Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: When you decide that you want to do what's right and you want to rebuild your life, the walls of your life through the Lord, guess what's going to happen? Ridicule is going to come from the enemy. Why? Because the enemy is constantly ridiculing the work of God. He criticizes everything that He does for you. They criticize you and they criticize God.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. We're beginning a new week in our series in the book of Nehemiah. Today, Raul will urge us to hold fast to the Lord when we encounter opposition to our faith. If you're walking faithfully before the Lord, you can expect to come under spiritual attack, but you can also move forward with confidence in the Lord's protection and provision as you obey His commands. Today's study is titled "Our God Will Fight For Us." Here's Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: In chapter four now, Nehemiah, because he has been committed to the work of God, we must understand that whenever you commit yourself to God and you commit yourself to the work of God, expect Satan to attack you and to mock you and to criticize you. This is something that Satan will do completely and fully in the life of every child of God that has fully submitted and committed himself to the lordship of Christ. You can't get away from it. It will happen to you.

Nehemiah's arrival in Jerusalem was a threat to Sanballat and to his associates. The world would love for us to be dependent upon them, and when we were in the world, we did that. But now that we've come to Jesus Christ and accepted His love and grace and mercy, and our dependency is in the Lord, sometimes that even affects our relationship with our loved ones and friends and even our employees and employers because they see the commitment that we have to the lordship of Christ.

When Nehemiah came and he was a cupbearer to the King's court, and he had never been in Jerusalem, he had come as a servant of the Lord. And he had come with a mission and a great vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that had been torn down and even the doors had been. Not only the city walls had been burned down to the ground, but also the gates had been torn down. There was no protection for the city or for the people of God.

And Nehemiah left everything when he heard the report from his brother, Hanani, about the city of Jerusalem. And he decided that he would take the commission of going and fulfilling not only God's work, but helping his own people by going back and seeing if God would give him favor with the King and the King would give him permission to go back and rebuild the walls and the gates of Jerusalem, that marvelous, beautiful city of God. Jerusalem, such a wonderful place to be when you visit there.

And yet when Nehemiah came and permission was granted to him, Nehemiah began to not only spy out the city walls and the gates before he ever told anybody anything about rebuilding the walls. And prayerfully he went from gate to gate and from wall to wall. And finally when he saw the destruction, Nehemiah received favor from the Lord. And because he was a visionary person, and when these men, Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, heard that this guy was coming to help his people and to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem and to put up the gates, they became very concerned about that because now they had been hassling, oppressing and depressing the people of God.

And Satan was doing a job on the people of God. You see, a strong Jerusalem would endanger the balance of power in the region here and it would also rob Sanballat and his friends from influence and wealth that they were seeking for. So they didn't really want anybody to interfere with what they were planning to do and really bringing fear to the people of God. And usually that's what the enemy will do. The enemy will intimidate.

I remember when I was in Vietnam and we were out on patrols and full operations and we'd be out in the field. And during the night when we set up our perimeter for the enemy, you could hear at night, they set up these speakers and with a microphone and they would say, "Marine, tomorrow you die" and try to intimidate us during the night. And we could hear the voice. But that would not really discourage us. It would encourage us and it would make us even with greater protection and a greater confidence to fight our enemy because they were trying to intimidate us and we knew that.

And yet here, Sanballat, Tobiah and the Arabians were doing the same thing. Think of how many people you know and you may be here tonight where Satan has robbed your life, totally stole your life. I think of how many young people, their youth is stolen by Satan. And one day they finally wake up and they look at their life and they say, "Man, what did I do with my youth?"

Satan's a deceiver, he's the robber, he's a thief. The Bible says that he's come to rob and to steal and to kill. That's what the Bible teaches. And yet here we have a picture of the enemy oppressing, mocking and criticizing the work of God that He was doing in the life of the people. Interesting that people will do that. When you come to Christ, people will criticize you. People will mock you. People will attack you because you've committed your whole life to Jesus Christ. They don't like that. People become jealous of you.

And yet if God is for me, then who can be against me? Who can really be against me if God is for me? You see, and what's interesting here in chapter four, beginning with verses one through six, the first thing that happens here is that he begins, the enemy begins his attack by ridicule. Ridicule. They began to ridicule the work of God.

Look what he says. "But it so happened, it came to pass, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, that he was furious and very indignant and mocked the Jews." Now I find this very interesting because whenever the enemy sees that a person on drugs or alcohol or sexual adventures or anger, whatever sin may be in your life that is taking you down, when you decide that you want to do what's right and you want to rebuild your life, the walls in your life through the Lord, guess what's going to happen? Ridicule is going to come from the enemy.

You're going to hear ridicule from your friends. You're going to hear ridicule from your family. You're going to hear ridicule from your enemies. Why? Because the enemy is constantly ridiculing the work of God. He criticizes everything that He does for you. They criticize you and they criticize God. And yet we know that God has rebuilt the walls in my life. I'm not the way I used to be. I was pretty messed up. And God was the one that reached down to me and I looked up to Him and He's the one that changed my life and He began to rebuild the walls in my life.

