How to Finish Well

Knock sound on fortress as ye soldiers of the cross, lift high to royal banner. It must not suffer loss; from patrion to victory his army shall he lead, to every hall it's vanquished and rised his Lord indeed. Thinking of Nehemiah as we sing the rest of the song, I think he did everything that this song is saying you need to do. Stand up.

Stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey, for to the mighty Conflict in this victorious day. Ye that are men now serving against the numbered foes, your courage rides with danger and strength to strength oppose. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in his strength alone.

The arm of flesh will fail you; ye dare not trust your own. Put on the gospel armor and watching unto prayer, where duty calls or danger be never wanting there. Stand up. Stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long.

This day the noise of battle, the next the victor's song. To him that overcometh, the crown of life shall be; be with the King of glory, shall reign eternally. You may turn to Nehemiah chapter six. The title of the message this morning is How to Finish Well.

Now, Nehemiah had started well. Let's just review a little bit how he faced his challenges. He had fasted and prayed for four months before he did anything. That's why he started well, because he took that time. Then he requested to Artaxerxes.

He made a request to him that was very well thought out. He knew exactly what he needed. He needed official papers. And we're going to find out, I think, the one I would say one of the reasons why these people never really attacked this city. I think they were aware of the fact that he could he'd covered all his bases. And so they made their threats. But he had prepared to have official papers from the king to do what he was doing. That's a very good leader that has that all thought out ahead of time.

Then at Jerusalem, he didn't get there in there and tear into the work. He spent three days surveying the damage and looking at it. How can we approach this thing? And then when he did approach it, he approached it in a very, very orderly way. He had each family repair the wall near their city, near their home.

And that way they would feel personally invested in this wall. This section of the wall is right beside my house. I'm going to build that. That gave them a special incentive to do that. And then he met all his enemies' threats with confidence in God and the preparations that he had made. And everything was done with constant prayer. There are 12 prayers of Nehemiah recorded in this very short book. All right.

He had met the threats within and without. Last Sunday we had a problem within. There was inequity in this city. People were mistreating the poor. And he knew how to meet that. He averted an economic crisis. And one of the ways he did that, one of the last things we talked about, was his amazing example.

As a governor, he could have Jesus said the labor is worthy of his hire. He could have received money to pay for his expenses, but he paid for not only paid for his own expenses out of his own pocket, he paid the expenses of a huge group of people that he had to feed every day and support. And so anybody who didn't want to make a sacrifice for this project would have been put to tremendous embarrassment by the example of this amazing leader.

Now, the wall is almost finished in this chapter. When we begin, it is finished at the end. Well, yes, it is. It's finished at the end. Now, these people had been in this city for 141 years. And it was unprotected. They were open to all this stuff that the enemy was doing and taking advantage of them for 141 years. That's a long time. All right.

And the city will finally be safe. The wall will prevent such attacks.

All the threats of the enemy from without had failed. And so they make one more attempt. They can't destroy the city. They'll get Nehemiah. They'll go after him personally. And he faced the same challenges we face in our battles. And so we can learn from him how we can win.

So I have three points this morning. They had three ways they were going to take out Nehemiah. And I think all of these ways we face as well in our battles.

And so here we are. Here are the three ways they tried to take him out. The first one was the invitation. Well, that's not a very good marker.

See if we can get a better one here. Well, we have all kinds of new ones.

The invitation.

And that's verses one to four, six, one to four. And then next they couldn't get any make any progress with that. They invite him to come and now we're going to be your friends.

We have that too. And then we have the insinuation because he didn't succumb to that. They attack his character.

And that's six, five to nine. And finally, when that doesn't succeed, they resort to intimidation.

And that is six, ten to nineteen.

All we learn is they don't quit. They change tactics and they keep on going. All right. And a true leader and even all of us have to get through this. At any point, we can compromise. Or we can be we can have our character assassinated. We can let that discourage us and we can be intimidated. I mean, I don't know about you, but as I look through this, I think I've experienced all of this.

