Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Have you ever been in a situation where you were absolutely dreading something coming up ahead?

Maybe it was an upcoming trip or an awkward situation that you would have to endure in the future?

We can think of several examples of this throughout Scripture, can we not?

Whether it be Cain killing Abel and being confronted by God later or Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and later being confronted by God.

We see examples of this in the New Testament as well as Peter denied Jesus 3 times after His arrest and was ashamed of his actions, but was forgiven by Christ after the Resurrection.

A great godly leader can completely change our outlook during a dreadful situation.

A godly parent can bring in joy to their children even in a season of chaos and change.

A godly leader in the church can help provide leadership and stability even in a season of uncertainty.

Have you ever been around someone who convinced you that they cared for you and that everything would be alright?

Do you think that God loves His people like that?

You’d better believe He does.

Even whenever we go through difficult times, as the Israelites had thus far in Nehemiah, they knew that their God loved them and was on their side.

Because of this, they were about to experience a season of restoration now that the wall had finally been rebuilt.

Nehemiah8

This passage of Scripture is a celebration of sorts as Ezra reads the law and the people repent.

The Festival of Booths is mentioned and celebrates God sustaining His people while they were journeying through the wilderness.

The Israelites celebrate this feast in and they have been a people who have been sustained by God and have been led back to the promised land and have completed the rebuilding project in Jerusalem.

Ezra and Nehemiah put the Word of God in the life of the city.

What we see in the second half of this chapter and in chapter 9, is the response of the people.

If God is going to work through His people, then His people must respond positively to His Word and this chapter gives us a good outline as to how we are to respond to His Word today: first there must be understanding, then rejoicing and finally obeying.

This passage of Scripture is a celebration of sorts as Ezra reads the law and the people repent.

The Festival of Booths is mentioned and celebrates God sustaining His people while they were journeying through the wilderness.

The Israelites celebrate this feast in and they have been a people who have been sustained by God and have been led back to the promised land and have completed the rebuilding project in Jerusalem.

Understanding the Word (1-8)

The Bible is not a “magic” book or a “fairy-tale”.

It is a book that changes people, however it can only do that after the reader understands the power of God’s Word!

The word “understand” occurs 6 times in this chapter.

We see in verse 2 that only people who could understand the Word were brought into the assembly.

We know that many people will hear the Gospel message during their lifetime, however not everyone will “understand” or “accept” that message.

As we looked at this morning, some people will hear the Gospel and experience an emotional response but it will not be a permanent change.

Others will see the cross of Christ and be confused because it does not make sense to them.

Others, though, will hear the message and they will be changed completely because of the Word of God.

We see that Ezra is the person who opens this reading of the Word of God.

This is appropriate because he had come to Jerusalem about 14 years before Nehemiah and was a priest/scribe who had been preparing his heart to teach the nation (as we see in ).

Ezra did a couple of interesting things during this reading.

First he brought the book of the law of Moses:

This transpired during the 1st day of the 7th month - essentially New Year’s Day.

This was a day in which the Jews celebrated the Feast of Trumpets on the 1st day, the day of atonement on the 10th day and the Feast of tabernacles from the 15-25th day.

This was a perfect time for the nation of Israel to read the law and renew their relationship with the Lord.

It says that Ezra brought the book of the law of Moses - this is probably the entire scroll of the Torah - the first 5 books of the Bible.

If you ever think that I preach for a long time, then you need to look up how long preachers preached in the 1800s, if you think that they preached for a long time, then you need to think about how long Ezra preached through these 5 books!

Now he probably did not read and explain EVERYTHING in these books, but he at least read a good chunk of it from morning until midday.

We think that this means that he preached for about 6 hours.

Think of the situation that the people were in.

They finally complete the building of the wall and they have some free time for a change.

With this free time, though, they read the law and they strive to understand it.

Whenever you receive free time, do you fill it with things that will bring you closer to or further away from Christ?

Make no mistake about it, it is great to have hobbies and things that we enjoy that are not reading Scripture and staying in our prayer room 24/7 - it is healthy to do things that get us outside and active!

With that said, do you view your free time to drink from the living Water of the Word?

Do you ever read God’s Word whenever you have these moments?

God’s people love God’s Word!

It says that the people listened attentively to the Word.

Do you do this?

Do you study God’s Word attentively or do you simply take what someone says for truth and never study it for yourself?

This is a caution for us.

We must pay attention to the Word and study it and apply it to our lives.

If we fail to do this then we run the risk of falling victim to false ideas and doctrines - this is what we will be looking at on October 20th as we watch the American Gospel.

Next we see that Ezra opened the book in verses 5-6.

This might seem like a very basic point, but Ezra opened the Bible and read from it.

Do we do this?

Do we pick up our copy of God’s Word on Sunday morning and place it on the bookshelf when we get home to collect dust all week long until next Sunday?

I pray that this is not the case!

As followers of Christ we are quick to defend the Word of God and stand up for Scripture and the fact that Jesus is real, however sometimes we fail to treat the Bible as the Word of God.

We see in verse 6 the response of the people to the blessing or the opening of the worship service.

In verses 7-8 we see that Ezra finally reads from the book and this is significant.

Most people did not have a copy of Scripture in their own possession at this time period.

In fact this was not common place until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s!

We take it for granted so often that we have multiple copies of God’s Word in multiple translations and we have dozens of more copies in digital form in our phones and computers!

Back then, though, this could have been one of just a couple copies that the entire people of Israel had.

Verse 8 is interesting to me because it says that Ezra translated the book so that the people could understand it.

This is difficult because we must remain faithful to the Word of God but we also must apply it to our local context - this is why preaching and teaching through the Bible is a great responsibility.

You must be careful to not introduce an idea that is not founded in Scripture but you also can’t read the original manuscript of Scripture and hope that people understand it.

If we read from the original Hebrew language, it would not be profitable for us, right?

We wouldn’t understand it!

Have you ever tried to read from John Wycliffe’s original English translation of the Bible?

Here is a taste of it, see if you can guess what verse it is.

Wycliffe’s translation is about 600 years old and we can only make sense of some of the words, now imagine the situation that the Israelites were in.

The book of the law was 1000 years old!

It would have probably been very difficult for them to understand, making this translation process necessary and very helpful for the people.

The importance in these opening verses is that we must understand the Word of God.

We must open up our Bibles.

We must be open to teaching and preaching and we must faithfully study the Word whenever we can.

Sometimes that means reading the Scripture.

Other times it means praying for understanding.

Other times it might mean opening up a commentary to help you understand a difficult passage of Scripture.

What matters to a follower of God is knowing His Word deeply.

Rejoice in His Word (9-12)

In verse 9 we see a great picture of leaders working together rather than tearing one another apart.

Nehemiah and Ezra come together to instruct the people.

This is a great picture of what Christian leaders are to do today as well.

We see in verse 9 that the people were convicted of their sin and they experienced grief and wept.

This is a natural response to the law, is it not?

The law says that you are guilty because you have broken the law numerous times.

says that the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law cannot save us!

We know this because of .

We have all fallen short and we desperately need saving.

What the law does is tell us in flashing lights that we are not good enough and point us towards a better Sacrifice in the person of Jesus Christ.

Whenever we hear the Word of God and we see our sin, we should certainly feel convicted and repent of our sin - but it should also bring in joy to our lives!