Now let us turn together in God's Word to the book of Nehemiah, and we will read together chapter 6, verses 1 through 14. Nehemiah 6, verses 1 through 14, where God's Word reads as follows. Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it, although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates, Sanballat and Geshem sent to me saying, come and let us meet together at Hakafarim in the plain of Ono. but they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you? And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. In the same way, Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. And it was written, it is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. That is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports, you wish to become their king. And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, there is a king in Judah. And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together. Then I sent to him, saying, No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, Your hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done. But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Now, when I went into the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delahiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home, he said, let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night. But I said, should such a man as I run away, and what man such as... I will not go in. And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me, because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way in sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me. Remember Tobiah and Sambalat, oh my God, according to these things that they did. And also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid. So far, the reading from God's word this evening. May He add His blessing to our hearts. Please be seated. There is a famous account in church history of a saint from the 2nd century, 1st and 2nd century, by the name of Polycarp. He lived, it's estimated, somewhere from the year 70 AD to around 155 AD. He was a disciple of the disciple John. So he was one generation removed from the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was a prominent leader in the Church of Smyrna when he was martyred at the age of 86. And you may have heard of the Church of Smyrna. You may remember it being mentioned in the Book of Revelation. So in his ancient church, Polycarp was a influential man who was leading that particular congregation. And at the age of 86, he was finally arrested and threatened with execution. But before his tormentors executed him, he was given the opportunity to recant. So the choice was given to him. You can either deny all your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, or you can be martyred. And his response to this threat was, "'Eighty and six years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a season, and after a little while is quenched, but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked.'" a statement of unreserved, uncompromising faithfulness to God, recognizing all the good that God has done for him, and unwilling to exchange that for a moment of freedom of pain. Polycarp in this moment was a man who looks for nothing in his life but to serve the Lord. That's not to say that he was a perfect man. but he was a man who understood what the Christian life and the Christian church was here for. And Nehemiah, in some sense, is an example of that kind of commitment to the cause of the church in this chapter as well. Nehemiah is an example to the people who are around him in the moment, but also an example to us, we who are here many years after his death, we are able to gain from his example because in his behavior he demonstrates that serving the Lord is an all-consuming desire when God delivers the sinner. Serving the Lord is an all-consuming desire when God delivers the sinner. And we're going to learn that lesson together tonight by looking at the work of the enemies of Nehemiah, the enemies who try to intimidate him. We're going to look at his supposed friends, this prophet Shemaiah and how he tries to undermine Nehemiah's work. And then lastly, we're going to see how Nehemiah serves and how he will not be distracted by these landmines that are being placed around him by his enemies. So let's first think about the intimidation of of our old enemies, Sanballat and Tobai and also Geshem. We've met them many times already. They are the the ultimate enemy of God's people in the book of Nehemiah. We met them first in chapter two. where they don't want anything good to happen to Israel. We meet them next in chapter 4. In chapter 4, they're trying to infiltrate Jerusalem so that they can do harm to those who are building the wall, all with the expressed intent of stopping the work of the repair of the walls of Jerusalem. They simply hate the people of Israel. The reason they hate the people of Israel is really ultimately because they hate Israel's God. And as Nehemiah deals with the enemies of God's people, he is rightly cautious when he deals with them. He does not take their words at face value. He is wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove in this situation. And that's seen as a good thing, and we can see that it is a good thing, particularly as it becomes plain in this account that when Sanballat says something, he doesn't necessarily mean it. We don't know necessarily how Nehemiah came to know