So let's read verses one to four. We'll get the invitation. So they change their tactics from fighting against the city from the outside to try to get the man. They know that without him, these people have never been able to get much accomplished. And they think if they take him out, this whole thing will stop. At least the gates aren't up there yet.

And if they don't get hung, at least they can get into the city through those openings. Now it came to pass when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem, the Arabian and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built heard that I'd built the wall and that there was no breach left therein.

Though at that time I had not set up the doors upon the gates, so there were no breaches in the wall, but there were still those openings that didn't have gates. That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me saying, "Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono."

But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them saying, "I'm doing a great work so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you?" All right.

So they're changing their tactics from fear, trying to instill fear to try to invite friendship. All right. We are told that Satan is both a roaring lion and an angel of light. He uses every tactic on both sides, on everything in between. All right.

The enemy now wanted to help. "We'll meet you halfway." They tell us that Ono, this plain of Ono, was halfway between Jerusalem and Samaria. So we'll come you meet us half not only halfway geographically, but let's meet halfway in every other way too. And we'll meet there in the plain near Gaza. It was a seacoast. It was a resort city. And we'll have a pleasant place and we'll have a conference.

And we want to be your friend. Well, Nehemiah rejected it for three reasons. He knew they were lying. They wanted to harm him, probably assassinate him, get him away from the city and just get rid of him. All right. He was convinced I'm taking it from the verses we read that God's work must take priority. And I really want to emphasize that.

I really want to emphasize that God's work always must take priority. And I'll have more to say about that later. And so whatever they wanted to do was of less importance. And the main thing was to keep at this wall. He knew he would and he would listen only to God. All right. He was not going to listen to anybody but God. And number three, he knew that the Jews had nothing in common with these people. They had a compromised religion when the Assyrians took away the northern kingdom. And so help me. What year was that?

I can't say it either. Anyway, when they took away the northern tribe, the Assyrians had a policy. And that is they tried to destroy the nationality of people they conquered. Now, the Babylonians had a different policy. They tried to keep them together and make them happy so that they would stay and be happy people. And the Persians I told you this before. And so it was the it was Babylon that carried off Judah because God knew that they would be kept together by Babylon. He wanted the northern group to be completely dispersed and basically destroyed as far as their identity was concerned. So they were conquered by the Assyrians. And while I'm on this, then you have the Persians.

Their policy with the people they conquered was to repatriate them in their own land and treat them so well that they would never cause any trouble. And it's just interesting how God used those three strategies of those enemies to do exactly what needed to be done with God's people at the various times. So anyway, the Assyrians' purpose was to just mix this whole thing up, take some of these Jewish captives to other nations, bring other nations in. And so their idols and their false worship was brought in. And the few people they left in the land to keep it from being overrun by plant weeds and animals mixed their religion with the religions of those other nations that were brought in.

And it was successful. They generated a compromised religion. And so Nehemiah had said, "You people have no part with us. We are God's people. We are here to restore true worship. And you people have no part with us." All right.

But the enemy would not easily be put off. It says they came four times with this. In fact, they came a fifth time. But then that's the next thing that happened. Okay. Nehemiah refused to abandon his first priority.

He refused to come down. I like you can put a play on that too. Come down to this city. Oh, no, I'm not coming. Come down from your highest priority to our priority. And you can see that too.

Years ago, there was a missionary to China who was a very capable person, a very capable executive. And so there was an American company sent to hire him to work for an American company. They offered him a tremendous salary, an attractive job. And he refused.

He said, "God sent me to be a missionary. And that's what I'm called to be. I cannot do what you're asking me to do." So they sent again. I said the enemy never gives up. So they sent again.

This time they came with a better offer and more money. And again, he turned them down. Finally, they came back and said, "We'll double this huge salary we promised you." And he said, "Well, it's not that your salary is too little.

But I have a job that's much greater. Your job is too small. You have a good salary, but you have a very small job. I can't leave this tremendous job that I have to come down and do that."

In her book, A Practical Guide to Prayer, Dorothy Haskins tells about a noted violinist. Somebody asked her, "What was the secret of your great success as a violinist?" Well, she said, "When I get up in the morning, my temptation is to straighten up my room, do some dusting, take care of some chores, and get ready for the day. And then practice my violin."

