(Ridicule and Anger)
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Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date November 23, 2025
Text Nehemiah 4:1-16
Pastor Paul Lehmann
In “The Calling” Brother Andrew the missionary who is best known for smuggling bibles behind the old “iron curtain,’ writes; We were planning to smuggle one million Bibles into China. Wanting to be sure that the believers in the country realized the immensity of the task and were willing to accept the risks, we sent Joseph, a Chinese team member, to meet with the key house-church leaders. “So you know how much space one million. Bibles take up? Joseph asked. “We have already prepared storage places,” they replied. “Do you know what could happen to you,” Joseph continued, “if you were caught with even a portion of these Bibles? “Joseph” they said, “all five of us have been in prison for the Lord,” they replied. “All together, we’ve spent 75 years in jail for Jesus. We are willing to die if it means that a million brothers and sisters can have a copy of God’s word.” With tears in his eyes, Joseph folded up his long list of questions and put it away.
Whether it is risking our life or risking our reputation, serving the Lord by sharing the gospel requires courage. God never said his work was safe.
Nehemiah didn’t consider if the work he was undertaking was safe or not. He didn’t shy away from what God had called him to do because he thought he might get persecuted. We talked about last week how Nehemiah prepared to go to Jerusalem, and what a blessing he received from the Lord, so he could do what was on his heart to do——repair the walls of Jerusalem. Chapter 3 tells us that: Everyone joined in to rebuild the wall of that city that had lain in ruins. The name of God was brought to shame, and it was the recognition of that fact which was the inspiration of all their service for God. Remember, as long as the wall of our lives are in ruins, (for we are laborers together with him in the extension of his Kingdom and to the glory of his name, so; When our personal lives and our church is in spiritual ruins, his name is being dishonored still, indeed, more so, for the blood of Jesus has been shed, and;
We have the help of tThe Holy Spirit who has been sent down into our hearts. WHY? To build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ himself and to reproduce his life within each one of us.
The general principles of allocation of labor was that every man repaired beside or in front of his house. He was given that part of the wall which he would naturally be expected to be the most interested, and incidentally and more importantly, the bit of wall where the quality of his work would be the more readily tested by those who knew him best. The true quality of our Christian life is always tested the most severely at home, (your spouse or family members know you best) and sadly it is there that it is most often neglected. If we serve the Lord or the church at the expense of our duty to our family loved ones and the responsibilities of our homes, there is something wrong with the balance of our Christian lives.
NOW HERE IN CHAPTER 4, WE SEE THE WALLS PROCEEDING TO GO UP AND THE OPPOSTION IS GATHERING ITS FORCES.
Finally we read the thrilling story of the enemy’s complete overthrow.
What is the real nature of this opposition? We can look at not only the Old “Testament but also the New Testament.
In the Old Testament we always see an illustration of New Testament truth and 21st century experience. As we see the tactics of the enemy in Nehemiah’s day, we shall discover that he uses exactly the same tactics with us, and he used them against our Lord Jesus Christ also.
We must examine the secret of overthrowing and defeating him, which was not only Nehemiah’s but was also our Lord’s and must be ours if we would overcome.
WHEREVER A WORK IS ATTEMPTED FOR GOD, USUALLY OPPOSITION IS ALWAYS FIRST FROM WITHOUT AND THEN FROM WITHIN.
It comes from external circumstances and from internal enemies.
Here the first sign of opposition is from without and it takes the form of internal enemies.
1.) (Verses 2 and 3) “Anger, ridicule and scorn.” It is pretty crushing.
“Your personnel is completely weak. Your task is absolutely impossible. Even if you do start out, god isn’t going to take any notice of you and He won’t help you.
How subtle, and how modern this approach! When the “Christian dares to say that the only hope of the world is in the gospel of God’s redeeming grace, the whole force of modern civilization and education lines up against him. You are told that “your position is intolerant! How can you say that Christ is the only way? They might even say, :you with your feeble prayer meetings and worship services, and your silly plan of getting people converted one by one, is not efficient and does more harm than good. That is nothing and can[t possible stand alongside our great social economic program in which a whole world can be revolutionized in a few years/ You guys are pitiful!”
The world judges everything by size, by headlines, by vast advertisements and ultimately economic success.” The small churches compared to the mega churches are nothing in the eyes of the world, and even in the evangelical community. They say you have no intellect. You are out of date. You have no status. You have no money (comparatively speaking.) Now this is a paradox because if you have a lot of money or are successful financially and are doing a lot for the Lord, the Media might just jump all over you and say that yo are always asking for money, or you are “hoodwinking” the people.
How tragic though this is, because it is also the mentality of those within the small Christina church. The thinking of the world has sometimes infiltrated the church, so that even Christian people seem to believe that to accomplish anything for God you must prove to the world that you can put on something big. I have much regard for mass evangelism, and mega churches who preach the gospel and are growing and reaching out to a whole generation of unchurched people who normally wouldn’t darken the door of the church, but the New Testament methods never put on a splash and they didn’t depend upon machinery and charismatic personalities and publicity.
God’s work depends on everyone with a mind to work who will be on the bob seven days a week, night and day.
When we see that spiritual revival is the greatest need of our time, the scornful reply is, we are doing it. Praying for revival? Prayers won’t cut it, we must act,. If prayer is so effective, why doesn’t God take care of some of the problems in society today, when we ask him to? Or better still, why doesn’t He do it without prayer meetings? (Only people who aren’t born-again would say such things.)
Whenever a work of God is begun, in heart or homes, Satan uses the method of scorn, to discourage God’s people. The sad thing is that Satan often employs professing Christian people to discourage us sometimes it comes from those who are very close to us, and sometimes it hurts desperately.
