Facing Opposition with Faith (Pt. 1)

1:03So they went on strike, and when they did, they experienced intense opposition. They were taunted. They had mace sprayed at them. They were beaten with billy clubs only feet away from military personnel with bayonets fixed on the ends of their rifles. These men faced the opposition with faith. Because they believed that justice would be served because they were crying out to God who had created them in his image and likeness. And so, after two months and four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in the same city, the mayor finally granted most of their requests, and the civil rights movement took a major step forward.

1:57Friends, last week we saw in Nehemiah chapter 3 how the building of the wall around Jerusalem began in earnest. And as it began, things seemed to be going very well. And so we know, because opposition was already hinted at earlier in the book, that that was probably not going to stay the same. And sure enough, here today in chapter 4, we see that opposition is going to arise against them. These opponents rise up and they're against God and his people and the work that they're doing.

2:27And so as we walk through this chapter today, my hope is that you're going to be reminded or that you're going to see for the first time that opposition is certain, and so we must learn to face it with faith. So let's begin here at the start of the chapter in verse 1. You see here in verse 1 that Sonblot and Tobiah and the adversaries, they hear the Jews are rebuilding the wall, and Nehemia says this in verse 1: He was angry and greatly enraged.

3:00Well, the question is: why is he so mad? We saw earlier in the book that these men were displeased that someone had come to seek the welfare of Israel, but there's no specific motive given either in chapter 2 or here in chapter 4. They're just really upset. And I think for us as modern Christians, especially those of us who have grown up in the West, we don't expect opposition. Opposition usually catches us off guard. We're surprised by it. But what we learn in the Bible is that opposition is certain. Look at what Paul writes to Timothy, his young disciple and a man who was pastoring a church. He says, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

4:00So if you want to follow Christ, Paul says, you will be persecuted. He doesn't say you might be persecuted. You need to watch out for that because at some point in your life that might happen. He says it's a certainty you will be persecuted if you follow Jesus. And Paul expounds upon this idea in Romans 1, where he says that all human beings from birth we have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. So what we have done is that we have Done, according to Paul in Romans 1, is that we can clearly see from what has been made that God exists.

4:37And we know from our consciences, that word conscience means with knowledge, con science. Our consciences tell us that we are accountable to God and that when we are sinning, we are rebelling against Him. Everyone is born with this knowledge, but we suppress it, we press it down, and we oppose God and His people and His work in the world. That's what we learned from Romans 1. And so, opposition is certain. Nehemiah and the Jews experience opposition because ultimately these people are opposed to God and His work in the world. That's the problem. So, Sonbilat jeers them. He calls them feeble Jews.

5:19He mocks their effort. He asks if they think they're going to finish up in a day. He says, How are you going to rebuild something with these stones, these burned stones? Tobiah jumps in. He says, Look, if a fox climbs up on that wall, it'll fall down. I'm sure that's a hilarious pun in his language. And it's obvious from the text that this jeering makes Nehemiah really upset. But you notice that he doesn't respond to them, doesn't say a word. In fact, back at the end of chapter two is the last time he actually talks to these men, and he tells them that they have no rights, no inheritance, no portion in Jerusalem. That's all he said, and that's all he's going to say to the. Men. Why?

6:03Look on the screen at Psalm 14. David says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Then we go to Proverbs chapter 26, which tells us, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Nehemiah understood that these men were fools. That they had said in their hearts, there is no God. This God that they claim to worship, he's not real, he has no power, he's not a big deal.

6:37And so he had determined he's not going to waste his time or his breath or his energy answering them. What does he do instead? He goes to God in prayer. Look at the middle of verse 4 here. He prays this, turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.

7:12Now that's an intense prayer. He's asking some really serious things. And chances are when you read that prayer, you hear me read that aloud to you, it elicits one of two responses, and maybe both. One response is to resonate with the prayer. A lot of people, and maybe you, have suffered grievous wrongs in this life. And because you've suffered grievous wrongs at the hands of others, you resonate with the Bible when the prayers of God's people sound like this. They're crying out for justice. They're crying out for God to do something about this situation.

