In this chapter we see Satan at work again. It seems that this is very often the case. When God is doing a great work, Satan works extra hard to frustrate it. The Jews were making progress on the building of the wall and the temple. The surrounding nations were not at all pleased about this progression. So they set out to hinder it as best they could. First, they offered cordially to help with the building of the temple. They claimed to be serving the God of the Jews (which they were at the time in a twisted way that was mixed with idol worship). When that approach did not work, they did their best to discourage the workers and they hired counselors to give them bad advice, but the work kept moving forward. Finally, when a new king of the empire took the throne, they wrote a letter to him falsely accusing the Jews and finally got the king to command the work to be stopped.
That is just how Satan works today. He is ruthless in his methods and tireless in his energy to stop the work of the Church. But, we need not be discouraged. We have God on our side. Sometimes it may seem that Satan has won and God's work is not going forward, but God is all-powerful and what seems like a setback is often just the beginning of something greater. Let's not be discouraged. Let's trust God and He will help us.
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