If all Else Fails Shoot the Leader
Tom Shrader examines Nehemiah 6, where the wall is nearly complete but enemies launch their final attacks through distraction, false accusations, and attempts to discredit Nehemiah's character. He emphasizes that opposition never stops - even at life's end - and that leaders must reject distractions, avoid defending every accusation, and stay faithful to their calling despite relentless pressure.
“You have a real enemy who's out to destroy you, and you never reach that point where the enemy stops, where the flesh is still not pulled, where the world system doesn't creep in.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2010)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 42 min
Themes: opposition, perseverance, leadership, distraction, faithfulness, character, pressure, calling, facing criticism, under attack, ministry leader, project manager, defending reputation, completing difficult tasks, church elder, experiencing burnout
Scripture: Nehemiah 6:1-16, 2 Corinthians 5:14, John 13:35, Galatians 5:22-23
Theological Themes: spiritual warfare, divine calling, biblical leadership, stewardship, sanctification, spiritual maturity, perseverance of saints, ecclesiastical authority
Full Transcript
If you've got Bibles, open them to the book of Nehemiah, chapter 6 is where we are. We've got two more weeks, this week and next. We'll be working our way through, finally, the completion of the wall. You'll see it today.
I want to do just a bit of a summary again to keep it fresh in front of us, so we're constantly aware of our history here. Nehemiah, in chapter 1, gets a call. He gets the word that the wall is down and the people in Jerusalem are discouraged, distressed. He knows then, and we've made this point six times so two more won't hurt you, that he gets the call and at the same time he understands, not necessarily what God's going to have him do, but that God's going to have him do something. Options become important to him. He begins to pray.
In chapter 2, Nehemiah understands he's going to need the king. If he's going to indeed be part of rebuilding this wall, he's going to need the king's participation. He has this opportunity. The king says, "What do you want me to do?" Nehemiah tells him, and then he sets out on this journey.
The Foundation and Early Challenges
Remember chapter 3? Chapter 3 is almost a genealogy. If somebody assigned you chapter 3 of Nehemiah to teach, that's the day to call in sick. That's just really a difficult passage to work your way through. But we saw some truths in there. We saw the collaborative work.
When we got to chapter 4 and chapter 5, what we saw is the distress that was brought and the challenge that was brought to the job—the opposition. We wanted to make that point, and I think made it, hopefully made it strongly. God's guy doing God's job, God's way, God's timing. That alone does not ensure that there won't be opposition. There's always going to be opposition.
We're going to see that in our study today, that here's Nehemiah now at the end of the project. He's almost down to the punch list. He's got a few doors to hang, and yet they come at him again and again.
External and Internal Opposition
We saw in chapter 4, these guys Sanballat and Tobiah come after Nehemiah. We said, even then, we can kind of go, "Okay, that makes sense that I'm going to have opposition from the outside." But then there was internal opposition. Remember that? We spent some time on that in chapter 5. The Jews were kind of devouring one another. They were putting all sorts of burdens on them, exorbitant interest rates.
We saw in chapter 5, they didn't have food to eat. They didn't have grain to plant. We saw in chapter 5, verse 4, "And we had to borrow money for our taxes." We said, that's pretty easy to pull that into today.
Yesterday, the post office now is going to lose $238 billion. This is the post office. This is beyond all of the other money that you're spending, $1 million every 20 seconds in debt. $238 billion. They just spent $4.5 million to study this. You don't need to study. This is very simple. They can fix the post office tomorrow. There's nobody you know who needs mail every day. If you delivered mail every other day, that's plenty fine. But that's not going to happen for one reason. Why is that not going to happen? Unions.
This thing is so jacked up. It just goes further and further down. Humpty Dumpty's off the wall. The debt now exceeds the gross national product, gross domestic product. They're just screwed at about 18 different levels. On that note, let's get to today's. It just drives me absolutely insane. I can't handle it.
The Timeless Nature of Opposition
Chapter 6. Here's what we see. I'm going to make the point. The opposition comes, and the intent is to stop the work. In that case, that internal opposition, when sin came, what happened there is actually there was sin that was going on within the Jews as they were using one another. That stops the work.
Now here's the point. This whole story, whatever it is, 2,500 plus years ago, this whole story is as fresh as today. You have a real enemy who's out to destroy you. There's opposition in your life that comes from Satan and the demons, and it comes from the world system, and it comes from your flesh.
