In the famous account of Nehemiah building the walls of Jerusalem, there is a not-quite-as-famous battle of wits between Nehemiah and Sanballat. Sanballat was a ruler of the region, but not with legal authority. He ruled by oppression and occupation but never had any formal authority in Jerusalem, Judea, nor even under the Persian Empire at the time. However, he was a person of great influence and he inserted himself into a position of power, though it was never by legal right.
When Nehemiah came to rebuild the walls, he started out by investigating the situation in secret. He had letters from the King of Persia with authority to do what he was going to do, but he didn’t come announcing he was going to rebuild Jerusalem. He didn’t tell anyone what he had planned until he was ready to actually start it. He knew he would face opposition, so he would not stir it up before necessary. The rebuilding started and Sanballat, along with Tobiah and Geshem, heard about it. They had no legal authority to stop the rebuilding, but they were determined to do anything they could to discourage it and to stop it.
Sanballat approaches Nehemiah in nine different ways and tactics. Eric Ludy gives a powerful sermon about Nehemiah and how he handles each of these nine lies and tactics. This is a good resource, but I want to emphasize on just a couple of the tactics here: the boastings of superiority and the futility of doing God’s work. Together, Sanballat and Tobiah mock Nehemiah. They accused him of defying legal authority (despite actually having legal permission to do this directly from the king). They laughed, saying it would never be completed, that the stones were too brittle (limestone gets weak when burned) to do anything, and that if even a fox were to push against it, it would fall. Nehemiah repeatedly ignored what they said and continued working. When that didn’t work, Sanballat attempted a threat of brute force, only for Nehemiah to be ready by stationing soldiers in the gaps while the workers continued to raise the walls. The attack never came.
Sanballat had no real power. He had no legal authority to stop Nehemiah nor any legal right to oppress him. All Nehemiah had to do was report this to the King of Persia (remember that Nehemiah was the cup-bearer to him, one of the most trusted advisors and friends of the king) and it would be over. But it would take months for a report to get to the king and back so Nehemiah had to deal with the issue right then and there. But he knew that Sanballat did not have the power he boasted. Nehemiah could see through the smoke and mirrors that the great power Sanballat claimed was really nothing. And each time, Nehemiah turned to the Lord for protection and for strength to finish the walls, and he claimed victory. When he finished the walls, Sanballat moaned in despair because Jerusalem had been restored (though not to its former glory at that point).
I see two things out of Sanballat for the purposes of this post: how sneaky the enemy is to get within our ranks and usurp power not legally theirs, and how they boast about things they don’t actually have. I caught something very disturbing about both Sanballat and Tobiah as I have studied Nehemiah. They had connections to Eliashib, the High Priest of Nehemiah’s time. Sanballat’s daughter was married to Eliashib’s grandson. Then Eliashib later provided housing for Tobiah not merely in Jerusalem, but in the temple itself. These two enemies of God and enemies of Israel were allied with the High Priest, the first name listed among the builders of the wall. Our enemy constantly seeks to get within our ranks to infiltrate and corrupt us from within. That’s why Jesus warned us about wolves in sheep’s clothing. And today, because there is virtually no one alert and paying attention to the care of the flocks, many shepherds out there are not shepherds, but at best mere hirelings. A number of them are wolves leading their flocks astray to their dens to become the feast.
But another thing they did was to mock and ridicule any who would dare stand up for truth, build the walls to protect Biblical integrity and sound doctrine, and to care for the welfare of the people. They were not Jews who worshiped the same God, but heathen who had infiltrated into the “church” to lead them astray from within. They would not stand to see those who stand for truth make a stance, because a shepherd defending a sheep is “stealing” a meal from a wolf.
This is one of the most common attacks we face today, but unlike Nehemiah, many of us fall for the boastings. In academia, the heathen boast about all the evidence against the Bible and for Evolution. But every time I investigate the evidence provided, it does not take me long to find out that the evidence never does what it needs to do to show such claims. It’s the same smoke and mirrors Sanballat tried in declaring the wall would never last. The so-called “mountain of evidence” for Evolution quickly turns out to be a little more than a dirt clod that is crushed with slight touch.
So much of the attacks on Christianity actually have no power behind them. With powerful lobbies like the ACLU, who act as “watchdogs” to protect secularism from truth, they constantly try to bully and threaten lawsuits against any institution who dares to bring the Biblical message into the public square. But they really do not have the legal power to stop us, though they have done a good job at getting us to believe they do, and they have done a good job at convincing public schools and businesses and judges that they do. Now, we still need to be respectful of the institutions in authority and not be belligerent about it, however, the attacks on Christianity are like those of Sanballat: big words and big boasts with little true power behind it, unless we believe they have it.
Sometimes we are faced with real legal threats and lies. Ezra faced that when building the Temple. His enemies lied about his intentions and got the king to get them to stop building the Temple, despite having previous legal permission to do so. Sanballat could not do this because Nehemiah was perhaps the king’s best friend as his cup-bearer. Plus, by the time word got back to him, the walls would have been finished. So sometimes it does happen, but for the most part, the attacks on Christians for practicing their faith are like Sanballat: boasts but no true power to stop it. Don’t fall for it. Do not fear what man can do to us. If we are going to be obedient to God, there is nothing that can stop us, even if we get detoured for a little bit. The boasts of the enemy are simply that: boasts. They are not truth. We stand by the Word of God, and my God does not lose. I’ll stand by Him, despite all the boasting of the enemy.
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