Who Are You Listening To?

Who Are You Listening to?

Nehemiah 4

Do you know someone who

BELIEVES

everything he is told?

Some things are better heard

after one has

STUFFED

his ears!

All of us are prone to lean into

the SWAY of THEY!

Everyone needs a place where they can be

ENCOURGAGED!

You can get DISCOURAGED anywhere!

The “Right” THEY

will keep us above the fray;

The “Wrong” THEY

will turn us into the fray!

Nehemiah 4:1-2

1 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?"

(NIV)

Characteristics of the “WRONG” They:

• The “WRONG” They are WHINNERS, not WINNERS;

MOCKERS, not MENTORS!

Nehemiah 4:3

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!"

(NIV)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

• The “WRONG” They speak in “CAN’TS”, not “CANS”!

Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, talking movies, and more than 1000 other things. December 1914 he had worked for 10 years on a storage battery. This had greatly strained his finances. This particular evening spontaneous combustion had broken out in the film room. Within minutes all the packing compounds, celluloid for records and film, and other flammable goods were in flames. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the attempt to douse the flames was futile. Everything was destroyed. Edison was 67. With all his assets going up in a whoosh (although the damage exceeded two million dollars, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof), would his spirit be broken?

The inventor’s 24-year old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind. "My heart ached for him," said Charles. "He was 67--no longer a young man--and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ’Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ’Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’" The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew." Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph.

Swindoll, Hand Me Another Brick, Thomas Nelson, 1978, pp. 82-3, and Bits and Pieces, November, 1989, p. 12.

________________________________________

• The “WRONG” They think HORIZONTALLY, not VERTICALLY!

Nehemiah 4:7-8

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.

(NIV)

Horizontal = GROUP RULE

Vertical = GOD RULE

Nehemiah 4:4, 9

4 Hear us, O our God, for we are despised….

9 But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

(NIV)

Characteristics of the “RIGHT” They:

• The “RIGHT” They has

HE in the middle of they.

Nehemiah 4:14-15

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,