(14) My God, think thou upon Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works, and on the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that would have put me in fear.
Observe how the open or secret plots of the enemy drive Nehemiah to his knees. Reader! think only how a gracious God in Christ overrules even the malice of the devil to his people's good and his own glory. For if the devices of Satan compel me to go to a throne of grace for strength to resist his temptation, when without this attack of the foul fiend I should not have gone there; and if God my Saviour converts his very ill design into the means of producing greater good, so that thereby my own poverty and weakness is more discovered, and the Redeemer's strength made more precious and interesting: surely even our temptations are blessings in disguise, and are among the all things which work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8:28; James 1:2-4.