Year 2, Day 53: Nehemiah 6

Further Attack

Nehemiah 6 gives us yet a third means for an attack to come against the work of God.  We saw first the common tactic of external ridicule.  We then saw the utterly destructive attack of internal self-mongerism and greed.  Now in this chapter we see another serious type: attack against the leader.

You have no doubt heard the maxim: cut off the head and the serpent will die.  This is the thought process behind what we see happen to Nehemiah not once but twice in this passage.  Twice an attempt is made upon Nehemiah’s life in order to stop the work of the Lord in Jerusalem.

When Are We Safe?

However, even before we get to that point let’s start in the very beginning of this passage.  We are told in the beginning of this chapter that the walls are complete – although the doors for the gates had not yet been set in place.  The hard work was done, and the project was nearly complete.  Yet Nehemiah still finds himself under attack.  This is a great lesson to hear.  We so often think that when we finish the work of the Lord that the attacks from our enemy will stop.  This is foolishness.  The attacks from the enemy will never stop until the Lord comes back and says once and for all that it is finished and the judgment comes.

Think about it.  Jesus was attacked and even killed.  But after they killed Jesus, have people stopped attacking His awesome name?  Have people stopped defaming His character?  Paul was an incredible evangelist.  Have people stopped slandering his image and the incredible work that he did for God?  How many good Christians have come since Jesus whose names continue to be dragged through the mud?  How many people assaulted Justin Martyr?  Augustine?  Acquinas?  Luther?  Wycliff? I’m not saying that these men {and plenty of others throughout history that I didn’t put on the list} were perfect little saints.  They had their faults just like the rest of us.  But they did great work for the Kingdom of God.  And there name is dragged through the mud even today – especially by Christians!

No, friends.  The attacks will not stop when the work is finished.  The attacks will not even stop when we die and our bodies are cold in the grave.  The attacks will keep coming.  Until God declares that the battle for His creation is over, the attacks will come.  What is that other maxim?  There is no rest for the weary.

External Attack Upon the Leader

Nehemiah is clearly attacked in this passage.  Sanballot, Tobiah, and Gesham set him up.  They try to draw him out into the world.  They try to get him out of his area of protection in order to do him in.  When that doesn’t work they try to defame his reputation and make accusations against his loyalty to the Persian King who had made all of this possible.  The end result is that he is attacked.

Nehemiah will have none of it.  He is too smart to fall into their physical trap and he categorically refuses to give any kind of acknowledgement to the war of defamation that they attempt to provoke.  Nehemiah knows that God did not call him to Jerusalem to protect Nehemiah’s own character.  God called Nehemiah to Jerusalem to build the wall.  God doesn’t need Nehemiah to fight.  God needs Nehemiah to focus on the wall.  Nehemiah does just that.

Internal Attack Upon the Leader

When this attempt doesn’t work, they try to lure Nehemiah into the Temple.  Now, this one is pretty devious, but in the respect it is extraordinarily important.  Who was allowed to go into the Temple?  The priests.  There were restrictions on who could go in.  At the very least, one had to be aware of one’s ritual purity before going into the temple.

I can only guess that in the process of working on the wall that Nehemiah had come across blood or some other substance that would have caused him to need to purify himself before going into the Temple.  At the very least, we need to remember that unlike Ezra, Nehemiah was not a priest!  Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the Persian King that God called to organize the rebuilding of the wall.  Nehemiah had no right to go into the Temple.  So here we see that in a last ditch effort to attack Nehemiah they try and attack his religious character.  They try to attack him and make him appear to be a hypocrite and one who is actually unfaithful to God. 

In the end, this subtle attack is almost the most dangerous.  In all the other attacks the goal was to stop the work on the wall and separate Nehemiah from that work.  Here, we see that the goal of internal attack is actually to put a stumbling block between Nehemiah and God.  This attack is designed to cause Nehemiah to do something with which God Himself will find displeasure.  This attack is quite dangerous against the character of Nehemiah.

After all, most of the work is already done.  The wall is built; only the doors needed to be hung.  Yet the attack still came.  The attempt to drive Nehemiah’s character apart from God continued.

The enemy is relentless, folks.  He is not going to stop.  He is willing to do whatever he can.  The fact that the work is almost complete or already complete does not mean that he will stop attacking.  Until God says to stop, there is always more battle to be fought.  Quite often, it is near the end of the battle in which the stakes are raised to their highest point.

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