Handling your Sanballat and Tobiah (3) By Babatunde Olugboji
This week, we will conclude the series on Sanballat and Tobiah, the two men who discouraged Nehemiah as he sought to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem. How did Nehemiah handle them?
He anticipated the Unthinkable.
Sanballat was a leading man in Samaria (Nehemiah 2) and the Samaritans of Nehemiah’s days were different from the ones that Jesus interacted with. Four hundred years before Jesus discussed with a woman at the well about her multiple husbands issue (John 4), the Samaritans were an emerging race that were not so racially different from the Jews.
In Nehemiah’s time though, less than 200 years had passed since the fall of Jerusalem and the remnant returned, which meant that the Samaritans were much geologically closer to the Jews than they would be in the New Testament. This makes the fact that the Samaritans even threatened to kill the Jews even more barbarous.
Not since the period of the judges had there been such opposition between peoples that both claimed to be children of God. There were pockets throughout the period of the Kings where individual tribes were at odds with each other, but nothing to the degree of full-on warfare.
To prepare for this unthinkable situation, Nehemiah had his men work on the walls while simultaneously watching for any advance. They held a hammer in one hand and a spear in the other. It most likely made for a slower building project, but it covered all their bases while still focusing on the project at hand.
He kept the objective front and center.
The number one goal of any type of persecution is to stop the work from being completed. In Paul’s days, the Jews even made a vow that they would stop eating until they had killed Paul. (Acts 23:12-14) Considering that Paul lived for several more years afterwards, they either broke that vow or lived a very hungry life.
In Nehemiah 6:1-4, Sanballat and Tobiah asked Nehemiah to meet with them. Nehemiah’s response was classic Nehemiah: “Why should the work stop so I can come to you?” In Nehemiah 6:10-13, they tried again. The two men hired somebody inside Jerusalem to deceive Nehemiah into coming to the temple. Fortunately, Nehemiah saw through the trap and avoided it completely.
Both of these were attempts to interrupt the work and prevent them from completing it, and both represented efforts by our enemies to try and stop our work from its completion as well. As the end result became clear, Sanballat’s would grow stronger and more determined in his attempt to stop it.
Why? Because your success insults their willful failure.
He constantly called on God: “Remember Me, Oh My God, For Good”.
In Nehemiah 13:31, Nehemiah said ‘Remember Me, Oh My God, For Good,” as he closed out his book. With God’s help, he had achieved his goal of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, in spite of all the difficulties that mounted. And even though we don’t have a record of what God said in response, I would imagine it’s the same thing that he says to all of his faithful on the day of judgment who refused to allow the enemy to win. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Have a great week.
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