Picture: Union With the World Hinders God’s Cause 2TC 322.1
This chapter is based on Nehemiah 6.
With increasing hatred, Sanballat and his allies continued their secret efforts to discourage and injure the Jews. When the wall around Jerusalem would be finished and its gates set up, these enemies could not force an entrance into the city. So they were eager to stop the work. Finally they devised a plan to draw Nehemiah from his post of duty and kill or imprison him. 2TC 322.2
Pretending to desire a compromise, they invited him to meet them in a village on the plain of Ono. But enlightened by the Holy Spirit about their real intentions, he refused. “I sent messengers to them,” he wrote, “saying, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I can not come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?’” Four times the tempters sent similar messages, and each time they received the same answer. 2TC 322.3
Finding this unsuccessful, they resorted to a more daring ploy. Sanballat sent an open letter that said: “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 shall be reported to the king. So come, therefore, and let us consult together.” 2TC 323.1
Nehemiah was convinced that the reports the letter mentioned were completely false. Strengthening this conclusion was the fact that the letter was sent open, evidently so that the people might read the contents and become alarmed and intimidated. He promptly returned the answer: “No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart.” Nehemiah knew that these were attempts to discourage the builders and stop their efforts. 2TC 323.2
Now Satan set a trap that was still more subtle and dangerous for the servant of God. Sanballat hired men who claimed to be friends of Nehemiah to give him bad counsel as the word of the Lord. The chief one was Shemaiah, who previously had a good reputation with Nehemiah. This man shut himself in a chamber near the sanctuary, as if fearing that his life was in danger. The temple was protected by walls and gates, but the gates of the city were not yet set up. Professing great concern for Nehemiah’s safety, Shemaiah advised him, “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.” 2TC 323.3
If Nehemiah had followed this deceitful counsel, he would have sacrificed his faith in God and would have appeared cowardly. In view of the confidence he claimed to have in God’s power, it would have been inconsistent for him to hide. The alarm would have spread among the people, they would all have looked after their own safety, and the city would have been left to its enemies. This one unwise move on Nehemiah’s part would have been a virtual surrender of all that he had gained. 2TC 323.4
Nehemiah understood the true intent of his counselor. “I perceived that God had not sent him at all,” he says, “but that he pronounced this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him ... that I should be afraid and act that way and sin, so that they might have cause for an evil report.” 2TC 324.1
More than one of Nehemiah’s “friends” who were secretly in league with his enemies seconded Shemaiah’s counsel. But Nehemiah answered fearlessly, “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!” 2TC 324.2
Despite the enemies, in less than two months from Nehemiah’s arrival in Jerusalem the builders could walk on the walls and look down on their defeated and astonished foes. “When all our enemies heard of it,” Nehemiah wrote, “they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God.” 2TC 324.3
Yet even this evidence of the Lord’s controlling hand was not enough to restrain rebellion and corrupted loyalties among the Israelites. “The nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came to them. For many in Judah were pledged to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah.” A Judean family had intermarried with the enemies of God, and the relationship had compromised their commitments. Others had done the same. These were a source of constant trouble. 2TC 324.4
The nobles of Judah who had married idol-worshipers and who had held traitorous correspondence with Tobiah now represented him as an able and perceptive man, someone with whom the Jews would do well to make an alliance. At the same time they betrayed Nehemiah’s plans to him. In this way they gave opportunity to misinterpret Nehemiah’s words and acts and to hinder his work. 2TC 324.5
Satan has always directed his assaults against those who advance the work of God. Though often repulsed, he renews his at tacks with fresh vigor, using new approaches. But the attack we should fear the most is when he works secretly through the “friends” of God’s work. Open opposition may be fierce and cruel, but it carries far less danger to God’s cause than does the secret scheming of those who, while professing to serve God, are at heart the servants of Satan. 2TC 324.6
The prince of darkness will use every trick that he can suggest to persuade God’s servants to form an alliance with his agents. But, like Nehemiah, they should reply, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.” God’s workers must refuse to let threats or mockery or falsehood divert them from their work. Enemies are continually on their track. They must always “set a watch against them day and night.” Nehemiah 4:9. 2TC 325.1
As the time of the end draws near, Satan will use human agents to mock and condemn those who “build the wall.” The builders should work to defeat the plans of their adversaries, but they should not allow anything—not even friendship or sympathy—to call them from their task. Those who discourage their fellow workers by any unguarded act bring a stain on their own character that they cannot easily remove, and they place a serious obstacle in the way of their future usefulness. 2TC 325.2
“Those who forsake the law praise the wicked.” Proverbs 28:4. When those who are uniting with the world urge joining with those who have always opposed the cause of truth, we should shun them as firmly as did Nehemiah. We should resist such counsel resolutely. We must strongly withstand whatever influence would tend to unsettle the faith of God’s people in His guiding power. 2TC 325.3
The reason Nehemiah’s enemies failed to draw him into their power is that he relied so firmly on God. Evil finds little foothold in the life that has a noble aim, an absorbing purpose. God’s true servants work with a determination that will not fail, because they depend constantly on the throne of grace. God gives the Holy Spirit to help in every difficulty. If His people are watching the signs of His leading and are ready to cooperate, they will see mighty results. 2TC 325.4
