Press On

So when an enemy of God and His people approaches us with some alternative explanation of reality, don’t react too quickly. Don’t 142be discouraged. Don’t scale back what you believe and what you are willing to say. Stare at the evidence and at the arguments based on the evidence. Analyze the alternative explanation of reality. We will see right through it and be in position to show that the fabrications are but figments of perverted imaginations. We will see that God’s enemies are merely trying to discourage us from the great work we are doing.

And don’t miss what else Nehemiah did. Did you see it at the end of verse 9? Nehemiah shows us how to stand firm and pray. Nehemiah stood firm by rejecting the imaginative and wicked spin the enemies put on reality and persisted in what God had called him to do. Then he prayed that, rather than his hands dropping from the work, God would strengthen them in the work. Prayer is a consistent emphasis in Nehemiah (see 1:4; 2:4; 4:4, 9; 5:19). Nehemiah was constantly praying, but he didn’t only pray. He prayed, and he took action. We want to cultivate a disposition of being aware of God and turning to Him when in need, and we want to take action where we can.

So in 6:1-9 we have seen the overt opposition, and in verses 10-14 we see the covert opposition.

Nehemiah 6:10-14

Nehemiah describes his next difficulty in verse 10:

From what we see as the passage develops, we know that this Shemaiah is some kind of prophet. He is regarded in the community as being able to declare the will of God. Now he tells Nehemiah that there is a threat on his life and he should take refuge in the temple. How will Nehemiah respond to this man who has a reputation as a prophet? Look what he says in verse 11:

How did Nehemiah know that this prophet was not sent by God? How was it “realized”? Nehemiah knew Scripture. Nehemiah knew that 143the Pentateuch says only priests can go into the temple, and only at appointed times. Nehemiah said, “How can I enter the temple and live?” Non-priests enter the temple on pain of death (Num 18:7; cf. Lev 10:1-2; Num 1:53; 3:38; 4:15, 19-20, etc.; see also Heb 9:6-7). Nehemiah recognized that he was not a priest and knew that if he tried to enter the temple the Lord might break out against him. That, too, is how Nehemiah knew that this prophet was not sent from God. This prophet counseled Nehemiah to do something that was expressly forbidden by the Word of God.

If someone tells you to do exactly what the Bible says not to do, you know that person does not speak for God. So Nehemiah heard this counsel that he should enter the temple, and he responded to it on the basis of what the Bible teaches.

You want to know the will of God? Know the Bible. He has revealed His will. You want to know how to tell when someone is or isn’t in line with the will of God when they claim to reveal the will of God? Evaluate their claims by the Scriptures. Are they saying what the Bible says?

Nehemiah’s knowledge of the Scriptures enables him to discern what is really going on with Shemaiah, as he goes on to say in verse 12 (ESV), “but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.” This so-called prophet took money to oppose God and God’s agenda. He valued money more than God by trying to lead Nehemiah astray. Make no mistake about it: people can be led astray by money. Guard your heart. Don’t be someone who will sell what is most valuable because someone will give you money or a benefit from their money. It’s not worth it. Look at the condemning statement Nehemiah makes about Shemaiah in verse 13:

Nehemiah is not just building these walls because walls are good. He is building these walls because this is God’s city. And that matters because when the walls are built, God’s law can be enforced for the good of God’s people. All of that is undercut if the people don’t act like they believe that God is going to dwell in that temple. They are building the walls so that they can create a clean and holy place where God will take up residence in that temple in their midst. For that to happen they must conduct themselves according to God’s instructions. If they 144act like they don’t believe all that as they try to build the walls, the whole operation is undermined.

Once again, Nehemiah committed his cause to the Lord in prayer, as we see him pray in verse 14,

Just as Nehemiah asked the Lord to remember the good he had done for Israel (5:19), so now he asks the Lord to remember the evil the enemies have done against Israel. Why would Nehemiah pray such a thing? Why would he want these things remembered? He wants these things remembered because he believes that God will settle the accounts. Nehemiah believes there will be a judgment. He believes God will do justice, and he wants God’s justice to be seen. God will reward people according to what they have done.

Nehemiah wants mercy for those who repent of sin and trust God (1:5), and he wants justice for those who oppose God and His purposes (4:4-5; 5:13; 6:14). Nehemiah does not want unrepentant sin to go unrequited. He wants it remembered so that it can be repaid. Notice, too, how Nehemiah left this matter in God’s hands. He did not plan a counter-attack on his enemies. He did pray for God to do justice against His enemies and the enemies of His people.

So we have seen overt (6:1-9) and covert (vv. 10-15) opposition, and now we come to the perseverance through the project with these people (vv. 15-19).

Nehemiah 6:15-19

Behold the triumph in verse 15:

They started the work in August, and they finished it in October. Fifty-two days passed, and in that time they rebuilt the wall. Can I encourage you not to underestimate what you can accomplish if God has called you, if you are serving Him, and if you persevere? Often things don’t 145happen simply because people don’t start doing them and don’t persevere in them. See verse 16:

This is Nehemiah’s perspective: that God has been aiding the work all along. (The HCSB’s rendering “by our God” means “with the help of our God,” ESV, NASB, NET.) God was at work on behalf of the people, so Nehemiah explained back in 2:8 that the good hand of his God was upon him. Then, in 2:12 he said that God had put it in his heart to do this for Jerusalem, and he told the people in 2:20 that the God of heaven would make them prosper. Then in 4:15 he said that God had frustrated the plans of the enemy. In 4:20 he told the people that God would fight for them. Now it has come to pass. The wall has been built. The work has been done with the help of God.

