The Trowel and the Sword: Piety and Prudence in the Fight
Introduction: The Unavoidable Anger of the World
Whenever God's people begin to make progress, whenever they start to rebuild what has been broken down, you can set your watch by the reaction of the world. The world does not applaud the recovery of holiness. It does not celebrate the restoration of godly order. It seethes. The enemies of God are not indifferent to the work of God; they are infuriated by it. This is a foundational principle of spiritual warfare. If you are not experiencing any friction, it is likely because you are not moving.
In our passage today, Nehemiah and the returned exiles are doing the hard, glorious work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. This was not merely an infrastructure project. A city without walls in the ancient world was a city without an identity, without security, and without integrity. It was a place of shame, open to every passing marauder and every corrupting influence. To rebuild the wall was to re-establish a distinction between the holy city and the pagan wilderness. It was a declaration that God's people were once again a people set apart. And this act of separation, this drawing of a line, provoked a furious, sputtering rage from the surrounding pagans.
We live in an age that despises walls. Our culture preaches a gospel of inclusion that is really a gospel of indiscriminate confusion. It wants to erase all the lines that God has drawn, between right and wrong, between male and female, between the sacred and the profane. And when the church, by its doctrine and its discipline, begins to rebuild its own walls, when it insists on the exclusive claims of Christ and the high standards of His covenant, the modern Sanballats and Tobiahs react with the same predictable anger. They see the progress, they see the gaps being closed, and they become "very angry." What we have in Nehemiah is a master class in how to handle this inevitable opposition. It is a lesson in prayer and watchfulness, in piety and prudence. It teaches us that true faith is not a passive resignation but an active, courageous, and strategic reliance on God.
The Text
Now it happened that when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on, and that the places broken down began to be closed, they were very angry. All of them joined together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it. But we prayed to our God, and because of them we stood a guard against them day and night.
(Nehemiah 4:7-9 LSB)
The Rage of the Enemy (v. 7)
We begin with the catalyst for the conflict:
"Now it happened that when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on, and that the places broken down began to be closed, they were very angry." (Nehemiah 4:7 LSB)
Notice what provokes them. It is not an attack by the Jews. It is not an insult. It is simply progress. The work "went on." The gaps "began to be closed." The mere sight of God's people successfully obeying God's will is an intolerable offense to His enemies. This is because the work of God is a silent judgment on the works of darkness. A rebuilt wall is a testimony against the chaos outside. A faithful Christian marriage is a testimony against the sexual confusion of the age. A thriving, orderly church is a testimony against a world that is falling apart.
And who are these enemies? They are a motley crew. Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, Arabs, Ammonites, Ashdodites. These are the ancient and persistent enemies of God's people, surrounding them on every side. What unites them? They may have their own internal squabbles, but they are absolutely unified in their hatred for Jerusalem. The world is never more unified than when it finds a common enemy in the church. The ungodly will set aside a thousand differences to join forces against the work of Christ. You have here a picture of the world system, a confederacy of the Christ-less, bound together by a shared animosity toward the kingdom of God.
Their reaction is not mild displeasure. The text says they were "very angry." This is the rage of the serpent, spoken of in Genesis. It is the fury of those who love the darkness and hate the light because their deeds are evil. When the light gets brighter, and the lines get clearer, their rage intensifies. We must not be surprised by this. If we are faithfully closing the gaps in our own lives, in our families, and in our churches, we should expect the world's approval to diminish and its anger to rise.
The Conspiracy of the Ungodly (v. 8)
This anger quickly moves from emotion to action.
"All of them joined together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it." (Nehemiah 4:8 LSB)
Their unity leads to conspiracy. "All of them joined together." The original Hebrew is even stronger; they "conspired as one." Their goal is twofold. First, "to come and fight against Jerusalem." This is a direct, physical threat. The enemy of our souls is not content with mockery and insults. When that fails, he resorts to intimidation and violence. He wants to stop the work by any means necessary.
