Nehemiah 8

The Scriptural Roots of Our Ministry Being A City On A Hill

God’s Call To FPBC 11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. (Psalm 86)

Heartbreaking News 3 They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.” (Nehemiah 1)

15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. (Nehemiah 6) Mission Accomplished?

The Mission 6 My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart. (Jeremiah 24)

2 Great Tasks ReconstructionReinstruction

Desire When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, 1 all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. 2 So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. 3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. (Nehemiah 8)

People were hungry for answers to their problems, for guidelines from the Word of God, and with one accord they gathered in this great square before the Water Gate. Certainly this long attention indicates how deeply they were aware of their ignorance about life and how much they needed answers from god. They were simply crying out for the Word. (Ray C Stedman, “The Shining Light”) 16 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty. (Jeremiah 15)

3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law. (Nehemiah 8) Attentiveness 9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. (Nehemiah 8)

Understanding 10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” 11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.” 12 Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them. (Nehemiah 8)

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes.” (Matthew 13:14b-15a)

13 On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered round Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the Law. (Nehemiah 8) 10 For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. (Ezra 7) StudyObeyTeach

Obedience 14 They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month 15 and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: “Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make booths” - as it is written. 16 So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves booths on their own roofs, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim. 17 The whole company that had returned from exile built booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great. (Nehemiah 8)

Response What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? (Deuteronomy 4:7-8)

Neglect Bible Illiteracy Therapeutic Preaching

Bible Illiteracy Christians claim to believe the Bible is God's Word. We claim it's God's divinely inspired, inerrant message to us. Yet despite this, we aren't reading it. A recent LifeWay Research study found only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. Over 40 percent of the people attending read their Bible occasionally, maybe once or twice a month. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible—essentially the same number who read it every day.LifeWay Research Because we don't read God's Word, it follows that we don't know it. To understand the effects, we can look to statistics of another Western country: the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom Bible Society surveyed British children and found many could not identify common Bible stories. When given a list of stories, almost 1 in 3 didn't choose the Nativity as part of the Bible and over half (59 percent) didn't know that Jonah being swallowed by the great fish is in the Bible.

British parents didn't do much better. Around 30 percent of parents don't know Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, or the Good Samaritan are in the Bible. To make matters worse, 27 percent think Superman is or might be a biblical story. More than 1 in 3 believes the same about Harry Potter. And more than half (54 percent) believe The Hunger Games is or might be a story from the Bible. But it's more than simply not knowing stories from Scripture. Our lack of biblical literacy has led to a lack of biblical doctrine. (The Epidemic of Bible Illiteracy In Our Churches, “Christianity Today”, July 6, 2015) “We are fast becoming a Biblically illiterate society. Even within the Church! Our knowledge of the Word of God is often superficial. Too often, Bible study becomes a place of shared ignorance rather than of sustained investigation and study of God’s Word. We echo what we hear rather than develop deep convictions from a consistent study of the Scriptures. The Church must be intentional in developing deep, Word-centred disciples. How do we grow in knowing the Word of God? To get into the Word is to cultivate a DISCIPLINE in the Word, a DEVOTION to the Word and a DELIGHT in the Word.” (Edmund Chan)

Therapeutic Preaching There has been a growing trend among Evangelical pastors and churches over the past fifty years regarding the demise of theology and its subsequent replacement with psychology. Because of this cultural shift away from theology, the people who attend Christian churches today have been trained to think that theology is not necessary or even practical. This is in spite of people being destroyed by a lack of the knowledge of God (Hosea 4:6). Worse yet, this has led pastors to preach messages that show they spend more time studying behaviorism and sociology than they do the Scriptures. Many of the fastest growing churches today have pulpit preaching based on self-help positive messages with or without Scripture as an appendage. The days of a pastor preaching relevant doctrinal messages have now gone the way of the dinosaur! (Josep Mattera, “How We Moved From Theological To Therapeutic Preaching – And Why It Matters”) 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4)

6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4)