On June 30, 2021, coming up on three years ago now, the day after setting a Canadian record for heat in Canada, the town of Lytton, BC, was nearly totally destroyed by a wildfire very quickly. Politicians promised support for the rebuilding process, but all has not gone according to plan. The process of removing the debris didn’t start for over a year after the fire because the fire had produced toxic chemicals that needed to be dealt with. The town of Lytton is built on an ancient First Nations village site–people have been living there for thousands of years–so archaeological assessments needed to be done before any building could happen. The very first permit that was issued for rebuilding a home in Lytton only came about in November of last year. And last week, the BC Auditor General announced that he was going to conduct an audit of the provincial government’s response to the disaster in Lytton.
Now, rebuilding, whether it’s rebuilding a village or rebuilding a life after some kind of disaster has struck, or even trying to do something that’s good and noble and true, can be challenging, and there can be things that happen along the way that we do not expect. But when we are doing something that God has inspired us to do, something that would be a blessing to other people, something that could be both good and great, what often happens is not only do unexpected challenges arise, but there actually are forces in the world that seek to inhibit us. We live in a world where evil exists and is having its way in many corners of the world, so when we try to do something that’s good and that helps people and sets them free to live in the fullness of God’s abundance, evil will come against us and try to foil our efforts. So how do we persevere when evil attacks us and seeks to undermine the good things that we are trying to do for God? That’s what we’re going to be thinking about in this message. And as we do that, we’re going to be digging into Nehemiah. We’re going to start out in chapter one and eventually we’ll get to chapter six. So if you have a Bible or Bible app nearby, I invite you to turn there now.
Nehemiah is Moved by Compassion to Action
Here is a bit of background that will help as we dig into this passage. In about 597 BC, the Babylonian Empire attacked the southern kingdom of Judah, conquered it, and put in place their own puppet king. A few years later, in 588 BC, when the puppet king of that time rebelled, the Babylonian army came against Judah again and two years later, totally destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple. Both of these times when the Babylonian army came, they took away a large part of the people into exile. Usually, they would take those who were well-educated and knew how to do things because then they would take and use their talents back in Babylon.
Fifty years later, in 536 BC, after the Persians had conquered the Babylonians, the Persian king, Cyrusa issued an edict saying that the Jews could go back to their homeland and rebuild their temple. The account of what happened when the Jews returned is recorded for us in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The first major thing that happened, which was during the time of Ezra, when the Jews returned was they built their temple within the city of Jerusalem.
Some time later, Nehemiah, who was in Susa, the capital city of the Persian empire, heard how his fellow Jews in Jerusalem and in Judah were suffering terribly. The walls of the city had been torn down, they were defenseless against attacks, and they were having all kinds of other problems as well. Nehemiah was heartbroken and wept when he first heard the news. Then he mourned, fasted, and prayed before God.
Nehemiah was the cupbearer, or the wine steward, for the king of the realm, Artaxerxes, so he was often in the king’s presence. But he waited months until God gave him an opportunity to share with the king what was on his heart. When the king asked Nehemiah why he was looking so downcast, that’s when Nehemiah shared the burden he had for his people back in his homeland. In that conversation with the king, Nehemiah asked for, and was given, permission to go back and help rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Not only did Artaxerxes give him permission, he also blessed Nehemiah by giving him letters of safe conduct so that the leaders of the various regions that Nehemiah would be traveling through would be told by the king that they had to guarantee his safety. And Artaxerxes also sent along a squadron of soldiers on horseback to protect Nehemiah as he traveled.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, some non-Jewish officials who were in power became upset that he had come. This indicates something that we all need to be aware of. When we think of some good thing that we’ve recognized needs to be done to help people, we often think that others will see the same need for action that we do. But when there is a system that is oppressing people, there are people at the head of those systems that benefit from things being the way they are, and they don’t want them to change. We see that when we look back in history at human slavery over the centuries, and we see that today with human trafficking. So these two officials, Sanballat and Tobiah, did not want Nehemiah to help the Jews and elevate their way of life in any way.
Shortly after he arrives, Nehemiah inspects the ruins of the walls, and they are indeed in terrible shape. Then he calls all the leaders of the city together and invites them to work with him to rebuild the walls, and this they agree to do.
