But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night. Amen. Dear Saints, you may be seated. We're continuing in the exciting fourth chapter of Nehemiah, the third of the seven sermons, Lord willing, that will encompass these 23 verses that make up this very exciting chapter. Before we go into it, as always, though, let's go to the throne in prayer. Father, bless us as we hear the Word again tonight. And we never know when we'll ever be able to hear another sermon again. And we know that everyone is a mark of landmark for us in terms of showing us Jesus more clearly, Lord's Day to Lord's Day. We pray that we will ingest him deeply in the Word and in the sacrament. In this we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. There's, in reality, we err greatly if we ever think that the foes of God and His Church ever give up. They never do. They continue. The reality is they cannot help but being what they are. Except in the glorious, miraculous cases of human beings like ourselves, who at one time being enemies of God, Romans 5.10, are now his friends and beloved children because of his enormous, infinite, sovereign grace and love applied to us that brought us to himself and placed us in his church. And that's what we want. for all of the enemies of God. I mean, we talk about this a lot because the Bible's full of it, but we should always realize that we want the same thing for all the foes of the church that we ourselves receive. But the reality is, without that grace coming upon people, they simply are what they are. Our flesh doesn't change, and neither do the fallen angels and men, whose role then becomes that of being troublers of the militant Church of God until the Judgment Day, because that's all they can be, except for the grace of God and salvation. Therefore, as long as we're here in this world, we must continually fight all the days of our life until we draw our final breath. Now, the Lord's Day is a respite day, it's a day of celebration, it's a day of refreshment, But even then, we're simply shining up our armor and getting ready for the next battle down the road that we'll face in the weeks ahead. So in light of all this, let's make it our goal this evening to be faith-filled and diligent in Jesus as we confront stubborn resistance. Looking together at Nehemiah 4, 7 through 9, fighting a persistent enemy, the doctrine The church must redouble her resolve in the face of determined opposition. So, rather than relaxing and taking it easy and taking a break, you, God's people and myself included, must continue to flex our spiritual muscles even more, especially even after successes and victories, because our foe and our enemy, the devil and his kind, are obstinate and dogged and they don't give up. And so we cannot either. The church must redouble her resolve in the face of determined opposition. Earlier respites, which is a word for rests or breaks, and victories are not to be relied upon. There is an appropriate time for celebration and recognition of what the Lord has achieved through his gospel and his church in gaining triumphs over our foes. And this is what we do every Sunday. Every Sunday is a day of celebration, a day of rest, as we glory in Jesus and his resurrection. But those parties, those festivals, those feast days must soon give way to the gymnasium, the spiritual gym, of more workouts and getting into shape for more battles down the road. Even in this very chapter of Nehemiah, and even from the beginning of this book, There have been significant accomplishments attained by the grace of God, despite all the verbal efforts to hinder the work, in this case on the wall in Jerusalem, but more severe trials were yet to come. And so it is for all of us in Christ's Church, until Christ's final coming, for us to maintain faithfulness against all odds is certainly a struggle. but it is possible and it is worth our while. In fact, if we are in Christ, as you are, we will do it and we will succeed. Nothing can stand in our way. We will be triumphant, continually triumphant. Earlier respites and victories are not to be relied upon. Instead, they only prepare us for more conflict ahead. Life is all about preparation. As I've taught you many times in the past, and Nehemiah is a great example of it, victories or defeats are all determined way before we actually engage the enemy and encounter the situations that then manifest the reality or lack thereof of our true faith and those wins or losses. And as we continue to thrive in Jesus, Lord's Day to Lord's Day, and bring this into the world, we do experience more and more victories. But that triumph is the victory of faith, as per 1 John 5.4. It's the faith that overcomes the world. That's what overcomes the world, according to that precious verse, 1 John 5.4, our faith in Jesus. That faith gets nurtured here from the pulpit and the table and in your prayer lives throughout the week. And then it's brought to the world in which you live as you go into your offices, your classrooms, your places of labor or ministration. It's all your gospel ministry. And even though we know God will and does provide us success, even as Nehemiah knew it, even when he left Shushan for Jerusalem, he knew that he would be victorious. Nonetheless, there are and will be numerous roadblocks put in our way. Life is just not easy, and it doesn't really get any easier. And these roadblocks, or burdens are all orchestrated and organized by an unholy alliance of our flesh, the devil, and the wicked world of ungodly humans and demons. Therefore, in light of all of this, let us, by the grace of God, purpose to be a church that's characterized first and foremost by faith, which leads to glorious love, which then also results in filial or willing compliance or happy obedience to a father in heaven that we love. So let's look at these verses 7 through 9 and observe. The dynamics of fighting a persistent enemy. Now, two Sundays ago, we studied the strategy and traits of our foes, and I know not all of us were here for that, but tonight we're going to see those same basic strategies, those spiritual maneuvers put into place, but everything here gets ratcheted up a few notches, or hanked up, if you will, or magnified. But, on the other hand, also these verses demonstrate that there are more of the churchmen of that day involved with Nehemiah in the resistance. In the earlier verses, it was pretty much Nehemiah against them. In this text, we're gonna see more of the church galvanized together