expository meditations on the book of nehemiah

AFTER the main work of rebuilding the wall had been finished, and the life of the people became more settled, the more important matter of rebuilding the spiritual lives of the people was undertaken. The centre of this spiritual rebuilding was the Word of God, which was for the Israelites the attending to the Book of the Law.

The Book of the Law would have been the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Law of Moses, and to us as the Penteteuch. For us the Word of God is the whole Bible. The rebuilding of the spiritual lives of Israel depended on their attention to the Book of the Law. The health of our spiritual lives will be according to our attention to the Word of God, the Bible.

This rebuilding we read of in this chapter, and we see that it meant all the people gathering together to hear the Book of the Law read to them by Ezra. The people came together for this and gave time to this. From the next chapter we can see something of what they heard read to them. From this chapter we can see that the whole of the book of Exodus was read, and certainly much of Deuteronomy. This can be deduced from the record of the history which is mentioned in chapter 9. However, what is important is that they returned to the Word of God.

The Word of God must be at the heart of the life of God�s people. Let us see what lessons we can learn about this necessity from these first nine verses of chapter eight of Nehemiah.

OUR ATTITUDE TO GOD�S WORD

There is much that we may learn about a good attitude to God�s Word from these verses. First of all we can note the people desired to hear the Word of God read to them. In verse 1 we read that the people told Ezra to bring out the Book of the Law and read it to them. They wanted to hear and attend to God�s Word, and this is the heart of the Christian�s aspiration. We want to hear the Word of God. This means we want to read the Bible, and have it read to us in church, and also that we want to understand its message, and have its meaning explained to us.

Because of this desire to hear the Book of the Law read, the Israelites gave time, quality time, to hearing the Word of God read to them. They gave the whole day. Time spent with the Word of God is never wasted. Jesus makes this plain in the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel�s. Martha was busy getting a meal. She was doing all the work. Mary was sitting at Jesus feet, hearing God�s Word which came from the lips of Jesus. When Martha complained that she was having to do all the work and asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her, Jesus commended Mary�s desire to hear the Word of God, and rebuked Martha for not realising how important listen to God�s Word was, which was more important than an elaborate meal. This lesson is so hard to learn. The duties of each day press upon us, and it is so hard to find time to read and meditate in the Bible. Sunday comes, and it is the only day to do all sorts of tasks in the home, and so it is difficult to give time to go to church. However waiting upon God by hearing God�s Word is better than the jobs which press upon us, and if we give time to God, he will help us in looking after the duties of each day.

The people also honoured the Word of God. They stood up to hear it, and they earnestly attended to it, and acknowledged it was God speaking to them. We see this in the verses before us in the fact that they praised God and worshipped him (v.6). They adored the Lord who gave them his Word. They honoured God by accepting the fact that the Book of the Law was God�s Word, God speaking to them. The Bible today has suffered from the fact that people have tended to lose this reverence for the Bible as God�s Word - God speaking and revealing himself to us, and that his word is not to be criticised but believed and obeyed. Rebuilding our spiritual life commences with a right attitude and reverence of the Bible as God�s true word to us which must be believed and received.

POWER OF GOD�S WORD

The Word of God is powerful. It is powerful to change our lives for good, to bring us into the love of God, to cause us to enter into deep spiritual blessings, and walk in the way and will of God all our lives. It is powerful because it is the message that the Holy Spirit honours because he has been sent by God to make known.

In the case of Israel we see the power of the Word of God in the fact that the reading of the Law, and the people�s attention to it, brought about deep repentance. We see this in the fact that we read in verse 9 that the people had begun to mourn and weep before God. The Book of the Law had shown them how far short they had fallen from the ways of God, and caused them to feel deep conviction of sin. They were repenting before the Lord, by which they owned that they had sinned and fallen short of God�s glory. This is the beginning of spiritual life and revival in the heart. It is painful, but it brings us back to Jesus and faith in his work for us, because in our repentance we come to the point of understanding afresh how impossible it is for us to please God, or atone for our wrong doing, and so in our cry for mercy, we are led to the blessing of faith in Christ as our sin bearer and Saviour.

From this repentance came worship and praise. When the people saw the holiness of God and his majesty and power, they worshipped him as their God and creator. They gave him the honour which is his due, and lifted up their voices in praise and adoration.

Attending to God�s Word gives us knowledge of God which can be found nowhere else. Creation can only take us so far in the knowledge of God, so also conscience and our own wisdom. It is only the Word of God that can give true knowledge of God.

