One of the things that is so
important to the assurance that we as believers have in Christ
is that God gives us a true understanding of what his purpose is in our
salvation and how he accomplishes that purpose in and by the person
and work of Christ. And I know as we go through our
lives and read the scripture and experience things in life,
there are many things that we cannot explain. in its intricacy. We know, for example, that all
things work together for good to them that love God, who are
the called according to his purpose. And we know his purpose is to
glorify himself. So we know this, that whatever
it is, whether in our experience of it, whether it's good or bad,
we know in some way it's gonna work to the glory of God. And
if we're in Christ, forgiven of our sins through His blood,
and clothed in His righteousness if we're in Him, it's gonna work
for our eternal good. And so we rest in that. And that
doesn't take away the pain and the sorrow, doesn't take away
the misgivings that we have, and even the sinful thoughts
that we may have through it, doubts, you know how it goes.
We're fighting the flesh, we're in a warfare, But God has given
us an understanding and that understanding comes to us by
His Spirit through His Word. And that's what I want us to
look at this morning in Nehemiah chapter eight. You know, Nehemiah,
he was, you know, you remember this is the time when the Jews
had been in captive to Babylon for 70 years and then they had
been delivered by God's agent which an unwitting agent, a heathen
king named Cyrus, delivered from that captivity and allowed to
come back to Jerusalem and Judah. And there were three waves of
people that they came back. The first one was under a man
named Zerubbabel. And you remember we talked about
Zerubbabel. He was in the line of the kings of Judah. He wasn't
a king because they were conquered. and he was made governor of Judea,
but he was in the line of David, the line of Judah, and he was
a type of Christ. And along with him came Ezra,
the scribe, who was a scribe and a priest, and we read about
that in the book of Ezra. And then later on, in another
wave, came Nehemiah, Nehemiah was a cup bearer to
a king. The king's name was Ahasuerus,
and I may not be pronouncing that right, but don't dispute
me on that. Be careful. Most scholars, most historians
say that the name that we know him by when you study history
was Xerxes, and that's easier to say. But anyway, Nehemiah
was a cupbearer to the king. Now what that means, it was more
than him just bringing the king a cup of water. He had a respected
position in the kingdom of the Persian king. And you're gonna
see through this and then next week when we get into the book
of Esther a little bit, the marvelous sovereign providence of God. working things according to his
own will. This Jewish person, this Jewish
man, became cupbearer to the king. And later on, Esther, who
was a Jew, she married the king, actually. So we'll talk about
that later. But here's God working everything according to his purpose
in preserving the Jewish nation. And why was he doing that? because
he told Abraham in a promise, in thee shall all nations be
blessed. And how were all nations going
to be blessed? By the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus
Christ into the world to save God's elect, spiritual Israel. But here's Nehemiah, he was a
cupbearer, and he got word that the people that had gone back
to Jerusalem, that they weren't doing what they should have done.
They were to build a temple, They did that under Zerubbabel
and Ezra. And then they were to build the
walls of the city. And Nehemiah had heard that they
were lax on building those walls. So he asked the king, he prayed
about it. The Lord burdened his heart and
he asked the king for permission to go back and lead a bunch of
them back to build the walls of the city. And the king let
him go. And Nehemiah and Ezra now came together for this task. And the second part of the book
of Ezra is about the building of the walls. Well, the king
sent Nehemiah to Judah as governor of the province with a mission
to build the walls. And when he got there, he faced
opposition. I've got in your lesson here
how Samaritans, Ammonites, Arabs, Philistines, they came against
him. But Nehemiah, he set his heart
to the task. We're gonna build the walls and
the walls were rebuilt within 52 days, it says in Nehemiah
chapter six. Now Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries
and they both wrote about this rebuilding of Jerusalem and how
that occurred. So all of this comes forth and
they finished the walls. And now here in Nehemiah chapter
eight, Ezra leads a worship service. praising God for his great work,
for enabling them to come back to Jerusalem, to build these
walls. This is a work of God, Ezra said. And listen to what
he says. This is after the walls are built,
and here they are meant for a worship service. Look at verse one of
Nehemiah eight. And all the people gathered themselves
together as one man into the street that was before the water
gate. This is in Jerusalem. And they
spoke unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of
Moses. This is the old covenant law
written by Moses. And he says, which the Lord had
commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the
law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all
they could hear with understanding. That means that they were of
age to understand what was being read, at least as far as the
natural man can understand those things. And he says, upon the
first day of the seventh month. And Ezra read therein before
the street that was before the water gate from the morning until
midday. Could you all imagine all them
standing there from morning till noon, or even farther along? And it says, before the men and
the women and those that could understand, and the ears of all
the people were attentive unto the book of the law. Now there
were others there with Ezra, there were other elders there,
and he mentions them in verse four. And Ezra the scribe stood
upon a pulpit of wood, that's what we've got up here, which
they had made for this purpose. And beside him stood Mattathiah,
and Shema, and Ananiah, and Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseah, on his
right hand, and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah,
and Hashem, Hashbat, Dana, Zechariah, and Meshulam." Y'all didn't think
I could do that, did you? But these were elders. in Israel
who attended this worship service. So here they are, and here's
Ezra at this pulpit reading, that's all he's doing is reading
the book of the law. And so all of this coming together,
as he says, the crowd is one man, they were all together here.
