And I hope that as we spend Mondays together in chapel in the book of Nehemiah, that you will find not just another book of the Bible or not just a narrative story or not just a historical piece. I hope you won't just find some guy's journal with how he managed his time period and the problems that he faced. I hope that you will find primarily a source of God's wisdom for living. I hope that there you will find a friend, that as Nehemiah has presented to us through kind of the memoirs that we read, that you will find that you're resonating with this man's heart. I hope that you will find there some practical advice in contemplating, okay, Nehemiah, why did you do things the way that you did? Why did you take the time that you took? Or why did you have that conversation the way you had it?
Why did you position people in building the way that you did? I hope you'll find some really, really practical advice that you can apply to your life. But more than that, I hope that God will shape our hearts around the big priorities that as we read this book become very obvious in the life of Nehemiah. This is very much, if you will, in our language, a personal diary. It is a journal.
It is a set of memoirs. But what I hope you'll see is beyond all of that, that this is literature that is inspired by God as part of our Bible that he intends to impact our lives. And so as we study this book together, we are going to be uncovering the working of God in the heart of his servant as he is used by God to make a difference in people's lives, both individually and corporately.
And from that we can draw applications about how we can live effectively for God in our own setting. Let's enjoy studying Nehemiah together. Welcome to The Daily Platform, a radio program featuring chapel messages from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today we're continuing a study in the book of Nehemiah called Nehemiah Life on Mission. In today's sermon, Dr. Alan Benson will guide us through Chapter 8, and Alan will be preaching Receiving and Responding to God's Word.
Wonderful singing. If you're thankful this morning for immeasurably deep love of Christ for you, say amen. I hope you know that today. I hope that you know that wherever you are at, wherever you have been, that you are loved. That love may impact you in different ways today. For some of you it may call you back.
For some of you it may correct you. For all of us, I hope you know it will hold you. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Nehemiah Chapter 8. Nehemiah Chapter 8. You may have done the math and figured out that we will not get all the way through the book of Nehemiah this semester.
And I want you to know that that was actually in my planning from the beginning, so I'm not frustrated by that and I hope you're not. There's kind of a second saga that comes towards the end of the book that we won't deal with. Nehemiah Chapter 8. You follow along as I read, beginning in verse 1. And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the Watergate. And they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month.
And he read therein before the street that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday. Before the men and the women and those that could understand in the ears of all the people were attentive under the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattathiah and Shema and Ananias and Urijah and Hociah and Maasiah on his right hand.
And on his left hand, Padiah and Mishael and Melchiah and Hashim and Hashbadanah, Zachariah and Meshulam. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. For he was above all the people and when he opened it, all the people stood up. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen!
Amen! with lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. This morning I want us to think about receiving and responding to God's Word.
So let's kind of remember where we've been and we're actually going to go back to the introductory message a little bit just to set the setting. If you remember, in Hebrew literature, Ezra and Nehemiah appear as one book. And so if you will, they're kind of two chapters to one book. If you want to think about them in simple terms, Ezra is kind of the saga of the return of the people and the building of the temple. Nehemiah then comes and the building of the walls. And so there's about 14 years Ezra, some estimate, returned about 458 BC. And if you read through the book, you actually will see the process of the building of the temple and official letters from the king for the people to go and the temple to be built and worship to be restored.
You'll actually see some similar opposition that is happening. And in fact, chapter 7, where we had all those names of the people that returned, you will find as an exact duplicate of the listing of names that comes from Ezra, I believe it's chapter 2. And so these two books kind of overlap and in a sense, with chapter 7, you have Nehemiah clearly picking up on the work that Ezra was doing in seeing the temple built and temple worship restored. I think that's significant because also when you read about the initial offerings being brought back to the temple in Ezra around chapter 6, you will find that there's a listing there that they actually read the law of God and they start carrying out there the festivals or feasts or the sacrifices that God had required of the people.
