Title: Pray and Work, Work and Pray
Contents
Nehemiah 4 shows that there are people who criticize and attack even good works, even the works of God. And it teaches you how to respond appropriately.
1. First, there is the attack of the horse.
(1) There are things that ridicule, ridicule, and blaspheme while doing God's works and good works.
- Sanballat and Tobiah take the lead in verbal attacks (verses 1-3). God's people work hard for God's work, but they are attacked by people's words, get hurt, and fall. Give up and stop. Don't fall for Satan's attacks. Don't listen to negative comments. Listening to negative comments will ruin your life and the lives of others. Even if you keep hearing negative words, you cannot win in your life of faith. You must not say or listen to such negative words that kill others and kill yourself.
(2) How can you overcome the attack of words?
- First of all, pray. Do not attack with words. Nehemiah first prayed before God (verses 4-5/refer to Proverbs 15:28-29). Prayer is the first thing to do after receiving criticism at church, at home, at work, or anywhere.
- And (praying) we must move forward. It is very important to pray and keep doing what you were doing in spite of ridicule and ridicule. Nehemiah prayed and worked even harder (verse 6). As a result, a great history was made. Just as water that does not flow rots, if a man of God does not move his body to do God's work, his faith becomes ill. Especially, the more severe external persecution is, the more we have to pray and continue to do God's work.
2. There is more active persecution and attack.
(1) There may be more active and direct persecution and aggression in our lives.
In verses 7-8, more people united to attack Judah than at the beginning. In that case, how should we overcome it?
(2) Even then, the first thing we must do is pray. (This is an important teaching indeed) - Faced with a more difficult attack, what Nehemiah did was again prayer (v. 9). God's people always pray. Prayer is life. ability. However, the important point that we must not miss here is emphasized again. It is praying and staying at the work to be done. What you have to do is keep doing. Like Nehemiah, I want you to be “a man who prays and works, a man who works and prays.”