The Joy of the Lord is your Strength
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1 all the people gathered together in the area in front of the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the Instruction scroll from Moses, according to which the Lord had instructed Israel.
2 So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Instruction before the assembly. This assembly was made up of both men and women and anyone who could understand what they heard.
3 Facing the area in front of the Water Gate, he read it aloud, from early morning until the middle of the day. He read it in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and everyone listened attentively to the Instruction scroll.
4 Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for this purpose. And standing beside him were Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his righthand side; while Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam stood on his lefthand side.
5 Standing above all of the people, Ezra the scribe opened the scroll in the sight of all of the people. And as he opened it, all of the people stood up.
6 Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all of the people answered, “Amen! Amen!” while raising their hands. Then they bowed down and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
7 The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah—helped the people to understand the Instruction while the people remained in their places.
8 They read aloud from the scroll, the Instruction from God, explaining and interpreting it so the people could understand what they heard.
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all of the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Don’t mourn or weep.” They said this because all the people wept when they heard the words of the Instruction.
10 “Go, eat rich food, and drink something sweet,” he said to them, “and send portions of this to any who have nothing ready! This day is holy to our Lord. Don’t be sad, because the joy from the Lord is your strength!”
11 The Levites also calmed all of the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy. Don’t be sad!”
12 Then all of the people went to eat and to drink, to send portions, and to have a great celebration, because they understood what had been said to them.
The Joy of the Lord is your Strength
The Joy of the Lord is your Strength
My mother introduced me to the book of Nehemiah when I was a teenager. I don’t think she knew she introduced me to this book, but she did. She didn’t do it directly, she did it because she listened to Chuck Swindoll on the radio every day. He had a show called Insight for Living. He is pastor and teacher.
I pretended to be doing something else while that program was on, but in reality I was listening to his preaching and teaching and taking it all in.
He turned his sermons into books and his book on Nehemiah was titled Hand me another brick. It is about leadership principles that Nehemiah exhibited. That book has been a source of inspiration to me.
Nehemiah is the Governor of Israel. He had grown up on Babylon amongst the people who had been living in captivity. He long to go home to Israel, to a place he hadn’t lived.
God chooses him to lead a remnant of people back to Israel, to Jerusalem. They find the temple destroyed and the walls of the city torn down. Nehemiah organizes the people and they rebuild the walls to the city.
This wasn’t an easy process because the enemy was constantly harassing them and attacking them. That meant that only half of the men could work on rebuilding because the other half were defending the workers.
They got the walls rebuilt in record time. The Bible tells us
73 So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel settled in their towns. When the seventh month came and the people of Israel were settled in their towns,
1 all the people gathered together in the area in front of the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the Instruction scroll from Moses, according to which the Lord had instructed Israel.
Notice what is happening here. The people had settled in their towns because the major construction project was completed. It was the seventh month or about September for us. This date had special significance. It is known as the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. It was the beginning of the Jewish New Year.
God established this as one of the required special Sabbath’s that the people were to observe. In Leviticus 23:24-25 we read God’s instructions.
24 Say to the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month, you will have a special rest, a holy occasion marked by a trumpet signal.
25 You must not do any job-related work, and you must offer a food gift to the Lord.
Trumpets were sounded and the people were called to assemble. The people from the cities, the people from the town and villages all gathered in front of the Water Gate.
The Water Gate was one of the principles gates for entering the ancient city of Jerusalem. It led to Solomon’s Temple.
This was a Holy occasion. All the people gathered, men and women, even children.
Notice what the people did. First they gathered. Secondly they asked Ezra who was the high priest to bring the Instruction scroll from Moses out and read to them. This Instruction scroll would have been the first 5 books of the Bible.
This is the first time since they were back home, back in the land that God had given them, that they were able to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets. They wanted to hear God’s word.
This most likely wasn’t a spontaneous event because verse tells us Nehemiah 8:4 “4 Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for this purpose. ”
Ezra the High Priest brought God’s Word out before all of the people gathered, men, women, and anyone who could understand what they heard.
