Entering The Holy Of Holies Series

Today we're going to look at a prayer in the scriptures. This prayer in particular is going to look

at the longest prayer in the Bible. So you can open your Bibles to Nehemiah 9. It is the longest

prayer in the Bible.

But I want to tell you first about the shortest prayer in the Bible. Do you know where the shortest

prayer in the Bible is? It comes from that story of Jesus, who was walking on the water in the

midst of a storm, and Peter (being the brave guy that he is or ADHD or whatever he had),

decided he wanted to get out of the boat and walk on that water. And it was hard. So he started

walking toward Jesus. In his walk, though, he started paying attention to all the things around

him and he fell under the circumstances. You know what that means, right? When someone says

to you, “How you doing?” and you say, “Well, under the circumstances…” I have to say, what

are you doing down there? You don't have to be under the circumstances, not if you're a

Christian. Right? But he got under the circumstances and so he calls out that prayer, and he says,

“Lord, save me!” If you've never prayed that prayer, that is the first prayer, you pray. “Lord,

save me.” And of course Jesus was right there to walk with him then back to the boat. We all

need that prayer in our lives, we need to be able to come to Him and say, “Lord, save me.”

Today, we're going to look at the longest prayer in the Bible, Nehemiah 9. I want to take you

through it. But what I'd like you to do is start by standing up with me and I'm going to read now

the introduction before we get to the prayer, as we all stand together.

Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and

in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. So they’re very serious about this. And the Israelites

separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and their iniquities

of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord

their God for a quarter of the day (wouldn’t that be like three hours?), for another quarter of it

they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God. On the stairs of the Levites stood

Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a

loud voice to the Lord their God. Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah,

Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless (that’s the word baruk,

which we’re going to be singing in just a moment) the Lord (Adonai) your God from everlasting

to everlasting. And so now the prayer is going to begin.

You may sit down.

Before I share with you this prayer that we're going to go through very carefully, I want to talk to

you about entering the Holy of Holies. Because that's what I imagine is taking place in this

prayer. When you enter into the Holy of Holies... Just imagine this, you've got the temple, and

you've got the holy place, and then you've got this big curtain. If you go behind the curtain is one

piece of furniture. That is the Ark of the Covenant called the mercy seat with the big angels

above it. And when you enter behind that veil, just imagine you're the only person who can go in

there. You're the high priest. You can only go in once a year and this is the day. You move the

veil back so you can get behind it and you can go in there into this. The curtain is very high,

higher than the ceiling. It's very high. And as you go in there, it's kind of spooky, it's kind of

awesome, it's kind of reverent, maybe even a little bit scary. The priest had a rope tied around his

foot in case he dies in there they're going to pull him out. Nobody else is going in there. This is a

very special place as you come in there because the only piece of furniture is the Ark of the

Covenant. And the Ark of the Covenant, as you know, lead the people through the wilderness. It

was the Ark of the Covenant that came to the Jordan River and when it did, the waters parted and

they walked through. It's this Ark of the Covenant that represents the very presence of God. And

here you are, you and I, we’re walking into this Holy of Holies. That's what I imagined as I