Second, their goal is "to cause a disturbance in it." The word for disturbance here means to cause confusion, to make things wander, to lead astray. This is a crucial insight into the enemy's strategy. If he cannot breach the wall from the outside, he will try to create chaos on the inside. He wants to demoralize the workers, to create internal division, to make them doubt their mission and their leader. He wants to distract them from the work by filling their minds with fear and confusion. This is why our spiritual enemies love to stir up doctrinal confusion, relational strife, and moral compromise within the church. A confused and disturbed church is a church that stops building.
This conspiracy is a manifestation of the spiritual reality described in Psalm 2: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed." The battle for the wall of Jerusalem is a small-scale picture of the cosmic battle against Christ and His kingdom. And the strategy is always the same: overt attack from without, and covert confusion from within.
The Pious and Practical Response (v. 9)
Here, in this final verse, we find the heart of the matter. Here is the divine blueprint for faithful resilience.
"But we prayed to our God, and because of them we stood a guard against them day and night." (Nehemiah 4:9 LSB)
This is one of the most important "buts" in all of Scripture. The enemy conspired, "but we prayed." This is the pivot point. Nehemiah's first response is not to panic, not to negotiate, and not to retaliate in the flesh. His first response is to turn vertically. "We prayed to our God." Notice the possessive pronoun: "our God." This is covenantal language. This is not a desperate cry to a distant, unknown deity. It is an appeal to the God who has bound Himself to them by promise, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Prayer, for the believer, is not a last resort; it is the first and most essential weapon.
But notice what follows. This is not a quietistic, "let go and let God" piety. This is not the false spirituality that says, "I've prayed, so now I can sit back and do nothing." No, Nehemiah models for us a robust faith that works. "We prayed... and we stood a guard." Prayer and preparation are not opposites; they are partners. To pray without watching is presumption. To watch without praying is arrogance. The truly faithful man does both.
He prays as though everything depends on God, and then he works as though everything depends on him. He entrusts the outcome to God's sovereignty while taking full responsibility for his own obedience. The prayer drove them to action. The threat did not drive them from the work; it drove them to their knees, and from their knees, it drove them to the wall to stand guard. The phrase "because of them" is key. The very presence of the enemy was the reason they set a guard. They were realists. They knew prayer was not a magic spell that made threats disappear. It was the source of strength and wisdom needed to face those threats head-on.
And their vigilance was total. They stood guard "day and night." The threat was constant, so the watchfulness had to be constant. This is precisely what the apostle Peter tells the church: "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Our spiritual enemy does not take weekends off. He does not sleep. Therefore, our reliance on God and our diligent watchfulness must be perpetual.
The Trowel and Sword Today
The lesson for us is plain. We are called to be builders. We are building our lives, our families, and our churches on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. And as we build, as we seek to close the gaps of compromise and worldliness, we will face the same unblinking hostility.
The world will rage. It will conspire to fight against us and to cause confusion among us. It will mock our "feeble" efforts and threaten to tear down what we build. What is our response to be? It must be the response of Nehemiah. "But we prayed to our God, and we stood a guard."
Our prayer must be constant, rooted in the covenant promises of God in Christ. We must bring every threat, every fear, and every discouragement to Him, knowing that He is our God and He will fight for us. But that prayer must lead us to pick up our own swords. We must stand guard. How? We stand guard by knowing our Bibles, so we are not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. We stand guard by practicing church discipline, protecting the flock from wolves. We stand guard by raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, building a wall of truth around our homes. We stand guard by being vigilant over our own hearts, putting sin to death and pursuing holiness.
The Christian life is lived with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. We are always building and always battling. To lay down the trowel is to abandon our calling. To lay down the sword is to invite destruction. But to hold both, empowered by prayer and guided by the Spirit, is the path to victory. The enemies of God were furious because the gaps were being closed. Let us, then, give them reason to be furious. Let us pray to our God, and let us stand our guard, day and night, until the work is finished and the City of God stands secure, to the praise of His glorious grace.