A WORD IN SEASON TO THE WEARY
🌷🌷October 23🌷🌷
.. for we are not ignorant of his (Satan’s) devices” (2 Cor. 2:11)
When Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem heard that Nehemiah had eventually succeeded in building the wall of Jerusalem, they wanted to do some harm to Nehemiah himself. When the enemy fails to hinder the work of God and when he sees that God’s work is progressing, his next weapon is to bring trouble upon His servants. Throughout our service to the Lord we have had to face battles very often. We who are in His service should be prepared for all kinds of battles, which we have to face day by day.
To start with Sanballat and Tobiah tried to draw Nehemiah away from his responsibility of completing the wall (Neh. 6:2,3). In the same way when we as God’s children are engaged in His work, worldly people invite us for worldly functions with the bad motive of keeping us away from His work. At times they will even offer the believers positions of honour so that they may be attracted by self-glory. In some place we have seen that when a newly born again person takes much interest in the things of God, they are invited to take up some responsible position such as a chairman or as an elder. It is quite unscriptural to make a newly born again person an elder in the church. According to 1 Tim. 3: 1-10, and Titus 1: 6-9, no one should be made an elder unless he is proved and rested. This is another way in which the devil deceives the newly born again people and hinders them from growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. When a newly born again person shows zeal for the Word of God and desires spiritual growth they invite him to go and give speeches. Gradually other people also get the desire to become popular and thus many good people are deceived and misled and become ambitious for high positions. Generally those who are ambitious are the ones who cause much trouble. People can see that their own family life is not exemplary. Their children are rebellious. Such people have no burden for prayer. But they want to be elders and if they are not given a chance they begin to create trouble by false propaganda.
