Often Satan will attack you to stop a great work for God. He will put enemies in league together to hinder your labors. They will come against you in unison, trying to discount the minister in order to stop the ministry.
Nehemiah was called by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The work was progressing wonderfully, with the walls going up steadily. Suddenly, Satan stirred up a hornet’s nest to hinder it all. Four prominent leaders joined in a plot against Nehemiah: “But they thought to do me harm” (Nehemiah 6:2, NKJV).
These leaders set a trap four times. They called out to Nehemiah, “Come down off your wall. We want to have a conference with you. We insist you talk to us.” Four times, Nehemiah answered, “I’m not coming down off these walls! I have work to do here because God has ordained me to do it” (see Nehemiah 6:3).
Beloved, you cannot get involved in arguing with people just because they want to argue. It’s all meant to be a distraction. You must go on with God’s work.
The reason Satan comes against your prayer life, your consecration to God, and your walk with him isn’t just to bring you down. He also wants to ruin the ministry God has given you. He wants to destroy anything you are doing that brings glory to God!
These four VIPs started a rash of rumors against Nehemiah. They claimed, “You’re doing this for yourself, not for God!” One of them, Tobiah, sent slanderous letters to other leaders in Israel. All the slander, plotting and snares were designed to put fear into Nehemiah’s heart in hopes that he would get discouraged and run. Nehemiah sums up the scheme in verse 13: “For this reason he was hired, that I should be afraid...that they might have cause for an evil report, that they might reproach me.”
None of those snares could stop God’s work. Scripture states, “So the wall was completed… When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” (Nehemiah 6:15-16, NIV).