Last week I mentioned how I believe that God is calling us to rebuild our fellowship after a series of setbacks. This means that our church is currently sitting smack dab in the middle of a spiritual construction site. I remember how I once pastored a church where we built a multipurpose facility; and for the longest time, our church grounds were a hot mess! It looked like a warzone! You may not realize it, but when it comes to anything that results in building the kingdom, then that construction site becomes a warzone. When God’s people start getting serious about seeing people saved, restoring lives, and bringing glory to Jesus Christ, then Satan becomes angry and we enter ground zero for his attacks.
This morning, as we look at the reconstruction of the temple and the wall of Jerusalem, we’re going to discover how entering a spiritual reconstruction project has thrown us onto the battlefield. We are not only going to see how this occurs, but we’re also going to learn how we can defeat our enemy, the devil, and go on to accomplish the Lord’s will for our church. So, let’s get started with our first passage, which is Ezra 3:8 and verses 10-11.
Construction Begins (Ezra 3:8, 10-11)
8 Now in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, began work and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the LORD . . . 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the ordinance of David king of Israel. 11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever toward Israel.” Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
In verse 8, we see that those who had begun work on the house of the Lord, or the temple of Jerusalem, “had come out of the captivity.” The captivity spoken of here was the Babylonian exile of 587 B.C., in which the Lord allowed Judah and the holy city of Jerusalem to be conquered by the Babylonians.
Both the temple and the city wall were demolished, and many of God’s people – not all, but many – were taken captive and hauled off to Babylon. They were basically put in to reeducation camps and then integrated into society. God allowed this defeat to occur because His people had started worshipping false gods and idols. Here, in the Book of Ezra, we see that some of the people had returned from the exile being led by Zerubbabel, and upon return they decided to start rebuilding the Lord’s house. This pilgrimage and laying of the foundation took place around 458 B.C. (1)
The laying of the foundation of the temple was heralded with an assembly of priests, the blowing of trumpets, the clashing of cymbals and through singing, praising and shouting. This was a worship celebration in which the people acknowledged God’s presence among them, and they praised Him and gave thanks by saying, “He is good, for His mercy endures forever toward Israel” (v. 11).
If our congregation happened to be in a building program and had a groundbreaking ceremony, this event would include a declaration of God’s goodness, the singing of praises, and the acknowledgement of the Lord’s presence among us. Such an event would demonstrate a new sense of enthusiasm for what God is about to do in our church and community. And this should be our response any time that God speaks and says, “Rebuild!” We should have both reverence and excitement! But, let me warn you that Satan doesn’t like it when we get serious about something that glorifies the Lord. So, let’s now look at Ezra 4:4-5.
Satan Discourages Progress (Ezra 4:4-5)
4 Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building, 5 and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
When God’s people get excited about kingdom business, Satan begins to scheme; and he will send in his counselors to discourage and confuse. What’s interesting about these counselors who frustrated the people is that, if you go back and look at verse 2, they claimed to worship the Lord, just as the descendants of the captivity did. But there was a huge difference between those who had returned from Babylon and those who had escaped deportation.
Now, bear in mind that it was the descendants of the captivity who began rebuilding the temple. In their time of need in Babylon, the captives in exile learned to lean solely on God; and so, their descendants learned to bow down to God alone. The purpose of the captivity was to purify and set apart a holy people who would worship none other than the Lord. But those who escaped captivity and remained in Judah never learned their lesson. They continued worshipping both the Lord and their false gods. These were “the people of the land [who] tried to discourage the people of Judah” (v. 4). These people thought they worshipped God, but their devotion was impure and tainted by the world.
What I want you to understand is that Satan’s counselors are often those who claim to know God; however, their hearts are not entirely devoted to Him. And the harsh reality is that they are quite often people whom we know within our own church. Keep in mind that one of Jesus’ own disciples, Judas Iscariot, betrayed Him and handed Him over to be scourged and crucified. He claimed to be a follower of Christ; however, his heart was divided by worldly distractions – namely riches – for he betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-16). Jesus was betrayed by someone whom He knew extremely well and who was somewhat close to Him – and that can happen just as easily to one of us. We know, however, that Jesus was not oblivious to Judas’ scheming. But, unlike Christ, we are usually caught off guard when someone we know becomes an instrument of Satan.
There will be times when these counselors will be those whom we see as being very dedicated; yet, behind the scenes they’re struggling in their faith and not spending time with the Lord. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus referred to Peter as the rock on which He would build His church. A few verses later, in Matthew 16:21-23, Jesus told His disciples that He must soon be crucified, and so Peter attempted to dissuade Him from allowing this to happen. Then Jesus looked at Peter sternly and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23). This shows us that anyone is susceptible to being used by the enemy to distract God’s people from His plan.
If, for one moment, we grow lax in our relationship with Christ, we risk falling into temptation by the devil to become a stumbling block to God’s kingdom work. The devil will seek to discourage and cause us to abort our mission by using against us the very people we know and trust. Assaults from without are obvious, but those from within often go undetected.
For example, a trusted individual in the church – one who hasn’t been spending time with the Lord in devotion – could give what he sees as some really good advice. And because he’s highly esteemed, people might just take this advice; but it’s coming from a heart that’s out of touch with Christ and a mind that’s confused by the enemy. Acting on this bad spiritual guidance could lead to making a mistake that could hurt the Lord’s work. Or perhaps, Satan will tempt some church members to out rightly reject the direction in which God is moving; thus, causing division within the ranks as people begin fighting amongst themselves.
