Opposition

So this morning we are continuing on Nehemiah. We're going to be looking at Nehemiah chapter four, so you can go ahead and start opening up to Nehemiah four. And as you do that, I would like to share with you a little reflection I did this week. Growing up in the Christian Reformed Church denomination, I've sung hundreds of different hymns. Some are older, some are newer, but there's one that I have always personally been a little wary of, a little uncomfortable with.

And it's not the tune or the really high pitched notes or anything like that. It's been the words that have made me struggle and wrestle through them. It's a hymn that people in the media have often quoted and used to point out in at least some critical way a very strong Christian position. I remember a Simpsons episode with a very tongue in cheek usage of it. The hymn is called Onward Christian Soldiers and some of you might remember it.

It is in our book of worship. I looked it up. And the first verse starts like this: Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal master leads against a foe forwards into battle.

See His banners go. Now what I have always wrestled with in the reflection of this song was the militant nature of this hymn. And I felt that this nature was being thrust upon me, that I was in some way promoting it. Now if you go back and understand and read a bit of the history of the story, you'll see that this hymn was actually written in the context of the Salvation Army. And some of us may be familiar with the Salvation Army who have a very structured military-like hierarchy in the church.

Every member of the church is called a soldier. Every member is called a soldier and their pastors and their bishops, for lack of a better word, in the hierarchy are all called lieutenants and captains and majors right up to the head of the worldwide Salvation Army who is called the general. And so this church operates in this idea of an army, the Salvation Army. So you can understand why this hymn was written, where this comes from. It indicates an underlying philosophy that Christians exist in a warlike state.

Now apart from my wrestling with this hymn, with the idea of a warlike Christian church, there is a biblical truth, however, to the idea that we as Christians exist in a state of battle. I don't like the idea of the hymn because it has become politicised, this idea. For example, Winston Churchill used this very hymn. In 1941 when Britain and America joined forces in the war, they sung this hymn on that day at this special ceremony, and Winston Churchill said that as these men and these women of the military, of the armed forces sung this song, he was struck that they, America and Britain, were the only hope, in his words, of saving the world from the measureless degradation that they were facing. They, those men and women standing there, they represented Christ.

Now again, how I stand with that because there were obviously Germans on the other side of the fence believing that they were fighting in God's war. But I cannot deny biblically and theologically that the Bible says that we exist in a state of strife. And theologians over the centuries have actually termed the church in some ways or identified some ways in which the church resembles this and they have given labels to such things as the church triumphant and the church militant. The church militant are Christians like us who are here on earth still fighting and resisting sin, Satan, and the world. That is the church as it is now, the church militant, the church in a state of strife.

Then there is the church triumphant who are victorious in heaven. They are the Christians who have passed into glory, that they have left this mortal world and they are with Christ right now, perfect, united with Him, free from sin and suffering. So there is the church militant on earth now, the church triumphant in heaven. And if I read my Bible, I definitely see that God tells me that this existence in my world does resemble a war-like struggle. There is opposition.

There is a strife. But the Bible also says that this strife is not necessarily against me, but against God. This is a spiritual strife as much as it is a physical strife. And this morning, as we continue our look at Nehemiah, we see in chapter four that there is a real opposition that comes up against him now. Work has started.

The wall has been growing around the city of Jerusalem that they've been very diligently working on, that Nehemiah felt very called to, and as this wall is starting to take shape, a pushback happens against this. And so we're going to read about that now. So in Nehemiah four, we're going to read the chapter from verse one to verse 23. Nehemiah chapter four: When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed.

He ridiculed the Jews, 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 burnt as they are?"

Tobiah the Ammonite who was at his side said, "What they are rebuilding, even if a fox climbed on top of it, it would break down their walls of stone." Hear us, O God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from Your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.

So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem's wall had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, the strength of the labourers is giving out and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. Also our enemies said, before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to their work.

So the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, wherever you turn, they will attack us. Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords, spears, and bows. 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. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your homes. When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.

From that day on, half of my men did the work while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows, and armour. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other. And each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked, but the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Then I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, the work is extensive and spread out and we are widely separated from each other along the wall.

Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us. So we continued the work with half the men holding spears from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. At that time I also said to the people, have every man and his helpers stay inside Jerusalem at night so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day. Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes.

Each had his weapon even when he went to get water. So far our reading. This morning we're going to see some clear themes come up that we will reflect on a little bit. We see a very real threat. We see there's a real pushback against what God was doing in the time of Nehemiah and the Jews.

And I want to highlight some things that come out for us as Christians today from this text. The first thing we see, I'm gonna try our clicker again. It's not working. The first thing we see is that where God is at work, there will often be opposition. Where God is at work, there will often be opposition.

This is not necessarily to say that every time God is working, there will be opposition. We'll also see from scripture that God makes it very easy sometimes for His work to get done. In the same story of Nehemiah, we see the Persian king, remember, have favour towards the Jews. He says, please, Nehemiah, with my blessing go and rebuild this wall. I will provide for you the timber that you need from the royal forest.

I will send with you some of my best guards to protect you on your way there. God makes the Persian king very favourable who is an unbeliever, a non-Christian, but we also do see that where God's at work, opposition does arise. We find some very real examples of how God's opposition works from our text this morning, how it looks like, what forms it takes. In verse two, we see our first point: that opposition to God's work can come in the form of discouragement. Listen to what Sanballat says to the Jews, to Nehemiah.

He says, what are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to offer sacrifices now? Are they going to be able to finish this in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble burnt as they are? In other words, are these ragtag bunch of people, these mums and dads, these kids, grandparents, they're not professional wall builders, are these guys really going to be able to do this?

It's amateurish at best. The discouragement, the opposition to God's work comes in this sort of discouragement. My friend, the same can happen to us. The same thing can come our way. Spectators sitting on the outside highlighting the difficulty of the task ahead, watering down perhaps the desire, the vision, the calling that you sense you have.

Criticising perhaps the values that you hold to. And why? Well in this case we see that it is a push for political power. Although it was nation versus nation, power games exist just as much in the workforce today, just as much in friendship circles today, just as much in family environments today. The advancement of God's kingdom in your sphere of influence can upset power structures.

Think about it. As Christians, we work to bring equity and fairness. Now what if someone holds all the power because they want to get wealthy out of it? What if you push back against that? Think of Christians involved in social justice actions like the sex trade, sex slaves being marketed all around the world and Christians going in there and rescuing these men and women from these slave owners, there is massive opposition against that because they are losing money.

They are losing influence. They are losing power. And so at this early stage we see Sanballat because he knows that if Jerusalem becomes a city state again, if it becomes powerful again, he in Samaria will lose power, will lose trade, will lose influence in the area. So he brings discouragement. He's opposing God's will by discouraging the people of God.

Then the next thing we see is that opposition to God's work can come in the form of disrespect or insults. Tobiah the Ammonite scoffs at the Jews' workmanship. He says, if a fox, a little solitary, lonely fox was to climb up on this rickety looking wall of theirs, it would come tumbling down. We might say, it's like the story of the wolf that would huff and puff with the three little pigs and blow their houses down. How can these mums and dads, these grandparents, these ordinary people do something like this?

Opposition to God's work comes in the form of disrespect and insult. And so those who oppose God, instead of dealing with the underlying reason of what God might be doing for the good of His people, for the good of this world, instead of dealing with the underlying reason, those who oppose God's work might target very personally the agents that God uses. The people that God uses in His kingdom. Disrespect or insults attempt to make those people, to make us feel insecure, incapable of doing the work, of doing the things that God has called us to be doing. So we see disrespect as a form of opposition.

And then we see a very real, very dangerous, but also very subtle one and this is disunity. In verse ten, we see that the people of Judah, so these wall rebuilders, own family members perhaps, their very people come to them and say, we cannot do this. Stop doing this. You're gonna get us in trouble.

You're gonna get killed for doing this. Verse twelve, wherever you turn, they will attack us. Nehemiah says, they came and told us ten times over, stop doing this. You're gonna get killed. You're gonna get us killed.

And so we see fear here. We see unbelief that this is not really what God is calling us to be doing. We see resistance to change. And we see it even in the New Testament happening with Jesus. His disciples, we realise, were used by Satan to try and persuade him away from his mission to go to the cross.

