If you turn in your Bibles to
Nehemiah chapter 6, by this stage we can well sympathize
with our friend Nehemiah. hardly a page in the book so
far where he doesn't meet with some opposition some complaint
and in Nehemiah chapter 6 we return again to these men who
we met very early on when they first heard that Nehemiah was
a man who had come to seek the well-being of the children of
Israel. These men were deeply disturbed
and we find in chapter 4 that they became furious and indignant
and they despised and reproached and they mocked Nehemiah and
the people of God. and they became very angry and
they conspired and they plotted and God brought their plotting
to nothing. He showed Nehemiah what these
men were planning in secret and he gave Nehemiah the wisdom to
understand what was happening. What a remarkable example Nehemiah
is for us of the grace of God. Let's just read these first 9
verses of chapter 6. Now it came to pass when Sanbalat
and Tobiah and Geshem the Arabian and the rest of our enemies heard
that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left
therein, though at that time I had not set up the doors upon
the gates, that Sanbalat and Geshem said unto me, saying,
Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the
plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messages unto them,
saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why
should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you? Yet they sent unto me four times
after this sort, and I answered them after the same manner. Then
sent Sambalat 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 that Geshmu 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. And thou hast
appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying,
There is a king in Judah, and now shall it be reported to the
king according to these words. Come now, therefore, and let
us take counsel together. Then I said unto them, saying,
There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou faintest
them out of thine own heart. for they all made us afraid,
saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work that it
be not done. Now therefore, O God, strengthen
my hands. Let's just go through these and
the verses will show us plainly, I think, that the enemies of
God, despite their incessant failures in the face of God's
sovereignty, never give up. And their purpose, of course,
always is to turn us from God, to turn us from our great God,
to turn us from this great work, to just turn our eyes a little
and we'll end up compromising. We will, as Nehemiah is here,
we will be accused by the enemies of the gospel, by the people
of this world, that we are doing this work a great work in God's
sight, and a great work in our eyes, that we're doing it for
personal gain and personal motivation. And I say, why? Why be so zealous? Why be so strict? Why be so passionate about issues
of doctrine and practice in the Church of God? Surely we can
all get along together. Let's all join hands. What a
great witness it would be if we're all seen to be one. Marching as one together. Tobiah's
name, you know, means Yahweh is good. He was a half Jew, a
Samaritan. Of course, Satan is portrayed
in the works of these men. And what he wants to do, doesn't
he, what he is most concerned about is the glory of God. If he can turn people just a
little, he can turn them to himself. What a relentless enemy of the
souls of people we have. and we need to keep reminding
ourselves that in Nehemiah's building of the walls we have
a picture of the Lord Jesus who promised to build his church
and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Ephesians
1 begins with these wonderful descriptions of God's work, isn't
it? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in
Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. These are what the saints and
the faithful in Christ have received, having predestinated us to adoption
as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure
of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which
he made us accepted in the beloved. And all of this to the praise
of the glory of his grace. And the purpose of it is, is
that God would, through Christ Jesus, would build a dwelling
place for himself. A place where he gets glory in
this world. A place where the glory of his
grace is shown. And it's not shown in buildings. It's ultimately shown in the
church of God. Now therefore, says chapter 2,
you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and members of the household of God, having
been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the
whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple
in the Lord, in whom you also are being built for a dwelling
place of God in the Spirit. God has said in 1 Corinthians
6.19 that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, aren't they?