Here is the priest up on a platform at one of the principle gates into Jerusalem. The temple had been rebuilt. They had finished rebuilding the walls around the city and now they were gathered at the gate of the City and the High Priest, Ezra, is reading God’s word to them.
Can you picture that scene in your mind? Yes, they were supposed to be there, but this had special meaning. They hadn’t been able to celebrate this feast while they were in exile. There were probably people in that crowd who were hearing the Word of God read to them for the very first time in their lives.
The Bible tells us
3 Facing the area in front of the Water Gate, he read it aloud, from early morning until the middle of the day. He read it in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and everyone listened attentively to the Instruction scroll.
If I calculate it correctly, Ezra read for 6 hours from Genesis 1 through Deuteronomy 30. Ezra stood there reading with some of the important leaders of the Nation of Israel standing there with him.
Our text tells us that when Ezra opened the scroll that all of the stood up. I want to think that the people came expecting to hear from God. Judah was in captivity in Babylon for about 70 years. Most of the people there had not heard the Scriptures read to them before.
There was an expectation as Ezra climbed up to that platform and laid the scroll out on a pulpit like structure and unrolled it. The people stood in reverence to God’s Word. They rose in reverence to God.
Can you sense the excitement and anticipation that went through that great crowd? They had witnessed how God was with them while the rebuilt the walls. They knew that God was up to something.
Ezra looks at that crowd standing in anticipation and the Bible tells us that he “blessed the Lord, the great God.” He hadn’t begun reading yet and he blesses God. This is where we get our term Invocation from.
Jennifer Slattery in Crosswalk.com wrote about invocations.
Some of the most powerful, life-transforming revivals began with a simple yet heartfelt prayer of invocation. When leaders and those they serve humbly bow their heads and their hearts and acknowledge what God already knows—we need Him—God shows up. He stirs souls, lifts perspectives, and sparks within His humble and yielded children a united, glorious, and eternal mission. The invocation prayer is one of the oldest types of man-to-God communication recorded. (Slattery)
Ezra begins with an invocation by blessing God. One of the most beautiful invocations is from the Church of England Book of Common Prayer. The prayer was writing probably in the 1500s.
Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires know, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy name, through Christ the Lord. Amen.
Ezra prays an Invocation and the people all answered Amen! Amen! They also lifted their hands and then the Bible says
Nehemiah 8:6 (CEB)
Then they bowed down and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
As I read this section of Scripture I got to wondering if we ever come to church anticipating the presence of God. Do we come to church because it is something to do or we feel obligated to be here?
Ben was in my office when I was finishing up for today. He asked me if tomorrow was Sunday. I said it was and we’d be in Church. He said “Yes, Yes.” He said he was excited that we were going to be in church.
Is that great?
One thing that has intrigued me about this event here in Nehemiah is that they were not at the Temple, the place of worship. They were at one of the city gates. They were at one of the places where people entered and exited the city on their way to or from the Temple.
Why does this intrigue me? It intrigues me because the Church is not really the church until we are living out what Jesus has done for us out there. The scripture from 1 Corinthians reminds us that we are one Body but we each have different gifts. God the Holy Spirit has gifted each of us and we should be using our gifts to edify or build up the Church and share the Good News out there.
We gather here to worship but then we Go. Shouldn’t we have some excitement that we get to serve God by using the gifts that He has given us?
Verse 7 of the text tells us that the Levites helped the people understand what was written in God’s Word. They explained it and interpreted it so that the people would understand what they were hearing.
What a great reminder of the importance of attending Church. I do get tired of people saying that they worship God in their own way. They say that they don’t need to go to church to worship God. Throughout the Bible there is no instruction on a person religion. Throughout the Bible from the very beginning in Genesis through the end of Revelations there is the fellowship with God. There is the gathering of families and communities to worship God.