But she said the violin often doesn't get practiced very much because those other things take up my time. So she said, "I had to do a planned neglect of all those other things and practice the violin first. And then they take second place. And that's why I developed to be a great violinist." And when I read that, I thought, "You know what?

That's like me. I get up in the morning and I'm determined to have my quiet time. But it'd be good to look at the news first. And my job is there waiting and I have sort of a deadline. I better get at it right away." And you know when I have done that, I often didn't have the devotions at all.

And so I've learned and I will tell you I have learned and I practice this that the first thing I will do in the morning now if my wife were dying and I had to get her to the hospital, maybe I would change it. But I will just not let anything interfere with that quiet time. See, the devil's always trying to distract us. He knows very well if he can get me to my desk, if he can get me doing something that I enjoy doing, he has me.

And that's why I told you earlier that Nehemiah never left his first priority. That was always how he processed everything. What is my first priority? And so to succeed to finish well, that's the title of our message. You have to decide that God is your first priority and you have to make that your priority in all of your decisions throughout the day, every day if you want to finish well.

All right. What distractions do you have? Is it your business? Is it your vacation you're planning? Is it your who knows? You decide what it is.

When that invitation to compromise failed and they saw they could not deter him from his first priority, then they switched back to their sinister threats. They switched from political softball to political hardball again. And so you have the insinuation.

They came yet a fifth time, it tells us. We should read this verses five through nine. Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand. And I forgot to tell you the first time Nehemiah never even sent anything to him except a servant. He did not contact them directly. Anyway, so okay, they sent a fifth time an open letter in his hand where it was written. Here's what was in the letter.

Now it was an open letter. In those days, official announcements and notices were sealed letters. They went to great pains to make sure that only the right people found out the information in that letter. And so they would seal it with wax. It was a dollop of wax right where the thing folded shut so that people would know if somebody opened it and the information had gotten out. So right here's a clue right away that they sent an open letter. Why? Because they wanted everybody to read it. They wanted everybody to know this information. They were trying to start a public relations disaster.

Okay.

Because they said, "We're going to report it to this is going to come to the king. This will come to the king." All right. So I meant to finish reading first. Let's read it. Verse six. So in this letter, this is what it said.

It is reported among the heathen. And Geshem saith it. That's Geshem. That thou and the Jews think to rebel.

Now that's bringing up an old accusation. If you go back in the earlier chapters, they had accused him of that right at the beginning and he had refused to accept this. And now they bring this up again. That you think to rebel. And this is in this letter that everybody now is going to be reading all over. It's an open letter. Okay.

That you're planning to rebel. And cause for which cause thou buildest the wall. We know your reason, Nehemiah. Your real reason for building that wall is because you're planning to rebel and you're fortifying the city. For the which cause thou buildest the wall that thou must be their king.

According to these words. And thou hast appointed prophets to preach thee at Jerusalem saying there is a king in Judah. And now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore and let us take counsel together. Then I sent it to them saying there are no such things done as thou sayest. Thou faintest them out of thine own heart.

Now if he had done any of that, he'd be in trouble. But he knew that no one noticed. It is reported. Who reported it? Usually this kind of accusation comes from anonymous sources. Did you hear? Well, who said it? Well, I don't know. But that's what I got off the gossip line.

And you know unfortunately society is divided into three groups of people. There are the wise people. There are the evil schemers.

What do you think is in between? The easily persuaded.

And which group do you think is the largest?

People that don't know the Bible. People that haven't made lots of observation. People who haven't been around long enough to figure it out. People who haven't made it their business to understand reality and how it works and who they should listen to and who they shouldn't. And so these people always know that they can get a whole bunch of these people to believe something.

I ask you. What category are you in? Are you in this category? That if you get any information, you know how to process it. You have a large perspective of understanding that you've acquired through diligent effort on your part to learn what reality is and you can process it. Or are you in this group? Okay. I just asked that for what it's worth.

Let me see if I can get this.

