The Enemies Distraction

Raul Ries: How many people stop the work of the Lord because of a problem? They make excuses. The best place you could ever be in a time of trial, a time of desperation, is in the work of the Lord. Serving in your church, serving wherever you can get in and serve the Lord, that's where the place of joy is. True joy.
Announcer: Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. It’s great to have you along today for our continuing series in Nehemiah. Today Raul will urge us to stay alert to spiritual attacks as we fortify our spirits through prayer and regular time in the word of God. Satan will constantly look for ways to damage our relationship with God and derail our kingdom building work, but the Lord can bless us with His wisdom, power and protection. Today’s message is titled "The Enemy’s Distraction." Here’s Raul Ries.
Raul Ries: And this is now in Chapter 6 as the enemy tries to distract Nehemiah. Number one, they try to distract him by making him compromise. Spiritual leaders must expect to be not only targets of Satan, but of people. Satan uses people against leaders. The wall spoke of protection. That means the enemy can't come in. It protects the people behind the city. The next thing they would work on would be on the gates. And yet when they heard that the wall was almost finished, listen to what it says here. This is amazing in Chapter 6 beginning with verse one. He says, "Now it came to pass when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that there were no breaks left in it, though at that time I had not hung the doors in its gates." There were no more gaps, there were no more places along the walls where they could sneak in and harass and attack. They wanted to take the city. They wanted to destroy the work of God. They wanted to destroy its leader, Nehemiah. They already harassed the people, now they're saying in panic, "What do we do now? Let's get Nehemiah." He's the leader. If we can destroy the leader, we will destroy the people because he's the one that's leading them. I pray that every day you pray for me. Every day. That Satan would not have his way in my life. I have seen so many pastors, so many leaders fall over the last 34 years, young and old. Those that were in the ministry young and those that were in the ministry a long time. Satan is always looking for some way to come to the leader, the one that God has called or the one that is doing a good job, and he's always looking for a way to knock him down through his wife, through his children or grandchildren, or through friends or whatever it may be. He's looking for always a tool on how can I get to this leader? How can I distract him? How can I set him up? And so they decided to write a letter. Let's write a letter to Nehemiah inviting him to join them in one of the valleys in the plains of Ono. "Hey, if you don't want us to come to you, why don't you come to us and we'll have lunch?" Interesting. Setting him up. Because look what it says in verse two. "And then Sanballat and Geshem the Arab sent to me saying, 'Come and let us meet together among the villages and the plains of Ono,' but they thought to do me harm." And I said, "Oh no, I won't come to Ono." Imagine that. They're trying to bring him out and say, "Hey come on, we want to talk to you. We just want to fellowship with you." It was an insult to send an open letter to that person and yet here they're insulting Nehemiah. They're not coming face to face, but they sent this letter and they're very nice about the letter. They're not saying they're going to kill—"Hey, why don't you come out and we want to talk with you, Nehemiah. Come to the valley of Ono." Verse 3, notice his response. "And so I sent messengers to them and saying, 'I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it to go to you?'" He says, "Hey you guys are crazy, I'm not coming. I'm not coming to Ono. No, no. I'm not doing that. Oh no, I am not coming." And Nehemiah here is literally refusing to stop the work of the Lord because he has a problem. How many people stop the work of the Lord because of a problem? They make excuses. That's what the enemy wants. The best place you could ever be in a time of trial, a time of desperation, is in the work of the Lord. Serving in your church, serving wherever you can get in and serve the Lord, that's where the place of joy is. And when you get involved and you say, "Okay I'm going to get involved, I'm going to do something for the Lord," know one thing: it will be the beginning of warfare in your life against you and all of your family. Be ready for that. Nehemiah was doing the work of the Lord and he said, "I refuse to come down." Nehemiah here shows us that single-mindedness. The key is keep focus. Keep focus on what God called you to do, don't deviate. Don't look to the right, don't look to the left, keep your eyes on the Lord. Keep focus on what you're doing for the Lord. Nehemiah did that. Nehemiah said, "I'm not going to waste my time. The answer is no." Verse four. "But they sent me this message four times." Notice their persistency. Four times they wanted to get me down there and I answered them and I said, "No, I'm not coming," in the same manner. I think we need to be careful with Satan who has a box of different little gimmicks all the time. If he can't get you one way, well let's try some other way. Remember when Jesus was tempted? Three times. When he came to the end of his last temptation it says, if you read on in Matthew chapter four about verse 11, the devil left him, and the angels came and ministered to the Lord. Verse 12 says, "And then the devil left him for a season." Why? Because he went out and planned, "How can I come and do more damage on Jesus?" Or you or me. The devil never slumbers nor sleeps. He always plans. While you sleep, he's planning. While you're awake, he's attacking. Strategizing. How in the world can I get this person to come and join my team? Nehemiah would not fall for it. They wanted him to compromise and he would not compromise in any way. We should never, ever compromise when it comes to the work of the Lord. Never, ever should do that. The second thing that happens in verses five through nine, now slander comes. How many people have slandered your character? Slandered you, slandered me. And yet why is it that in the church and outside of the church people love to slander other people without knowing the full facts? If we're truly Christians and we're truly on the same team, instead of slandering we should be praying for that person, forgiving that person, but not slandering that person. Here we see now that Sanballat, he realizes that he has failed in enticing Nehemiah to come up from Jerusalem. So he tries a whole new way to deviate him from continuing to do what he was doing by sending another letter. But it's a letter of slander now. Verse five. "And then Sanballat sent his servant to me as before the fifth time with an open letter in his hand." And it was written like this: "It is reported among the nations that Geshem says that you, Nehemiah, and