When Opposition Changes Its Face

One thing I have noticed in my life is that opposition doesn’t come the same way twice.

If it came wearing the same old face every time, it would be easy to recognize. We would know exactly what to do. We would pray against it, resist it, and move on but opposition is often more subtle than that. It changes its face. As I write about this, one the books that I remember reading is “The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis”. Sometimes it comes as friendship, sometimes as discouragement, sometimes as distraction, sometimes as compromise and sometimes it comes through the very people who are supposed to be helping us.

As I was reading through Ezra and Nehemiah, I was struck by how the opposition kept changing its strategy, but the goal remained the same: stop the work of God.

The first attack was surprisingly friendly.

When Zerubbabel and the people began rebuilding the temple, the adversaries came and said, “Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do.” At first glance, that sounds wonderful. More hands means more resources and thus more help but Zerubbabel discerned something deeper. Not everyone who wants to join the work you do is aligned with the purpose of the work.

When that strategy failed, the opposition changed.

They discouraged the people. They troubled them in building, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose.

When discouragement did not completely stop the work, they moved to accusations.

Letters were written to Artaxerxes the king, laying allegations about the character and conduct of the people.

Then Nehemiah enters the picture.

In Nehemiah 4, Sanballat and Tobiah begin mocking the builders. “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish—stones that are burned?”

For years, I read those verses and focused on what the enemy said but recently I noticed something else. The opposition actually worked. A few verses later, it is no longer the enemy speaking, it is the builders who said “The strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall.”

Did you notice what happened?

The enemy saw rubbish. Then the builders started seeing rubbish. The laborers are failing and the same wall which was seen as a stone is now seen as a rubbish.

The voice outside became the voice inside.

That is often how opposition works. It is not successful when it speaks but it is successful when we begin repeating what it says. The most dangerous moment is not when the enemy questions the work. It is when the people doing the work begin to question it too.

But the story goes even deeper.

In Nehemiah 5, the problem is no longer Sanballat or Tobiah but within the people themselves. What struck me is that Sanballat and Tobiah could not stop the work from the outside but the work almost began to collapse from the inside. The people who were building the same wall started hurting one another. The enemy no longer needed to attack because the damage was happening within the camp itself.

The wealthy Jews were charging interest to their own brothers. Some were losing their fields, some were mortgaging their homes and some were even forced to sell their children into servitude because of debt.

The opposition had changed its face again.

It was no longer standing outside the walls but found its way inside.

As I sat with this passage, I could not help but think about my own life.

There have been seasons where opposition was obvious. There were people who disagreed with me. Circumstances that pushed against me. Challenges that stood directly in front of me.

But if I am honest, the harder battles were not always outside.

Sometimes the voice of discouragement became my own voice.

Sometimes the fear became my own fear.

Sometimes the criticism became the way I saw myself.

And sometimes the distraction came from places I never expected.

That is why Ezra and Nehemiah are such powerful books. They remind us that discernment must grow as opposition changes its face because not every enemy arrives carrying a sword.

Some arrive carrying an offer to help.

Some arrive carrying a joke.

Some arrive carrying a letter.

Some arrive carrying a loan.

And some arrive as a thought that slowly convinces us to believe what the enemy has been saying all along.

The enemy was willing to change methods as many times as necessary.

First he came as a friend.

Then as a discourager.

Then as an accuser.

Then as a mocker.

Then through division.

Then through compromise.

The face kept changing, but the objective never did: stop the work of God.

But through it all, the people kept building.

Perhaps that is the lesson for us today.

The goal is not to become obsessed with opposition but to keep building what God has asked us to build because opposition will change its face but the call of God does not change, neither should our commitment to it.