Well, I thought I had it right here. Yes.

I wanted to tell you about the Scopes trial. And I thought I had it right here. And I know I do.

Well, anyway. The Scopes trial was back in the 1930s, I think. I don't know why I have that information all written here somewhere. Where did I put it? Just a second.

Well, isn't that something?

Well, I just can't lay my eyes on it. That's really, really strange.

There it is. Okay. If you would see my notes, you'd understand.

This says, "Don't tell this now. Tell it later." So it was earlier in my notes. Okay. John Scopes was a teacher in the public schools of Tennessee. And he was teaching evolution. But there was a butler act that had been passed by Tennessee that it was illegal to teach the evolution of humans.

And this man deliberately taught that. So there was a trial. The lawyer in that trial was Clarence Darrow. He was a very, very effective lawyer. If you read his history, he could win almost any case. Okay. So he was hired for John Scopes' defense.

William Jennings Bryan, who was a Christian apologist, a fabulous orator, ran for president at one time, was on the other side.

Well, they say, and I've never read the transcript of the trial, they say any person, any open-minded person reading that would say that William Jennings Bryan's, no question, won the trial. Okay. And Scopes was convicted. And was fined. So Clarence Darrow lost the trial. I'm just trying to show you how subtle the enemy is. All right.

But what happened? Because of the trial, now the devil had this all figured out. Because of the trial, even though the evolutionists lost, this publicized it all over the country and people read the transcript and they thought that Jennings was a little bit naive and it advanced the cause of evolution, teaching of evolution in public schools way beyond anybody's hopes or dreams.

Not because they won the trial. But because they won this group. Okay. So that's the point we're making. The insinuation is, and they did it as an open letter because they were aiming at this group and they knew they probably could get a lot of people to believe this. It is reported. Nobody knows who said it. These people would never believe something unless it came from somebody that was reputable. They would say, "Well, you tell me who said it and then I'll tell you whether I'm going to believe it or not." Okay.

So. Well, if this would have come to the king, it would have been a if this was really scary because we know what kind of king Artaxerxes was. To come to power, he killed most of his relatives. Anybody had any claim to power in Persia was put to death. That's how this man got on the throne.

He was the Persian Stalin. In 1937, Stalin called all his political people to a meeting and they all thought they were coming to help plant something. What they didn't know was that I think about one third of them at least, do you know how many Ansel were falsely accused? Falsely accused. They had not done anything that he said they did and dragged out and killed. Later on, Khrushchev was asked, "Well, where he was?" Khrushchev was telling this as the reason why he took Stalin's body out of Red Square and took it out and buried it and tried to get rid of his reputation.

He was telling this. Somebody said, "Where were you?"

He didn't say anything. And then he said, "Who said that?" And nobody said anything. And he said, "I was doing what you're doing. I was trying to save my skin." That's the kind of person this Artaxerxes was. So if he'd had any idea and this would have come to him that it was true, Nehemiah would have been toast. I'm trying to put you into the actual situation here. We read it. Well, yeah.

This is real stuff. So how did Nehemiah meet this one? He didn't try to defend himself because usually when you do that, you generate process errors. The political world knows that. Accuse somebody, get them in court, and then they start to do process and then you can get them for that.

And so Nehemiah knew that to try to defend himself and you're very wise, not usually defending yourself, you won't be able to do it. These people are determined. They will think of some other way to get you. And so just don't bother. And he didn't. He said, "These are lies.

You made them up." And then what did he do? Well, let's look what he did. He went in verse nine, he says, "Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands." This is scary. God, I'm depending on you. I have to cast this on you.

This could turn into something pretty bad.

Well, that didn't work. They didn't scare him. They couldn't get him down to the plane. They couldn't get him afraid of the Artaxerxes. So what did they do next? Well, the next thing they do was the most dangerous.

They get a religious person involved. To give him some kind of wrong direction to get him in trouble. You know, I told you here one time, maybe it was the last time I preached. The most dangerous person in the society is not the murderer.

It's not the adulterer. It's not any of those people. It's a false prophet.