7:55But the other response is to recoil from this prayer, is to look at these things that Nehemiah is praying. He's asking their guilt would remain forever. And those kinds of things make us uncomfortable. And so, what I want to do is offer you a few thoughts on how we should process Nehemiah's prayer. What can we learn from his prayer? The first thing is this: we should be angry at injustice. We should be angry at injustice. Now, we don't want to be sinfully angry, which would mean that either we're angry at the wrong things, we're angry at stuff we shouldn't be angry about, or we're angry in the wrong way.

8:45You're angry at the right stuff, but you're not expressing that anger in a God-honoring way, basically, all of social media. So, we don't want to be sinfully angry, angry at the wrong things or angry in the wrong way. We don't want to do that, but we should be angry at. Injustice. That should make us upset. Nehemiah was angry primarily because God was being mocked. His power, his promises, his honor is what's being mocked. Look again at verse 5. What does he say? They have provoked you to anger.

9:19He doesn't say they've provoked me to anger. He doesn't say they've provoked us to anger. He says, do these things because they've provoked you, God, to anger. So we should be angry at injustice. C.S. Lewis many years ago wrote a book called Reflections on the Psalms. And in this book, he's reflecting on the Psalms. And one section has to do with the imprecatory prayers in the Psalms, which are prayers like Nehemiah's here. Look on the screen at what C.S. Lewis wrote.

9:50If the Jews cursed more bitterly than the pagans, this was, I think, at least in part because they took right and wrong more seriously. For if we look at their railings, we find they are usually angry not simply because these things have been done to them, but because these things are manifestly wrong and hateful to God as well as to the victim. So we should be angry at injustice. But second, we have to remember that Nehemiah was an old covenant believer.

10:30Nehemiah was an old covenant believer, and what that means is that much about the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the work that he came to do and accomplish in his life, death, and resurrection, that was unknown to him. That was going to be hundreds of years later. He didn't know all that we know. He simply did not have our understanding of the Savior and his work. He did not have the understanding of the final judgment and how God was going to make all things right either on the cross or at the judgment. We know those things. So, given what Nehemiah knew, it's not surprising at all that he prayed for justice like this. And in fact, Nehemiah is doing the very thing that Paul tells us to do, commands us to do in Romans chapter 12.

11:18Paul says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Nehemiah does that very thing. He experiences opposition. He is angry at the injustice. And he goes to God in prayer and he expresses honestly and openly, this is how I'm feeling, and then he leaves it to God. He doesn't take vengeance into his own hands, he leaves it to the Lord.

11:56And then we come to verse 6, and you have to love this verse. These guys are. Opposing Nehemiah, they're opposing the workers, jeering at them, making fun of them, discouraging them. Look at what it says in verse 6. So we built the wall. Like, so what? So we built the wall. Nehemiah walked into this situation, understanding that he was going to be opposed. None of this came as a surprise to him. He was going to go to work in obedience to God, and he knew that he was going to be opposed because he was seeking to obey God with God's people and be about the work of the Lord. He knew he was going to be opposed. That didn't surprise him. It didn't catch him off guard. It didn't distract him. It didn't discourage him. He expected opposition.

12:50Friends, opposition is certain. So we must learn to face it with faith. And what that meant for Nehemiah and the Jews at this time is that they prayed to the Lord. They cried out to him. And they kept their hand on the trowel. They kept their hands on the shovel. They kept their hands on the hammer. They prayed and they continued to work because that's what faith looked like. And we have to learn to do the same thing. We have to face the opposition that is coming with faith, crying out to God and praying for him and then continuing to obey him. Even as we're opposed.

13:35Well, now we come to verse 7. And in verses 7 through 9, the opposition ramps up a lot. At this point in history, you have to understand Jerusalem was surrounded on three sides by enemies. And these enemies don't want the wall rebuilt. They don't want the Jews, God's people, to have a fortified city, a stronghold in their region. So in verse 8, you see that they plot together to come and fight against Jerusalem and cause confusion in it. Now, if you've been here since we started the sermon series, you know that King Artaxerxes, the Persian king, he not only authorized the rebuilding of the wall, but he committed to pay for it. So to oppose this, to fight against it, to do what they're planning to do, this is a treasonous act.

14:26The problem is, Susa, the capital where the king is, that's a thousand miles away. Remember, it took Nehemiah and his co-workers three to four months to travel there. So, best case scenario, a message gets carried back to Susa three to four months. The king finds out about it, decides what he's going to do, three to four months back for a word from him to either tell them to stop or to send the military to stop what they're doing. It is six to eight months, maybe twelve months, before anything can happen. There's no help coming.

