A Gate Without Doors

“When word came…that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it – though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates – Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message…He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me. Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done…who have been trying to intimidate me.” Neh. 6:1, 13-14.

Leave it to the enemy to unleash everything in his arsenal just before victory. The people of Jerusalem had worked for a month and a half to rebuild the wall. The fact that the wall was solid and secure after only 51 days is a miracle in itself. All that was left to be done was to set the doors. The wall had been in disrepair for over a century. But we know that God calls to life what appears to be dead! He uses broken lives to resurrect new life and bring forth temple living within His walls. Notice that through God's call, the wall was rebuilt and 'not a gap was left in it.'

When building our own walls of ministries we can be guaranteed the ratcheting up of heat from the enemy as we approach our fulfilled purposes from God. By following God's guidance our walls are tight and secure without vulnerable gaps as long as we remain within the walls. But God gives us free will, a gate without doors, and if we wander through the gate and away from the wall we forfeit our blessings and frustrate God's plan for our lives. Right about the moment when lives and ministries are about to ‘burst open like an April tulip,’ (Nehemiah Bible Study, p. 79) the enemy attacks and some stop believing God and seek refuge in their past habits and old attitudes. We must finish the work for which God assigns or our ministries have fallen short. ‘And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going…not knowing what will happen to me … However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me…' Acts 20:22, 24.

We cannot allow the enemy to dissuade us from our work and intimidate us through past successes he has used on us before. Satan knows what makes us tick in the flesh but God knows what makes us tick in the Spirit. And when we are ‘keeping in step with the Spirit’ we live in victorious attitudes which will power our actions to complete the wall.

“And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14b.