This is the Truth Network. For ever thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119, verse 89. I'm Stu Everson. Welcome to this special Wednesday in the Word Leader podcast, where we prepare and equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast.
Every week to teach through the scriptures. Thirteen Dario locations. There's a men's group meeting and several of the Locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word.
What if we steer by Made a declaration that the month of June is humble month. Because everywhere I see in the Bible, it says, God resists the proud. but gives grace to the humble. And we see pride. going before destruction and Wreaking havoc and destruction on all of mankind and civilization since day one.
This Humility happens Like you've never seen it before in Nehemiah chapter nine, one of the longest prayers. In the Old Testament. And one of the strongest Clearest declarations of repentance, contrition. and humility That comes out of the people of God. Dr.
Sam Horn, we are on some sacred ground. I mean, you know, many say that Nehemiah 8 is ground zero for revival. When they brought the book of God out, and the people were transformed, and their hearts were cut, and they wept, and they mourned, and then. They said, no, this is a day of joy. Because God has Returned to his people.
His people have returned to him. They've rebuilt the walls, they've rebuilt the gates, but now in the latter half of Nehemiah 8-13, first part 1 through 7 is rebuilding the walls. The city now, God's rebuilding his people. And then we come to this epic passage. After the celebration and the Feast of Booths and Eight, Dr.
Horn, we come to this. deep repentance, this humility, And it is Ooh, it's big and it talks a lot about God, extols the virtues of God. Dr. Horn, how do we even approach this? thirty eight verses of Nehemiah chapter nine.
Yeah.
Well, Stu, I think, first of all, you did an incredible job of kind of locating us in the second half of the book. You know, this is actually, as you said, the rebuilding of God's people. And while the rebuilding of the walls was hard. You can, you know, it was not hard to figure out how to do it.
Somebody's got to get. Rid of the rubble, somebody's got to get a plan, somebody's got to organize people, somebody's got to figure out what to do with opposition, somebody's, you know, these human external things that we certainly don't want to make light of, and we haven't, as we have gone through the first part of the book. We recognize that the work of Nehemiah's hands. was energized by the work of God's hands. And we noted that in that little phrase that Nehemiah keeps reminding us.
of and that was that the hand of the good hand of his God was on him. And there's no question about that. But the harder work is always the work that God has to do in the heart. And the implement for that work. Is the Spirit of God taking the Word of God and applying it to the heart of the people of God?
And that's what we saw happen in chapter 8. There was this. Bringing out of the law and the reestablishing of that law. In the corporate life of the people and in the personal hearts of the people. And we spent a good bit of time looking at that in chapter 8.
But when the word is let loose in our life, it always produces a work. This is what Paul. was talking about in 2 Thessalonians 3. When he asked the Thessalonians to pray, that the word of God would have free course. That it would flow into the lives and the hearts of the hearers.
and that it would actually do the work that God had called it to do. That it would overcome any obstacle, that it would. Uh it would reach every place. where that word was designed to work by God. And that's what's happening here in chapter nine.
There has been a huge corporate gathering in chapter eight. There has been a reading, a public reading of God's word. Um You know, in the lives of the people, right, there has been this. Corporate repentance. that has come about.
And this was for the whole day. They read the word.
Somebody, under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra, began to explain the word of God to the people. They began to apply that word to the lives of the people. They comforted the people with that word. Here are all the things that the word of God does that we saw in chapter eight. And now that word is producing something, and what it is producing.
In the lives of the people is going to be expressed in this great prayer. of dependent confession, expectant dependent confession. Yeah, and how do we even go about? I mean, this is 38 versus. And we're doing it all in one week, but there's a lot in here.
on the history of a nation and how they how you know it opens with God's Amazing faithfulness in creation and then in calling Abraham and then in You know, calling his people and then delivering them from Egypt. You know, he goes through this history of God's faithfulness and then. You know, not too Far after that, he gets into their stubbornness. and their rebellion and their hard hardness and they s they hardened their necks and what Not and then The prayer goes on and on, you know, calling, asking God to forgive and restore and heal. Dr.
