Work & Fight

“Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built.”
 —Nehemiah 4:17-18

The Christian life is caught between several tensions—two of which are found in working to build the Kingdom of God and fighting to maintain it. We work to build God’s kingdom by making disciples, which means we share Christ, live righteous lives, forsake sin, honor God in everything we do and say, raise godly children, and conduct our lives in ways that are Christ-honoring.

Even while we work to build the kingdom, we must also defend it. We defend ourselves against the onslaught of sin that assaults us; we guard our minds from the garbage of this world that seeks to seep in through our radios, televisions and computers. We guard ourselves against Satan and his schemes. He is God’s enemy and wars against Him. And because Satan cannot get to God, he goes to the next best thing—God’s children. While we continue to battle against sin and Satan, we must also guard ourselves against unbelief. When I say “unbelief,” I do not mean that we should never question God’s Word, or His servants (like a good Berean). I mean we guard against an attitudinal drift in our soul where we become desensitized to sin—in our own lives and the lives of others, such that our spiritual garden becomes overgrown with the weeds of sin and unbelief. Like that neglected garden, we weed our hearts and minds of any sin that seems to draw our focus away from the things of God.

In our passage for today, we have the story of rebuilding in the midst of judgment. The Israelites had rebelled against God hundreds of years before, and their most famous city, Jerusalem, had been destroyed as an act of judgment by God. But because of God’s hand on Nehemiah, Nehemiah returned and led several exiles to return to the land of Israel in order to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He faced all kinds of problems by those outside Jerusalem and those inside Jerusalem, but he kept at it. And miraculously the walls of the city were rebuilt, a sign that the project was in the sovereign will of God. In fact, it was in the very midst of the resistance and conflict that the presence of God could so closely be seen. Nehemiah knew that there were problems going on all around, but rather than give up, he had his men strap a sword on one side of their hip, while they held a trowel in the other. The walls of Jerusalem would be rebuilt while they wielded the trowel—but the sword would be necessary to keep the wall protected. The work would go on even as they were ready to fight.

Can we fight that way? Can we build that way? Nehemiah refused to be intimidated and kept building. Will we? Do we keep building despite opposition, and are we ready to testify to God’s greatness? Are we ready to fight and build? God would have it no other way. We must do both for the kingdom of God, holding the trowel and wielding the sword. May God continue to give us strength to wield both more effectively, for without Him and His guidance, we can do nothing. Amen.