OK, turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah
chapter 8. We looked at the first 12 verses but dealt with the
last 4 very briefly so I'd just like to go back to Nehemiah chapter
8 verse 9 and just look at these wonderful gospel encouragements
and the one reason the one gospel reason. Let's read it. Nehemiah, which
is the Tershithah, which means governor, it's just a title.
And Ezra the priest, the scribe, and the Levites that taught the
people said unto all the people, this day is holy unto the Lord
your God. Mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept when
they heard the words of the law. Then he said unto them, go your
way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto
them for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy unto our
Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the
joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the
people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy, neither
be ye grieved. All the people went their way
to eat and to drink and to send portions and to make great mirth. because they had understood the
words that were declared unto them. What a great declaration
of what God the Spirit does, isn't it? They had understood
the words that were declared unto them. It's fascinating in
the scriptures, isn't it, that in John's gospel the Lord Jesus
promised that when the Spirit comes, the Spirit will bring
conviction. He will come. He will convict the
world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because
they do not believe in me. Of righteousness, because I go
to my Father and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the
ruler of this world is judged. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
that here we have in Nehemiah these two elements that do happen
in all of God's people and are necessary prerequisites for the
worship of God. One is that there are tears. In verse nine, all the people
wept when they heard the words of the Lord. The thing that's
remarkable, isn't it, is that that Holy Spirit is called four
times in this upper room discourse in 14, 16, 14, 26, 1526 and 1607 that we just read, he's
called the Comforter. Two things happen, don't they,
when God's people are gathered to worship Him in spirit and
truth. There is weeping and there is
great joy. is the most wonderful promise
from God, our Saviour, when He spoke to that woman at the well. He said to her, Woman, believe
me, the hour is coming when you will neither worship on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem. You will neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship, you Samaritans,
worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now
is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship
Him must worship in spirit and truth. We must worship God the
Father in the spirit and in the truth. You see Brothers and sisters,
there is nothing more important in all of our lives than worshipping
God. If we do not worship God here,
we will not worship God into eternity. The most fundamental
and important thing, the most critical thing in all of our
lives is that we worship God. The most critical question for
us. The most important question is
not how many people are here. This was a great crowd of 43,000
people on that great day in that restored place. But that great
nation had been in the land of promise. 600,000 men left Egypt. and they had been in the land
of milk and honey for all of those years. They were reduced
to a remnant, like Gideon's remnant. The one question, the one question
that matters, is Jesus here? Has Jesus done a work amongst
us and in us? The question is no longer a question
that I ask because it would be just such a flagrant denial of
all that we have witnessed of Him. God is not dishonored when there are small
flocks. In fact, he says, fear not, little
flock. It's the Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. And we are people who are journeying
like Nehemiah. Just think of Nehemiah. He was
a man who was in Babylon. a man who saw the city of God
from a distance, and he saw that this place, like the church in
our day, was to be a place where God's name would be honoured,
and God's people would be in a place of refuge
and a place of comfort. He was a man just like us. See, the only difference between
all humanity is the difference that grace makes. Lear Meyer
was a man whose heart was gripped by the glory of God. The walls
were not just rocks, they signified the rock of ages. Jerusalem was
not just another ruined city ruled by a great conqueror, it
was a city of God. The temple was not just another
place of worship, it was the place, it was the only place
on this whole planet where you could worship God. And Nehemiah is a man who was
moved in his heart like I believe many of us are moved. How do we react when we hear
of our Lord Jesus being blasphemed? How do we react? Is it not just
like Nehemiah? He heard of the distress and
the reproach that the survivors who are left
from the captivity were living in. God's children in this world
are a reproached people and they are a people who are so often
distressed. But the thing that motivated
Nehemiah was not the people, was the fact that they were God's
people. It was not the fact that Jerusalem was ruined, but that
it was God's city. See, the big motivating factor
in all of Nehemiah's activities was the conviction about who
God was, which is why we have that great prayer in chapter
1 and we see Nehemiah as a man of prayer and a man of conviction. He talks about the servants who
desire to fear the name of God. He's a man of honesty. He doesn't
say, look at the sins that these others have done. He says, both
my father's house and I have sinned. He was a man of action,
a man who had come to seek the well-being of the children of
Israel. He was a single-minded man. He says, I am doing a great work. And Nehemiah's heart was moved
for the glory of God. And he saw God's hand move his
heart. He saw God's hand move the king's
heart. He was brought to pray. And he prayed to God about God's
character and about his faithfulness. He had a passion for the glory
of God. And remarkably, we see in Nehemiah,
so typical in so many ways of our Lord Jesus, that he was a
man who saw his prayer answered. They perceived, all the enemies
in the nations around, they perceived that this work was done by our
God. Nehemiah 8 is in a sense the
culmination, the answer to prayer, the answer of his heart's cry. And here we have the end result
of all of this. What a great day this must have
been for Nehemiah. I fancy being able to witness
this so soon, so soon after he had prayed and been in distress. To see all these people gathered
together, verse 1, as one man, and to hear the Book of the Law
of Moses being read. And if you were like me, you
probably wondered, what were they reading? What were they
reading to bring this weeping? and your mind might turn like
mine does to those shocking litany of curses in Deuteronomy 28 and
29. Cursed, cursed, cursed. I think 31 cursings for disobedience. But in fact, the thing that's
remarkable is if you turn over the page, in your Bibles to chapter
9. And just look, here I think we
have something of what was read to these people. Where would
Ezra have gone? Ezra did as Nehemiah did in his
prayer. He went back to God and said
to God, you are a great an awesome God. You keep your covenant and
mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments.
