Three books from the book of
Psalms, you'll find Nehemiah. In fact, three books. Nehemiah
chapter eight. This is a fitting portion of
God's Word to study to begin this new year. And it's fitting
that we observe this table tonight. Now, our story. In case you do not know it, our
story is concerning the Jews, which were former captives in
Babylon. Now, everything. All of this
is written for our learning and applies to us, we're the church
we read there and Deuteronomy. That was like Christ talking. Who said, I've got to die, but
you're going in, did you catch all that? And the people, the
Jews, are the church. All right? So this is, this applies
to us. It's just not an old story of
Jewish history. Think about it in reference to
us, the church, you. The story is of the Jews who
were former captives in Babylon. That's us. Babylon being the
world out there. Captives of sin, Satan, the world,
everything. All right? The Jews now, by God's
grace, by God's mercy, have been brought back to Jerusalem. back
to God's chosen place of worship. They've been gathered and brought
there, and a man named Zerubbabel has rebuilt the temple, rebuilt
the wall, laid the top stone to it with cries of grace. That's
Christ. Ezra and Nehemiah are the leaders. They're the spiritual leaders.
Ezra's the scribe. Nehemiah's the governor. And
they had all the people gather together. In chapter 7, it gives
us the number of the people. Verse 66, the whole congregation
together was 42,360. 42,360 people gathered together
in verse 1 of chapter 8. Now here's where we begin. I hope you will
pay attention. Chapter 8, verse 1, all the people
gathered themselves together as one man into the street. They gathered themselves together. This is written quite often throughout
the Word of God. If you recall over in the book
of Acts, at the time of Pentecost, it says that they were all with
one accord. At the time of Pentecost, they
were all with one accord, gathered together with one accord. Now,
these people were gathered together as one man. That is, they were
of one mind, one heart, one spirit, one purpose. And if that's why
we're here tonight, the Lord's going to bless us like He did
these people, no less. If you're here in sincerity,
you'll be blessed, guarantee it. based on the word of Christ
himself. Now, the people in Nehemiah's
day, it says they experienced great mirth. Great mirth. That's down in verse 12. People went their way, and it
says, to make great mirth. And it says, very great gladness. Verse 17, the last line, it was
very great gladness. So what we're doing here tonight,
though it is serious, though it's not a time to play games
or a lot of foolishness going on, yet what you hear here tonight
and what we do here tonight ought to cause great gladness and joy. Mirth means glee. All right,
now the people at Pentecost, it says they were of one heart,
one mind. I mean the people here at Nehemiah's
day and Pentecost. gladness, singleness of heart,
united. And it says in verse one that
they asked Ezra. They spoke unto Ezra, the scribe,
to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had
commanded to Israel. Get the book, Ezra. We want you
to read to us. We want you to speak to us. Verse
two and three, And Ezra the priest brought the law, the word, before
the congregation, both of men and women. And all, that is even
young people, anyone that could hear with understanding, if they
were old enough to understand, they were there, men and women
and young people, upon the first day of the seventh month, that's
about between September, sometime in September. And Ezra read therein,
he read from the Law of God, the Book of God, he read the
place called Watergate from the morning, that is, from daylights
around 6 a.m. until midday, until noon, six
hours. You think I read a lot of Scripture.
I'm not going to apologize for that at all. It was a wonderful
passage, was it not? I enjoyed reading it, and I've
read it about five times today already. It was a wonderful portion. Well, he read for six hours. Read on. from morning till midday
before the men and the women and anybody that could understand,
and the ears of all the people were attentive. They were listening
carefully, joyfully, unto what was being read in the
book of the law. Amazing, isn't it? They were
listening attentively. Now, let me ask you, what makes
the Word of God interesting? What makes the Word of God interesting?
What makes it wonderful? Need. There's only one thing
that'll make the Word of God interesting to you, make you
sit up and pay attention. Need. It's like food. There's only one thing that'll
make food good. Hunger. One thing makes water
wonderful, thirst. Our Lord said, Blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they'll be filled.
He said, If you'll open your mouth like a little bird, I'll
fill it up. Isn't it to our shame, generally
speaking, that because we are rich and increased with goods
and have need of nothing, that we grow dull of hearing? We grow
ungrateful and unenthusiastic about the Word when this ought to make us more
glad and thankful than ever. The fact that our larders are
full. You know what a larder is? Why did I say that? Well, your
refrigerator. That just came out of there.