A false prophet can destroy a whole society. And so here we have a false prophet. His name is Shemiah. Let's read this one. Verses 10 and following. Afterward, I came into the house of Shemiah, the son of Deliah, the son of Mahatabel, who was shut up. And he said, "Let us meet together in the house of God within the temple and let us shut the doors of the temple for they will come to slay thee. Yeah, in the night they will come to slay thee."

Maybe I should explain this as I go along. Nehemiah went to this man. Apparently, he was a trusted prophet. And I'm reading between the lines here, but it almost seems like Nehemiah thought, "Well, I'm going to go talk to Shemiah and get some advice because he's always been a good trusted prophet."

Well, who was he? Well, he was one of the Levites that was brought back with Zerubbabel. You can read that in Nehemiah 12:6. He was a priest, one of the exiles that had returned. So there was some faithfulness with this man.

And so apparently, Nehemiah thought, "I'll go talk to him. Because he's shut up and he's maybe seeking the Lord's will and I'll get some information from him."

Well, what kind of information does he get? Well, he says they're going to come to slay you. Well, hello, Nehemiah already knew that. That wasn't a great revelation. But what he said next was positively disastrous. He said, "Let us meet together in the house of God within the temple and let us shut the doors of the temple for they will come to slay thee and the night they shall come to slay thee." And I said, "Should such a man as I flee? Who is there that being as I am would go into the temple to save his life?

I will not go in. For lo, I perceived that God had not sent him, but that he had pronounced this prophecy against me for Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. Therefore was he hired that I should be afraid and do so and sin. And that they might have matter for an evil report that they might reproach me."

Well, like I said, he didn't give Nehemiah any good information. But he gave him some very bad direction. He said, "Come into the temple and hide." Now, because he was a priest, he could legitimately be in that temple.

Okay.

But Nehemiah is not a priest. And they were not permitted to go into the temple. They could go as far as the courtyard. The altar of burnt offering. That's it. And so two things. Nehemiah could have been killed just for doing that by his own people.

Or he could go tell everybody, "Nehemiah went into the temple. He's not a priest. He did something unauthorized. He's a discredited person. Don't believe him."

And so Nehemiah knew immediately that hiding in the temple was forbidden. And that was his clue. This man is a false prophet.

I'm amazed at Nehemiah. He doesn't miss any clues. Okay.

And he wasn't interested in his own protection. He said, "Why should a person like me flee? Okay, if they kill me," he does not say this, "but if they kill me, fine, but I'm going to be," he might have said, "at least I will die doing what God told me to do, not what you told me to do."

All right.

This wrong direction alerted Nehemiah to his true identity. And then he goes on to say what he knew. And that is that some of these priests were allied with Tobiah. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Tobiah.

He was one of the priests. I'm sorry. One of his one of the priests' sons had married his daughter. Okay, we find that out later in the book. We'll get to that. One of his sons, one of Tobiah, I'm sorry, one of the priests' sons had married Tobiah's daughter.

Later on, now here's an interesting history. Later on, when Nehemiah abolished all the mixed marriages, this man refused to separate from this woman. And so they went up to Shechem. And there they built a temple on Mount Gerizim. Paid for by Sanballat and established the religion of the Samaritans.

Now, Nehemiah, of course, doesn't know everything about this, but when he when he smells this out, he says, "This guy is one of those I knew some of those priests were in a conspiracy with Tobiah and Sanballat." And this is one of them. He identified him immediately.

And there was a whole conspiracy of prophets. We learned in 6:16 that I don't know if we read that. So the wall was finished in the 25th day of the month Elul in 52 days, and it came to pass that when all our enemies heard thereof and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were very much cast down in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God. Now, this is the part I want you to see. Moreover, in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah, and letters of Tobiah came unto them. I mean, this man, he's doing this work with opposition in every form you can think of from every quarter you can think of.