In chapter 9, I just hope, we won't have time to read it all,
I just want to pick out some highlights, but if you go through
it at your leisure and just underline, underscore both the character
and the promises of God. You see, The thing that brings
weeping is that we see our sins and we see God's amazing character
and mercy. Just as when Nathan came to David,
what did he say to David? He showed him the sin that he'd
done, but then he said to David, God has given you this, he's
given you a kingdom, and he's given you people, he's given
you all these things, and if you'd wanted more, he would have
given it to you. You see, the great distress of
the people of God is that God is faithful, and God is giving,
and God is covenant keeping, and God is glorious. And as Romans
14 says, anything that's not of faith is sin. Let's just look at some of these
amazing descriptions of our God in chapter 9. It says, stand
up and bless the Lord your God forever. Blessed be your glorious
name which is exalted above all blessing. and praise. There are a multitude of sermons
just in that one verse. You alone are the Lord. You made heaven, the heaven of
heavens with all their hosts, the earth and everything in it,
the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The
hosts of heaven worship you. You are the Lord God who chose
Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him
the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful
before you and made a covenant with him to give this land. And then at the end of verse
eight, it says, you have performed your words for you are righteous. He heard the cry of his people
in verse 8 and 9 and verse 10. So you made a name for yourself
when you brought them out. You divided the sea. You made
known to them, verse 14, your holy Sabbath. 15, you gave them bread from heaven
for their hunger. You brought them water out of
the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in and possess
the land which you had sworn to give them. But they and our
fathers acted proudly, hardened their necks and did not heed
your commandments. They refused to obey, and they
were not mindful of your wonders that you did among them. but
they hardened their necks, and in their rebellion they appointed
a leader to return to their bondage. But, that is the wickedness of
man, but you are a God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them. And when they made the golden
calf, in verse 18, in 19, yet in your manifold mercies you
did not forsake them in the wilderness. Verse 20, you gave them your
good spirit to instruct them. You gave and you gave and you
gave. And when they came into this
land, Verse 25, they took strong cities and a rich land and possessed
houses full of all goods, cisterns already dug, vineyards and olive
groves, fruit trees in abundance. They ate and were filled and
delighted themselves in your great goodness. Nevertheless,
they rebelled. And it goes on. And when they cried, verse 27,
you heard from heaven, according to your abundant mercies, you
gave them deliverance. And verse 28, at the end of it,
and many times you delivered them according to your great
mercies and testified against them. Because of his great mercy,
verse 31, You did not utterly consume them, nor forsake them. For you are God, gracious and
merciful. Now therefore our God, great
and mighty and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy. keeps
covenant mercy, verse 33, you are just in all that has befallen
us. Nehemiah must have had great
rejoicing this day. Like the others, he was a man
who wept. Like the others, he was a man
who mourned. He'd heard and seen and witnessed
God doing a great and awesome work. So these people, down in Nehemiah
8-9, all these people wept. They wept, and they had to be
commanded not to be sorry, verse 10. Don't weep, don't be sorrowful,
don't mourn. You see, the Lord God has come
to them and three times he says to them, as if to emphasize it,
to emphasise His name and His character. Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of Mount Marty. This day is holy unto the Lord
your God. This day, verse 10, is holy unto
the Lord. Verse 11, the day is holy. This is a day for God to reveal
His goodness, to reveal His mercy, and to reveal against that background
of sin against a God who is gracious and merciful and faithful and
covenant-making and covenant-keeping This holy God has brought these
people. Just think of their history. They were survivors of the flood. They were rescued from Babel. They were Adam Abraham's descendants. They were rescued out of Egypt. They survived the wilderness. They'd survived all those years
of the judges. They had survived the Babylonian
captivity, about 70 years. You see, God's people are a remnant
people, kept by covenant grace and kept by covenant mercy. And in the world that day, There
were millions in Babylon worshipping gods. Millions in Egypt worshipping
gods. Millions in India and China and
all over this world. And yet, now in this city, this
small city, this tiny remnant of people, are gathered by their
God. They're gathered by their great
and awesome God. And what's he doing today? What's
he doing? He's doing exactly the same thing. He's gathering his people in
covenant faithfulness back to himself. He's revealing a temple. He's revealing the temple, the
Lord Jesus, to them. He's building a wall of separation
and protection around them. His angels are watching over
them. He's gathering them out of the
nations, out from idolatry, gathering them to himself, displaying his
power His sovereignty, His faithfulness, His holiness, His justice, all
of His character revealed in the way He saves His people in
the Lord Jesus. Gathering His people to His Son. What did David say? The one thing
that mattered to David. In Psalm 5 verse 7. The one thing
that mattered. But as for me, I will come into
your house in the multitude of your mercy. In fear of you will
I worship toward your holy temple. It's all about the Lord Jesus. You see, God's people are there
looking at that temple. And God's people, by faith, see
that temple as a place of sacrifice for sin and offering, and see
the Lord Jesus redeeming His people. As Nehemiah says, he
says to God, these are your people. He doesn't say you might redeem
them. He says these are your people whom you have redeemed.
