You turn with me again to Nehemiah chapter 6. I think it's on page 553 or thereabouts in your few Bibles. kind of just trying to figure out how to end this. A summer series should just be a summer series, and so I've decided, Lord willing, that I will do two more sermons tonight, and then two weeks from now I will finish up. with our look at Nehemiah. So with that in mind, we'll start with verse five of Nehemiah chapter six. And in the first few verses, we see Sanballat and his allies inviting Nehemiah to come down and to hang out with them. And really what they want him to do is to join them. and basically leave the work. But this is the second attack. Then Sanballat sent his servant to me as before the fifth time with an open letter in his hand. And it was written, it is reported among the nations, and Geshem says, that you and the Jews plan to rebel. Therefore, according to these rumors, you are rebuilding the wall that you may be their king. 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. Then I sent to him, saying, no such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart. 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, O God, strengthen my hands. Therefore, I came to the house of Shimea, the son of Deleah, the son of Mehetabal, who was a secret informer, and he said, let us meet together in the house of God 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. And I said, should such a man as I flee, and who is there such as I who would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in. Then I perceived that God had not sent him at all, but that he pronounced his prophecy against me, because Tobiah and Samballot had hired him. For this reason he was hired, that I should be afraid and act that way in sin, so that they might have cause for an evil report, that they might reproach me. My God, remember Tobiah and Samballot, according to their works, and the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, who would have made me afraid. So the wall was finished on the 25th day of Elul in 52 days. And it happened when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes, for they perceived that this work was done by our God. Thus ends our reading. Let's ask God's blessing on his word. Father, again, we come before you this evening hour and we confess, and I confess as a pastor, minister, that I do not have what I need to feed your people. Father, we pray that you'd bless what has been prepared, the little that has been prepared, and that you would make it enough to feed, to strengthen, to encourage, and to uphold your people. Father, and we pray too, for those that do not yet know you as Lord and Savior, open their hearts and give them a heart and a mind to turn to you and to trust in you, the one true living God. All these things we ask in Jesus' name alone, amen. I prayed that way because I'm slow and sometimes I get overwhelmed with a lot of things going on and I don't focus and concentrate as much as I'd like to and I feel like I'm not ready to preach. And the truth is, I think that it's good for a minister to get into those times, into those moments, because the truth is that in the flesh, we're really never ready to preach. That's a fact. No matter how well you can prepare a sermon, no matter how sharp your mind might be and how clear and crisp your ideas are, in the end, it's all about what God does. It's His work. It's His food. It's His drink. and you are His people." And so I prayed. You know, a lot of ministers have discerned that with Jesus when He told His disciples to feed these people, these thousands of people, He says, what do you have? Let's see what you've got. And they brought a few loaves of bread, just these tiny little loaves of bread, and a couple of fish. And then he blessed that food, and then he broke it, and it was enough to feed everybody, plus leftovers. And they were all filled. And it really is speaking about the little things that we do in his name. the work that we bring forth, but He blesses it and makes it something far bigger than what it is. And so I'm hoping and praying that He will do that this evening again. When we started this series on Nehemiah, I began by saying that Nehemiah has a lot to teach us, that he has a lot to teach the church. of Christ today. And tonight I want to just very quickly kind of go over what we've got left in chapter 6 here and kind of flow into that and then step back and take some observations. In verse 15, Nehemiah simply says, So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, which it's sometime in late August to mid-September. That's the time of year that they finish. And it was finished in 52 days. The walls of Jerusalem had been destroyed by the army of Nebuchadnezzar so completely that it had remained completely in ruins for 140 plus years. And no efforts, nothing that the Jews had been able to do up until this point, have been able to raise those walls back again. Until the Lord God of Israel puts it in the heart and the mind of this man. And this whole project begins with this man getting down on his knees and fasting and praying for four months. for four months without even being, he's almost a thousand miles away from Jerusalem. The whole project starts with this righteous man getting down on his knees, confessing the sins of himself, his fathers, and his people, and just praying that God would in some way use him to somehow get these walls and to straighten Jerusalem out. So he prays for four months until the Lord opens the heart and the mind of the king, King Artaxerxes, and the king heard his request, asked him, what is your request? And he answered his request to go back and rebuild the city of his fathers. So from the moment that he declared to the Jews in Jerusalem what he had come to do, there had been nothing but a hard and unrelenting warfare against Nehemiah and his project. All the nations around Judah, that is all these