Devotional Nehemiah 4:15–23: Work, Vigilance, and Prayer Study of Nehemiah 4:15–23: how God frustrates the enemy's plans, the importance of serving in unity, and the power of prayer in spiritual battle. Topics: Devotional, Old Testament.

Devotional Nehemiah 4:15–23: Work, Vigilance, and Prayer

Continuing with chapter 4 of the book of Nehemiah, today’s biblical message is found in verses 15–23 and is as follows.

Biblical Message: Called to carry the work forward.

Observations

In these verses, we can observe the following points.

1. God frustrates the enemy’s plans. We saw in the previous verses that the haters (Sanballat, Tobiah, the army of Samaria, the Arabs, and the Ashdodites) decided to employ various tactics (e.g., intimidation, confusion, and discouragement) to dissuade the people of Israel from continuing the work. But although we may not always know the enemy’s plans, God knows. Thanks be to God, they learned what the enemies were trying to do and were able to return to the work. For God frustrated their plans, and the enemies themselves became aware of it (Nehemiah 4:15). Hence the great importance of always seeking God through prayer, for He will reveal the enemy’s plans to us.

2. God calls us to serve and fight in unity. However, even though God frustrated the enemy’s plans, that did not mean the enemy would stop or that problems were over. Quite the contrary: from then on, all Israelites—both those who worked and those who did not—armed themselves with swords, shields, spears, and bows and arrows to protect themselves in case the enemies decided to attack as they had promised. While they worked, they were all armed and prepared to defend their homes (i.e., sons, daughters, wives, etc.) if the enemy decided to attack. Even when they finished the day’s construction work and retired for the night, they never took off their clothes or set down their weapons. That is, they were always prepared with their weapons at hand to defend themselves against the enemy (Nehemiah 4:16–18).

3. God calls us to total consecration. While the people continued with the work, Nehemiah called the people together and warned them: since the work is great and extensive and requires us to be separated along the wall, wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there, for our God will fight for us. Here we can observe that even knowing they were facing death threats from the enemy, everyone submitted to God’s call. They gave themselves completely to the mission of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem: they did not flee from their work posts nor did they become slack. On the contrary, they zealously continued the work and were prepared to face any problem because they knew God was with them (Nehemiah 4:19–23).

From this story, we can also apply these principles to the present day. For today, we too are rebuilding the walls of our faith in Jesus Christ. And just like the people of Israel, we will be threatened and persecuted by the enemy. However, we must always remember the following: “Don’t tell God how big your problem is; tell your problem how big your God is.”

And our only weapon against the enemy’s traps is prayer. For it allows us to talk with God to gain knowledge and wisdom about the enemy’s plans, how to deal with them, and who our champion is who will fight for us. This is so important that it was Jesus’ primary weapon against Satan’s temptations in the desert during those 40 days, after His baptism by John the Baptist. Jesus prayed before Satan appeared, during the period Satan was tempting Him, and after He overcame Satan’s temptations thanks to the help of the Father and the Holy Spirit!