Fight

Scripture Reading: Nehemiah 4:14

I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to 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 homes.

There is a tendency within certain Christian circles to think niceness will win the day. The logic seems to track along the lines of if we don’t push back against the warfare against Christian values and beliefs if we don’t say anything about it, if we just go about preaching the gospel and ignore all of the stuff that is destroying the world around us then eventually the degenerates will see the error of their ways and finally notice our niceness and ask us how we came to be so nice. Then, we can tell them about Jesus and everything will be hunky dory again.

It is as if they don’t believe there is anything worth fighting for.

Nehemiah was trying to lead a good work for God. He was trying to rebuild a city that was destroyed two generations earlier by idolatry and immorality. The devil doesn’t look kindly on these kinds of restoration and revival movements. He will fight against them. Too often, he finds the people of God unwilling to fight back.

Not so with Nehemiah. He intended to rally the people to battle against their foe and he gave them good reasons to do so.  He essentially told them that if they wouldn’t do it for themselves, do it for their brothers, sons, daughters, wives, and homes.

If you are looking for a reason to stand up and be counted, I just gave you five.