“Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity.”
– Nehemiah 4:4
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever had a reason to be discouraged? Have you ever had a reason to be scared? Have you ever had a reason to have to be ready to fight? Have you ever taken on doing something that seemed totally impossible to do? Have you ever taken on doing something that other kids – or some guys and gals, were vehemently opposed to you doing? Have you ever taken on doing something that had other kids – or some guys and gals, seriously threatening to hurt you if . . . Nehemiah had a good reason to become dispirited, apprehensive and intimidated when it dawned on a contingent of influential outsiders that Nehemiah was beginning to usurp their tyrannical sway on the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah had a driving passion. Nehemiah’s passion was to rebuild the walls that had once surrounded the city of Jerusalem – which had once protected God’s specially chosen guys, gals and kids – the Israelite people group guys, gals and kids, who were living in the city of Jerusalem. In 586 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army levelled and burned the walls that surrounded the city of Jerusalem. After Nehemiah fervently prayed to God that something be done about rebuilding the city of Jerusalem’s walls, Nehemiah was given the okay by an Artaxerxes – who was the king at this time who ruled over the guys, gals and kids who were living in the country of Persia and who was Nehemiah’s boss, to take time off from his wine sipping day job to make the long, tedious trek to the city of Jerusalem to satisfy the passion that he had of seeing to the rebuilding of the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem. After Nehemiah did a night fact finding inspection of the total devastation that King Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army did in demolishing the limestone rock walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem, Nehemiah came up with a plan for rebuilding the walls using the guys who would have an invested interest – such as the Jews/the Israelite people group guys who were still living in or had gone back to the city of Jerusalem to live, in having their homes and their livelihood in the city of Jerusalem protected again from their enemies by walls. Nehemiah 4 lists the guys who were on the bad guys’ team that was led by Sanballat and that had Tobiah, Arabs, Ammonites and Ashdod guys on it who first exploited derision to try to dishearten the good guys’ team of God’s specially chosen guys and gals – who were the Jews/the Israelite people group guys and gals, who were living in the city of Jerusalem. When using mockery to claim that a fox climbing on the wall that the good guys were rebuilding would cause the wall to fall down did not stop the good guys from continuing to rebuild the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem, the angry bad guys tried bullying to try to stop the good guys from rebuilding the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem. When verbal coercion did not work to stop the good guys from continuing to rebuild the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem, the thwarted bad guys began to make plans to physically halt the work that the good guys were doing to rebuild the walls that once were surrounding the city of Jerusalem – even if it meant killing the guys on the good guys team.
Do you think that Nehemiah was surprised and/or fazed by the antagonistic reaction that Sanballat and his cronies had against his seeing to the rebuilding of the razed walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem? Your grandpaa thinks that because Nehemiah was an analytical, strategic thinker, that Nehemiah knew – even before he showed up in the city of Jerusalem, that whatever plan that he put on the table to rebuild the walls that were once surrounding the city of Jerusalem that there were going to be guys who would not be happy with his plans. Your grandpaa thinks that because God had opened Nehemiah’s heart – and his mind, to having an intimate relationship with Him, Nehemiah knew that whatever he asked God to do that God would do it for him. When Nehemiah says in verse 4, “Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity.” your grandpaa thinks that Nehemiah totally believed that God would – in His perfect timeframe, do a number on the guys who were causing a huge amount of angst among the guys who were willing to help rebuild the obliterated walls that once surrounded the city if Jerusalem. Your grandpaa thinks that even though Nehemiah completely believed that God was totally able to do a number on the bad guys, Nehemiah knew that God expected him to do whatever he could that was humanly possible to insure the safety of the good guys who came alongside him to rebuild the walls that once surrounded the city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah had his good guys team show up at work with their spears, shields, bows and armor. Nehemiah stationed some of his good guys – each with a trumpet, at various places to be watchmen. Nehemiah told these guys to blow their trumpets as an alarm if they saw any of the bad guys approaching. Nehemiah had his good guys keep their spears very near to where they were working just in case . . . Nehemiah had his good guys remain each night to guard the walls that they were rebuilding.
These hard days that Nehemiah scribes about in his Nehemiah Diary describes how Satan works and how God expects His specially elected guys, gals and kids to respond to Satan’s efforts to depress, denigrate and destroy them. God expects His specially elected guys, gals and kids to always exploit His strength to defeat Satan and his cronies.
Nehemiah 4 (1179)