SERMON OUTLINE:
(1). Visually: He made sure people could see him (vs 5).
(2). Audibly: He made sure people could hear him (vs 5).
(3). Respectfully: He made sure people were tuned in (vs 5b & 6).
(4). Patiently: He made sure people were (vs 5b).
(5). Clarity: He made sure people could understand (vs 8-12)
(5). Obediently: He made sure people applied the Scriptures (vs 16-18)
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
• Your trivia question this morning is…
• What is Dutchman Hans Lippershey credited for inventing it in 1608
• Answer is the telescope.
• Some people point at this optical instrument and say, “It’s a telescope!”
• Some might see it as a valuable antique worth hundreds of pounds,
• But both of them have missed the point,
• It is not what it looks like that matters,
• A telescope has one main purpose, it is designed for people to look through it!
• And if you correctly look through a good telescope,
• You can see worlds beyond!
• The Bible is like a telescope.
• Some folks see this book and say, “It’s a Bible!”
• Some folk used to keep a family Bible as an heirloom, something valuable.
• But again, they have missed the point,
• The Bible is something we look through to see beyond our world.
• To discover the God of the universe,
• The who made us and wants to be involved in our lives.
• This morning our subject is, ‘The People and the Book’
• And our Bible passage is Nehemiah chapter 8.
Pause to remind you of the background to this chapter:
• The place: Persia, (Persia is the old name for Iran)
• The year: around 445/444 BC, the 20th year of King Artaxerxes reign.
• The main character: is a man called Nehemiah – who was cupbearer to the king.
• While on duty at the palace.
• Nehemiah learns that the walls of Jerusalem, the capitol city of his homeland,
• Were broken down and destroyed,
• So, he asked the king for permission to return to his homeland and rebuild them,
• And King Artaxerxes granted him permission to return to his homeland (Judah).
• Nehemiah was sent back as governor of the province with a mission to rebuild the walls.
• Last week those walls were finished, complete, secure.
• We noted that in the first half of this book (Nehemiah),
• The people existed for the walls, but from now on the walls exist for the people.
Quote: William Booth (Founder of the Salvation Army).
"You cannot warm the hearts of people with God's love
if they have an empty stomach and cold feet.”
• TRANSITION: His point was meet a person’s physical needs,
• And you win the right to meet their spiritual needs.
• Nehemiah met the practical and physical needs of the people.
• Now it is time to meet the spiritual needs of the people.
• Having secured the city by rebuilding the walls,
• Nehemiah in chapters 8 to 13 will now rebuild the people:
Note: As you read this passage,
• Note that there is no mention of the wall.
• Our attention now shifts from the bricks to people,
• And how these people can get back in touch with God himself.
• For me, the lesson for us in Chapter 8 is this:
• After reconstruction, there is also a need for re-instruction.
• It is time to meet the spiritual needs of the people.
• I want to point out 4 observations from this chapter,
• So, let’s read verses 1-4 again, as they set the stage for what follows.
“all the people came together as one in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the teacher of the Law 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. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
4 Ezra the teacher of the Law stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood” – 13 men, you can read their names if you want to!
(Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.)
Question: Have you got the picture?
Answer: 4 things in the mix.
• Lots of people. A priest named Ezra.
• A scroll, an ancient copy of the Torah (The Law, the 5 books of Moses)
• A pulpit.
• And a great interest in what God’s Word had to say.
Ill:
• Did you know that roughly 293.6 billion emails?
• Are sent and received each day (2020),
• Annoyingly, 55% of emails sent are spam!
• ill: Like the FB photo post that plays on the spam email we often receive.
• TRANSITION: We like to communicate,
• And we still like to communicate through the written word (emails & txt)
• In verse 3: Ezra “read it aloud” from the book of the law,
• And in verse 5 we are told twice that Ezra: ‘opened the book’.
• For Nehemiah and Ezra and the people of Judea,
• Ezra the priest will remind them that is how God primarily communicates,
• Through his word.
Now four observations from this chapter:
• Each having to do with the “opening of the book”.
• How do we handle God’s Word and apply it!
• Note: Ezra was reading the Law in a public context,
• Today, we would say a Church gathering.
• He did a number of practical things.
(1). Visually: He made sure people could see him (vs 5).
“Ezra the teacher of the Law stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion.”
Ill:
• I turned up to speak at a Church recently,
• And they wanted me to speak into a camera on a side wall,
• For the members watching at home on Zoom.
• But that would have meant my congregation in the building,
• Would have been 180 degrees to my right.
• My response was, “No” I can’t do that,
• I could have stayed at home and spoken into a camera,
• If there are people in the building, then I need to look at them,
• I need to speak ‘face to face’ or ‘eye to eye’.
• So, I helped them move their camera (which was a webcam taped on a microphone stand)
• To a different place, so I could speak to both groups effectively.
• Now I hope I did that gently and considerately and not in a critical way,
• But if I am to effectively communicate the word of God,
• I will need at times to get over physical barriers.
Ill:
• I always enjoyed going to South Road Church, Portsmouth when Joe Troszok was alive,
• When I walked into the building, he would say to me, “How do you want it set up today?”