the Jews are planning to rebel." Can you believe that? They never even talked about rebellion. These guys are making up a lie. How many times people make lies about you and me? Things that are not even true. How sad when people can slander another person. Because listen, here we see not only the slander that comes upon Nehemiah, but look what he says. He says, "It is reported by many of the nations and Geshem says that you and the Jews are planning to rebel, therefore according to these rumors, you are rebuilding the wall that you may be their king." Now they're saying that he wants to lord over the people. "You're only doing it because you're actually seeking for a position as king over them. You're governor now, but your whole plan is to be king so you can rule over them." Slander. Slandering the character of Nehemiah. "And you have also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning you at Jerusalem saying, 'There is a king in Judah.' Now these matters will be reported to the king, so come therefore and let us consult together." And by the way, Nehemiah, I'm going to tell King Artaxerxes what you're doing and he's going to get you good. Now what? More fear. But Nehemiah knew in his heart he never did that. So here it is, verse eight. "And then I sent to him saying, 'No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own mind.'" He doesn't even mess with them. Very short to the point. "What you're doing is you're making up these things in your mind, end of conversation. See you later." He doesn't even deviate from the work of God and become anxious and start worrying and can't sleep at night. No way. He just leaves it in the hands of the Lord. His accusers, let them come and accuse me. If it's true, prove it. You don't have to defend yourself. Verse nine. "For they all were trying to make us afraid saying, 'Their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not be done.' Now therefore, oh God, strengthen my hands." Notice how beautiful. Who does he turn to? To God. "Lord, strengthen my hands to continue to do the work." We can learn so much from Nehemiah. Maybe you're facing tonight some of these situations that we're talking about and what you need to do is to pray to strengthen your inner man, your heart. No fear. Perfect love casts out all fear. The whole thing is an attempt to defeat God's people and to doom them to failure. And yet when we are tempted to be afraid, then we need to recall on the words of Paul the Apostle in Romans chapter 8:28, 29. If God is for me, who can be against me? Think about that. If God is for me, who can be against me? I don't work for men, I work for God. He's my boss. You see? He's your boss too. And it's really important that we understand there are people out there that will slander you, they will try to make you compromise and then the next thing they did, number three, is now they're going to bring threats against you. Afterwards I, Nehemiah, came to the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was a secret informer. And he says—so here now Shemaiah is sending a secret informer to Nehemiah now. Pretty sly, you know what he does here? He says, "Hey, guess what Nehemiah, let us meet together in the house of God now within the temple and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. Indeed at night they will come to kill you." You don't want to be alone with your enemy ever because he's sly. Notice here that he's doing what's right. The reaction to his threats. Satan's always trying to put fear in the hearts of his people. Nehemiah was not a Levite. He could not go. He understood, "If I go into the house of the Lord, I'll be tossed out by God. I'm not a Levite." The only people that could go into the house of the Lord were the priests. He was not a priest. He knew his Bible. He knew the word of God. They were trying to entrap him to break God's law. I perceived that God had not sent him at all. He was praying, he had discernment. He knew, "Hey this guy's not from the Lord." He calls himself a prophet, a man of God. This guy is not a man of God. Be careful of those kind of people. Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He was a hireling that had been paid to put a threat over Nehemiah's life. Beware of people that prophesy falsely, that come to you in the disguise of a Christian. They wear sheep clothing but inwardly they're ravening wolves, the Bible says. Be careful with them. What they were trying to do now through their threats was to make Nehemiah sin. Listen: there are people out there that want you to sin so they can say, "Aha! You're a Christian, look what you did." Be careful. Especially during Christmas time, New Year's time, there'll be a lot of drinking going on, a lot of partying going on. Make sure you're a good witness at work, in school, in your home, in your neighborhood, wherever you go. Stand out as a light that shines. Don't compromise. Make sure you make a stand for what's right. Look what else he says, verse 15 to 19 now, intrigue. He says, "My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works and their prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who would have made me afraid." So he goes and he prays to God and he says, "God remember these guys, they're false people that try to make me sin and compromise." Verse 15: "And so the wall was finished on the 25th day of Elul," which is September, "in 52 days." The gates were not hung yet, but the walls were actually up. When all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw these things, they were very disheartened in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was done by our God. Hey guess what? When he didn't compromise and was not fearful but he stood upon the word of God, the people recognized God did this and God is with Nehemiah. That's what will happen to you. At the end, that's what they'll say. "Hey, this is the work of the Lord and he is part of the work of the Lord." He also said this, "Also in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah and the letters of Tobiah came to them, for many in Judah were pledged to him because he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughters of Meshullam the son of Berechiah." This guy Meshullam is the same guy in Chapter 3, the priest in the temple. He's the same guy. Now he's on the other team. He's among those that are slanderers. Verse 19: "And also they reported his good deeds before me and reported my words to him, and Tobiah sent letters to frighten me." Notice Chapter 7 now. It's real short. The walls are done, but at the same time here after rebuilding the wall, it begins now with the assignment. The assignment, that is, the guards for Jerusalem. He begins in Chapter 7 verses one to three and he's enlisting leadership here. He's been leading and now he chooses good leaders. I think it's important in a church to choose good leaders. Look what he says, verse one: "Then it was when the wall was built that I had hung the doors and when the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites had been appointed."