Whenever there is a work of the Spirit of God, the enemy is not slow in seeking to oppose it. No sooner had the foundation of the temple been laid than certain men of the inhabitants of the land came to Jeshua and Zerubbabel. Pretending to be friends, they said: “Let us build with you, for we seek your God, as ye do.” But God who knew their hearts and purpose calls them adversaries. They said that Essar-haddon, king of Assyria, had brought them there and that they had sacrificed unto the Lord ever since. However, we read in 2 Kings 17 that while they feared the Lord in a way, they served their own graven images at the same time. They were the fathers of the Samaritans, and their worship was a mixture which had never been owned of the Lord.
Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the chief of the fathers, perceived who these men were and replied, “Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.” In refusing the subtle offers of these would be helpers, the men of Israel might seem to some to have taken a narrow position, but they had the Lord’s mind in what they did, and they acted on a divine principle, namely, that only the Lord’s people can be engaged in the work of His house. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” the Lord Jesus has said (John 17:1616They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:16)), and any alliance made with the world is to deny our character and to misrepresent Him “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world.” Gal. 1:44Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:4). Furthermore, to accept the world’s help in building in the house of God is only to build in “wood, hay, and stubble,” which will be consumed in that day when “the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” (1 Cor. 3:1313Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (1 Corinthians 3:13).)
After this these adversaries changed their ways, for they “weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building.” They also hired counselors in the courts of the kings of Persia to frustrate their purpose, but they were not able to accomplish anything in the days of Cyrus nor in the days of Ahasuerus, his son. In the days of Artaxerxes, who was a usurper and who pretended to be a son of Cyrus, these men, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, wrote a letter to the king. They accused the Jews of building Jerusalem, calling it the rebellious and bad city, saying they had set up the walls and joined the foundations. They further said, “If this city be builded and the walls set up again, then will they not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and so thou shalt en-damage the revenue of the king.” They requested that a search be made and it would be found that Jerusalem had been a rebellious city. The accusation was mainly false for they were not seing up the walls of the city but only building the temple. However, it was true that in the days of Zedekiah they had rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. It is one of the ways of the great enemy of God’s people to mix up what is false with what has some truth in it. We see also that in the government of God their sin of past years bore its sorrowful fruit.
ML 03/22/1959