6 In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. 7 And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’ And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together.” 8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.” 9 For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands. 10 Now when I went into the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home, he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night.” 11 But I said, “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.” 12 And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. 14 Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid. 15 So the wall of Jerusalem was completed on the 25th day of the month of Elul.[a] It had taken 52 days to finish building the wall. 16 Then all our enemies heard that we had completed the wall, and all the nations around us saw that it was finished. So they lost their courage, because they understood that this work had been done with the help of our God.
INTRODUCTION:
What do you do when you’re unfairly accused? False accusations happen to most of us at some point in our lives. And most of the time, you may not have the power to correct the lies because most accusers like to hide behind the eight ball. The natural impulse is to get angry and push back. But sometimes that natural response can have serious consequences, especially if the accuser is someone in power over you. Sometimes people just assume that you’re up to no good and then jump to conclusions about you.
In Matthew 5: 11 Jesus said, bless are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me” and the phrase, “all kinds of evil” tell us that the followers of Jesus will endure insults, lies, ridicule, and false accusations, and those attacks will come in many different ways. In fact, those attacks will sometimes come from people you would have least expected. People who have allowed Satan to make them become false witnesses most of the time because they received their accusations about you through a second hand form of information better known as gossip, scandal, and rumor.
Some of these attacks will question your faith, your character, your commitment, and your integrity. Sometimes your motives will be questioned, and sometimes your words will be twisted and they will misquote you to give an added effect in order to make the rumor a little more juicer. You will become victimized by a whispering or a smear campaign which is usually done to discredit before others. The most unfortunate thing about all this is that most of the time you will not be able to pin down who, what, where, and why they said these things against. And if you dare question the gossiper about it he just may turn it around on you in order to make you feel that it is something wrong with you. Sadly, these things do happen from time to time and it is part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus Christ.
The story is told of a man who was driving home late one night when he picked up a hitchhiker. As they rode along, he began to be suspicious of his passenger. The man checked to see if his wallet was safe in the pocket of his coat that was on the seat between them, but it wasn't there! So he slammed on the brakes, and ordered the hitchhiker to get out, and said, "Hand over the wallet right now!" and he even said a few other choice words. The frightened hitchhiker handed over a billfold, and the man drove off still mad as a hornet. When he arrived home he started to tell his wife about what happened on the way home, but she interrupted him, and said, "Before you tell me your story, do you know that you left your wallet at home this morning?" The same thing happened to Nehemiah here in the text this morning. But before we get into the text let me give you some background.
In his goal of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah had to go through a few obstacles, for example in chapter 4, Nehemiah had to stand up to the violent threats of the enemy. And In chapter 5 he had to deal with internal conflict between the wealthy and poor Jews. But here in our text this morning he is almost done. The breaches in the wall have been repaired, and the wall is complete except for the doors in the gates. But although he is almost done and the building of the wall will be successful, the enemy has not given up.
Why? because with most of us, our enemies or more specifically the enemy does not want us to ever be successful in and at anything we try to do—especially if it is to lift up the name of god. Sometimes people have a fear of you accomplishing something before they do, sometimes people don’t want to see you doing anything that is positive or uplifting. Sometimes people are just plain jealous or envious of you and they would rather believe a lie about you than to see for themselves if there is any truth to the rumor/gossip they heard about and as a result an opposition is formed.
The opposition that is formed brings about ridicule and sarcasms or it could even go as far as threats and violence. But here in text, we are dealing with ONE of Satan’s most powerful weapons—the weapon of false accusations. Did you know that Satan is a liar, and he would have us focus on our circumstances and negativity rather than to complete the work that God called us to do? That’s right! the accuser of the brethren will attempt to falsely accuse you, as well as your relationship with God. Satan, the accuser, will cause you to doubt God's grace that empowers you with His faith for safety, protection, and provision. In fact, right now at this very moment in America and around the world, we are witnessing some very difficult times. People are accusing each other of this and that, men are stepping down from their lofty positions after being accused of something deemed inappropriate for their position. One politician is accusing another politician of something or another in order to get the upper hand.