There was no dissension. And then look at verse five.
He says, and Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the
people, for he was above all the people. Now above meaning
he was physically higher, where they could all see him, just
like I'm on this platform. That doesn't mean that I'm above
you in any way as far as salvation or any honor, it's just here. And he says he was above all
the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up and
Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Now, blessing the Lord.
What does that mean? It means he worshiped the Lord.
It means he acknowledged the Lord. That's what we're doing. You know, when God blesses us,
he adds something to us. When we bless God, we don't add
anything to God. He is who he is, but we acknowledge
who he is. We proclaim who He is. We honor who He is. We worship
Him in spirit and in truth as He reveals Himself to us in Christ. How do we know God? How do we
know who He is and what He's like? Through the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's called the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. The same Lord who created this
world has saved us from our sins. And in such a way that he's both
a just God and a savior. And that's how we bless him,
that's how we praise him. And it says in verse six, and
all the people answered, amen, amen. We're in agreement. With
lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshiped
the Lord with their faces to the ground. That's a posture
of humility. Now, so they responded in agreement. They sanctified the Lord God
in their hearts. That's what it means. Now, does
it mean that every one of these people were eternally and spiritually
saved? No, but it means they followed
the teachings of the old covenant law at this time. You're gonna
see that later on, they forsook all the teachings, but at this
time, So look at verse seven. It said, also, Jeshua, now that's
Joshua, the high priest, and Bani, and Cherubiah, Jamin, Aqab,
Shabbatai, Hodijah, Messiah, Kelita, Azariah, Josabath, Hanun,
Pezaliah, and the Levites. These are the priests now. And
it says, they caused the people to understand the law, and the
people stood in their place. So they read in the book of the
law distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand
the reading. Now, these elders, along with
Ezra, these priests, they were diligent and it says they caused
the people to understand the law. And it says, so they read
in the book of the law distinctly, clearly. And that means without
adding their own words, okay? and gave the sense, now this
means they told them what it meant. So first of all, what
you see there, first they read God's word. This is the way a
worship service should be. We open by reading God's word.
And we read distinctly and clearly without adding our own words
or our own personal ideas. And think about, and then they
gave the sense or the meaning. Then they preached the word.
And that's what I do after we read the word, make sure we read
the word and know what it says. And then hopefully men who are,
who are blessed of God, gifted of God can stand and say, now
this is what that means. This is the, this is the sense
of the scripture. And I think about this, I think
about what Paul wrote in first Corinthians chapter two, that
whenever we preach the gospel, you know, And I know preaching
the word of God is not an easy task. I'm not trying to get you
to feel sorry for me or anything like that. It's a blessed task. It's something that I enjoy doing. I know I don't take it lightly. I don't do it flippantly. I'm
not up here to be a comedian or a jokester. I'm here to do
what Ezra's doing, read the word of God and give the sense of
it. But we need to be very careful. And I always tell, for example,
if any young preachers or teachers, I always tell them, now stay
away from those hard passages that you don't, you know, you
can't make out the sense of yet. You know, give it time. Go to
the easy passages. And there are, I know the word
of God's not easy to the natural man. God has to reveal it. But
I think about what Paul said here in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse
1. He said, and my brethren, when I came to you, I came not
with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God. I'm preaching God's word. And
you who hear me preach, it's up to you to test me by God's
word. Test the spirits. But he says,
for I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and him crucified. And that's what the message is.
