Opposition from Within

Aaron Beard

            What a great work the Lord has set before his people.  He commanded the apostles to “Go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature…” As they did so, the church was established and it began to carry out this command in different local areas.  This charge is a very serious one that takes great effort and sacrifice.  It is this same charge in which every individual within the Lord’s church is to be engaged.  It is difficult enough to carry out this command due to exterior conflicts, however the difficulty multiplies when opposition rises from within.

            Nehemiah knew this fact first hand.  When the Israelites were sent back from Babylonian captivity to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah stepped forward and took the responsibility of leading the people.  As they were building the walls, several struggles arose which he had to deal with.  One of the men who did not want to see its completion was Sanballat.  He began to make statements such as, "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?" (Nehemiah 4:2).  It was not long before attitudes like this began to spread amongst the people that surrounded the city of Jerusalem. 

            The people had made great progress on the wall, in fact, “the gaps were beginning to be closed” (Nehemiah 4:7).  As the peoples surrounding Jerusalem were making the negative comments and conspiring for attack, the children of Israel were evidently listening and it began to affect them.  Judah said, "The strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall. And our adversaries said, ‘They will neither know nor see anything, till we come into their midst and kill them and cause the work to cease’” (Nehemiah 4:10-11).  Then other laborers walked up and said, “From whatever place you turn, they will be upon us.” The children of Israel, who once had “a mind to work,” now were setting their tools aside, concentrating on everything but the work at hand. The work on the wall came to a standstill for a period of time.  After some encouraging words from Nehemiah, the people went back to work using one hand to hold a tool and the other to hold a spear.  Progress was being made again.

            There is absolutely no place for criticism from within the Lord’s church.  Some feel that if the criticism is true, then it is justified. We need to ask ourselves, “How much good is accomplished when I gripe and complain about how things are going?” If one is criticizing everything that goes on then he has put his tools down and the work on the “wall” has ceased.  There are times in local churches when the elders or individual members make a decision to do a certain way or do a specific work that certain members do not think is best. It may not be something that is “unscriptural,” but some will take the opportunity to tell every single member how imprudent that particular decision was.  Before long this cancerous criticism spreads and a great number of people have ceased their work.

            This is the very type of problem Paul was addressing when he wrote about the fruit of the spirit and works of the flesh in Galatians 5.  In verse seven Paul says, “You ran well.  Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”  The next several verses reveal to us what probably caused them to cease “building the wall.”  He speaks of how “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (verse 9).  He says in verse 12 that he wishes that the trouble maker would just cut himself off from the rest of the group.  Those are some pretty strong words for a man concerned so greatly with saving souls!  Paul describes this internal problem by saying, “If you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Verse 15). These people were committing spiritual cannibalism! They were making Satan’s work simple.

            There are two attitudes that we can have concerning criticism within a church; we can either be a criticizer or a builder.  It is a matter of whether we wish to be walking in the Spirit or after the flesh.  Paul described some of the works of the flesh as, “…hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy…” (Verses 20-21).  Each one of these things are qualities of people who concern themselves with always being critical of others.  In contrast, Paul says to those who walk in the Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” (Verses 22-23).  The choice lies before us; we can either be those who walk in the Spirit or those who walk according to the flesh.  Let us make certain that we are “building the walls” and not stopping to criticize things that are either of no great importance or cannot be helped.