Thu Mar 6

Listen up, little ones

Listen for the word wall.

Reading

Nehemiah 4:1-6—What are these feeble Jews doing?

Keys for kids

• When Nehemiah and the people built the wall, many opposed them.
• The people decided to work hard anyway.

Questions

1. Who opposed the rebuilding?
2. Put Sanballat’s 5 questions in your own words.
3. Why did the wall get built to half its height?

Notes

Nehemiah has come from Persia to Jerusalem (1:1ff) at King Artaxerxes’s permission (2:6) to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. After inspecting the need and making preparation (chapters 2-3), Nehemiah and the Jews begin the work. Immediately they face difficulty! Sanballat and Tobiah, already upset (2:10), ratchet up the opposition.

Mocking is their first attempt. Wiersbe comments that some people who can stand bravely when they are shot at will collapse when they are laughed at. Smith notes that Sanballat used five rhetorical questions to demean the workers and question their perseverance. Then Tobiah chimes in with his ridicule. As Smith puts it A fox could break through their wall by merely leaping on it. Some wall!

How will Nehemiah and his countrymen respond? How do we respond when opposition comes when we are trying to do God’s work? As hard as this external opposition is, we know and see in much of the rest of Nehemiah that internal opposition can be even harder and more destructive among God’s people.

Even as the opposition was busy, God’s people continued to be busy. Kidner notes that the sturdy simplicity of that statement (so, we rebuilt the wall…) and of the behaviour it records, makes Sanballat and his friends suddenly appear rather small and shrill, dwarfed by the faith, unity, and energy of the weak.

God will accomplish His work through His people. Might we continually have the will to keep working hard for Him.

Swedish Method questions

Praise

Psalm 8b, 133a

Prayer

1. Pray that opposition will not keep you from working for God.
2. Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s word this Sunday.
3. Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.