And it's taken Him not only 34 years, but it's going to take all of my life until I go to be perfect with the Lord in eternity because there's always something to take care of the wall. There's always something to fix because we're human. And this is really important. You see, our involvement in the work of the Lord will be mocked, especially when your commitment to Jesus Christ is fully and completely. People will say, "You know what?" You'll start losing friends. You might even lose your job.

You're going to be not only criticized by people, but you might even get kicked out of your house because now your parents will say to you, or whoever it is, "You know what? I love you the way you were before. Now you're too religious for me. You got too much of Jesus and we don't want to hear it. Why don't you find your own place to live?" You see, and it happens and it will happen again and again and again.

One thing that I know is that whenever you start and you make that commitment to Jesus Christ and you're saying, "You know what? I'm going to commit my life to Him because my life is a mess. The walls are torn down, they've been burned. There are no gates, so I have no security. The enemy can come in and out whenever he wants to." That the Holy Spirit will begin to work in my life. And as the Holy Spirit begins to work in my life, Satan and all of his demons, like Sanballat and the Ammonite and then of course these Samaritans that were there, they became furious.

They became angry and Satan gets angry when you fully commit your life to the Lord. He hates it. Satan hates you because now you're making a turn. Now you're beginning to submit. Now you're pulling away from the darkness and you're coming to the light. And the light's exposing all the evil works that you were doing. And as you confess and as you repent and as you begin to read and to feed upon God's word and to study and you get plugged into a fellowship, then you begin to grow even more.

Then Satan and all of his captains and colonels and whoever he has will come and they will not give up in you. They're going to come after you. The only way to fight off the enemy is with the word of God. Satan will not listen to you, I guarantee you, or me. But when you start quoting scripture, he hates it. It's like taking a shotgun and just shooting them or a bow and an arrow. Man, he hates that. But you start winning the battle. He doesn't want to hear it. He goes, "Shut up. I don't want to hear it." Why? Because the word of God is a sword with two edges. It cuts when it goes in and it cuts when it comes out.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You radio with Raul Ries. Visit somebodylovesyou.com for biblical resources to help you resist the enemy and live boldly for God. You can also join Raul every Tuesday morning for Straight Talk on the Somebody Loves You World Wide YouTube channel. Now, back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: Look what he says in verse two. "And he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, 'Hey, what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete in a day everything? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish and stones that are burned?'" Notice the mockery that Satan brings about to do what? To discourage you, to discourage the work of God. "You can't do it, man. You've been on drugs, you've been on alcohol too long. You've been hurting people too long. You can't get rid of that. That's there forever." That's not true.

God can heal. God can touch if you truly, truly want help. God can do that for you. But you have to want help. You have to be willing to submit. You have to be willing to say, "Lord, yes, this is what I am doing. This is my problem. I am lying, I am cheating, I am fornicating, I am an adultery. Yes, Lord, I have murdered in my heart. Yes, I have a problem with gambling and doing all these things." And then what? The Lord will say, "Good, you told Me your whole story. Now I can help you." But if you make excuses for yourself, God cannot help you. You can't even help yourself.

Satan will keep you in bondage. He'll keep you chained up and he'll drag you along everywhere he goes. That's why here we see as they were trusting in the Lord, they were trying to let them say, "Hey, you can't trust in God. You can't do what He says that you're going to do because we're not going to let you do it." That's what the enemy does all the time. "Who is God? Do you really believe that there's a God?"

Remember the Garden of Eden? "Did God really say, Eve, that you cannot eat of the tree of the good and evil? God knows that the day you eat, you'll be like gods. That's why God's jealous." And what did she do? She added to the word of God and she went over and ate of the tree and then gave to her husband and both of their eyes were opened and they sinned against God. You see, Satan's smart. He knows.

That's why we need to be in church. That's why we need to have a relationship with God. That's why we need the word of God. That's why Paul says in Ephesians chapter six that we need to put on the whole armor of God. You need the helmet, you need not only the sword, you need the little knife, and you need your breastplate, you need the shins, you need your belt, you need everything, the sandals, the whole part. And when he talks about the Roman armor in Ephesians chapter six, he's only talking about the front part. He never talks about the back.

You know why? Because Christians are never to run from the battle, never to turn our back on the enemy. Why? He'll kill you. No protection. The only protection's in the front. Why? Because a child of God is to move forward always, not backwards and not running. We fight forward and we take ground all the time for the Lord. That's what Christ has called each one of us to do.

And look what happened in verse three. "And now Tobiah the Ammonite was beside himself. He was furious. And he said, 'Whatever they build, even if a fox goes up to it, he will break down their stone wall.'" Notice Tobiah joins the fun, too. He starts mocking. "Whatever you build, it's going to come down because you're not a good builder. You don't know how to build." You see, and yet among them they have the best, Nehemiah, the greatest leader that ever lived in that time, Nehemiah.

