Remember the old nursery rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me"? Lies, all lies. Words are deadly weapons. When destructive words become lodged in our thoughts, they do great damage. Words can end a reconstruction project before it has really begun.
Rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem was just getting underway when Nehemiah's enemies began lobbing smart bombs at it. The bombs were insidious weapons constructed almost entirely of truth. Truth has explosive power. There was untruth too, subtle and silent, almost undetectable, just enough to penetrate, poison, and kill. Each verbal bomb was carefully aimed, and there was an entire arsenal of them.
Insults were aimed at the builder's strength, capability, and spirituality. He tried to discourage them by pointing out the enormity of the task and that their resources were limited and inferior. He finished by sarcastically poking fun at the poor quality of the work they had already done.
"What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?...Yes, what they are building--if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!" (Nehemiah 4:1-3)
Millenia later, the Enemy is still using the same weaponry. When Christians begin to restore and rebuild he tries to rob us of courage so that we will quit. Ironically, it is only because the project has every possibility of success that he attacks, attempting to convince us it is doomed to fail.
More next time. Until then keep building!
Blessings,
Beth
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