different tribes that Judah, if you study the Old Testament, and there's the Ammonites and the Midianites and there's Philistines and there's all these different tribes and nations around around Judah and Jerusalem that God had given them victory over for hundreds of years. And now, you know, for the last 140 years, they've been actually higher than the Jews, and they want to keep it that way. So their interest is in keeping Jerusalem and Judah and Judea down. And so all these nations around Judah, to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west, were dead set against God's own city being rebuilt and God's people rising again. Worse yet, worse yet, we've seen it too, right, in I believe it was in chapter 5, Nehemiah's own people, many of the nobles and the leaders of the Jews, were also trying to stop the work. They were actually working with all these enemies on the outside because they were getting paid. Finally, even as the work is nearing completion in chapter six, we have the final desperate attacks against Nehemiah himself. And last week we said that in these three attacks against Nehemiah, we see a playbook of the ungodly against God and his people in this world. First of all, they seek to compromise the heart of Nehemiah. In verses two through four, we see the main attack. And this is the main attack, brothers and sisters. The main attack is that they want him to come down from Jerusalem. And the more that I've thought and prayed about this, the more that idea, they set the meeting away for a reason. Because they want to entice him to come away from Jerusalem, that the work will stop. And what they do, they do, they want him You know, they want to caress him. They want to sit him down, and they want to say, Nehemiah, you've earned it, man. You've earned it. You should get a piece of this pie. They want to convince him to leave the work of the kingdom of God and to join them in building the kingdoms of this world, and join them in living their best life now. That's really the main attack. Secondly, in verses five through nine, they seek to compromise Nehemiah in the eyes of the world. And let me just sum this up briefly for us, without going into detail. Sam Ballett sends an open letter, and I looked that up and studied, and again, without going into detail, an open letter is literally, it's a, in the Persian court, When governors and kings and all these different nobles and rulers would send letters to each other, there was a certain protocol. And an open letter is not a protocol. It's not a good protocol. An open letter is actually a sign of disrespect. Sanballat is disrespecting him, both by the way that he sends the message and the message itself. Sanballat tells Nehemiah of the rumors of Nehemiah's rebellion and desire to be king, and how he will make sure that these things are reported to the king. Now many of us might not think much of this attack. But brothers and sisters, I tell you that this is a very, very powerful attack. Nehemiah understood that in the ancient halls of power that truth didn't matter as much as what the king thinks is true. Let me say that again, and that's true today too. It's just that we can, it's easier to get the facts faster in today's world because information moves faster. But in the ancient world, if the king was to hear, and he was to hear reports from several different people, you know, messengers coming in and bringing Sanballat and Geshem and all these different people, and they're reporting that, oh, your man Nehemiah, he's gone off the grid, man, he's not just being your governor, he's gonna actually finish the city up, and it is reported, and the prophets are saying that he wants to be the king, and they're gonna rebel against you, you know what? Ancient kings are very paranoid people. They were very paranoid people. And let me tell you something, they were very paranoid for a reason. There's a reason, right? Nehemiah, what was his occupation prior to coming to Jerusalem? He's the cup bearer. What does a cup bearer do? He drinks everything that the king's going to drink. And he's also kind of in charge of security. He's a part of the security of the king. And the reason that he has to drink, and perhaps even taste what the king is going to eat and what he's going to drink, is because so many kings were poisoned. So many rulers, so many high up people were poisoned. It was happening all the time. These people were good at it. And there's always, if you start reading some of this ancient history, you'll find that kings were overthrown all the time. Your brother might overthrow you. Your father might overthrow you. There was all kinds of different things that they would do. And so when Sanballat sends this open letter and says, You know, Geshem says, and so a lot of the commentators seem to think that Geshem probably is the most powerful governor in the area, and that's why Sam Ballett uses his name the way that he does, because his name carries weight. And Geshem says, right, and what he's saying is that, look, Nehemiah, we're going to send reports of all this garbage, right? And he knows it's garbage, and he knows that Nehemiah knows it's garbage, but he knows that it has power. Because if the king looks at it the way he looks at a lot of things, he goes, whoa. Right? Because if you're a king and you get a report that someone's being unfaithful and they plan to rebel, what's your choices? A, nope, I'll never believe that. B, well, maybe it's true. C, I better act like it is true. Because if I don't, and I find out it is true, and I haven't acted on it, it's too late. Right? So he knows that. Nehemiah knows that. And Samballot knows that Nehemiah knows that. So this is actually a very powerful thrust that is being made. And so there's a lot of paranoia. And if the king thought something was true, that's all that mattered, and Nehemiah knew this. But look at what he says, just in return, and