Horn, what's a good way to break these 38 verses down? The verses, by the way, open up with the people. who are They are assembled with fasting. in sack cloth. with dust on their heads.
And completely humble before God, you know, hearing again the word of God as this broke. Verse 4 tells us, you know, verse 3 rather tells us that their day is still broken down by. A combination of God's word being read. confession of sin being expressed in worship of God.
So Take us through, navigate us through how to kind of maybe break these verses down, this historic chapter. on repentance. Yeah, so a lot of ways to do that. And if you pull up a commentary or two on Nehemiah. Or even if you open up the ESV study Bible or a good study Bible like that, there's really a number of ways to go at this so let me just give you one that I think might be useful as a model.
And then, if you're leading a Bible study, let me encourage you not just to take this. This model I'm about to give you as the only way to do it. You're going to have to think through. The needs of your group and kind of where people are in their own walk with God. And it's different in every case.
You're going to have to bring the application to bear.
So, one of the things you could do is you could take this incredible prayer, this chapter. And break it up into three sections. You can take the first five verses. And you could set that. sectioned up as the preparation.
And the preparation, as you mentioned. is is repentance. These people have come to a place. of corporate repentance. That's what the word of God has worked in their heart.
They have been convicted. They have been confronted by the word, right? They've been comforted by the word, first of all. Then they've been confronted by it. And now they're convicted.
And all of the sort of elements of real repentance. Are in these five verses. For example, you mentioned the whole idea. Uh The the corporate gathering of the people. This this is.
Uh in the same month As the events that we read about in chapter eight, right? The first eight days. of the seventh month are what happens in chapter eight. But here on the 24th day of the month That 16 days later, the word of God is still working, and these people regather. to make this great corporate repentance.
Uh, before God, so this isn't just Uh, you know, one or two people going, Oh man, I really feel bad, we've been convicted. There was a great concern. Among the leaders of the people, there was a great concern among the people themselves. that the God of heaven Who had rebuilt their walls, who had reestablished. the his word in their midst, there was a great concern That they restore the relationship with him that they had broken by their sins.
And that's really at the heart of any true repentance, right? True repentance. is is not me turning away from my sins so I can have a better life. Or, so I could solve a problem in my marriage, or so that I could get a better job, or so that this painful circumstance would go away. The real drive behind genuine biblical repentance is that I have alienated.
Myself from God, not just from his blessing, but from his presence. My relationship with God has been deeply damaged. By the depth of my sin. You know, later on in the chapter. You know, the chapter starts with a reminder that Pharaoh acted arrogantly against God and against his people.
But two more times in the text. Nehemiah and Ezra and the people are going to acknowledge that they have done the same thing that Pharaoh did. Pharaoh acted arrogantly against God and against his people. But God's people have acted arrogantly against God and His Word, and God and His Spirit, and God and His messengers.
So this is a deep repentance. This is not just. Hey, let's get it done because we want revival so God can save America. Or we want revival so God can save our marriage, or we want revival so that God will turn the decline in our church attendance around. This is a deep, deep work of God through the word and the ministry of the spirit.
In which these people come to grips with the fact: hey, we really have been alienated from God. And so I think that's super important. They separated themselves from all aliens in verse two. That, you know, some people would say, well, they just wanted to purge and become a pure racial nation again. No, the idea here isn't the ethnicity of the people.
It's not that they were somehow offended because people from other ethnicities were in their midst. It's what those people brought with them. It's the gods they brought. It's the complicated Disobediences to Torah that came with them in their cultural settings. And when those people started doing life together, those Those compromises started influencing and infiltrating into the people of God.
And we're gonna see later on, it had gotten to the point of intermarriage. between God's people and pagan idolaters, and the idolatry was coming into those families. And so here is a great moment. Um, and I would not want us to tinge it with somehow with some kind of racial. or ethnic.
