The life of faith can no more be sustained by flattery than it can be destroyed by criticism.
Tongues kept wagging; trowels kept working. In spite of all the interference by foes and inaction by some who should have been helping, here is Nehemiah’s progress report: “So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days” (Neh 6:15). Anyone who has been there in Old Jerusalem can only imagine the challenges. The city is built atop a saddleback ridge with surrounding and interspersing valleys. Every part is up hill and down dale. Also it wasn’t a clean construction site. As Judah reported, “there is so much rubbish” (4:10). Nehemiah was working with unskilled labor—priests, sons of jewelers and sons of perfumers, old men and their daughters. On top of this, they had to work with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. And this wasn’t even brickwork, but handling large stones, many visible today in the excavation at the southeast corner of the Old City. All done in fifty-two days! No wonder Nehemiah observes, “And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God” (v 16). This is what it means to live by faith, not fear—living in such a way that God can be the only explanation for what is accomplished. Yet in spite of all this evidence that Nehemiah and God were partners on the project, the threats, like missiles, were constantly incoming. “The nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came to them. For many in Judah were pledged to him” (vv 17-18). Why? The very intermarriage issues that plagued Israel throughout their history (v 18)! But the gossipers and spy rings are neutralized when God is for us!