• TRANSITION: The reason he said that was because in previous visits,
• I changed the layout of the front of the Church to suit me,
• e.g. I set up a projector, a screen, an amp etc, to enable me to communicate better.
Ill:
• I was trained alongside two Counties evangelists – Bob Telford & Ivor Cooper;
• And one thing they taught me was when you stand up to preach;
• ‘You claim your ground’.
• What they meant was make sure you are comfortable.
• i.e. If there is no lectern or stand, go and find something to rest your notes on,
• i.e. If you are far away from your congregation move closer to them or them to you.
• i.e. If possible, remove any obstructions between you and your congregation.
• i.e. If you are using visual aids or a projector etc make sure it can be clearly seen.
(2). Audibly: He made sure people could hear him (vs 5).
“Ezra the teacher of the Law stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.
Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing”
• Verse 4: They built a had a wooden stage for this occasion.
• It must have been quite large to hold thirteen men,
• So, they are higher up than the people,
• And with the wall behind them acting as a sounding board.
• The acoustics were probably very good and boosted their voices.
Ill:
• I know at times in this Church we have problems with microphones not behaving,
• And batteries pretending to be charged and then dying within minutes of use.
• But rest assured, we make it a priority to get good sound in this Church.
• We are aware that you can have the greatest message in the world,
• But if people struggle to hear it, then it is wasted.
ill:
• Many of you know that I go into the local schools to take assemblies,
• I am often introduced as Gordon Curley, after all that is my name!
• I kid you not, but one girl went home and told her parents,
• That today in their assembly they had, “God and Curley”
• That is how she had misheard my name.
• TRANSITION: Now when I preach the Bible, I like to think it is God & Curley,
• Or rather God through Curley, or God through the preacher in the pulpit.
• And if God is speaking through his word, through the preacher,
• We need to make sure people can HEAR with their ears & learn to listen with our hearts!
So, Ezra made sure people could see and hear him.
• Now every preacher loves verse 3 of this chapter.
• “He read it aloud from daybreak till noon”
• The people stand and listen for six hours.
• Some folk struggle after six minutes!
Ill:
• Albert Einstein would explain his theory of relativity this way.
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”
• Some preachers their minutes ca seem like hours,
• And others, time flies by!
• Now having spoken about preachers,
• Notice that the focus was upon the book of God,
• Not Ezra the preacher, not the occasion but the book of God!
• Ultimately it is the word of God that is primary, not the preacher.
• These people wanted to hear it.
(3). Respectfully: He made sure people were tuned in (vs 5b & 6).
“and as he opened it (the scroll of the Law), the people all stood up
Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.”
• To hear from God, we need to come to him his way not ours!
• These people showed reverence to the word of God,
• A proof of that is threefold:
• FIRST: They stood up to listen.
• ill: You would stand in the presence of royalty, someone important.
• ill: When I visit a private school, the pupils stand when you enter the room.
• Standing is often a sign of respect or reverence.
• SECOND: They expressed their devotion (vs 6), they had their “arms lifted up”.
• This was a classic Hebrew position for prayer
• ill: We teach our kids, hands together and eyes shut,
• But the Jewish way was the raising up of both hands to pray,
• It is referenced in 24 biblical passages, through 6 different Hebrew idioms
• This action demonstrates adoration in the context of religious worship.
Ill:
• Trivia on Jewish prayer.
• When the rabbis of the Talmud refer to prayer,
• They are almost always referring to the “Amidah,” or “Standing Prayer.”
• Like its name suggests, this prayer is recited while standing in silent devotion,
• As if one were standing before God.
• It is also customary to take three steps back,
• And three steps forward when beginning the Amidah - As if approaching God,
• And when ending the Amidah - as if returning to the world of the profane.
• THIRD: They humbled themselves (vs 6): “they bowed down”,
• They prostrated themselves, “Faces to the ground”.
• In other words, they humbled themselves before God by their actions.
• We at times come so casually into what we think is God’s presence,
• We wonder why at times,
• We are as flat during the service as we were before we entered the building.
• Question: Maybe the problem is with us?
• Answer: Those three principles – come respectful, devotional, and come humbly.
Now Because the people came with the right attitude.
• They went away with the right blessing!
• They were blessed by God.
Ill:
• Story told of a father who took his son with him when he went out preaching.
• They went to a very small village Church, just a handful of people there.
• They took the collection half-way through the service,
• The father and son popped in a few coins as a gesture.
• And at the end of the meeting they gave the boys dad (the preacher),
• The money collected in the offering box for his travelling expenses.
• Well the dad looked at the few coins & mentioned to his boy how much the fuel had cost,
• Then the boy with childlike wisdom said,
• “Dad, if you had put more in the box, you would have got more out of it!”
• TRANSITION: In so many areas of the CRISTIAN life,
• We get out what we put in!
(4). attentively: He made sure people were satisfied (vs 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.”
Ill:
• My mentor Bob Telford was invited to preach in an Anglican Church,
• When he arrived at the Church,
• He said to the vicar, “How long do you want time to speak?”
• The vicar replied, “Well, sometimes I go on as long as 8 minutes!”