We are taking on the characteristics of the original accuser more and more each day. And for sure, to be accused of something that may be true is one thing, but to be falsely accused is entirely something else.
I heard somebody say that it’s a struggle to live day to day in these changing times and our faith is constantly challenged. Our faith is challenged because we have an adversary namely the devil—who loves to use one of his favorite weapons against us, the weapon of false accusations. And so, despite the day to day struggle of life it is imperative for us to at all-time hold on to our faith because oftentimes our faith is the only thing we have left.
Here in the text, Nehemiah was determined to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem because of Jerusalem’s wall left it its people exposed and vulnerable to great trouble and shame. Rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was important because it revealed God’s blessing, it served as a sign to Israel’s enemies, and showed God was with His people. Israel’s enemies tried their best to keep the wall from being completed and so they threatened to tell the King of Persia a lie about Nehemiah in order to place his life in jeopardy, we all know that people can’t get enough of gossip.
And the more evil and juicy the gossip, the quicker people are to believe it. Some people believe it simply because they want to believe it and will not take the time to at least see if it’s true. They will readily take second hand information and treat it as if it is the gospel truth not realizing that if you’re not an eyewitness you can easily become a false witness. When you consider the fact that God hates a false witness it should give you pause. It the ninth commandment, and it counted among the seven things God hates. Nehemiah’s enemies threatened to bring him down with Satan’s weapon of gossip but Nehemiah is about to show us how to respond to opposition, intimidation, and downright character assassinations.
And so, we look at this text it should as a reminder that what God starts, He finishes. Where God guides, He provides. And where God leads, He meets our needs. But He’s going to test us first, because there is no testimony without a test. Nehemiah past his test by standing up against the fiery darts of the false accusations placed upon him and against the Israelites. There are at least three things that false accusations will try and do to you. First:
1. ACCUSATIONS WILL TRY TO CHALLENGE YOU.
Look at verse 8 because it is powerful: “…Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” It’s powerful because Nehemiah flat out denies his enemy Sanballat’s false accusations. It is the proper response when your conscience is clear and you have allowed your life to be an open book. I am cognizant of the fact that from time to time, everyone experiences criticism and that some of the criticism we receive is false and unfair. However, sometimes criticism can be constructive and accurate, and at those times we need pay attention. I am cognizant of the fact that none of us is perfect, and yes we all need other people in our lives to hold up a mirror to us and show us our faults and flaws so we can correct them.
But it becomes challenging when we are falsely accused by someone who throws a rock and then hides his hands, this is when it becomes very challenging. When someone has a terrible opinion of you through second hand information but still smiles in your face and shakes your hand in blatant display of deceit. It’s challenging when people began to act differently around you and you have absolutely no idea why and the reason it is so challenging is because you really don’t know how to respond. It is even more challenging when the allegations are made by someone you’ve come to love and respect. What do you do? Well, you can actually do several things. You can first and foremost pray about it and then you can remember what Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me (Matthew 5: 11.)
You can even go ahead and put up (endure) with it and be patient, “Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other” (Ephesians 4: 2). But if what it is said is harmful to your dignity, character, and integrity you do like Nehemiah did in our text. Let them know that it is categorically not true. Accusations will try to challenge you and then:
2. ACCUSATIONS WILL TRY TO FRIGHTEN YOU.
In Nehemiah 6:9-10, Nehemiah says: “They (the enemies) were all trying to frighten us, thinking ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’ But I prayed, ‘Now strengthen my hands.’” The enemy tried to frighten and discourage them from building the wall, but Nehemiah and the Jews prayed to God to strengthen them. False accusations, can occur as a result of someone intentionally lying on you or it may be unintentional but due to some sort of misunderstanding or misinterpretation or as I mentioned earlier second hand information or hearsay.
