Some stories in the Bible are classic, inasmuch as they apply to so many areas of our life. As we pass through one phase after another, one of these classic stories will always give the answer we need. How many times have you felt that you were crossing over Jordan into Canaan? How many times have you felt as if you were walking out of bondage, leaving Egypt forever? How many times have you felt that you were coming out of Babylon and returning to the land of promise? These stories are real to us because we live them. The longer I live in the Word the more I am persuaded that the stories in the Word of God are more symbolical and mystical than anything else. It is true, they are history, and often they are prophetic, but in every instance they contain a mystical application to our need. They are like the stars, giving their message to anyone who has an ear to hear it or wisdom to observe it.
Our text is from Nehemiah, chapter four. Everyone has a Sanballat and a Tobiah—those who stand in the way or prophesy against what you want to do. Sanballat heard that under Nehemiah they were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah 4:1–3 tells us …he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews. And he spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?” (It is a well-known fact that a stone which has been subjected to fire will never again hold mortar.) Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said, “Even what they are building—if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!” This chapter gives us a simple principle of what we should do when we are under attack, how we are to meet the enemy and prevail against him.
The Bible often identifies people in their ancestry. In our generation it does not seem too important to call attention to a person’s background—whether it is Scottish, Irish, German, French or any combination thereof—but in the Bible a man’s origin does make a difference, because of the symbolic picture it presents of the future.
Tobiah was an Ammonite. Ammon’s origin is an interesting story, going back to the book of Genesis. He was born of the lineage of Abraham. After Lot, and his wife, and two daughters had been delivered from Sodom by the angels, his wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. The two daughters followed their father to a cave in the hills. They were filled with a feeling of isolation and of futility, a fatalistic sense that everything was ended. Together they connived to seduce their father, after giving him wine to make him drunk. From these incestuous acts, not in the will of God, were born Moab and Ammon. They were born of fear and a sense of futility.
The Ammonites were always the enemies of what God was doing. It is significant that in the days of the restoration, when the Jews were returning from Babylon, there was an Ammonite in the land by the name of Tobiah, a descendant of the incestuous act between Lot and his daughter. What does a man like that say when the children of God are building the walls again? He makes a smart-alecky remark, “If a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”
The half-breed thing—not really of God and not really of the devil—is very dangerous. Ishmael poses a greater problem than you might think. If he were from out of nowhere he could be dealt with, but Ishmael is a son of Abraham. Although he is not the son of promise, he still can point to his lineage, for in a moment of weakness and unbelief, Abraham begat him. If you want to know whether Ishmael is a problem today, take a look at the situation in the Near East. The wars that are determined are not anti-Semitic wars against Israel; they are Semitic wars. Those involved are all descendants of Abraham: the Arabs through Ishmael and the Jews through Isaac.
It is not that which is not of God at all that presents the problem, but that which is partly of God and partly of the flesh. How does that affect us? The same way that Tobiah in our text affects us. Hear, O our God, how we are despised! Return their reproach on their own heads and give them up for plunder in a land of captivity. Do not forgive their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before Thee, for they have demoralized the builders. Verses 4,5. The time comes when the efforts of the restoration are so important that you can curse everything that stands against it. The devil is fighting it, but so are the half-breeds. The people of God continually live with the demoralizing effects of those within the camp who are partly of God and partly of the devil. Would that they were all of God or all of the devil.
In the account of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, the phrase “the mixed multitude” keeps reoccurring. They were not Egyptians completely, nor were they Israelites completely; they were half-breeds. Over a period of four hundred years in Egypt they had so intermarried that they had a mixed heritage of Egyptian and Hebrew. They were not for the Lord, nor were they against the Lord. When the time came to move out they decided to go along, not because they were children of God with a word to go, but because they had relationships and bonds with the people of the Lord. In the wilderness, when the going was rough, the murmurings began with the mixed multitude on the outskirts of the camp. And when the wrath and the judgments of God came, the fire of God fell on the outskirts of the camp (Numbers 11:1). The glory of God was in the center of the camp.
We still have the mixed multitude among us: the Ammonites, those who are half-breeds born of God. Why don’t they go on with God? Because they are never able to reach that dedication where the kingdom of God is really first. We could find many illustrations. All those who do the work of the Lord negligently, to whom it is a drudgery, could be labeled, “Ammonite,” “mixed multitude,” or “Ishmael.” It is most important that the word God gives us to do be done with a whole heart.