Component that isn't accurate to the text. This was not a rejection of somebody's ethnicity. It was a reminder that we have a spiritual duty to remain obedient to the Torah, and anything that gets in the way has to be removed. And that's what's going on here. These people are deeply sorrowful.
They have on their bodies and on their heads. the signs of deep mourning. This is what you would do. When you suffered a great loss or somebody died. That was incredibly important to you and to your well-being.
This is how you would mourn the loss of a king. This is how you would mourn the loss of a leader that had done great things for the nation. And so here are these people. And they are mourning. They have.
They have mourned deeply. They have purged the things that displease God from their midst. And they have come to confess. And it isn't just one person, it's the entire group that has come to confess. and they are being led by the people.
And they they don't just confess. Their own momentary sin, or the sin that they've been committing in that one moment. They go all the way back. to the history of this nation. And they recognize their solidarity with the sins of their fathers.
Look, we have been doing this for a long time. This is not an occasional lapse. This has been. The DNA of our history as a nation.
So, this is a really shocking moment. In the life of this nation. This is a moment of corporate honesty. This is a moment of deep. Historical transparency, and they humble themselves before God.
They mourn over their sin. What did Jesus say? Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. And that's exactly what we have here.
So that's the first part. Of what happens here. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense, and it really shows, you know, to a lot of questions that we may come out of this is. You know, what does genuine repentance look like?
And you know, read a lot of commentators. If you just study the scripture, when you have sackcloth, you have ashes, you have Daniel doing the same thing. It's interesting that Uh Azure 9. Daniel 9, Nehemiah 9 are the three of the most strongest prayers of. Repentance and contrition, you know, in the whole Old Testament, maybe, you know, arguably the whole Bible.
But Dr. Horne, simply put the ashes, the sackcloth, putting dust on their head, all those things reflect. Uh and and our external Reflections of what's in their heart. Their heart was contrite. Their heart was humble.
And so it was an hourly way to show: hey, we're serious about this. This isn't just some glib turnover a new leaf. Hey, let's try again. Harder, my bad. This is a real heartfelt response to the convicting power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit using God's Word.
And so it's a great, it sets the whole stage for the whole chapter. I want you to keep going because you're on a great track with this. Yeah, so let's Said this, this is what I, you know, and I'm not sure I totally understand the depth of it, but I'm coming to see it more and more in prayers like this. This prayer is a response to something. It is a request for something, but it is more of a response to something.
and what it is a response to are two things the conviction of god And the repentant heart of the people, right? In other words, When I get deeply convicted by God about my sin, I'm going to do one of two things. I'm either going to harden my heart, I'm going to entrench myself, I'm going to grow arrogant against God, or I'm going to repent. I'm going to humble my heart and repent. and the product of repentance.
I use the word response. The product or the response to repentance is always confession. Right when I when I put confession ahead of repentance Then confession is a tool I'm using to try to get something I really want or to avoid something I really don't want. I'm so tired of Living amongst this rubble and these ruins, and I'm so sick and tired of all the pain that comes from constantly getting caught in my sin and. And so I'm just going to repent.
Because I want relief.
Well, that's really not what confession is. Confession is not a means to get relief. Confession is a deep response to the conviction of God. that has come when the word of God has exposed my sin. And it flows out of deep repentance.
Repentance is Has as its main objective the restoration of a relationship with God.
So that I can be with him. Not so that I can get more blessings from him, right? I want to be with God because of who he is. And that's what comes up next. In the passage, right?
These people do not talk about what they want from God. You know, you start looking at the corporate prayer that is in verses 6 through 31. And there is very, very little requests. God, we want you to take care of the Amorites. We want you to make sure that the king of Persia keeps sending us money and that he keeps making sure that we're protected here and that, Lord, please help us to make the walls even bigger because we want bigger walls and we want to expand our borders and bless our families and bless our crops.