In a project like this, I think I said this to you—if not, I know I said it at noon last week—this is the toughest series I've had to teach from this perspective. I find it really hard to illustrate and really hard to apply because there's so many different ways to apply these that you're going to have to engage.
Leadership and Followership
Most of you work in two planes. In some environments you're a leader, and in other environments you're a follower. Though this study is primarily about leadership, we get some real insights into what a leader needs in terms of a follower.
There's a lot of criticism right now, I'll talk about the country, that we don't have any strong leaders. Well, here's part of the problem. We got 300 million special interest groups in the country. Everybody's at the trough wanting to know what's in this for me. So it becomes very hard. We pay them, we elect them. Yeah, but there's 10 of you telling them what to do. So I wear out on that kind of language.
What's it mean to follow? I've said it to you before. If you Google, and you Google leadership, in .12 seconds you'll get something like 19 million entries. If you Google follower, it takes three times longer, although it doesn't take long, .33 seconds, and you'll get about a million entries, and almost all of them have to do with the follower of Christ.
The Countercultural Nature of Following
See, this is counterculture. When you start talking about follower, that's counterculture. That's what happened in Jesus' day. When Jesus came along and said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself," that's revolutionary. Because to love or to forgive was a sign of weakness.
While we're studying leadership, we can get some great insights into what it means to be a follower. I'm trusting you to figure this out. You may need to take it down a notch, move it over here, tweak
The Enemy's Relentless Pursuit
I guarantee you this applies to a project that you're working on. It applies to your homeowners association. It applies to your family. It applies to all areas of your life. So let me take you through the outline here today. Point A, B, and C: Destroy the leader, and you stop the project. Discourage the leader, and you stop the project. Discredit the leader. So destroy, discourage, and discredit.
We are at the end. You're going to see that we are at the end of this project. Nehemiah has done it in 52 days. It's fascinating. When we're done next week studying this, we will have spent longer studying these first few chapters of Nehemiah than it took him to build the wall.
Nehemiah is at the end of this project, and so you kind of go, okay, maybe now at the end, things are going to ease up just a bit, but it doesn't happen at all. Look at those first four verses in Nehemiah 6, verse 1: "And when it was reported to Sanballat and Tobiah and to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, that no breach remained" - so there's no way to penetrate it.
The Massive Scale of the Project
Remember now the wall? The wall's not like a little wall like you might put around your property, like maybe around a garden, or maybe even the wall around your property. The wall varies in size depending on the topography of between 50 and 70 feet. It was their version of homeland security. I mean it was there to protect them.
So now there's no breach left, "and although at the time I had not set the doors and the gates" - so we're at the punch list, a few doors left to hang - "then Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me saying, 'Come, let us meet together at Kephirim in the plain of Ono.' But they were planning to harm me. So I sent messengers to them saying, 'I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?' And they sent the same message to me four times, and I answered them in the same way."
Three Elements of the Enemy's Strategy
Here's what happens. Again, I'll get you through your outline so you feel better. The enemy's appeal, and then the enemy's intent, and then the leader's response. Their appeal is: let's talk, let's negotiate. Come on down to the plain of Ono. That would be about a 25-mile trip, and what that's going to do is take Nehemiah right off the project. So their appeal is: come on down, let's meet, let's talk.
I want you to get this. They are at the end of the project. The Christians are high-fiving, the others are saying it's Miller time. They're at the end of the day. They got it figured out. Have a glass of wine, dinner, put on the fire, get a Coke, whatever your deal is. The project is essentially done. A few things, two days' work roughly, left. But the enemy is relentless.
The Enemy Never Stops
See this in your own life. Some of you, just in terms of actuarial tables and where you are, you're at the end of this, man. You're at the end of life. Some of you are playing the 18th hole of life. Some of you are getting ready to putt out on 18. Some of you have a gimme left. I don't know how else to say this. You're at the end of this thing.
The tendency, I think, is to think, boy, when I get to the end of my life, all of a sudden, those trials, temptations, difficulties stop. That is not true. I don't know if you know this: the age demographic in our country with the fastest growing increase of sexually transmitted disease is age 65 and older. It's an ugly picture to have in your mind. I got all that. I'm having a hard time. I'm hitting the delete button, but it's not working.