And what you're going to find is that there's a break. We think 52 days, approximately two months between what Ezra is doing, Nehemiah comes in the building of these walls and now we come to Nehemiah chapter 8 and something has happened. Something is different. There's a spirit of anticipation among the people. The setting that we find in Nehemiah chapter 8, when you look down at the end, in fact look at verse 14 quickly, Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 14, and they found written in the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, go forth under the mountain, fetch olive branches and pine branches and myrtle branches and palm branches and branches of thick trees to make booze as it is written. And so the setting as we come to it here is actually they read in the word of God and they find out that they are at the festival of booze or the festival of tabernacles or what is also referred to as the festival of ingathering. It's a significant time for Israel. It actually is a time that is marked of all of their festivals of the one of greatest joy. And so after, if you will, the fasting of the atonement, you actually now have this time of feasting in the keeping of the festival of booze or tabernacles or ingathering. I found it really significant that in God's timing, if you will, this is Israel's time of thanksgiving and it comes right after us having ours. But there's an interesting thing that takes place here.
There's a correction. They've heard the word of God and the people are responding to the word of God, but they're actually not responding the way that God intends for them to respond. They're responding and they're sorrowful and there's repentance and there's weeping and yet the instructions from the word of God were, wait, there's something you need to do first. We have a festival that is a time of joy and rejoicing.
It marks two things. God's provision for us by remembering there was a time when we wandered in the wilderness because God delivered us out of Egypt and provided for us during that time. And so there's a challenge that comes to the people. But what you see is as they hear the word, they have an eagerness to respond. Have you ever wondered at times how and why it is you can be sitting in one crowd and see such different responses to the word of God? The simple answer to that is the working of the Holy Spirit in a person's life.
The human side to that is the soil receptive, is the heart prepared. By way of this introduction, what I want you to see is something different is happening here with the people of Israel after Nehemiah's work with them in building the walls that happened prior to that. It isn't different scripture. It isn't a different word. It isn't actually a different preacher. It's Ezra again. It's not Nehemiah preaching.
But there's a different response to the word. And I think it is because of the working of God in the hearts of the people as Nehemiah brought them together and they labored together to build the walls. I don't think the walls make the difference because I want us to remember that Nehemiah, when we see him in Nehemiah chapter 1, is more interested, if you will, in the building of men than he is in the building of walls.
He's more interested in the restoration of worship than he is in the restoration of walls. And so as we've seen him live life on mission, yes, there was a task at hand, but he used that task so that the people might be impacted. And he taught them incredible lessons about perseverance in the face of trouble, about unity in the face of disunity or divisiveness. And it's these lessons that I think have prepared them for chapter 8.
So as we come to chapter 8, I want you to ask yourself this question. What does it take for God to work in your life through his word? And again, I'm not just arbitrarily setting aside the fact that the working in a heart is God's work to do.
But I want us to assume that it is a work that God wants to do. I want us to look at the human side, at our side, at the human responsibility side with regard to hearing and heeding the word of God. And I want us to look at this narrative and see what is happening in the lives of the people.
And so I want us to see a few simple things. First of all, I want you to see the people's desire for the word. The people's desire for the word. As I went back and read Ezra and read even about in Ezra 6 and 7 that they actually keep the Feast of Tabernacles back there. And I come then to Nehemiah chapter 8. There's something very different.
And I think the differences are marked in the people's desire for the word. Notice verse 1, and all the people gathered themselves together as one man in the street. And they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded to Israel. I don't mean this to sound trite.
Young people, when you gather in worship, whether that's here in chapel or whether that is in the local church to which you assemble or the one that you will go home to, you ought to sit there and at some point in that service there ought to be a desire in your heart that cries out to the one who would come to the pulpit, bring the book. Bring the book. I don't want opinions. I don't want advice. I don't want the latest from the Wall Street Journal. I don't want to hear what Fox News has to say.
I can get that other places. But when I assemble to worship my God, there is no substitute for the book. Bring the book. These people wanted to hear from God. And so what I want you to see is, first of all, they came. They gathered themselves.