Remember that really intense scene where Jesus says to Peter, get behind me Satan. What do you know of the kingdom? What do you know of the purpose that God has in mind? Get behind me Satan. He sees behind what's going on in Peter's life and he sees the work of Satan.

Friends, like I said, this is a subtle thing because we've been talking about in the discouragement and the disrespect aspect of this and the real threat later on that Sanballat and the Ammonites and so on pose against Jerusalem, we see that this is outside forces. These are non-Christians. These are non-Jews threatening or opposing God from the outside but disunity, discord comes from the inside. And so many people fall by this. So many churches get destroyed by this.

And it is the work of Satan himself doing this. Creating and sowing seeds of disunity, asking questions, is it really what God is calling us to do? Is this really what God is calling you to be doing? A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, Jesus said. And so if Satan can turn your loved ones, fellow Christians against you, if Satan can turn church members against one another, he can destroy a church.

He can destroy a family. He can oppose God's will. And our efforts and our good work can become futile and useless. So opposition to God's will can come in the form of disunity as well. Now a word of caution at the same time, I don't think that the Bible indicates that every act of dissent, every act of questioning is necessarily from the evil one either.

Dissent that may lead to disunity at some points may simply be a lack of understanding. It may simply be an opportunity for discussion and for reconciliation. Because we are fallen, because we are frail, because we do not understand all things, disunity or disagreement may occur. A pastor may need to be questioned. I give you church members permission to question the pastor.

An elder may need to be disciplined. Everyone is susceptible to sin. So be careful before you start yelling to Rob up the front here, get behind me Satan or someone else. It may not be Satan that's working in this and it may be a great opportunity for further growth.

So disagreement, dissent, questioning may not necessarily be opposition to God's will. But now our second point, our second slide. Where God is working, we need to be working. And we see how the people of Jerusalem dealt with this opposition very wisely, very successfully. Once we've realised that we are actually involved in the unfolding story of God's kingdom, and I'm not talking about church work necessarily or missions or anything like this, wherever you find yourself, in what sphere of influence you find yourself, whether it's work or in the family or at school or at university, God has called you to that place to be living out the kingdom in whatever way, in a very unique and characteristic way.

Once you've realised that you are actually involved in the unfolding story of God's kingdom, once you've taken the responsibility that God has called you to, we need to make some very practical decisions about how we go about working in the kingdom of God that may face opposition. On the one hand, opposition was visible. It was very tangible for Nehemiah and his builders. But at the same time, this opposition can bring people together, and it did in this situation. People started digging in their heels.

People started dusting off their old sword that they had stored away in the attic. They were ready to face this opposition. They were prepared. But we have a call in our life as well. God has not simply saved us from sin.

He has not simply saved us from hell. He has saved us from our sin into His kingdom. And so there is work for us to do. There is work for us to do as Christians. And so we get really great examples of what God's kingdom work looked like for Nehemiah and how they were prepared to face opposition.

Apart from the physical work of rebuilding Jerusalem's wall for God's glory, we see subtle aspects of God's people being ready to do the work in God's kingdom. Firstly we see that there is prayer involved. We saw it in Nehemiah chapter one already. Nehemiah was a man of prayer. He prayed for three months before he went to the king.

Three or four months at least. He prayed when he heard the terrible news. So Nehemiah is a man of prayer and we see that happening again in verse four and five. As Tobiah has insulted workers here, Nehemiah writes almost in parenthesis this prayer, hear us, our God, for we are despised. Nehemiah goes straight to God as preparation for what is to happen.

Nehemiah prays on behalf of all the people involved and invokes God to work on their behalf. All of life, all of life friend is spiritual. All of life, friends, has the influence of God or Satan or sin or the world involved in it somehow. So we should never be naive enough to think that our situations don't need prayer. They absolutely need prayer.

Every single aspect of it. All of life, especially the wrestling we face in the realm of faith, needs to be based in prayer. And we see Nehemiah doing that. The second thing we see is that we need to be alert. Verse nine shows that while there were lots of prayer involved, Nehemiah also posted a guard day and night to keep a lookout for the attacks of the enemy.