what Sanballat's motivations were. Perhaps it was reported to him by another person. Perhaps it was made known to him by the Lord himself. That's not told to us, but it's very plain from our text that Sanballat says one thing and has something very different in mind. And the problem for Sanballat is that they really don't like that wall. They really don't like it that that wall was completed without their assistance. If you go back to chapter 2, In verse 20, they're wanting to participate in the building of the wall, but then Nehemiah replies to them, the God of heaven will make us prosper, and we, his servants, will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem. So Nehemiah, he is very dogmatic. that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is exclusive. It is exclusively for the people of God. And there's nothing that rubs salt in the wound of Sanbalat more than an uncompromising devotion to the God of the Hebrews. So from verse two on, he begins a series of temptations against Nehemiah. And in verse two, he begins to lay a plan in which he can harm Nehemiah. And the first thing that he does is to try to lure Nehemiah to this place, Hakafarim, in the plain of Ono, which is what you might think about as a neutral site. It's neither Jerusalem nor Samaria, which is where Sanballat had his residency. It's in neither of those places. So it's kind of like a neutral site, a neutral ground meeting place. And they try to lure Nehemiah there in order that they might do him harm. We know that because the narrator or Nehemiah himself has come to know that that was Sanballat's motivation, and it's included in what's given to us in verse 2. Now, it's again not clear if Nehemiah knows their plan because someone tells them, or because the Lord makes it known to him, or simply because he is using the gift of discernment But Nehemiah refuses their suggestion for a meeting. Now, what is Sanballat trying to accomplish in this meeting? What is Sanballat trying to lure Nehemiah? What is he using to try to lure Nehemiah away? The strategy that the enemies of God's people use is the offer of friendship. the offer of alliance. So he's saying, come down and let us meet together. Let us have a head-to-head. Let us consider together this work. It's really the temptation offered to Nehemiah that he would be more important, that he would be seen as important in Samaria as well. And that temptation really carries a lot of weight when God's people are led by prideful men, people who want a seat at the table, people who want to be important, people who want to be recognized by other men. Well, Nehemiah is not that kind of man. And Nehemiah refuses their attempts to draw him away from Jerusalem outright. It's actually kind of ironic because Sambalat is trying to lure Nehemiah away so that the work will stop. And Nehemiah doesn't address Sambalat by saying, hey, you're just trying to get me to stop building the walls, but he does kind of rub it in Sambalat's face a little bit, doesn't he? He says, I can't come to you because if I come to you, the work's going to stop. So the very thing that Sambalat is trying to bring about, which is the stopping of the rebuilding of the temple, that's the very reason that Nehemiah gives him for why he cannot go to this meeting. Sanbalat promises a little bit of friendship, a little bit of importance, and that can be a tremendous temptation. It's seen all throughout church history and in our own time as well, as churches line up to be influential, as churches line up to have this seat at the table, the promise of influence in the world. It's a tremendous draw for men. And yet Nehemiah will not leave off the work of rebuilding Jerusalem. He is not going to be distracted by these vain promises. And that quickly marks a change in Sanbalat's strategy. So when Nehemiah is steadfast in his opposition, the mask comes off pretty quickly from Sanbalat, doesn't it? Sanbalat very quickly moves from a temptation that would make Nehemiah more important to the temptation that he will be unimportant. They move from, hey, let's meet together, to this veiled threat that they are going to slander him. That Geshem the Arab, who happens to be their friend, is giving this report that Israel is planning to rebel, that Nehemiah is going to set himself up as king in Jerusalem, and that report is going to get back to Artaxerxes. which is not the kind of report you want to get back to the emperor of the Persian Empire. And so there is this opposite threat in some sense. They move from promising more importance to threatening that he will make him unimportant, that he will make him a stench in the nostrils of the king. And again, Nehemiah records for us the reason why they took this strategy. Like when they promised to make him more important, also when they threatened him, it says they all wanted to frighten us. thinking that in the threat that Nehemiah will become distracted, will become preoccupied with defending his own name, probably, and then therefore the work of Jerusalem will be stopped. And we should still be able to recognize in these plans that Sambalat has, the temptations that are brought to bear on the church today as well. from the world a little bit of friendship and influence, or a little bit of disapproval and slander. And the church must be careful not to fall into these traps that the world sets out. So the enemies have a particular strategy with which they want to have the building of