You go out to Sun City, and the guys that hang around out there - I have a friend that used to sell insurance out there, and it's alcoholics and sex all day long out there. That's the world, my assumption. They aren't followers of Christ, probably religious, probably going to church, but that doesn't mean a whole bunch. Good Lutherans, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, etc. That doesn't mean much.
No Retirement from Spiritual Warfare
But to those of you who go, "I love Jesus, yes, I do. I'm a follower of His," you never reach that point where the enemy stops, where the flesh is still not pulling, where the world system doesn't creep in. Nehemiah's there. You'd think by now these guys would go, "Alright, we gave it our best shot. We tried it again and again and again. We can't stop them." But they won't.
They come and they say, "Come and meet us. Come on down here. Let's negotiate." How much can you talk? Again, I don't mean to be political, and I'm not. It's just the world around us. The Secretary of State is in South America trying to persuade the Brazilians to come on board for sanctions against Iran. It ain't going to happen. You're not going to talk Iran out of this. This guy is not like sitting down with your neighbor. You can talk and talk and talk, but you don't get it. I'm not suggesting some sort of outcome. I'm not saying don't go do that, but that's what they're doing. "Come on, come on, let's talk, let's talk." And Nehemiah says, "I'm not going to talk."
Do you see what they do? They come to him four times. "Come on, let's meet together." No. "Let's meet together." No. "Let's meet together." No. "Let's meet together." No. That's how the enemy comes, with all sorts of distractions.
A Blessing in Disguise
My friend Larry Wright, and many of you know him well, he had rheumatoid arthritis. It was debilitating. Really, really, really difficult for him. He and I had all these friends, and we had a lot of fun together, doing a lot of different things. But by the end of his life, they had taken his key and put it on like a stick, so that he could put the key in and had enough leverage to grab it to turn the key in the door. He would have loved to push the thing now. That would have been a lot easier for him. Push the thing and push a button and your car starts.
But he and I, we had a lot of conversations. And my contention was, though it was extraordinarily painful, it was a blessing from God in this sense.
His disease eliminated a lot of things that could have been a distraction to him. So if you know Larry, and you said, "Larry, what do you do?" he said, "I teach Bible. That's what I do. I teach Bible." But Larry never grappled with whether to go hit balls and play a round of golf. It wasn't an option. A lot of things that might be distractions for you just weren't distractions for him.
In your life, and I said this yesterday, I thought, "Oh my goodness, everybody's heard this a thousand times by now." And a lady, I would guess probably mid-60s, came up crying, weeping afterwards saying, "I just am going through this right now." And I thought, "You know what, God, I got to quit trying to play a game of trying to figure out who needs what and just say this stuff."
And I made this point. Every need in your life is not a calling. You've got to get your life to the point where you can say no to the good things so you can say yes to the great things. One of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make in my life was to stop doing these studies down in Tucson. Because I used to do four studies here and two in Tucson. I kept trying to get rid of those studies in Tucson. They were killing me. But they would say, "Tom, we've got 400 people in the morning and 200 people at lunch." And finally I said, "It doesn't matter. I can't do this anymore. I can't be doing all the things I'm doing and come down here too."
In your life, you got to get control of your time and your energy and your effort and your money and be disciplined. You've got to understand that you have a relentless enemy that is never going to stop. I do a talk called "Five Guaranteed Ways to Eliminate Stress in Your Life." Well, the reality is there's one guaranteed way to eliminate stress in your life. And what is it? Die. Just die. That's the only way you're going to eliminate the stress in your life. Everything else is stressful.
They Try to Destroy the Leader
They try to destroy the leader. Then they try to discourage him. Pick that up in verse 5. So Sanballat then comes and he sends a servant a fifth time. So four times it's been "come and talk to us, come and talk to us, come and talk to us." The fifth time he sends them, do you see the phrase? I'm reading from the New American Standard. It says he sends him with an open letter. Some of your translations will say an unsealed letter.
And it was written that it's reported, "And all of the Jews are gathered together and they're planning a rebellion. Therefore, that's why you're rebuilding the wall. And you're to be the king according to the reports. And you've also appointed prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, 'A king is in Judah.' And now it will be reported to the king according to these reports. So come now, let us counsel together."
