Dirty Tricks
This article is based on a talk on Nehemiah chapters 6 and 7, first given by David Couchman at Above Bar Church, Southampton, on Sunday 4 th June 2006. It may be reproduced in print or on other web sites, subject to the copyright notice below.
Previously in Nehemiah, there has been opposition from Sanballat and the others, beginning in chapter 2:10:
When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.
Nehemiah was surrounded by enemies:
- Sanballat was governor of Samaria, to the north of Judah
- Tobiah was governor of Jordan, to the east
- Geshem the Arab led a federation of tribes to the south
In chapter four, the opposition from the outside intensified, with ridicule and plots. In chapter five, problems developed within the Jewish people, as they struggled with famine, inflation, rampant taxation and slavery.
So what is going on here? Is this just an odd historical story about someone rebuilding Jerusalem's walls in the fifth century BC, and the problems he faced?
No. There is more to it than that. The Bible is very clear that God has an enemy, the devil.
One of our problems today is that we do not take the devil seriously: we see characters on television dressed up in red body suits with horns and a pitchfork, and we think this is what the devil is about.
We have to lose these pictures. We have to get rid of the comic-book imagery, and take what the Bible says seriously:
- The Bible describes this enemy as 'the god of this age' (2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4)
- It says that he is a spirit, like God - he does not have a body (Ephesians chapter 2 verse 2)
- He is personal - not just a vague force of evil (1 Peter chapter 5 verses 8-9)
- He is very powerful (Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12)
- He is crafty (Genesis chapter 3 verse 1)
- He is malicious (John chapter 8 verse 44)
- But he is not equal and opposite to God. He is only a created being. (1 John chapter 4 verse 4)
- He is not all powerful. He does not know everything. (Job chapter 1 verse 12)
This enemy is completely opposed to God's purposes and God's people. And he has a vast number of others on his side. So in Ephesians chapter 6, Paul says:
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.
Today we are much too sophisticated to believe in a personal devil. After all, such a belief seems too far-fetched, in a world of genocide and ethnic cleansing; a world where millions of children are traded as sex toys, a world of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Surely there cannot really be personal supernatural forces of evil at work?
Yet the Bible makes it clear that there are:
- We see this enemy at work right back in Genesis. God creates a very good world, and puts the first man and woman in it. Then the enemy comes and persuades them to distrust God and disobey him.
- We see him at work later, in Exodus, as the Egyptian pharaoh tries to destroy the children of Israel by murdering all their boy babies.
- We see it again and again in the story of Israel, as he tries to drive a wedge between God and the people by seducing them away into idol-worship and immorality - and a lot of the time, he succeeds.
- We see it in the book of Esther, during the days of king Xerxes, as Haman tries to have all the Jews killed.
- When you come to the New Testament, you see it in king Herod murdering the baby boys in Bethlehem.
And of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. All through history, this enemy has been at work to destroy God's people and derail God's purposes.
'Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.' Do you believe we have this kind of enemy? And if you believe it, what difference does it make to your life?
This is what is going on here in Nehemiah. Nehemiah is doing more than just rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. He is also trying to rebuild God's people as a nation - and the enemy is doing all he can to stop this happening.
So the opposition that we see here in Nehemiah chapter 6 is not just Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem and the others. Behind them, there is a personal and powerful spiritual force of evil at work.
Today, if we are God's people, and if we line ourselves up with his purposes, we can expect to face opposition, just like Nehemiah did. We have the same enemy.
The Bible says that we are not unaware of his schemes (2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11). We know about his plans, his purposes, his strategies, his dirty tricks. So what are his strategies?
It seems from the Bible, that our enemy has three main tricks, which we could call smears, fears, and tears - and we see all of them in this chapter:
One of the enemy's tactics is to tell lies. Jesus describes him as the father of lies. He says to some of the Jewish leaders:
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John chapter 8 verse 44)
- The enemy will lie to other people about us, to try to discredit us.
- He will lie to us about other people, to try to discredit them.
- Most important of all, he will lie to us about God. He will try to persuade us that God is not good, or that he does not care what happens to us, or that he has some kind of 'hidden agenda.'
This enemy will pretend to be on our side. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 14 says that he will pretend to be an angel of light - but if we believe him, he will enslave us and lead us into the heart of darkness.
