The Plain Of Ono

by D. Smith, Ayr, U.K. | Category: General | Jul 1983

Nehemiah was perhaps not yet born when God stirred the spirit of His captive people in Babylon, causing over forty two thousand of them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of the Lord (Ezra 1:5, 2:64). Among those who returned were 725 Benjamites "the children of Lod, Hadid and Ono" (Ezra 2:33), every one unto his city. The city of Ono, which means strength and power, had been built with its towns and villages in better times (1 Chronicles 8:12), strategically placed between the hill country of Ephraim and the Plain of Sharon.

Although Nehemiah had missed the initial phase of this great spiritual movement and had been denied the privilege of direct contact with such

great men as Zerubbabel and Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah, it did not mean that God had no place for him and no work for a young man with a deep divine exercise regarding the place of God's Name, and the welfare of His people. Is there not in every age a place and a work for those who are so exercised of God, and who delight to fear His Name? Like Nehemiah they can depend on the go6d hand of their God upon them (Nehemiah 2:8). Sorrow of heart and inward concern for the house and people of God will inevitably attract His blessing. Indeed there is always sufficient work among His remnant people to be going on with till the Lord come.

To build again the broken walls of Jerusalem, and raise again the gates that had been burned with fire, was in itself a task of the highest magnitude and called for the unanimous support of all God's people. They indeed rose to the occasion and "strengthened their hands for the good work." The importance of this good work was quickly recognized by the adversaries of Israel, Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem who, acting under the influence of Satan, sought by a chain of subtle and evil tactics to bring to a standstill the work of restoring Jerusalem. The antagonism of Satan against collective testimony for God on earth, however, small, persists with characteristic venom. Let us never be mistaken as to the devil's objective to remove every lampstand that exists and to render the house of God an empty shell devoid of the divine presence. The devil undoubtedly heard with joy the woeful lament "the glory is departed from Israel" (1 Samuel 4:21, 22). Only in the strength of the Lord can His remnant people ever survive in the face of such an adversary.

Although confronted with mocking and hatred, Nehemiah and the people with him determined to carry out this great work. With a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other they successfully completed the wall "that there was no breach left therein."

At that point their adversaries adopted a new and more insidious stratagem. They sent to Nehemiah saying, "Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono" (Nehemiah 6:2). There would be nothing to divide in the valley of Ono, and no wall to encompass a divine enclosure, to separate God's people according to His will, to define the place where He has chosen to dwell and where His house stands. Each suggestion is written in the handwriting of Satan and bears the character of the great deceiver, designed to stop the work of building for God in the place of His Name. It stands to the eternal credit of Nehemiah that four times he firmly rejected their invitation, saying "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down" (Nehemiah 6:3). The greatness of the work they were doing is not measured by metre or by mile, nor by the number of people involved, for in fact they were comparatively few, but is assessed by its importance to God and to His will. The value of all our work is measured by the word of God, through which alone we learn His will. For Nehemiah and the rulers to leave the city would have been a "come

down" indeed. Jerusalem, the city of Zion was an elevated city (Psalm 48:2) that stood above the level of Ono. Were they to leave the place to which God had brought them to go down to cast in their lot with men who had no appreciation of God's house, with its holy service and joyous feasts? It was the place of His Name, so precious to Him, and so important in the life of those who would be well pleasing to Him. Indeed before Israel ever entered the land of promise God had made it clear to His people that their collective worship and service would only be acceptable if rendered in the one place which He would choose "to put His Name there," even "His habitation" (Deuteronomy 12:5). The erection or selection of any other place was censured as a sin against the God of glory. Nehemiah realized that he could not meet with men of such calibre, whose attitude to God and to His house was so diverse from that of the godly remnant. To find a basis of unity with such men was an impossibility for "shall two walk together, except they have agreed?" (Amos 3:3). They could only agree if Nehemiah relinquished his position and compromised the truth of God which was so dear to him and so important to the future of the remnant movement. This he was not prepared to do.

The invitation to God's remnant people to converge on the plain of Ono, and to meet in a spirit of unity is pertinent to the present day. Today the people of God have been brought back to a spiritual position, having responded to the call of God, "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate." They have been "called into the Fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord," commissioned to restore the truth regarding the collective testimony of God on earth relating to the house of God (1 Timothy 3:15). They are constantly under the strain of this rival call, "Come let us meet together," whether it be the plausible request of an ecumenical body or the appeal of an evangelical campaign. It is nevertheless a call unrelated to the kingdom of God, a call away from the work of God in connection with His house. No such move will enrich the life of God's people. While we rejoice with the angels in heaven over every sinner that repenteth, surely we ought not to concede the whole truth of God nor desert the way which leads to God's house and temple. That does not in any way inhibit our proclamation of the gospel nor does it relegate its importance to a secondary place, remembering that the great apostle of the Gentiles who "went about preaching the kingdom" (Acts 20:25 and 28:30, 31) said, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel," which was to the apostle the first and essential theme of "the Faith once for all delivered to the saints," and in which the early disciples were exhorted to continue (Acts 14:22), to "continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast" (Colossians 1:23), as Paul himself did to the

end of his earthly course (2 Timothy 4:7).

It may well be that the present overtures for unity being made to believers are but the initial moves towards the final rally of all world religions in a plain far greater and more accommodating than the plain of Ono. That will be in a plain in the land of Shinar (Genesis 10:10 and 11:2), where Wickedness is borne to her final station (Zechariah 5:5-11) before being destroyed in the ultimate judgement of Babylon the great (Revelation 17 and 18). May God give us wisdom and grace to refuse any such overtures in the fear of the Lord and in the knowledge of the truth.

D. Smith, Ayr, U.K. | Jul 1983
General