He's brought them back. He's ransomed his people. He's
paid the acceptable and agreed sacrifice. So there they are
with Ezra reading the law, the temple behind them reminding
them of their great and faithful God. And he's calling them to
himself. And he's establishing them in
the place in deeper temple and with these walls to protect them
from the enemies around them. These walls to say, these are
my people. These walls are pointed by God. Do good, says David at the end
of that great Psalm 51. Do good in your good pleasure
to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole
burnt offering. Then they shall offer bulls on
your altar. All of it typified our Lord Jesus. Purge me, says David, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, he says to his Saviour,
and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness,
that the bones you have broken may rejoice. hide your face from
my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast
me away from your presence. God hath brought them in this
beautiful picture, He brought them into His presence, that
they might know Him, that they might know who He is and how
He serves, how He's to be served and how He's to be worshipped.
See, Nehemiah's journey is like our journey. It's the pilgrimage
out of this world and out of Babylon to that great city where
the Lord Jesus is the light. And the Lord Jesus is what the
whole focus of the worship is about. Nehemiah is a great book
about revival and restoration. I had two pleas with God for
months, a long, long time before I left India. One was that God
would not send me home. I said, I don't want to go back
to now. I don't want to go back to Australia.
I don't want to have anything to do with houses and a farm
anymore. And I don't want to go back to
a place where it's just going to be contention, where I won't
be welcomed. And the Lord Jesus that I've
come to know would not be honored and welcomed. I said, leave me
in India. Do anything with me, Lord, but leave me in India. And the other prayer I had is
that if I did come back, is that God might use that powerful gospel
to bring revival, to bring true spiritual revival. to bring people
together to worship God, to bring people together to delight in
what God says about His Son and the way He saves His people in
this book, that He might just shine a light on the Lord Jesus
through this book, and people might rejoice, might rejoice
in a Saviour who is God, who really redeems, who really clothes
his people with a perfect righteousness, who really does, as Psalm 51
says, does wash his people and they are whiter than snow. And I wonder sometimes that we
look in the wrong places for the answer to God's prayers,
don't we? So I think, as much as God didn't
answer any of my prayers about being in India and he shut the
door extraordinarily firmly in my face, I do believe, I do believe
with all my heart that he has made a place here a bit like
this place that Nehemiah was in. You've got to remember that
the wall was built in haste. The temple wasn't as fancy as
Solomon's temple, and it wasn't as fancy as Herod's temple. And
at this stage, the city was desolate almost, almost uninhabited. So there we have what looks to
the world like a ruin. And we've got a ragtag bunch
of people gathered together by God. Gathered together to worship
God. Gathered together because the
glory of God has been seen in the face of the Lord Jesus. And they will gather behind a
wall that says, we will not compromise. We will not bend on issues to
do with the glory of God. And it doesn't matter what the
world thinks of us. It doesn't matter what people
say. It only matters. It only matters
what God says. What does God say about us? What does God say about what
He's doing? The people of this world have,
ever since I've been in Christian circles, have said, compromise. Let's be tolerant. Let's knock
the wall down so we can all walk in and out as we see fit. If you turn to the last chapter
of Nehemiah, we'll see what God does in creating zeal in the
life of His servant. Talk about tolerance. Nehemiah,
let's compromise a little. Sanballat and Tobiah came to
him four times and said, compromise, compromise. We'll join with you
in the work, let's compromise. I'll protect you, let's compromise.