Jerusalem. They want Nehemiah to cease from carrying out the very thing that the Lord had called him to do in Jerusalem. And that is a difficult thing to navigate. I don't want to pretend that it's all easy. Of course, you just say no to the world and everything is fine. It is difficult. There's a whole books filled with people who have fallen in this way. And we shouldn't think that we're above that. We shouldn't think that it's therefore all easy for us. But this is the attack from the outside. The temptation to be important or the temptation to be unimportant in the world. But as hard as it is to stand against the world, it is much more difficult to stand when friends undermine the work of the Church, when friends make attempts to have the work of the Church stop. And here there is such an instance, an instance of a friend, a person who should be on Nehemiah's side, who gives him a message with the specific intent of having him stop, of making him afraid. Nehemiah's God-given message is attacked by this man, this Shemaiah, of whom we don't know anything else. He is a prophet, he is an older man, and he attempts to stop the work as well. But he uses a very different strategy. His attack sounds very pious, doesn't it? He doesn't come with, hey, let me make you important in the world. He doesn't come with, hey, I'm going to report you to the king for this slanderous, baseless charge of sedition. No, he says, let us go to the temple. Let us go to the temple. Let us go to the place where God dwells among his people. And so his attempt sounds very pious. His office would make you think that his words should be pious. He is a prophet of God. And yet there is nothing trustworthy in his words. He is simply seeking to invite Nehemiah to meet him in the temple so that the work of the rebuilding of the wall would cease. We know that from verse 12. Again, Nehemiah understands that God had not sent Shemaiah, but that he had been hired by Tobiah and Sanballat. So he's on, as a prophet of God, he is on the side of the enemies of God's people. So really, this is part three in Saint-Belat's strategy to ruin the rebuilding of the wall. So first, Saint-Belat tries the temptation to be important. Second, he tries the temptation to avoid being unimportant. And then thirdly, he tempts Nehemiah to hide because his life is in danger. And all of them really are motivated from fear. But it says in verse 13 that he was hired so that I would be afraid and act in this way. And what does Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah, call that? The book of Nehemiah calls Nehemiah hiding in the temple sin. It calls it sin. The Shema'ai is trying to make him act in this way and sin so that he would be taunted and given a bad name in society because of his sin. So what's the challenge for Nehemiah? This last temptation is perhaps the most difficult for him to navigate because not only does he have to discern whether or not Shemaiah, who has the right kind of name ending, it's a Jewish name ending, and who has the right kind of job, he's a prophet of God, who gives the right kind of vocabulary in the sense that it is good to take shelter in the temple. And Shemaiah, as a deceiver, brings all this to bear on Nehemiah, and he has to navigate through this. He has to recognize not only that what Shemaiah is saying is not faithful, but he also has to recognize that Shemaiah is not his friend. And that's difficult, because we might look around in the world and recognize fairly quickly in the world that the world is not seeking friendship. In fact, we could look in parts of the Bible that says that friendship with the world is enmity against God. But what about when the people within the walls of the church are the ones who are leading the charge against the faithful ministry of the church? Shemaiah, his advice is contrary to God's directive. And ultimately, that's how you discern between friend or foe. Is your friend trying to draw you away from what God has commanded? And if they are trying to do that, You can be sure they are not being your friend. Now, of course, people can do that in all sorts of well-intentioned ways. Sometimes they don't even realize that they're doing it. But ultimately, our task is to discern whether or not there's faithfulness to the Word of God. If there's faithfulness to the Word of God, they're being my friend. If they're not being faithful to the Word of God, they're leading me astray. A person who wants to lead you away from the Lord, you can be certain, has not been sent by God. God did not send that kind of person because that person has the wrong kind of allegiance. And these live in the New Testament church as well. It's not unique to Jerusalem at Nehemiah's time. And by way of example, we can read together from John's third epistle. where he writes in verses 9 and 10 about one such person who is in the church, but who is an enemy of the church. And listen to these words from 3 John. "'I have written something to the church,' says John, "'but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.'" So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us, and not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to, and puts them out of the church. Diotrephes is in the church. and yet he is working against the Church. And that is a difficult thing to discern, but it can be discerned when you see men seeking their own glory and not the glory of the God of Scripture. So enemies can intimidate, that's