouraged,
• Nehemiah's crew looked around them and all they could see.
• Was debris, dirt, broken stones, hard dried chunks of mortar.
Ill:
• D.I.Y jobs in your house are unfinished?
• The half-way through stage is the most discouraging.
• Instead of focusing on how much they had achieved;
• They were blinded by how much was left undone.
(3). Loss of Confidence (verse 10c)
“…….and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall."
“….we ourselves cannot rebuild the wall”
• The end of verse 10 shows that the erosion of the people's physical reserves;
• And the erosion of their vision had also worn down by a lack of confidence.
• At one time the people "had a mind to work";
• Verse 6 tells us “They worked with all their hearts”.
• Now, their motivation was gone, and in its place;
• Was an overwhelming feeling that they could never finish the task.
• Ill: Glass was no longer half-but half empty
• They had lost their belief that they could get the job done.
• They had swallowed the lie of their enemies, that they were weak and feeble.
• Look at what they say; “We OURSELVES”, hold on these people were not alone!
(4). Loss of Security (verse 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."”
• The Jews had enemies who didn't want to see them rebuild that wall;
• And they didn't keep their objections a secret.
• At a time when they least expected it;
• Their enemies boasted that they would sneak in and kill them!
• Therefore Nehemiah’s people had to place each brick while looking over their shoulder,
• Not knowing from moment to moment whether they might be attacked.
Ill:
A manager and a sales rep stood looking at a map;
• On the map were coloured pins indicated the company representative in each area.
• The manager turned to the worried sales rep and said:
“I’m not going to fire you, Wilson, but I’m loosening your pin a bit just to emphasize the insecurity of your situation.”
• The Jewish people were in a very insecure situation;
• They were intimidated and frightened and discouraged and depressed.
Nehemiah's Cure for Discouragement:
• Nehemiah must have felt somewhat like that mother with the baby skunks;
• Events out of his control and leaving him with a mess on his hands.
• The troops were wilting with discouragement;
• And his grand idea of rebuilding the wall was crumbling before his eyes.
Ill:
• Just as you cannot ignore a flat tyre on your car;
• You cannot just ignore depression and hope it will go away.
• Drive all you want to and you will never get air back into the tyre.
• You’ve got to fix it.
• So too with discouragement.
• You have to take steps to fixing it!
• Nehemiah didn't stand around wringing his hands.
• Instead, he began putting into action five things which would rebuild the people's confidence.
(1). He Unified the People around the Same
Goal (verse 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”.
• Nehemiah saw that the builders had been scattered all over Jerusalem;
• He was aware that many had been separated from their families.
• He unified his people by reuniting families;
• And he gave them a common goal – preservation.
• With guards posted at the most conspicuous and vulnerable places on the wall;
• The enemy could see the Jews were prepared to fight.
• He armed entire families;
• Knowing that they would stand together and encourage one another.
• He had them repair the walls near their houses;
• And when they fought they were defending not just the city but their own homes.
So Nehemiah’s first initiative:
• Was to turn their attention from themselves to the enemy.
• From the discouragement of self-pity to the goal of self-preservation.
(2). He Directed Their Attention to the Lord
(verse 14a):
“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”.
Nehemiah saw his people's fear and knew that he had to get their eyes back on the Lord:
• Their focus was on the debris and the enemy,
• And until that changed, there would be no progress.
• So he got their eyes from looking down at the debris;
• To looking up at the Lord.
• He reminds the people that the Lord is ‘great and awesome’.
• In other words you remember the Lord by calling to mind who he is & what he has done.
Ill:
• When Sir Walter Scott was a boy he was not considered very bright.
• As a result, most folks ignored him.
• When he was twelve,
• He went to a social gathering where a number of literary figures were present.
• Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet,
• Was admiring a painting under which was written a couplet of poetry.
• He asked about the author but nobody knew who had written the lines.
• That was when Scott very shyly quoted the rest of the poem and gave the author’s name.
• Burns placed his hand on the young boy’s head and said,
• “Son, you will be a great man in Scotland someday.”
• Years later,
• Scott remembered Burns’ encouraging words as the turning point in his life.
