Anytime anyone does a work for God, Satan will do everything in his power to prevent the work from happening. While Bible illustrations of this truth could be multiplied, let’s consider the man Nehemiah. The task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem gives a great illustration of the task of building people through the local church. Leading people to Christ and seeing them grow in the Lord ought to be every bit as important to believers today as the work of rebuilding the wall was to Nehemiah.
Nehemiah’s circumstances as recorded in Chapter 6 of the book that bears his name, bear such striking parallels to our modern day that the similarities are almost eerie. Consider, for instance, some of the methods of those opposed to the work he was doing. Nehemiah had progressed along to the point where the wall was up all around the city, although the gates were not yet up. At this juncture, “Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono.”i Here is the first common tactic of the enemy as he tries to hinder the work of God. We might call this tactic distraction. The idea was to get the man of God to leave his post in working on the setting up of the gates, just to talk. Also in mind was to do Nehemiah mischief. Getting Nehemiah away from the wall and away from his work would cause the work to slow, if not cease. Can there be any debate that events of the past year have caused many to become distracted from doing the work of God? A Jew sympathetic to Sanballat—and Nehemiah had some in his group of laborers—might ask what was wrong with just talking with these people. The man of God wisely understood that the distraction it would cause was not worth the resulting delay.
Failing to distract the man of God, the enemies resorted to disinformation. Notice their carefully crafted lie:
Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand; Wherein was written, It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel: for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king, according to these words.ii
The term disinformation is a relatively recent English word, distinguishing itself by the motive of the purveyor of the falsehood. A mere inaccurate slip of the tongue is misinformation: though it was false, it was not intentionally so. Disinformation, but contrast, is falsehood that is designed from the beginning to be so.iii Clearly what Sanballat and his cohorts were doing to Nehemiah was disinformation.
There were two specific aspects to this disinformation campaign. First, the enemies spoke of the widespread acceptance of this lie. According to them, “It is reported among the heathen.” Human nature seems to demand some sort of intellectual ally. (In my opinion, this is what social media is all about: not the free interchange of ideas in open debate, but the creation of echo chambers to build ever greater intellectual alliances.) Knowing this tendency of human nature, the enemy added that the information he was giving was reported among the heathen. In other words, “Everybody is saying this.” Whether or not the heathen were actually saying this as much as Sanballat reported that they were saying it, we do not know. Regardless, pressure was being exerted on Nehemiah by reason of the fact that everyone seemed to be saying something negative about him.
The second aspect of this disinformation was the appeal to authority: “Gashmu saith it.” Gashmu is another name for Geshem, an Arabian who stood with Sanballat and Tobiah in opposing the work of God in Jerusalem. In essence, Sanballat’s letter was assuming that something was true because the rank and file believed it and Gashmu, evidently an influential person, had repeated it. This is no different from what goes on today. The last 12 months have witnessed a society pillaged at the hand of “experts.” Sadly, many people failed to look at statements on the basis of the proof behind them, choosing instead to accept something as factual simply because some people believed it to be so. In Nehemiah’s day, these were clearly tactics of the enemies of God to try to halt the work.
Having failed with distraction and disinformation, the enemy set out with another effort. This time, a Jew by the name of Shemaiah had this advice to offer: “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple: for they will come to slay thee; yea, in the night will they come to slay thee.”iv Presumably, the temple, having been completed previously under the ministry of Ezra, was the safest place in all of Jerusalem. The erected walls around the city offered very little solace or safety without gates. The Temple, by contrast, was strong and could allay the fears of those who might be inclined to stay there. The problem was that the work was not in the Temple; it was on the wall. Nehemiah wisely answered, “Should such a man as I flee? And who is there, that, being as I am, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.”v In essence, he was elevating his service to God over his own safety. There had been multiple threats not only to Nehemiah, but also to the rest of the Jews who were busy working on the wall. The temptation was for Nehemiah to so focus on his own safety that he disengage from his duties on the wall. Similar temptations face believers today. Some would focus so much on physical safety that they disengage from the work of serving God. How each believer draws the lines that will balance safety and service will fall under Christian liberty, but the temptation to disengage from the work of God so that we can all be safe is real today, just as in Nehemiah’s day.
The enemy had one motive for all of these tactics. It was so obvious to Nehemiah that he repeated it. In verse 9, “The all made us afraid.” In verse 13, “Therefore was he hired, that I should be afraid.” Fear would lead to weakening of the hands of the laborers so that the work of God would grind to a halt. Nehemiah had to work hard to combat fear, not only in the hearts of those who followed him, but in his own heart as well. Many times, he interrupts his narrative to record prayers that he offered when everything around him told him to cower in fear.
The writer of Hebrews had something to say about fear that is quite instructive. After reiterating the promise of our Lord’s omnipresence, he concluded, “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” In a world dominated by fear, it is helpful to remember this truth: Fear is not the result of circumstances, but of a choice.
Regarding Nehemiah, one could make a case for the fact that he was afraid at times. The key thing is not so much that he feared, but that he never allowed himself to be paralyzed by that fear. God has a habit of telling humanity not to fear, a timeless command we would do well to remember.
There was a motto that Nehemiah used to keep him focused through all the attacks of the enemy. In the days of attempted distraction, he actually uttered it, but it seems to have been an overarching belief that kept him going. His motto was, “I am doing a great work.” This one realization kept him going.
Child of God, if you are serving God through your local church this week, you, like Nehemiah, are doing a great work. As the times and the culture and the enemy hurl all that they can against you to get you to cease, let these words of Nehemiah lift you above the maddening fray: I am doing a great work. Teaching Sunday school, keeping the nursery, leading singing, cleaning the church—all of these are great works when done for the glory of Jesus Christ.
God prophesied through Daniel years before Nehemiah that the wall of Jerusalem would be built in troublous times.vi Many would argue that we are now in troublous times. Nehemiah built a wall in those times. What will you do for God in these?
i Nehemiah 6:2.
ii Nehemiah 6:5-6.
iii See https://www.dictionary.com/e/misinformation-vs-disinformation-get-informed-on-the-difference/ for the detailed explanation.
iv Nehemiah 6:10.
v Nehemiah 6:11.
vi Daniel 9:25.
Copyright © 2021 Paul Crow. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