That our cabinets are full, our refrigerators are full, our houses
are warm. Turn on the pipe and here comes
water. Well, this is why, but the people,
you see, they were gathered together after being in bondage and the
temple, they missed the temple for a long time, and now they
were finally gathered together. And if people had gathered to
renew their strength, to renew their resolve, to renew their
commitment, to get together of one heart and one mind, one spirit
in the beginning of this gathering, as we should. To confess their
sins, they all got together before the Lord and to confess their
sins, a new beginning. And that's what we ought to be
doing. The Lord will honor that. The Lord will honor a true desire.
This is not a flippant, careless, you know, one of these religious
commitments and dedicate and consecrate as they do every,
you know, couple of months. Hopefully, we can gather here
tonight and say, Lord, let me begin afresh right now.
The Lord will honor the true desire to worship him and a true
desire for more commitment and service to him. That's what this
was all about, this whole meeting. All right, now verse 4, Ezra
the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood. This is the invention
of the pulpit. It's not an invention of men.
It's God ordained it. A pulpit being a platform like
you see there. Don't need it tonight. You can
see me. But the pulpit of wood was a platform which was made
for that purpose. That is, for him to stand up.
There were 42,000 people. All right? And in order for him
to be seen by those on the back row and heard, And he wanted
to make sure that everybody saw that, yes, this is God's Word
I'm reading from. He stood up on this pulpit of
wood. All right? Verse 4. And I'm going to read
these names. They made this pulpit for this
purpose, and beside him stood several men. There were several
men on the platform. Ezra did not by himself do all
the speaking, but there were several men who also did reading.
tiresome for one man to read for six hours, would it not?
So there were several men, a man named Matthiah, no women, they
were men. Shema, Amaiah, and Uriah, and
Hilkiah, and Messiah on his right hand and on his left hand. You
men, that's why I split you up. On his left hand, Paddaiah, and
Mosheel, and Malkiah, and Hashem, and Hesh-badeh. and Zechariah
and Meshulam. And Ezra opened the book in the
sight of all the people. As I said, he wanted to make
sure that everybody knew this is God's Word I'm reading from.
Read on. He was above all the people.
That is, up on the pulpit. And when he opened it, all the
people stood up. And I'll not ask you to do that now, but do
it in your heart. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the
great God. That is, he prayed. As we did
just a moment ago, as our brother did with the men in the study. He blessed God. He prayed. He
gave thanks. The great God. And all the people
answered, Amen. Amen. Lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads. That's what our brother said.
Let's do that. And worship the Lord. With their
faces to the ground. That's, I suppose, why we how
we came up with this thing of bowing the head to pray. It's
in humility with our faces to the ground and unworthiness.
All right, read on. And, and Yeshua and Benai and
Sherabiah and Jaman and Aqab and Shabbat, Shabbatha and Hodijah
and Masaiah and Kelidah and Azariah and Josabed and Hanan, Peliah
and the Levites. They caused the people to understand
the law. They just didn't read it, and
they didn't read it in a language that no one understood, like
you see some of these phonies do today, the Latin liturgy that
nobody speaks Latin. No, they caused the people to
understand what they were reading. And the people stood in their
place. They weren't jumping and shouting and running and carrying
on. They stood right where they were. And each man and individual
was reading. So they read in the book of the
law distinctly, plainly, and gave the sense, that is, they
expounded upon it, and caused the people to understand the
reading. These preachers went through
the whole first five books of God's Word, books of Moses, first
five books, and expounded upon the Scripture. Each man, I didn't
count them, but there were several of them. Six hours, you could
divide it up, maybe each one gave a thirty minute message.
Going through, reading the books. First five books of Moses. Books
that you have heard over and over. Stories which you are familiar
with. The very same story that you
have heard, which not everyone has heard. But you have heard,
you have been blessed. The Word has been read to you
distinctly. You know it's God's Word. It's
been read to you plainly. It's been expounded upon, line
upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
here a little, there a little, here a little, there a little. All these stories that these
people heard, and when they heard them, they were filled with joy.
