In this lesson, I would like to look at the leadership of Nehemiah through the hardship and opposition that the people went through. They had opposition from outside and discouragement from inside, yet they got the job done.
It should never surprise us when we do the Lord's work and people react with anger, ridicule, and rejection. Jesus, during the sermon on the Mount, said:
Luke 6:22 - "Blessed are you when men hate you, And when they exclude you, And revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Man's sake. "
Matthew 5:11 - "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake."
Throughout the history of God's people they were opposed. They were always going through hardship. We shouldn’t think that it will be different for us today. Most of our opposition today comes in the form of ridicule. There may be social humiliations and a variety of difficulties and pressures when we are openly faithful to God. We can be sure, the more active our faith, the deeper our courage and the bolder our preaching - there will be opposition.
In the second chapter of the book of Nehemiah, we read about Sanballat and Tobiah, as we saw earlier; these two men were distressed because Nehemiah came to seek the well being of the people in Jerusalem. At the end of the second chapter they begin to show their contempt against Nehemiah and the builders.
Nehemiah 2:19 says that they despised them and mocked them just because they had decided to build the walls. Their attitudes so not change once the building began.
TURN TO NEHEMIAH 4
IN the beginning of this chapter we see the mocking continue.
Read Nehemiah 4:1-3
Nehemiah and the builders get this ridicule and even sarcasm from their enemies. How would they respond?
How did the great leader Nehemiah respond? I bet you won’t believe it: The first thing he does is pray! This is what you would expect from a man of prayer. After spending the majority of the first lesson talking about this great leader’s prayer life, we should expect him to see his prayer life in action. We see here in this chapter 2 examples of His prayerful awareness of God’s presence.
In verses 4-5, we see that when Nehemiah became aware of the opposition; he prayed. This is what we need to do - when we face fear; when we become aware of opposition: we must remember always: take it to the Lord in prayer first!
READ Nehemiah 4:4-5
In the Old Testament - especially in the book of Psalms - there are prayers like this which may seem strange to us. We are familiar with the teachings of Christ who said love your enemies and pray for them... not against them (Matt. 5:44-48). Jesus and Stephen give us a great example of praying for your enemies by requesting forgiveness for those who killed them (Lk. 23:34 & Acts 7:60).
But in the Old Testament there are these imprecatory prayers, where people of God called upon God to defeat and punish the enemy (Psalms 59 & Psalms 137). Yet in these prayers - of David and Nehemiah - I see no evidence of personal vengeance; but rather - appeals for God’s righteousness and justice. Nehemiah saw that they weren’t ridiculing their work, but God’s, and he put the situation into God’s hands.
BUT HERE'S WHAT IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO OBSERVE - When Nehemiah became aware of this growing opposition; in the face of this fear he prayed. This is what we need to learn, and this is what we need to do - when we face fear; when we become aware of opposition: PRAY!
TURN Acts 4
We see in Acts 4 a time when the disciples go to God in prayer after the arrest and release of Peter and John.
Acts 4 opens with the report of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem "greatly disturbed" when they heard the apostles preaching "in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead." Peter and John were taken into custody and Peter gave a bold defense of their work.
Verse 13 says: "...when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus."
A man who had been healed was standing nearby -- evidence of their work. Those who had taken Peter and John spoke privately and decided to threaten them and tell them not to preach the gospel. Peter and John were released after the threatening, and they go to the brethren. They go to the Lord in prayer. Let’s look in their prayer starting in verse 23.
Read ACTS 4:23-31
What should we learn from these examples, of Nehemiah, and these disciples in Acts 4? We learn that regardless of the opposition, even when we are threatened and punished and told not to preach, we get on our knees and pray, then we get right back to working for the Lord. We take note of the opposition, talk to God about it, but we never stop doing what's right.
Let’s return to Nehemiah 4
Let’s take notice of verse 6. After they pray to God, we see that they still did not stop working. Even though they were being mocked and ridiculed, they still continued working. They were working with all their heart. The mocking and sarcasm of Sanballat and Tobiah don’t even slow them down. The verse says that they rebuilt the wall until it reached half it’s height.
Sometimes though when we have opposition when we are trying to serve the Lord, we have that temptation- become so worried; so terrified by the opposition - that you pray and pray and wait for the circumstances to change, AND STOP WORKING! I’m sure this happens to many of us. We try to share the gospel with someone that’s lost, we get ridiculed or mocked, and we don’t try again for a while.
Sometimes we get to the point when we only want to do the work of the Lord when it doesn’t take us outside of our comfort zone. If it becomes an inconvenience or we come into some problem when we are trying to serve the Lord, we try to make excuses to justify why we can’t do something that is commanded for us to do. Sometimes we can totally lose focus on what is important and why we are Christians, and become spiritually idle and stagnant, just because we don’t want to serve the Lord in the way that will cause us any trouble.
But that wasn’t the attitude of Nehemiah and the disciples in Acts 4!!!
The Apostles when they got to their companions and had that prayer, they asked for the boldness to get back to work for the Lord, and we need to do the same when we are opposed. We need to follow the example set here. Take it to the Lord in prayer, get strength from the Lord because you know He is listening and will answer.
The workers that Nehemiah was leading were strengthened by their God. They had a "mind to work," in spite of the fear, the opposition, and the hardness of the work. We need to do the Lord's work because we love Him and want to serve Him... not because all the circumstances are favorable! We need the attitude of these people of God - "a mind to work”
1 Corinthians 15:58 - "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
We as followers of Jesus Christ need to remain focused in our service and steadfast in our faith. The reason why our Savior died for us was to give us a great hope so we can bring glory to Him in our service to Him. We need to stand for the truth of God's word and for the hope that we have in Christ. There are times when we're put into situations where we must choose to either stand for Jesus Christ or to back down in fear and do nothing.