14:58So, what does Nehemiah do? Look at verse 9. And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night. Let's talk about first what they didn't do. They didn't give up. They didn't do nothing. They didn't just set a guard. And they didn't just pray. First, they didn't give up. In the face of opposition, in the midst of this plot to fight and cause confusion, they could have just said this. Well, God is obviously not in this. If God was in this, if he wanted us to rebuild the wall, we wouldn't be experiencing opposition. But we are, so God must be closing that door. Isn't that the Christianese that we tend to use, open and close doors? Now, that's not the worst phrasing. And talking about life circumstances in terms of opening and closing doors, that can be helpful in terms of a tool for discernment.

16:10But friends, we have to understand, Satan knows where the door handle is, too. And he's happy to open doors for you at many different times in your life and encourage you to walk through them. And just because a door seems closed from our human perspective, Doesn't mean that by faith we're not supposed to walk through it or kick it down. And so, in the midst of opposition, they didn't give up. But, second, they didn't do nothing.

16:47In other words, in the face of opposition, they didn't just ignore this threat and pretend that it wasn't there. They didn't just go on with the work and act like nobody had threatened their lives. But that's the kind of stuff that professing believers in Christ do all the time. I think a good example of this is when somebody has symptoms of a serious disease and they won't go to the doctor to get that checked out. And they say, well, I'm just trusting God to heal me.

17:21When in reality, they're just doing nothing. They're ignoring the problem. They're ignoring the signs of the issue. And they're doing nothing about it. They don't do this. They don't just do nothing. The third thing they don't do is they don't just set a guard. Because they could have done that. They could have seen this opposition that was coming, and they could have said, Here's what we need to do. We need to set up the militia and we need to station them all around the walls and that will protect us.

17:54But, friends, we know from both scripture and human history that large weights. Well-trained armies have often been defeated by smaller, ill-equipped forces. So even if they had a large standing army, which they don't, not anything close to that, to put their trust in their militia would have been complete foolishness. Their militia can't protect them. Look at what David wrote in Psalm 20: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

18:35The fourth and final thing that they didn't do is they didn't just pray. They could have just prayed and presumed upon God's protection and said, Lord, we pray that you would protect us. And after they prayed that prayer, they could have said, okay, we ask God, so if he doesn't protect us, that's on him. Well, friends, that would be presuming upon the grace of God, and that's a total misunderstanding of the way that God ordinarily works. Can God protect you apart from any human means? Of course he can. We saw that Ezra last semester, when he led a group from the capital of Persia back to Jerusalem, he prayed to the Lord. They prayed to God. They didn't have a military escort, and God protected them just fine. God doesn't need any humans to help him.

19:25But that's not the way that God ordinarily works in our lives. God provides food for us to eat. How does he do that? Ordinarily, through our hard work at our daily jobs. God protects children. How does he ordinarily do that? Through parents who are watching out for them, who are making sure they don't make unwise choices that would lead them to get hurt or killed. That's how God ordinarily works. And so they don't just pray. So what do they do? They do two things: they pray and they prepare.

20:04First, they pray. Are you noticing a pattern in Nehemiah's life yet? Anything that happens in Nehemiah's life, no matter how big or how small, his first reaction is to pray. And I've said this a lot throughout the series. Nehemiah did not become a praying person when he needed to pray. He was already a praying person because that's how he lived his entire life. So when things went south, when things were crazy, when things were scary, Nehemiah's first instinct at that moment is to pray because that's what he does all the time. He prays.

20:44But friends, for a lot of us, that's not our first reaction. Here at New Life, we use this little series of books that Nine Marks produces on a variety of topics. You've probably read some of those. In fact, those of you who are going through the membership process right now are reading What is a Healthy Church? Member, which is one of those books. Well, there's another one that just came out recently on the subject of prayer by a man named John Onwachequa. And I want you to check out this quote. This is a great quote from the book. He says, This, where prayer is absent, it reinforces the assumption that we're okay without him. Infrequent prayer teaches a church that God is needed only in special situations, under certain circumstances, but not all. It teaches a church that God's help is intermittently necessary, not consistently so. It leads a church to believe that there are plenty of things we can do without God's help, and we need to bother Him only when we run into especially difficult situations.