And Nehemiah said, I will not come down. I'm doing a great
work. In those days I saw Jews who
had married the women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke
the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah,
but spoke according to the language of one or the other people. They're
only children. They're only women. Let's be
nice. Nehemiah, there's time for compromise. So, says this man who came to
seek the good of Israel, I contended with them and cursed them, struck
some of them and pulled out their hair. and made them swear by
God, saying, You shall not give your daughters as wives to their
sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or your servants. You see, Nehemiah was concerned
more about the glory of God than his reputation among men. And
what a day we have in chapter 8. We have this celebration. Nehemiah's prayer answered. Still much to be done. Still
many issues before him. But he says, do not mourn. Do not weep. For this day is
holy unto the Lord, the first day of each month. And this is
a significant month because this month is the month of the Feast
of Tabernacles, as we may see, Lord willing, in the future.
But at the beginning of your months, it says in Numbers 10.10,
You shall blow trumpets over your burnt offerings and over
the sacrifice of your peace offerings. They shall be a memorial for
you before your God. I am the Lord your God. It says,
in the day of your gladness and your appointed feasts, they were
to begin each month with a day of celebration, of blowing trumpets. It was to be a day where they
were at rest and remembered who God was. And then he says these
remarkable words to them. Go your way, eat the fat, drink
the sweet, send portions to God, to them for whom nothing is prepared. Go your way. Go the way that
is appointed to you by God. Christ is the way, the way of
truth, the way of righteousness, says 2 Peter. He's the way of
access to the Father. He's the way of acceptance with
the Father. He's the way of atonement with
the Father. His way is the old way, the narrow
way, the only way. Go your way. Be at peace. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 7 is a remarkable
verse of scripture. It's written to the people who
are righteous and wise, and it says almost exactly the same
words as Nehemiah 8, 9, and 12. It says, go, you righteous and
wise, go eat your bread with joy, drink your wine with a merry
heart, because God has accepted your works. God has accepted
this. It was God's work to build this
wall, to build this temple, to gather these people together.
On this mountain, says Isaiah 25, the Lord of hosts will make
for all people a feast of choice pieces, fat things and wine on
the leaves. Eat the fat. not just a common
meal, but a feast. Drink the sweet, drink the sweet
wine. Drink the wine that shows that
this time of the year is the gathering of the harvest. God
has provided abundantly for his people. Our gracious God in the
gospel commands rejoicing. Isn't it remarkable? Rejoice
always. Rejoice, not drunkenness, but
rejoicing in the good, sweet things of his provision. As we've seen in Song of Solomon,
let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is
better than wine. your covenant, faithful, never-ending
love is better than wine. And don't leave anyone to go
hungry or to be left out. Gather them all, send portions
to them for whom nothing is prepared. And then verse 12 is remarkable. They did as they were told to
do and they were told to make great mirth. Make great mirth. Make a joyful sound, a joyful
proclamation. of who God is and what He has
done. It's a day for rejoicing because
God, who is holy, has brought these people back. And these
Levites did three things to the people, and we'll finish with
these three things. He stilled all the people. He says to them, be still. hold your peace and neither be
grieved. It's wonderful isn't it? The
gospel commands people like me to comfort God's people. Comfort God's people. We have
many reasons because of God's work in our lives, to weep over
our sins and to weep over sins that we see around us. But God
says to be still, to know that I am God. You will keep him in
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, says Isaiah 26. And in that same passage of scripture,
it says we have right now a strong city. Salvation. The Lord Jesus will appoint walls
and bulwarks. Open the gates. Open the gates. that shine a light on God and
His faithfulness, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth
may enter in. And in that place, you will keep
him in perfect peace. As they look at that temple. Oh, I know this is one of Jenny's
favorite verses. It says, in returning and rest,
you shall be saved. In quietness and confidence shall
be your strength. Be stilled and know that God
is faithful. Hold your peace. Hold on to the
peace of God. He is the Prince of Peace, our
Saviour. He brings peace the most important
piece of all, a peace between us and God. Hold on to Him. Keep your eyes fixed on Him and
don't be grieved. God's people mourn, but it doesn't
say that we mourn and mourn and mourn and mourn. We are mourned
and what does it promise? Blessed are those who mourn And
the promise of God is, for they will be comforted. What a comfort it is to gaze
upon that temple, to be surrounded by that wall of protection, and
to be gathered by God. to worship him as he is revealed
in his dear son, as sovereign, as substitute, as successful
saviour who reigns over all things. We have a city. We have a city,
don't we? We do have a city, God's children. For we have no continuing city
here, therefore by Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice
of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips,
giving thanks to His name. Let's pray.