Nehemiah Faces Opposition
So they start rebuilding the walls, and opposition arises. There’s external opposition. These two officials and others mock the Jews and say things like, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!” (Nehemiah 4:3)
Nehemiah responds by that opposition to God and turning it into prayer.
Then these same enemies also threaten to attack. Nehemiah proactively prepares the people who are working on the wall for a potential attack that could come. He arms them all and trains them, and they continue their wall building work with their tools in one hand and their weapons in the other, and no attack comes because those preparations have been made.
Here we see that there are both spiritual and practical responses to opposition and Nehemiah is using both of them.
But there’s also internal opposition. At that time, the nobles and the high officials within the city of Jerusalem were charging interest against the common folk on the money they owed, which was against the rules of God. And then the ordinary people, because they had these huge debts that kept on building and building and building, had to quit working on the wall so they could go and deal with their financial issues.
This tells us that opposition can be a blessing to us because it reveals internal problems to us that we need to address.
The work on the wall continues, and it’s almost complete. The only thing that’s left is to put the doors in the gates. And now, the opposition ramps up considerably and becomes personal.
Now, the enemies of Nehemiah were not just opposed to the work that he was doing, they were out to get him personally.
Sanballat and Geshem send an invitation to Nehemiah to meet with them in a remote village about five days’ journey away towards the coast, where Nehemiah would not have the protection of the people of Jerusalem, and maybe not even the guard that was sent with him.
Four times Sanballat sent an invitation, four times Nehemiah said, “I’m too busy to come.” The fifth time Sanballat sent the invitation, he sent it with a letter that was unsealed so that everyone could read it and share the accusations that he had written there. In the unsealed letter, he was accusing Nehemiah and the Jews in Jerusalem of planning a revolution and plotting treason, which are very serious charges.
Not only were Sanballat and Geshem plotting against Nehemiah, Shemaiah, a religious official connected with the Temple, was as well. He invited Nehemiah to come with him and hide out in the temple because, as he says twice, “There are men that are coming to kill you.” However, the part of the temple where Shemaiah was inviting Nehemiah to hide was a place where he, as a layperson, should never go. It was only priests that were allowed in that part of the temple. And so if he did what Shemaiah was suggesting he do, he would have sinned and been discredited in the eyes of the people of Jerusalem. With his reputation shattered, the people of Jerusalem would cease following his leadership in the rebuilding of the walls.
Nehemiah sees through both of these plots, and he does not fall for his enemies deception. Instead, he responds with truth. He told Sanballat and Geshem, “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” (Nehemiah 6:8) And to Shemaiah, he said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” (Nehemiah 6:11)
And then, when the wall is completed, and the enemies of Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem lose heart, they lose confidence, they become fearful themselves. They were trying to strike fear into the hearts of Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem, and now that the walls were built, they became fearful themselves because they realized that it was God who had helped Nehemiah and the people in Jerusalem to build those walls. They knew that God was on the side of the people of Jerusalem and they could not oppose God.
What Does This Mean for Us?
There are lots of lessons we could learn from Nehemiah, but here’s just a few.First, Nehemiah’s compassion led him to help others. He was heartbroken over the condition that his people were living in in Jerusalem, and that moved him. We would do well to also let our compassion lead us to help others.
Second, Nehemiah knows that there is both a physical and spiritual realm in this world, and he functions within both realms. I’m someone who likes science, psychology, and technology. But all those areas operate, by and large, as if God does not exist and the only things that really do exist are material things that we can see. And the tendency for each one of us is to get lulled into thinking and living as if the spiritual realm is not there or if it is, it’s optional.
And what we need to do, I think, is live as if the ancients did. I don’t have the reference and I don’t have the exact quote. But I remember CS Lewis saying somewhere that it’s almost as if the people of our time need to be converted from their non-theistic position to paganism so that they can gain an appreciation for the spiritual realm, and then from paganism to Christianity because then they will have that understanding of how we live in both a physical and spiritual world. (See endnote below.) And this is why in places in the world where people are in touch with the spiritual realm and they convert to Christianity, it’s a very powerful thing because they already know that the spiritual realm exists.
Third, Nehemiah used discernment to see through the plots of his enemies. In the past, I have tended to think of discernment as a gift that you either have or you don’t have. While discernment is a spiritual gift, it is also something that can be developed within us even when we don’t have that spiritual gift.