Have a look at verse nine. This is what he says: we prayed to our God and then we posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. So hand in hand, prayer and watchfulness goes together. And we see this in the New Testament as well. Apostle Paul in that famous passage in Ephesians six, the armour of God talks about being prepared.

Clothing yourself, getting yourself ready for the attacks of Satan, to stand against the schemes of the devil he writes in Ephesians six eleven. And this is so important for the Christian. We can so easily be tricked into a sense of complacency in our life. We can so easily blur the lines. We can so easily become blasé or look the other way or not measure what is happening in our lives biblically.

But working where God is working means we must be alert to what is God's doing, but also what might be opposing what God is doing. To be aware of the dangers of that work. So we need to be alert. We need to be in God's word. We need to be thinking biblically.

We need to be ready to stand against and resist Satan, sin and the world. The third thing we see as well in this passage is that we need to be prepared to defend the kingdom at the same time as building up the kingdom. In order to complete the work, the builders had to now go and work with a sword at their side. Verse seventeen shows us that at the drop of a hat they would be ready for the call to arms. Several years ago we had a publication in the reformed churches of Australia that was called The Trowel and Sword.

Remember that? Yep. We've got a few heads nodding. And this name came from Nehemiah chapter four. The mission of that was it a monthly magazine?

Quarterly magazine? The mission statement, the mission of it was to defend the church, defend the mission of the church on the one hand with the sword I guess, and with the trowel to build up the church, to edify the church, to strengthen the church, to resist. So on the one hand, defending. On the one hand, building up.

And the trowel and sword is a great metaphor for this because there is a preparedness in the kingdom that is both defensive and offensive. A preparedness that seeks to protect but also conquer or advance in the name of Christ. It could mean defending marriage for as long as possible in our country. It could also be very offensive and it is offensive in the sight of many people now to push back against legislation like abortion in the country. A Christian must be prepared to protect the kingdom with a sword but also build it up and to make it stronger with a trowel.

It might be worthwhile considering what your call in life is leaning towards. And maybe you don't have to do both. Maybe you are called to, because of your personality or who you are or your position that you are, someone that will push back against legislation, offensively taking a forward step. Some of us might need to build and to guard and to edify the church. So there is a need to defend and to build up, to be prepared to do these things in the kingdom.

And then lastly and fourthly, there's a call to be determined as we serve in God's kingdom. We see the people being united and called together by Nehemiah at one point. He gets everyone there, the officials, the builders, the people just living, the citizens of Jerusalem. He calls them all together in verse fourteen he says, don't be afraid of these enemies. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome.

Remember him and fight for your brothers. Fight for your sons and your daughters. Fight for your wives and your homes. These words were words of urgency that put steel in their spines. Remember who God is.

Remember who God is. Remember what He's done for you. Remember what He's done in the past. Remember the nations that He has rescued. Remember that He is powerful.

Remember that He is awesome. Remember that He has blown you away. Remember that time where He healed you from your pain. Where He set you free from your sin. Remember your God.

Be encouraged by that. Be determined because of that. And fight for your families. Friends, our faith is worth fighting for. Our God is worth fighting for because without Him nothing makes sense.

Nothing is worthwhile. Friends, our faith is worth fighting for but our families are also worth fighting for. Mum, on Mother's Day, dad, you are so important to your kids. You are so important to the life of your descendants. We believe in covenant theology in this church.

We believe that God makes a promise to our kids but He uses us, mums and dads, in the life of those kids. You are important to them. Don't be complacent in that. Your kids are worth fighting for. Don't become complacent.

Don't depend solely on Sunday school here at church or pastor or the church to disciple your kids, to love God, to lead them by example, to show them what it looks like to follow the gospel, to believe in the gospel. Young person, high school student, uni student, your faith is worth fighting for. Your faith is worth defending. Don't buy into the lies. Don't buy into the deception.

Don't buy into even the tugging of your heart that might be leading you down some path. It is not worth it. Who exchanges God for rubbish? For things that do not satisfy, that cannot satisfy, that might have some sort of joy that is not enduring? Whatever may seem enticing, whatever direction your heart may be pulled towards, remember the Lord who is great and awesome and what He offers you.

