Slander: "We'll tell everybody about you."

8/18/2011 7:29:16 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                                   Focus:  Slander:   “We’ll tell everyone about you.”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                               Reference:  Nehemiah 6:5-9

                Message of the verses:  “5  Then Sanballat sent his servant to me in the same manner a fifth time with an open letter in his hand. 6  In it was written, "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel; therefore you are rebuilding the wall. And you are to be their king, according to these reports. 7  "You have also appointed prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, ’A king is in Judah!’ And now it will be reported to the king according to these reports. So come now, let us take counsel together." 8  Then I sent a message to him saying, "Such things as you are saying have not been done, but you are inventing them in your own mind." 9  For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking, "They will become discouraged with the work and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”

                Sanballat and his cohorts were surely being used by the devil in order to stop the work on the walls and discredit Nehemiah in the process.  We must remember the importance of what Nehemiah was doing here, for he was making sure that the Jews would have a future, and this was of great importance for as Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:22  "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.’”  Sanballat had his own reasons to stop the work and I would venture to say that it had to do with money and with power, and so Satan was just using him to help out in his plan.  The problem with the plans of Sanballat and the devil is that they were up against a man who had great character.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “If we take care of our character, we can trust God to take care of our reputation.”  When the well known Bible teacher G. Campbell Morgan was a target of gossip or slander he would say, “It will blow over.  Meanwhile, I go quietly on with my work.”  When Nehemiah was accused of the false accusations he denied all of the charges and went on with the task at hand.  He also did another important thing and that was pray that God would strengthen his hands. 

                We see in this passage another example of how a believer who is a leader is to conduct himself, for Nehemiah was a great leader and he left a great example of how all leaders, especially Christian leaders should lead.

                Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think of prayer from this lesson, and the importance of prayer even though the prayer in this section was very short it was very important to see.  Sometimes when I come up against some kind of trouble I do not pray about it because I know that the Lord knows about it and therefore there is no need for me to talk to Him about it.  This is surely wrong.  I think of the examples of Daniel, Ezra, and now Nehemiah from the prayers that they prayed to the Lord.  In the case of Daniel’s prayer of chapter nine he was praying things to the Lord that the Lord had already promised to do.  In the case of all three of these great men they all confessed the sin of the nation of Israel and included themselves in that confession to the Lord.  We all sin every day and so the need for confession is great and the example that these men set is very special indeed.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Remember the power of prayer and do like Paul writes “pray without ceasing.”

2.       Continue to learn to be content.

8/18/2011 8:12:41 AM