All of us live under pressures that seem to defeat us time and time again. It is not easy to walk with God. However, the thing that counts is that we are dedicated to the Lord, to do His will first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Every one of us has times in which we are just not ready for the things that are thrust upon us. The pressures and the battle of the day are often almost unbearable. When it is time to go to church, we may not feel ready for it, but we go anyway because it is the will of God. We do not even question the fact that it is the first thing. After we are there, we are so glad we came because God speaks to us.
The resolution to do the will of God must be so strong that no one can change it. It grows from day to day, from week to week. People may challenge it, devils may challenge it, but nothing will set you aside from it. You are going to do what God wants you to do, and you know it. There is no longer any argument. A man may carry on, yelling and screaming, insisting that he is the head of the house. Who is he trying to convince? There is no point in arguing about it, for the day that he is the head of the house he will not need to argue about it—he will be it. Likewise, there comes a time when no words are necessary—you are set to do the will of God. It is not even important for you to argue with anyone about it. You are going to do it and not draw back.
That is what building the wall is all about. You do the thing God sets before you to do because you are dedicated to do it. There will be distracting dogs yapping at your heels, nipping at your tendons all along the way, but it does not matter. Those who do not appreciate what you are trying to do will attempt to divert you. That does not matter either. What does count is that you know in your heart who you are and what you are going to do: serve the Lord and walk with God.
It is very important for us to understand that the half-breed Ammonites and Ishmaelites were half of God in their origin. There will be a hundred Ammonites for every true son of Israel. Many will oppose you. What are you going to do? Verse 6: So we built the wall and the whole wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work. How long will it take? How united will be the opposition against us? What will oppose us as individuals? There will be times when every one of you will be tempted to say, “Let’s get this back on some sane normal foundation. Let’s get life back to its normal usual state.” But that will never work. Some of you are having your biggest problems because you are trying to work something out on a human plane; and it cannot be done. It will only work when you recognize that doing the will of God is the only thing that is important. Find what God has for you and do it.
You are going to be either half-breed Ishmaels or true Isaacs. It does not make any difference how much your origin was in God. Ishmael had Abraham for his father too. God starts a lot of things that do not materialize because our flesh and human ideas get in the way and we do not open up to God to really do it. Nothing that you want or I want is important. What God wants, and our dedication to do that and to bring it forth with all our hearts, is all that counts.
Teaching like this keeps you from going astray. It brings you back to face what God wants of you. Many exciting things can happen to draw you away. Come on, this is the way of the cross, and you know it. It is the way of death. It is the way of discipline. Ishmael would never have gone up on Mount Moriah and lain down on the altar so his father could put a knife in him—but Isaac did. Isaac was submissive, and out of him came the promises of God. Ammon was born of fear—fear that his mother had of being obliterated from the human race, of never having a husband or a child, of her life being at an end. Actions born of fear produce nothing but Ammonites and Moabites. Actions born of faith produce Isaac, the child of promise.
You need to open your heart to the fact that God’s dealings today are completely different from anything you have ever known. This is God’s way of selecting a remnant that will do His will with all their heart. Out of them will come so much. The story of the Old Testament starts in great broad sweeps and then it narrows down, down, down, looking for that one person, until through the line of Judah there came one Child to do God’s will. They tried to kill Him, but He was taken away and saved. Out of that one line God brought forth the Savior. Likewise there is a selective choosing by God today that brings in the true people of promise who will believe God and walk with Him.
At the beginning of God’s dealings upon my life, God promised, “I’ll take one of a thousand and bring them into the land of promise.” If there is personal ambition or anything else except total dedication, it will not work. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” If you really want to seek God first, you must do what they did in Nehemiah’s day.
Then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows. When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: “Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.”
And it happened when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work. And it came about from that day on, that half of my servants carried on the work while half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows, and the breastplates; and the captains were behind the whole house of Judah. Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon. As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me. Nehemiah 4:13–18.
I had hoped that there would be a time in our walk with God when all the pressures would be obliterated and we would be unhindered in doing what we were to do. I do not think that will happen. We must be prepared to build and to war at the same time. During World War II an important branch of the American fighting forces was the Seabees. (Their name came from the initials C.B.—Construction Battalion.) Seabees were engineers who were also fighters; they were building and fighting at the same time. They went into battle zones under enemy fire to build bridges and airstrips. They were more than army engineers; they were more than fighters; they were a combination of both.
