January 12, 2003
1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them. 2The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3While they stood in their place, they read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God. 4Now on the Levites¡¦ platform stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Chenani, and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God.
5Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, said, ¡§Arise, bless the LORD your God forever and ever!
36 ¡§Behold, we are slaves today,
And as to the land which You gave to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,
Behold, we are slaves in it.
37 ¡§Its abundant produce is for the kings
Whom You have set over us because of our sins;
They also rule over our bodies
And over our cattle as they please,
So we are in great distress.
38 ¡§Now because of all this
We are making an agreement in writing;
And on the sealed document are the names of our leaders, our Levites and our priests.¡¨
Nehemiah 9.1-5a, 36-38 (NASB)
EXPOSITION
captivity was over. Rebuilding the city and its walls had taken a great effort, and yet the successful project had drawn the people together. Jerusalem would stand high and proud once again. There was just one ¡§catch¡¨ ¡V God was not done. There was an unrest that had to be settled.
Last week we saw how the joy of the Lord was presented to the people through the pathway of repentance. It began a process which led to the revival of God¡¦s people.
The process involved three readings of the Word of God over a period of twenty-four days:
„g READING #1 (day one) Nehemiah 8.4-8 led to conviction, weeping and repentance. Nehemiah and Ezra saw the people¡¦s deep sorrow over their sins and told them to stop and go rejoice. Once repentance comes there is need to celebrate the forgiveness God promises!
„g READING #2 (day two) Nehemiah 4.14-15 led to a further conviction to re-institute the celebration of Feast of Booths, reminding God¡¦s people of His provision and protection all during the wilderness wanderings. The people lived simply for 10 days in makeshift shelters remembering their total dependence on God.
„g READING #3 (day twenty-four) Nehemiah 8.18 ¡V 9.3. During the entire 31/2 weeks there was continual worship and reading of God¡¦s Word. At the end, this public reading was the culmination of a revival begun. The people had been fasting and concentrating on the goodness of God.
Notice how Nehemiah describes the final day of a national revival for the people of God:
„g 9.4-5 Praise of God begins with the priests; the congregation joins in as they are instructed to ¡§arise and praise the Lord.¡¨
„g 9.6-15 Exalting God for His great faithfulness to Israel in creation, calling Abraham to fatherhood of the race, deliverance from Egyptian bondage, leading and providence in the wilderness and giving of the Law.
„g 9.16-37 Confessing to God Israel¡¦s past sinful disobedience and the Lord¡¦s continual mercy in forgiving and delivering them; also confessing that God was right and just in punishing them.
„g 9.38 Covenanting with God to live obediently as His people in the future.
APPLICATION
For Israel the events we read marked the beginning of a national revival ¡V a high point of connection with God. In this they did ¡§arise and bless the Lord God! This is available to us as well. Here are some application points based on how this event should affect us today.
A. DON¡¦T RUSH
If you are going to arise and bless God, that is, get serious concerning your relationship to Him, don¡¦t take it lightly; do your homework! After all, you are not approaching a hot dog vendor on the corner of the street downtown ¡V you are approaching Holy God, Author and Sustainer of the entire universe.
A teenager was caught doing ninety-five in a thirty. The traffic cop was caressing his citation book as he walked up to the youth¡¦s car. ¡§I¡¦ve been just waiting for you all day,¡¨ said the officer sarcastically. ¡§Yeah,¡¨ said the teen, ¡§I got here as quickly as I could.¡¨
Rushing into ¡§revival¡¨ can be hazardous to your health. Rushing into revival can be a sign of false repentance, or a shallow understanding of what repentance really means.
To repent means turning your back completely on the old life, knowing that God expects you to reject sin and live for Him. The scripture warns us how stubborn and unrepentant we are by nature:
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.
Ecclesiastes 8:11 (NASB)
Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent.
Matthew 11:20 (NASB)
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart
you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Romans 2:5 (NASB)
B. DON¡¦T RATIONALIZE
In order to truly connect with God you have to deal in reality. I am a great one to recommend connecting with reality. I rationalize frequently when it comes to my automobiles. Whenever I hear a noise under the hood, or that ¡§thump¡¨ in the wheels, I rationalize that it is just ¡§road noise¡¨ and it will soon go away. Or I imagine there is only a twenty-cent fuse that needs replacing when I turn the key and the water faucet in my house comes on. I don¡¦t really want to deal with the reality of home repair, or the cost of keeping the old bus running. Rationalizing our relationship with God is like that when we refuse to come to terms with sin.
¡¥Only acknowledge your iniquity, That you have transgressed against the LORD your God And have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree, And you have not obeyed My voice,¡¦ declares the LORD. Jeremiah 3:13 (NASB)
He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. Proverbs 28:13 (NASB)
The opposite of rationalization is confession. Confession is not about making excuses. Confession is what leads to revival and renewal in your life. Don¡¦t rationalize that your sin is someone else¡¦s fault. Israel didn¡¦t do that. At this point in their national existence they were willing to confess not only their own sins, but the past sins of their fathers.
C. DON¡¦T RETREAT
But Jesus said to him, ¡§No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.¡¨ Luke 9.62
If we are to ¡§arise and bless the Lord God¡¨ it has to be the kind of decision that burns the bridges behind.
„g It means we come just as we are, but understanding that God loves us much too much to leave us that way.
„g It means we come in our brokenness and sin, remembering that our confession is a step without retreat, and He will do the cleaning up of our lives.
„g It means we are committing to go wherever He leads.
„g It means we are becoming part of a forever family, and this is a family you don¡¦t leave behind when something ¡§better¡¨ comes along.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 (NASB)
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Psalm 51:17 (NASB)
¡§For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,¡¨ declares the LORD. ¡§But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.
Isaiah 66:2 (NASB)
Ultimately our souls are searching for peace. Apart from God we cannot have that. Apart from an unrushed, unrationalized, unretreating commitment to the Lord God, there is no way to bless Him.
In your search for peace, you can be like the bright young man Rabbi Harold Kushner tells about in a wonderful story. He was a sophomore Stanford pre-med student. To reward him for having done so well in school, his parents gave him a trip to the Far East for the summer vacation before the start of his junior year.
While there he met a guru who said to him, "Don¡¦t you see how you are poisoning your soul with this success oriented way of life? Your idea of happiness is to stay up all night studying for an exam so you can get a better grade than your best friend. Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will make you whole, but to win the girl that everyone else wants. That¡¦s not how people are supposed to live. Give it up; come join us in an atmosphere where we all share and love each other."
The young man had completed four years at a competitive high school to get into Stanford, plus two years of pre-med courses at the university. He was ripe for this sort of approach. He called his parents from Tokyo and told them he would not be coming home. He was dropping out of school to live in an ashram (a spiritual retreat).
Six months later, his parents got a letter from him: "Dear Mom and Dad, I know you weren¡¦t happy with the decision I made last summer, but I want to tell you how happy it has made me. For the first time in my life, I am at peace. Here there is no competing, no hustling, no trying to get ahead of anyone else. Here we are all equal, and we all share. This way of life is so much in harmony with the inner essence of my soul that in only six months I¡¦ve become the number two disciple in the entire ashram, and I think I can be number one by June!"
Genuine revival on a personal, church or global level requires a consistent faithful commitment to a connection with, and obedience to almighty God. A by-product, a blessed by-product of that obedience is a peace that passes all understanding. It is no wonder people who live in revival arise and bless the Lord!
