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Restoring Right Attitudes - Nehemiah 8
Restoring Right Attitudes - Nehemiah 8
While the building of the wall performed a needed safety for the people in that age, the greater need of any age is being restored to a right relationship with God. Ezra and Nehemiah turn their attention to this very job.
It begins within the hearts of those who would lead. Spiritual leaders must first BE spiritual. To get people to walk with God one must first himself be walking with God. To teach others, one must first teach himself (see again Ezra 7:10!).
The basis of such relationship with God is found in the very revelation of God unto man. "So You made known to them Your holy sabbath, And laid down for them commandments, statutes and law, Through Your servant Moses” (9:14).
Without such, men simply cannot know how to please God. The good news, God has told us! To those of Nehemiah’s day, the instructions were in the covenant that God had given to them: ‘the book’ (8:8), the law of God (8:8), the law which “the LORD had commanded through Moses (8:14), the book of the law of God (8:18), book of the law of the LORD their God (9:3), just ordinances, true law, good statutes, and commandments (9:13).
Having prepared himself to know the law, do the law, and to teach it (Ezra 7:10), Ezra now begins instructing the people. He gathered them together, and “They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8). Such hearing must be combined ‘with faith’, a faith that obeys. Hence, when ‘they found written in the law’ that they were to keep the feast off tabernacles, the ‘entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them” (8:17).
Such understanding of God’s word at first produced a godly sorrow (cp. 8:9 and 2 Cor. 7:8-9). Godly sorrow indeed works repentance and a restoration to a right relationship with God, which produces JOY.
Kingdom is joy, peace and love (Rom. 14:17). The brethren were constantly said to have such joy (Acts 8:8; 13:52; 15:3). The Eunuch went on his way ‘rejoicing’ (Acts 8:39). The fruit of the spirit is Joy (Gal. 5:22). Thus, Paul instructs: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
Nehemiah proclaimed: “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). Knowing and Doing God’s word produces comfort and joy in those who would serve the LORD. Such joy becomes a foundation that allows us to overcome all the obstacles of life, even rejoicing in suffering (Acts 5:41).
Does all of this describe our assemblies and association with brethren? Does it describe your relationship with God?
Hugh DeLong