That's what the message back in Nehemiah's day was, even though
they may have used different words, they talk about the promised
Messiah and all of that. But what I'm saying is this,
this is not about me up here giving you my opinions and my
ideas. That's not what I'm trying to
do. Now there may be certain passages where even believers
can differ on the interpretation. Don't get me wrong, there are
those. But here's what I'm telling you, no interpretation of the
scripture is even close to being correct if it challenges or denies
the glorious truths of the gospel of God's grace in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. So whatever you see on a particular
passage, if it doesn't support the preaching of salvation by
God's grace through the blood and righteousness of Christ,
his righteousness imputed, and the life-giving spirit by the
sovereign work of God and not the will of man, if it doesn't
support those truths of the gospel, you can forget it. That's not
the right interpretation. I don't care who you are. Everything
in this book from Genesis to Revelation supports the gospel
that we believe, that gives God all the glory, that puts us in
the dust where we belong and points sinners to the glory of
Christ in his person and his righteousness, his finished work. And anything that shades that,
ignores that or challenges that or denies that is to be thrown
out. Now, how do we know that? It's
because God has come and given us an understanding. And one
of the things, this is why I wrote that book on scriptural interpretation,
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth. There are rules of scriptural
interpretation, and people either don't know them or they forget
them. The main rule of scriptural interpretation, as I see it,
is what Christ taught. Well, what he told the Pharisees.
He said, you do search the scriptures, this is John 539, and I have
that referenced in your lesson here. He says, you do search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life,
for they are they which testify of me. And so what I'm telling
you is that scripture interpretation has to be given by God to us
from Christ, and it has to lead us to Christ. and the glory of
his person and the power of his finished work. If it doesn't
lead us there, what good is it going to do? That's what he told
the Pharisees. He said, you read Moses, you claim to follow Moses.
He said, Moses wrote of me. And then before his ascension,
after his resurrection, he sat down with the disciples. And
he taught them out of the scriptures the things concerning himself,
concerning his death, his burial, his resurrection, salvation by
God's grace. And what he was teaching them,
I believe, they knew the gospel then, he was teaching them how
to preach that gospel, how to preach Christ from the Old Testament
scriptures. Out of Moses, the Psalms, the
prophets. But that's what this is all about.
Now when it says here in Nehemiah 8 that they caused them to understand
what was read, I believe they were preaching the gospel. I
don't believe that's a stretch. I don't believe that's trying
to jam something in there. It's not all stated out, but
I believe it's supported by what Christ said. They're reading
the book of Moses, the books of the law, and what did he say?
Moses wrote of me. I believe Israel was a gospel
preacher just like Noah, just like Abraham, just like any of
those men that we know in the hall of faith. I believe they
preached Christ. What did they say? Well, the
law was given, why? I'm gonna preach on this in 11
o'clock. The law was given to show them
their sinfulness, their need. Do you think Israel, when he
read the law, and these men, when they stood up, and this
is in a positive context now, in other words, they're not doing
wrong here, they're doing right. Do you think they stood up and
told Israel, now, if we don't get busy and get obedient, we'll
not make it to heaven? Is that what you think they preached?
I don't think that would be commended, not even in the Old Testament,
because that's not why the law was given. The Bible says Israel
sought righteousness by works of the law. They didn't make
it, because they sought it not by faith. So I believe that they
preached Christ, and it's through Christ that we understand the
scriptures. Now listen, spiritual understanding
is a gift from God, in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, and leads
us to a saving knowledge of Christ. His righteousness alone, that's
what this law shows us, that we have no righteousness of ourselves
by our works. What does the law say? Cursed
is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. And what does that say? Well, based on our works, we're
under the curse, but the Bible also says Christ has delivered
us from the curse. Well, where was that in the law
of Moses? In the sacrifices, in the priesthood, in the altar,
the mercy seat. That's part of this law. You
didn't take him from morning till afternoon to read 10 commandments. I'm sure those were read, because
that's part of it. But he read in the books of the
law. That's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
So he read all of it. Why was the blood of lambs slain
on Jewish altars? Give me an understanding. This
is what this is all about. Now, does that mean that every
one of these people heard when it says here that they caused
them to understand the reading? Does that mean that everybody
had a saving understanding and believed the gospel? No, but
it means that it was explained to them. And they understood
it as much as the natural man could, but don't you think that
there was a remnant in Israel even at this time that God gave
an understanding? You know, to have this understanding.