I’m going to be candid right now. I have seen Satan at work in our church for nearly three years, deceiving and causing strife among members. He is doing this because he knows the powerful witness we could become in this community, and he doesn’t want us to be effective for the kingdom. You know, it ought to excite us to realize that we are such a threat to the devil that he feels he has to do something about it! If Satan is trying so hard to tear us apart, then God must be up to something. Amen? God must have a great plan in store!
Right now, what we need to do is heed the caution found in God’s Word. The Lord says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We must realize that when people do things that discourage and hinder the Lord’s work that they are not totally in control of their own actions, and that our battle is not against people. This brings us to our next passage of Scripture, which is Nehemiah 4:17-20.
Spiritual Warfare Arises (Nehemiah 4:17-20)
17 Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. 18 Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built. And the one who sounded the trumpet was beside me. 19 Then I said to the nobles, the rulers, and the rest of the people, “The work is great and extensive, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”
The building project mentioned here is not the temple, but the city wall of Jerusalem. In addition to rebuilding their center of worship, the nation also needed to reconstruct its defense wall against outside invaders who wanted to plunder the city and taint their religion with pagan influence. I’ve heard it said that in the ancient near east, a town was not considered a city unless it had a wall; just as today, a town is not considered a city without a Wal-Mart.
This wall project began about 13 years later in the year 445 B.C. (2) Just like what happened during the temple project, the rebuilding of the city wall came under opposition, and this passage helps us understand how to fight Satan’s attacks. We begin to fight back when we come to realize that a construction site is a warzone. Any time that we begin constructing something for God, whether it be a physical building, some kind of spiritual project, or when God begins construction on our heart, we enter a battlefield. It’s called spiritual warfare and weapons are required in order to fight back. However, we cannot fight with human weapons.
The returning exiles who began work on the city wall fought back by carrying actual physical swords; however, as Christians we must fight using the weapons of God. We read in Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles [or schemes] of the devil.” Now, I don’t want to go into the meaning and detail of each piece of the armor of God; however, since the returning exiles had their swords at their side, I feel it necessary to speak about the sword that we must carry.
The sword that we must utilize in fighting against the devil, which we find mentioned in Ephesians 6:17, is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” A physical sword can only touch the surface, but the sword of the Spirit can reach the deep places where the real battle is taking place, which is within an individual’s soul and spirit. The Word of God is a light that can cut through the darkness to reach the inaccessible recesses of the heart.
We must be aware that each of us is susceptible to temptation, but if we would immerse ourselves in the Word of God each and every day then we would be less likely to act on temptation and fall prey to sin. And when others sin, we should use the Word of God to gently correct them and guide them back on the right path. Galatians 6:1 says, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently” (NIV).
There’s something else I want to point out that’s crucial in spiritual warfare, and that’s the fact that we cannot fight this battle alone. We read in verse 20, “Our God will fight for us.” In reality, we are not the ones who do the fighting. When we confront someone with the Scripture, the Holy Spirit does all the work by speaking to the person’s heart. When we lift up a difficult situation to the Lord in prayer, He is the one who will reveal the solution to the problem; or, He will go ahead and take care of the problem for us. We need to arrive at the conclusion that, since we are not fighting against flesh and blood but against spiritual beings, we need a spiritual being to fight our battles for us. We need to allow God and His Son, Jesus Christ, to fight for us. So, what must we do to allow God to do the fighting?
In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, when King Jehoshaphat and Judah were about to come under attack by the people of Moab and Ammon, Jehoshaphat said to the Lord, “O our God, will you not judge them. For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” and then he said to the people, “Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:12, 15). The first thing we have to do is to admit that only God has the solution to our problem and then turn it over to Him.
We then read, “He appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise in the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying, ‘Praise to the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.’ Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon [and] Moab” (2 Chronicles 20:21-22). The second thing we have to do to allow God to fight for us, is to worship the Lord and not allow ourselves to become distracted by the Enemy. Worship doesn’t just include singing and praising; it also includes spending time with the Lord through prayer and devotion, allowing the Lord to comfort and guide us by the words of the Bible.
Time of Reflection
As I mentioned at the beginning of this message, I believe God is calling us to rebuild our church fellowship. The Lord still wants to use us as a light and blessing to this community. But as we begin to rebuild, and as God starts working in our midst, we are going to come under attack. The devil doesn’t like it and he is seeking to destroy what God wants to do here. We need to realize that a building site is actually a warzone for spiritual warfare, and that any problems we encounter are not to be blamed on people, but on the one who is an enemy to us all. We need to realize that we do not fight against flesh and blood; and instead of fighting each other, we just need to stop it! What we need to be doing is drawing near unto God in His Word and be seeking to worship Him daily. If we will stop focusing on the problems and begin focusing on the Lord, then He will fight our battles.
Now, the greatest battle is already won – the battle for the soul. For way too long the prison master dangled the keys in front of us. Because of sin, we were all destined to an eternal prison of torment in hell (Romans 3:23, 6:23). But Jesus died on the cross for our sins, taking our place in death; and He not only died, but rose again, defeating sin and death. And between His burial and resurrection, He did something else. In authority, He demanded the keys from Satan; and in Revelation 1:18, Jesus declared, “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore . . . and [I] have the keys of hell and of death” (KJV). And all who put their faith and trust in what Jesus did on the cross, and who confess their belief in His resurrection, will be forgiven of their sins and receive eternal life (Romans 10:9-10).
NOTES
(1) John Tullock, The Old Testament Story (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), pp. 305-306.
(2) Ibid., p. 307.
