The Hole in the Wall Gang

Long before Hollywood glamorized their story, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid led a bunch of bandits that robbed banks and trains in the late 19th century. They were incredibly hard to capture because of their hiding place. They holed up at a remote place in Wyoming that gave the crooks their name. The Hole in the Wall Gang. But flip open your Bible to Nehemiah 4:10-14 and you’ll meet a biblical bunch you could call the Hole in the Wall Gang. No, they weren’t bank-robbing criminals but wall-building Israelites. When terrorists threaten to attack, Nehemiah does two things. He places armed men along the most vulnerable spots along the wall. And he tells the folks not to freak out. Their great and awesome God is on their side. God is the ultimate Ace in the hole for the Hole in the Wall Gang.

In Nehemiah 4:7-9, we read about how Sanballat and his goons blow their stack when the Hebrew work crews make incredible progress on the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. As the leader of the project, Nehemiah does what Nehemiah does. He prays and he takes action. He turns his trust to the One who has a kung fu grip on this particular project and this particular people (Neh 2:8, 18). But his prayer doesn’t result in paralysis but action. He places “a guard as protection against them day and night” (Neh 4:9). Here in verses 10-14, he explains in more detail what that looks like. There are many times when our prayers must be combined with prudent action. Prayer plus action is prayer in action! When your back’s against the wall and even your wall has holes, remember God has your back!

Despite making incredible process in a short amount of time, the massive Hebrew work crew is running on fumes. The walls are halfway up but their tank is on E. “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall” (v10). Too little strength. Too much debris. In case you’ve forgotten, the whole reason the walls need to be rebuilt is because King Nebuchadnezzar knocked them down a century ago. So there’s rubble. Lots and lots of rubble. And very little energy. On any big project, discouragement lurks around every corner. All it takes is for momentum to slip and suddenly you realize just how tired you are and how much more work needs to be done.

The structure of the original Hebrew text here leads some folks to believe this is actually a song or poem. The translators of the CEV and GNT think this was a tune workers sang on the job site. You can imagine how these lyrics affected their attitude! How many times have you and I been there. When we’re exhausted, we take our eyes off God and focus on our problems. There’s no way I can do this. We forget that it this isn’t about our strength but His. Instead of singing the blues over what we can’t do, we should belt out a tune like we find in Psalm 46. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1). Remember that Jesus has does crazy things when the task at hand dwarfs the resources in our hands. Do I need to remind you about the day He turned a little kid’s Lunchable in an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet (Jn 6:5-13)? When there’s too little strength and too much to do, that’s when God is at His supernatural best.

One big reason that people began to doubt was the threat of terrorist attack. “And our enemies said, ‘They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work’” (v11).Sanballat and his co-conspirators plan a series of terrorist attacks against the people building the wall. They plot to attack out of nowhere. The Jews won’t know what hit them. The threat of a sneak attack steal our focus off the goal. We start looking over our shoulders. What was that? Did you see something? Threats like these demoralize and distract. Because Nehemiah has the full support of King Artaxerxes, Sanballat and his thugs can’t openly attack. Their plan can’t be overt, but covert. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready and eager to spill Jewish blood to slam the brakes on the project. The enemy will often use fear and intimidation was a huge part of their strategy.

The threat of terrorism races throughout the entire metro Jerusalem area. People in Judah are living in fear. “At that time the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times, ‘You must return to us’” (v12). With the walls under construction and the city still vulnerable, many people are living in the ‘burbs. And there’s a significant number who don’t live in Jerusalem who have strapped on a tool belt and gone to work on the wall (Neh 3:5, 7, 13, 27). And much of the doubt comes from people who don’t even live in the city. Once the fear of Sanballat’s threat leaks throughout the land, people freak out. They plead with for their friends and family to come home immediately! It’s too dangerous! Don’t leave us hanging! Don’t leave our cheese in the wind! And they did this not once, not twice, but over and over and over again. Ten. Times. Fear does that to us. It makes us selfish and self-centered. God calls us to look out for each other in community with a heart of self-sacrifice.

That’s when Nehemiah gets to work. It’s easy to lead when everything is going well. When your back’s against the wall and your wall has holes, that’s when leadership not only hard but necessary. He takes practical steps that demonstrate his faith in God. The former royal wine steward starts placing armed guards at strategic points along the wall. “So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people by their clans, with their swords, their spears, and their bows” (v13). He has a strategic vision for where the people are the most vulnerable. We’re only as strong as our weakest link. Jesus’ church is a team. Jesus’ church is a body. Jesus’ church is a family. We need to look out for each other. Nehemiah assigns people to be defend the areas near the ones they love. And he assigns people to use the weapons they are familiar with and keep them close.

Nehemiah doesn’t just hand out assignments for guard duty. He reminds the freaked out folks that God is on their side. Their backs may be against the wall. Their wall may have holes. But our great and awesome God has our backs! “And I looked and arose and said to the nobles, and to the officials and to the rest of the people, ‘Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes’” (v14). It looks like Nehemiah pulls his plan straight out of Moses’ playbook. Moses pleaded with the Israelites to remember that the enemy is nothing compared God. “Do not fear the people of the land…the LORD is with us; do not fear them” (Num 14:9). When the Hebrew people freak out after receiving the intel on the size of the residents living in the Promised Land, the Big Mo encouraged them, “Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight for you” (Dt 1:29-30).

The crew began to focus on themselves and lost sight that God is the one who’s ultimately behind this project. What a great lesson of the leadership principle that vision leaks. Leaders must constantly remind the people they serve of the big picture. Stephen Covey says, “You have to keep the main thing, the main thing.” Your back may be against the wall but remember Who has your back! The Message paraphrases Nehemiah's’ command, “Put your minds on the Master” (v14 The Message). Remember who you worship. Remember who’s on your side. The LORD is “great and awesome” (v14). Our God is bigger and badder than anything our enemy can throw at us! gain Nehemiah follows the leadership principles of Moses. After getting a fresh copy of the Ten Commandments, he reminds God’s people just who they worship. “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe” (Dt 10:17). Compared to God, these knuckleheads are nothing. 

This is a great picture of how Jesus takes on the problem of our own sin. We’re faced with an impossible task. There’s absolutely no way we could ever work our way to save ourselves. There’s way too much rubble. There’s way too little strength. But Jesus does for us what we could never dream of doing for ourselves. God is on our side. The Apostle Paul wrote to his Roman friends, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not give us all things?” (Rom 8:31-32). When our backs were against the wall of our sin, Jesus had our backs. 

For Jerusalem’s Hole in the Wall Gang, God was their ultimate Ace in the hole.