Nehemiah 4 sees the return of Sanballat and his cronies,
Nehemiah’s chief opponents. They escalate their threats from merely verbal, to physical and then mortal, making death threats against Nehemiah’s team. Nehemiah shows us how to face opposition to God’s work, be it physical opposition or spiritual opposition from the devil. The key in both Nehemiah’s day and in our day is God’s decisive victory that changes everything for God’s people. In the gospel, Jesus vanquished our greatest opponents, Satan sin and death and gives the upper hand in spiritual warfare, in which we are to be vigilant whilst also safe in the knowledge that Satan cannot do us any real harm.
