Old Testament

Opposition is almost always caused by success and not failure. So the first thing we should know, if we are trying to do something worthwhile and are being opposed, is that it is because we are achieving something. We should be encouraged by it.

In yesterday’s study, we looked at two reasons why people do not like when someone else succeeds. Today we consider some other reasons.

We are now going to see the forms such opposition takes. In this and the next two chapters (chapters 4-6) we will see how opposition came to Nehemiah and how he successfully contended with many different forms of opposition and overcame it.

The larger second half of Nehemiah 4 contains a second form of opposition to the governor’s work, the threat of physical violence. Nehemiah introduces the problem in verses 7 and 8 and describes how he met it in verses 9-23. The introductory verses say, “But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it.”

It is not surprising in light of the first two points that this form of opposition was effective, at least upon the people who lived near these enemies but who were helping to rebuild Jerusalem. They knew the strength of these foes and reported, apparently with genuine fear and discouragement, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us” (v. 12).

Suddenly, to judge from the tone of chapter 5, a new form of opposition erupted and from an unexpected source. The first two forms of opposition had been from without, from Israel’s enemies. This new form was from within. It arose because of wrong conduct by some of the Jewish people themselves.

The problem that erupted internally at this point is described very well in verses 1-5. “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.”

How is a leader to deal with injustices, such as that which occurs when the rich mistreat the poor, particularly when they are practiced by the influential against the uninfluential? How can a person confront evil when the strong have the law on their side, as they usually do? The first thing Nehemiah tells us is that he got angry about these injustices. In fact, he got very angry. “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry,” he says (v. 6).

I am indebted to Frank R. Tillapaugh for some important thoughts at this point, based on the fact that in order to have a public meeting Nehemiah must have pulled his workers off the wall. In normal circumstances this would not have been remarkable. But these were not normal circumstances. Nehemiah’s one goal was to build the wall, and to build it quickly before the effort could be stopped by Israel’s enemies. He had everyone working. Yet now Nehemiah stops the work and holds a public meeting. Why was this?

The astonishing thing about this chapter is that Nehemiah succeeded. We know that he was against stiff opposition because the nobles did not respond when he had approached them earlier. Nevertheless, after Nehemiah had exposed the wrong being done and had challenged the offenders to return the pledged fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, refund the interest and stop the usury, the nobles responded, “We will give it back…and we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say” (v. 12). Nehemiah made sure it happened.

With the internal dissension behind him, Nehemiah once again returned the workers to the walls and soon made such progress that within a short time the entire wall was completed to its full height. Only the gates remained to be constructed. Suddenly, just when the work seemed about to be finished, a final phase of his enemies’ opposition unfolded.

Isn’t dialogue good? Isn’t it always better to talk than to fight, to keep the lines of communication open? Isn’t refusal to talk to our opponents always unnecessarily and unreasonably belligerent? Isn’t there a time to let bygones be bygones, to bury the hatchet? What possible reason can there be for refusing to talk once the election is over or the job is done?

Who is not afraid or disturbed or hurt at times? We all are. Yet it is precisely when we yield those fears to God and press on that we show leadership.

The final form of opposition was outright intimidation. Like the others it too was subtle. Shemaiah, a man who was regarded as a prophet, sent for Nehemiah. Nehemiah tells us that Shemaiah was shut up in his house, though we do not know why. Whatever the immediate cause, the underlying reason was a carefully designed ruse to discredit Nehemiah. When Nehemiah accepted the invitation and went to see him, Shemaiah said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you….”

In these first chapters we learn something important about the secret of Nehemiah’s success as a leader and man of God. This is a place to review these leadership characteristics. There are five of them.