If you go to this prayer, and look for those things, you will be shocked. and how little You find there. You know, think about why we pray for a revival. In most of our churches, we pray for a revival. Oh, God, you know, we repent, forgive us, and please bless our nation, and please make our nation great again, and please turn our economy around, and please, and actually, Those things are surprisingly absent.
You have to look really hard. to find those things here.
So that brings up the question, and that's the second great. thing here is what is the content of this great prayer of confession? Right, so you have the preparation. Um For this great prayer. And then in verses 60 to 31, you have the great prayer itself.
You have this corporate prayer. And what you find is a call to bless the God of heaven for something. And what you are blessing God for is his faithfulness. That's the the thread that runs through this prayer. is the stunning faithfulness of God to his people.
in in throughout their entire history. And this faithfulness of God is contrasted, what makes it so brilliant. What makes it so bright, what makes it so stunning, is that it is contrasted to something. And what it is contrasted to is the unbearable. Ah shocking unfaithfulness.
of God's people, right? In this prayer, these people are doing both of those things. They are magnifying the faithfulness of God, and they are also magnifying, not in a good sense, like we're exalting this, we're just bringing it forth. We want to make sure. That we recognize the faithfulness of God in the midst of all of our unfaithfulness.
So if you take the prayer, It literally carries you through. God's faithfulness in every aspect.
So, like in verses six through eight. of this text. And if you look at verses six through eight, It starts out this way: You are the Lord, you alone, you made heaven. the heavens of the heavens With all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that are in them, you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worship you, all of the armies of heaven, all of these. Intelligent beings in heaven worship you, right?
You are the Lord. The God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you. And made with him the covenant to give his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite. And the Gergesite, and you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
And the and the word there for righteous is is it carries the idea of faithful. And so there is this. incredible from the very beginning God's faithfulness. In the care and blessing and covenant. He makes going all the way back to creation and going all the way back to Abraham.
Then in verses 9 Through 15. We we now move to another Major section. Of Israel's history. There is The whole section of the creation and the patriarchs, and God's been faithful there, but in verses 9 through 15, we now move into the era of Moses, right? The whole storyline of God's faithfulness to his people once they were in Egypt under bondage.
And the main event of that was the Exodus event. And so in verse 9, you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt. You heard their cry at the Red Sea, and you performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all of his servants and all of the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly. There's a word we're going to see again and again in this section. They acted arrogantly against our fathers, and you made a name for yourself.
Even as it is unto this day.
Well, how did you do that? You divided the sea.
So that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land. You cast their pursuers into the depths. as a stone in mighty waters. By the pillar and the clouds you led them in the day. And by the fire in the night to light for them the way, and then in verse 13, you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke.
With them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws and good statutes and commandments. And you made known your holy Sabbath, and you commanded them commandments and statutes and the law by Moses your servant. Right? Verse 15: you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock. and you told them to go into the land to possess it.
So here is this. Immensely Reminder of God's faithfulness. You were faithful in the days of Abraham. You were faithful in the days of Noah. And then in verses 16 through 25, we have this shocking.
Confession of how the people acted in light of all of God's faithfulness, all of God's provision. All of God's blessing. Here's verse 16. but they and our fathers acted presumptuously. and stiffen their neck.
and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey. They were not at all mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck. And appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. That's a really interesting little detail that doesn't show up in the number six account.
All we know, number six. Is that people were really frustrated because Moses was up in the mountain getting the law of God and he never came down. And they concluded that he had been killed by God, and so they wanted to go back to Egypt. And they had Aaron make this golden cap, and apparently they had appointed a new Moses to take them back to Egypt. We don't have that detail in numbers, we don't know the name of that person, but it's recorded here for us to just show you the heart of these people.
Verse 18. Oh, I'm sorry. Reading on in verse 17. But. You are a God ready to forgive.
You're gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them. This is exactly what Moses saw. when God passed by him and answered the question, what is your name? Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt. and committed great blasphemies.