There is the scorn of the husband heaped upon the wife who receives Christ and is going to seek to live for him. The scorn of the father and mother whose children express a desire to follow Jesus, and they are put down for this decision, and have no cooperation from the parents to be with Christians at church. Or the scorn of parents whose children express a desire to equip themselves for Christian service, or when a couple is split on the way they see spiritual thigs. One want to center their relationship around Christ and put him first, and the other mocks that desire and calls it religious fanaticism. The one who wants to listen to the message of the Spirit filled life is always scorned by other self!-righteous people who call that desire fanatical and extreme! They might say; “you have all you will ever need in Jesus form the moment of your conversion, or baptism. Don’t expect anything more.” Satan is seeking to quench the desire for a deeper Christian life by making a person believe that because their position in heaven is eternally secure nothing else matters. The truth is that every day of our life our heart’s should be hungry for more and more of Jesus and his power.
But this kind of scorn from within, form those we love, hurts more than from the mocking of the world.
The opposition to Nehemiah was not only scornful but it was POWERFUL. IT WAS A UNITED EFFORT AGAINST THE WORK OF GOD.
How was it overcome? In verse 4 we see that they prayed. They actually prayed against the enemy. How amazing that warring factions, have suddenly put aside all of their differences and have united against Nehemiah Mutual enemies have become mutual friends in order to stamp out the work of God.
This kind of thing hit the Lord Jesus Christ too. Luke 22:63 we read that the men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating Him . They said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the chosen One.” (the Messiah)Scorn, shame, sarcasm, and withering, biting opposition.
During Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:12) tells us that Jesus appeared before Herod and Pilate that they became friends. Before this they had been enemies.
Whatever you have been through it hasn’t been as bad as it was for Nehemiah, or for our Lord Jesus Christ, and not as bad as it was for Paul or the other apostles. It isn’t as bad as it was for the Chinese Christians that Brother Andrew told about, who had been imprisoned for their faith.
Perhaps some of you may be thinking: “I haven’t ever suffered in any way for my faith. I really don’t know anything about that. No one has eve mocked me, or persecuted me for my faith.” That must be something that weird type Christians have to put up with. They got ridiculed because they are extremists and cause a lot of problems at work or in the neighborhood. Don’t congratulate yourself if you don’t struggle with persecution. Maybe Satan doesn’t think you are a problem at all. You’re not worth bothering with, because you haven’t given a strong enough witness for Christ.
Notice how hard they worked on the wall. It seemed like they were determined to finish everything in one day. It actually took them 52 days, which was very quick at that. It was because they had so much cooperation and the work was divided up. They were determined to finish the task, however long it took. It was just this spirit, which roused the attack of the enemy. He never bothers about half-hearted Christians either. But one you are desperate for god and become burdened for the salvation of others, then all the demons of hell will oppose you.
Sanballat’s scorn was only a cloak for something else. What was it? Verse 1 says; “Sanballat became angry and was greatly incensed.” Actually the two Hebrew words use here mean “burning with rage.” This is pretty strong language. He is a picture of how people oppose those whose work displeases them. ANGER AND RIDICULE His kind of talk helps develop group hatred and prepares minds to justify violence. The fact was he had no logical reason to keep Nehemiah from building up those walls. He had no souldn argument against it, and therefore he was desperatel angry that someone should come along and do this thingl And if people jeer at our Christian testimony today, it is because they have no argument against the gospel.
The World will always be angry at any message, which exposes sin. If a preacher dares to emphasize the truth that the New Testament demands repentance, that behind all saving faith there must be a deliberate turning from sin before there can be any blessing, that the gospel ruthlessly exposes our tragic condition and our utter bankruptcy before it applies the balm of Gilead—I’m telling you, the world will always be angry at a message like that Unfortunately some professing Christians will be too.
NOW, HOW WAS THE OPPOSTION OVERCOME? Did Nehemiah panic or get very worried? Did he answer bak or retaliate? Not at all. What did he do? (verse 6 tells ) “So we rebuilt the wall.” He just kept on building and ignored them, for “the people had a mind to work. They worked with all their heart.
God’s people did not mope over the difficulties, nor did they find fault or gossip: neither did they answer bak or retaliate; they simply concentrated on doing the thing that God had called them to do.
That’s how the Lord Jesus overcame for us. “when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate, when he suffered, he made not threats, instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (I Peter 2:23)
He didn’t open his mouth, when he was oppressed and afflicted. Isaiah tells us in his Messianic prophesy (53:7) He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
He just went right through until, at the end of it all, having come through all that hell could concentrate upon him, he cried, as he hung upon the cross, “IT IS FINISHED” (THE DEBT IS PAID) that’s what the words he used mean. So heaven was opened from that day to every guilty sinner who comes to God through faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
That is how he overcame!
When the scorn, sarcasm and opposition of the enemy are flooding in upon your life, no matter if it be from you’re nearest and earnest associate and colleague, your friend or loved one, you may ask, “How can I overcome?”
As Jesus did, you don’t fight back. You don’t retaliate.
REMEMBER THE PEOPLE HAD A MIND AND THE HEART TO WORK.
Philippians 2:5-8 tells us: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who being in very nature, God, di not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. “
Are we ready to say to him, Lord give me your mind to serve, your mind to work, GIVE ME A HEART LIKE YOURS —–“I NEED A HEART TRANSPLANT”
We must be on guard. Watch out for things and people who Satan uses to defeat us. We must pray for protection and that the enemy of our souls will be defeated Perhaps you have not taken a stand against the enemy and you have actually been taking his side. You need to change sides. Get on the side of victory. Have a mind and heart to work. To be watchful against the enemy, and have a heart to PRAY. BUILD THE WALL.