April 2, 2007 - Within or Without

April 2, 2007

Ezr 4:2-6 KJVR
(2) Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days ofEsar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.
(3) But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
(4) Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
(5) And hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
(6) And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.


When you take on a task that God has provided to you, there are two groups that you need to focus on. The first is the people that will try to help you but are really against you. When they were trying to rebuild the walls the people of Israel that had returned were offered help by the people of the area that had moved into area. They were not really interested in getting the wall done, they were interested in the status quo. Though these people were descendants of Israel, they had come from the area of Samaria and not interested in the true God of Israel.

The other group are ones that will just stand against you. The other Samaritans in the area were also interested in the status quo. And they would do what they could to destroy the wall from going up. They sent letters to the rulers of the land. And it succeeded.

Rick Renner talks about his pioneering work in Russia and how they all felt like one happy family, the Russians and the Renners as they tried to reach their country for Jesus. Eventually more people were needed and people from the USA that had been in contact with the Renners asked to be allowed to come. He said yes, they could use the help. The people came and they really were not expecting the conditions to be the way they were. They griped and complained. The family relationship turned sour. What happened next though shocked people. Death threats started appearing to people inside the ministry. When the KGB investigated, they found that it was from within their own ministry, one of the Russian people. When asked why, he just said he wanted things to go back the way they were. Destruction came from within.

Satan will use who ever or what ever he can to get you out of the will of God, even people who want to help you. And if that does not work he will send those outside, but that is what we expect. What are you doing for God? Who is trying to stop you?