We are temples of the Holy Spirit. Your body is a temple of the
Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are
not your own. As Colossians says, what is the
hope of glory? The hope of glory is Christ in
you. in you a fit and proper dwelling
place for God Almighty in men like us. Christ in you, the hope
of glory. And Colossians goes on to say
that we're actually being nourished and knitted together by joints
and ligaments and grows with an increase that is from God. This is God's work. in his people. This is the place where God gets
glory. And what happens when you compromise? Not to take too much from what
we will get to further on, but just remember this Tobiah who
was angry and furious and dignant and mocked the people of God. This Tobiah, guess where this
Tobiah ended up? having his home in Jerusalem,
in the place that God had destroyed 70 or 80 years beforehand and
had miraculously rebuilt, taken the wealth of Babylon to rebuild
his city and now rebuild his walls. Where do you think Tobiah
should have been? and Ammonite was to have no place
in the city of God. If you turn in your Bibles to
Nehemiah 13, you'll find out where Nehemiah, I mean, Tobiah,
ended up. So Nehemiah came for this brief
visit. and in a sense as an emissary
of Artaxerxes. He came and he built the wall
in 52 days. He may have only been away from
Babylon for a few months. He came back for a 12-year period
as governor, went back to Babylon, having this remarkable, miraculous
rebuilding of Jerusalem scene. And he comes back, and what does
he find? in verse 7 of chapter 13, And
I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliasheb had done
for Tobiah in preparing a room for him in the courts of the
house of God. What they had done is that they
had emptied the room where the thank offerings and the incense
was kept in the temple. And they'd cleared it out, and
they'd put Tobiah in there, and Ammonite was in there. And who
had done it? Verse seven, the live shed. Where was Eliashed when they
came to building the walls? Chapter 3, verse 1. Eliashed,
the high priest. Where does compromise go? Where
does compromise go? Satan desires to have a home
in the hearts of people. He desires to set up his reign
in the very courts of God, setting himself up in the house of God
and claiming to be God. Compromise is a shockingly deadly
thing. And all through the Scriptures,
from Cain to Revelation, we will see that everywhere that people
compromise, the glory of God and the good people is necessarily
compromised as well. May God cause us to be people
of prayer and to be used like Nehemiah. Chapter 1 of verse
6 starts with these wonderful words, doesn't it? And now it
came to pass. All things in this world come
to pass because of God's decrees and purposes. And now we have
these enemies gathered together. God is going to get glory. And
God is going to work good for His people, despite the enemies. When Sanbalat, and Tobiah, and
Geshem, the Arab, and the rest of our enemies, they all join
together. I heard that I had built the
wall, and finally the wall is built. but the doors upon the
gates hadn't been fixed. There was still an opportunity,
there was still an opening. If we can possibly get Nehemiah
to leave the work and stop, then there is a possibility that we
can stop this work. We can still come and go. We can still live in this compromised
situation. Then Sanbalat and Gesham sent
to me saying, come, let us meet together in some one of the villages
in the plain of Arno. But they thought to do me mischief. It's wonderful, isn't it, that
Nehemiah begins this book as a man of prayer, and unlike many
other books, we don't have God speaking directly to Nehemiah. It's like the book of Esther,
where God is not mentioned at all, but we actually see God's
hand in remarkable ways, don't we? We see God's hand doing this
great work And it's begun by God, as Nehemiah prays to Him. God is doing what He's doing,
exposing these people, getting glory for Himself, because He's
a covenant keeping and a faithful God. And this city, this city
according to 1 verse 9, is a dwelling for His name. So the things that
happen, to the temple, to the walls, to the people of Jerusalem
reflect God's name and His glory. The walls, of course, are there
for both the protection of His people, to provide a separation
a place for the redeemed, of 1 verse 10, a place for those
whose desire it is to fear the Lord, a place of worship. Now, under Nehemiah says, I'm
doing a great work. He won't even get down from his
ladder. He won't even go and talk to
them. He sent messages to them. is
doing a great work, this great work which was providentially
overseen by the Lord. Ezra had come back earlier, and
with all those people whose spirits God had moved, and God moved
the heart of Artaxerxes, it pleased the King to send me. The King granted then to me according
as Nehemiah says according to the good hand of my God upon
me And he comes to Jerusalem and
he says to the people, let us rise up and build. And they set
their hands to this good work. And in chapter three, we have
that remarkable picture of next to him and next to him and after
him, we have this wonderful picture of the people of God as one man
building the wall, despite all the enemies. Nehemiah says, the
God of heaven will prosper us. God exposes their thoughts as
he did to these same men in chapter four. God brought their plot
to nothing. He says, I'm doing a great work. It's amazing, isn't it? There
is only one great work in this world, isn't there? What's all
the other work come to at the end of the day? What does it
come to? We live in a house that was owned and built by one of
the richest men in Australia in the 1820s. Prosper and Investor
was rich beyond imagining. He owned the most remarkably
huge house in Sydney with coaches and had a house big enough to
have balls and servants and invite the governor to his parties and
things. And he owned shops in Sydney. And he had the best 1,300 acres
of land in Tarare with the best red cedar trees on it. And he
built This house down here, built a house down here. Does anyone
know anything about him? Does anyone know anything about
him at all these days? Within a matter of generations
he'd lost, well within his lifetime he'd lost all of it. But within
a matter of generations, he's a forgotten man. The house he
built at Terrera was a place for snakes and tomcats and foxes
and cows and all sorts of other vermin to live in. It was just
a ruin. It all comes to nothing. It all comes to nothing. There
is only one good work. There is only one great work. It's God's work, for God's glory,
for the good of God's people. And it's God's work, and it's
a good work, even if the taboos and the sandblasts say, even
if a little fox comes up on these walls, they can knock it down.
