In Nehemiah 3, the wall is being built. Each little company is in its place building the wall. Is not this a striking picture of what has taken place in these last days? Wherever the truth of the one body of Christ – the one church of God – has been accepted in the fear of the Lord, each little company has acted upon it, in building the wall of separation; and the divine Architect has made each piece fit, like the well-worked courses of masonry. The work is of God; His good hand is with the feeble remnant.
It may be called “exclusive” – it must be so. You cannot build a wall, but it must be an exclusive wall. Why set up its doors and bars, if not to preserve and exclude? We cannot sincerely receive the blessed truth of the one body, but this must exclude all sectarianism. Can we accept the truth of one God, and then tolerate the other gods of the heathen? No more can we accept the truth of the one body of Christ, and accept the many bodies of Christians!
This brings us to the third form of opposition, “But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews.” (Neh. 4:11But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. (Nehemiah 4:1)) Thus we have had grief, then laughter – now the building of the wall is a fact, there is wrath. Is not this picture also sadly fulfilled before our very eyes? Sanballat’s wrath against the builders of this wall was not more bitter, than the bitter hatred against the sacred enclosure of souls being really gathered to Christ, the true center. What! say they, not tolerate our denominations? What! exclude all that does not seek uncompromising conformity to Christ?
Sanballat spake to his brethren and the army of Samaria, “What do these feeble Jews?” And indeed what were they, compared with the army of Samaria? “What do these feeble Christians?” Ah, indeed, what are they, compared to the armies of Christendom around? Are they going to remove the heaps of rubbish? Are they going to level sectarianism in a day?
This wrath is succeeded by the fourth form of opposition. Sanballat mocked the Jews. “Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall” (Neh. 4:33Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall. (Nehemiah 4:3)). Thus the enemy, whilst hating with bitter hatred the work of God, outwardly appears to make light of and mock at it. Is not this exactly so in our day? Well, there may be grief, laughter, wrath, and mocking; but the work goes on. The wall is growing fast – piece is joined to piece. The work of God spreads. Souls are hearing the voice of the Shepherd, and leaving every fold of man – are being gathered within the sacred enclosure, around the precious person of the Great Shepherd, Christ Himself. Christ is exalted, and all that does not exalt Him is excluded. Man is nothing.
Now, what will Sanballat and his company do? This brings us to the fifth form of opposition. “But it came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it” (Neh. 4:7-87But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, 8And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it. (Nehemiah 4:7‑8)). We have had grief, laughter, wrath, mocking; now there is to be fighting – determined, uncompromising opposition to the work of God.
Is it not even so? Has not every sect in Christendom agreed in this, to fight against, to oppose, the building any further of the wall of separation to Christ? And as these companies consulted to come upon the Jews unawares, so often, when God has been blessing His Word in a given place, has the enemy come unawares, sowing evil reports, and sought to stop the work. Behind the scene are wicked spirits in the heavenlies. Surely, we need the whole armor of God, and “our God shall fight for us.” The work at Jerusalem still went on; so it is now; the more opposition, the more it drives to God, and the more the work goes on. The trumpet of truth is heard to give a certain sound, and the saints resort thither unto it.
(To be continued).