“I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust’” (Ps 91:2).
It has been said that if the enemy isn’t bothering you, you mustn’t be doing anything worth bothering. Well, Nehemiah noticed that those walls were certainly bothering “Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies” (Neh 6:1). Robert Frost wrote, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” What is it about walls that bother people? We see today many examples of the proverb, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Prov 25:28). Walls speak of limits, boundaries, separation, and our enemy wants unlimited access to maximize damage to our souls. So this time the enemy invited Nehemiah outside the walls to “‘meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.’ But,” he adds, “they thought to do me harm” (Neh 6:2). So he sent by messenger his response: “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down” (v 3). Seeking to break him down, if not the walls, they repeated their offer FOUR times. His answer? Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. To further intimidate him, Sanballat sent an open letter, accusing him of a plot to establish himself as king, and having already started an advertising campaign. Misinformation, replied Nehemiah—the evil imaginings of a wicked heart. Of course, this was intended for a wider audience, to send whispers throughout the city. Their plan was, he says, so the people would be “weakened in the work” (v 9). How grateful we are that “the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Prov 18:10). And that’s exactly where he ran! “Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.” And, sure enough, he was safe!