It should come as no surprise to us that any service of God attracts challenges and opposition. Rejection of our creator is the defining feature of the sinful human condition and therefore any work for the creator is likely to be scorned.
Yet as we saw last Sunday, somehow the opposition to Nehemiah and his colleagues seemed to grow fast and God’s people could easily have been knocked off course or worse by its impact.
In the New Testament the apostle Paul reminds the Christians in the deeply idolatrous city of Ephesus, where the opposition comes from:
“…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6:12)
In other words, the true source of such struggles which oppose God are spiritual and the only defence is therefore similarly spiritual.
Nehemiah understood his great need for God’s help when tackling opposition, so he engaged in the very spiritual activity of prayer! Time and again we see him asking the Lord for help in matters that only God can help with. That’s challenging for us because we generally tend to try and solve problems with what we can see, when actually we could leave the solution to the one in whom we believe. That’s what Paul reminds the Ephesians as he prepares them for battle:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.”(Eph 6:10)
That’s what Nehemiah was pointing at as the threats continued.
“Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome…” (Neh 4|:14)
That’s what we should do as we seek to live for God and serve Him in a world that the Lord Jesus came to save.
Spencer Shaw