The church is described as being made up of many parts in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. If it is made up of many parts how can someone be separated from the whole? It can’t! If I were to cut my arm off and lay it over there it would die. It cannot exist separated from my entire body. An individual cannot truly be a Christian separated from the Body of Christ, the Church.
I am so thankful for each one of you who attends here on Sunday.
Look at the last part of verse 9.
Nehemiah 8:9 (CEB)
all the people wept when they heard the words of the Instruction.
The people heard the Word of God and the explanation or interpretation of what it meant and the wept.
They were convicted of their sins. They were convicted because of how disobedient they had been to God. They were convicted because they had failed to follow God’s law.
On commentator put it this way:
They had heard the high standard of the Law and recognized their low standing before the Lord, and were convicted.
Isn’t that what the Bible should do?
These people obviously hungered for God’s word. When they heard the word they responded to the conviction of them failing God. They wept.
My prayer is that God would bring such conviction on the people in the church so that we would truly become the Church that He would have us be.
David wrote in Psalm 19
Psalm 19 (CEB)
7 The Lord’s Instruction is perfect, reviving one’s very being. The Lord’s laws are faithful, making naive people wise.
8 The Lord’s regulations are right, gladdening the heart. The Lord’s commands are pure, giving light to the eyes.
9 Honoring the Lord is correct, lasting forever. The Lord’s judgments are true. All of these are righteous!
10 They are more desirable than gold— than tons of pure gold! They are sweeter than honey— even dripping off the honeycomb!
11 No doubt about it: your servant is enlightened by them; there is great reward in keeping them.
12 But can anyone know what they’ve accidentally done wrong? Clear me of any unknown sin
13 and save your servant from willful sins. Don’t let them rule me. Then I’ll be completely blameless; I’ll be innocent of great wrongdoing.
David was writing about God’s Word. He recognized the impact of God’s word on his own life. He wanted to live a blameless life, a holy life before God.
He finished that Psalm with these words.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
That is my prayer for myself. Have you made that a prayer for your life?
Nehemiah comes to the pulpit along with Ezra and the Levites and they said to them:
Nehemiah 8:9 (CEB)
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all of the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Don’t mourn or weep.”
This day is holy. Now is not the time to cry, it is the time to celebrate, it is time to celebrate. I was reading a book about Nehemiah that attempts to help the reading understand Nehemiah from the view of the Torah or what we refer to as the first five books of the Old Testament.
The author wrote
Israel Alive Again: A Commentary on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah For Torah: Eat, Drink, and Rejoice (8:10–12)
The Torah has not been “forced” upon Israel; it is a gift by one who wants fullness of life for humankind.
Isn’t that just like God? He wants the best for us. Jesus came to do that!
10 The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.
God’s word forms the boundaries. It shows us how God wants us to live. We don’t get to decide which sections of it we will follow or we will ignore. The Bible shows us how to live a life that will be pleasing to God.
This section finishes out with a command to celebrate and rejoice.
10 “Go, eat rich food, and drink something sweet,” he said to them, “and send portions of this to any who have nothing ready! This day is holy to our Lord. Don’t be sad, because the joy from the Lord is your strength!”
This celebration was for everyone, even the ones who did not have anything. This was a holy day, it was a day to celebrate and rejoice and that is what the people did.
12 Then all of the people went to eat and to drink, to send portions, and to have a great celebration, because they understood what had been said to them.
They understood what had been said to them. Nehemiah told them “The Joy from the Lord is your strength!” They heard from God’s word and they understood it. The joy comes from knowing and understanding God. That joy, that knowledge of God’s word gives us the strength to live this life.
We are called to live lives of holiness. We cannot do that on our own. Holiness comes from a relationship with God. God has provided us everything that we need.
Celebrating, rejoicing in God gives us the strength to say yes to the way of life he is calling us and the strength to say no to sin.
The joy of the Lord is our strength!
Slattery, J. (2021, May 5). What is an invocation prayer and how do I pray it? Crosswalk.com. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/prayer/what-is-an-invocation-prayer.html