Even while we are under the intense agony of intercession and prayer, we are also going to see projects open up constructively, as we build and do the will of the Lord. With one hand we hold a weapon; with the other we build. Every ministry that God raises up has a twofold function, requiring a kind of ambidextrous dedication: aggressive in its warfare and creative in its building. Neither one can be sacrificed.
Nehemiah said, “The work is great and extensive, and we are separated on the wall far from one another. At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.” So we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared. Verses 19b-21. It was not a short day. From dawn until the stars appeared at night, they were prepared to fight.
That happened about three or four hundred years before Christ, in Jerusalem, just a little city with not many thousands of people. They could have argued that their project was insignificant in the entire scheme of human events in the world, as great empires were rising and falling. But that little group, sweating it out, was important to God. That was what God was doing. In this day it does not seem as if there are many of us either. Out of all the things that are happening in the earth, dedicated disciples are coming forth, under oppressions and spiritual warfare so bitter that it sometimes leaves one aghast. Again it is very significant that this is the thing that is important, for the Lord is building again Zion; this time not on a natural human plane, but on a spiritual plane. And what you and I are doing is important!
The Ammonites and the Ishmaelites are with us. The Samaritans are with us, and they in truth hate us. We cannot discern them nor discriminate against them because they look so much like the real people of God. They come and worship with us, but they are not of us. They are saying, “We have Abraham for our father,” and we answer, “so did Ishmael.” “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and do many mighty works?” “Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22,23). Let every heart be searched.
This is a strange word, but it is important—very important. The word of the Lord came to my heart and said, “Never let the Word slip to a lower level where it becomes popular with the people. Let it always involve the work of the cross.” We need to search our hearts more than we need a blessing. We must stop and position ourselves as the true sons of Abraham. As you continue to pray for me, I will keep battling on, struggling to reach into everything that God has for me. You are going to do the same thing.
I stand between you and your defeat, continually bringing you to the repentance you need and making you face the things you must face within yourselves. God give me the strength. I drive not only you; I drive myself to be what God wants, with all my heart. You are going to be what God ordered for the end time. I stand and rebuke you again and again and again for only one reason: you must walk with God and seek first His kingdom.
Why did Balaam become a false prophet? What caused Korah and Cain and Judas to turn aside in rebellion? What made Ishmael what he was? What made Sanballat and Tobiah what they were? Why didn’t the Pharisees accept Christ?
In this day the issues will be so finely drawn that the people who are not prepared to really walk on with God will be lost. And because God laid it upon my heart to do so, I am determined to push you and press you, to preach to you and exhort you. You will have to change! I am going to be ruthless in laying on the ministries everything that God demands, in order that they be the vessels God wants. They are going to make it or be broken in the process. There cannot be anyone just getting by; they must make it all the way. You are going to be what God wants you to be. I love you too much to see you fall short.
It is not enough that we have marvelous preachers and some fine ministries; we are going to believe for an apostolic company. We are praying for something great from the Lord. I cannot tell you of all the wonderful things I want to see happen. Often I awaken in the night and think about what God wants for all of you and what He wants of me. I have been crying to God with all my heart, “Lord, give me the faithful word to lead Your people into what You have for them. No matter what anybody says or thinks, let us do the will of God in the earth today.” That is what all of us are crying for.
I am concerned about the way the devil comes against the ministries. Paul looked at the elders of Ephesus and said, “Out of your own midst there will be those who will rise up and lead others astray from you” (Acts 20:30). This walk in the Spirit is not easy, but there is a word from God and the people must open their hearts to it.
You are going to want the will of God and do the will of God above everything else. I have been patient and longsuffering. You have never seen me back off from any problem you have—and you never will. But when it comes to this final state of doing the will of God, there must be a hardness and a ruthlessness in all of our spirits. Only that will make us the army of the Lord.
When they train a soldier, they give him a gun and a bayonet and put up a dummy stuffed with sawdust. He learns to kill by attacking the dummy with his bayonet. But there is an insidious difference between sticking a bayonet in a bag of sawdust and going out to actually kill the first enemy soldier. Are you really dedicated to be what God wants you to be in bringing down the powers of Babylon? The flesh and its desires dare not become so important that you fail to see the perfect will of God as the all-demanding goal, regardless of the price.