like I said, we'll just briefly say this. He sent him saying, no such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart. And I was thinking about that, because it sounds like, you know, like your kid's on the playground. Nuh-uh, you're lying. No, you're not telling the truth. You know, that's what it kind of sounds like. But I believe that what Nehemiah is actually saying is much deeper. Nehemiah is betting on his own relationship with the king, that Samballot knows how favored he is of the king, and Nehemiah's defense is that this is not true. But it is true of them. Because that's what these men are doing. These are ungodly governors that are trying to seek something that doesn't belong to them. Nehemiah is the rightful governor of Judea and Jerusalem by the king. These men have no right to the power and the money that they're making off this region. Nehemiah has every right to do what he's doing. And so what he's saying is that all the games and all the politics and all the stuff that you're doing over here is not right. This whole thing about wanting to be a king and rebelling, that's actually in your heart. And so I actually think he's kind of counter thrusting and telling them, yeah, who's the king you're gonna believe, you or me? And that's kind of the way he's throwing it out. But look at what he says. For they were all trying to make us afraid. That's the whole game. Oh no, if the king thinks I'm actually trying to rebel, you know what, I better stop this because I've seen what the king does when he gets a little paranoid, right? Because he's been around and this stuff happened all the time. So, the third attack, they tried to compromise Nehemiah in the eyes of the people. And again, I won't go into the whole thing. There's history that you go back in the word of God, there's actually different examples. Gedaliah in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 40 and 41, Gedaliah was a king, or he was appointed to be a governor by the Babylonians and he was murdered. by another Jew, and there's just different examples of what's being spoken about here, but just very quickly, this man, Shimea, it says he was a secret informer. That's not a good translation, and most of the other versions don't say it that way. It really, in the Hebrew, it says that he had shut himself up. And so what it was is that Nehemiah gets word that there's a good man, a righteous man, a prophet of God that is asking for him to come talk to him. And so when he comes in, you can just kind of imagine, you know, this guy Shimea hears the door knocking and there's a hesitation and then finally the door opens and Shimea looks out and he's looking around, he's looking around and he's like, okay, come on, come on, come on in, right? And that's the whole sense of what's actually being said. And then Shemaiah goes on to tell him that he's a good man, that he's like Nehemiah, he's a man that is a godly man, he's on Nehemiah's side, but the enemies, the enemies know that he's a prophet of God, the enemies know that he has discernment, and so they're afraid of him too, and that's why his life is being threatened, and that's why he's shut up and protecting himself. And the whole sense is that he's trying to get Nehemiah to kinda get sucked into that same feeling, And then he says, and basically the whole idea is that he gives a prophetic utterance that they're trying to kill you, there are assassins on the way, the only way to protect ourselves is to go to the temple. And again, it's one of those weirdo stories, and there are people that, I'll tell you right now, I've met people That gave me exactly this sense, this weird sense of some kind of game that they're playing, but it's not right. There's something wrong with it, and he knows it, and he sees it for what it is. But the whole game is actually to make Nehemiah look bad in the eyes of his own people. And so that's kind of just to sum up what these attacks are all about. And so now tonight, in just ending this, concluding this, I wanted, a few things struck me as I took a couple steps back and I just started thinking about all these attacks from the beginning to the end, but especially these particular three. And a few things struck me about these final attacks against Nehemiah first. They're all mental or spiritual attacks. Notice that. Not one of them is actually threatening him with physical harm. I mean, Shimea talks about it. Shimea says that there's an assassin. Shimea says that somebody's trying to kill you. But nobody shows up. Notice the whole game is about the heart and the bind. And the first one is meant to entice Nehemiah into leaving off the work of the kingdom of God. Come on, Nehemiah, you've earned your place at the table. Join us, enjoy the fruits of your labor. And if you think about that, one of the things we've talked about over the last year is all the statistics of how many people are leaving the churches. How many churches are closing down? How many people are leaving the churches? Most of them are the young, right? There's far more young people leaving the church. But because of COVID, there was a lot of people that are out there going, eh, you know what? This is great. This is the perfect excuse to not go to church anymore. And so when their churches finally open back up, guess what? There's a whole bunch of people out there that aren't going back. One of the greatest reasons in the church, in America, probably the number one reason that the church suffers in America is because we're being tempted by enticement. We're being tempted to live our best life now. We don't really wanna think about the new heavens and the new earth. We don't wanna think about the payment for sin. We just are like looking around and everybody's doing it. And if everybody's doing it, then everybody's doing it. And I should be doing it too, right? I should be hanging out out there. I should be living my best life now. And