Rubbish, Rumors, and Remembering God Text: Nehemiah 4:10-14
Introduction: The Two Front War
Every significant work for the kingdom of God is a two front war. It is never enough for the saints to simply face the enemy without, for there is always an enemy within. The external foe, with his threats and mockery, is often far less dangerous than the internal foe of discouragement, exhaustion, and fear. The devil is a shrewd strategist; if his frontal assault of persecution fails, he will always attempt a flanking maneuver through propaganda and demoralization. If he cannot batter the walls down, he will try to convince the builders to lay down their tools.
This is precisely the situation we find in our text. The work of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem is well underway. The initial enthusiasm has carried the people through the early stages, and the gaps are being closed. This progress, as it always does, has provoked the enemies of God to a new level of fury. But their anger is now coupled with a new strategy. They see that mockery has not stopped the work, so they turn to threats of violence. And these threats find a ready amplifier in the hearts of the weary and the fearful among God's own people.
What Nehemiah models for us here is the essential nature of godly leadership in a time of crisis. He is not a detached pietist, offering spiritual platitudes from a safe distance. Nor is he a mere secular strategist, relying only on human ingenuity. He is a man who understands that the sword and the trowel must be held in the same hand. He knows that prayer must be accompanied by posting a guard. And he knows that the ultimate answer to both the rubbish of decay and the rumors of the enemy is a right remembrance of God.
The Text
Then Judah said, "The strength of the burden bearers is failing, Yet there is much rubbish; And we ourselves are unable To rebuild the wall." Our adversaries said, "They will not know or see until we come among them, kill them, and put a stop to the work." Now it happened when the Jews who lived near them came and said to us ten times, "They will come up against us from every place where you may turn," that I had men stand in the lowest parts of thespace behind the wall, the exposed places, and I had the people stand by families with their swords, spears, and bows. Then I saw their fear. And I arose and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: "Do not fear them; remember the Lord who is great and fearsome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses."
(Nehemiah 4:10-14 LSB)
The Internal Collapse (v. 10)
The first attack comes not from Sanballat, but from Judah, from within the covenant community itself.
"Then Judah said, 'The strength of the burden bearers is failing, Yet there is much rubbish; And we ourselves are unable To rebuild the wall.'" (Nehemiah 4:10)
This is the anatomy of discouragement. It is a three-pronged assault on the will to continue. First, there is physical exhaustion. "The strength of the burden bearers is failing." Good, godly work is hard work. Rebuilding a civilization from its ruins, or a church from apostasy, or a family from dysfunction, is exhausting. The laborers are tired. This is a simple reality that any spiritual leader must acknowledge.
Second, the task seems overwhelming. "Yet there is much rubbish." The word here means rubble, debris, dust. Before they can build, they must clear away the ruins of the past. For us, this is the accumulated rubbish of generations of compromise, secularism, and sin. It is the debris of broken institutions, foolish philosophies, and corrupt morals. When you are tired, the pile of rubbish always looks bigger than the pile of stones you have to build with. The sheer scale of the decay is a potent weapon against our resolve.
Third, this leads to a crisis of confidence. "And we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall." Notice the progression: we are tired, the task is huge, therefore, we are not able. This is the logic of unbelief. It measures the task against our own strength and finds it wanting. And from a purely human perspective, their assessment was correct. They were unable. But the central error of all such despair is leaving God out of the calculation. They had forgotten that this was His project, not theirs.
The External Threat (v. 11-12)
Just as internal morale begins to crack, the enemy presses his advantage with external threats.
"Our adversaries said, 'They will not know or see until we come among them, kill them, and put a stop to the work.' Now it happened when the Jews who lived near them came and said to us ten times, 'They will come up against us from every place where you may turn...'" (Nehemiah 4:11-12)
The enemy's plan is one of terrorism. They intend a surprise attack to sow chaos and murder the workers. Their stated goal is simple: "put a stop to the work." Let us be clear. The world does not care if Christians are nice people having private religious meetings. The world becomes murderously enraged when Christians begin to build, when they begin to restore the ruins and erect a clear boundary, a wall, between the city of God and the city of man.