It's nothing. I'm doing a great work. If God
is working in your life, He's called you to a great work. You see, Nehemiah shows us clearly
that that is the great work, isn't it? The work that God is
doing by grace in the lives of His people, so that I cannot
come down Any deviation from that work, anything, is a coming
down. And in this case, if Nehemiah,
who was sent of God, had stopped, then the others would have seen
that and the work would have stopped. That's why he says,
the work would cease while I leave it. He won't come down. You see, what do these men want? They want compromise, don't they? Come, let us meet together. Let us stand on a level playing
field. Let us stop building this wall. which divides us, this wall which
excludes us, this wall which says that God and his purposes
and his people are holy, they are separate. Come, let us meet
together. It was, of course, just another
ruse, wasn't it? Just another scheme of Satan. Come down from the work that
you are doing at Shelhaven Gospel Church. Come down and compromise
and we can have lots of good times together. I can talk about
my righteousness and you can talk about your righteousness
and we'll talk about Jesus but we won't have anything in all
of what we do that says, this is a boundary. This separates
the holy from the profane. Come down, they say. Come down and let us meet together. The worship of God is an exclusive
thing, isn't it? He will be worshipped in His
way. He will only be worshipped as
He is revealed, as He reveals Himself in the Scriptures. He will be worshipped after the
due order. Just ask Isaiah. The things that are done in the
name of God must be done in His name. His great name, according
to His word and for His glory. The doctrines that we believe,
the doctrines that we stand for, we must be able to say, thus
says the Lord to all of us. They will want us to come down
from the doctrines which cause God's people and have caused
God's people to delight. The very doctrines that Nehemiah
proclaimed in his prayer. You are a God who keeps covenant. You are great and awesome. You are a great God. We must
proclaim God is absolutely sovereign. God who elected a people for
His glory, for the glory of His Son. We must proclaim a God according
to Nehemiah who said, now these are your servants and your people
whom you have redeemed by your great power and your strong hand. Not tried to redeem, but redeemed. We must preach, we must proclaim
who God is, as he is revealed in this word. We must proclaim
who man is, as he is revealed in this word. And Tobiah and
Shamboleth, in their incessant enmity against God, reveal something
of the hearts of all men. The hearts of men are enmity
against God. Persistent, consistent, deceitful
enmity against God. How much evidence did they need
to know that God was doing this work? Ezra had been sent back
by Cyrus. Where did Cyrus get his name
from? 250 years before he was born, Isaiah said that Cyrus
was going to send the people back. They are all there, all
of these activities according to God's promises, His faithfulness,
and yet these men have their hearts set against him, deceitfully
wicked and beyond cure, set against God again and again. And they
want the work to cease. And they are so persistent. Read
verse 4 with me. Yet they sent unto me four times
after this sword. Four times they said, come, let
us meet together. Come, let us meet together. Come,
let us meet together. Come, let us compromise together,
Nehemiah. And he answered them the same
way. Persistence. If you know something
of your own heart and your own flesh, you will know that it's
just what we are, except for the grace of God. Then in verse
5, then Sambalat sent his servant unto me in like manner the fifth
time now, with an open letter in his hand. I'll just read what
was written in this letter. Here's Sambalat pretending that
this letter had fallen into his hands. And he says to Nehemiah,
look what's happening. Look what the heathen are saying
about you, Nehemiah. And Gashnu said it, that thou
and the Jews think to rebel, for which cause thou buildest
the wall, that thou mayest be their king. What are they saying
about Nehemiah? How did Nehemiah come to be back
there building the wall? Artaxerxes sent him back there. Why would Artaxerxes send someone
of Nehemiah's position in his empire when he rules so much
of the known world? Why would he send someone who
was so valued all the way back there? He trusted Nehemiah's integrity,
and he'd grown to know Nehemiah that when Nehemiah appeared before
him sad, he knew that the sadness was a heart sadness. You see, Artaxerxes had come
to respect and to know and to care deeply. God had moved the
king's heart. And what are these men saying?
