“For they all wanted to frighten us…” Nehemiah 6:8-9
While reading in Nehemiah 6 today, I was amazed at the immediate applications of this passage to our daily Christian lives. Here we have Nehemiah, trying with all his might to do a work of the Lord in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, and from the very beginning, he’s had opposition left and right. Now, it’s not that everything is against him. Not at all; in-fact, the “good hand of God” has been upon Him during this entire project despite the difficulty and setbacks (2:8, 18). Even then, this project is no easy task. Nehemiah and his men are under constant threat of physical attack, so they work with their swords ready to go. They are also under consistent spiritual and emotional attack as their enemies mock the futility of their immense building project, saying these “new” walls will fall down if so much as a little fox jumps up on them!
Sanballat and Tobiah are the driving force behind most of this mockery and opposition, and so far, their efforts have been ineffective in bringing this monumental undertaking to a halt. But in verse 6, they try a new strategy to stop Nehemiah from rebuilding these walls. They attempt to use what I believe, is also one of our Enemy’s favorite weapons: fear.
Nehemiah is just going about the work God’s given him to do, when one day he suddenly gets a letter from Sanballat saying: “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.”
Sanballat uses a letter to prey upon Nehemiah’s deepest fears. If the nations around him perceive this rebuilding of the walls as a sign of rebellion and hostility and word gets back to King Xerxes (who is not only allowing Nehemiah to build the walls, but ALSO paying all the bills) then that’s it for the entire project! All his work goes up in smoke, and so ends this great undertaking which Nehemiah has gone through great pains to bring about.
See what Sanballat did? He assessed Nehemiah’s desires and he looked to see what Nehemiah was holding close to his heart. What does he cherish? What gives him joy? What does he fear to lose? Then, seeing that Nehemiah desired to fulfill God’s calling to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls, he threatens that very thing. That’s how fear works; at it’s core, fear is always threatening to separate you from something you cherish or desire. It’s always going to attack you exactly were it hurts.
Nehemiah, however, perceives Sanballats designs and calls his bluff. Here’s how the Bible says Nehemiah responded to this threat:
“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, ‘ Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.’ But now, O God, Strengthen our hands.” (Neh 6:8-9)
He calls this fear out for what it is: a lie! There was no actual threat of the surrounding nations reporting to King Xerxes that Jerusalem was rebelling and Nehemiah was setting himself up as a king. Sanballat used a lie to produce fear in Nehemiah, and for what reason? He wanted Nehemiah and his workers’ hands to drop from their work. Sanbalat attempts to weaponize fear for its discouraging and paralytic effects. A brilliant strategy, and again, one that our enemy uses often.
Because fear works that way. It paralyzes. Intense physical fear can paralyze the body from action, causing people to “freeze up” and intense mental fear can have the same effect on our ministries. We stop putting in the work, we stop pursuing the Lord, we stop praying, we stop fighting for what is right. We get depressed, we get fatigued, we try to distract ourselves from the fear, we seek to avoid the fear, and before we know it, our hands have dropped from the work of seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
But spiritual paralysis isn’t the only effect of fear. A few verses later Sanballat hired a prophet to give Nehemiah a false prophecy encouraging him to go and hide in the temple because his enemies were supposedly coming to kill him by night. But Nehemiah sees though this ruse just as he did the first, saying: “For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.”
Fear can also cause us to sin. Fear distorts our perception and we start to act as if God were not good, as if his promises were not true, and before we know it, instead of acting from faith in God, we’re acting in the fear of the unknown. We run to things other than God for protection, and for comfort, we rely on our own understanding instead of trusting in the Lord (Prov 3:5-6), we bring misery upon ourselves trusting in man rather than allowing the Lord to be our trust (Jer 17:5-8). We act as if this fear is the defining truth of our lives and operate from that perspective rather than living in light of the reality of God. That He is good, that He ordains good for us, that there is no difficult circumstance He fails to use for our good and his glory (Rom 8:28, 2 Cor 4:17), that He cares for us, and we can cast our burdens on Him (1 Peter 5:7), that He has compassion on us like a father does on his children (Psalm 103:13). Fear erodes our faith, and when we’re not living from a place of faith and confidence in the goodness of God, sin is not far behind.
Our enemy works the same way as Sanballat; he is constantly attempting to use the fear of losing something we cherish to produce paralysis in our lives or to lead us into sin. So be on guard! Don’t let the enemy use fear to erode your faith and lead you into sloth and sin. During times of fear, like Nehamiah, pray that the Lord strengthens your hands and increases your work for the Kingdom! And rather than allowing fear to erode your faith and lead you into sin, press all the harder into His promises! Put your weight on them, they can take it! Find God’s promises in Scripture, pray them, then expectantly wait and see the Lord prove himself faithful.
- Pastor Sean