Remember that He holds the words of life, that He grants lasting joy. Retired grandparent sitting here. Remember that you will never retire from the kingdom. You will never retire from the kingdom. You may be a grey haired elder but you are still part of the kingdom.

God still has a calling on your life. God still demands your discipline. You have a place in it. You have a calling in it and you must fulfil that calling because your master has called you to His service. Now for all of us, there is a need to be determined to work in the kingdom of God as it advances and spreads around this world, to strive and to fight and to battle for our family and our faith.

And in closing, while we've been reflecting on what opposition to God's kingdom looks like, I want to conclude by asking some very pointed questions this morning for ourselves to really think about this week to discuss maybe in our small groups, in our discipleship groups, with our family on the way back home. Three important questions that have really been difficult for me to think through. Firstly, am I doing the work that God is calling me to in His kingdom? Am I doing the work that God has called me to in His kingdom? In whatever sphere of influence He has called me to operate in, am I doing the work?

The second thing, am I promoting the work that God has called me to in His kingdom? Am I praying for God's work? It may not be in my sphere, but am I praying for the missions in Yandina? Am I praying for God's glory to be made known by the missionary, the thousands of missionaries around this world? Am I praying for God to be doing what He needs to be doing in my church?

And am I encouraging others to be involved in that? Am I promoting the work of God's kingdom? And then thirdly, and this is the hard question, am I possibly opposing God and the work that He is wanting to do in His kingdom? Am I opposing the work of God? In my attitude towards church, in my attitude towards my family, in my attitude towards the world around me, am I standing in the way of God's advancing kingdom?

Some good questions to think about this week. Now I started this morning with a reference to the hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers Marching as to War. Whatever my hesitance may have been to the song and whether or not it is a good hymn or not, the third verse of this hymn gives us the real reason why we can sing these sort of words, the real hope we have as Christians struggling for the faith, struggling for our family, struggling for the kingdom. Our hope lies in the fact that Jesus Christ has been crowned King of this kingdom. That Jesus Christ has become King once and for all.

The hope of victory does not lie in the balance, friends. It is not a battle that we can win or lose. Victory has been made. It has been achieved. It does not lie in the balance like Winston Churchill said in World War Two when he sung that hymn.

The last verse of the hymn gives us the hope that we can endure and that we will experience the victory. That the church militant, the church in battle, the church in strife will become the church triumphant. Listen to these words. Verse three of that hymn: Crowns and thrones may perish. Kingdoms rise and wane but the church of Jesus constant will remain.

Gates of hell can never against that church prevail. We have Christ's own promise and this will never fail. Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. The battle is real for you this morning. If the strife is overwhelming.

If the sense of despair is so great, come to Christ. Come and meet Him here today. Come and bow your knee in worship to Him. Let Him take your inadequacies, let Him take your doubts, let Him take your strife because He will make it victorious. For His glory and His name, He will make it victorious.

Because if you look at the cross, what some people saw as a sign of despair, of rejection, became the banner of victory friends. If you look at our Jesus and you look at the hands, the scars in His hands and His feet, they are the marks of war on our behalf. Come to Him because He has been crowned King. And He has been crowned King because He has won back a kingdom. Come to Him.

Bow your hearts and worship to Him. Give your life to Him. That He may use you in His kingdom. Let's pray. We thank you Lord for the encouragement this morning that You are still King.

That You are in control, that You have won the battle already. You have won the war and although we may be in a battle, although we may experience strife, although we might wrestle with all of our might against opposition to Your work in our lives, as we may fight against sin and temptation of sin, as we may wrestle against Satan Himself and His evil dark forces. Lord, as the world may sit and laugh on the sidelines, we look to You, Lord Jesus, our Victor, our guardian, our powerful warrior that has gone ahead. There is no doubt in our hearts Lord that You have won the war. And so we ask you Lord to give us courage in the battle.

Father give us hearts of peace. Give us resilience. Help us to be prayerful always in every situation Lord, seeking Your protection. Help us to be prepared putting on the armour of God. Help us to be determined to do our part in the kingdom to push back against the tide of darkness of evil. Father in our lives, may You become enthroned as the King because You are the ruler, the Lord of this kingdom.

We bow before You. We seek Your newness, the faith to believe and to hold on to this. In Jesus name. Amen.