And they said, bring the book. This was a priority for them. I believe that if we are going to actively see God at work in our lives as we submit ourselves under the authority of the Word of God, it starts with a desire in the heart that makes it a priority to hear the Word of God. Is it a priority in your life?
Can you do without it? Have you told yourself that everyday life of living as a Christian seems to go up and down a little bit, but really, there's a marked variance, and that's the way my life is, and it really doesn't change a lot. So that you have accepted the fact that whether you have the Word or whether you don't, it really doesn't matter. Most Christians, unfortunately, are spiritually anorexic. They think they're full. They think they're fat. And the reality is, if you could see the condition of their soul, they're starved. And yet somehow they feel like they're satisfied. These people, through the process of seeing the provision of God, the protection of God, the power of God in rebuilding these walls in a miraculous way, under the leadership of Nehemiah, realized we need to hear from God.
So they made it a priority. They came. But then secondly, I want you to see, that didn't just come. They listened. Look at verse 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up.
There was a precedence here. They stood up. There was a response to what they were hearing. The Word of God was different in their mind. God had a right to speak to them. God had a right to speak authoritatively to them. God was respected by them. They listened.
Verse 3 says, the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. Let me ask you, is your regular habit in church, and when it comes time for the preaching, that there's part of you that tunes out? It's a battle for our flesh. We've been active, and that's what worship should be.
It's not a spectator sport. Maybe there's been parts of the service that were responsive like we did in our Thanksgiving service, but there are times that you're active. You congregationally are singing. You're participating. But when it comes to the time of the preaching of the Word, now I'm going to be a taker. I'm going to sit.
And so I'm a spectator. And it's easy for us at that point to get settled into our regular routine and our regular seat, and maybe to shut down our brain. Our mind begins to wander. We begin to think about where are we going to eat lunch today, and what will the conversation be that gets us to where we eat lunch? The reason I say that to you is not to scold any of us, but to say to you young people, this must be an active pursuit. We have to give attention and continue to give attention and correct our attention and bring it back to the Word of God.
It's challenging for us because there are so many distractions, and number two, because of how we are wired. You realize our freshman class coming in this year, I mentioned this in the opening service, is the first class. Their year that they were born was the very first time that anybody Googled anything. If you don't believe me, Google it.
Not right now. But you as Gen Z are the very first digital native generation, meaning it was here before you got here. Living digitally is a part of who you are. It's the way that we're wired, and because we're wired that way, we don't do just-in-case learning.
We, see I'm including myself, thank you. You do just-in-time learning. In other words, why would I put that in my head and clog my brain so that I can look it up right now when I need it? Because of that, we're wired in a way that has affected our ability to do critical thinking. That's not a bad thing. It's how you are. It's how you work. In fact, there's parts of it that I'm very envious of. But the reality is when someone stands with a book and cause you to particularly to look at a narrative and then ask you to sit and look at him and listen and interact without us going to other digital pathways.
It makes it very challenging to pay attention. Therefore, it is a spiritual discipline. It's a spiritual discipline. And so, they gave attention to the Word. And they respected the Word. And that led them then to this response in verse 6, and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. It led them to worship. Rightly listening to the Word of God leads us to rightly responding to the Word of God, which then leads us to rightly worshiping the God of the Word.
I don't believe we can rightly worship without first having rightly heard and rightly responded to God's Word. You'll notice throughout this chapter, you're going to see that they're called to an emotional response. It's joy. And Nehemiah says, The joy of the Lord is your strength.
That's in this verse. But it's corrective because they had responded with sorrow, another emotion. Responding emotionally to the Word is not inappropriate. But it's in light of the Word of God and what it says in its instructions that we must respond with appropriate emotion. In other words, to call it worship and not have God's Word in its rightful place, it may actually be giving us an emotional response that isn't the right one.
God's Word is necessary for us to understand and rightly respond. So I asked you this morning, how's your desire for the Word? Is it marked by a heart that says, you know what, I'm going to give it a priority. Secondly, I'm going to give it my attention. Thirdly, I'm going to give it my respect. That is, God speaks and I hear and I realize there's things in my life that aren't in alignment with His Word.
