Day 20 of the 52 day Journey with NEHEMIAH>>>>>>>>>>>>>Nehemiah 8:11-12 So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. 12 And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them...... ..What a powerful statement of the effect of the Word of God! When people understand it, it brings joy. The joy of the LORD is your strength. What a great word for grieving people who see the evil in their lives and the lives of those around them, and mourn over what it has produced! The word that brings joy is that of forgiveness. God can forgive! He does and he will restore. That is what Jesus meant when he said, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, Matthew 5:4.....When the people heard the law, they wept. There are many reasons for weeping when one hears God’s law. This was especially the case of these people, who had not been able to worship as they would have liked to because the city of worship had been so destroyed. We weep when we have godly sorrow for our sin , or when we appreciate how good God has been and how unworthy we are, etc. However, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the other leaders who were teaching the people told them not to weep. It was not a day for weeping, but was a time for joy. It was a holy day, the Feast of Trumpets......... Note that the passage aforehand in vs#8 expressly says that the people understood the message !!!!!!!! In our studies in the book of Nehemiah we have seen how Nehemiah accomplished in a very remarkable way the task assigned to him to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem. The point of this history, as we have already noted, is given in the Apostle Pauls word to the effect that these things happened to Israel as samples, or types, for us upon whom the ends of the ages have come, 1 Corinthians 10:11.. The truth is not always easy for me to hear. Sometimes it pierces me and convicts me. Sometimes I wish I could evade it. And then I am reminded that it was sent to heal me. Often it encourages me and heartens me. Sometimes it restores me when nothing else can do so. It confronts me with paradoxes of revelation which intrigue me and challenge me. It exposes the secular illusions of the day and reveals the destructive ends to which they lead. It deals honestly with uncomfortable concepts and opposes the strongholds of tradition, correcting them with the authority of God. I have learned to appreciate the Bible most because it brings me face to face with my God! That is the reason for Scripture. It is to reveal God to us. The relationship is so real and personal that it seems to be a face to face encounter. My heavenly Father becomes more real and close than any earthly father. I can all but see my Lord and Savior standing beside me and talking to me as I read his words in the gospels. Sometimes the words of Scripture become so vivid and luminous that I feel like kneeling or even falling on my face before the majesty of God. No other book has such power to transport me beyond earth to heavenly places.... These events picture the rebuilding of a life that has been damaged by sin or invaded by enemies. Chapter 8 highlights the fact that after reconstruction there is a great need for reinstruction. We must learn to see life from Gods perspective. We need to change the way we think about ourselves and about life. All of us have been greatly affected by the philosophy of the world, much more than we are aware. We have picked up from the media ideas and attitudes that we are hardly aware of as being wrong. We need to be reinstructed about those matters. The New Testament verse that corresponds to what we learn in Chapter 8 is Romans 12:2: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The instrument of that renewing is always the Word of God. If you need to change things in your life (or you are praying for someone else who does), then change must come through the knowledge of the Word of God, through the understanding of truth that was unknown before. It is not surprising, therefore, that Chapter 8 opens with a manifestation of a great hunger for the Word among these people in Jerusalem. t seems to me that we have come to such a time as this again. The prophet Amos predicted that there would come a famine in the world for the Word of God. People would actually be starving for answers to the problems of life. Surely we have come to just such a time in our own century. I find everywhere a deep hunger among non-churched people to hear the Word of God. Wherever it is taught with any degree of understanding, they are immediately attracted to it. When the word is opened up, people begin to understand themselves. This is the great thing about Scripture. When you know God you begin to understand yourself, because you are made in the image of God. These people in Jerusalem were soon growing in self-knowledge as they began to hunger for the Word of God. The great tragedy of our day is how few churches seem to understand this power of Scripture. Across the country and around the world there are thousands of churches in which there is little life. The services are dull and dreary because the Word of God is not central. I can barely stomach the newspapers here in my hometown. In the tabloids, day after day, the first four or five pages are routinely filled with stories of parents beating or starving their children to death, of children plotting to kill their parents, of people being killed by random gunshots, of people chopping up other people, of cyanide being put in yogurt at the supermarkets. America, I think, is out of control in some very weird ways. I dont know how bad it really is or exactly why it is happening. There are obviously many, many reasons, beginning with the unrelenting pressure of living in an open and competitive society... I dont know the answer to any of this. I suspect that things will get worse before they get better. It is only when you open the Book of God that you learn the reason for these kinds of conditions. We learn from the Scriptures that as individuals, and as a nation, we have turned our backs on Gods ways and wisdom. We have ignored his laws. We have missed the glory of his plan. We have messed up the beautiful world that he gave us. When we see the sad results and hear them poured into our ears continually by the media, it makes us weep, doesnt it? It makes us sorrow for all the fine young people who are being destroyed by these terrible practices. Of all that is happening today, the most frightening thing is the lack of a sense of sin in society. People are doing terrible things -- murdering one another, raping one another, hurting each other right and left -- but they do not feel they are doing anything wrong. They have no sense of the wrongness of it. That is what the Word of God is given to correct. It awakens afresh an awareness of what is causing the wrong. But though weeping is necessary and important, it is not the final message God has for us. To show this Nehemiah and Ezra speak up and correct the people. 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. The Levites calmed all the people, saying, Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve. 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 8:10-12..........Notice how Nehemiah urges the people to send portions of food to those who had nothing prepared. This is invariably the result in those who find their lives beginning to be healed by the Word of God. They start thinking of others who are hurting and want to share with them what they have learned...........Do you feel encouraged Today..????? Let us continue on this Journey and Rebuild Together our WALLS of Faith in the WORD of GOD Through Nehemiah!!Indeed I am Getting Stronger.. I HOPE you are getting something from these teachings!!Remember that Lifting the weight off of you can only be done when you Realize that it was all the conditioning that has prepared you is what made the difference. !!!!!! Pastor Joel Lewis
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 13:14:46 +0000
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