Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work (Nehemiah 4:6 NKJV).

After the rebuilding process has started and you have made up your mind to do it, your enemies will rise up with greater fervour. Nehemiah’s enemies were constantly watching and waiting for an opportunity to stop the work or to get them to abort it. We must remember that these enemies were intelligent people who were officials in their countries. Sanballat was a Samaritan leader. The Samaritans were mixed heritage people from Arab and Jewish stock. Many worshipped Yahweh but others worshipped their traditional Gods. It was a descendant of Samaria who Jesus met at Jacob’s well in John 4 who declared that the Jews claimed that true worship could only occur in Jerusalem.  

Tobiah was an Ammonite official. These people are descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who because of disobedience ended up in Sodom and had to be rescued by Abraham before God destroyed the place. The name actually means God is good.

The final person of this unholy alliance is Geshem who was a probably an Ashdodite, although the bible calls him an Arab (Neh 6:1). His name means rain, while Sanballat’s means hate in disguise.

These three officials formed the bedrock of the opposition to what God was doing through Nehemiah. But however hard they tried, they could not succeed in stopping the restoration process because, ‘the people had a mind to biuld.’ Although Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem are people who are characterised by their spirit of rebellion, they could not thwart what God had planned.

Today, remember that it is God’s purposes that will prevail, men plan and plot but it is God’s will that will be done in the earth. So get your mind in gear to press through the opposition that tries to stop your restoration.

Read Nehemiah 6.