History

Nehemiah Versus The Naysayers

by Terry Barlow
11/29/14
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    Whenever and wherever God leads us to perform one of those good works that were prepared in advance and reserved for us to do (Ephesians 2 v.10) we can rest assured there will be some type of opposition. This is nowhere better shown in Scripture than in the case of the great reformer Nehemiah who had been tasked by God with rebuilding the wall and gates around Jerusalem following its devastation by Babylon and the subsequent years in exile.

  When Nehemiah, a high official in the Persian Court, arrived in Jerusalem in 445 B.C. with those who would help in the rebuilding process they were angrily ridiculed by Sanballat and Tobias and actively opposed with plotting and instigation to discourage the work. Nehemiah did without the food and land allotments to which his position was entitled knowing that this sacrifice would ease the burden on the people and further the work. Many of his number would need to be both builders and warriors simultaneously with a tool in one hand and a weapon in the other giving due vigilance. That of course is a wonderful example and lesson to us in our own day and time.

  But the part to which I want to call special attention at this writing is in the last chapter of his book which deals with his final reforms. While Nehemiah had been away, Tobiah, one of the chief enemies of the rebuilding work, had been provided his own room in the courts of the house of God! This evil was done by the priest Eliashib whose name means no less than “God restores or leads back” but this was a counterfeit restoration. (Nehemiah 13 v.7-9) When Nehemiah returned he threw all of Tobiah’s household goods out of the room and had the room purified, before returning to it the equipment it was meant to contain, along with the grain offerings and incense.

 Not only that, but later in the chapter Nehemiah discovered that one of Eliashib’s grandsons was the son-in-law of Sanballat, Tobiah’s accomplice in havoc and resistance. The priesthood had the covenant had thus both been defiled. Nehemiah proceeded to purify these as well after banishing Sanballat’s relative.

  What does all this mean to us in the restorative work in the church today?  Well, as we examine the experience of Nehemiah and his peers we see that the mocking, cursing voices of their enemies had been internalized by some among them, even by leaders. They had absorbed and made space for them literally giving Tobias a room in their temple, in their own inner dialogues and in their conversations, especially in the absence of Nehemiah whose name means “comforted by Yahweh” representing the Holy Spirit,  who is our comforter.

 Apart from the Holy Spirit we are going to have a false confidence or an I can’t-mentality instead of an I- can- do-all- things- in- Christ mentality. This departure could come in the form of a recklessness or an attitude that is unwilling to take risks, especially if the possibility of rejection is involved.  Rejection is something with which the early prophets and apostles were thoroughly familiar!

 Nehemiah’s being away and then returning to Jerusalem helped him in a fresh perspective to clearly perceive the difference that had come about gradually while he’d been gone. Even as missionaries returning to the U.S. A. after a significantly long absence can sense the "progress" of the spiraling down of the darkening spiritual climate that is hidden from the eyes of so many others. Joyce Meyer correctly warns that negativism within the church is even more deadly than outside the church, where it is more to be expected. The reason that it is more deadly within the church is that those most guilty of it have made the choice to operate in that mindset rather than avail themselves of all the power available to them to rise above it. They demonstrate through that choice that they prefer the stimulation of darkness over the stimulation of light.

 As in ancient times when the false prophet was a greater destroyer of Israel than any external enemy, so today the American church is being ravaged more through infiltration from respected naysayers within than from any force arrayed against it in the surrounding culture.  This is not to dismess the reality, though,  of formidable external enemies as well.  (After all, the Apostle Peter dedicated his first epistle to the internal foes and his second to the external ones.) But even as Nehemiah had a return date, the Holy Spirit is undaunted and He is on the move!