But how does this threat reach the builders? It is laundered through "the Jews who lived near them." These are the compromisers, the accommodationists. They live on the borderlands, with one foot in Jerusalem and one foot in the world of Sanballat. Because they live near the enemy, they are the first to hear the threats. And instead of acting as a faithful buffer, they become a fearful amplifier. They repeat the threat "ten times," a Hebrew idiom for relentlessly, over and over again. They become agents of the enemy's psychological warfare. Such people are always with us. They are the ones who counsel caution, who plead for a "less confrontational" approach, who are more concerned with the enemy's opinion than with God's command. They are the carriers of the virus of fear.
The Practical Defense (v. 13)
Nehemiah hears the internal complaint and the external threat, and he acts with decisive wisdom.
"...that I had men stand in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I had the people stand by families with their swords, spears, and bows." (Nehemiah 4:13)
Nehemiah does not tell the people to simply pray harder. He inspects the wall, identifies the vulnerabilities, "the lowest parts... the exposed places," and he stations guards there. This is sanctified common sense. Faith is not a blind leap in the dark; it is trusting God to bless our prudent, obedient actions. We are to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
And notice how he organizes the defense. He has the people stand "by families." This is profoundly important. The family is the foundational fighting unit of the covenant community. He did not muster a random army of individuals. He called fathers and sons to stand together. Why? Because this makes the fight intensely personal. A man will fight with a different kind of ferocity when he is standing next to his son, protecting his wife and daughters who are right behind him. Nehemiah grounds their duty in their most basic, creational, covenantal loyalties. The command to fight is not for an abstract cause, but for their own flesh and blood.
The Prophetic Word (v. 14)
After setting the guard, Nehemiah addresses the heart of the problem: their fear.
"Then I saw their fear. And I arose and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: 'Do not fear them; remember the Lord who is great and fearsome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.'" (Nehemiah 4:14)
He sees their fear and speaks directly to it. The solution to fear is not to pretend it does not exist, but to confront it with a greater reality. He gives them a command, a reason, and a motivation.
The command is simple: "Do not fear them." In Scripture, the fear of man is not a psychological weakness; it is a spiritual sin. It is a failure to fear God properly. The command is a call to repentance, to turn from the fear of mortal man to the fear of the living God.
The reason is the foundation of everything: "remember the Lord who is great and fearsome." The antidote to the fear of man is the memory of God. But not just any God. Not a tame, manageable, therapeutic God. We must remember the Lord who is great and fearsome. Our God is greater than our enemies. Our God is more terrifying to our enemies than they could ever be to us. When our vision of God is small, our fear of the enemy will be great. When our vision of God is biblical, He becomes our fear and our dread, and the threats of men become like the chirping of insects.
And this remembrance leads directly to the motivation: "and fight..." Theology is never an end in itself. Right thinking about God must always result in right action in the world. And what are they to fight for? "Your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses." He brings it right back to the concrete, the tangible, the covenantal. Fight for your community. Fight for the next generation. Fight for the integrity of your marriage. Fight for your household, your small outpost of dominion in this world. This is not a call to selfish individualism, but to covenantal responsibility. You are to build and defend your post as part of the larger project of the city of God.
Conclusion: Christ, Our Nehemiah
This entire scene is a picture of the Christian life. We are called to a great rebuilding project in a world full of rubbish and ruin. We will grow weary. The world will threaten us. Compromisers in our midst will spread fear and counsel retreat.
In such times, we must look to our greater Nehemiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the master builder, constructing His church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. He saw our fear and our inability, and He did not just give a speech. He stood in the gap Himself. He fought for His bride, the church, and won the decisive victory at the cross and the empty tomb.
Because He has won, our task is not to win the war, but to faithfully carry out our part of the campaign. When we are tired, we look to Him who endured the cross. When we see the rubbish, we remember that He is the one who makes all things new. When we hear the rumors and the threats, we are commanded to remember our Lord, who is great and fearsome. And in the strength of that remembrance, we are to pick up our sword and our trowel, stand with our families, and fight. Fight for our brothers, our sons, our daughters, our wives, and our houses, until the day the top stone of the new Jerusalem is set in place with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"