21:50Well, friends, that lesson is going to be hammered home in Nehemiah again and again, and it's a lesson that we have to learn not just in our heads, but also in our hearts. Because for most of us, the problem is not in our heads, it's in our hearts. We know lots of information about prayer. We know what Jesus taught us about prayer. We know what the scripture teaches about prayer. The problem is not a lack of information, the problem is a lack of faith. We don't believe that we need God to move in our lives individually and collectively as a church. That's why we don't pray.

22:28The problem is with our hearts, not our hearts. Heads. And so the first thing they do is they pray. The second thing they do is they prepare. I want you to see here, they don't stop at prayer. He did pray and he prayed first, but Nehemiah doesn't stop there. They don't presume upon God's goodness and grace, thinking that because they've prayed, they don't need to do anything else. No, they set up a guard. That's wise. He understands that God works through means.

22:58And he believed that the means that God would use to protect them was setting up a guard. And so you can think of it this way: I live in a house with doors and locks and even a monitored alarm system. If I lived in a mud hut without a door, I would trust that God would protect me and my family. But I don't live in a mud hut with an open door. I live in a house with doors and locks and a monitored alarm system. So every night before I go to bed, I lock the doors and I turn on the alarm. And I trust that God is going to protect me and my family through those means. My ultimate hope and trust isn't in my doors and locks and alarm system. It's in God. But it would be foolish of me not to do those things when I have them available. And Nehemiah, in the same way, uses what resources that he has and exercises faith in God while he acts wisely. He prayed and he prepared. That's what it looked like at this point to face opposition with faith. They prayed and they prepared. To do only one of those two things is to either put our trust in man, the militia can protect us, or to presume upon the grace of God. We've prayed, and therefore God will protect us.

24:27Now we come to the end of the chapter in verses 10 through 23. And you can see right at the start of this section, Nehemiah is facing three huge problems as a leader. Look at verse 10. The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves, we will not be able to rebuild the wall. So the problem is that the initial excitement has worn off. The people are getting tired. There's not many of them, and there's miles and miles and miles of wall. They're wearing down.

25:08Verse 11, problem number 2. And our enemies said, they will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. Problem 3, verse 12. At that time, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us, Ten. Times, you must return to us. So these are probably the family members of those who have gone into Jerusalem to work on the wall. They are surrounded on three sides by enemies who are saying, We're going to come in the middle of the night and kill you. They are now going into Jerusalem and saying again and again, you've got to come home. You've got to come back. We are not safe.

25:54How is Nehemiah going to deal with these three huge problems? Well, look at verse 13. First thing he does, he stations people by their clans in the lowest parts of the wall in the open spaces. So he wisely puts the people there. And then he says this in verse 14. Do not be afraid of them. He says, fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. Now, that exhortation, if that was all he said, just sounds like something William Wallace said in Braveheart. Right? Don't be afraid. They may take our lives.

26:36I mean, have y'all not seen Braveheart? Has anyone seen Braveheart in this room? I mean, I know it's a 1990s movie, but come on. It's classic. He doesn't just say that. If he stopped there, all he's doing is kind of pumping up the troops. Look at what else he says in verse 14. He says this: Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome. Go down to verse 20. Look at what he says. Our God. Will fight for us.

27:05You see, when we face opposition, our adversaries and our problems tend to become bigger in our hearts and minds, even than God. So, what happens is we're so forgetful that the second there's a little bit of hostility, a little bit of obstruction, a little bit of conflict, and we forget all about God. So, we are told again and again in Scripture, remember the Lord. 186 times in the Old Testament, remember the Lord. 125 times in the New Testament, remember the Lord. Over 300 times in Scripture, remember the Lord.

27:57Well, what are we supposed to remember about him? First, we have to remember who He is. Who is God? He is the almighty creator and sustainer of all the earth. He is the God who Nehemiah says again and again in this book is great and awesome. He is all-powerful, almighty. No one can stand against him. He is for his people. He keeps his word. He is utterly trustworthy. That's who God is. We must. First, remember who he is.

28:33Second, we must remember what he's done. What has he done for the people up to this point? He has made promise after promise, and he has fulfilled them. He said, I'm going to cause you to be taken away into exile, and the people were. He said, After 70 years, I'm going to cause you to be brought back, and you will rebuild the temple. It was. And now he is saying, I will never leave you or forsake you, and he won't.

