COMPROMISED OR STRENGTHENED
Nehemiah 6:2,9 (NIV 1984) Sanballat and Geshem ...were scheming to harm me...[But I prayed,] “Now strengthen my hands.”
Nehemiah was charged with rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, and as one might imagine, there were those in the region who opposed such work. Nehemiah didn’t have to guess who his enemies were. There was Sanballat, who was a foreigner who worshiped other gods, and Tobiah, a Jew and a religious contemporary. Both were governors in the region, and both had political/religious clout with which to apply intense pressure. When Sanballat couldn’t get Nehemiah to take the bait for his “meeting”, he kept on pressing, resorting to slander, lies, and political maneuvering. This was a real threat to Nehemiah, and if believed could get the Persian government involved with a potential military response. The threats were escalating and real because the Persians didn't tolerate quasi governments being established under their rule, and Nehemiah’s enemies were in a position to convince them of such. This was a bullying tactic that potentially could be devastating to the mission of God's people. “They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’” (Neh 6:9) The main goal in all of this was to intimidate Nehemiah into voluntarily stopping what he was doing. Sit down, shut up, and keep your religious fervor private and personal (Neh 6:3-7). That was Sanballat’s message to God’s servant, but praise God, Nehemiah stood his ground and prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.” (Neh 6:9; Eph 3:14-19).
We have been given the task of making disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19-20), and Jesus tells us that this will inevitably create enemies (Jn 15:18-20), for part of discipling the nations is to point out their evil deeds (Jn 7:7), which comes across, beloved, as a bit intolerant – a cardinal sin back then and now. Our enemies may be the very people we are attempting to win to Christ, or, they may be our fellow church members, pastors, or teachers who should be on our side, but are compromised. We are told to love our enemies (Matt 5:44); we are not to let them stop our mission. Consider Paul’s response when warned about what his enemies would do to him if he went to Jerusalem, “I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die … for the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 21:13) Paul was not bullied off task.
Our enemies want us to stop what we are doing. They marginalize, misrepresent, slander, cancel, and threaten to criminalize us, and they have the full force of media, education, politics, and big tech money giving them the clout to make their threats real. If we are pointing out the evil of the homosexual agenda, they want us to stop. If we stand for the unborn’s right to live, they want us to stop. If we declare a biblical view of marriage and sexuality, they want us to stop. Our views are offensive and cause them pain, and to stop us they make attempts at deception.
To deceive God’s people, our enemies make promises. If we will stop doing what we are doing, they promise to leave us alone. If we will stop saying what we are saying, they promise to allow us to continue participating in “their” society, but don’t believe it for a minute! They not only want us to stop doing and saying what we do and say, they want us to stop believing what we believe. Make no mistake, our enemies will not be satisfied with our inactivity, they want compliance. Don’t think your silence will give you civic protection from this angry mob. It will not! Pastor, don’t think your “sanitized” Bible teaching that extracts itself from all relative cultural/political inference will let you off the hook. You will still be answering to your enemies because you do not believe what they tell you to believe, but worse than that you will be answering to your God because you do not do what He tells you to do. For some Christians and ministers alike the threat of being labeled “too political” is enough to disengage them, yet is this not paramount to cowardice? Is it not weakness and a chief dereliction of Christian duty? Beloved, if threats to our image can silence us, what will actual persecution do? Oh, that we would be like Nehemiah, standing our ground while praying for strength.