And then when we hear ridicule, what do we do when we hear all this mocking and ridicule? Because it really can get to you. You know what we do? What Nehemiah did in verse four. He prayed. He turned to God. Look what he said. "Hear, our God, for we are despised. Turn the reproach on their own heads and give them a plunder to a land of captivity." Interesting. Like David, "Lord, break their teeth." Do we pray like that? Of course not. That's in the Old Testament.

But here is Nehemiah because why? We need to rely upon God and notice, we need to rely why? Because when we start relying upon ourselves and we want to take care of, "Lord, you stay in the back, I'll go out here, I'll take care of it, and then I'll come back in." But if we really, truly trust in the Lord, what do we need to do? We need to rely upon God and to take care of the opposition. "Lord, they're saying all these things to me. Lord, please help us. Lord, You know our hearts that we want to seek You, we want to love You, we want to work for You, we want to build the city for Your glory, oh God."

What does God begin to do in my prayer? He begins to check out my heart and my motives. You see, we've got to have the right motive when we come into the presence of the Lord. Because the Bible says that when Satan comes, if you resist the devil, he will what? Flee from you. Resisting the devil, he will flee. Here Nehemiah responds as he begins to pray to God to take care of the opposition and notice that Nehemiah here meets the mocking through not mocking back but through prayer.

He doesn't defend himself by insulting back, but he trusts in the Lord. "Oh hear, our God, for we are despised. Turn the reproach on their own heads. Give them a plunder to a land of captivity." Notice Nehemiah prays that his antagonists may themselves receive the evil which they wish for the people of God. "Lord, turn the tables around and let them eat their words." I like Nehemiah.

There are two aspects to the prayer of Nehemiah. Number one, his appeal to the merciful God in verse four and secondly, he, notice, he not only is asking for God's mercy but he's also asking for God's justice against them. "Lord, remove them. Judge them, Lord." Because look what they're trying to do. Hinder the work of God.

There's a right way of praying with the right attitude. We can learn how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter six. The Lord teaches us how to pray. And it's really important why? Because we really need to know that we're coming into the presence of God and we are praying to God. And then check this out in verse five. "Do not cover their iniquity and do not let their sin be blotted out from before You, for they have provoked You in anger before the builders."

And we know that Satan, there's a theology that is taught that Satan at the end, at the end of the kingdom age, he's going to repent. And God's going to forgive him and God's going to let him in heaven. That's not true. It's heresy. Satan will never get a second chance. He'll never be in heaven and his demons will never be there. He will never be there. And it's really important that we understand that here Nehemiah is praying against the enemy that God already not only has given opportunity but the aggressiveness of the enemy.

And he prays in such a way where he says, "Lord, their heart and heart, but if they're never going to come to You, then don't cover their sin and don't blot out their sin before You because they have provoked You to anger before the builders." Notice, they didn't provoke me, they provoked You, Lord, before all these people that want to build the walls and want to put up the gates. So Nehemiah's prayer is legitimate here. And then what? Verse six.

And so when he prayed, what did he do? "We built the wall and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height" for the people did what? "They had a mind to work." I love that. They were all united, not divided. That's one thing that if you're going to have a team, the team cannot be divided. You have to be united. Here Nehemiah, such a great leader, he was able to bring together all these people and to unite them to become of one mind and one heart to be able to build the wall.

What happens here is there's a recommitment. They recommit themselves to do what God wants them to do, no matter what happens, no matter what people say, no matter what difficulties I have in my life, I am going to do the work of God. Notice Nehemiah and the people were not distracted. Satan has come to do what? To distract you from the work of God. And think of how many people have been distracted by Satan, petty things where they leave the work of God. They get totally distracted.

But it says here, "And 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. I pray here tonight that we would have the same heart, the same mind as the enemy would start begin to do whatever he wants to do within this church, that we would stick together of one mind and one heart and continue in the work of God, no matter how much ridicule may come, no matter what Satan would try to do, that we would trust in the Lord for what He's doing.

Guest (Male): Well, if you've ever experienced pushback or even persecution for your faith in Christ, we hope today's message has been a reminder for you that you are never alone. God is always by your side. You're listening to Somebody Loves You radio with Raul Ries. To hear today's lesson in its entirety, just call us at 800-634-9165 and ask for Raul's teaching "Our God Will Fight For Us" and just include a gift of $5 or more to offset expenses.

Now Raul's series titled "From Opposition to Victory" sheds more light on the Lord's faithfulness and power in the lives of His people. Available on CD or USB, this 10-part study will also motivate you to pursue unity with your fellow believers as you seek to honor the Lord with wholehearted obedience. Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's 10-lesson series. We'll send you Raul's series "From Opposition to Victory" on CD for $22 or, if you prefer, on thumb drive for just $13.

The number once again is 800-634-9165 or write to Somebody Loves You radio, P.O. Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California, 91765. This ministry with Raul Ries is completely listener-supported and we are grateful for your faithful partnership. Join us next time as we continue in Nehemiah with a challenge to spend daily time in God's word. You'll find that the best way to combat resistance in your kingdom-building work is to strengthen your mind and heart in biblical truth. This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You radio in Diamond Bar, California.