The enemy will play on our fears: fears about the future, fears about what might happen. He will try to terrify us and intimidate us.
He will try to harm us directly. Jesus said that he was 'a murderer from the beginning.' Peter talks about him going around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
So he will lie to us, he will try to terrify us, and he will try to destroy us. Dirty tricks: 'Smears, fears, and tears.' All of these are here in Nehemiah 6:
Sanballat and Geshem and company ask Nehemiah to meet them (verse 2). But they are planning to do him physical harm - probably to assassinate him. They are persistent - they nag him again and again, four times, (verse 4). The fifth time, they send him an open letter.
In those days, official letters were sealed with a clay seal. By sending it unsealed, they made sure that everyone knew what it said. Because it was an official letter, I guess that a copy of it went to the emperor too. It contained a charge that Nehemiah was leading a rebellion (verses 5-7):
It is reported among the nations - and Geshem says it is true - that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: 'There is a king in Judah!' Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us confer together.
This accusation sounded all too convincing, given what Nehemiah was doing. The emperor would not have been too pleased with the thought of someone leading a rebellion of the Jews.
They lie about him - they launch a propaganda war against him. Then, to make matters worse, they offer to confer with him, as if they are really on his side after all. They are trying to frighten him and his people, and to demoralise them and wear away their will to work:
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, 'Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed. (verse 9)
It is all there: smears, fears, and tears.
Not only that, but there are also insidious enemies within: in verse 14, we are introduced to the prophetess Noadiah, and other prophets, who have been trying to intimidate Nehemiah. In verse 10, we are introduced to Shemaiah the son of Delaiah. He pretends to be a friend, and tries to persuade Nehemiah to run away and hide in the temple:
Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you - by night they are coming to kill you.
We can feel something of just how threatening this is, can't we? Only the priests were supposed to go into the House of God If Nehemiah went in, he would be breaking God's law. He would also be fleeing the enemy, and this would have corroded away the morale of the people. Nehemiah's leadership would have been completely discredited.
Nehemiah's response
So how does Nehemiah respond to these dirty tricks?
(1) He sees through them, and he will not let himself be distracted or deflected from God's work. Look at the end of verse 2:
But they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: 'I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?'
You get the same kind of response in verse 8:
Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.
He would not be distracted.
(2) He prays, verse 9:
But I prayed, 'Now strengthen my hands.'
And in verse 14 he prays for God's justice on his enemies. The passage in Ephesians that we talked about earlier, which begins by saying 'Our struggle is... against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,' ends by telling us to
pray in the spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests... always keep on praying for all the saints.
Nehemiah prays.
(3) And, quite simply, he will not give in to his fears:
Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go! (verse 11)
What a tremendously courageous man he was. What an example for us!
We have more reason than Nehemiah did not to give in to the enemy's attempts to terrify us: we know that he has been finally and completely defeated through the cross of Christ.
John chapter 3 verse 8 tells us that the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. And in Colossians chapter 2 verse 15, Paul says about Jesus that...
...having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
So Jesus has already defeated our enemy. We do not need to be terrified of him.
It is so important that we do not see what happened to Nehemiah in this chapter as just a bit of ancient history. It applies to our lives too. Here are three questions, coming out of this chapter, which may help us to see how it relates to us:
- What is distracting me from what God wants me to do? We need to identify the things that distract us, and see through them.
- 'Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.' If I take this seriously, how should my praying change? How will it affect what I pray for in the specific situations that I face right now?
- What do I fear most? How am I responding to my fears?
So we have seen Nehemiah facing the opposition. Behind the human opposition, there are dark forces at work, which the New Testament describes as 'spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.'
But Nehemiah is not taken in by their dirty tricks. He is alert to what's going on; he will not let himself be deflected; he prays, and he does not give in to his fears. He just gets on with the job.
Verse 15 tells us that in less than two months from when they started building, the wall is completed. Archaeologists have discovered part of Nehemiah's wall. It is nearly three metres thick. It has a rough finish which shows that the work on it was done quickly.
Verse 16: his enemies are afraid. There is something here that they cannot contend with. They could see something different about Nehemiah and his people - something that they could not explain at the level of human planning and organisation alone:
They realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
If the book of Nehemiah was only about rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, it could end here at chapter 6 verse 16.