No one wants to suffer from receiving a bad reputation simply because someone has it in for you and decides to use the best weapon they have at their disposal namely the tongue. The bible calls the tongue “an unruly member of the body” in James 3: 8 it is referred to as an “unruly evil full of deadly poison” James said, “no human being on earth can tame the tongue because of its restlessness. In this new high tech world of ours the tongue has received even more power via the social media and smart phones. The tongue is definitely a cagy rascal. It has caused more heartache and pain than all the other members of the body combined. The tongue has destroyed more marriages and other close relationships. Many people who are incarcerated today are there because of the lying tongue and worse of all many people are sleeping in their graves because of it.
The tongue is for sure the most frightening member of the body. I heard somebody say, “I am afraid of rattlesnakes, I heard somebody else say well I’m scared of spiders and those little roaches that crawl around at night. But if you really want to see something scary—just ask a gossiper to open his mouth and stick out his tongue. Israel’s enemies said to themselves we’re going to the king and lie on old Nehemiah. We’re going to tell the king, that you’re trying to be a king yourself and so you need to come down from that wall and talk with us for a little while. But Nehemiah’s response was, “god has strengthen my hands.” in other words, all my help comes from the Lord. I’m not coming now because God is for me and if God is for me who can be against me? Your words, your accusations, your falsehoods, your rumors, your slanders, mean absolutely nothing because my God has already strengthen me.
Is someone or something trying to scare or deter you from doing what is right or from fulfilling God’s calling on your life? Pray to God for strength to stand firm and to stay focused on the task in front of you. Accusations will try to challenge you, then accusations will try to frighten, and finally:
3. ACCUSATIONS WILL TRY TO INTIMIDATE YOU AND GIVE YOU A BAD NAME.
In Nehemiah 6:10-13, we learn that Nehemiah’s enemies had hired one of his “friends” to pretend to protect him from a false death threat. Nehemiah realized his friend had been bought by his enemies to intimidate him and say false things about him in order to halt progress of the wall. Scripture doesn’t say that Nehemiah said a word about the false death threat or his friend’s betrayal. Instead, he responded with action—he confidently finished building the wall. Nehemiah didn’t waste time by validating his enemies’ numerous attempts at distracting him or by harboring forgiving spirit and falling into bitterness. After the wall of Jerusalem was built, it was a testament to all the surrounding nations that the Jews finished this with God’s help. It showed that God was truly with them.
By not letting accusation distract us, we are free to complete the task at hand. Do not let someone’s false words or hurtful actions derail you from fulfilling God’s purposes, plans, and callings on your life. There was a popular phrase that some of us loved to use a few years ago, it was the phrase, “What would Jesus do?” I’ll admit, I still use this phrase every once in a while when I come up against a brick wall in my life. But excuse for a moment as I rearrange this phrase to suit our purpose and this time ask not what would Jesus do but when we’re faced with false accusations, what would Jesus not do? Because, Jesus was quite often falsely accused—in fact they solicited some false accusers against Him in order to hurry Him to His crucifixion.
And even though He was falsely accused He never said mumbling Word! Come on Isaiah, can you describe it a little better for us? And I can hear Isaiah say, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open mouth.” Although they falsely accused Him, He went right on doing good.
Conclusion:
Nehemiah told his enemies that their accusations were not true, and my imagination is vivid right now—because I imagine after he said what he said, he turned to one of his co-laborers and asked, please hand me another brick because he knew that were only trying to stop his work. Nehemiah said, “It’s not true” and then he placed the blame where it really belonged because he said, “…you are inventing them out of your own mind.” If your tongue, is a loose tongue, God is going to deal with it. But if you are being victimized by those old false accusers and they try to make themselves your judge, jury, and executioner, don't worry about it because God is going to lift you up as long as you’re doing His work. As long as you stay on the battlefield He will make sure that you win the battle. Amen.
