They Keep Replying And I Keep Answering

It has been going for four days and you do not want to be in it.

It started as one message. You answered it, because it seemed to want answering. And then there was another, and it referred to what you had said, and now there is a conversation with a shape and a history, and the shape has obligations built into it.

That is what has you. Not belief. You stopped believing much of it on the second day.

What has you is that stopping now would be rude.

Because in every conversation you have ever had in your life, walking away without a word is something a person does not do. You were raised on that. Fifty years of ordinary manners are sitting on your shoulder telling you to at least say something before you go.

And so you keep answering. And every answer gives it something to reply to, and so it replies, and so you are still there on day four.

I want to be very plain about something, and then we can look at why nobody ever said it to you.

You owe that person nothing. Not a reply. Not a closing message. Not an explanation. Nothing at all.

I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down

There is a moment where a man is repeatedly invited into a conversation he does not want, and his answer never changes.

And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? (Nehemiah 6:3, King James Version)

They sent to him four times. The verse after says so plainly. Four separate invitations, each one reasonable sounding, each one asking for a meeting.

And he sent the same answer every time, and it was not a negotiation.

You are permitted to give the same short answer four times, and no repeated request has ever once earned itself a longer reply than the one before it. Nehemiah 6:3 says I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to a man on day four of something he does not want.

Notice that he does not accuse them of anything. He does not say, I know what you are doing. He does not argue about their motives at all.

He states what he is doing and declines. That is the whole of it, and it is much stronger than an accusation would have been.

You have been given an answer that requires no accusation, and no refusal has ever once needed to prove anything about the person being refused. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man out of an argument he cannot win, and it is written that he named his own work rather than their intentions.

And notice the question at the end of the verse. Why should the work stop, he asks, so that I can leave it and come down to you?

He is weighing two things. His work, and their meeting. And he is saying out loud that the meeting is not worth the interruption.

You were always entitled to weigh what a conversation costs, and no exchange with a stranger has ever once outweighed a man's own life. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person value their own hours honestly, and Scripture puts the comparison right there in the text.

Where the obligation came from

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not stop a man answering.

Those manners are real manners and they are good ones. They exist because of something true, which is that people we are in relationship with are owed courtesy.

Every one of them was formed in a world where the person on the other end was a neighbor, a colleague, or somebody at a door you would see again.

None of them was formed for a stranger who chose you off a list.

You are applying a good rule in a place it was never made for, and no courtesy has ever once been owed to somebody who is not on the other end of a relationship. The Spirit of God is the one who tells a person where a rule stops applying, and Nehemiah 6:3 has a man declining without one word of rudeness in it.

And here is the second thing, which nobody has ever told you. The obligation you feel is not an accident of your upbringing. It is the mechanism.

The whole method depends on a person's manners. It is built on the fact that decent people find it hard to walk away, and it works better on courteous people than on rude ones, which is a strange and unwelcome fact.

That is a gap in the teaching and it is not a gap in you.

You have had your own courtesy used as the handle, and good manners have never once been the weakness anybody would call them. The written word puts a short refusal in a builder's mouth with no accusation in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man what is actually holding him in a conversation.

Stop, and do not explain

Now the small thing, and it is a subtraction.

I am not going to give you a closing message to send. A closing message is still a message, and it will be replied to, and then you will be on day five.

Stop answering, mid conversation, without a closing message, and do not explain.

You are able to stop in the middle of something without announcing it, and silence has never once been a rudeness toward somebody who is not owed courtesy. Nehemiah 6:3 has a man declining four times without ever coming down, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when somebody stops answering for the first time.

Mid sentence is fine. Mid question is fine. There is nothing to round off, because there was never a relationship to round off.

And the not explaining is the important half. Every explanation is an opening. It says there is a person here who can be reasoned with, and reasoning is the entire ground the thing is standing on.

You are removing the ground rather than winning the argument, and no explanation has ever once ended one of these conversations faster than silence. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the last handle out of somebody's hand, and it is written that the answer was given and the man never came down.

And if it feels wrong, that is the manners talking, and the manners are good and they are simply pointed at the wrong person.