We need to remain steadfast in our hope and in our service to God because this is what we must do to be approved of Him. This is our purpose as His children. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10)”
The only way we can be holy and without blemish on the day we stand before the Lord in judgment is if we decide to be grounded and steadfast in our faith and to daily follow Jesus, denying ourselves and abounding in our service to Him no matter what it may bring. We must have a mind to work just as Nehemiah and the builders had.
So the enemies hear of the progress these Jews are making and they decide to "turn up the heat."
Read Nehemiah 4:7-8
In spite of their ridicule the wall was being repaired. The gaps were being closed. They were very angry. They plotted together to fight and stir up trouble. Some people do not like to see when the people of God are succeeding in their work. Sanballat and his companions didn’t want to see the work succeed. They became furious when they saw the progress that the Jews were making on the walls.
In John 3, Jesus says, "And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21)
Sometimes we will have opposition just because the godly lives that we are living will make other people see how their lives truly are. A lot of people sometimes are even intimidated by those professing godliness. Sometimes people just love their lives of sin so much that seeing one of us living the way we live will anger them and cause us to be ridiculed because we are different or weird. AMEN! I’m different. I’m weird! We are called to not look like the world, but like Jesus! If we look like the world we’ve got a big problem!
The devil will use people like Sanballat and Tobiah to try to discourage us because when we are walking according to the light of God’s word and sharing it, we are his biggest enemies. He doesn’t want that to happen.
Nehemiah keeps in communication with God as the opposition continues, and the builders remained ready and waiting, knowing more opposition will come. Because of all of Nehemiah’s planning beforehand, and the great leadership during the building of the walls, they were prepared for the opposition. We must remain prepared for opposition also; always ready to give an answer to someone for the hope that we have in Christ.
DISCOURAGEMENT FROM THE PEOPLE
In verses 10-12 of Nehemiah 4 comes probably the most discouraging part of the chapter; some of Nehemiah’s own people get discouraged, intimidated, and doubtful.
Read Nehemiah 4:10-12
Sometimes the hardest blows to take are the ones from the people you trust and love the most. There is no doubt that Satan can even use other Christians to discourage us in the Lord’s work.
Under the threat of enemy attack, fear and discouragement settled into the hearts of some of the builders. They lost there focus on the job at hand and doubted. They were forgetting about how their God was with them!!!
It is just like the Israelites when they left Egypt. They were amazed how the mighty arm of the Lord delivered them out of their bondage in Egypt. All of those amazing plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, The pillar of fire leading them. They knew the Lord was with them! After the Lord did all of these amazing things, once any trouble came, they forgot about the Lord! Pretty much a full apostasy happened when Moses was taking to long to get the Law from God on Sinai. Later on when they sent spies into the Land to check it out, ten of the 12 spies came back with a negative report and discouraged all of the people. These 10 spies turned the people’s hearts away from trusting in God to give them the land he promised.
And the same kind of thing can happen to Christ’s church. Sometimes we tend to forget what kind of explosive power that the gospel has and that our God is with us!
How does a godly leader respond when even his own people are discouraged and causing discouragement in others?
First let’s look at what Moses had to say:
After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness because of their lack of faith in God, Moses says to them, reminding them of the reason the Israelites wandered for 40 years,
Deuteronomy 1:29-33 - “So I said to you: Don’t be terrified or afraid of them! 30 The Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you, just as you saw Him do for you in Egypt. 31 And you saw in the wilderness how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son all along the way you traveled until you reached this place. 32 But in spite of this you did not trust the Lord your God, 33 who went before you on the journey to seek out a place for you to camp. He went in the fire by night and in the cloud by day to guide you on the road you were to travel.
Moses brought to the people’s remembrance the Lord. He says, Remember how the Lord delivered you from Egypt by His great power and His strong right hand. He will fight for us.
Let’s take note of what Nehemiah’s reaction is in verses 13-20
Read Nehemiah 4:13-20
REMEMBER!!
From a human standpoint it might be argued, Nehemiah missed a good place to give up. But he didn't give up against these odds. He did what he could, stationing more people at the places in the wall more vulnerable to attack. Then he stood up and said, don’t be afraid of these guys... you need to REMEMBER THE LORD. The Lord is faithful. He is great and awesome, and He is on our side. We have the Lord, and look at what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our family, our homes. We cannot give up!
Also, Nehemiah didn’t depend upon their own strength or fighting ability. He knew that the only way they could be victorious was to trust in the Lord!
Think about this: Never after any victory in Bible history; never did God appear on the scene after the battle and say to His people: "I have to hand It to you. You did it all by yourself; all I did was watch and you overcame the enemy." You will not find such a passage. Those who trusted in the Lord were the ones who won their battles. When the Israelites came into the Promised Land, God fought for them.
And Nehemiah knew that He and the builders were not acting alone in this work, and in the battle. And we are not "on our own!" We are not fighting this battle alone. If we depend upon our own strength, our own methods, our own numbers; we will be defeated in our spiritual lives. When we do our part, the Lord will be with us! Because of Him we are able to stand! I know of nothing more comforting and uplifting, than knowing that our God says that He will never leave us nor forsake us.
When we trust in Him and obey Him, we will always have Him with us, and He is all we need.
To conclude, I have a few questions to ask all of us to examine ourselves. “When we go out into battle, when we go out into this tough world each and every day, do we put our trust in the Lord? Do we believe He is with us? Or do we fear?” When we’re doing the work of the Lord, do we depend on the power of our God and the gospel, or on our own abilities? We need to remember brethren the power of the gospel and the power of our God.
