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Lessons From Nehemiah
Part 3: How to Handle Hate
The call, The burden, The action –
CONSPIRACY – a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
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The O.T. saints were more hardcore – we are called to love our enemies; not trust them.
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Try to respond in love to see where that goes. If they are unreceptive it reveals.
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Learn from critics, but you don’t always have to answer them.
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Is it the truth that offends, or your attitude?
6 Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it (though at that time I had not hung the doors in the gates), 2 that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they thought to do me harm.
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Succeeding doesn’t always stop attacks.
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The enemy will offer compromise – and our flesh loves compromise.
3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?”
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Why should the work cease? Threatenings did not work so let’s try something else. ⇓
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Misaligned priorities is a form of ceased work.
4 But they sent me this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner.
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Wearing us down is their goal [e.g., Samson]
5 Then Sanballat sent his servant to me as before, the fifth time, with an open letter in his hand. 6 In it was written: It is reported among the nations, and Geshem says, that you and the Jews plan to rebel; therefore, according to these rumors, you are rebuilding the wall, that you may be their king. 7 And you have also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning you at Jerusalem, saying, “There is a king in Judah!” Now these matters will be reported to the king. So come, therefore, and let us consult together.
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Heat is increased so that we react vs. respond.
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Lying is always a tactic.
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Wait for peace and assurance: God knows our heart.
8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart.” 9 For they all were trying to make us afraid, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done.” Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.
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Confront the lie with the truth: calm, cool, and collect – “no such thing.”
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This must be in your arsenal: “O God, strengthen my hands!”
10 Afterward I came to the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was a secret informer; and he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you; indeed, at night they will come to kill you.”
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Discernment is a necessity: trust but verify.
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Christians shouldn’t be gullible – gentle yes, but gullible no.
11 And I said, “Should such a man as I flee? And who is there such as I who would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in!”
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Fleeing is often another tactic of the enemy.
12 Then I perceived [became aware / realized] that God had not sent him at all, but that he pronounced this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 For this reason he was hired, that I should be afraid and act that way and sin, so that they might have cause for an evil report, that they might reproach me. 14 My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat, according to these their works, and the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who would have made me afraid.
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False prophets are still in our midst – false proclamations of what God says.
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Ask God to expose them.
15 So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God.
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Having done all – STAND! God will win . . .
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Discouragement will fall back on them.