Growing in Discernment
We can develop or grow in discernment by doing some very basic things. The first way to grow in discernment is by reminding ourselves again and again of the difference between what is good and what is evil, and living with a constant awareness of the distinction between those two things.
The second way to grow in discernment is by reminding ourselves of what God has called us to do. And you might be thinking, “Well, maybe you have a call, pastor, but I don’t think I have a call.” And I would say to you, “Yes, you do have a call.” And the call that God has given to you is the role that he has given to you in life. That could be your role as a student, spouse, farmer, accountant, doctor, mother, father or a child. Whatever it is that you are doing, wherever it is that God has placed you, that’s the calling he has on your life until he changes it. So you can ask yourself, “What do I need to do to fulfill the calling God has given me in this life?” and then steer away from anything that tries to pull you in a different direction.
But we also need supernatural help because the forces allied against us are supernatural forces.
That goes back to being aware of the spiritual realm and doing what Nehemiah did so very, very often. So our third way to grow in discernment is to pray. When you read the Book of Nehemiah, over and over again, something happens and then Nehemiah prays. The Book of Nehemiah is like a book of prayer in a way.
Jesus Helps Us in Our Battles Against Opposition as We do Good
But we can go beyond Nehemiah because, in a way, we have more than he did. We have much more information and a clearer awareness of the Messiah that was promised by God right from the very beginning. When Jesus came into this world, he mirrored what Nehemiah did but in a much greater way.
Jesus faced opposition from political forces like Nehemiah did, and Jesus faced opposition from religious forces like Nehemiah did. But the project that Jesus came to work on was much more than just building a wall around the city in the Middle East. Jesus came to seek and to save all that was lost. He came to redeem and restore the world. He came and gave His life on a cross to pay the full cost of his plan to redeem all things, and with his resurrection the new creation that Jesus is building has already begun. And he is inviting us to be part of the redemptive, restorative work that he is doing.
Not only is Jesus our Savior, he is also our advocate. He sets us free from all of our sin, guilt, and shame so we can live transparent lives before him. He is our protector, he watches over us and keeps us safe. In 2 Kings 6, there’s a passage where the Aramean army has come to capture and kill Elisha because he has been giving all the Aramean king’s battle plans, revealed to him by God, to the king of Israel.
“Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:15-17)
Those same horses and chariots of fire surround and protect you.
Jesus is also our guide. He’s given us His Spirit in baptism to lead and guide and direct us, to give us that supernatural help that we need to discern what is the right thing to do, what is the right way to go, what is the right response to give in these situations.
The Primacy of Love
And through it all, if you think about it, we find love. It was love for his people that moved Nehemiah to be heartbroken, and it was love for God that moved Nehemiah to take his concerns for his own people to God and then wait upon the Lord. And it was God’s love for Nehemiah that helped him to accomplish that great and wonderful thing that he could never have done on his own.
And we have the most beautiful picture of love you could ever imagine before us in the person of Jesus Christ. And what command does he give to us? Love one another. And so the challenge that I’m leaving with you today is to ask God to help you to grow in faith, love, and discernment. And as you do that, you will find that the battle belongs to the Lord and the Lord is on your side, and he will make a way where there is no way to accomplish the great and wonderful things that he wants to do through you. Amen.
Here is the exact quote: “For my part I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the Gospel (that certainly) but also at a certain preparation for the Gospel. It is necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God. For Christ promises forgiveness of sins: but what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned?…Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism. I would almost dare to say ‘First let us make the younger generation good pagans and afterwards let us make them Christians’,” from Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction with C. S. Lewis, page 219, quoted in an article by Jeremy Myers, “Make the Younger Generation Good Pagans,” Redeeming God (Internet; available at: https://redeeminggod.com/good-pagans/; accessed May 10, 2024). Having found the quote, I recognize that Lewis is arguing for something different that I am, the awareness of natural law (Lewis) versus the awareness of the spiritual realm (me), but I am going to leave the reference stand because I think that paganism, as a prelude to Christianity, does both.
(This message was shared at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC on May 5, 2024. For more information about WGLC, please go to wglc.org.)
Farewell to Shadowlands 