They hadn't heard them in a long time. Some of them may have never
heard them before. They went through the book of
Genesis. Whoever it was preached on the fall of man. He preached
what you heard Pastor Mahan preach on the fall of man. You've got
to start there. Creation and the fall of man. How man is dead
and trespasses in sin. Somebody got up and preached
on the woman's seed. God's mercy to the first sinners
on the earth. promise of Christ to us to come. Each man, if he gave the sense
of the passage, then he expounded and declared Christ to them.
Did he not? The woman's seed. If he gave the sense of it, it's
Christ, right? So whoever spoke on the woman's
seed said, the Christ is coming, made of a woman, made under the
law to redeem us from the curse. Adam's curse, second Adam's coming. Somebody preached on Abel's sacrifice,
the blood atonement, which God accepts, and that alone. Somebody
read and preached on Noah's ark. Yeah, they did. Somebody preached
on Noah's ark and said, Christ is that ark. The Messiah who's
coming is that ark. If we are found in Him, He'll
save us. We'll be saved. We'll be saved
because God's going to destroy this world. Somebody preached
on the call of Abraham, how that Abraham was an idolater, like
all of us. But God chose him, called him
by his grace, taught him, brought him, bought him, Abraham. Somebody preached on that. Somebody
preached on the promised one, the promised son, Isaac, not
Ishmael. And I guarantee you, they gave
the sense of this. Ishmael being man's work, Isaac being God's
promised son, that being Christ. Somebody preached on Abraham
taking Isaac up on that mountain, Mount Moriah, ready to plunge
the knife in his breath. But God had a ram and a thicket
behind him, which was Christ, whom he offered in the stead
of guilty sinners. Somebody preached on that. Somebody
preached on Jacob. And the sons of Jacob were not
concerned because he's the God of Jacob. And happy is he that
hath the God of Jacob. Somebody preached on Joseph.
Somebody preached on Joseph, the Savior, the provider of the
people who just cried. They went to Exodus. They went
to Exodus. Somebody preached on Moses, the
great mediator between the people and God. The great mediator,
the chosen deliverer, which is Christ. Moses is a type of Christ. Somebody preached on the Passover
lamb. The Passover lamb. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. And God will provide Himself
a lamb. Himself. God's the lamb. Somebody preached
on the smitten rock. How that Moses took that rod
and struck that rock in the wilderness and out of it that smitten rock
came water, water of life and that's Christ. He'll be smitten
for us, wounded and bruised for us. Yeah, they preached that
long before Isaiah wrote it. Somebody preached on the manna,
the bread come down from heaven. Somebody preached on giving the
law. Somebody preached on the tabernacle and the ark and all
the pieces of furniture from Exodus. Then they got in Leviticus. I've been going about 15 minutes,
folks. Six hours. Somebody got in Leviticus. They
preached on the high priest and his sons, his sanctified, his
consecrated sons, which is Christ and us, his sons, his priests,
Christ being the great high priest. Somebody preached on the scapegoat. And there's some old sinner out
there among the 42,000 who was saying, I need a scapegoat. Thank God for the scapegoat.
Somebody preached on the cleansing of lepers. And if a man came
in, he had sores from the top of his head to the bottom of
his feet, the priest would call him clean. And some old rotten
sinner out there said, I sure need that cleansing. I need Christ. Somebody preached
on the year of Jubilee. how those that had lost all that
they had, the year of jubilee, the trumpet would sound and they'd
get it all restored back to them again. I'd like to have been
the man preaching on that. Then they got in numbers. Somebody
preached on all the sacrifices and all the offerings and what
pictures of Christ those are. Somebody preached on the rebellion
and destruction of Korah. Those who, like Baal Peor, that's
what that was about. How that they withstood Moses
to his face. And that's all those that reject
Christ. And God destroyed them all. Opened the earth up and
swallowed them. Somebody preached on the people murmuring. And
God's judgment against their murmuring. And how we ought to
be thankful for such great mercy. And he got into Deuteronomy. Somebody read and preached on
the cities of refuge. Any guilty man slayer. Any guilty
party. But just get to that city of
refuge that he saved, that the law couldn't apprehend it. And
if some old guilty fell out there in the 42,360, they said, I need
one of those cities of refuge. Incidentally, Bethlehem was one
of those cities. And then somebody preached on Moses' song. Somebody
preached on Joshua's charge. Six hours they went through all
of these things. And when they got through, the
people were just beside them. Because people understand. I've
just briefly gone through things that people in this world will
never hear all of their lives. And it's all we hear here. You
know? It's all we do. We hear things