You in your great mercies, plural. Did not forsake them in the wilderness. You continue to give them the pillar of the cloud, right? You continue to lead them by the fire at night. You gave in verse 20, you gave your good spirit to instruct them.
and did not withhold your manna from their mouth And you gave them water for their thirst. 40 years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. In spite of all this rebellion. Right, in spite of all of this arrogance, in spite of they were doing to God what Pharaoh was doing to God. They were doing to God's leaders what Pharaoh was doing to God's servants, right?
They were acting arrogantly. And in spite of all of this, God was faithfully caring for them and blessing them. In verse 22, you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner so that they took possession of the land of Sion, king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Basham.
Now we're into the days of Joshua, right? You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven. This is what you promised Abraham. You promised Abraham, look up into the sky. And count the stars if you can, and your descendants are going to be more numerous.
And here in this prayer, they go back to that promise that God gave Abraham and they bring it forward. You brought them into the land that you told their fathers to enter. And possess.
So the descendants went in and possessed it, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanite. And gave them into your hand, into their hand, with their kings and the nations of the land, that they may go and do as they would. And they captured fortified cities, Joshua, for example. And Jericho. They captured fortified cities and a rich land and took possession of houses full of good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive gardens, fruit trees in abundance.
So they ate and were filled. And became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. What? an incredible thing From verses 16 through 25 to rehearse the incredible great goodness of God in three eras. of this nation's history.
In the ear of the patriarchs, in the era of Moses, and now in the era of Joshua. And the conquest. But in verse 26, we read something stunning. All of this Immense, glorious, beautiful. Faithfulness is now going to be contrasted.
With a shocking verse. Nevertheless, in spite of all of this, nevertheless. They were disobedient and rebelled against you. and hurled your law behind their back. And slaughtered your prophets who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.
So once again, Pharaoh committed great arrogance of God. against God and against his people. The pagan nations were committing great blasphemies. Against God. And now God's people are committing those same things.
They are actually acting as arrogantly as Pharaoh, and they are engaged in the kind of great blasphemies. That the pagan nations had been engaged in, right? Therefore, verse 27. You gave them into the hand of their enemies. And in the time of their suffering, they cried out to you, and you heard them from heaven.
And according to your great mercy, you gave them judges, saviors. who delivered them from the hand of their enemies.
Now we're in the time of judges. But after they had rest, they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies. Yet when they turned When they repented and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. You know, this is a good place for our leaders to stop. And ask people in their Bible studies: so, how many times have you rebelled against God?
Think back over the 40 years of your life. Think back over the 30 years you've been a Christian. How many times. Have you rebelled against God? And when you repented, God forgave.
And God did exactly What? he said he would do, right? Um but after they had rest They did evil again. And you warned them in order to turn them back. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commands, but sinned against your rules, which, if a person does them, he will live by them.
but they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets. But they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them over to the hand of the nations. Nevertheless, in your great mercy, You did not make a full end of them.
You did not forsake them, for you are a gracious. and merciful God. When you look at that prayer of confession, how many requests do you see? in those verses. How many things are they asking God to do?
Yeah, you don't find it there. This is uh. This is owning up to our sin. This is. This is what true confession is.
It's not coupled with, but. If Well, maybe I did this, and if I was wrong in offending you, then, but this is a full-blown, hey. We Messed up. We blew it. And that's my point.
That's where I was going earlier. This is a full and forthright. Recital of the corporate history of the nation, and it's not just a history lesson. These people are coming to God and saying, the history of our fathers. has been repeated in our own hearts.
We have fallen into the same sins. We have fallen into the same. Patterns, and you have been gracious and merciful, Lord. The fault is not yours. The the reason we're in the mess Is not because of you, it's because of us.
You know, they don't have this sort of thing in their heart against God that if you would have just done this, we wouldn't have had to sin. If you'd have just given us rain, we wouldn't have had to go over and try to get it from bail. Or if you'd have just done this or made this better. There's none of that. We might say to the Lord, Well, if you hadn't given me cancer, I wouldn't have been tempted to do this, or if you'd have given me a better wife, I wouldn't have cheated on the one I have, or if you'd have done this, or if you'd have given me a better job, or the thing I asked you about that you chose not to give me put me in this spot where I grew angry.