From knowledge comes appreciation of God�s greatness and majesty, but also his mercy and love. Knowledge of God is also an appreciation of the wisdom of God in his working, in grace, a salvation that can allow God to forgive our sins justly. From this, the Word of God brings us to God and to understand and dwell in his love and mercy for us. This works adoration and love for God, as we appreciate his mercy and love to us, which then breeds the desire to live for him and obey him from a grateful and loving heart.

Such is the power of God�s Word. It changes our lives into godly lives, which are joyous and blessed lives.

THE FOLLY OF NEGLECTING GOD�S WORD

The fact that Israel were returning to the Book of the Law here in Nehemiah�s day was a confession on their part that they had neglected the Book of the Law, God�s Word to them in those days. In fact the Book of the Law had got lost because the people had forgotten about it and the need to attend to it.

The result of this was evident before their eyes. Why had Jerusalem come to such a low ebb, so that the walls had to be rebuilt? Why was the nation under the rule and domination of a foreign power? Why were the people who lived in Jerusalem so despised by the foreigners living around them? Why were foreigners in such influence in the land? Why were most of the people in exile away from their home land? The answer was they had forgotten their God, and had departed from his precepts and ways. Why had this declension of life occurred in Israel? The answer is plain, and it was because the people had neglected and then despised and forgotten the Law of God, given by Moses.

Spiritual declension is always the result of neglecting and despising the Word of God. If a people live by the Bible, and in the Bible, then they live in the love of God and in the blessing of God. Then the people are blest by God.

In Great Britain, over the last 100 years there has been a continuous and relentless departing from the Bible. Firstly, the Bible was criticised, then it was disbelieved, then it became despised, and in all this it was read and attended to less and less. If the Bible is referred to in public life now it is a cause of amusement. If the wisdom of the Bible is used to question actions and ways today, it is thought odd and useless. What has been the result? The result is plain in the fact that Great Britain�s way of life has become more and more corrupted at every level. Problems in society are getting more and more out of hand, and from the government down, with all the effort put in, there is no real solution. It is much more dangerous to live in Britain today, than it was 50 years ago. The nation has turned away from God�s Word, and the nation has turned away from what is wise and good.

In the life of the church, when the Bible is neglected, or criticised, or questioned, or not properly understood, then the spiritual life of the church begins to die, and the people become less spiritual and less godly. Although in Great Britain there are exceptions to the rule, on the whole the churches have declined, and their influence waned, and Christians have lost their joy in the Lord. Spiritual declension always follows neglect of the Bible.

ATTENDING TO GOD�S WORD

We have already noted how the people wanted the Word of God read to them, and how they gave quality time to hear God�s Word read, gave time to hear and have the Word of God explained to them, and this is the beginning of attending to the Word of God. However, truly attending to God�s Word needs to go deeper than this.

First of all, we must understand what God is saying. Hearing on its own is a good thing and will do some good, but unless it is understood and believed and heeded and obeyed, it will bring forth no good in our lives. Jesus explains this so powerfully in the parable of the sower. If we just listen without understanding and believing, then we will lose the blessing of the seed of God�s Word, and Satan will snatch the Word we have heard away, so that we may get no good by it. Further unless our hearts and minds are broken up by the Spirit, so that the Word of God can go deep into out hearts and minds and lives, then it will only bring a temporary result, and when difficulties arise, the Word of God will be forgotten. If we clutter our lives and minds with worldly things and interests so that these dominate, then God�s Word will just get choked to death by the interests and claims of the world.

We must give ourselves in earnest pray that we may understand the message of God in the Bible. Then we must come to the Word of God with humble, penitent and obedient hearts, ready to receive what God says to us, and believe it. Then we must accept and believe that the Bible is God�s Word, and that what it contains is God�s message and revelation truly, and that it is our entrance into the mind and heart of God.

We say that there are no gains without pains, and this holds a profound truth as we apply it to our Christian lives. It is those who seek God with their whole heart who have the promise of God that they will see God, and God will meet with them and bless them. Sometimes attending to the Word of God is laborious. At these times we must persevere, so that we do not neglect the Word of God.

We must have a deep desire to come to God, and meet with God, and listen to God. When we have this, then we come to the Bible in a powerful way. We come with deep desire to meet with God in his Word, and learn from God, and have communion with God. Then the Spirit of God will reveal great things from God to us, and lead us into the joy of fellowship with God.

CONCLUSION

The people of God need to get back to the spirit of the people here in Nehemiah 8. We must be those who desire to hear the Bible and understand its message. We must be people who put away superficiality, and seek the truth of God in its fullness. We must put away childish things, and become adults.

We must be people who earnestly pray that God will give his church ministers of the Word, who faithfully, fully, clearly, interestingly expound God�s Word to God�s people. We must be a people who seek God to give us a hunger for his Word which can not be satisfied unless we are fed with the pure Word of God.