And yet he keeps on with his work. Now, verse 18. For there were many in Judah sworn to him. Had actually taken an oath to support Tobiah. Because he was a son-in-law of Shechaniah, the son of Uriah. And his son Johanna had taken the daughter of Michal and the son of Barakiah. Now, I miss something here. We find out there was even a prophetess. And her name was up there in verse 14. That's the verse I miss. My God, think thou upon Tobiah and Sanballat according to their works and on the prophetess Noah Diah and the rest of the prophets that would have put me in fear. So I mean, that whole conspiracy of these false prophets, including a woman prophetess.

Who was trying to give him the word of the Lord. And misdirect him. Okay.

Well, the good news is they finished the wall.

I read one sermon where he said, "The beating always comes before the blessing. But the blessing will come. You've got to get through this."

The wall was finished in 52 days. Even his enemies had to admit that it was a work of God. But they still didn't quit. I just read that last part where they were swearing loyalty to Sanballat and Tobiah. They were doing all kinds of communication trying to make people believe Tobiah is a good man. I mean, after all, he has a daughter married to one of the priests and they were reporting Nehemiah's false stuff about him to Tobiah. I mean, this man was really up against it. Okay.

Well, what are the lessons we can learn? Well, number one. Practice saying yes to God's priorities. And you can start doing that very practically. Just go home and think about your priorities. What catches your attention first? Is it God's priority? Or is it something else?

Learn to say. I have some priorities here. Every time you have a decision, here's my priority for God. And here's the priority. And some of those other priorities are okay. But they're priorities. They're second on the list. Always practice putting God's priorities first. Always do that.

We hear somebody said what we are accustomed to hear. The story is told of a Native American who visited his friend in the city. And one day they were walking down a busy street and the Native American said. "I hear a cricket."

And his city friend said, "What? With all this noise of all this traffic, you hear a cricket?" And he picked up the cricket. There it was. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some change.

And dropped them on the street. And the noise they made wasn't any louder than the noise of the cricket. And everybody on the street turned to see what happened.

Sort of illustrated what I just said to you. People hear what's important to them. Crickets aren't important, but money is. And so you will, if you put God's priorities first, you will learn to hear those priorities. You will learn to hear what you need to hear to finish well.

The second thing we learn. Practice saying no to all the devil's tactics. And you'll get all of these. If you mean to do any work for God, you will meet all of these. I guarantee you you will. And they will be intimidating. And they will be fear-inducing. And they will be something that sounds like, "Well, yeah, why don't we just be friends?"

Your work for God will finally speak for itself. Keep just right on with God's priorities. Nehemiah just kept on and it finally spoke for itself. And the enemies had to say, "Well, this is the work of God. And your work will too.

It will take some time. You won't get instant gratification for what you're trying to do. You're going to get all this instead. But if you keep steadily doing what God has called you to do, I guarantee you your work for the Lord will speak for itself. We have that wonderful promise that says, "Be steadfast. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. For you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." All those other priorities will, by comparison, be in vain.

But your work for the Lord will not be. Paul says in his swansong in Second Timothy, which is his last writing. He says, "I know whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day."

And unless you have that kind of concept of the priority of God's work that he's called you to do. One of these three will get you. I guarantee it. All right.

So I will conclude. I will emphasize this point. With Winston Churchill's famous statement in a college commencement address, I think. "Never give up. Never, never, never, never, never give up." And finally, trust all that what you're doing to God. You're going to meet some things you cannot handle. You're going to meet some threats that are dangerous. You're going to meet some things that look like an absolute disaster. And you do what Nehemiah did. He does it throughout the book. He has these little pop prayers. They're just short. "God, you have to take care of me. This is one I can't handle.

Learn to do that." So here they are. Practice saying yes to God's priorities. Practice saying no to all the devil's tactics and all of the distractions and all of the threats and all the fear. And then trust God.

With constant prayer. That's what we learned from Nehemiah six. A very inspiring example. The more I go through this book and the more I realize what this man was up against. It was even people who claimed to be his friends and his enemies with all their tactics and threats within the city with his own people. We're going to see more of that as we go along. He had some real challenges from his own people. But he knew how to wade through it all. And I believe the secret was he was really in tune with God. And he knew what his priority was and he stuck to it. Does anybody have a comment you'd like to make?