in prayer with Nehemiah. So the dynamics of fighting a persistent enemy, verse seven, Our foes increase in size and intensity. But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward, and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. So this is in addition to the list of opponents that we had seen earlier. Particularly added are these Ashdodites who lived to the west of Jerusalem. Now, if you look at a map and you see where these people that are listed here actually lived in those days, the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites, you would discover that they now had pretty much surrounded the people of God who are working on the wall. At least on three sides they were surrounded. The west, the south, and the east. And maybe even the north. So now it's become a lot more dangerous. And people are spread out. The people working on the wall are spread out. And even though Nehemiah and his fellow Israelites had the permission and had been granted the formal approval by the Persian king Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem and build this wall, Shushan, the capital, was 1,100 miles and 55 days away. But there's God, the God of heaven, was very near to them. Yeah, the king of Persia may have been a long way off, Way too far to go get his help in a time of crisis. But God was very near to them. And even though he's the God of glory, the God of heaven, he's also the God who dwells in his militant church on earth and in the heart and soul of every individual saint as well. So remember that, that your God is near to you. And he's as close as your voice. And as you go into the world this week, employ that third means of grace, prayer, in a formal mode, but also informally. As often in the book of Nehemiah, we see these arrow prayers, these spontaneous petitions that are offered to God. And those are appropriate for us as well. So here in verse 7, the church's problems are magnifying. They're getting bigger, but so is their reliance upon their God. Not only was the size of the coalition of opposition growing, but also notice that the passionate hatred was growing too, because it says here that they were very angry. These people were upset. And they were determined to stop this work if they could. And really, dearest, I mean, one thing is, your pastor, I try to always be telling you the honest truth about everything and about life in general. Nobody out there is neutral. Everybody's passionate. And at the end of the day, it's all about these issues of faith and religion, the existence of God, the true church and the gospel, because everybody's created in God's image. And they have to deal with this problem of God and his existence and his judgment and his righteousness. And so people may act like they're all cool and neutral, but they're not. And you have to understand that it is a volatile environment that we go into. And I think verse 7 at the end of it does show us the passion of those who were understandably resisting because they did not love God and didn't understand. So what are we to do in conditions like this? Well, we're to be faithful, keep to the task, and remain faith-filled, and do the work of the ministry in love and the power of the Spirit, realizing again that God did not give us the spirit of fear. but of power and love and self-control, 2 Timothy 1.7, as mentioned this morning. So let's look at verse 8 now and consider the second dynamic of fighting a persistent enemy, and that is, the Church's existence and mission is targeted, and notice it's the Church's, God's people, the covenant community, That's the target. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. And I've chosen that as the key verse of this passage, and rightly so. Now, there are four things to notice about verse 8. First, all of them cobbled together. See, here's an interesting fact of life, and I'd like to share. There's sometimes we pick on certain religions or nationality of people groups that do crazy things. But the reality is that everyone outside of Jesus Christ is confederated together against the true church. That's everybody. False Christians, hypocrites, Pharisees, patriarchalists, religious people that can quote the Bible upside down and backwards. unbelievers, atheists, agnostics, members of every other religion. They are all cobbled together against Jesus, God's king. who has been set on Mount Zion. They all are together, and this is something you have to understand. Some of them appear much more obviously so, but they are confederated. Now, what's interesting is, on their own, they fight each other. You can bet the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites were always at war with each other, but when it came to a common foe, the true church, now they can galvanize to fight together against her. It's kind of like, Pilate and Herod at Jesus' mock trial. The Gospels tell us that they were enemies, but once they both had Jesus before them, they became friends. And that's actually an important principle for us to realize. It's just reality there. It's just the truth. And you young people, you need to understand that's what we're facing in this world. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to get nervous about, nothing to fret over, but something just to know is an absolute truth. Now secondly from verse eight, they plot together. So plotting implies conspiracy, it implies secrecy and intrigue and deceit, and that's what they're doing. Thirdly, They had a plan. What was it? To quote, fight against Jerusalem. Fight against it. Why? Because they're building a wall around the city that they had been called by the Persian king to do and God had ordained it. And fighting against Jerusalem connotes aggression, violence, death, and destruction. And lastly, and this is perhaps most pertinent to our day in and day out spiritual battles, and this is something we have to always be aware of, is that it was their desire to, quote, cause confusion And this is devil's primary devilish trick, okay? His desire is to confuse us, to throw us off balance, to cause chaos, to get our minds off what's important, to throw us off kilter, confusion. God is the God of order. Satan is the demon of confusion. confounding and disorienting us. Once that can happen, then we're easily misled and deceived and discouraged. But if we can keep our focus, even when that's happening, then we win that battle. And that's really key, is the confusion issue. So all of this godless effort is designed