We're taught in Scripture that, as followers of Christ, we are

to be fully dependent on God. What exactly does that look like? Today, on Truth

for Life, we'll find out why dependence on the Lord doesn't mean we just sit

back and wait for him to work. Alistair Begg is teaching from chapters three and

four in the book of Nehemiah.

You will notice in verse six that the people were at the halfway mark. They had

built the wall till all of it had reached half its heights. And the opposition has

intensified. And Nehemiah faces a real challenge. Let me give you three words which

continue our run of words ending in ATION. The agitation which is external is more

than matched by the consternation, that's the second word, which is internal.

Furthermore, there was intimidation which came hard on the heels of this internal lack of

security. Verse 11, all the enemies said before they know it or before they see us, we'll get

right in there among them, we'll kill them and we'll put an end to the work. What you have here

in verse 11 is essentially a whispering campaign. And so the word begins to go around. They're going to

get us. They're going to kill us. They're going to shut the project down. Bad news travels fast.

And there were a little group of people, some of them, living close to these enemies. You'll

notice that there in verse 12, the Jews who lived near them. Principle, you get like the people

you spend time with. If you're prone to discouragement, don't live amongst people who traffic always

in discouraging use. When you hang around people who are negative, you catch the bug.

And the man or the woman who is jaundice eventually sees everything yellow.

And what had happened was that the word that was coming through to these people who were

closest to them had begun to permeate their thinking, and so they were coming to Namiah again,

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