We want to be people who do things that can only be done because God is helping us. We don’t want to be people who do things that can be explained away by ordinary human effort. We don’t want the world to look at what we have done and say, “Anybody with financial means, market savvy, and cultural sensitivity could pull that off.” We don’t want that. We want people looking at our church, at our gospel efforts, and saying, “Only God could bring those people together. I knew some of those people before they got converted; only God could make them as loving as they are now.” We want people looking at us and being shocked that so many people of such disparate backgrounds and interests love one another the way we do. Only God can do this. Only God can produce true conversion. Only God can convince people that the Bible is true in the face of the lies and myths of the culture. Only God can make sinners love one another.

Nehemiah 6:15-16 contains triumphant statements, but there is more work to be done. Just as Paul finished Romans and faced a plot on his life with more to do, just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and continued toward that looming cross, now Nehemiah gets the wall built and has to deal with traitors within the city. See verse 17:

146Nehemiah 2:10 tells us that Tobiah is an Ammonite servant. He isn’t a Jew; he’s an enemy of the Jews. Tobiah was working against the well-being and safety of the people of Jerusalem, and now nobles in Judah are corresponding with him. This exchange of letters is a trading of intelligence. Nehemiah has to deal with treachery.

Verse 18 only makes it worse:

Once again the problem of intermarriage rears its ugly head. Tobiah is connected by marriage to significant people in Jerusalem. As a result, we see in verse 19,

So Jews came to Nehemiah and spoke well of this enemy of the cause. This guy Tobiah was doing everything in his power to keep God’s law from being enforced in Jerusalem by thwarting the rebuilding of the walls. Not only did they speak well of him, they gave him reports of what Nehemiah said. And the letters intended to make Nehemiah afraid show that Tobiah had not abandoned his opposition to what Nehemiah was about in Jerusalem. Tobiah was not repenting of his sin and joining God’s program; he was persisting in his opposition to it. He only changed strategies from the attempt to keep the wall from being built to the attempt to intimidate Nehemiah.

Now that Nehemiah has successfully rebuilt the wall, he has to turn his attention to the hearts of people, which is a much more difficult building project. Now he has to confront sin within the congregation. As we come to chapter 7, Nehemiah is persevering through the project with the people. This list of names in chapter 7 serves to identify who the Jews really are.

What’s at stake in this situation is that God’s people have returned to the land, and they are seeking the blessing of Abraham and through that the good of all nations (Gen 12:3). In order for God’s people to experience the blessing of Abraham and to be the blessing of all the families of the earth, they have to be holy. They have to be set apart to God. In order for them to be holy they have to know who they are as a people. That’s why these genealogical lists of names matter, and that’s 147why the problem of intermarriage threatens everything the returnees are trying to accomplish.

Nehemiah 7:1-73

This list of names in Nehemiah 7 sets up what will be an effort to repopulate Jerusalem. Nehemiah 7:4 tells us,

So the walls are rebuilt. Who is going to live there? Are the returnees going to let people from the land—non-Jews—live in Jerusalem? No, they have to be a holy people. They must be a holy nation. So Nehemiah brings out this list, and note what verse 6 says:

This is the first set of returnees, the same group of people that we read about back in Ezra 2. So what Nehemiah is doing is going back to the starting point, that first set of returnees, and this list in Nehemiah 7 ends the same way that Ezra 2 did. We read in Nehemiah 7:73, “all Israel settled in their towns” (my trans.; cf. Ezra 2:70).

Nehemiah had to establish who the Jews were so that he could establish who could live in Jerusalem. The people had returned from exile, they were living in their towns, and eventually they will cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem to repopulate the city (11:1-3).

This means that the genealogy in Nehemiah 7, the list of authenticated Jews, was the first step taken to validate the identity of the true people of God so that Jerusalem could be purified. This is a work that also has its correspondence in what we are doing here as a church, as we are doing what we can to preserve a believer’s church. Jeremiah 31 says that everyone in the new covenant will know God (Jer 31:31-34), and in this church we participate in the new covenant. We want all members of the church to know God. If people show by their unrepentant sin that they do not know God, we want to obey what Jesus said to do in order to remove them from church membership so that they are under no illusion about their standing before God (Matt 18:15-18).

What we are doing here as a church is calling people to join the true people of God by repenting of their sin and trusting in Jesus Christ as their Savior. If you wanted to join the people of God in Nehemiah’s day, you would have to separate yourself from the nations and become a Jew. There were ways for people to do that, and both Ezra and Nehemiah indicate the some from the nations did (Ezra 6:21; Neh 10:28).

If you want to be part of the people of God today, what you need to do is recognize that God is your Creator, He is holy, and you have transgressed against Him. For that you deserve to pay the penalty for sin, which is separation from God forever. The good news for you is that because of what Jesus did—because of His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead—if you will turn from your sin, confess your sin to God, and trust in Christ, you can be saved. You can be part of the people of God.

We want to be as vigilant as Nehemiah was about determining who is in and who is out, and we have good news: if you are out you can come in by trusting Christ and repenting of your sin. Turn from your sin. Turn from the alternative explanations of the world and of your problems. Believe the Bible, and join us in this great cause, this great work that is better and bigger than building a wall around a city that lies in ruins. This is a great work: building up the body of Christ, until everyone attains to the full stature of the image of the Lord Jesus Himself (Eph 4:12-16). That’s what we’re after here, being conformed to the image of Christ. So if you’re reading this and you’re not a Christian, join us in this great work. And if you are reading this and you are a Christian, persevere in the great work. Don’t let the enemies distract you from it. Don’t let their alternative explanations of the world cause you to back down from what God has called you to do. Let’s persevere to the end that we might be saved.