• Now if you know Bob, it will take him 8 minutes for his introduction!
• We (his friends) used to have a joke,
• “How do you make a Bob Telford sermon 60mins long?”
• Answer: “You cut it in half!”
Ill:
• You can go to a supermarket and buy a bag of donuts,
• On the side of that bag you may find they are called ‘Donettes’,
• Which obviously stood for small donuts.
• TRANSITION:
• Maybe that is why someone coined the phrase: ‘Sermonettes are for Christianettes’
• To hear from God, we need to spend time being taught God’s word!
• Now every preacher loves verse 3 of this chapter.
• “He read it aloud from daybreak till noon”
• Wow! These people stood and listened for six hours.
• Isn’t that something?
• I go to some Churches were the congregation start shifting their feet after 6 minutes!
Ill:
• In the UK all Anglican Churches used to have a clock on the outside of their buildings,
• Reminding people when to come and worship.
• Then some bright spark, moved them to the inside of our Churches.
• Telling folks when to go home!
(5). Clarity – we need to speak so that people can understand (vs 8-12).
NIV:
“They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.”
Living Bible:
They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage.
NASB:
“And they read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading”.
Question: Why was there a need to translate and make clear?
Answer:
• These people were Hebrews.
• And the scroll was written in Hebrew.
• But where had the people been living?
• According to Jewish history, they’d been in captivity for seven decades.
• That meant some of them didn’t know what life was like outside captivity.
• They had been born in captivity and lived their entire lives among the Babylonians.
• Their whole frame of reference was Babylonian or Chaldean.
• Their language was Chaldean.
• They thought in Chaldean, their culture, their life-style was Chaldean.
• But their Book, their scriptures were written in Hebrew.
• They needed someone to translate it, to explain it and make it clear!
Note:
• Remember that they not only had they been in captivity for seven decades – 70 years.
• It has been about 1,000 years between Moses receiving the Law;
• And Ezra’s reading of the Law.
• And every language, that language will change – even Hebrew.
• There will be changes between conversational Hebrew and ancient Hebrew.
Ill:
• How much of this verse do you understand;
• It is taken from John Wycliffe’s version of the Bible;
• The first and oldest version in English.
‘Alle yr that traueilen & ben charged come to me & I schal filfille you. Take ye my yok on you & lerne ye of me for I am mylde and meke in herte: and ye schulen finde rest to youre soulis/ for my yoke is softe & my charge liyt’.
• The quote is Matthew chapter 11 verses 28-30.
• The translation by John Wycliffe goes back 600 years (1382).
• But between Moses and Ezra the gap has been about 1,000 years.
• TRANSITION:
• The job of the Bible teacher/preacher first and foremost is to explain the scriptures,
• To make them clear,
• To communicate their meaning to the variety of people who were listening.
Ill:
• Think of letters and parcels in a post office depot.
• They are not put randomly into the bag or van of a postman/woman.
• They are organized so they can quickly and efficiently reach their destination.
• Words are like parcels – packages of information.
• If they are going to reach the correct destinations quickly and efficiently.
• They need arranging, they need some kind of order, they need to be orchestrated.
• TRANSITION: That was the job of Ezra.
• He separated the Word, the verses, the passages.
• So, he could communicate in a clear, and understandable way.
(5). Obediently: He made sure people applied the Word (vs 16-18).
• In response to the reading of the Word of God.
• And the preaching of Ezra – in verse 16 the people responded in obedience to the word.
• This was demonstrated in their celebration of the feast of tabernacles.
“So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim”
Not a lot of people realise this:
• But in the Hebrew language, the language of the Old Testament.
• There is no Hebrew word for our English word, ‘obey’
• (Not in the same sense as it does in English).
• In Hebrew the implication of the equivalent word,
• Is that when you hear the instruction, you hear it to do it!
Ill:
• Parents when they say to their children; “Did you hear me?”
• What they are really saying is; “How come you haven’t yet done what I asked”.
• The idea being, if you heard, then you should be doing!
• TRANSITION: God does not like to play multiple choice!
• That is, he speaks to us and we look at all the options, ‘Yes, Maybe, No!’
• Rather God speaks to us through his word,
• And we will hear his voice clearer when we have the desire to obey.
Ill:
• A senior member of one Church,
• Shook hands with the preacher after the service one Sunday morning.
• And told him:
“That was a wonderful sermon, just wonderful.
Everything you said applies to someone I know.”
• God speaks to us through his word,
• And we will hear his voice clearer when we have the desire to obey.
• Quote:
• “Obedience is like a computer password to the riches of God.”
• Too many Christians are happy being spiritual beggars,
• When they could be spiritual millionaires.
Ill:
• Jesus finished off the greatest sermon ever preached,
• With what we often relegate to being a simple kid’s story.
• The parable of the wise and foolish builders!
• The Message paraphrases them like this:
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
26-27"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
28-29When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.”
• TRANSITION: It is in the applying, the doing, obeying,
• That makes all the difference!
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=Q3a26E1f43p1Gowm8mSy3Oa5j7YEyqYf
SERMON VIDEIO:
https://youtu.be/aExYJPcDYRs