And so we subtly confess, but in our confession, we're tempted to subtly put a little bit of the onus, a little bit of the weight on God. And there's none of that here. Yeah.
And I love people. Go ahead.
Well, no, I love verse 33.
Sorry to clip in here. He says, however, and this is exactly to your point, however, you are just in all that has befallen us. What a statement. And then the next statement summarizes everything you just read, Dr. Horn.
And really the whole chapter, and really the whole narrative of The Old Testament, the Old Covenant, and the New Testament, and all of redemptive history. For you have dealt faithfully, verse 33, Nehemiah 9. but we have done wickedly.
So the same God that faithfully emancipated them from four hundred years of oppressive bondage and slavery, in Egypt. The same God that brought them through Is the same God that gave them provision in the wilderness, protection from their enemies. that brought them into the land. He's the same faithful God. He has never changed, not one time.
He's the same all-powerful God, He's the same omniscient God, Almighty. Jehovah Jireh, provider, all of these things, loving, caring, merciful God. He's the same one that the song of Moses lauded in Exodus. And, but the only thing that's changed is the people. Their hearts hardened.
They turned from God. They erected idols. They went and put the high places up. And so these guys, there's a lot of detail. It's painful when you get historical on this kind of level, Dr.
Horn. It hurts, man. It's like, oh, why? Because we, because, by the way, there's a parallel narrative in all of our lives. Think of the times that I ran from God.
I didn't listen to God. He had to bring me down. I had some basketball injuries where God said, You're not going to hear me unless you're flat on your back in that hospital bed. And there I was. And guess what?
I was all ears at that point in time. And he was the same faithful God. And how beautiful. He was the same faithful God that's waiting with open arms. Pursuing us.
I mean, how? You know, here he still loves them, but pursues them. He's brought them to this point. Who would have thought after all this destruction and havoc? In all of this exile, that these people would be standing on this sacred ground in the holy city at this water gate worshiping the true God.
You know, protected and provided for, and really feasting. That why would he even do this with us? Why didn't he just? you know, cast us out long ago and destroy us. And And, like, you know, the Lamentations prayed, you know, if it, if it weren't for the mercies of God, we'd be consumed.
The people are like, we should have been consumed. What are we even doing here?
Well, let me wrap up because I do have to roll here, Stu, in a minute or two. But let me just take verses 32 through the end. And so we had really the great preparation for confession. We had the historical and corporate. Repentance that followed, that gave rise to the confession listed out.
And now, here in verses 32 through 38, there is a humble petition. And it's surprising what they ask God for, right? There is. There is this petition. Look at verse 32.
Now, therefore, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love, here's the petition: Do not let all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us. Upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. Lord, please don't forget us. That's the idea here. Please don't forget us.
I know we have forgotten you. Please don't forget us. Yet you have been righteous, as you said a moment ago. You have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. And in verse 34 and 35.
It highlights that wickedly So there is this Request And then there is this submission in verse 36. And in verse 37, behold, we are slaves this day in the land that you gave our fathers to enjoy its fruits and its good gifts. Behold, we are slaves. Lord, even though we're back in the land, we acknowledge that we continue to be subdued by kings of other nations. And in verse 37, the rich yield that you are giving us.
goes to the kings that you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestocks as they please. And we are in great distress.
So there is this There is this petition, God. Please don't forget us. You know the condition we're in. And even though it's better. Because of your great faithfulness, and we're back in the land, you know the condition we're in.
Please don't forget us. Now they're not telling God what to do. They're not putting a timeframe on God. They are submitting to the will of a God. And all through the prayer, they have been reminding themselves that God is faithful.
God was faithful in the days of Abraham. God was faithful in the days of Moses. God was faithful in the days of the Exodus. God was faithful in the days of Joshua. God was faithful in the days of the judges.
