TEXT: EZRA 4:1-5
When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.”
But Zerubbabel, Joshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”
Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They bribed officials to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Help can be defined as the act of rendering assistance to someone in order to get a task done faster and quicker. It is an assistance given to accomplish a task in a less difficult way.
As human beings, we all love it when someone offers to render help for us in order to accomplish our mission. As good as help and assistance may be, we must be careful of the offer of help and assistance we would accept because not all helpers are genuine or real.
The devil knows how to “wrap” and present disaster and calamity with an attractive “wrapper” to make it enticing and irresistible to his victims.
Many believers have fallen victims of the deceit of these “evil helpers” and have missed their glorious destiny as a result. God promised to help us by sending helpers our way. However, it is not all helpers that are genuinely from God.
Some so called “helpers” are from the pit of hell working for their master the devil to frustrate and truncate great destinies- TAKE HEED!
Some people have met their Waterloo as a result of “strange helpers” that “helped” them to destroy their destiny instead of improving it as expected.
Our text today shows how the devil can be cunning in destroying people’s testimony by pretending to be their “helper.”
“When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “LET US HELP YOU BUILD…” (Ezra 4:1-2).
These people were not genuine helpers but enemies that pretended to be helpers. They disguised themselves as helpers so that they can frustrate the good work that the builders of the temple were doing. Thank God for the spirit of discernment that the Lord gave to the builders to recognise them as enemies rather than helpers.
In the same vein, you have to be very careful of the offer of help you would accept from people, because some “helpers” are meant for your destruction and not for your elevation. Pray for the spirit of discernment to identify godly and genuine helpers.
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