what Sanbalat does in his first two temptations. Friends can undermine, as Shemaiah does, in tempting Nehemiah to flee to the temple. But in the final analysis, servants of God serve Him. And that's what the Church is called to do. The Church is called to stand against these kinds of temptations. Now, how do we do that? It's a very pressing question for today, because the world will try to silence the voice of the Church. And the world will do that by awakening within the Church the desire to be important, or by threatening and intimidating the Church into silence because of the fear of being unimportant. And the Church, in giving way to those temptations, will lose its mission and forget to be faithful. Now, don't get me wrong. The Church should desire, to be influential in the world. But influence in the world is not the church's primary preoccupation. There's nothing wrong with a church that is able to speak faithfully into the world, to call it to repentance, to show it the law of God, that the culture around may learn what holiness looks like. But in the Great Commission, Jesus charged to his disciples is not that they would gain positions of influence in the world, is it? The charge to the disciples in the Great Commission is that they would convert the lost and disciple those who are in the church, to baptize converts and to teach them all that Christ commanded. So, even though it is not wrong to have an influential church, and I think it's right for us all to pray that the church would have an influence on our society, If that influence interferes with that primary mission which Jesus gives the church, to be the agent of conversion and discipling of Christ's sheep, if the church loses sight of that mission for the sake of being influential, influence should be cast aside without even a moment's thought. The church must first be faithful to the mission that Christ gives it. Now, this morning, we had a similar kind of talk about the all-consuming nature of the Christian life, but it was more for the individual. Here, we're thinking particularly about what the church should do. What should the church do when tempted to lay aside its mission? And so there's no doubt the world will try to silence the church. It will slander church, it will present the church in the worst possible light, it will speak ill of its leaders, of its pastors, its ministers, and it will try to intimidate the church. The persecuted church testifies to the reality that there are men who seek to instill fear in the church. Why? So that the church will be silent. And so the question that's being treated by Nehemiah in his day is still very much relevant for today as well. In this congregation, we have had those kinds of attempts. There was one session meeting in particular where we received a letter from a lawyer that said if we continue to try to exercise discipline over this one former member, that a lawsuit would be coming our way. There was a threat to intimidate, a threat that we would be preoccupied with other battles. And so how does the church address those kinds of threats, which happen today still? If the church tries to avoid danger and insignificance, that is not necessarily a wrong thing. But if avoiding danger and insignificance brings you into conflict with your mission, then we should disregard these things. We should gladly face danger and be insignificant as a church if it means that we are being faithful to what God has called us to do. The mission of the church is not determined by the world. Neither is it determined by people in the church who would rather have a comfortable life. The mission of the church is determined by the God who purchased that church with the blood of His own Son. See, Christ is the center of the church's mission. Christ is the center of Nehemiah's mission. But you might say to yourself, how do I see Christ in the rebuilding of Jerusalem? How do I see Christ in this text? And I would say that this text is actually not a picture of Christ. So some parts of the Old Testament very clearly give us a picture of Christ. They point very directly to Christ. For example, Genesis 22, when the ram's horns get caught in the thicket and that ram is offered up instead of Isaac. very clearly a picture of Christ. Or when you look at the sacrificial system that the priests carried out at the tabernacle and the temple, very clearly a picture of Christ in the Old Testament. When you think about King David and the justice of his kingdom, very much a picture of the wisdom of Christ in his rule and reign as the perfect king. And when you think of the wisdom of Solomon and how his wisdom is far above all the other kings, so much so that all kingdoms look to him. So is the wisdom of Christ and even more. But we're not getting that kind of a treatment of Christ in this text. There's not really a picture of him that we can hang our hats on, but we do see, we do understand how we live in light of Christ. See, Nehemiah is living in light of the promises of God. He's living in light of his understanding, incomplete as it is, of the Messiah and his coming and the special place that the Israelites have in the world at that time. And so Nehemiah is showing us how the church should live in light of Christ. And when we face the temptations of the world, which Nehemiah also faced, when we face the temptation of being more important or being unimportant or being in danger, from Nehemiah's example, we can learn how we should