29:04We have to remember all that God has done, every promise that he has made, he has kept. But, friends, the third and maybe the most important thing that we must remember is we must remember what God has done for us. We have to remember what God has done for us. Because I think for a lot of us, it's really easy to remember all that God has done for other people, all that God has done in history. And to be honest with you, I bet you that Nehemiah and his contemporaries were just like us.

29:45You know why? Because the Bible says, no temptation has seized you except what is common to man. We sometimes think that these people were superheroes. Nehemiah and all these folks working on the wall, they're ordinary people just like you and me. So I bet you. That they were tempted to think to themselves, man, you know, back in David's day, God really did some stuff. Back when Moses was around, man, God was moving. In Abraham's day, God did so much. And so here we are in 2019, and we look back at Nehemiah's day and we think, man, God was active, He was awesome, He was really doing stuff.

30:26So, friends, it's critical that we remember not only what God has done in history, we have to remember what God has done for us. He has provided for us, He has protected us, He has saved us by calling us out of the darkness and into His marvelous light, raising our dead hearts to life again. He has done wonderful things, and we have to remember all of that. So, Nehemiah says, Remember the Lord, and that's what we need to do to remember all of those things so that we can face opposition with faith.

31:07So, the people, with that exhortation, remember the Lord, and they go on working, working with a weapon in one hand and a tool in the other. They have prayed and prepared, they are remembering and they're working. It's a beautiful picture of facing opposition with faith. Church, we are guaranteed to face opposition in this life. And when we face that opposition from people who are opposed to God and his people and his work, it's critical that we remember that we were once opposed to God as well.

31:51Look on the screen at Ephesians chapter 2. Paul says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

32:25That is who we were for those of us who are followers of Christ. But thankfully, God overcame our opposition to him through the work of Jesus, his son. See, we were following, just like everyone else from birth, the prince of the power of the air, Satan, and his schemes in this world. But John tells us in 1 John chapter 3 that the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to destroy the works of the devil. Devil. Through his sinless life and death and resurrection from the dead, Jesus saved those who opposed him. He died for all of our opposition to the Lord. He gave us new hearts that now are not opposed to God, but are for him and for his work and for his people. We have been set free from slavery to sin and we've been set free to walk in a new life. We're no longer opposed to God. And so if that's your story today, if you've been set free from opposition to God through faith in Christ, then all of the credit, all of the glory goes to God. He's the one who did that. You didn't do that. I didn't do that. God did that. And we can thank him for it.

33:45But there are some here today who are still opposed to God, who are still opposed to him and his work and his people. And if that's you, then you have to understand that part of the reason that you're opposed to God is because you have an adversary, the devil, who wants nothing more than for you to remain opposed to God, not just for the rest of this life, but for all eternity. That's what he wants. He wants to come and he wants to snatch away the word of God that you're hearing this morning. Maybe that you've heard for most of your life, just like birds snatch up seed that falls on a path.

34:38Thankfully, the Spirit of God is infinitely stronger than Satan, infinitely stronger than his work. And God is calling some of you this morning to end your opposition to God. And the way that you end that opposition to God is by first acknowledging that you are opposed to him. By understanding that your opposition to him is sinful and rebellious. By acknowledging that you need to be saved, you need to be forgiven and reconciled to God. And that the only way for that to happen is for you to put your faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came and lived obediently and died on the cross in your place for your sin, and then rose again from the dead so that you could be forgiven and so that you could be turned from an opponent of God to a child of God.

35:34I want to leave you with these words from 1 Peter chapter 5. I love this section of scripture. Peter says, Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. The world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

36:22Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word to us in Nehemiah chapter 4. We acknowledge that from birth every one of us was opposed to you. And yet you, in your kindness, your mercy, your grace, you came and lived and died through your Son for your opponents, for your enemies. And we thank you today that we're not your enemies, but are your friends, more than friends, your sons and daughters through faith. God, we pray this week as we face opposition from our family members, our friends, our co-workers, or our classmates. We pray that you would help us to face that opposition with faith.

37:27That we would pray and prepare. That we'd remember and we'd work for your glory and for the good of those around us. In Christ's name we pray all these things. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.