that the whole world will never hear. They're not chosen. People
aren't chosen to hear this stuff. Do you understand? Don't you? You can open yourself in many,
many, many more, and open your book, and you can find Christ
there. You can understand it. Every man, it doesn't matter
if his name is Hashem, Beda, Zechariah, Meshulam, if he stands
in this pulpit, he's going to preach the Word distinctly. Or
if his name is Hardy, Norbert, Mahan, or James, it doesn't matter. He's going to preach the Word
distinctly, because you give the sense of it, and you'll understand
what's in it. We're a blessed people. More blessed. What nation, what
nation has, what people have been blessed more than this little
congregation right here, Central Baptist Church? Nobody. Nobody. Though we be few in number,
just like Israel above, yet God, that He didn't choose us for
our righteousness sake. But Moses said, no, we're a stiff-necked,
hard-hearted people. But He chose us for His covenant
sacrament, his purpose. He might make known unto us this
covenant. Well, it says in verse 9, this is good. Nehemiah, which
is the tertiary of the governor, and Ezra, the priest, the scribe,
and the Levites that taught the people, they said unto all the
people, this day is holy unto the Lord your God. You see why
this is There's just too much wonderful, glorious truth in
God's Word to waste our time playing too much music and going
through too much stuff and programs. There's just too much here and
not enough time. And we don't have the faculty
to sit for very long at all. So we ought to just devote all
the time we can to this writing. This stays holy unto the Lord
your God. And it says, he said, Mourn not, don't cry, nor weep,
for all the people wept. It doesn't say slept, it says
wept when they heard the words of
the Word of the Lord. They were weeping, the people
were weeping. Oh, that we could hear the Word every
time as if it was the first time. The people wept, but the preacher
said, don't weep. Weep over your sins, yes, but
don't weep because this is for you. Read on, verse 10. He said
unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet. Send portions
unto them for whom nothing is prepared. That is, give it to
others that don't have it. This day is holy unto our Lord.
Don't neither be you sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
It's ought to cause great joy. So the Levites stilled all the
people. Like God said to Isaiah, He said,
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably, that is,
to the heart. Tell them, the warfare has come.
Don't weep. The war is over. We're going
in. Hold your peace. Stay as holy.
Don't be grieved. It says, All the people went
their way to eat, to drink the sin portions, that is, to give
of something of what they received, and to make great mirth. Make
great mirth. Why? What was all their happiness
over? What was their joy over? What
was it that gave them such joy and happiness? They understood
the work. That was it. It wasn't some feeling
or some miracle or sign or something, it was the Word of God. The Word
is what caused them to rejoice. They understood the words that
were declared unto them. And you know, if you understand
them, what does that mean? It means you believe them. Doesn't
it? It means you believe them. They understood the Word. And so I say to you, For you
who understand and rejoice, this feast is for you. Eat the fat. That's what this is about. The
fat things, wine on the leaves, and remembrance of Christ. All right, brethren, we'll serve
the bread. All right, take your Bibles open
to Luke chapter 22. Our Lord is the one who instituted
this table. That's why we call it the Lord's
table. He's the one who started this. It's taken from the Passover.
We've studied that before. And the Lord told Moses to tell
the people that when your children ask you, ìWhat do you mean by
this?î Tell them. Our Lord tells His children right
here what this is all about, all right? Letís read beginning
verse 7, ìThen came the day of unleavened bread when the Passover
must be killed.î Must be. Thatís Christ. Heís our Passover
lamb. He must be killed. We get to go in, but He has to
die. And he sent Peter and John saying, Go and prepare us the
Passover that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where
wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold,
when you are entered into the city, there shall a man meet
you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where
he entereth in. And you came here tonight, this little city,
and here's a man here with a pitcher of water. Met you, didn't he? That's me. Me? I had a pitcher
of water. All right, read on. And that's
the word of God. And you shall say unto the good
man of the house. It's a good man that serves water.
The master saith unto thee, where's the guest chamber? The master
gave commandment to this man to prepare for his disciple,
where we'll eat the Passover with my disciple. He'll show
you a large upper room furnished. This is a big room furnished
with lots of furniture. I just showed it to you. All
right, read on. And they went and they found,
as he had said unto them, And they made ready the Passover.
