Walk about Zion and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. Beautiful Zion is now sitting without her walls. It was a glorious work of Nehemiah to build the walls again—labor in the truth.

Sanballat, the opponent of that glorious work of building the walls of Zion, was the relentless enemy of God and his people. Four times by various methods, Sanballat tried to stop the work. Then he came a fifth time with an open letter. His words were softer than oil; he came as a friend concerned for them. It is commonly reported throughout the land, and there is a witness who is willing to testify, that the Jews think to rebel. You, Nehemiah, want to make yourself king. You have set up prophets to preach your kingship in Jerusalem. Let us take counsel together. Come and talk, and I will deliver you from the charges. But there was war in Sanballat’s heart. He came to terrify the people in order to weaken their hands that the work not be done.

In such a manner have the enemies of the truth acted in every age. Before Pilate, the Jews accused Jesus of raising rebellion throughout all Jewry, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that he was king. Tertullus, that golden-tongued orator, accused Paul of being a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. The Roman Catholic enemies of the Reformation whispered in the ears of all the monarchs of Europe that the reformers were schismatics in the church, disobedient to government, and teachers of rebellion. So also, the authorities in the Netherlands accused Hendrik De Cock of sowing the seeds of destruction, turmoil, and division and of attempting to overthrow good order in the church. And their enemies accused Herman Hoeksema and Henry Danhof of breaking their oaths of subscription and of causing schism in the Christian Reformed Church.

There is nothing new under the sun.

There were no such things done as the enemies accused, but the enemies feigned them out of their own hearts. They tried to weaken the church that the work not be done. But God strengthened the hands of his servants.