God was faithful in the period of time when the captivity came from the kings of Assyria all the way through the Babylonian kings and now even into the Persian kings. God, you have been faithful. And so we're coming to you trusting, trusting. In that faithfulness. And all we're asking.
As we lean into that faithfulness, is that you not forget us. And the word forget isn't the idea that God puts you out of mind. It's that God don't stop acting on our behalf. Don't stop preserving us. And in verse 38, there is this great corporate commitment.
that comes out of all this. And look at verse 38, because of all of this. Because of what we have read, because of the work of your spirit, because of what has happened in chapter eight and now in chapter nine, we make a firm covenant in writing. The language there is: we are going to recommit. to what you asked us to commit to at the very beginning of our nationhood.
You gave us a law. You put us between two mountains. And you asked us to make a covenant with you. You made a covenant with us, and then you asked us to make a covenant with you. You have been very faithful to your covenant with us.
We have been very unfaithful. To our covenant with you. It's interesting, they don't ask God to renew the covenant, right? His covenant has never ever been in question. But their covenant with God, the one that they made between the two mountains in Moses' day, has always been in question.
They have violated that at every point in their history. And here they are at the restart of the nation in verse 38, and they say, We make a strong covenant with you. On the sealed document of this covenant are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests. And that's where the chapter ends. It ends with a renewal.
Separately and personally and publicly. of their commitment to be all in with serving God and pleasing God. And you know, that's the fruit of real Conviction. That's the fruit of real repentance. That's the fruit of real repentance.
It isn't just that we say amen and we get up and we go back to our pew or back to our chair. And it's all said and done.
Now repentance has to be lived out. And it has to be lived out in our daily life. And we're going to find out in chapter 10 and in chapter 11 and in chapter 12 what that repentance looks like. Hey, God, we made a renewal, a strong renewal to the covenant you gave us. And now we got to go live it.
And that's what we're going to see in 10. 11, 12, and in the first part of 13. Wow.
So lots to cover. Stu, thanks for letting me apart. I'm sorry, Minnie, I have to run off here. But man, what a blessing. Yes, sir.
Hey, pray us out of here. You know, just remember the faithful God. And remember, faithful is 1 John 1:9. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But what do we do?
We confess, we agree with him. And we reconnect with him. It doesn't change our relationship. We're always his sons, but as we're, it restores our fellowship, it's so important. The God that we trust in this faithful God.
What are the attributes of God we see in chapter nine? Big question. How has God been faithful to you and the narrative of his testimony, his work, his story in your life? And then how can we offer and invite people to repent and turn to him? We don't use that word repentance a lot anymore today, but it's all based on the perfect work of Jesus Christ.
Who did what we could not do and died in our place and offers that gift right now?
So, in the gospel, we have forgiveness of sin and we have imputed righteousness. Dr. Horn, pray us out of here, man. Thank you so much. Lord, thank you so much for this amazing chapter.
Lord, as we began our conversation, Stu and I, we knew it was going to be a great chapter because we've read it, but we had no idea. Even as you led our words and you put thoughts in our minds and things that we've studied together and prayed over, and yet. Lord, they take a life of their own as your spirit. Begins to move, and I pray that what we've said today would reflect accurately the spirit and the truth. that you put in this passage that was written so many centuries ago.
It is so relevant to us. Lord, I pray that it would bless your people, that it would comfort them and strengthen them. And Lord, lead them to that place where individually and even corporately, they would stand before you and say, God, I want to recommit. I want to up again. I want to re-up.
I've walked away. I've been careless.
Sometimes I've been outright rebellious, but Lord. Here I am. and I'm going to stand under your word and I'm going to embrace it with my whole heart and with your help, I'm going to recommit to do it. And Lord, I pray that that would change our lives. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thank you, Dr. Horne, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com. Follow us on YouTube.
Facebook and all social media, including in Stu Graham, and be encouraged, stay in the word. Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on God's Word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.
Proverbs 30 verse 5.