And when the hours come, he sat down. He was with them. That's
what our Lord said. Not just in theory. Not in principle. Barbara, he said, I'll be right
there. Is Christ here with us? If there's
two or three here in his name, he's here. Read on. And he's
with them. He sat down, the twelve apostles
with him. And he said unto them, with desire,
I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For
I say unto you, I will not eat thereof until it be fulfilled
in the kingdom of God." We're going to eat again. We're
going to eat the supper again someday. All of us. Every one
of us. There won't be one of us missing. One out of one of
us. And he took the cup and gave
thanks and said, Take this, divided among yourselves, for I say unto
you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God shall come. We're going to eat and drink,
and oh, are we going to make merry. And mirth. Can you imagine what a reunion
that's going to be? But chiefly, the mirth, our great
joy and mirth and gladness will be on seeing him, being in that
number. All right, here's the order in
which he did this and this is how we do it and why. Verse 19,
He took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them. Each one of them got a piece
of bread, unleavened bread. That's what you have here. Unleavened
being, our Lord said that's insincerity. Unleavened being, I mean leavened.
being in sincerity living, being in self-righteousness living, the need for Christ, for Christ,
your sacrifice. And he said, now this unleavened
bread is Christ's body, his person, who is, he's without sin. And
his body was broken for us. He said, this is my body, which
is given for you. Christ, our Passover lamb, was
sacrificed for us. He said, this do in remembrance
of me. And He gave thanks first, and
then they ate. So let's give thanks. Our Lord,
we thank You for that unspeakable sacrifice which You made. And it's difficult, if not impossible,
for us to enter into that. But we believe. We believe you
came, you lived, you died a horrible death in our place. Your body
was truly broken, wounded, bruised, smitten, afflicted of God on
our behalf as our lamb, innocent one, wholly harmless, separate
from sinners, was made sin for us unworthy, no good sons of
Jacob that we might enter in. for the joy of our God, made
righteous by thee. And so it is, we give thanks
for doing what you did for the likes of us, for your beautiful
and sinless life and broken body. May we take our bodies, Lord,
and sanctify them for your service. It's our reasonable service. In Christ's name we give thanks
for his broken body. Amen. Likewise, that is, in the same
manner, he gave thanks, took the cup, saying, This cup is
the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. And Paul, later on, wrote to
the Corinthians and said, Now, as often as you do this, you
do show the Lord's death until He comes. quite sure from God's Word very
soon. So he gave thanks and they drank
the cup. Let's give thanks for the shed
blood of our Lord. Our Father, again, we give thanks
in your Son's name. We give thanks to you for sending
him, the sent one, Messiah, God's Lamb. our Passover Lamb for sending
Him and for bruising Him. We please the Father to bruise
Him for shedding His blood, the blood of God's own Son, the precious
blood of the Lamb without spot and blemish. We thank You, not
as we should, not as we someday will, but as much as lies within
us, we give thanks for Christ crucified. We know and believe from the
heart that it is the blood that maketh atonement for our soul. It is the blood that cleanses
us from all unrighteousness. And so, we give thanks for your
Son, for you sending Him and for Him coming, for the Holy
Spirit making these things known unto us, making Christ known
in us, applying that blood to us, chosen ones, putting that
blood on our doorpost and little. We thank you, not passing us
by, but for being our Passover. And so it's in Christ's name
we've met here tonight and give thanks for the broken body and
shed blood and the word understood. In his name we pray. Amen. Okay, the Gospels say that they
sang a hymn after that. Sing a hymn. You'll take your
blue hymnal, Sherry, you'll come up to play the piano. The blue hymnal, let's see, I
forgot to write the number down. Let me look it up real fast. Okay, 363, and this is sung to
the tune of Let's Be the Tire. Is that 187? 363. And let's stand
before we go out. We're doing it just like they
did it. All right. A parting hymn we sing around
thy table, Lord. Again our grateful tribute bring,
our solemn vows record. Here have we seen thy face, and
felt Thy presence here. So may the savor of Thy grace
in word and life appear. The purchase of Thy blood, my
sin no longer lives. The path, our dear Redeemer trod. May we rejoice in self-forgetting
love. Be our communion shown. until we join the Church above
and know as we are known. Amen.