to affect two results, the nullification of your effective ministry in the world, to stop it, to quiet it, to put it down, to make it ineffectual. That's the first thing. And the second thing, frankly, is to destroy you. Get you off the earth. Destroy the people of God. We see that here in verse 8 too. Now, of course, neither of these devious goals are possible for the enemies of God. In all the history of the world, they've never succeeded at it. Now, there have been many martyrs and people, our saints have suffered, and we do too. But Satan's never achieved it. But there are two good things that come out of this. When we go through these trials and difficulties, the true church is strengthened. And it weeds out hypocrites and people that aren't serious. Weeds them out. Gets them out. Because they're not going to stay in that. They're just not going to. They can't and they won't. So there's a benefit that accrues to the true church and each member in it from these kinds of trials and tribulations. Now let's look at verse 9 and consider that We respond in faith with prayer and vigilance. And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night. This is really neat because as I mentioned before, before in the account in verses four and five, we have Nehemiah praying all by himself. But now here in verse nine, we have a plural account of we are praying to our God. There's verbal language in the pronouns. So, even though the adversaries have gotten bigger and badder, God's people have galvanized and are together even more than they were before. So, let God's foes give it their best shot at us. The Lord's Church will do two basic and yet powerful things. One, we'll pray. And two, we'll be vigilant and diligent. And just when will this guard be put into place? According to verse nine, both day and night. I really appreciate the Puritans. One of my favorites is Thomas Watson. I know our young people studied his book on the Lord's Supper. Thomas Watson has this great quote. He says, such as think to totally ruin the church, must do it in a time when it is neither day nor night. For the Lord keeps his church by his providence night and day." Isn't that sweet? Let's do a little bit more application tonight as well, and consider, and this is really powerful, why the church should never fret, even when surrounded by many adversaries. and I want you to take this into your week, why you should never be afraid, even when literally surrounded by lots of spiritual foes, demons, human beings, there are more with us than there are with them. Evil eyes may be watching our every move from all quarters, but the loving gaze of our covenant and gracious Heavenly Father both secures and emboldens us. Therefore, dears, let us consider why the church should never fret, even when surrounded by many adversaries, because God is using them. I think I've shared with you, in fact, if you read the little blurb from Augustine in this morning's bulletin, it's along that line, that there's a purpose for evil human beings' existence. They actually exist for a reason. It's actually for our betterment. And again, we want them to become like us, to enjoy the grace of God. But even if they don't, we still benefit from their existence. Satan and his horde and all evil men and angels exist for your betterment, your ultimate and further happiness and contentment in Jesus Christ. Now, I know that may sound hard to believe, but it really is true. It's the example of how God uses them, what happens to them, the difference between them and you in Christ Jesus, that actually sharpens your faith and causes you to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Now, the short-term experience with these folks is very unpleasant. It's usually very hard and miserable and uncomfortable and even disconcerting. But the long-term result is that we become more like Jesus, and that means to only be more happy and blessed. Should we fear that which only can help us and show forth the sincerity of our faith? Should we be afraid of that? No. No, dears. In the meantime, we get to demonstrate to the world and to all who choose to be our foes that we actually care about them and we want to bring to them the same glorious good news of Jesus Christ and his wonderful salvation, his person, and his community of his covenant, which is open to all who will come and feast on him and trust him. and believe in him and repent of sin. So, why the church should never fret, even when surrounded by many adversaries, because God is using them to cause us to more fully trust him. Now, it's not that we don't trust God, okay? That's one of the great purposes of evil beings in the world. It's not that we don't trust God, we do. But problems, opposition, trials, difficulties, tribulations help us to trust Him a whole lot more. How sweet would the gospel of grace be if we didn't need it every day? Not that sweet. Therefore, let us thank God for trouble. Let us thank Him for trial. Let us thank Him for testing. Let us thank Him for difficulties. Listen, dears, if we do that from the heart, we are unbeatable. If we can do that from the heart, sincerely recognizing that a sovereign God allows these things for our good and our betterment, it's a beautiful thing. Let's thank Him for trouble, but also thank Him for deliverance in Jesus. By the way, how did the church in Nehemiah's time fare after all these threats we read about in tonight's text? Well, if you're able to follow in subsequent weeks or to read ahead, they fared very well because they trusted the Lord. Let us do the same as we rest in our glorious Lord Jesus and his triumphant cross and resurrection on our behalf. So, dears, fighting a persistent enemy ends up strengthening those of us in Christ Jesus in whom God has done a marvelous work of grace. Let's be thankful for that. Let's pray together. Father, thank you that even having to oppose and fight against persistent enemies only accrues for our good and betterment. We're not discouraged. Nothing can defeat us. The newest waves of sin and immorality and perversion and wickedness and anything else that comes is just a reiteration of old, old sin. Nothing new. None of them have ever succeeded in the past. They're not succeeding now and they won't in the future. Your true church will simply get stronger, may not be big, but will grow in your time and in your way. We pray that we would be faithful to you no matter what you bring our way in Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.