All of a sudden the word goes out, and the dissent here is you've got to defend yourself. Because here's the charge. It's an open letter. By the time it gets to you, everybody's read it. And the charge is, and there's absolutely no basis in this at all, that somehow you're building this wall with the intent of setting yourself up as king. That the whole intention here is to launch a battle, to get together a stronghold.
When to Defend Yourself and When Not To
Here's what Nehemiah doesn't do. And this is totally an art. I tried to write out some parameters and I gave up. It's useless. I don't know how to do it. There are times when you simply don't waste energy defending yourself. There's other times, and I'm not sure how you make that distinction—I go with my gut is how I do it—when you go, "No, we need to talk about that."
It's an open, unsealed letter. And it says, "Really, you have a motive other than what you're saying." And Nehemiah could have well said, "Well, gosh, these are fighting words." But he doesn't say that. He said, "I sent a messenger" in verse 8 and said, "Such things as you're saying I have not done, but you are inventing them in your own mind. For all of them are trying to frighten us, thinking that we will become discouraged with the work and it won't be done. But now, oh God, strengthen my hands."
Nehemiah said, "Here's what you've done. You've launched this charge." So if we go back to your outline to try to fill that out, they defend yourself. The enemy's appeal is you must defend yourself. And His intention is to dismay the leader. But the leader's response is to reject it. They come to him and they say, "Nehemiah, look, here's what this is about. You're putting together your own system here and you're getting ready to attack." The Bible says that is not true.
The Example of Jesus: Strength Under Control
The example of this, what this is called, is called meekness. Strength under control. The perfect example of that is Jesus on the cross. How do you defend or not defend yourself? Jesus is hanging on the cross and they scream at Him and they say, "Look at Him. He saved others, but He couldn't save Himself."
That to me is my break point. If I'm Jesus, I don't know why. I don't know why that moment more than so many others. I see Jesus' abuse in so many ways, but there's something about that moment. Maybe it's because it's the intensity of the moment. It says Jesus hangs on that cross as He pays the price for your sin and mine. And they begin to mock Him and they say, "He saved others, but He couldn't save Himself."
Now, part of the problem is that's true. If He saved Himself, He could not have saved us. There is but one way, one way for you and I to enter into a right relationship with God, and that's through Christ. That's why Jesus died.
Why the Cross Was Necessary
We're right now, obviously, in the midst of planning Good Friday and Easter, and it always tends to have a theme around the cross and the resurrection. That's how those holidays go. Well, the question that I try to ask all the time is, but why? Why was there a cross? Why is there a resurrection? Why didn't God just say, "You know what? Everybody's screwed up. We're going to start
The Cost of Forgiveness
Over. We're going to bail you out. We're going to get it all done. But that's impossible for Him to do because He's a God of love and kindness, but He's also a God of justice and wrath, and your sin must be paid for. Somebody has to pay for your sin, either you eternally, never paid in full in hell, or Christ on the cross. There isn't any other way. Jesus hung there.
But there's other times when I think you have to go and you have to say, we need to talk this through. We need to talk about that. But as a general rule of thumb, in my mind, it's just best for you to just let it go.
When Someone Asks for Forgiveness
I had a guy that came to me one day and he said, "I need to ask for your forgiveness." I said, "That's good. I'm the perfect guy." I've said this to you before: if you want to screw somebody, I'm the perfect guy to screw because I hold no grudges. I mean, I'm so clear. God's forgiven me of so much stuff, and for me to hold a grudge, that's just not my deal.
He said, "I need to ask your forgiveness." I said, "Man, I don't know what you did. Not a problem, but we're all square." He said, "Do you want to know what I did?" And I said, "Yeah, there's kind of a side of me that wants to know, but I don't know that it'll benefit me much."
He said, "Well, let me tell you what I did." He said, "There's a guy in town and I knew your name, but I thought you were him. And everywhere I'd go, I'd see this guy. And then I would tell all my friends about you and what you were doing and how you were acting and how you were behaving and your attitude."
I said, "Oh, well, okay. All your friends. Yeah, I told all your friends." I said, "Do you have a lot of friends?" He said, "I have a lot of friends." And I said, "How are we going to fix this?" And he said, "I can't."
Reputation vs. Character
It was kind of weird because I know the guy, I know both guys engaged in this. I know the circles they run in. I know that in a lot of meetings I'm in, the guys are in there. And now I'm looking in meetings, not in a paranoid way, but going, "This guy thinks something about me that's just simply not true."