I want to get my life rightly aligned. I'll respect the Word. I'll have a heart that's submitted to God bow my head and give the right opinion of God in the way that I respond, they worshiped. Young people, don't forget, we're studying Nehemiah in about a 12-year window of his life. And we're capturing that 12-year window as a man that is intentionally living his life for this window on mission. I believe that as we come to chapter 8 and we see the Word of God, and then we'll come to chapter 9, and chapter 9, by the way, is the longest written or recorded prayer in all of the Bible. We're going to see the Word and we're going to see prayer.
Two spiritual disciplines that are actually necessary for right worship of God. We're going to see what mission it was He was on. It was to see His God rightly worshiped. Young people, if you would ask us here at Bob Jones University, what mission are you on? Just like for Nehemiah, it wasn't building walls. I want you to know it is not for you simply to get a degree. Were the walls necessary?
Did they need to be built? Absolutely. Is you getting a degree at a university essential?
It is. But I want you to know that there's something greater than that in our mission. And that is that through getting an education, you realize that the God of heaven has equipped you to live for Him. And that you realize that in order to do that, you must rightly respond to the Word of God, not while you're here, but for the rest of your life. And that you must pursue through His Word, right worship, rightly recognizing and respecting who He is and what it is He wants to do in your life and through your life for His glory.
This is why we talk about a biblical worldview. This is why we pursue it through the avenues of life mentoring, people who will touch your life with their life as they pursue Christ. And this is why we do it through the venue of experiential learning so that you begin to realize that you can do what God has called you to do for His glory. So I ask you this question, what's your mission?
What is it that God has called you to do? Is it bigger than a career? Bigger than just a relationship? Bigger than just a marriage? What is it that God has made you to do?
Answering that question will affect the way you pursue getting your degree, the way you pursue doing your education here at Bob Jones University. And answering that question now, no matter if you're a freshman or if you're a senior, answering that question correctly will frame how you live for God for the rest of your life. You have sat under the Word of God a lot.
Have you prepared your heart this way? Will you continue to sit under it like they did in the book of Ezra? Hear it, follow it, carry out the festivals, do the things they did, and yet somehow not respond the way we see them responding here in Nehemiah chapter 8? I believe it takes us preparing the soil of our heart. What you see in this chapter is that the Word of God is proclaimed. It's preached to them. It wasn't just read, but they gave the understanding. That is throughout this book, and they read it distinctly. These words are used so that the Word of God was actually taken and applied to their lives. And when it was, you see finally in this chapter the power of the Word of God, that it impacted their lives.
It changed their thinking because they were ready to respond. Do you want to live a life on mission? It starts by rightly responding to the Word of God. Rightly responding to the Word of God begins with a heart that's prepared.
And maybe you're here today and you say, you know what? I'm walking at a guilty distance from God, and yet here I am trying to get a degree and tell myself I'm going to do God's will, and I actually might be missing the boat. Here I am in a relationship that I tell myself is the most important thing in all the world to me, but I know I'm not walking with God, I know I'm not listening to the Word of God, and I know I'm not rightly responding.
Could it be that this relationship isn't what it's supposed to be? Because I'm not what I'm supposed to be. Young people, I call you today to rightly value God's Word for your sake, so that you might rightly live your life and rightly worship God for His glory. The people of Israel, the people of Jerusalem submitted their hearts to the Word of God, and when they did, God brought His Word alive to them.
Will you do that today? Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Hebrews 4 reminds us of the power of Your Word. We're thankful that it is a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces, that it's a fire that consumes the dross. We thank You, Lord, that it is a sword, a scalpel that pierces the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit.
It's not that Your Word lacks power. Lord, I pray today that You would help us to look at our lives, to look at our hearts. And Lord, to come to You with a submitted spirit and an open mind that gives the Word the right priority so that we might rightly respond and live for Your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Alan Benson from the study series called Nehemiah, Life on Mission. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we conclude the study preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel Platform.