stand as well. So what does Nehemiah do? How does Nehemiah stand? How does Nehemiah continue to serve? in light of these temptations? Well, first of all, in verse 3, we see that Nehemiah refuses to entertain the temptations brought to him by Sambalat. So Sambalat says, come and meet with us in this neutral location, and Nehemiah doesn't even consider doing that. Why is that? Because Nehemiah isn't concerned with pleasing Sanballat. Nehemiah isn't concerned with making sure that his relationship with Tobiah is squared away and that Geshem the Arab thinks well of him. Nehemiah has one purpose alone. Nehemiah's eyes are fixed on fulfilling God's mission. To be important in the eyes of the world is of no importance to Nehemiah, it is of no benefit to him, and it should be of no benefit to us either. Because if we leave behind the work that God has given us to do in the final analysis, we are being unfaithful to our detriment. And so the church should not seek to be important in the world's eyes. The church may become important in the world's eyes if God graciously blesses the ministry of the church, but the church should not seek that as its first objective. Organization, personal importance, is never the driver, should never be the driver, of what the church does. And so when a church positions and carries itself in such a way as to protect its place in the church, that is a church that is off mission. That is a church that has forgotten to follow the Lord in this moment. And that's true of the individuals that make up the church as well. Of course, we don't have the same relationship to the world as an organization does, as a church as a whole. We are individuals within a large society. And by and large, when we look at our church, we're not in the upper echelons of society. If you're like me, you're probably not being asked to occupy an important place as defined by Fox News. But there are other ways that we protect our own importance, other ways that we are tempted in the same way that Nehemiah was. For example, when we strive to preserve friendships, how often might we be silent if a person we admire invites us to be part of their circle? How might we be quiet if we think that that person would be offended by what we say? Or how often do we as Christians avoid situations where we think we will be the subject of public ridicule? If we want to be a leader at school, if we want to gain that promotion at work, That means we have to mute and stifle certain things. And Nehemiah's example says that's not acceptable, that we may not do that, that we should not do that. So Nehemiah refuses to entertain the temptations of Sambalat altogether. Also notice in verse 8, another thing that Nehemiah does is he refuses to engage in the attack on his reputation. Sambalat threatens him with this open letter. He's going to accuse him of sedition before the king. And in verse 8, Nehemiah is completely dismissive of that attack. It's almost actually comical how Nehemiah is able to take dismissing Sanbalat's open letter and add a rebuke into it without ever really engaging him. And so it says in verse 8 that Nehemiah responds to this open letter by saying, no such thing as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind. That's a great response to a world that's seeking to distract you. It's basically saying to the world, what you're saying is not true, and I'm not going to engage you on it. There would be a waste of my time to engage you on this false report that you've just invented in your own imagination. Alistair Begg, he's a man who has done much good in the church. Lately, he's made some bad, some dubious decisions, perhaps some bad advice that he's given, but I think he uses this verse, and he uses it very well. This is the account that he tells of when he hears criticism from a group of people that he knows to be only out for trouble in his church, he responds to it very politely. And he says, thank you for letting me know of your concern. I appreciate, I appreciate something like that. And then he signs his name, Pastor Begg, and he puts under it in brackets, Nehemiah 6, verse 8. So if that person has enough time to look up that Bible verse, what's he going to read? He's going to read that Alistair Begg is saying to him, this is not happening. You're making it up out of your own mind. See, to get dragged into an attempt to justify yourself when a person only wants to take you away from God's work is a fool's errand, because they will never be satisfied. And Nehemiah knows this with Sanballat. He knows Sanballat's not concerned about making sure he's not slandered before the king. Sanballat is willing to go into Jerusalem to murder the people of Israel. And so Nehemiah says, I don't have any time to deal with this. I have the Lord's work to do. And he entrusts himself that the Lord will preserve his people, so we should not engage in the attacks of the world. What else does Nehemiah do in standing against these temptations? Well, he prays. He prays to God for strength. There's two prayers that Nehemiah offers in this text. First one is in verse 9, and he asks God to strengthen his hands. Now, in verse 9, we know that the aim of Sanballat and his friends is to frighten the people of Israel, and Nehemiah Even though he is a character from a biblical book, we should not think that he is immune from those kind of temptations. In fact, the very nature of his prayer shows that at some level, Sanbalat has been