But here's the comfort you draw in that moment. Reputation is what other people think about you. Character is who you are. And I gave up a long time ago being obsessed about my reputation because some of it's justifiably earned, some of it isn't. But I can control my character.
Christianity is Not About What We Do
I'll tell you this in your own life. And this is, again, for those of us who are around church a lot, this kind of shakes a paradigm. Again, as Grandpa would say, "Georgia preserves." This shakes you up. Because we think church and we think do.
I was in a group a while ago with a bunch of Christian guys, and that was the premise of the group. But every time we talked about Christianity, they talked about what they did. "We did this and we're honorable at this and we pay our bills and we do this." That's not what Christianity is. Buddhists pay their debts. Secular humanists feed the hungry.
How the World Will Know
When Jesus, hang with me here, I think this is really big, the night before He dies, Jesus has the boys together and He says, "This is how the world is going to know you're My guys." Now at this point, He's got a whiteboard. He can put anything on there He wants. This is how the world's going to know that you're Mine. So He can put church, pray, He can put any of that stuff on there.
"This is how the world will know that you are Mine, that you love one another."
I want you to get this because I'm going to just keep repeating this. This is like my new thing. Every once in a while, like about, I would say about twice a year, I get a thing that I really like and then unfortunately I just throw it up all the time. Here's my latest thing. By the way, I'm just telling you, this may be the best ever I've had, I think. This is really big.
What Motivates Us
What is to drive you and I in our relationship with Christ? Second Corinthians 5:14, the love of Christ compels us. When I contemplate the cross and God's love for me, that's my motive. The motive is not to pay Him back. It's not to turn it into duty. We've talked about that before.
I see guys all the time operating, "I'm a Christian, I'm going to church, I'm doing it out of duty" and you wear out out of duty. This is not out of duty. So maybe you've done this. Maybe you go, "I do that Bible study thing or I'll do that church thing or I'll do whatever it is." I do it for a while and then after a while, it just doesn't work anymore. That's because you're doing it out of duty or obligation.
What motivates you is the love that Christ has for you. This is beyond, I think, beyond comprehension. If you could fully see how sinful and unworthy we are, I am. And in spite of that, not because of it, it's not that God looked at you and said, "Boy, I got to get Jesus down there to rescue them because they're good people." In spite of that, Christ dies for you, for me, for us, for all that would ever come.
The Heart of Christian Fellowship
So get this. This is really cool, I think. What motivates us is the love of Christ. What motivates the world is that they see that we love one another. They'll know you're My disciples. How? That you love one another.
And then you walk in, and I walk in and I spend time with Christians, especially in a church context. So much petty, stupid fighting about stuff that doesn't matter. Not dying on maybe the hill of truth, I mean real truth, about the essentials of the faith, not something that's out here. Arguing and complaining about volume and seats and comfort and music and all that stuff. It drives me nuts.
We remodeled our worship center, and I really like it a lot. But it's changed, and the pews went and we got some seats. Some people don't like the seats. So I got a guy who's just, every week he's whining about something. So he comes up one day and he gives me, I have told you this story, he gives me a book, and he says, "You've got to read this book, this incredible book." So I look
The Call to Read About Suffering
I told him the book was about the persecuted church, and he said, "Give me this book and tell me what's in it, because I probably won't read it. People give me books all the time, but I can't read everything you give me. I have my own list."
He explained that the book was about suffering around the world for those who love Christ. It described the lengths people go to in places like China, where they break a Bible into sections because they can only afford one and can't risk having one person destroy it or be captured. This was about the pain, suffering, and anguish around the world for Christ.
I said to him, "You've got to be kidding me. You're the same guy that's complaining about sitting an hour and a half a week in that air-conditioned chair, and you want me to read about suffering around the world? Are you kidding? Is there no connection? Do you not see a connection here?" We miss Him, but do you see that? He said we're arguing about something that doesn't matter.
Love as a Sign of Strength
The world is drawn by that love. In our day and age, it's almost vogue to love one another. But in that day and age, as I said earlier, a sign of love or forgiveness was a sign of weakness.
In Nehemiah, they come, and to Nehemiah's credit here, he deals with this the best he possibly can. Your reputation's one thing, but what's your character? The point I was making is that I think God's terribly concerned about your heart more than He's concerned about your behavior. That shocks some people, but He's terribly concerned about your heart condition.