Understanding of what? Well, it's an understanding of
God. Who God is. Now, does that mean
that we know every nuance, every little degree of everything about
God? No. God is so high above us. But it does mean that we, by
the revelation of God, understand what God allows us to understand,
what God teaches us. Think about that verse over in
John chapter six, where it says that no man can come to me unless
God which hath sent me draw him, Christ speaking there. And he
said, if I can find it here, I'll read it to you. It says,
this is after he said, all that the father giveth me shall come
to me and him that cometh me I will no wise cast out. In verse
44 he says, no man can come to me except the father which has
sent me draw him. God's drawing. And I will raise
him up at the last day. In verse 45, now look, now this
is from Isaiah. So this is Old Testament testimony
applied to New Testament believers. And it says, it is written in
the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard, heard the gospel, and hath learned
of the Father, that has been taught of the Father. Because
if you, listen, if I get up here and preach the gospel, All I
am is just a spokesperson. All I am is just a signpost.
If you learn the gospel, if you have a saving understanding of
the gospel, understand this, it's God who taught you. And
he says, if God's taught you, learned of the Father, how he
can be both a just God and a savior, you'll come to Christ, cometh
unto me. So that's the spiritual understanding
of this. As I said, the most important
rule of understanding, scriptural interpretation, is the rule of
Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen from the dead, what
that means. Let me give you these things here in conclusion. Consider these things the following.
Number one, the Lord Jesus Christ sends the Spirit of God to his
people to give us spiritual life and to reveal himself, opening
our understanding to know and believe in him. That's what he
does. He opens our understanding. I've got quoted here, 1 John
5, 20. Listen to this. And we know that the Son of God
is come and hath given us an understanding. All right, understanding
what? That we may know him that is
true. That we'll know the difference
between the true and living God and a false God. the true Christ
and a counterfeit, the true gospel and a false gospel. So understanding
him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in
his son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God, this is eternal
life. Remember what Christ said in
his high priestly prayer in John 17 and verse three, eternal life
is to know God and his son whom he has sent. Here's the second
thing. The word of God, even the law
of Moses now, is ultimately and finally a revelation of Jesus
Christ crucified and risen from the dead as the surety of his
people. What does that mean? That means
our sins imputed to him. Do we have that understanding?
If we do, it's given of God. Our substitute who took our place
under the law and justice of God and died for our sins, that's
an understanding. Our Redeemer, meaning He paid
the debt and secured our salvation. He didn't make salvation possible,
that's not what redemption's about. Redemption is about a
propitiation, it's about satisfaction. That's our understanding because
God has taught us. Our life giver, who gives us
spiritual life? Bible says we have an unction.
from the Holy One, that's Christ. And how does he do it? By his
Spirit, sending his Spirit to raise us from the dead. That's
called regeneration, we've been talking about that. And bring
us to Christ. And the preserver of his people.
I told some folks last Wednesday, I said, you know the acrostic
tulip? Total depravity, unconditional
election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and then
we say perseverance of the saints. Well, I say two needs to be spelled
with two Ps. Because those last two Ps, number
one, it ought to be preservation of the saints, and then perseverance. Because our perseverance is based
upon God preserving us under glory. So that's it. That's the understanding. And
I think about this. Consider what we have in the
Bible in examples, like for example, you remember Philip, the evangelist? When he was told to go out into
the desert and meet with an Ethiopian who was standing, who was out
there in his chariot reading the scriptures. You remember
what he was reading? Isaiah 53. And what was the first
question that Philip asked him? Do you understand what you're
reading? And the man began to read and
he said, well now who's this talking about? Is Isaiah talking
about himself or somebody else? And it said then Philip opened
the scriptures right where he was at and he preached unto him
Jesus. Salvation by God's grace. You
see that? And again, referring back to
what Christ told the Pharisees, in them you think you have eternal
life, they are they which testify of me. Well, here's the third
thing. Spiritual understanding is given for us to know God's
way of salvation in and by Christ so that we can glorify God in
our lives. Believe him. That's a gift from God. That
comes from the gift of understanding. Shows us how God is just to justify
the ungodly based upon a righteousness. that we had nothing to do with,
it was all Christ and it's imputed, given to us. And from that which
we have life from the dead, that we might look unto him, that
we might have a spiritual understanding. And then lastly, spiritual understanding
equips God's people to live for his glory in Christ. We walk
by faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. We are established with grace, our assurance of salvation,
which establishes the motivation for our obedience, love, grace,
and gratitude. The assurance of salvation comes
not by looking within ourselves and seeing if we measure up,
because we don't, but by looking to Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. That's the understanding. that
we need and that's the understanding that Christ gives to his people.