That you are doing all of this. Look at it in verse six. That
thou mayest be their king. That you are doing this, Nehemiah,
so that you will be worshipped as a king. Not only that, Nehemiah's
self-exaltation went even further than that, verse 7, that thou
hast appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying,
There is a king in Judah. What you're doing, Nehemiah,
all the heathen are saying it, you're doing it for your glory. You're doing it so that men will
bow down to you and think that you are a great man. And all of your zeal and all
of your worship and all of your religious duties are for just
personal gain. You see, Nehemiah, with all of
this going on, you need friends like Sanballat to help you. He says, come, therefore, let
us take counsel together. I'm the man for you, Nehemiah. I'm the one that's going to stand
beside you. Sanbelat's an interesting name. It's a Babylonian name, and it
says, Sin and the Moon God give life. When God names people in
the scriptures, he gives them names which are just extraordinarily
descriptive, aren't they? Sanbelat. sin and the moon God
give life. You come down with me, Nehemiah. Let us take counsel together.
Together, Nehemiah, we can work this out. Then I sent unto him, saying,
there are no such things as thou sayest. You see, God hath shown
Nehemiah what these men were thinking in their own hearts. They are famous then out of their
own hearts. You make this up out of your
own imagination. Your words don't correspond to
the truth. You see, God works truth in the
things of reality as well as the things of spirituality. He's a God of truth in all spheres. And he exposed these people and
he kept Nehemiah strong. And the purpose of it Again and
again, the purpose of these people is to say, look what everyone
else is saying about you. Look what your reputation is
in the world. You're doing this for your glory. They want to make the people
of God afraid. in verse 14 of the same chapter
they pay prophetesses and in verse 14 it says that they would
have put me in fear if they can make the people of God take their
eyes off the Lord Jesus and his glorious purposes and his glorious
sovereignty and his glorious power to those who believe then
they'll weaken their hands. For they made us afraid, their
hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. You see, everything in this world,
everything in our flesh by nature and all of the purposes of Satan
are to make his people, make God's people afraid, to weaken
our hands, to say that we can't do it. And we can't. Isn't it wonderful that Paul
was given those extraordinary revelations of God, and then
he was given the thorn in the flesh. He was given the messenger of
Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded
with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And
he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My purposes of grace
towards my people, my purposes of grace in my people, is sufficient
for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." See these
men, Sanballatin, Tabar and others were governors of wealthy and
prosperous provinces just nearby Jerusalem. What was Jerusalem?
An almost empty city with a broken down wall and a temple, a deserted
city almost. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. Therefore most gladly will I
rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. How sad it is that the religion
of this world, the compromise religion of this world, doesn't
cause people to boast in their infirmities, but causes them
to boast in their abilities, to boast in the things that they
have done. I hear so often I'm getting to
the stage of just feeling ill when I hear it when people tell
me what great things that they have done for God. God's people
grow in weakness. God's people delight in the fact
But the strength that they have is the strength that God gives
them. And He gives it in His time and for His purposes. Nehemiah is a great man of prayer,
isn't he? He begins with prayer. He continually
goes to God in prayer. Just listen to his prayer at
the end of this verse 9. Now therefore, O God, strengthen
my hands. Therefore most gladly, says Paul,
I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. What a great prayer to pray,
isn't it? When the Sambalettes and the Tobiahs and the Geshons
are around us all the time, we don't look for strength in ourselves. We say to God, I am weak. This is a great work. Help me
to stand on the wall and continue to do the work. Strengthen my
hands. It's your work. You must begin
it. You must get all the glory for
it. And what does Zechariah say when
this work is done. What is it? These mountains of sin and wickedness
and Satan's schemes. Who are you, O great mountain,
before Zerubbabel, before the Lord Jesus? You shall become
a plain, and he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace. Christ to it. That's how God
builds his wall. May he strengthen our hands.
Let's pray.