That was the thing with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were doing everything right, but their heart was screwed up. And He's saying, "Don't do that. That guy's going to church. That guy's giving money. That guy's praying. That guy's fasting. Don't do that like that." They were doing it to be seen. You do it because you love Him, and it's right.
The Fruit of the Spirit
When Paul says, "I want to show you the fruit of the Spirit," if the fruit of the Spirit is evidence of what's going on in your life, then here's what that is. It's stunning to me that there's no activity listed: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Here's how I know if you're a Christian: not if you're going to Bible study all the time and memorizing verses, but do you love the unlovable? Is there a sense of peace in your life?
The Attempt to Discredit Nehemiah
I want to make one giant point here. What they try to do now is to discredit the leader. So what happens is, one of the guys who's a prophet comes and says, "Listen, they're coming to attack you, Nehemiah," in verse 10. "Let's meet together in the house of God. I'm going to take you into the temple, and I'm going to close the doors. And they're not going to find you there."
He's not saying come in the outer court, or the court of the women, or the court of the Gentiles, or the men. Come in the holy of holies. Nehemiah knows that's no place for him. He's not supposed to go there.
So Nehemiah says in verse 11, "Should a man like me flee? And could one such as I enter into the temple to save his life? I won't go in." Then I perceived surely God hadn't sent him, but he uttered his prophecy against me because Sanballat and Tobiah had hired him. And he was hired for this reason: that I might become frightened and act accordingly in sin so that they might have an evil report of me.
The Enemy's Strategy of Intimidation
They're trying to discredit him. The enemy's appeal is you must ensure your safety to cause a spiritual compromise. "You come in here where you're not supposed to go," and it will discredit him. Nehemiah rejects this. He says, "No, this is not what we're going to do."
They come to intimidate him. According to Webster, the word intimidate means to compel or to deter by a threat. The prophet comes under the guise of being a prophet and says, "Come on in here, Nehemiah. You'll be protected in here." And Nehemiah says, "I'm not going to do that. I'm not supposed to be in there." Nehemiah says, "No, I'm going to stay right here."
When Fear Makes Us Vulnerable
Now I want to make a connection. It was in verse 9 they come to discourage him, and they're thinking that this would frighten him. They see it again in verse 13. He said it comes that you might be frightened.
When fear comes into our life, there's going to be a connection here. When fear comes into our life and we're frightened, we are really vulnerable. We're tempted to do things that we know are not right. We're tempted to step over the boundaries.
I'm talking to a pastor the other day, and he said, "I'm having a real problem in my church with the old people, 65 and over. It's the toughest demographic. I'd rather have junior high kids. Junior high kids are more giving and less selfish than older people. That's just the way it is." And I don't mean that to hurt your feelings—I'm sure you're the exception—but it's just the way it is with the rest of them.
Fear in Our Own Context
He said, "They're driving me up a wall. This is the worst it's ever been." And I said, "By and large, the older segment in our church are not like that. There's a few, but by and large, they're pretty good to deal with. Why do you think that is?"
He said, "I know why it is. They are so afraid. They're afraid of the world they live in; they're afraid of the way things are changing." Let me pick up on this point from Nehemiah, because I didn't get it until preparing for this study. I've got to admit, I've taught it two or three times and I didn't see that connection of "frightened" in there twice.
Now you've dropped down to my age, so I'm 60. So a friend of mine the other...
I said, "You honestly think you're going to get a social security check when you're 65?" I said, "I do. I'm not sure I'll get one when I'm 75, though." I think there are guys like me who are saying they're frightened, uncertain. I mean, it's not like I can go launch a new career right now. And I play by all the rules. And I watch yet another guy who's got debt of $300,000 write it off for $10,000. Well, who's paying that? It's me.
And then you drop down to that guy, and that's the 50 and up crowd. The world's retooling, and it's changing so fast. We're not basically a Facebook Twitter generation. Well, now talk to the kids that are graduating from college. They're scared because they can't find jobs.
I did my Hot Summer Night with Barry Asmus. Barry and I had a couple areas of real serious disagreements. One of them was in the area of jobs, where he just says, "They're all going to come back, and they're going to be fine." I said, "This isn't going to happen. The jobs are going to come back, and when they come back, they're going to pay a fraction of what they used to pay." That's because you're competing with a guy in Bangladesh now, not the guy in Baltimore. It's just basic economics.