Nehemiah wants this to be a turning point in the life of his people:
• So he reminds the people that the Lord is ‘great and awesome’.
• He called them to remember who he the Lord is & what he the Lord has done.
(3). He Encouraged Them to Maintain a Balance
(verses 15-17):
“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 armour. 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”.
When we're discouraged:
• It's easy to get caught in the swings of the pendulum;
• To see only one view at a time, never the whole picture.
• Nehemiah had some workers who wanted to concentrate on building the protective wall,
• And others who wanted to grab their spears and go to war.
• He had to bring the people into a balance of continuing the work;
• While also being prepared to fight.
It was neither one or the other but both!
• We must all balance faith with actions.
• We rely and trust God and at the same time work and act to the best of our abilities.
Ill:
When Charles Haddon Spurgeon started his Church magazine in 1865;
• He borrowed the title from Nehemiah;
• And called the publication ‘The sword and the trowel’.
• He said it was
• “A record of combat with sin and labour for the Lord”.
Nehemiah knew:
• It was not enough just to build the wall;
• We must be on guard lest the enemy take it from us.
(5). He Provided a Rallying Point (vs 19-20).
“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!"”
First of all, the rallying point involved a place.
• Nehemiah knew the enemy could attack at any time, in any place.
• The place could be anywhere;
• But you would know where it was because of the sound of the trumpet.
• Which would mark it out.
• When the people heard that trumpet;
• They knew that some part of the wall was under siege and needed help.
Second, the rallying point involved a principle.
• That nobody would be fighting on their own.
• Help would be swift in coming.
• Nehemiah bolstered his people's faith in God;
• By reminding them that He and others would be fighting alongside them.
Ill:
Assembly this week the school has a big poster with an acrostic of the word TEAM.
• Together
• Everyone
• Achieves
• More
• This idea of standing together, both for earthly encouragement;
• And to be reminded of the Lord's presence, is woven throughout Scripture.
Ill:
• When David was pursued by King Saul,
• Jonathan was there to encourage and help David.
• When Elijah was depressed and fleeing from the murderous Queen Jezebel,
• God sent Elisha to encourage him.
• We all need someone who will drop what they are doing;
• And come running when we need help.
(5). He Occupied Them in a Ministry of Service
to Others (vs 21-22):
“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."”
• Nehemiah created a protective buddy system.
• He knew that if the people got involved serving one another;
• That their confidence and morale about the project would increase,
• And they would be better protected from their enemies.
Verse 23 informs us:
• The times got so pressured that they didn’t even have the time to change clothes.
• That lasted if you do your sums for two months!
During those pressured two months the emphasis was on team work:
• In verses 21-22 look at the language used.
• “So WE continued the work with HALF the men holding spears” (Protecting the other half)
• 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."”
• Team work;
• Not individual gain.
Ill:
• One cold winter’s day a crowd of people stood in front of a pet shop window;
• And watched a litter of puppies snuggling up to each other.
• One woman laughed and said, “What a delightful picture of brotherhood!
• Look at how those puppies are keeping each other warm!”
• A man next to her replied,
• “No, ma’am, they’re not keeping each other warm—they’re keeping themselves warm.”
Quote: From an unknown source comes an article titled, “How To Be Miserable.” It says,
• “Think about yourself. Talk about yourself. Use ‘I’ as often as possible.
• Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others.
• Listen greedily to what people say about you.
• Expect to be appreciated. Be suspicious. Be jealous and envious. Be sensitive to slights.
• Never forgive a criticism. Trust nobody but yourself.
• Insist on consideration and respect.
• Demand agreement with your own views on everything.
• Sulk if people are not grateful to you for favours shown them.
• Never forget a service you have rendered. Shirk your duties if you can.
• Do as little as possible for others.”
Nehemiah did not sit around licking his wounds:
• He encouraged the people to help one another.
• With practical, daily support.
• The five principles Nehemiah put into place;
• Will never be outdated, relevant advice to overcome discouragement.
Quote the late Alan Redpath:
• Who explained why the Jews succeeded inn getting their work done;
• “The people had a mind to work (verse 6).
• A heart to pray (verse 9).
• An eye to watch (verse 9).
• An ear to hear (verse 20).
• And this is why they had victory!”
