8. Slay Them
The adversaries swore to “slay them.” The deaths were going to be multiple – all the workers. Can an agenda be so ruthless as not to mind how many it slays? Can killers be so callous as not to care about the rivers of tears they force to flow and the streams of blood that turn the vegetation red? Can they be so deaf to the wails of the maimed and the agony of orphans and widows multiplied? What creed or malice blinds them to the graves of all sizes that have overtaken worksites and farmlands? Will they eliminate entire populations to achieve one evil goal?
Such “adversaries” are a different breed of humanity, who do not care about tears and blood, so long as the work they hate is ‘caused’ to cease. They are drinkers of blood whose massacres might start with one – one James killed, but never stops there.
9. The Audacity of the Adversaries
Imagine the audacity of the adversaries, asserting that their devout targets would remain ignorant and blind, even “till” they have been infiltrated and destroyed! From whence was their confidence that the people they hoped to kill so massively would remain deceived and blind for all the time that their bloody plot was being hatched? What gave them the confidence that those rebuilders would never know, even while they were already in their very midst, mingled with them, until it was too late, when the killings would have started? What sorcery gave them such confidence? What spell did they cast on the people? What moles in the ranks of the workers gave them that sureness?
Sometimes, when enemies make such boasts, we should look inward. Sanballats and Tobiahs do not speak so loudly nor pose significant threats without powerful insiders like High Priest Eliashib giving them special rooms in the house of God (Nehemiah 13:7-9). Sometimes, also, they speak from an altar that we should not lightly dismiss. That was where the young David defeated Goliath the mighty Philistine, but the stronger Samson failed in another battle against a weaker Philistine foe backed by her altars from which the distracted strong man of God had been blinded (1 Samuel 17:43; Judges 16:20, 23-24).
10. Fooled and Blinded
In Isaiah 56, it is lamented that people become ready prey to the “beasts of the field” when their watchmen are blind (Isaiah 56:9-10). In other words, blindness enables disaster. The adversaries against Project Nehemiah boasted, “They shall not know, neither see, till we come…” In other words, two strategies were going to be deployed to achieve the evil aim: ignorance and blindness; two things were going to be attacked, knowledge and vision.
“They shall not know” means that they would be ignorant; they would be deprived of knowledge; they would be kept from critical information. In Hosea 4:6, God laments a special kind of destruction that comes even to His people, not from demons but “for lack of knowledge.” In other words, ignorance is a destroyer. The lacking knowledge of which God mourns in that passage was deliberate, because it was the people that “rejected knowledge”; knowledge rejected, maybe because it was not the kind to make them richer or make them feel funkier. Maybe it was knowledge that threatened to take away their pleasures of life, their political or pontifical privileges; so they deliberately “rejected” it, or they even attacked it, more willing to remain ignorant and be dead than be informed and be saved. The devil is not to blame for every destruction, even a destruction to the people of God.
Their second target was vision. Whatever blinds you is after your life. Remember Samson. The adversaries did not shame him until they had blinded him. In fact, that was the first thing they attacked when they got him: they took out his eyes, destroyed his vision (Judges 16:21). Blindness can be tragic.
The battle is half won or at least secured if you can see your enemy before he reaches you. Even if you lack the strength to match that enemy, seeing him early enough allows you at least to retreat and preserve your life. However, you become prey when adversaries have blinded or confused your radar, making enemy crafts begin to look like harmless butterflies.
11. Beyond Revelations
Revelations are not for decoration; they are meant to guide unto reasonable action. What did Nehemiah do with the revelation of the enemy’s agenda? Did he merely boast about it as another trophy to his great psychic ability to unveil the mysteries of enemy plans? No. He took prompt proactive steps, arming everyone against the threat (Nehemiah 4:13-14). It paid off.
15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.
16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah (Nehemiah 4:15-16, NIV).
Light is one thing that darkness hates. Satan fears being exposed. Revelations and exposures are effective, otherwise why does the enemy fight our statistics? Why does he fear the truth?
What should you do when divine Mercy enables you to know the plot of your adversary? Maybe, you should thereupon take them to your fence-mending dining table and tell them how differently diplomatic you are, respectful and loving like your God who lately repented for burning up Sodom and Gomorrah, and sacked Jonah for threatening Nineveh with destruction. Proper gentlemen advise that you could eat with the devil if your spoon were long enough, but radicals warn altogether against it, insisting that he could still drag you down from his end of your very long spoon.
12. A Prayer
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law (Psalm 119:18). Amen.
The enemy hopes that by ignorance and blindness, he can disarm you, then infiltrate you, then waste you, then stop your precious work. May his hopes be dashed. May God restore to you and to all rebuilders in the land, proper knowledge and vision. May God arise, and you too arise, that the adversaries be scattered, in Jesus name. Amen.
From The Preacher’s diary,
October 18, 2025.