Barry disagrees, and I told Barry, "Well, you've got two things I don't have. You've got a Ph.D. - I cheated to get out of college - and you're optimistic, and I'm pessimistic. So I hope you're right." But here's what I know. I spent a lot of time with parents and kids. It makes no sense to spend $200,000 on a college education and get a $35,000 a year job. Stupid. You're coming out with debt beyond comprehension.
All these 22-year-old guys are coming out, they're getting nothing. They're getting intern jobs for $15,000, $12,000. They're scared.
When Fear Makes Us Vulnerable
Here's my point. We're all scared. When we're scared, we'll do things that are irrational. When we're scared, we'll do things that don't make sense. When we're scared, we'll step over the line. We'll do things we never thought we would ever do.
When that guy says, "You know what, if you just bend that rule a little bit, you can have the deal," all of a sudden, you're vulnerable, and you'll bend the rule. And Nehemiah says, "There is no way. We aren't going to do this."
You have an enemy that is absolutely relentless. You have an enemy that comes against you again and again in different shapes and sizes.
The Relentless Nature of Our Enemy
There's a movie called The Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino, in which he is the devil. He's recruiting this young guy who's an attorney. He lures him in with success. There's this scene, this battle between good and evil, Satan and the other guy. He resists. He stands firm. He rejects him.
There's this court scene. The guy thumbs his nose. He defeats the devil. As he's walking down this stairwell, the reporter says to him, "I want to meet with you. I want to do your story. I want to put you in the paper. I want to get you on TV." The character's saying, "No, no, no, I don't want to do that." "Come on, you can be famous. Call me in the morning." The guy walks away.
I get goosebumps. All of a sudden, the reporter morphs into Al Pacino. That's your enemy, man. So he comes at you.
Knowing Your Vulnerabilities
Here's where I'm vulnerable. I can tell you right where I'm vulnerable. My idols are comfort and ease and security. Those are my idols. I like no hassle. I don't want a hassle.
I got a flat tire the other day, and I had to go to Houston. I said to Susan, "You know, man, who's going to change that tire?" She said, "Hey, you know, I can't change your tire." So I went to church Sunday, and I saw one of the guys. I said, "You got to find somebody to change my tire." He said, "You can't change your tire?" I said, "No, not really." So I called Susan, and I said, "One of the guys is going to change the tire, but who's going to take it over to get the new tire on?" She said, "You are pathetic." I said to her, "I have people."
But somebody just moved in across the way from us. They leave their porch light on. When I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I check to see if the porch light is still on. That's my idol - security. It's crazy.
I don't know what yours is. Money's not a big deal for me. It's important to me that I know people that have it, but I don't really need to have it myself. Power's just a lot of work. You got to nurture it and boss people around. But security - I don't know what your thing is, but I'm telling you, he will come at you again and again until he finds it.
The Enemy Never Eases Up
He's relentless. That's what you learn from Nehemiah. Even when you're that close to being done, he never eases up. If it's about duty, I'm telling you, you're going to poop out. Some of you know that, don't you?
You do your thing, and I'm not putting those down at all - they're all important. But if you're not compelled by God's love for you, you're going to stop. And here's what the world wants to see. They want to see you under pressure to see how you respond.
Yesterday, we're closed, but his wife has cancer, breast cancer. It's not what Susan has, it's different. They've told her we can get this, we can take care of it. And we meet now about every three weeks, just he and I, with no agenda, and it's so fun just to have the conversations, to go through them, to have them say, what did you think then and what happened then?
And I tell Susan, "Susan, I can preach a thousand messages, but the one that's been the most impactful to our church has been people watching you, not listening to me." So everybody's watching, and that's a good thing. And there's never a finish line until you die.
Next week, Nehemiah finally gets this job done. We'll pick up right there next week.
Father, let us be wise enough to listen, to learn, to be the men and women You've called us to be. God, I pray for the people that are here right now that are under so much pressure that it's like everything they can do just to get in here. It might be relationship, it might be a relationship with a kid or a spouse, it could be a job. There's so much pressure.
Father, let us take a deep breath, and again, like Nehemiah, when the pressure comes, he turns to You, and he prays a simple prayer: "But now, oh God, strengthen my hands." Father, strengthen us. We ask it of You, in Christ's name, amen.