But this is not all that it is about. It is about rebuilding the people of God as a nation. This comes out more clearly in the next seven chapters:
- God's people are back in his land. (Or at least, some of them are - many of them have chosen to stay in Babylon.)
- Worship has been re-started. This story is told in the book of Ezra
- There is a governor
- The wall has been rebuilt - the city can be defended against her enemies
So there has already been a lot of progress towards rebuilding the people of God as a nation. Let's look briefly at what happens between chapter 6 verse 16 and the end of chapter 7:
There is an immediate hint that the battle is far from over. Winston Churchill once said, 'Defeat is never fatal. Victory is never final. It's courage that counts.' Well certainly in this case, victory is not final, because although the walls have been rebuilt, Tobiah is still very active (verses 17-19):
In those days the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah, and replies from Tobiah kept coming to them. For many in Judah were under oath to him, since he was son-in-law to Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. Moreover, they kept reporting to me his good deeds and then telling him what I said. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.
Tobiah:
- was the governor of Jordan
- came from a wealthy family, who were influential for hundreds of years, according to archaeological evidence
- had family ties with people in Judah. He was married to the daughter of Shecaniah, and his son Jehonan was married to the daughter of Meshullam. Meshullam gets a mention back in chapter 3 as one of the people who rebuilt the wall
- also had business connections with the people of Judah. There are people who are under oath to him
- had links with the religious establishment. Chapter 13 tells us that he has close ties with Eliashib the priest. So he is very well connected in the Jerusalem establishment.
- was probably a worshipper of the Lord, judging by his name. He should have been giving Nehemiah his support.
- But in fact, he was a pain in the neck to Nehemiah
Wherever God's work is being done, there will be people who should be supporting and encouraging it, but who are doing all they can to derail it.
In chapter 7 verses 1-3, Nehemiah makes sure the city is well defended:
- He sets the doors in place (verse 1).
- He puts someone in charge of the citadel. Verse 2: 'I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the commander of the citadel, because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most men do.' (It is not quite clear whether he is talking here about two different people, or one person with two different versions of his name. It does not make any difference to the main point.)
- He gives orders that the gates are to be opened late and closed early, to prevent surprise attacks (verse 3)
- He gives orders for guards to be appointed from the people of Jerusalem - the ones who had most to lose (verse 3)
You can just imagine him sitting down one day, and thinking to himself: 'Now, what have I missed?'
Verse 4 tells us that there is still a real problem:
The city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt.
Jerusalem is the capital of the province, but it is very sparsely inhabited. Archaeologists tell us that before the Exile, there were around twenty five thousand people in the city. In Nehemiah's time, there may only have been four or five thousand. And although the wall has been rebuilt, the houses inside have not.
Apparently the people who had come back from Babylon did not want to settle in the city - it probably was not a great place to live. They wanted to settle on their own ancestral lands, where they could farm, and re-establish themselves.
This question of re-populating Jerusalem will be picked up again in chapter 11. But Nehemiah makes a start in chapter 7, by taking a survey. Verses 5-73 are a list of the names - we are not going to look at them in detail here.
So we see in this chapter that there is much more going on than just rebuilding the wall. Nehemiah is rebuilding God's people as a nation.
What does what Nehemiah did two and a half thousand years ago have to say to us today?
Like Nehemiah, we are called to build God's people. If you are a follower of Christ, God has work for you to do. He did not save you just so that you can have a good time and then go to heaven when you die. He saved you so that you could be part of his kingdom. Each of us has a part to play.
Behind the bad things that happen to us, and behind the opposition we get from other people, there is a spiritual enemy who is out to harm us. Do we believe this? Do we live in the light of it? What difference does it make to us?
He is a defeated enemy, through the cross of Christ. We need not be afraid of him.
But although he is defeated, he does not give up. We need to be on guard against him: we need to be aware of the strategies he uses: smears, fears and tears. We are not unaware of his tricks. We are not supposed to be naïve about what is happening around us, and to us.
Nehemiah is a great example of how to respond to the tricks of the enemy:
- Do not be distracted or deflected by them!
- Pray!
- Be men and women of courage!
Peter says, in 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 8-9:
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
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