successful. that at some level Sanballat has weakened Nehemiah's hands for the work. But what does Nehemiah do? He doesn't stop, he doesn't surrender to the temptation, but he prays to God that God would strengthen his hands. The work of the Christian is always fed by prayer, because in prayer we express our complete dependence on God. We will not survive any attack from the world, if we live our lives without prayer, if we live our lives simply in the strength of our own determination. But God's work in us strengthens us so that we can do his bidding. The second prayer is found in verse 14. It's a kind of an imprecatory prayer. It's asking God to remember the works of Tobiah and Sanballat. And what is Nehemiah doing here? It's a prayer, not so much for strength, but a prayer that asks God to take the onus of dealing with these people off Nehemiah. Nehemiah, in some sense, says, I will not deal with these false prophets. I will not deal with Tobiah. I will not deal with Sanballat. I must do your work. But, oh, Lord God, would you give heed? Would you pay attention to these enemies of your people? And by his prayer, he sets God's people free to walk faithfully with the conviction that God has commanded, that God has provided, that God will protect. And last of all, we see Nehemiah in verse 11. acknowledging that God's call on his life supersedes any human consideration. So Shemaiah is tempting him here, and he tempts Nehemiah to go into the temple again. And he wants Nehemiah to be a safety-first kind of man. And what is Nehemiah's response? Should such a man as I run away? Now, that's not to say that in all situations, Christians must stand and face danger. But if we are convinced that not standing would compromise our mission as Christians, then we must stand and face danger. Nehemiah is not free to run away because he is convinced he knows that God has sent him to do this work of rebuilding. Personal safety is not Nehemiah's first call. And in some sense, when you go back to that quote from Polycarp, that's his point as well. Are you really going to tell me that God has been good to me for 86 years? You're going to threaten me with some fire and I'm going to turn on God. He knows that he is called first to be faithful, even at the expense of his personal safety. Serving the Lord is always the church's first responsibility. And if being a faithful church means you are exposed to danger, sometimes that is necessary. It cannot be avoided. It's not seeking martyrdom. It's not elevating martyrdom as a good thing. But there are times when martyrdom cannot be avoided. And so that means that we as Christians, as a church, should walk steadfastly before the Lord and rely on the strength that He provides. The Christian call to faithfulness cannot be avoided when certain people want to change the objectives of the church. There's only one person who can change the mission of the church, and that is God Himself. He is the Creator, He is the Lord and Head of the Church, it is in His ways that the Church is to walk, and so when the world comes and in different ways tries to shut down the mission of the Church, the Church is obligated to protest, the Church is obligated to serve the Lord first. If you are in Christ, and the world tells you to stop doing what the Bible says you should at the threat of a sword, at the threat of danger, your answer in some way can be the answer of Nehemiah. Should such a man or woman as I run away? Now, I'm not at all suggesting that you do that flippantly. Because to take that stand and to say, I will not run away, has cost Christians their lives, has cost them their position, has cost them their houses, has cost them their freedom. But what can you do if you have been purchased by Christ? You cannot follow those who care nothing for your eternal good, who hate your Savior, who do not follow after Christ, and who despise his blood. But Christ has purchased his people. He has purchased them to an unfading, undefiled, eternal inheritance. And when that is accepted by faith, the reality is not that you could walk in God's ways, but you must walk in God's ways. You must follow after him first. That's the church's mission. We are called to follow after our Savior. So how does the church live in light of Christ? That's the picture that's given in this text, where God comes first, and then the Christian life follows, and the world hates both of those things. And so we should not be surprised when the world comes and seeks to silence the church. And we shouldn't be surprised if it uses clever devices to do that. And we shouldn't be surprised if they're dishonest in how they go about it. The world will appeal to the vanity of the Christian by promising importance. It will appeal to the vanity of the Christian by threatening obscurity. It will appeal to the Christian to preserve his own life using fear, threatening hardship. But none of these things drive the mission of the church. The mission of the church remains the same. God has given this mission. And it is His orders that the church must follow. And therefore, if a Sanbalat comes along and tempts you with importance, or tempts you with insignificance, or urges you to hide because your life is in danger, so that you would give up the mission that God has given to His people. Like Nehemiah, the call is to be faithful in all things. The call for the Christian, for the church, is the answer, should such a man as I run away. Let's pray together.