you know what? Church is okay, the people are okay. I don't hate them or anything, but you know what? There's other things I'd far rather do. The number one thing that draws people away from the church in the world today is that. It's that attack in the heart that says, well maybe God's up there, I don't know. But most of the people in the world and most of the people in my neighborhood and most of the people that I work with and most of the people around me, they're living good lives, they're living okay lives. I don't know, I just don't see it. I don't see it. I'm gonna go ahead and just, I'm going to the beach tomorrow. I'm going fishing tomorrow. I'm gonna go do this. I don't think that I really need. I don't need God. They're seeking to entice, and that's the number one, I believe, of most people in the churches that have been attacked by, and it is very successful. The second attack is meant to fill Nehemiah's heart with fear. And brothers and sisters, this second attack, this is something that many Christians are not aware of, but many faith leaders are. Many have been threatened with exposure. We're gonna tell the world what kind of a person you are. We're gonna tell, you know, a secretary from a big church or, you know, is gonna say, she's gonna write an expose of all the things that I've seen while I was working for so-and-so. I took the money for 20 years, I did this, you know, and it seemed like I was having fun when I was doing it, but right now, I gotta write a book, right? We're going to tell the world that you're against gay marriage or abortion. We're going to send protesters to stand in front of your church, etc. And this type of attack has been very successful against different ministries. John Piper's son This guy's declared that he's an atheist, and he's out there writing about what a terrible guy growing up with his dad. It was a terrible story, right? And he's using it against his father because he hates his father and despises his father, so he's gonna throw this trash out there. John MacArthur. If you go online and you study, John MacArthur's got guys out there that are writing about his million dollar, multi-million dollar lifestyle, and how much money he's making, and all these different things, right? But listen carefully, because when you listen to what his people, because his people, it really bothers them, not because it's true, but because it's totally not true. But people listen. Why? Well, because it might be true, right? That's what they're doing is they're threatening this man and they're basically saying, you know, he's not who you think he is, right? Which is exactly what Nehemiah, right? Let's say that we're gonna expose Nehemiah and then Nehemiah will back off and he'll come our way. And of course, the ungodly, Satan, the powers of darkness, brothers and sisters, faith leaders see it all the time. It's a fact. If you are faithful in the ministry and in the leadership of church, in the churches, you will see this. You will experience it. It will be something that comes against you. And if you're elders and deacons, you will see it too. Will you understand it when it comes? So then the third attack happens all the time again today. False churches and false prophets stand up in the name of the Lord and try to use their reputations to bring down other churches and other preachers. That's what this man's doing. He's using his reputation as a fellow Jew and a holy man, a righteous man, a man that prophesies, a man that's got a good name in the community. He's using that to bring Nehemiah down. We see this, in the name of the Lord, trying to use their reputations to break down other churches and other preachers. Every one of these attacks hits God's people in their hearts and minds. And I think about this, right? Because like with COVID, with COVID we saw this. It jumped right out on the newspapers, didn't it? If you were paying attention at all, that the faith leaders in this country, a bunch of them were going against each other. Right? Even John MacArthur said it. He said, he goes, some of my best friends, people that I have trusted my entire, you know, for my entire preaching career, for 30, 40, 50 years, are standing on the other side now, and I'm the bad guy. It's disheartening. And as I looked at all these things, I thought about Ephesians 6 and exactly what it says here in verse 10. Many times you've heard it. I'll say it again. and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. And a lot of times I've begun to see more and more that these heavenly places are a lot of times in the mind, in the heart. Right, it's with our heart and minds that we're lifted up into heavenly places. and it's also where the darkness invades, right? The darkness comes into your heart and mind. Take, therefore, the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. In verse 9, It really, what has hit me about the greatest lesson that Christians can learn from Nehemiah is to stand on the truth and depend on the strength of the Lord. In verse 9 he says, they're all trying to make me afraid, and the whole idea is that their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not get done. That's the whole goal of all spiritual battle. And you personally as a Christian, The spiritual battle is to stop you. It's to stop you in growing in grace and truth. It's to stop you in standing up in this world and being a witness for the light. It's to stop you as a parent in bringing up your sons and daughters. All of this thing, you think it doesn't hit us much, right? Because guys like Nehemiah, obviously it just gets dumped out. By the way, and we don't have time tonight, and we won't, Trust me when I say this, some of you already know this, but every one of these attacks and every type of this attack was visited on Jesus during his ministry. Every one of these attacks, the same types of attack were against Jesus, every one of them. And they're against you too. they come against you, and the closer you get to living the life of faith, the life of true discipleship, the more you're gonna feel it, and you will. Some of you have been growing in grace and truth and growing and maturing in your Christian walk, and you know exactly what I'm saying, that the closer you get to feeling like I'm really I'm seeing God and seeing my relationship with the Lord like I've never seen before. The closer you get to that, when the attacks come, they come hard, and they hit you hard. The greatest lesson that Christians can learn from Nehemiah is to stand on the truth and depend on the strength of God. Verse nine, now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands. I love this man, and this is what I wanted to end with. I did all of this. Maybe you find it a little interesting, maybe somewhat boring, whatever. But it all comes down to this one thing. Nehemiah's greatness. What is the greatness of Nehemiah? What's the number one thing, if I could say, is the one thing that we can look at Nehemiah and say, whoa, that's valuable. And it's this. Nehemiah's greatness, which comes from his knowledge of God and his dependence on God, is clarity of vision. Let me say that again. Clarity of vision. If you go back all the way to the beginning and read this story all the way through, And what the commentators think happened is that Nehemiah kept a journal, and that Ezra actually took it. In fact, in the Jewish Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book. And it was all written by Ezra, but they believe that Ezra, the scribe, took his notes. It's not Nehemiah actually writing. He actually is writing, because some of them are just coming straight out of his notes. But it's Ezra who's putting this whole thing together. And what we see from the beginning of the story all the way to this point, and you would see it if you went all the way to the end, the beauty, the excellence, the greatness that God has put in Nehemiah is that his knowledge of God, his knowledge of the word of God, the truth of God, and his knowledge of how God works, and his faith in God, and his dependence on God, you put them all together, it comes into this one thing. Every attack that comes hard against him, he sees it for what it is immediately. He sees it for what it is. He can see it like almost with the eyes of God. He sees its power, he sees its strength, he sees its emptiness, and he sees its weakness all at the same time. He sees it clearly. And I'm telling you something, that's a beautiful thing to have in this world. To live in a world that is so filled with so many lies and accusations and so much garbage, Talk to somebody that's been an elder for 20, 30, 40, 50 years at a church. Talk to a wise man that's been an elder or a deacon in a church for years and years, and I promise you that he will tell you that clarity of vision is something that is rare. You cannot believe how many Christians get buffaloed by the simplest of threats, by the simplest of tricks. People that I know myself that, oh, you know, so-and-so, oh, this pride group is gonna, they're gonna come, and if you don't sign this, they're gonna come up and show up in front of your church. And you know what? Everybody folds. Oh, we don't want that, we don't want that. Clarity of vision. is a glorious thing. To be able to see and to know what's happening when it's happening. Nehemiah's greatest gift from what I've seen is that God has given him that clarity of vision. Part of that's a gift, but part of it is just the reality that this man knows the word of God and he depends on God. The beautiful thing is we won't do it now, but if you wanted to, just go back to the beginning and look at just his comments, like in verse nine here. It doesn't even say that he prayed, right? In verse nine it says, for they are all trying to make us afraid, saying their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done. And then it just stops, and it's like just this prayer. Now therefore, oh God, strengthen my hands. Go back and see how many times he does that. It's amazing how many times that he's being attacked, and it's like the words of the prayer just jump right out at you. It doesn't say he stopped and prayed. There are times that it does, but there's several of these times that it just pops out. And what it's telling us, it's telling us about what kind of man this is. He's a man that has the Lord on his heart and mind all the time. He's a man that believes in the living God. He's a man that sees with clarity what's going on, and he knows exactly what's happening, and he sees it for what it is, and then he says, God, strengthen us. If you live in a very political world like Nehemiah once did, and still does right here, you know the power of these politics. But he sees them for what they are. They're a bunch of evil little wretches running around, and it's all a game to them. but he also sees the kingdom of God. And he sees that God has all power and all strength over it. So he prays, right? Because even if you have clarity of vision, you can't make these things go away. God does that. God's the one that shuts them down. God's the one that convinces them that if you stand up and you say, you know what? Bring it. It's not me that will stand here in my strength, but I'm gonna stand here in God's strength. So you take it. You wanna stand out in front of the church and protest? Go ahead. Will it affect some of our members? Sure. That bothers me, I don't like that. Well, none of us do. But will we stand? Will we stand as lights in a dark world? Will we recognize them for what they are? And will we stand so that the day comes that the Lord says to us, in Christ, well done, good and faithful servant, because you stood. You saw it, you stood, you believed, you trusted. and you did not break down to those forces. That's a gift that we pray for in today's world. Amen.